Entrepreneur and disability advocate Charmeyne Te-Nana Williams

Entrepreneur and disability advocate Charmeyne employs over 200 people to support people with disabilities, like her husband, Peter who suffered a brain injury in a boxing match. Whatever It Takes is a fitting name for her business, and the way Charmeyne approaches life. She lives between Mt Maunganui and Auckland.

PHOTOS Garth Badger WORDS Jenny Rudd

At a recent event for our speaker series, This Is How I Did It, Charmeyne told us the incredible story of how her husband Peter Williams’ brain injury and resulting tetraplegia has shaped her life. 

Charmeyne and Peter had baby twin girls, who'd just arrived home from a 5-month hospital stay after their premature birth. And four weeks earlier, the couple had buried their son who passed away after being born at 26 weeks. Charmeyne was at home with their daughters in Auckland, on maternity leave for a job she loved at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in the Māori enterprise team. Peter was down in Timaru at a boxing match, on his path to his plan to qualify for the Olympics. He'd previously won the world title for waka ama (canoe racing) in Tahiti. He was strong, athletic, and world class at the disciplines he put his mind to. He called Charmeyne and announced "I won, so I'm now the New Zealand Super Heavyweight Champion. I just need to go and do a drug test, then I'll call you back."

But he didn't call back. One of his teammates did. Charmeyne said it wasn't what he said that was worrying, it was what he couldn't say. He could barely get the words out. Peter had suffered a traumatic brain injury which left him a tetraplegic.

Her story was so inspiring, we knew we couldn’t leave it in the room. 

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I remember the day Peter went down to Timaru like it was yesterday. It was labour weekend in 2002. That morning, we'd talked about what we had dreamt the night before. We often did that. He said "I dreamt that my spirit had left my body and it was flying across Samoa.”

After I'd spoken to Peter when he won, I remember being so excited. I thought he hadn't rung back because he was out celebrating. Then his teammate called me and said "You need to get down here." At that point I had no idea what that meant. I didn’t know what I was walking into. 

I’ve been so lucky and blessed, because my family has been amazing. My sister was staying with us at the time and she looked after our babies. I jumped on a plane and went down to Timaru. 

Since that day, my life has really been in stages. Stage one was going down to Timaru. 

STAGE ONE

The Rude Awakening

Some of the questions that came to mind at this time were: What the hell is a traumatic brain injury? I had no idea. I had never worried about Peter because he was so strong.

What the hell is this health system? I had no idea what I was walking into. I went into the hospital, he was in ICU and I just didn’t know what to expect. We weren’t allowed to stay there, so that was really daunting for me. 

If it wasn’t enough that we were trying to deal with what was going on with Peter, it was all over the news. My brother rang me up and said, “Have you seen the newspaper?” On a front page was an article that said Peter was actually a Black Power member and had sustained his brain injury through an initiation. So he’s trying to fight for his life and here’s this article on the front page. Where did that even come from?

I rang a friend of mine whose husband was an All Black who’d had some bad publicity, and he put me onto his lawyer who represented us for nothing. We went to court to get them to retract what they'd printed.

By this time, I had to send my girls off, at eight months old, to live with their grandparents in Wellington so that I could work out how to help Peter. Thank god for my whānau, because if it wasn’t for them, I’d never have been able to get through these early stages.

STAGE TWO

The BS

I thought the system would focus on what's best for Peter, me and our whānau. But it didn't feel like that at all. You'd think you’d go from stage to stage – from hospital, to rehab, to home but, actually, it's not that way. Every time I went to another stage of what I thought was our recovery, it was just the same shit on a different day. All I knew was that I loved this man and wanted to keep my family together – that was my priority.

It wasn't just the medical system either, it was our society. Arriving in Auckland, a friend asked me if I was going to stay with Peter as a partner. I was shocked. They asked if I really knew what I was getting myself in for.

We left Timaru after a month and moved into ICU in Auckland for a month, then Peter moved to a rehab facility in West Auckland just before Christmas 2002. I thought that was going to be awesome, but it was really bad. The staff weren’t used to family members sticking around, but I was there every day. I became known as ‘the bitch’ – true story. In my mind I couldn’t understand why, because I was just trying to figure out how I could make sure that Peter was well looked after. What I started to realise was that everyone was doing what they thought was best, as opposed to what was best for me and my family. 

