Jahna Cedar was sitting on boards, speaking internationally and collecting awards when she found herself alone at the kitchen table one night, everyone else asleep, taking stock.

"I'm exhausted. Everyone sees me as doing amazing things, but internally, I'm exhausted. My kids haven't seen me. I missed the rugby grand final. I'm tired."

Key points

• Why she teaches the same three circles to boardrooms and her 13-year-old
• "I'm not Blak Google": her warning to buyers who want free cultural advice
• The 90-day invoice problem she wants corporate Australia to answer for

Cedar, a Nyangumarta woman raised between Marble Bar and Port Hedland, runs Jahna Cedar Consulting, a governance, leadership and reconciliation practice, and was awarded an OAM in 2020. She told the story to the Supply Nation Connect 2026 Knowledge Forum in Boorloo (Perth) as the turning point that reshaped how she runs her business and her life.

"I wasn't falling apart. I wasn't unable to go to work and do things. It was nothing big and dramatic, but it was just a check-in of: I'm actually just functioning here. I'm not thriving."

"A thriving business needs thriving people," she told the forum. "Everything relying on one person staying healthy and available is not just a wellbeing issue, it's a business risk."

Cedar described a pattern she has seen and lived across the sector: capable people doing good work, running on empty because the passion to give back outruns the boundaries that protect them.

"We become the go-to person to so many, and we don't put the right boundaries in place to protect ourselves and protect our own energies because of the passion that we have in wanting to give back to community," she said. "I'm just more conscious now that every yes has a cost."

She told growing businesses to negotiate.

"You start thinking: if I challenge the scope, then they're going to go with someone else. Or, am I charging too much? They're not going to take me. If I tell them the timeline isn't realistic, they're going to think that I'm not capable to deliver. No. You're human, and you have a right to go and negotiate and challenge situations like that."

She owned up to the founder's trap of doing everything herself.

"What I am doing in that situation is adding to my own workload, and I'm also robbing someone of the gift of stepping into courage to try a new challenge or a new skill set."

For Indigenous business owners, she said, cash flow, invoicing and delivery sit alongside sorry business, family responsibilities, sponsorship requests and community expectations. Culture and community are the reason many went into business in the first place, and they bring responsibility with them. "You cannot be all things to everybody. How do you prioritise where you put your focus and your energies?"

Working across both worlds has shaped her leadership. "I remember many leadership roles that I've been in where the most commercially focused outcome was not necessarily going to be the best for us culturally. We've seen that just because a decision is legal, it doesn't mean that it's ethical."

Cultural grounding, she argued, is a competitive advantage: relationships before transactions, reciprocity, and accountability that continues past five o'clock.

"For our Indigenous businesses, success isn't only: did we make money? It's also: did we create employment? Did we create opportunity? Have we developed legacy?" she said. "These values are not weaknesses. They are actually a commercial asset that you need to utilise as part of your competitive advantage."

Her tool for protecting energy is one she uses in coaching, in leadership training and on her own 13-year-old: the circles of control, influence and concern. "It sounds easy, but if you're a little bit of a control freak like me, you will have a little bit of anxiety about it. But the more you practise letting it go, the easier it gets over time."

She turned to the buyers and corporate allies in the room.

"What about when payments on invoices take 90 days to come through to a small business? We need to have some of these honest discussions."

Unpaid cultural labour drew the same challenge: engaging an Indigenous business for one service, then asking for free advice on Reconciliation Action Plans or introductions to traditional owner groups.

"Yeah, sure. If you want to sign a contract with me, there's reciprocity. But protect yourself before you start getting exploited," she said. "If you're going to ask me a question, the majority of the time, if it's not from my own mob, I'm going to have to Google it myself anyway. I'm just Black Google."

The warning extended to employers.

"Don't expect that because you have one Aboriginal employee, they are the cultural translator for everything. That cultural load is not okay."

Since the kitchen table, her adjustments have meant saying no, delegating and referring work on.

"I can't do this, but I know another amazing Indigenous business that can. Let me refer you," she said. "We as Indigenous business people shouldn't be competing with one another. We should be collaborating, supporting, embracing, and celebrating each other, and taking it to mainstream. That's where we should be working. That's our competition."

"Find that strong, supportive network that you can work with, that you can be courageous and vulnerable with," she told the room. "Test ideas with other Indigenous businesses so we create this strong network, and we create this Blak movement of economic growth within our country."

Jahna's six rules for a thriving business

1. Pause before reacting. Write the email you're wild about, leave it in drafts, and send the version you won't regret tomorrow. "Every problem becomes better if I respond rather than react."
2. Set boundaries that sound like business. "I can't deliver that by Friday, but I can get it to you by Tuesday." Or: "That is outside our current scope, but I'd love to discuss how we can expand it." A separate work phone that switches off at day's end counts too.
3. Plan work sustainably. Regularly ask three questions: what needs me, what could somebody else do, and what doesn't need doing at all?
4. Let others fill your cup. Reciprocity runs both ways. "Give yourself permission to ask for help where it's needed, allowing other people to contribute."
5. Build collective care. A big social media following is worth less than the few people you can cry in front of, knowing you won't be judged and you'll bounce back tomorrow.
6. Put your energy where it works. If you can control it, act. If you can influence it, strategise. If you can only worry about it, let it go.