Finding Courage and Acceptance through the Chapters of Life

Season 5

26 May

We get to design some of the chapters of our life… but others we don’t. Ashley Molloy has been a police officer, worked in marketing, built her own home and now designs jewellery. Each chapter seems very different on face value. But Ashley sees her life as a continuity of growth; in skills, experience and understanding what’s right for each chapter of life.

Her most difficult chapter was the unexpected loss of her daughter, who was stillborn. It was in this Chapter where Ashley learned courage, acceptance and perspective about what really matters in life.

Ashley is now channeling her passion into a new Australian gold jewellery business, ByCC Fine Jewellery. Her aim is to align her values with a business that supports other rural women.

Ashley’s business ByCC Fine Jewellery is also the sponsor of this season of Ducks on the Pond. Thank you Ashley!

This is a Rural Podcasting Co. production. Love this podcast? You might also like: Two Smart Blondes and Town Criers.

Ashley Molloy: 0:04
To me it all made sense, but to the external parties it might have seemed like a giant leap.
Kirsten Diprose: 0:13
Hello Kirsten Diprose, here with Ducks on the Pond brought to you by the Rural Podcasting Co. So I just had a milestone birthday recently and I'm not going to say that I'm 21 or even 30. You know how sometimes we joke about that. No, I am 40, and I'm not shying away from it. In some senses it's just another year. But there is something about a milestone birthday that makes you reflect, particularly about the different chapters in your life, where you've been and where you're headed, and something also about 40, about being in that midpoint of life as well. But I really like this idea of thinking about life in terms of chapters. Some people call it seasons, where different things take priority, and that's okay, and just because you are one thing in a previous chapter doesn't mean you have to be the same thing in another, and the woman you're about to meet really embodies that. Ashley Malloy is her name and you've heard her voice before. Her jewelry business, buy CC Find Jewelry, is sponsoring this entire season of Ducks.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:27
But you'll really love getting to know Ashley. She views life in chapters too, and in her 36 years she's certainly had a few. She's studied business, been a police officer, a photographer, worked in HR and marketing and even built her own home with the help of a very handy diesel mechanic husband. It's not what you'd expect the CV of a jewelry designer to look like, but isn't that exciting. Ashley has also experienced incredibly difficult chapters in her life as well. She lost her second born baby and she speaks about that in this podcast. Ashley's mindset of chapters and the way that she lives so authentically in terms of what's right for those chapters, keeping in mind some of these chapters we choose and some of them we don't. It's really an inspiring listen. You'll also get some really great business advice too, especially if you're juggling motherhood or another job or, like many of us, both of those things. So let's meet Ashley Malloy, who lives in Coonabarabran in the Warrumbuggles of New South Wales.
Ashley Molloy: 2:37
So at the moment I am a small business owner here, but I also grew up in rural New South Wales. So my parents owned a property in a small little area called Pilliga and we have gone off on different adventures since then but have come home to the Warrumbungle area which is near there. Yeah, the country part of Australia really has a close part to my heart. Have you always lived in rural New South Wales? No, so, like I said, born and raised here, but then I did my schooling further afield and ended up in Newcastle for university. I did a Bachelor of Business there and then took the leave and went to Darwin.
Ashley Molloy: 3:22
My partner and I spent a few years in Darwin. We did come back for a stint in between, but, yeah, I spent a few years in Darwin. We did come back for a stint in between, but, yeah, spent about six years up there, I think, and then we came back to New South Wales just before COVID. We've been back here a few years now as well, so it all goes very quickly, but the roots are definitely in New South Wales. It's nice to come back to seasons after being somewhere like Darwin where it's just hot all the time.
Kirsten Diprose: 3:45
Yeah, I can't imagine living in Darwin. I love Darwin, I think it's a fun place, but not at the monsoon time.
Ashley Molloy: 3:51
Yes, and we found that because of how transient it is once you do have kids and start moving into that next chapter of your life, sometimes you have to be the adults and not do quite such fun things. So we decided to come back to New South Wales to find a bit of stability.
Kirsten Diprose: 4:09
Yeah, and you mentioned chapters of your life, which I think is interesting because, yeah, what was your first job? Like you, studied business and you're very much using that now. But what did you do out of university?
Ashley Molloy: 4:24
Yeah, so a few hop skip jumps. So I think I took the normal route for most business graduates in that I ended up in the HR, marketing, business development area, did that for about 10 years I guess. But when we went up to Darwin just as my first son was born, I actually joined the police force. So I was a police constable up there for a number of years before coming down here. So it was definitely a different chapter. I think it was one of those things where lots of people you look a certain way or you've had these jobs in the past and then you do something different and it is a bit of a shock to some people. I think my aunties still think that I just did the admin for them.