Trying to find financial support to keep my family going was really difficult. When my maternity leave was over and I had to go back to work, I thought I’d go to Work & Income to get help with child support but was told I wasn't eligible because I was earning too much. I’m on $50k and I’ve got an adult who has a serious disability and two children. How is that a high income?

Then I was offered redundancy, which I took, because it meant I could go on benefit. I fought with my pride. I had never been on a benefit. But I knew that if I didn't, it was really going to affect my family's well being and my ability to care for them. I was exhausted and I needed to, so I did. And rather than pay me the extra $100 a week on top of my wages I could have been earning, they paid me about $70,000 a year to be on benefit and to support my kids. That seemed dumb! 

You expect and trust that the experts are giving you the right advice, but I learned that that’s not the case. I found out some time later that Peter had been eligible for child support the whole time. We had to go to court to recoup it. What a waste of time and money for everyone involved.

STAGE THREE

Kete of knowledge

Finally, the penny dropped. When you’re in a rehab facility, you have a multidisciplinary team. You go to these whānau meetings and sometimes you might be the only member of the whānau with 12 clinicians around the table, who are all telling you what you should do. I was in one of these meetings and everyone was talking about how aggressive I was. I could feel myself shrinking into a corner in the chair, just fading away. My cousin was sitting next to me and she said, “You know, what some people would describe as aggressive, others would describe as proactive”. That was a turning point for me. I thought, that's right. I’m being proactive. I’m not being aggressive, I’m just fighting for what I know is right.

From then on, I started to listen, observe and figure out the things that Peter would respond well to in terms of his rehab. I thought about how I could take all these little bits of advice and information and fill up my kete of knowledge to move forward for Peter.

As well as learning from the model he was under, I looked around the world for different care models that fit what I believed he needed.

My aunty, who’s Māori and a social worker, said, “Have a look at this and tell me what you think.” It was a Māori model of care called Te Aho Takitoru which had been developed by her team as a social work kaupapa. What really jumped out to me was that the mana of the person being cared for was at the core. Reading it solidified in my mind what I have been trying to do since Peter's accident - I was fighting for the mana of this man. I just wanted him to be recognised as the man of the family, as a dad and as a partner. That’s all I was asking – nothing more and nothing less.

STAGE FOUR

Home is where the heart is

I thought going home was going to be easy – but it wasn’t. Having been in hospital and rehab for nearly three years, we’d applied to ACC to fund the modifications we needed for Peter to live at home. It was just before Christmas and I got a reply from ACC saying they’d declined our application. The application had taken forever, and they'd said no. I felt it was because they were solely looking at the injury and how to manage that injury. It was being done adequately, they felt, in the rehab centre. I could see though that there was so much more to the picture surrounding Peter's injury. What about his well-being, his wairua (spirit) and the mental health of my family as a result of the care decisions?

When ACC turned down our application, I thought if I don’t do something now, my family is just not going to survive this. 

My brother-in-law worked for 60 Minutes and asked if they could do a story on us. I had turned down offers like this in the past, but I was desperate. So I said ok on the condition that Peter's integrity was maintained, and that the focus should be on getting Peter home.

At one stage during the research, I could see there was some focus on the fictitious Black Power connection. So I went marching up to the Black Power pad in Mt Wellington, knocked on the door and asked their leader to speak on 60 Minutes and set the record straight that Peter was not connected to them.

In the end, the show only talked about ACC for about a minute and how our application had been declined. It took three years for them to decline it, and honestly about two days to approve it.

Finally, we were going home. I got so excited. But we then headed into a new world. The world of agencies. In 18 months, we had around a hundred people come through my house. My girls were verbally abused, and Peter was physically and sexually abused. We went through another grueling court process to bring the sexual abuser to justice, but she got off on a technicality. That whole process was so traumatising for me. It was like I was the criminal. This woman wasn’t held accountable in any way, shape or form, and neither was the agency. That was it. No more. I had to take all my learnings and bring them together to provide a new model.

