At The End Of His Tether Australia_S Family Court Chief Justice Will Alstergren

The Honourable Will Ostergren is the Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia.

He sits at the coalface of violence against women.

Will is appealing to the three out of four males who the statistics show love their partners,

are great role models, to call out these cowardly attacks.

His clear message is that it is time for good men to take a stand.

I have to admit I found this conversation confronting at times.

The Chief Justice's message is really appealing to all men to become part of the solution

and end what is a worldwide disgrace, violence against women.

It's leaders like the Chief Justice, Will Ostergren, who inspire the work we do at Alita.

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The Honourable Will Ostergren is the Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia

and the Federal Circuit Court, effectively putting him at the coalface of family

and gender-based violence in Australia.

The statistics on violence against women in Australia are disgraceful,

13 women a day are hospitalised because of the injuries they receive from violent men.

On average, a woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner,

and one in three women have experienced violence since the age of 25.

Young women aged between 18 to 24 are twice as likely as the general population

to experience sexual harassment.

Will, thanks for taking the time to discuss it.

It feels like it's a genuine crisis.

Is it getting worse?

Oh, much worse, Luke.

Unfortunately, when you look at it, it's certainly got a lot worse than it was.

The message just isn't getting out that this kind of behaviour is not on.

Unfortunately, we're seeing it much more in the courts.

It's much more prevalent.

We saw it increase during COVID, and it certainly hasn't stopped.

It's very much increasing.

Will, does that say three out of four men love their partners?

We love our daughters.

We love our sisters.

And we do genuinely care about the women in our life.

But you're appealing to that bracket who you're saying enough is enough

that good men have to call out bad behaviour.

Why is that so important to you?

I think when you look back on it, in the last 20 years,

we've had an enormous amount of people that have done a great deal of work

in this area to try and stop family violence.

The difficulty is most of them have been women calling it out,

and they've been incredibly brave.

They've been incredibly effective.

But men aren't part of the conversation.

Men don't feel comfortable being part of the conversation about it.

We've got to get men more involved.

And it's not the perpetrators I'm talking about.

They're already involved in it one way or another.

It's the people who actually find this.

It's appalling behaviour that we need to call it out.

Tell other men, tell young boys to stop doing it.

And it's just not on.

And I think it's not about shaming men either.

It's about actually bringing them on this journey

and trying to inspire them to actually call it out themselves

because a lot of them are totally appalled by it.

But they don't want to get involved because it's just too hard.

It's time for us to really step up.

And it sounds cowardly to me, Will.

And last time I caught up with you, I said the same thing,

that I think a lot of us have been nervous in this space

because we don't feel as though we've got the right words

and we're maybe scared that we would add more pain to those families

that have been affected terribly by this.

What are the right words?

And why do you think we suddenly need men?

It's not enough just to be a good man yourself.

You have to call it out in your words.

Look, I think it's a really important question.

There's no doubt we've got to be very careful not to be trauma-informed

and not to re-traumatise people when you get involved in this.

But the message still has to be said.

So as a result, I think it's going to be very, very,

very clear and it's got to be a very, very constructive message.

And the message just really is this kind of behaviour is just not on.

It's just not acceptable.

I don't think it can go any further than that at the moment.

We obviously want to bring up respect for women

and we want to bring up respect for children.

But the most important thing for men to know is this kind of behaviour

just isn't acceptable and it can't be tolerated.

I think if you go to that level, then people can come on the journey with you.

It's not about saying all men are bad or all men are at fault.

Obviously, a lot of men are,

but it's about trying to inspire them from that point of view.

It's a difficult thing to actually get,

but I think people have to be just pretty honest about it

and just say, well, this is how I feel.

That way, I don't think there'll be anywhere near as much blame

or risk of blame than there is at the moment.

Well, I feel like I've lived my life in a bit of a bubble.

I have loving parents who are married,

the most beautiful woman in the world.

I've got four healthy kids.

And you feel as though that world is something that's so foreign to you

and you've only seen the good in people.

And it is a bubble of sorts.

I mean, the psychology of violence towards women from men,

I don't even think I can possibly understand.

I just can't get my head around it.

Can you give us an insight into why this abhorrent behavior happens?

Look, I think it's interesting.

Your observation is absolutely right.

A lot of people don't believe it's in their neighborhood

or in their family or anybody they know would possibly do it.

But the statistics speak for themselves.