Kirsten Diprose: 5:08
Why a police officer Like it is just such a different thing, and it's often a job for life.
Ashley Molloy: 5:15
It is, but I really found that the marketing and HR side that I had worked in before was actually really helpful, because you learn to speak to anybody, you learn to talk people off the ledge, you are always finding out information about people and that's exactly what it takes in that role as well. So I think a lot of people have in their mind that the police force is just brute force, but the reason that more and more women are transitioning into that area is because so much of de-escalating a situation is just talking people down, being that friendly face, being that community member that people can approach. And when you really think about those skill sets, it wasn't too far away from what I was actually doing to start with. To me it all made sense, but to the external parties it might've seemed like a giant leap, I think that's super interesting in how you think, like it's about the skills that have different applications across completely different fields.
Kirsten Diprose: 6:20
You don't have to be sort of institutionalized or trained a certain way. What did you do as a constable? What kind of work was it?
Ashley Molloy: 6:30
Everything that's on the ground. So we were the first responders to any call that came in, while there's a hierarchy of calls you'd be attending domestic violence situations, car accidents, noise complaints, neighbour complaints, car accidents, noise complaints, neighbour complaints everything that you can imagine you have to turn up to. It really is a roll of the dice. You might have three shifts in a row where you're dealing with death or terrible accidents, or you might be on the lucky side of things and only deal with customer complaints or minor taxi bingles and that sort of thing. So it really is one of those jobs where you don't know what's coming at you from day to day and that's amazing and incredible, but also the flip side of can be very stressful as well. Like you said, there are people that stay in that sort of role forever. I think you have to be a very strong person to stay in that sort of role, because it is very eye-opening and very easy to get jaded with the people that you're dealing with on the regular.
Ashley Molloy: 7:34
For me, I never wanted to stay in it for a whole career. They have great career opportunities and great growth and great supports these days great career opportunities and great growth and great supports these days, but I think for me it was knowing when to draw a line in the sand and move on to the next thing. And when was that? How did you know? It wasn't really planned. We came down to New South Wales.
Ashley Molloy: 7:57
Like I mentioned before, we had a son previously and then we fell pregnant again and decided to use my maternity leave to come back to New South Wales and be closer to extended family down here. Unfortunately, we lost our little girl, and that led to a few things that made us evaluate that maybe it wasn't worthwhile going back up at that time and that maybe we could find something a little bit more family friendly down here, and so we stayed in New South Wales and it worked out to be a great change. It was a very sad and very dramatic chapter, but I think we all have different ups and downs over our lifetime and it was just time we had to sit down as a couple and go what's going to be best for us to make it through this.
Kirsten Diprose: 8:51
Yeah, losing a child, a baby is, yeah, unimaginable. The pain in that. Are you able to speak about what happened? It's okay if you don't want to.
Ashley Molloy: 9:01
I can I am always conscious that it's not just my story to tell that I have another half who also has his story but for me it was a big wake-up call, like, by that stage, our son. When he was born, he basically went straight into daycare, shift work and my partner working full-time, and we were really lucky in that he was a low maintenance baby but we didn't get to spend a whole lot of quality time with him. So when we came down here, it was a great opportunity to take that time. We did also go into COVID at the same time, basically, so it was a nice healing little bubble that we were able to to in for a little bit, which was nice.
Ashley Molloy: 9:53
But yeah, it was a big eye-opener to how few supports there can be in rural New South Wales for people that are going through that sort of thing. Since it happened, I've found some incredible souls, as your listeners would know Rochelle, who is also on this series of the podcast. She's an incredible resource in Dubbo and so we cross paths around that time and I think it's really important for women to know that they're not the only ones in that situation. It can be incredibly isolating and as rural women, we already know that distance can create that isolation as well, but it is really up to you to reach out and to make sure that, yeah, you're not going through it alone.
Kirsten Diprose: 10:31
What did you really need from others in that time? I think for those around you we don't know what to do or what to say. And was your baby stillborn?
Ashley Molloy: 10:43
Yes, yeah, we made it to 34 weeks thinking that everything was fine and then all of a sudden we actually went to Sydney and they were incredible at the hospital there. The girls like the people that deal with that sort of thing on a daily basis, the nurses and the doctors just incredible humans. But it's strange how little you actually remember on the other side. I don't remember any of their names, I don't remember any of their faces. It's just this big blur of things just going wrong and in that moment you are the centre of your own universe. But for me it was just like so many people sent us gifts, so many people reached out and sent messages and made phone calls, but you might not get back to them. You might get the message but you never respond.