We weren't the only family going through this either. I knew there were others looking for the same as us, so I put together a business proposal to set up a programme bringing together everything I learnt from Te Aho Takitoru, my research and experience in hospital, at the rehab facility, and the agencies.

Ten years after Peter's accident, I set up What Ever It Takes, a home-based rehabilitation service.

STAGE FIVE

Doing Whatever It Takes

Our vision for our company was to set the standard internationally for how we care for families, regardless of their situation. 

The biggest difference between a mainstream clinical approach and the Māori model we use, is we take into consideration all aspects of what’s going on in the whānau’s lives. A mainstream model looks at what's best for that injury in isolation. But that’s not reality for our families. We don't focus just on physical things like the brain or the spine. This person lives at home with a whole family, so we consider that whole picture. What help do they need to access their entitlements? What is the best wrap-around care that this particular family needs? How does the family operate? What are their dynamics? What are their values? What do they need to support them to live how they want to live?

We work mainly with Māori and Pacific Island whānau. They’re already compromised and they’re further compromised with this disability. I’m a supporter of whānau looking after whānau. I think if you want your whānau member to look after you, then let them look after you. There have been lots of debates about whether whānau members take advantage of the situation, but that’s really not my experience.

Our business model has allowed us to really flourish through the lockdown periods. We’re essential services, but we have a single team for each whānau we look after, so during lockdown we went right back to our aspirational goals and how we were going to do that within the confines of our four walls.

Each time my company gets audited, we receive continuous improvement on continuous improvement. That’s not just great, that’s exceptional in our sector. My goal is to create pathways for the future. I want us to be able to really pave the way for other organisations to come in and support families. 

STAGE SIX

A deep breath

When my girls were at intermediate school, I realised that I had become so absorbed with what was going on for Peter that I was being counterproductive. That's when I started to think about my happiness. All they’d known their whole life was this environment of conflict where I'd been fighting for Peter. It was incredibly hard, but I moved out. It was the right thing for Peter to be able to work with his team from then on, and for our girls, and me.

My journey continues. It's been 18 years and time moves on. My father and my grandmother have passed away. My twins are leaving school. 

I never thought that I’d meet somebody or fall in love, but I have. I’ve had feelings of guilt, but Peter and I were only young when this happened; he was 27. I’ve always committed to being married to Peter. But I got to a point where I thought, I don’t want to die wondering if there could have been more.

When we first met, Rob said to me, “I need to tell you something, I’m having a baby,” and I went, “Oh well, I’m married. I’ll have your baby if you have my husband.” And he goes, “Sweet.” So that’s been the basis of our family. We have five kids now with our big, beautiful, blended whānau. We have all this extended whānau on Rob’s side, and we have Peter and our extended whānau on my side, including Peter’s two sons Puna ma Faleasi and Siagogo. 

It's unconventional, but it works because we make it work. I feel that’s probably my biggest learning: you just have to make things work.

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No reira ngā mihi nui, ki a koutou. Mo te whakarongo mai ki ahau. Thank you for listening to me. Go home and tell the people that you love how much you love them. I’ve learnt how to care for my family and it's the pathway that I intend to to follow forever more.

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What Ever It Takes

There's such determination in the name of Charmeyne Te Nana-Williams's business. And love, when you consider who the beneficiaries are of this determination. What Ever It Takes employs over 200 people across the North Island to deliver a programme of home-based care for people with severe and complex disabilities. What makes it different is the whanāu-centred approach. The family is involved in all aspects of the care, because Whatever It Takes looks at the needs of the whole family, rather than keeping the spotlight on just the injury.

This programme has been developed by Charmeyne and her team to give control, mana and quality of life to those suffering from and affected by major brain traumas and other life-changing disabilities. Their struggle to be allowed to take Peter home to care for him showed Charmeyne that there was a need for a different model of care.

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Jake Millar: life in the fast lane

At 22 years old, Jake Millar from Greymouth in the South Island has interviewed some of the most influential business people on the planet: The CEO of Fonterra, the CEO of Walmart, the CEO of Tesla, founders of billion-dollar startups, and godfather of entrepreneurs everywhere, Sir Richard Branson. He has interviewed around 500 people over the last four years. 