There are a lot of cultural reasons why it happens.

There's also, I think,

a sense of entitlement amongst some men when they grow up

that they're entitled to do this to their partner,

that they're entitled to be stronger, more physical,

and they can do whatever they like.

And unfortunately, that kind of behavior is much more prevalent than we know.

And I think there's been a level of acceptance.

Also, people don't want to talk about it.

Up until the 1990s, it wasn't even spoken about as much in court cases

that you used to talk about it.

They used to say, oh, it's a private matter.

It's absolutely not.

And I think one of the things that we see

in courts is this level of not only acceptance,

but an intergenerational acceptance of this kind of behavior.

So kids who may see their parents do it or their uncle do it

or one of their friends do it and has tolerated,

will tolerate it themselves and even perpetrate it themselves.

One of the things we found is so often when you see people

who are convicted of this kind of behavior in criminal courts

will say, I was a victim myself that led me to do it.

You can understand why.

So that's why we've really got to sever this and actually get to young kids

before.

Before they get to adulthood and know it's not on,

to try and make sure they get the message.

Well, they say in newsrooms around the world and here in Australia

on Christmas Day, newsrooms have police scanners

and they pick up frequencies of what's going on out on the roads.

And on Christmas Day, you'll have someone, you know,

working the Christmas Day shift and they'll ring the news director

and they'll say World War III's broken out.

And then they'll get the call back, oh, no, it's Christmas Day.

It's what was called domestic violence.

Almost the worst day of the year.

Families get together.

They drink and we see this.

But you've actually got to think about how sad that is on a day of celebration

and holiday.

Is that what you see at the family court?

Look, there's an absolute spike in this behavior two different ways.

One, during sporting finals, it's really bad.

And the other is just before most holidays, particularly Christmas.

Christmas is always a really busy time for us.

A lot of people feel very, get very emotional around that time.

They may have had a family celebration previously that's changed.

And people really, unfortunately, do react very badly in those circumstances.

Emotions are high, a lot of alcohol and a lot of substance abuse.

And it just, that means a lot of people just lose control.

If you go and see any policemen, it's really interesting talking to them.

Just the street, they're having a cup of coffee, have a chat and say,

how many calls did you get today about domestic violence?

How many call outs have you had?

And they'll tell you, it could be up to eight or 10 a day.

They might have.

And when it comes to things like Christmas, it's out of control.

So you're absolutely right.

And the difficulty too is a lot of women may call it out.

They may have the courage to actually call out a policeman,

but often they'll go back into that environment again

because they can't afford to leave or they're too scared to leave.

So it's a repeated problem.

It's a tragic story.

As the Chief Justice of the Family Court,

you see the impact that violence against women has every single day.

And you described it as intergenerational.

And often in the criminal cases,

we're seeing perpetrators are the victims themselves of violence growing up.

Do you ever,

ever have a sense of despair about this?

Oh, look, absolutely.

One of the reasons why I've been so motivated to try and get men to call out family violence is

I'm really sick of seeing it every day in court.

It's devastating for the people around you.

It's the hundreds and thousands of people every year that get affected by this,

particularly women and children, that never recover.

And it's also the people that actually commit it themselves.

They lose control and do these terrible things.

They've wrecked their life as well and everybody else around them.

So it's something that can make you really quite,

well, upset about it.

And I think we need to actually channel it to actually doing something about it really positively.

That's why I'm really keen to get a campaign going where men are calling this out

and really using the message that's just not on.

Yeah, I know this is going to sound almost strange,

but you read about these cowardly attacks and you see them,

you know, as a high profile one on television this week.

And I knew I was talking to you, a famous rapper in the US.

There's some vision caught of him assaulting his partner.

And it's disgraceful.

And when you actually see it in person, you think,

my God, part of you wants retribution.

You want to go back and as a male,

I want to get a hold of this person and perpetrate some violence the other way.

You shouldn't even have those words, but it elicits that response in people.

How do we go about firstly protecting women from these cowardly attacks?

Look, I think women, we're under-resourced.

The police are under-resourced.

Unfortunately, a lot of the services that are open to them are under-resourced.

And a lot of women aren't actually leaving abusive,

abusive relationships because of lack of resourcing as well.

So the first thing is to make sure they're aware of what's available for them at the moment.

Secondly, the courts have adopted situations where hearings can be happening in safe environments.

They don't have to go into a courthouse and face a perpetrator.