Ashley Molloy: 11:34
And I think it's important for people to know that they might not get a response from someone who's grieving, but it is being taken on board and appreciated and it feels so good not to be alone, even though in that moment you might push people away, you might not want to answer the door and you might not want to broadcast to people that you're going through something, but it is always important to know that people are there. Same, as you can take this into small business and that sort of thing as well, All these things that we go through ourselves. We always think that we're going through it alone, and that's not true. Whatever we're doing, whatever we're dealing with at the time, someone's gone through it before and it's just a matter of reaching out to different people and finding out their stories, and that's why I think podcasts are such an important sort of aspect of current society, because you can tap into these conversations and these issues that other women are having without having to actually put yourself out there and have the difficult conversations yourself.
Ashley Molloy: 12:40
It's just an incredible resource and it's nice to know that at the end of the day, we're all in it together. We've all basically got the same life experience. Generally, if you get to your 30s and you haven't gone through some sort of trauma, you're very lucky. We all deal with crazy losses and heartbreaking things and I think, as women as well, you just carry it. You might go and have a cry in the bathroom and then you put your makeup back on and you front up to society and you do the school pick-up and you do all the jobs, you go and you work full-time and then it's just something that you have to carry. So, yeah, 100%. I think it's great that women are out there talking about these sorts of things.
Ashley Molloy: 13:25
If I say to you how many children do you have? How do you answer? I still get trapped up on this because we have been lucky enough to have another daughter and default is always two. But my close friends know that's not true. And then it's one of those things as well where you go oh, do you count miscarriages? Do you count other losses that you've had along the way? So in my heart I'll always know it's three. But yeah, to avoid awkward conversations with strangers as well, it's always just easy to say you've got two, but I actually have signet rings that I wear normally, so I've got one for each of my children so that if I'm travelling or if I'm doing something special, I can carry them with me. So, yeah, I think all of us mums that have been through things like that have our own little ways of dealing with it. So, whether it be tattoos or jewellery or little shrines in bedrooms and special places that you visit, I think we all have something that we cling on to.
Kirsten Diprose: 14:30
Thank you for sharing. I know that wasn't easy. So what happened then? Obviously, that's a huge, unexpected, unwanted chapter of your life. How did you come out of that, and and at what stage should you think about maybe doing something different? Being a mum is such a huge role in itself, but what were your thoughts then?
Ashley Molloy: 14:55
I was really lucky in that I already had my son. He was two and a bit when we went through the loss and he was the reason I had to get out of bed every day bit when we went through the loss and he was the reason I had to get out of bed every day. I'm not sure how people cope without that force. He needed feeding, he needed looking after, he needed all the things. And then we went into COVID and we got to be in that bubble for a bit and that was really great because we were doing arts and crafts and spending time in the sun and playing with the dogs and that was a really great few months. But then when we came out, the other side it was, and so for me I actually started my own business. So when I had been working as a police officer on down times I actually started just fiddling around with photography. Just to keep my mind, photography is such a great happy medium because you're dealing with people in love and people having babies and getting new pets and doing all the happy things in their life and wanting that captured. So it was a really great distraction from policing and then.
Ashley Molloy: 16:00
So when I came down to rural Australia. We were living in Narromine, which is just out of Dubbo, new South Wales. There's not too much there if you're not a banker or working in retail or at the cafe or the supermarket. There's not too many sort of career jobs if you're coming from HR or marketing or those sorts of areas. So it was a really good opportunity for me to start my own business, something I never thought I'd do, but because there's so much to do when you start a business like you're doing everything and you're the go-to and you're doing the marketing and the finance and everything, it's such a good distraction and I am one of those people that likes to just be busy. So it was great and so I've been doing that for years now. I still do it on the side, but since then I've also started another business, which is what has brought us here. So you can say, yeah, I'm a multifaceted business owner now and anything that is creative and has that sort of happy side and that is really positive.
Ashley Molloy: 17:06
I really wanted to, with all of my businesses, do something that just makes women feel great. I want to photograph women and make them feel great. I want to make them jewellery which makes them feel incredible when they wear it. I want to bring jobs to us. I want to support other business owners. It's become this. I never thought it would start where it did, but over the years the businesses that I've started have morphed into just something bigger of. I want to build this community and just do good things.
Kirsten Diprose: 17:39
It's given you such purpose, and how nice is it to do something that's so values driven and so authentic to yourself? Yeah, you can't beat that feeling.
Ashley Molloy: 17:50
Yeah, and I am really lucky because it wasn't financially motivated. I never went into any of my businesses thinking, oh, I have to make a million dollars for this Wedding photography. I wasn't doing it. To come out the gates and go, oh, I want $10,000 off everyone. It wasn't like that. It was I understand where people are at.