Jake sold his first business, Oompher, to the New Zealand Government at 19 years old. His second start-up, Unfiltered, has just celebrated its second birthday from New York, where Jake's now living as he launches into the States.

Jake has bottled his ability to get people to talk to him and turned it into a business. Unfiltered gives you access to the stories and wisdom of some of the world's most successful businessmen and women. Interviewed by Jake, they share what they've learned, inspiring others to achieve greatness. Each interview is about an hour-long, and is recorded on video. Jake's done around 500 of them, and they are all published on unfiltered.tv. 

Before he'd launched Unfiltered with his co-founder, Yuuki Ogino, Jake had secured commercial partnerships with Bayleys, Craigs Investments, Price Waterhouse Coopers.

In July this year, I went to Unfiltered Live, held at Auckland Museum. It was slick. Hundreds of people round the country came to hear Jake and other speakers such as the Prime Minister and Sir Graham Henry.

Dapper, neat, scrupulously organised, bespectacled, and always smiling, there's a touch of the #geekchic about Jake. But his old-school, gentlemanly manners give him an air of panache. Jake wraps up lots of information neatly and tightly in short spaces of time. He has got used to sharing the two-minute version of his story to promote Unfiltered. In an interview with an American TV channel that broadcasts live from the New York Stock Exchange, the presenters start off smiling politely at the rather young, earnest-looking fellow in front of them. But after a few minutes, their practiced, generic welcome is slightly askew, and their jaws hang a little loose.

A LOSS

When Jake was 15 years old, his father, Rod Miller, died in a plane crash over Fox Glacier, along with nine other people. Four of them were Jake's friends. Rod owned a sky-diving business. The crash occurred on the same day as the first earthquake hit Christchurch. John Key travelled across the South Island paying his respects to the victims and visiting affected families.
Afterwards, Jake wrote to the Prime Minister thanking him for coming to the crash site, and asking him for words of advice about his future. John Key responded with a personal and encouraging note, and visited the 15-year-old at his home in Greymouth. It was a bright moment amongst all that horror.

Jake says, " At seven years old, John Key lost his father, yet went on to achieve his dreams. I thought, 'If he can do it, so can I.' And I was inspired by the kindness and humanity he had shown in his leadership of our country at that awful time."

SCHOOL

From a young age, Jake has worked hard. "I set myself the goal of being head boy of Christchurch Boys' High School (CBHS) and head boy of Adams House. The two positions hadn't been held at the same time in 11 years." He achieved both those goals in 2012.

Whilst at school, Jake organised quite the line-up of speakers for assembly at CBHS: Rob Fyfe, then CEO of Air New Zealand, Rhys Darby from Flight of the Conchords, and Bill English, then Minister of Finance. Photos of baby-faced Jake honing his interviewing skills with these national heavyweights are shockingly recent. Rob Fyfe is now one of a few experienced CEOs who sit on the board of Unfiltered. He says "I have known Jake since he was 16, and he is one of the most inspiring young New Zealanders I have met in my business career.”

As he headed towards his final terms, Jake read Richard Branson's autobiography, Losing My Virginity. It ignited in him a passion for business. He could see how fun and exciting it was.

But career advice at school was woefully lacking. "You were asked what you thought you'd like to do, and were handed a few pamphlets. Where was the advice from someone who'd been there and done it? What was the best way to get started in a particular job? Where was the motivation to get out there and achieve great things? There wasn't any."

And so, turning down a $40,000 scholarship to study law at Otago University, Jake left school and founded his first business, Oompher. The product was what he had wanted a year earlier: careers advice – from the top of the pile. He interviewed people leading their industry, and invited them to share their wise words, asking questions like, 'What does it take to succeed in your industry?' The videos of the interview were published online. Within two months of launching, Jake started to negotiate with the Government who wanted to buy it. Six months later, in mid-2015, they did.