They can be at the end of a phone, in a refuge centre, in a safe environment.

I think thirdly, though, look, we've got to call it out.

We've got to actually call it out when we see it.

And the other thing we have to do as men is step up and have a national conversation about it.

Demand that we have a better society.

And part of that's going to be education.

I'm firmly of belief that the government's 10 year plan to eradicate family violence has got to be on the first step of it, which is prevention.

We've got a national campaign against smoking.

We've got a national campaign against drink driving.

Where's the national campaign against family violence?

Where's the television ads?

You know, where's the social media raids?

There's been so much done in this area and the message isn't getting out and men aren't listening.

Well, they'll listen to other men.

One of the things you said, which is absolutely right, it engenders

a level of frustration in you when you see men behave like that shocking bloke that rapper did.

But then you think, well, if you were there, you would have tried to stop him or do something about it.

Or we can stop him by actually educating his kids.

We can stop him by actually going to schools and saying, we want you to spend two minutes watching a video and, you know, a trauma informed, properly prepared video.

Because that two minutes may be containing a message these kids have never heard before.

And if they only hear it once or twice a year, we've got to use it.

We've got to use sport as a way of reaching out to people and trying to use a male role models they'll listen to just say, this isn't on.

If you use the right people on social media, they could reach a hundred million people.

We've got to do much more about this, but we've got to applaud men for doing it and encourage them to do it and have this conversation.

And you're a great campaigner for this, Will.

I know that you're reaching out to high profile people and asking them to say, it's enough.

It's not on.

We're not going to accept this anymore.

Can you share with us some of the names that are?

Sure.

Joining the campaign?

Well, we decided to try and do something meaningful that was not a fundraiser.

And that was going to be something which I don't think men would get upset about because I really firmly believe that three out of four men are appalled by this sort of behavior and want to do something about it, but they don't want to be pilloried by doing it.

So I thought as Chief Justice, I did this really, well, when I think about it now, it's quite bizarre, writing cold to people that I thought that people would admire.

So I wrote to, for instance, Hugh Jackman.

I don't know Hugh, but he's, I've always admired him.

He was a wonderful fellow and I asked him through an agent and then through about four different other contacts I had, whether he'd entertain just doing a message for us on a, on an iPhone.

Well, I have to say some months later, I got a text and there it was where Hugh Jackman sitting in New York, in a chair, looking magnificent, and he's passionately calling out this sort of behavior.

Travis Vermeule, who's a great Australian actor, and I've met him a couple of times, he's just a ripper of a bloke.

He not only got involved in this, he's actually got other mates of his like Luke, Luke Hodge, like Richo and others to actually send me messages in the same thing.

So reaching out to people, Hamish Blake, I mean, you know, Hamish was fantastic.

He did his own script and did a wonderful message, which is really inspirational.

Putting in his own words, um, Glenn Robbins has done something else.

Um, we've got John Bertram.

Um, we've got Olympians like Kyle Chalmers.

As I said, we've got great footballers like Luke Hodge and Richo. I didn't have to write to them.

Um, we've got Olympians like Kyle Chalmers. As I said, we've got great footballers like Luke Hodge and Richo. I didn't have to write to them.

As I said, we've got great footballers like Luke Hodge and Richo. I didn't have to write to them.

And you know, they just did it for us.

Eric Banner did it.

I got to find out about Eric and trying to get to Eric through his wife's golf coach.

And sorry Eric, I didn't mean to.

And he did the most brilliant message, you know.

And it's something that kids will actually take notice of.

Now do you know, Luke, none of those people asked for money.

None of them asked for an agreement.

Or wanted me to sign anything, but how are we going to do it.

They just trusted me.

And they did it because they believe this is the right thing to do.

Now if they can believe it, I'm sure we've got millions of Australian men out there that feel exactly the same way.

And would like to have the opportunity.

I think you're 100% right, isn't it.

Sometimes it takes people understanding that you have got the power to do this.

And congratulations again to you.

It's a campaign.

When you think about it, it affects everyone.

It affects our communities in such a horrific way.

And it is time.

The message has got through to me.

It's time for us to call this out and to make a stand.

Ta-Dean's square in the microphone.

We've got-

Will I love stories like yours.

It's a great leadership story.

It's where I'm passionate about.

We say success leaves clues and I want to ask you a series of questions I ask all leaders around these patterns that we think form great leadership.

Starting with this idea that it's hard to lead someone else unless you have a sense of self leadership.