Ashley Molloy: 18:09
So many people have kids already and they're at this chapter of their lives where they can't splurge a lot of money on different things, and so we accommodate for different people's needs. And so I'm really lucky because my partner and I are pretty low maintenance. We don't have big flashy lifestyles or anything. We were lucky enough to buy a little parcel of land out rural. Yeah, we live off grid. We don't have power bills, thankfully. We've built our own house, which hopefully will get signed off soon. We're just trying to teach our kids that if there's something that you want to do, you can get out there and do it. I want my daughter to know that anything she can imagine is achievable. Like we didn't know how to build a house, but we asked people, we called in favours, we.
Ashley Molloy: 18:54
The other half's a diesel mechanic, so he learnt to build a house while building a house. And it's incredible. It's ours, it's our home, we have 40 acres that we can run around and it's. Yeah, we sound all hippie. We're not super hippie, we're only off grid because we couldn't get power there. But it's just, it's nice and it's wholesome. So we're at a great place now and it's nice to be able to have these businesses that I love and that I want to push and that I feel really confident. If it all folded tomorrow, if I had to close the businesses tomorrow, that's okay, it is what it is and I'm not. I'm not in debt for any of them, I'm not owing anyone anything.
Kirsten Diprose: 19:38
But you've got to make some sort of money right. You've got to put food on the table, there's expenses and life is so expensive right now.
Ashley Molloy: 19:46
Arguably it's never been more expensive in any of our lifetimes 100%, and that's why I do also work a full-time job to fund these other ones, no, but so the aim is obviously to make money in the long run, but if it takes me five years to get there, it's okay. There's no rush. Lots of people say, oh, you should get investment and you should do all of this in the first 12 months, and that's not the end game. I want to get the right community on board as well. I want people to follow because they love what we're doing and that they love the pieces that we're coming up with, and I want to hear what the community wants. I don't want to come out with all these ranges of things that people don't need, because we don't need more excess. So I only want to be making and crafting things that people actually adore and want forever, because the pieces that we're making they do last forever. So I do want to make sure that it is something that people are obsessed with, and obsession takes time, and I'm okay with that.
Kirsten Diprose: 20:46
I think you made a really good point there about in business. There's this kind of idea that if you're not growing or you're not moving at a certain speed, then you're not successful. But for mothers and particularly rural women, who might have another job, like you, or might work on a farm or be the primary carer, it's just not possible to move at the pace that is expected because you can't put full time or even half time into it. So a business coach once said to me she said you're building the business that you want in five years time and it just took the pressure off. So it's like I can do all of those things, but I don't have to do it at the rate of a business that's trying to scale. And I have to keep reminding myself because I do get wound up and trying to build it and build it and then I'm like hold on, I built a business so that I could have the flexibility to be at my kids' sports games, to pick them up, to do all those things.
Ashley Molloy: 21:53
I can't lose sight of that, yes, and I think also it's the 80-20 rule as well. So much of what we put out there, at the end of the day, there's 20% of our viewers. That will be our main purchases or our main audience. So if we can get that 20% to keep coming back, that's all we need. So we don't need big numbers, you don't need a million followers, you only need that loyal 20% to keep coming back, and so I think we have to remember that's the actual end game is to make sure that you have people that will keep coming back and fighting for you and talking well about you. That's the most important part. But yeah, at the end of the day, we all want the flexibility to do everything.
Ashley Molloy: 22:41
I'm really lucky with this business in that I don't have a bricks and mortar store. It's all online, so I can keep my margins low. I'm not paying for a storefront. Everything we're not wholesaling, so there's no extra margins that we have to put on for wholesale. I send everything directly out to people, so there's no middleman. While I want to give the best quality, I want to keep the prices as low as possible as well. I'm making sure that my margins are covered, but I want to keep the prices as low as possible as well. I'm making sure that my margins are covered, but I want to keep it affordable because country women are my audience. They're the people that I want to be wearing these pieces and handing them down, and I know what it's like.
Ashley Molloy: 23:26
I know that sometimes you're just waiting for the rains and sometimes you're just hoping that nothing eats the crop before you get it off. Coming off the farm, growing up, I know the battles and you might have a good year and be like, oh yeah, we can go out and buy all this stuff, but most of the time it's farm stuff. So unless you're buying a gold bangle and calling it a no ring, then your accountant might go oh, maybe not this year. So I'm aware that my purchasing life cycle is probably a lot longer than most people's because it is a higher price point item and people have life happening in the middle, so they might be obsessed with a piece now, but if they buy it in two years, that's okay. They're still coming back to me.