30-YEAR PLAN

If this all sounds very neat and well-thought-out, that's because it is. This isn't a series of lucky events. Jake plays the longest of games. He has a 30-year plan. That's pretty hard to fathom in our era of instant gratification. "Sir Michael Hill has a 30-year plan. He refers to it regularly. And he advised me to do the same. You have to think aspirationally to make your plan. I  thought about what it is that I wanted from life. Here's my list: family, fun, friends, finances, fortune (good health/luck), influence, and, above all else, total freedom. Whenever I need to make a decision in my life, I look at whether it will bring me closer to those goals. If it doesn't, then I say no."

RAISING CAPITAL

In 2016 he needed to raise $1.2 million to take Unfiltered to the States. "I was confident we'd be able to raise the funds, but I was humbled by the calibre of our investors. Many of them are friends I have made over the years." Some friends! Kevin Roberts, ex-CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi; and Sara Tetro, founder of 62 Models and Talent, are some of the A-list line-up of investors. Having them onboard creates a snowball effect: they bring in friends and contacts who are then willing to be interviewed for Unfiltered.

We meet Jake in between San Francisco and Fiji, and find out how he secures interviews with such big names, and commercial relationships without having launched his business. And what motivated such grit and drive.

Jenny: Happy birthday Unfiltered! Two years old in November. And now you have launched into America. How did it differ to your launch in New Zealand?

Jake: Probably the main thing is the size of the market. In New Zealand we are just four and a half million people. It's quite easy to target who you want and truly reach that market, whereas in America there are 320-odd million people, so it's hard reach them all. In America, we have repositioned our entire business. We have really focused on one very specific market as opposed to focusing on everyone. Also, we've targeted New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco at this stage, not the whole country. We've picked out places where we feel we are going to get the most traction.

Jenny: One of the most incredible things about Oompher and Unfiltered, is your ability to get people to come and talk to you. How have you done that?

Jake:  The main word is persistence. We just go, and go, and go, and go. When we reach out to new people to interview, whether it's Sir Richard Branson, or Ashton Kucher, or Sarah Blakely, we just hammer them. I know that sounds aggressive, but you have to be because there are so many journalists and media agencies competing for that attention. Quite often we'll follow someone up 15, 16, 17 times before we get the interview.

Jenny: How do you know when to stop?

Jake: It depends. If I am not getting a reply at all, then I'll probably carry on. If someone's not interested, they'll usually come back straight away and say so. So if they don't send that reply, then you can probably always push harder. A founder of a very successful and well-known company recently came back after four or five emails from us with a one-word response: 'no.' That was it. That's enough for us, we know he's not interested right now. But that doesn't mean I'll give up for the rest of my life.

Jenny: As well as being persistent, you need to be good at reading people, and likable. How did those attributes develop?

Jake: Growing up, I spent a lot of time around adults. My parents never got babysitters or went away on holiday together without my brother and me. We did everything together. So, if there was a dinner party, we would always be there. From about four or five years old. I don't think my parents ever went on holiday together when we were young. We were always together as a family, so I spent lots of time, listening to adults and watching how they react to each other.

Jenny: Oompher and Unfiltered are quite similar businesses. What made you start another so similar to Oompher?

Jake: I really wanted to build a valuable business, and Oompher had taught me lots of important lessons about target markets, product/market position, and how to commercialise a product. I knew I wanted to start another business, and I was tempted to start something completely different, like manufacturing or software. Unfiltered was similar to what I'd been doing, and I knew how hard it was to commercialise media. But I’d done about 30 interviews with people after Oompher – which I was passionate about – so I decided to give it a crack, and Unfiltered was born.

Jenny: Before you launched Unfiltered, you had some big names signed up as customers. How did you know, at 19 years old, how to pitch your idea to them?

Jake: Partly from experience with Oompher. Our business model was to get companies to sponsor the content, with their branding at the back of us as we filmed. A kind of traditional advertising model. Also, I really believed we were solving an important problem and would have an audience of young, aspiring entrepreneurs. I knew that market was really valuable to these companies.

The person who probably helped me the most was my accountant from PwC, Scott McLeaver. We ‘white-boarded’ the whole business, how it could make money, and what commercial partnerships might look like. He gave some great advice. As a teenager owning a new business, it was invaluable to get that kind of support.

Jenny: How do you make the cut to be interviewed on Unfiltered?