What does self-Leadership mean to you?

I think it's being inquisitive.

And being hungry to learn more.

And to work out what you can achieve.

I really invite you this from the start to this Пока.

like being positive and getting things done and not dwelling on the past, but trying to get as

much done as possible and self-improve, but also inspire other people to do things when I think

they need a bit of help. Not to boss anybody around or tell them what to do, but rather bring

them with me. I just find that so, you know, it's so much fun and it's great working with people

and having a common goal and working together. I can see that in the campaign that you're

running now. We see other leaders I speak to are really conscious about every day,

the positive impact they can have on other people in their environment. How have you

thought about that? Look, sometimes you don't, it's probably something that's more subconscious

than conscious. I love going to work. I took this job on seven years ago, taking over two courts

that needed some serious reform. It was a really difficult job. If you thought that some people

hated change, wait until you get to a whole lot of lawyers and then judges and say, we're going

to change things. It's not a natural thing for us. We're built on precedent, but we've engaged in a

serious piece about trying to reform courts and reform our system. And we've had,

a great deal of success. I've got a really young team of people I love working with every day,

and I can't wait to get to work. I can't wait to see what we can try and achieve that day.

And I really celebrate what they do around me. One of my people is a policy officer that came

to me, I think it was her first job. She's one of the brightest women I've ever met,

a woman called Jordan. And to work with her every day is just a complete honour and see

what they're achieving. And these kids come up with the most amazing things. And if you

encourage them to do it and you're able to sort of spend some time doing it with them,

it's really inspirational from my point of view. So part of it's teamwork. And I suppose also it's

trying to look at what we can achieve. It's pretty cool walking home and thinking I've

actually achieved a number of things this week. You don't reflect on things too much

because you always want to be hungry, but I do really like the fact that we can celebrate those

things. A couple of big visions, uniting a couple of courts, as you said, with all the

complexities of that, and now being someone at the face of a campaign to try and stop this

national disgrace of violence against women. How have you gone about creating and sharing

visions of that?

At that scale, what's been your method for that?

I think internally with my own team and getting people who are really inspirational, I think

I sort of, like a lot of people, I think you react if you've got positive people around

you. And my team are incredibly positive. They're visionary. They're probably pretty

patient with some of those silly ideas I have. I'll give you one example. Last year, just

before The Voice, I think a lot of people were hearing terrible things about what was

happening in Alice Springs. And it was mainly, I think, some misinformation. I was really

inquisitive as to what was happening and how we could do something about it. And I think

we could support that community. We have a once-a-year judges' meeting. It was meant to be in

Melbourne. And I said to my poor events organiser, Alex, look, I want to take 120 judges, cancel

Melbourne. We're going to Alice Springs. It's not an easy place to fly into. I rang the security

officer and said, got any problems? And he said, oh, no, it should be fine, thinking, oh, my gosh,

what are you doing? And sure enough, six or eight weeks later, we were up in Alice Springs. We spent

three days up there. We talked to the local people, went to the town camps, went to the communities.

And 120 judges got experiences they never had.

Before about how Indigenous people live in some of these communities, what the effects it can have

on them from a legal system, what they understand and don't understand, and really the challenges

they face being part of our community or part of our litigation system and how unfair it can be on

them. Now, we left that message just because I thought, you know, what, we're just going to go

up there and see it. And it was one of the best things we ever did. We had Eastern state judges

who'd never been in a community before spending time in there and talking to people. And we

talked to people about it, what they felt, the kind of misinformation or some of the information

that was going on, and just the education we were able to obtain from that. That's just sort of one

idea. But it was just great to be able to change the course and think a bit laterally. During COVID,

we were locked down like everybody else. We decided with our courts, with the backlogs and other

things that were happening. And I think I spoke to you a little bit on Triple M about it. We had to

get the message out that people weren't alone. And if they couldn't see their kids, there was

border disputes and all sorts of other things. They couldn't see their kids. And so we had to

vary their arrangements in a safe way. I remember going on the radio, getting in the television

and saying, calling people out and saying, listen, we haven't shut down. We're still open for

business and we can help you in making some suggestions. We started a COVID-19 list so

people could get to the court really easily. We made sure that if women were in crisis,

they could actually contact us through phone numbers and through video hearings that they

couldn't have done before. We worked with the women's legal services. We were just fantastic.

And the men's legal services.

