On Future Fit Leadership (Listen Here) I recently had a conversation with an incredible young leader from LanzaJet Renee Wootton. She is a proud Tharawal woman, aerospace engineer, pilot, and global leader in sustainable aviation fuel.
Renee talked about having the courage to live in two worlds, embracing both her First Nations and Australian heritage.
For many migrants and First Nations people this is a daily dance. One foot planted in the culture we were born into and the other stepping into Australian life, thankful for all the opportunities it provides.
I have always said that I don’t need to choose one over the other, instead taking the best of both worlds and blend this into who I am today. I celebrate Diwali and Christmas with equal gusto. I love eating a meat pie at the football and then coming home to play my favourite Bollywood tunes. When speaking with family I will switch seamlessly between Hindi and English and deep down I have faith in my religion.
I wasn’t always this confident in who I am today. I first arrived in Australia at the age of 16 and found myself in boarding school experiencing extreme culture shock. The language, food, clothes, people, weather - it was all new and Australia in the late 80’s was a different place to what it is today.
Being the only Indian, I was homesick for many months and experienced issues with a few of the girls.
I opened up to who today we would call a mentor. Marion was a schoolteacher, and I often stayed with her on weekends. She listened to the conflict was I experiencing and gave me advice that I hold onto today.
Her message to was to stop shrinking myself to fit the room, if I continued to do that, I would lose myself. Instead, I needed to be brave and clear and proud on who I was, to take a stand, and show up like I meant it. However, most of all I should revel in my differences because that is what makes me memorable.
So I did. I let my Indian-ness and my Australian-ness stand next to each other, and what I learnt was that blending cultures is not a compromise. It is my superpower. My Indian upbringing gave me resilience, reverence for elders, and a strong sense for community. Australia taught me to speak up, back myself, and take a risk even when my knees are shaking. Together, they do not dilute me. They amplify me.
Living in two worlds asks for tolerance. It asks for curiosity. It asks you to pause before you judge and to ask better questions. It asks you to sit with discomfort long enough to learn something valuable. On the best days, it gives you a wider horizon. On the hard days, it reminds you that courage is not loud. Courage is often a quiet, steady choice to be yourself in rooms that have not met you before.
Leadership, to me, is the art of making room. Room for your full story. Room for other people’s full stories. Renee spoke about entering a room, enduring that room, and expanding it for the next person.
So, if you are living in two worlds right now, remember you do not have to pick one. Stand where both meet. Be clear on who you are. Take a stand. Then do the generous thing and make the room bigger for the person who comes after you.