When someone says "no" to Cara Peek, she laughs.
"You've got to back yourself and believe in yourself," the social entrepreneur told AAP.
Ms Peek, a former Native Title lawyer and 2020 Rural Women's Award winner, has lived by that creed since she was a child, growing up in suburban Melbourne with her Indigenous-Chinese mother and English-Irish father.
"Travelling around Victoria in the '80s with parents that didn't look like each other, with three little brown kids, is an interesting experience," Ms Peek said.
"You walk into a country pub and all eyes are on you.
"It was a really happy home but when we were out in community, we stuck out.
"People think kids don't notice but they do."
That early yearning for equality turned into a calling when her mother took her to the city to hear Nelson Mandela speak.
Ms Peek studied law and worked on Native Title cases in Western Australia before she realised she preferred the other side of the job.
"What I enjoyed most was engaging and talking - as a Native Title solicitor, you are also a funeral director, a project manager and a counsellor."
While travelling to rodeos around the Kimberley in her spare time, Ms Peek discovered a way to connect with her community.
She founded Saltwater Country, a not-for-profit organisation that runs rodeos and events giving Indigenous people new connections, skills and opportunities.
"On the face of it you see a rodeo - campdraft, country music, people having fun - but it has a much bigger impact," Ms Peek said.
"A cowboy came up to me at an event. He said 'this gives me hope'.
"It's a place where he can be judged fairly when he's competing and he can relax in a tolerant space."
The work earned her the Rural Women's Award and a Churchill Fellowship that will take her to North and South America next year to further explore Indigenous links to rodeos there.
"There's an affinity with the sport, an affinity with horse riding," she said.
"A lot of people in Australia don't realise the role that first peoples have played in the pastoral industry and the story is similar in the States and in Canada."
Ms Peek wouldn't be going overseas if she took "no" for an answer. The first time she applied for the fellowship, she was rejected.
It also took persistent nagging from a friend to nominate for the women's award.
She encouraged women of all backgrounds to apply for the Agrifutures Rural Women's Award before nominations close on October 19.
"Even if you're fearful, you've got to push through because something positive will come out of it," she said.
"To create a network of powerhouse women is a prize in its own right."