Jake: There aren’t really any criteria. We look at who's hot in the media, who our subscribers are pitching to us, saying, 'I want to learn from that person.' And we look at why they might be relevant: maybe they've sold or founded a company, or they are growing fast globally, or expanding internationally.

Equally, it could be someone in whom there's hardly any public interest, but we discover they have an amazing story. Brendan Lindsay from Cambridge would be perfect example. Prior to him selling Sistema Plastics for $660 million, nobody really knew who he was. He'd kept his story very private. He's very humble. We love breaking big stories like Brendan's.

Jenny: You’ve interviewed a number of people from the Bay and Waikato on Unfiltered. Chris Liddell, former CFO at Microsoft and General Motors, is from Matamata. Theresa Gattung, ex-CEO of Telecom, is from Rotorua. John Lord, founder of LivWell (Colorado's biggest, legal cannabis dealer), is from Te Awamutu. And of course, your good friend Nick Mowbray, co-CEO of Zuru Toys, who's from Tokoroa. What do you think it is about those provincial areas that's produced such successful people?

Jake: There are a huge number of really successful New Zealanders globally who are relatively unknown, here. I believe the CEO of Walmart USA, Greg Foran, is from Hamilton too. I think coming from a small town, you are always hustling, trying to get ahead. When you grow up in a big city, everything's there. When you come from a small place, there's always something to reach for. For instance, my journey started in Greymouth on the west coast of the South Island. From there I went to boarding school in Christchurch, then I moved to Auckland, and now New York. It's called step migration. People generally move from a smaller place to somewhere slightly bigger. If you are born in the big city, everything's there. You probably don't know what to aspire to next.

Jenny: You wrote a list of 21 things you'd learned at 21 years old, and said that friendships were one of the most important things in life. But you have also spoken about not seeking out friendships when you were at school. What changed?

Jake: At secondary school I was very goal-driven. That made me different from most of the boys there, and I felt they weren't very tolerant of people who did things differently. I liked playing badminton, wanted to become head boy, and wanted to start a business. But what was expected was to sit around in the common room, talking about rugby and cricket. When you are at school, there isn't really much you can do about that, because you are stuck in that environment.

That was one of the deciding factors in leaving and starting my own business. I knew that if I  studied law, I would end up in a law firm answering to a boss I might not like, trying to get further in my career with people I didn't really want to be spending time with. If you have your own business, you get to decide who you spend time with. I was able to start working with people I really liked, and start building the deep and meaningful relationships that were missing at school.

Jenny: Immigration to the Bay of Plenty is strong, and many of our imports are looking to run a national or global business from here. What advice can you give them?

Jake: Utilise technology in every way you can. Today it's possible to run a global business from any small marketplace. You need to attract the right talent, and be prepared to travel. Just remember, everything's possible.

Jenny: And finally, who was the hardest person to track down?

Jake: That would have to be Sir Richard Branson. He's a very difficult person to talk to, because so many people are trying to interview someone like him. When I finally got his email address, I sent him a personal letter, and he agreed to an interview. Even after that it took persistence to make sure it happened. Then, all of sudden, I was waiting in our studio and being told that Sir Richard had just arrived.

To see the rest of Jake's interview, giving his million-dollar advice for starting up a business, and talking about his friendship with ex-Warriors owner, Eric Watson, and his Lifeline fundraising dinner at the Coatesville mansion, watch below:

Teenage Entrepreneurs of Tauranga: an artist, a Youtuber, a knife sharpener, and a photographer

Each of the teenagers featured in this article is self-employed, earns money using their own skills, manages their own income, and in some cases, earn more than many adults.

WORDS JENNY RUDD PHOTOS QUINN O’CONNELL

If Hope, Jared, Tom and Rose are anything to go by, the future of our country looks as rosy as their youthful cheeks. Gone are the days when teenagers wanted to get qualified and get out, looking to the big smoke and high-flying executive jobs. This new generation of entrepreneurs have clearly learned plenty from their parents, many of whom moved here when their children were young, and helped the Bay of Plenty achieve its current status as the highest-performing area in the Regional Economic Scoreboard.

