Get Off The Bench Podcast

Fiona Demark is an inspirational Speaker and Life Coach, who helps people who are stuck and frustrated with their lives to create a new reality. Fiona has been legally blind since birth and loves to share her story of resilience, positivity and life achievements to inspire and motivate others. Fiona knows the importance of a positive mindset and a ‘Can Do’ attitude. This has helped Fiona to overco...

Shayne Hood is a highly motivated, compassionate and progressive individual, as well as being highly regarded in the fields of social work, community services and education. But as a young man, Shayne had personal experiences of family violence, addiction, and criminality, which have all contributed to his determination to help and inspire people caught in negative cycles to find positive and cons...

Wendy Kier spent most of her younger years institutionalised in the UK care system. She experienced abandonment, multiple foster placements, an adoption breakdown, abuse, violence, rape, homelessness and the loss of three jobs due to dyslexia discrimination. As a result, Wendy was left traumatised which eventually led to crippling anxiety and depression.  Wendy is a motivational speaker, and...

Brandon Burns is a seasoned professional Actor, Performer, TV Host & startup investor. Brandon is a passionate advocate for having an entertain-first mindset, helping challenger brands and startups differentiate with amazing content and virality. He has worked extensively in sales, marketing, digital, startup and corporate environments. Brandon loves comedy and making his audience laugh. He ha...

Maree McPherson is an author and leadership coach who is passionate about women creating possibility in regional and rural areas.  Her book ‘Cutting Through The Grass Ceiling’ was released in 2017. Born from the recognition that many women are prevented from taking leadership opportunities or they lack confidence to put themselves forward, Cutting Through The Grass Ceiling teaches women how t...

After suffering the terrible loss of two children, Alannah McGregor has worked tirelessly over the past 19 years to raise awareness of suicide prevention and to de-stigmatise what was once considered a taboo subject. Alannah worked with other communities to create a campaign in central Victoria, promoting suicide prevention strategies. From this, the Suicide Prevention and Awareness Network (SPAN)...

George Siegal began his career in front of the camera as a newscaster, sportscaster, and weathercaster. His work took him from San Antonio Texas, to Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. In addition to work in front of the camera, George was a feature reporter and producer. In 2001 he formed J.E.L. Productions, a video production company that produces commercials, infomercials, televis...

Scott Harris comes from a family of established, highly-successful individuals. At a very young age, Scott convinced his parents to send him to a military boarding school in Wisconsin he learned to fly at the age of 12. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the army, where he developed a passion for skydiving, and he soon won the National Collegiate Skydiving Championships. A terrible skydiving acciden...

Shabnam Ighani was born in the North of Iran, of Bahá’i  faith and with a wonderful childhood, she believed in the equality of men and women and the emphasis on girls education. She was 12 years old when the Islamic Revolution happened in 1979 and the Islamic government took over the country. It was a memorable moment in her life as she remembers she was in secondary school and wearing a nice...

Bronwyn Manley hails from NSW where the local environment caused endless allergies, which hampered her desire to grow her own food. Finally her move to regional Victoria gave wings to her dreams. Starting out in their suburban back yard, Bon and her partner, Dave created a beautiful garden oasis that yielded enough produce for Bon and Dave, but also enough to share with others. Dave’s passion...

Lily Bergqvist, otherwise known as ‘Lily B - Artist’ became a household name in 2021 at the age of 14, when she auditioned for The Voice Australia, singing the legendary song ‘Candle In The Wind’ . She went on to join Team Jess, with the highly acclaimed Jessica Mauboy , and then into the next round. Since Lily first performed on stage at the age of 6, singing “Over the rainbow”, she has loved per...

Jason Sotiris is the founder of the award winning charity, ‘Supertee’ which provides superhero costumes for sick kids to wear in hospital. Beginning as a tradie, a devastating turn of events with his daughter Angela, made Jason decide to pack up the tools and make kids’ dreams come true. Jason’s daughter Angela was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2013, raising Jason to absolutely ‘useless’...