And we probably revolutionized the court and nationalized the court in a way we never would

have had to before. I loved going into that courtroom every day during COVID and hearing

and doing these things. Most courts went down about 40% of what they were doing during COVID.

We were at 105%. We just smashed it. And it was great because we were just so enthusiastic to

do it. And that's all these judges. Imagine getting a whole aging population of judges

and saying to them, in two weeks time, you're going to do total electronic hearings. If I

said in two years, they wouldn't have believed me.

They all did it. Then they started competing at who could do it better. So it was a great time.

And I think realistically, that's the kind of environment I want to work in. And I expect

people to work in. It's a great positive out of that, isn't it? That innovation may have been

brought forward 10, 20 years by necessity. And as you said, doing something that was impossible in

that timeframe, and hopefully that changes lives for better. But it takes people like you prepared

to push that cause. Curiosity is a word we see all the time. And leaders are genuinely curious

and use curiosity to want to do something. And I think that's a great way to do that.

Does that resonate with you?

Absolutely. I love trying to work out what's working and what's not. And also, I've got my

own ideas, but I also love looking at what other people are doing and how I can learn from that.

I'm a great believer you don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel and you're finding ways to

sort of be collaborative. I am normally very curious about things. I find myself talking

to anybody I possibly can about some of their ideas, doesn't matter which area. In fact,

as a judge, sometimes you have people in front of you and they might be talking about a particular

thing. And I think that's a great way to do that. And I think that's a great way to do that.

But occasionally you're sitting there thinking, I actually want to know a bit more about their

business and how that works. That sounds pretty good. So look, it is great to be curious. And I

think it's also great to have interaction with people. I think it's one of the things I really

enjoy is having interaction with people, whether it's people you're working with or people you're

serving to make sure you're relevant to what their needs are. You, as a lawyer and a judge,

have communicated for a living and communicating with clarity is another thing we see leaders are

particularly good at. Is that a skill? Is that a skill?

Is that a skill you've had from a young age or is it something that you've worked on?

Oh, I think I was always sort of good at spinning a yarn at some stage, but I think, yeah, you have

to be, I think as you become a judge, you really have to be a lot more concise. I reckon, you know,

being in court and having to actually convey messages in a pretty short timeframe taught me a

lot. And also thinking on your feet and trying to deal with matters when things are really going

badly without showing too much emotion. So yeah, it is, it's a skill I've just developed over time,

but it's a lot of people around me the same way. And that's pretty inspiring,

too. How important's collaboration been for you, Will?

When you're a barrister, you're basically a sole trader. You live with a whole lot of other people

in chambers who are still sole traders, but they're in a collaborative environment. It's

pretty unusual. I always wanted to be, you know, an old crusty barrister, sort of, you know,

quietly passing away in my chambers at the age of 90 after, sort of, you know,

and all of a sudden I had one secretary and a couple of juniors. And next thing you know,

I'm in a court, 120 judges and 140 registrars,

and things are totally different. And, you know, I absolutely love it. I love that

collaboration. We've got a really tight team of people we work with. I've got great friends now

that, you know, on a national basis, I've talked to them, you know, 17 locations around Australia,

plus about another 37 regional locations. There's nothing better than having conversations with

judges, whether it's something that's gone wrong or right, or talking to the security guys in the

Brisbane registry and how they're going, if there's been a problem, or just being able to collaborate

and talk to people who are doing a lot of work. And I think that's been a really, really, really

important thing for me. And I think that's been a really, really, really important thing for me.

Child impact reports, that sort of thing, that might be over in Western Australia or in Northern

Territory. They've always got a great story. And also, we're all working together as a big family.

And I think that's one of the things we've changed a lot. In the last seven years, our courts have

become a big family. And it's really important to have that kind of collaboration and spirit.

Well, who's been the greatest leader in your life?

I reckon probably my grandfather. He died when I was reasonably young, but he was a young

Norwegian cavalry officer. Came to Australia in 1922, walked up Collins,

met a gorgeous Scottish woman called Marjorie MacDonald. It's funny, I think I had my father

pretty quickly. But she had seven siblings, but he worked incredibly hard, developed his own

business up, provided for his family. They had seven kids themselves. And he was an amazing

businessman, just an amazing person, because he could inspire people very, very positively.

He was tough when he needed to be, but he was a great leader and a great businessman. And I think

if it was someone I sort of saw as having great dignity, it was him. And he just loved his family.