HOPE MCCONNELL, ARTIST, 19

“My earliest memory is my bedroom in Hamilton; my mum had painted the galaxy all over the walls and ceiling. She used to be a professional artist, and has always encouraged me. I have a very close relationship with my mum.

“Much of my work is painting commissioned portraits. People often buy them as gifts and I get lots of work through my Facebook Page. I am working with watercolours at the moment, but use lots of different mediums to get the look a client wants.”

Most of Hope’s portraits are on A4-sized paper. Her work rate is exemplary. Every time I visited her she had fresh work up in her work space. There is an ordered uniformity to the presentation of her work and her range of skill is incredible, I thought some of the work she showed me belonged to other artists, they were so varied.

“As well as the portraits I have two other ventures on the go; a website which should go live in April – it’s called TwoBrokeDesigners – and will feature young designers on the blog and insights into student-design life. We’ll sell prints and artwork on there by little-known artists and designers.

“The other project is designing a range of t-shirts. My parents have fostered in us a desire to strive for excellence and help others. We have a family rule to set goals to raise money for different charities that we all choose together. The proceeds from the t-shirts will go to young girls trapped in sex slavery.”

At the age of ten, Hope moved to Tauranga with her brother, sister and parents. “I was close to my textiles teacher who encouraged me to enter the Young Designer Awards. I made a rainbow dress and was placed second, so was invited to fly to Christchurch with my mum. We stayed in a hotel together, went on tours and rode trams. It was incredibly glamorous and adventurous for a ten-year-old from the Waikato.”

Hope’s work ethic is enough to make me slightly embarrassed about my own. At 13, she entered a fashion-stylist competition in Girlfriend magazine. “We had to send in a mood board of our fashion ideas as the entry. I was selected as one of four finalists round the country and was given Bayfair vouchers to spend each month and compile different looks. Because I was so young, my mum took me to Bayfair and helped me photograph the looks for the magazine.

“I was selected as the competition winner by Girlfriend readers. It was one of the most exciting achievements in my childhood and the team at Girlfriend were really supportive, offering me opportunities in styling. I wasn’t old enough then to decide on what I wanted to do, but I know now how to forge a creative career for myself, and I’m loving every bit of it.”

facebook.com/HopeMcConnellArtandDesign

JARED SHAW, YOUTUBE BROADCASTER, 17

Jared has two YouTube channels: The Big 10 and The Gamer’s Joint. From his home in Papamoa he shares with his mum and step-father, these two channels have been watched 46 million times. Yes, 46 million. I bet you’ve stopped reading and reached for your phone to check him out.

The Big 10 features list videos, the most popular being ten extremely strange body modifications which has attracted seven million views (only watch that one if you have a fairly solid constitution). His real passion, and the channel he has spent most time developing is The Gamer’s Joint, which is devoted almost entirely to the study of one video game: Kingdom Hearts.

“When I started my channel in 2010, there were a few others around reviewing Kingdom Hearts, but none were particularly big. For the first few years, uploading videos on my channel was just a hobby but by 2014, it really started to kick off and my subscriber base was growing steadily.

The Gamer’s Joint’s popularity is down to two things: consistency (Jared works 10am to 8pm every weekday and uploads two videos per day to The Gamers Joint), and personality.

“There’s lots of planning involved with each video, and I usually do it a day or two in advance: I mix things up with a couple of comedy skits, live streaming, analysis, reviews and revealing hidden info inside the game. I’m known for losing my shit and raging at the game. Each video needs to be planned, researched, the script written and recorded, then edited and uploaded.

“Just before I started to do this full time, I went to a gamer’s convention in Boston where I chatted to different networks and channel owners. It is possible to self-monetise your channel, but there are bigger benefits in signing up with a network; you earn money each time a video is watched, and networks have lots of information and help on how to increase your number of views and can help with copyright issues.

“I already had a contract with TGN before the convention, but they offered me a better deal and I became one of their VIP channels. My income increased immediately and on my return, I decided I wanted to leave school to concentrate solely on my YouTube channels.