Ashley Molloy: 24:07
So I just have to have the long game perspective as well, and I think if more businesses did that, if more businesses produced higher quality and had enough of a margin to cover themselves to make it justified. We'd have less waste. We'd have less people just buying things to make themselves feel better, because you'd get up and you put on your quality boots and your quality jeans and your quality jewelry, everything. You buy a Nakubra, you're going to keep it forever. You buy a pair of RM Williams you're going to keep them forever. Same sort of thing. You want to get up and you want to enjoy the pieces that you've invested in. But sometimes it is not just jumping in and buying the first thing that you see.
Kirsten Diprose: 24:50
Yeah, I just think of those Lavisa stores, those ones full of that like wear once kind of jewellery and I think how does it all keep getting made?
Ashley Molloy: 25:05
And then where does it go? Yeah, and that was my thing. I was like I don't want to just be contributing to more rubbish because, at the end of the day, our kids are the ones that are going to have to deal with it. And there is just so much of that gold plated or Vermeule or all those things. We're Australian. We have the most incredible resources right here. We send everything overseas, we mine everything here, we refine it here. It's all designed by me and then we make it in Sydney. And the fact that, even if you kept it for 20 years and you decided you didn't like the design anymore, you can melt it down and craft something beautiful Like it's just got. This life cycle that is never ending if you choose to go down that route. That's why I don't do earrings, because I'm like, oh, people love a statement earring and it's just like you wear it three times and then you're like, oh, I don't want that anymore, because that's just how we function.
Ashley Molloy: 26:00
You lose one Exactly. So it's just like trying to get away from that and trying to tell our kids that they're not going to get happiness from short-term purchases. Like we've all been to Dubbo for the day and go shopping and you come back and you're like why do I have a car full of crap?
Kirsten Diprose: 26:19
I don't think we've all been to Dubbo for a day. But yes, I know what you mean.
Kirsten Diprose: 26:23
Yeah, yeah, I very much grew up in that consumerism culture. I mean, gosh, we all did. But I grew up in Western Sydney and our meeting point and our place to go was the Penrith Plaza, which I still love to this day, and now it's a Westfield and it's doubled in size from when I was growing up, but that was like the only thing to do. There's, fortunately, a lot more things to do now, but that's where you'd meet people, that's where you'd go every weekend, and so as a teenager, you just went and shopped. None of us had a lot of money, but, yeah, whatever money you did have you'd use on just buying crap. And because you didn't have a lot of money, you were buying, yeah, cheap stuff.
Ashley Molloy: 27:09
Yeah, and like there was only a news report a few days ago about how much longer it takes people in the suburbs to save their house deposit than people in the country, and I think that's part of it. We can't just spur of the moment. Unless you're online shopping, we can't just spur of the moment, just be like oh, I'm going to spend $150 on seven knickknacks because it's not there, which is actually really lucky for our kids. Instead of doing that, they meet their friends and go for a motorbike ride or meet them at the skate park, or, yeah, I think a lot of people post COVID are realizing that rural communities are great for instilling that aspect into your kids' lifestyle, like getting them away from just commercialism. But it is really hard because when you are in the city, if you don't go to the beach, what do you do?
Kirsten Diprose: 28:02
There's only so many parks. And when you walk along in those shopping centres and you know, I never noticed it until moving to the country and moving away, and then I had young kids, but it's so attention-g, the bright colours, there's signs everywhere, so many people, it's full on you feel like you're really being marketed to on a high level when you're just walking down any of those shopping malls.
Ashley Molloy: 28:30
It's not fair though because people have put millions of dollars into targeting individuals to make your brain go. I need this. And it's the same with social media like we scroll and we scroll. You are fighting a battle of all of this money that has gone into. How does the human brain work and how are we going to manipulate people into staying on this thing forever? And we're fighting the battle. It really is. I'm 36.
Ashley Molloy: 28:57
I have to pull myself up all the time and go. Why is that in my shopping cart? Do I need that? And I think we're all the same Like we've all been manipulated, but like, consciously, it's a matter of just going. I need to get out of this. I need to stop doing this and trying to tell your kids that, yes, I'm human too, and like my son this morning on TV just watching the morning cartoons, he's oh, mom, I need that toy. Oh man, no, you don't, I get it. I get it Cause I want all the things too. But yeah, three days time you'll forget all about it. And yeah, we all need, like that, Just a delayed gratification thing of put a lock on your shopping cart for three days and then come back and see if you still want it.
Kirsten Diprose: 29:44
Yeah, Save us from ourselves. And now that I have a house, it's like the space is important to me. I'm like I don't want stuff in my space unless I really love it or want it, because it's just more stuff I have to deal with and with kids at school, primary school. I feel like there's just this constant flurry of stuff coming in that I have to then move out.