Nelson Mandela is also someone I really admire too, for two reasons. One is because he inspired

people by, I think, kindness and love and inspiration. The second thing is he did his

best work later in his career, which I'm sort of trying to aspire to.

Yeah, they're brilliant, aren't they? And I love when someone's got a figure in their family,

and it relates back to what you're saying, the gift of having that example or something. It's

probably that grandfather.

Sounds a bit like I picture you, Will, in the same light. And it's not surprising that you went

there first and foremost. But for all of us that had that, you really win the lottery, don't you,

if you get a family member that close to you?

Look, it comes back to what we were saying before about role models. I reckon young boys need role

models, and they need to know how to behave, and they need to know what the parameters are. And as

much as they don't like a discipline, it's not such a bad thing in the sense of being told

how you should behave and how you shouldn't. I just think having someone to look up to

or directly, it might be subconscious, but you do get enormous amount of comfort and enormous

amount of confidence from seeing how people go about it, seeing how they live their life and

what you should aspire to. And I think if you really delve into people's psychology, a lot of

people do, for better or for worse, react as a result of the role models they had around them.

And I often think, diverging for a moment, Will, that the opportunity to impact,

particularly as a young male, as a coaching junior footy that I have for 12 or 14,

is I always think that's such a great responsibility. You've got 20-plus boys in

front of you, and you get an opportunity there. And those touch points, perhaps through the

horrific Royal Commission findings into child sex abuse and all that, it feels as though males have

lost their nerve again in wanting to impact young boys. And maybe that gap is a problem as well,

where I know that there's three or four people that growing up had a massive impact on me outside

the family just because they took an interest. Is that something that's a problem as well, Will?

I really do think there is. We've got to be careful in trying to get things like, for instance,

family violence at the moment with violence against women and children. I think we'd be

really careful that we don't mistake a really effective campaign with a gender war. You're

not going to actually be able to achieve what you want to achieve and create better men and

better young men by berating them in a way which makes them feel uncomfortable and not have those

conversations, as we were saying before. I really do believe that we need to,

and education is going to be the key to this, particularly as kids are young.

Like my grandmother, old Scottish grandma used to always say, give me a child until they're eight

and I'll create a man for life. I do really believe that education is so important. And part of that

is role models. It's the environment you're living in, it's the people you're looking up to.

I mean, I remember my footy coaches, they were just fantastic. I remember a mate of mine that

had difficult family lives and the people they looked up to may not have been their dad if he

wasn't around or an uncle or what have you. It may have been the footy coach or some other person

I knew around the area or the bloke at the local mechanics store that used to like them filled with

cars and give them a bit of a hand. Just having a conversation with a man about life and you learn

things. And I think, and women are just amazing at this. They're just such nurturing, fantastic

people in so many ways. But young boys have to hear from men as well because they're the ones

they have to learn how to behave from, unfortunately. Well, we're a bit obsessed with

collaboration in our world and what you're doing is brilliant. You're reaching out,

you're cold calling people saying, we need you to stand up. We need you to come on board with

this campaign. Enough's enough. We've got to take a stand against violence against women. It's a

national disgrace. Is there one name that you've thought, God, I'd love to get hold of that person

to collaborate with? Is there someone that we can put a call out to? Well, mate, I think there's a

bloke who actually does barrack for a fantastic football team called the Western Bulldogs.

Chris Hemsworth. I've actually,

your management approached you a couple of times and I just think he's such a fantastic bloke. I

admire him in so many ways. He's got a great family. He's got a great family life. He's a

sort of person that people will listen to. So if there was one person I really want to get to,

it'd be Chris Hemsworth. Well, let's make that happen. He's a big Bulldog man and you're right.

He's got a huge reach and we need the role models of that nature to step up. Your message is

certainly reverberated with me in a positive way that it's not enough just to be the person that

you want to be in your home. It's not enough just to be the person that you want to be in your home.

It's time for all of us as men to take a stand and just say, it's not on violence against women is

a disgrace to get the language out there. It's an incredible cause that you're behind. It's

something I think hits a raw nerve with all of us. And thanks for sharing the story today. I

really appreciate it. No, thanks. It's been great. Thanks for listening to another episode of the

Empowering Leaders podcast. Huge thanks as always to our great friends at Temper. And we encourage

you to check out our Leader Connect program. New episodes are out every Wednesday morning at 6am.

We'll see you next time.

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