“I had to pitch it to my mum – it’s not easy trying to convince your mum that leaving school to play video games professionally is a good idea, but I have my NCLA Level 2 already, so if it didn’t work out, I could still go to university. I think she was surprised when I showed her how much I was earning from YouTube. I treat it as a business – I have an accountant, as I’m paid in US dollars, and I want to make sure all my tax is in order and that I’m saving.”

The success of Jared’s gaming channel has far exceeded any of his peers who also review Kingdom Hearts. He has about 125,000 subscribers, which puts him in the top rankings of gaming channels in New Zealand.

“It’s hard to know what you want to do at our age, we are often asked what we’ll do in the future, but how can you make a decision with no insight? I’m extremely lucky to love my job so much at my age. It doesn’t feel like a job at all, it just feels like fun.”

youtube.com/user/thegamersjoint

TOM HOFFART, KNIFE-SHARPENER AND TOOL REFURBISHER, 13

Learning a trade seems old school in a digital world, and Tom’s trade dates back to, well, about two and a half million years. “I have always loved knives. I got my first when I was three from a family friend. That same friend gave me a machete when I turned nine. Each time I got a knife, I got a box of plasters.”

Tom offers a knife-sharpening service with delivery. “If a client lives close by, I’ll cycle to their house to pick up and deliver their knives or tools. If it’s any further, we arrange a central point in town to meet.”

“I started my business because I’ve always loved making and refurbishing old tools and knives, and I have an excellent workshop at home with equipment I have bought and been kindly given by my uncle in Matamata. He and my grandfather taught me some good knife sharpening skills too.

“At the moment I am reinvesting most of the money back into the business to buy better equipment. My Facebook page and newly purchased cell phone have significantly increased my customer base and workload.

“I keep a ledger to record my income and expenses, and have spoken to the tax office – there are some generous tax brackets for school pupils. I love my work – I have never seen myself working in an office when I’m older.”

“A few months ago I went to buy a knife I’ve had my eye on for a while. My mum said ‘Why do you need another knife? You already have so many.’ I replied, ‘I could ask you the same question about shoes’.”

facebook.com/NeighbourhoodKnifeGuy

ROSE MCMAHON, 15, PHOTOGRAPHER

There is no doubt that Rose’s homeschooling has been a huge contributor to her incredible success as a professional photographer.

“I got into photography about three years ago. A family friend lent me her camera for the winter, while the wedding season was quiet. When the time came to return it, I asked her how much it cost so I could get one myself. $5,000. I thought my world would end. I cried myself to sleep.

“I thought, ‘I’m not having this,’ and looked around online until I found something similar second hand. It was still way out of a 12 year old’s reach, so I rang the seller. He was a professional photographer who’d started at eight years old. He gave me a discount, so I gathered all my Christmas and birthday money, both past and future, and bought it.

“At the beginning, I offered to take photos for free. I did the Zespri Head Office Christmas party, which led to paid work; I have photographed weddings and portraits for people at the party. I have now shot in every major wedding venue in the Bay of Plenty.”

As well as using her own initiative and hard work to learn her craft, including building a website, marketing her work and managing her administration, she has sought out guidance from other well established photographers.

“A couple of years ago, I found it very difficult taking pictures of people as I didn’t have enough confidence telling groups of adults what to do. Maree Wilkinson, one of the Bay’s top wedding photographers, took me with her on photo shoots and showed me how to get over that stumbling block.

“It’s useful being young when running your own business. You have much less fear than adults. I don’t worry so much about things going wrong, I just work out how to fix them myself. And because I’m homeschooled I can spend lots of time practising and improving.

Rose is in hot demand and is well-respected by her peers; our photographer for this shoot, Quinn O’Connell, borrowed one of her lenses and talked shop with her throughout. The girl can certainly hold her own. And she is ambitious.

“The biggest job I’ve had so far is a stills photographer on a movie, recording what’s going on behind the scenes. In fact, I’ve just been approached to do the same job on another movie. I’d like to get into directing movies so it’s been a great opportunity.

“Although there are lots of perks to being a teenager in an adult industry – people are extremely generous-spirited towards me – there are downsides too. I have to pay someone to drive me to my jobs until I’m old enough to legally drive.”

rosemcmahon.com