Ashley Molloy: 30:07
A hundred percent, like we don't have a rubbish service at our place and so it's a matter of putting the bags into the back of the ute and taking them to the tip and the amount of rubbish that we have and I'm like we don't do anything, we don't go anywhere. Where does all the stuff come from? It's insane. But yeah, no, I fully understand that and I think it's hard because the generation above us they're the opposite. They want to grab things and they want to hold onto them.
Ashley Molloy: 30:33
I think because they had so little growing up and they just have this mentality of we need all the things. And that's how I show my love and I'm coming to visit the grandkids, I'm going to bring all the things and I'm sending them a parcel and they don't need that. They just want your time, they want your love and, like our generation, I get in trouble all the time for culling everything. Oh, she threw that out. She threw that out, yeah, cause I have to clean around it and I'm not doing that. So, yeah, it's definitely a divide in the generations. Hopefully we're going to teach our kids a happy medium of having the things that you love and you adore and getting rid of the clutter.
Kirsten Diprose: 31:11
I don't think I'm winning that war with the amount of constant stuff that they want and need. Yeah, but going back to your timeline, so you started the photography business and were finding joy in that. When did you start, by CC, the jewellery business? And again that seems like a complete other sidestep. Like how did you? How do you know how to make jewellery? I love jewellery, but I don't know how to make it.
Ashley Molloy: 31:35
I love jewelry but I don't know how to make it so full disclosure, I do not make it Okay or do you design it.
Ashley Molloy: 31:41
Yes With it. It was just one of those things I was like okay, the other half I'm not sure what our long-term plans are. So ideally in his mind, he would like to end up on a station in the middle of Australia. Ideally in his mind, he would like to end up on a station in the middle of Australia. So in the back of my mind I'm like I need some kind of backup plan. I need something where I can't go to work in a town. I need something that I can do online. I need something that builds a community if I end up in the middle of nowhere. So it is a little bit about me.
Ashley Molloy: 32:12
But I was just spitballing ideas. I thought, oh, I'll sell some jewelry, and so I started off with just buying imported jewelry stuff that other people made and I was selling it and it was the stainless steel and the gold plated, and I so wasn't happy. Every time I made a sale I was like, oh, I don't feel good about this. I felt guilty. Every time I sent out a parcel and I was like it was about a month in and I was like I can't do this. I bought all this stock and I went there has to be another way. So I started researching. I found this business that uses all Australian things and I talked to the team and said, hey, if I come up with some designs, can you make them? And so I just did as much research as I could and found this incredible team who will help me build the business that I wanted. So I wanted something that had more longevity, that meant more. That's something that I was really proud of, that when I send out a parcel, I want to be chuffed. I want to be so thrilled that you bought this thing. Like yesterday, I ordered a signet ring for a parcel. I want to be chuffed. I want to be so thrilled that you bought this thing. Like yesterday, I ordered a signet ring for a mom. She's got her three kids initials on it. It was a design fully, but like I came up with it from scratch in terms of. I went on Pinterest, I found all of these like ornate gold frames and stripes and all these things, put them all together and came up with this design, and the fact that she is so obsessed with it and she's I want to spend the money I'm investing in you. These are my kids' initials. Let's get this happening. I am so thrilled that she's going to wear this piece every day forever.
Ashley Molloy: 33:48
This is a me business. I'm sorry. I know I say that I'm doing it for you guys, but it makes me feel so good because that's what we need. We need things that we're going to be obsessed with and I know obsessed gets used way too much these days, like it's all over social media. I'm obsessed with everything.
Ashley Molloy: 34:04
But about 12 months ago is when it all started and it's been a slow build because I'm not funded by anyone. I'm working full time so that I can fund this dream. So we do a drop at a time, I come up with a design or I do a redo of a design that we've already done. I order a couple of sizes, because rings are obviously very personal in that everyone has different sizes and that sort of thing. So I am just doing these small drops and finding people as I go.
Ashley Molloy: 34:36
I've done a few events where we just make it a bit of a girls' night and we invite everyone over. There's no pressure, like the things are there but it's not a big sell. If you want to see the things, they're there. If you just want to have a girls' night and talk to your community, then do that. So yeah, for me it's the whole big picture of if this business turns into something else, that's okay. If we want to bring in other drops there's people like Whitney Spicer and they've got their art and then they've got all the subcategories of shirts and bandanas and all the other things. This business can do something similar. I'm not stuck on. This is just the thing that we're doing, but for now, this is what it looks like. Yeah, it really is just a passion project.
Kirsten Diprose: 35:22
Long story short, it's a passion project For now, but you've got intentions on it perhaps being your main source of income. Is that right?
Ashley Molloy: 35:30
Yes, Yep, so it is definitely where I spend all my time. I love the marketing for it. I've got some big ideas that I'm hoping to pull together over the next couple of months, especially to do with ducks on the pond. I love the messaging behind it that women can do anything these days, and it's so.
