An Electric Few Days: 7 Presentations, 3 Energy Companies, 3 Days
Updated: Oct 17
7 presentations over 3 days, for 3 different electricity companies. Yep, somehow I ended up speaking for Powercor, Essential Energy and AGL over 3 straight days.
None of it was planned like that either. They don’t liaise with each other, nobody passed my details onto the next company, it just happened that all 3 landed back to back. Pretty cool trip when you think about it.
First up was Powercor in Brooklyn, Melbourne.
I’ve been doing a bunch of sessions with the Powercor crews across their depots lately, which I’ve written more about [HERE]. This one was an early 8am session around mental health, mindset and looking after yourself when life and work get heavy. Great crew, plenty of questions, open conversations and obviously a few cheeky laughs too (as always!). These are the sorts of audiences I love speaking to. Straight up people who don’t want someone standing at the front giving them a clinical lecture for an hour. They want something real, something they can connect with and hopefully something that gets them thinking differently. That’s a big part of how I approach my keynote speaking events in Melbourne.
Because it was an early one I actually had the rest of the day free, which almost never happens when I’m travelling for work. Usually it’s event, airport, emails, hotel, next event. I still did a bit of work, some emails and website stuff, but if I’m being honest, most of the day was spent on the couch. Loved it.
The next day was two online sessions for Essential Energy.
Their people are spread all over NSW, from field crews through to corporate, so Teams made sense. The talks tied into Safe Work Month, World Mental Health Day and also a heap of organisational change they’re going through at the moment. I’d had a meeting with Sally from Essential beforehand and you know when you meet someone and you just click straight away? That was us and it's the BEST! We ended up talking work, family, life, all sorts of stuff. She clearly cared a lot about her people, so I already had a feeling the sessions would be good.
And they were. Online presentations can sometimes be tricky because you don’t have the same feel you get in a room, but the emojis were pumping, comments were coming through in the chat and there was plenty of engagement. I hadn’t planned the second session as well as I thought though. I had to check out of my Airbnb at 10am and the next presentation was at 1pm, so I had to find somewhere that looked half decent to run it from. I found these little office pods around Melbourne with proper screens, lighting and audio for about 15 bucks an hour. Bargain. Grabbed some Grill’d, headed over and got set up.
The second session was puming as well! At the start I told everyone that if they had questions, throw them in the chat and I’d answer them at the end. My MC homegirl, Alexis, started reading them out and said there was a question from a lady named Lindsay. Turns out Lindsay had enjoyed the morning session so much she jumped back into the second one as well. How good is that.
Her question was actually about my shirt. She wanted to know what MSCR meant.
That got me excited because there’s a good story behind it.
Back around 2015 when I owned a gym, I had a youth group coming out to train with me. Some of the kids were doing it pretty tough and were training in whatever clothes they had. I put a Facebook post up asking if anyone had activewear they weren’t using that they could donate. A mate tagged a bloke named Vic, who I didn’t know at the time, and Vic owned a growing activewear company called Muscle Republic.
He reached out and basically said, “What do you need mate? I’ve got them covered.”
Champion!
He sent boxes and boxes of gear for the kids, even threw some stuff in for me, and wanted absolutely nothing back. No post. No collab. No favour. He just wanted to help. Ma man!
I ended up meeting him not long after and we’ve been good mates ever since. Back then he was still trying to build Muscle Republic and make some ground in a massive industry. The part I always remember is that even while he was working his guts out trying to grow his own business, he was still helping other people. Their saying is REAL MUSCLE IS HEART and Vic genuinely lives that.
Fast forward about 10 years and Muscle Republic has absolutely taken off. I see people wearing it in airports, cafes, gyms and cities all around the country now and it always makes me smile thinking back to those early days. So yeah, that’s why I proudly rep MSCR. And you should too by jumping in and getting your activewear from an Aus company that actually cares https://musclerepublic.com/
Then it was into the car and off to AGL Loy Yang.
Again, another one where the first meeting already told me the event was going to be a good one. I met Mark Walsh from AGL months earlier and we got along straight away. He cared about what he was doing, cared about the crew and was also just a good bloke you could have a yarn with for hours. And someone I'll catch up with again!
This one was a big one.
AGL had brought crews together for a day with a big focus on safety and looking after the people doing the work. In environments like Loy Yang, especially around major maintenance and outage periods where there can be a lot happening at once, safety obviously isn’t just a poster on the wall. It matters.
But I didn’t want to get up there and tell a room full of experienced workers, “Hey guys, remember to be safe.”
They know that.
My angle was more around why good people who know the rules still make mistakes.
Why do we take shortcuts when we know we shouldn’t? Why do we sometimes pretend we understand something instead of putting our hand up and saying, “Mate, I actually don’t know”? Why is our first reaction sometimes to blame somebody else instead of owning our part in something? Why do we rush? Why do we switch off? Why do we get complacent after doing the same job a thousand times?
And what state are we actually turning up to work in?
If you’re sleeping like crap, glued to your phone all night, filling your head with constant noise, eating rubbish, stressed out, distracted or carrying something heavy in your personal life, you’re probably not bringing the sharpest version of yourself through the gate the next morning.
That matters.
We talked about brain fog, distractions, attention, ego, ownership and being willing to speak up when you’re not sure. Because sometimes taking ownership isn’t putting your hand up after something goes wrong. Sometimes it’s having the humility to put your hand up before it goes wrong.
“I don’t know.”
“I need a hand.”
“I’m not switched on today.”
“I don’t think this is right.”
Those little moments can be massive.
And this is where mental health, mindset and safety cross over so much more than people realise. What’s happening outside of work follows us into work. How we’re sleeping, thinking, communicating, handling stress and looking after ourselves can affect how present we are around the people beside us.
I had four sessions with the AGL crews across the day and it was honestly right up there with one of my favourite events. It definitely took it out of me, but every bit was worth it. The connection in the rooms was huge. People were leaning in, asking questions, thinking, laughing and getting involved. There were some big moments, some emotional moments and some really good chats afterwards. And obviously with crews like this there was plenty of banter and people giving each other a bit of stick too.
My kinda people.
What stood out to me after those 3 days was how different all the companies were, but underneath it all the same stuff keeps coming up. Powercor in Melbourne, Essential Energy with people joining from all over NSW, AGL out at Loy Yang. Different roles, different businesses, different environments.
But people are people.
Whether I’m brought in to talk about mental health, resilience, leadership, workplace culture, change or taking more ownership, eventually it comes back to the individual.
How are you actually going? What are you carrying? What needs to change? Where can you take a bit more ownership? Where do you need to ask for help? And what can you do to bring a bit more spark back into work and life?
7 presentations. 3 energy companies. 3 days. One random office pod. A Muscle Republic story I wasn’t planning on telling.
What an electric few days.
Looking for a keynote speaker for your event? Jump in and let's chat! www.lukeskennedy.com
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