Kate Gale grew up in Sale, Gippsland in a very loving family. She had three dreams in life 1. To be a hairdresser 2.To get married to the man of her dreams 3. To become a mum. She nailed all three dreams by the time she turned 24, however being diagnosed with breast cancer was not in her life plan. She wrote her first book, ‘The Breast Is Yet To Come’ while going through breast cancer treatment in...

A troubled childhood and high school dropout at 15, Glenn Dawson always looked for something fulfilling to do with his life and find meaning in the lack lustre careers he'd had in his journey (his words!).  Eventually, Glenn took the plunge and moved with his wife to Lombok (Indonesia), and bought a run-down bar and restaurant on a beach. He then proceeded to build a new hotel on the site in...

Eimear McNelis is the owner of Red Dirt Road Creative. She has been a Media Journalist, Photographer and Marketing Specialist for the last 21 years, and has worked in media roles, corporate roles and freelance roles in the UK, Ireland and Australia for medium to large scale companies.  She has written copy for many businesses and organisations in the areas of education, philanthropy, travel,...

Sarah Dowell spent several years working across East Africa for organisations tackling extreme poverty. Time and time again, she witnessed the frustrations that charities face, when programs that are making positive impact, are halted by a lack of funding. Living back in Australia, she simultaneously saw the power of social enterprise.  The simple link between purchasing products from social...

Kasha Sequoia Slavner is a Gen-Z, multi-award-winning first-time documentary filmmaker who comes to the profession as a seasoned photographer, entrepreneur and social justice advocate for over a decade. She was only 16 years old when she set out across the world for six months to make The Sunrise Storyteller and completed it upon returning to high school.  Using her passion for visual storyte...

Kylie Miller has spent her career as an award-winning journalist and communications consultant.  After trading the city life for a tree change in East Gippsland, Kylie experienced first-hand the devastating bushfires of the 2019-20 Australian summer.  Her first children’s picture book, Heroes of Black Summer, co-written by Craig Sheather and illustrated by Karen Erasmus, tells stories of...

Charlotte Le Hardy is the Modern Day Magi. She is an award nominated creative educator, business strategist, and transformation coach passionate about crafting a better world for people and planet. She is on a mission to drive forwards a new era of collective wellbeing and planetary prosperity. Charlotte was a Course Leader in Fashion Communication and Promotion at the University of Suffolk , and...

Steve Noble was born and bred in Gippsland (Regional Victoria), which meant Steve spent his after-school hours working on his parents farm. Upon leaving school, Steve had many retail jobs including furniture and car sales, as well as stock feed, eventually becoming a fertiliser consultant with local company. For many years Steve had dreams of owning his own clothing range, but the clothes he was s...

Toni Lontis a Lifestyle Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Blogger and International Tour Host She is also an inspirational woman who has dedicated her life’s work to helping women and the men who love them, find their passion, purpose and voice. Toni's career began in the Health Care Sector where she practiced as a registered nurse. Toni witnessed many lives that needed change, support, enc...

With 12 published books in 6 years, Dr Dan Eddy is one of Australia’s most prolific non-fiction authors. His authored and co-authored books include:  King Richard: The Story of Dick Reynolds , (2017) Larrikins & Legends , (2017) Always Striving (2017), The Norm Smith Medallists (2018), and his latest book, Crimmo: The Peter Crimmins Story which was released in 2020. Dan currently has a nu...

Ian Speirs is the co-founder of ONE Better World Collective which is a non-profit organization and multi-platform initiative with a 10- year strategy to equip people everywhere to act upon the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030, through a transformational message of love, founded upon principals of human dignity and universal responsibility. In addition, Ian is presently...

Madeleine McKenzie is a cabaret singer who enjoys nothing more than bringing pure joy to audiences. For the past 40 years she has been the show stopper with a variety of acts, including duos, trios and full bands.  In 1988 Madeleine broke her neck in a car accident and decided  "I can still have kids - and I can still sing! So I did”. She rocked up to an audition with David Briggs from L...

Henry Darby is the principal at North Charleston High School in South Carolina, is considered nothing short of a guardian angel by many in his community. Upon realising that many of his students were struggling financially, and some even being forced to sleep under a bridge or in their cars, Henry decide to do something about it. But rather than expecting authorities to do something, he rolled up...