Ashley Molloy: 35:49
The message that I want to spread to my daughter is that, like when I was a little girl, growing up in Pillager on this farm, with no technology, like we had no internet, there was no. I thought there was a banker, I thought there was a teacher. I thought you know, if you were going to be a farmer's wife, you'd be a farmer's wife. There was not much beyond that. I thought that being a businesswoman meant working at Westpac like my mum did, and wearing the corporate suits to work, and that's what I wanted.
Ashley Molloy: 36:24
And now the fact that the women over the years have forged, pushed open doors just there is so much possibility for the next generation coming through. And yes, there are still some ceilings to be smashed, but I think they're going to do it. I think that we've progressed enough, that the leverage is there and all these girls need is the next step To be involved with a podcast like this that is just highlighting women in industries that were potentially once male dominated, or the opportunities for rural women now that the internet is like like it makes everything accessible. Yeah, I'm just excited to be showcasing the potential, so I've got some fun videos planned, so watch out for some fun videos.
Kirsten Diprose: 37:04
Oh, thank you, I can't Like. I'm so stoked that you're sponsoring an entire season. It's amazing and you're exactly who I would want. Someone that is a rural woman who has their own business. That means something to them.
Ashley Molloy: 37:22
I just see so many businesses that there's so much potential, like in Coonabarabran. Here there are so many young, like 30 year old, business women that are just pushing and pushing and they have so many ideas. And I think the more that we can support each other, the more potential that rising tide lifts all ships. That's what this is. If we can do more for each other, there's only great outcomes to come out of it. And it is a very optimistic view, I know for an ex-police officer. But yeah, there are some beautiful souls in this area.
Ashley Molloy: 37:57
I went into a coffee shop yesterday and the girl saw that I was perhaps a bit defeated and so she gave me a free coffee. And she's always the one to be like what are you doing next and where are you going next with the business and what do you have planned this week? And it's so nice to have those cheerleaders in a small community because I think a lot of people get in their head and they're like I can't do this thing because I'll get judged. You don't know how much support there is. There's so many people around town like they'll see you in the newspaper and just walking down the street oh, you're that chick that was in the newspaper and I saw your story and you have this business and they might not have bought anything off you yet, but they're there, they're in the background. They might tell a friend about you, they might tell a family member. It's yeah, it's really lovely if you put yourself out there, but you have to put yourself out there. It's a big jump.
Kirsten Diprose: 38:45
And I think that what we're creating as rural women is something special because, firstly, we haven't been able to for a long time. I think that love and understanding has always been there and that value of community. But now that we've got the internet, we actually can. And men have been doing this for a long time, you know, like the old boys club. We haven't been able to have that for many reasons. And now we can. And I'm not saying we're excluding men or anything like that, but it's just having something similar where you can help each other out and look out for each other, and even if it's more kind of career related, it's saying hey, I reckon you'd be really good for this, have you applied for that job? Or putting other women forward. And it's also, once you've got in that position, reaching out and putting your hand out and pulling another woman up, especially if you're leaving that position yes, who can fill that?
Ashley Molloy: 39:45
position, not a competition anymore. Like I think we've been so long as, oh, if she's there, no one else can be there, but now we know that there's room.
Kirsten Diprose: 39:54
There is room and when you're talking about the next generation and breaking ceilings, the ability for us to have our own businesses is so important, but we still carry so much of the home and the mental load, but we still have our social structures of the workplace and schools set up as if there's someone home. So to me we need to change that and I think by creating our own things somewhat, we are pushing back on that.
Ashley Molloy: 40:24
Yeah, as the predominant carer. Yes, we do see this, me too, because a lot of rural men work away as well. If they were not a farmer, they might be involved in the mines or they might be involved in FIFO roles. It's just default that mums left at home with the kids and you just have to work around. That I did really notice when we came back, because we only moved to Coonabarabra in August last year. I really noticed that since, because I actually grew up here.
Ashley Molloy: 40:53
This is where we went to school when we lived at Pilliger, and people don't look after other people's kids. It was just this default thing when we were younger that you might all go to one person's house after school or if you needed a babysitter, you'd go to your friend's place. That doesn't seem to happen anymore. If you don't have grandparents available or paid like family daycare, that's it. It falls back on you.
Ashley Molloy: 41:19
Women are always the ones that get asked oh, how do you do it? How do you juggle? My partner doesn't get asked that Like. He just goes to work. He doesn't think about it. He rolls out of bed at 4.30 in the morning and off he goes. Sure, I get out of bed later, but then I'm yelling at people and trying to get them out the door and packing lunches and feeding dogs and putting them away and it's just.
