Tania Gomez and Paul Bryan sit down with Amy Gray, founder of NDIS Blackbelt and mum to Illyana, to explore how lived experience can reshape provider culture, retention, and day-to-day care. Amy shares practical frameworks (built from the cracks she’s lived through) to help providers turn heart into sustainable strategy.   Episode Highlights: 00:00 – Welcome & Amy’s story: parent, nurse, founder 02:15 – “Personal pain to professional purpose” why she built NDIS Blackbelt 05:20 – The gap families live in vs what services deliver 07:10 – From lived experience to usable frameworks (not theory) 09:05 – The Five Rs of Retention: born from turnover & instability 10:30 – Breaking Barriers Workshop & Culture from Day One induction 12:00 – The “Language of Us”: changing culture by changing words 14:05 – Heart vs strategy: how to avoid burnout and “hollowing out” 16:40 – Rhythm rules: culture as repetition, not policy 18:25 – Being “too close” & building structure around lived truth 20:10 – Legacy: doing good with pain; modeling resilience for kids 22:05 – The one thing providers should remember: culture is everything 23:20 – “We’re not building a workforce—we’re building nervous systems” 25:00 – Habits, language, and cultural tattooing (deliberate, repeated)   Listen via: Podbean: ⁠https://profitablendisprovider.podbean.com/⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠https://apple.co/3UQI0cA⁠ Spotify: ⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-profitable-ndis⁠ YouTube: @ProfitableNDIS_ProviderPodcast   #NDIS #NDISProviders #DisabilitySupport #AlliedHealth #CareLeadership #ProviderCulture #Retention #LivedExperience #Australia