Ashley Molloy: 41:39
It's a different load and hopefully over time it'll shift. I think there's still a lot of farmers that have that mentality of I'm out working and the missus is at home baking scones and that's a generational thing. I don't think we're going to change it until the next generation comes through. But the more we make noise about it, the more media talks about it. It's all good, so we'll keep plugging away. We'll keep pushing those boundaries. If you've met a three-year-old girl, you know what I'm talking about, because these girls coming through, they are taking no prisoners. They are just not doing that. Yeah, I'm excited for what's to come. I do feel a little bit for the boys.
Kirsten Diprose: 42:18
But yeah, I don't like. I have two sons and I want, I wish the world for them. But what worries me is when I see those three-year-old girls and I see those 10-year-old girls and I see those 16, 17 year old girls who are beating the boys at school, getting higher marks, but then you look at them at age 35 and they're not at the same job level or income level. And that's not the only way to measure success in life, of course, but what happens?
Ashley Molloy: 42:49
Something happens yeah, a hundred percent. And we see it time and time again. Yeah, my boys will be fine. Yeah, it's like how do we solve all of these problems?
Ashley Molloy: 42:57
People also, if they're not in that field, like my other half, love him dearly, but he's a diesel mechanic. He can just put his hand up and people will throw work at him, it doesn't matter. Like, people need trades. When I started my photography business, he's like why aren't you making money? Why aren't you booked out?
Ashley Molloy: 43:16
He just couldn't understand that you needed to market. Why are you on social media? You're wasting time on social media and it's just. You don't understand how much in a creative field, you need to prove yourself before people come and give you money. There's so much more work that you need to do in terms of marketing, whereas he got a trade and once that trade was done, that speaks enough for him. So it's just educating people in other fields that this is what you need to do to get in front in this position. And it might be different to what you do, and that's okay, but please don't judge about what we're doing. We need to do the marketing. We need what we're doing. We need to do the marketing. We need to get out there, we need to talk to camera, we need to talk to the people at the local newspaper. We're constantly reminding people of hey, this is the thing I'm doing and it's over here. Because people forget Life happens. You're busy, you're making sandwiches, you're making dinners, you're shopping for groceries, you're cleaning, you're doing the work.
Kirsten Diprose: 44:14
So what's next for you? Talking about chapters in your life. What's your full-time job right now?
Ashley Molloy: 44:24
So I'm the executive assistant for the GM at the council. So it's a great job. I work with some really great people here. But we've given ourselves two years in the region. So we're finishing our house build. We've got 40 acres that we're going to get up to, hopefully, a standard where it's a functional thing. If we can turn it into a larger farming entity, then we'll stick around. If we can't leverage it to something bigger that will earn its own income, then we might look further afield and go there. So we're in a weird chapter. Because we're open to opportunities.
Ashley Molloy: 44:57
This year is all about working our butts off and trying to get things rolling along a bit easier so we won't have to market as much. So this is really. I'm doing very intensive marketing stuff for this. I'm still shooting weddings, sam, the other half is working away and the kids are just doing their thing. As they get older, I'm aware that they will need more from us. You know you go through the baby intensive stage and then, once they hit school and they're self-sufficient for the minute, I'm aware that when they hit teenage years they're going to need us more emotionally. So the aim is to set a block up that we can do hay, we can do cattle, that sort of thing, keep it rolling over and then our other jobs are just fluff, like it's just money that we can invest in things or put back in our businesses and that sort of stuff. So this year is just about setting ourselves up for whatever the next step is. Hopefully we'll stick around for a few years.
Ashley Molloy: 45:58
I love this area. I love the people here, but we all are always chasing opportunities and, yeah, we'll see where we can end up. Speaking of chapters, I don't want to end up 70 or 80 and have every chapter look the same. It's really important that we have some really incredible chapters. We have some where we're out and we're adventuring and we're doing all the things. Others where we're homebodies and we're just nurturing each other and looking after the kids and that sort of thing. We've had some incredibly sad chapters, some tragic ones. We've also had some really joyful times, so I don't want to get to the end of the story and have everything just be a repeat. So, whatever comes up, we're open to it.
Kirsten Diprose: 46:42
And that's it for this episode of Ducks on the Pond. Thank you to Ashley Malloy, the founder of By CC Jewellery Australian gold keepsake jewelry. Head to the By CC website and send a message to Ashley there saying that you've listened to the Ducks on the Pond podcast to receive a 15% discount on anything on the website. She even has a Beyond the Pond range, which includes the cutest necklace with a little duck. Thank you for listening and being a part of this amazing community of women. Remember if you like what you hear a five-star review really helps and tell a friend about us. I'm Kirsten Diprose and I'll catch you again soon.