The Science Behind Navigating Life’s Toughest Transitions [Interview with Neville Starick]

Petra

0:02

In this fast-changing world of work, where we constantly have to transition not only from one job to the other, but careers, and do it more frequently, we need to be able to navigate those changes. And often we get stuck in the status quo and don't realize why we can't actually move to the next level is because we have to shift mindset. And that requires a new way of thinking. And today we are trying for somebody who is not only experienced himself in various transitions personally and professionally, but somebody who actually works with others on how to manage transitions, the right way. Neville Starik, is joining us today. Thank you so much for being here.

Neville

0:39

Thank you for inviting me, Petro. It's a pleasure to be here.

Petra

0:43

So excited about this conversation, we actually got connected through a mutual contact. And we hopped on a zoom call a couple of weeks ago, and I thought, you know what, I need to do a podcast interview with you. Because your specialization, your experience is so relevant to what's happening right now, in this fast changing and constantly evolving world of work. Now, can you give us a little bit of a background as to how did you land where you are? And what are you doing right now?

Neville

1:07

Oh, I shall try and make it short because it's quite complex. Initially, I started off in the field of education, I was a I was a primary school teacher, and that I reached a point where I realized that wasn't where I wanted to be anymore. And so I floundered around for a couple of years trying to work out what I was, what I was what I actually wanted to do, and, and then went back to postgraduate study, moved into the field of counselling, and did some did some did a master's degree in counselling, and have been working in the counselling field in varying degrees ever since. 

So the whole issues of transition, I've realized, with the reflections that I've done in my own life, and through my studies, has actually just made me realize exactly how many transitions that I've walked through, and what the impact of that has been, and how that shapes me. And it's been fascinating looking at that, and then also looking at my clients who are often dealing with a transition but not realizing what is going on, and why they're responding the way that they are. So that's kind of in a nutshell.

Petra

2:16

Yes, that's, that's fascinating. And just before we press record, we were also talking about the sensation that so many of us are experiencing transitions, but they can't put a language towards their feeling for the state, what exactly would be some of those symptoms that would be visible or fillable? if that's a word to us,

Neville

2:34

Yeah, let me just backtrack a little bit and just reframe this whole thing of transition, whenever there is a significant life change, that backtrack even further. Transitions are happening around us all the time, we've got things like seasonal changes, and and routines, and we move from one thing to the next all the time. So that's just our norm. 

That's the way that life works. Now, the transition that I'm talking about here are the the big transitions, the significant changes that happen within our lives that completely overturn our world. 

Now, I want to I want to make a point here that what overturns one person's world may have no effect on somebody else. 

So it's very, very unique, very personal, very responsive to whatever it is that your own personal journey has been, as to how you're affected by the transitions that you go through. 

And where there is where there is significant life change, there is often a whole grieving process for what you've had to leave behind to be able to move into the next stage of whatever it is that your life for your career is going to become. And people don't think about grieving in terms of change. 

We all know that when somebody dies, you kind of expect people to grieve. But we don't think that there's any grieving involved where there are other types of losses or other kinds of changes. 

So, you leave a job that you loved. there's a there's a grieving around that even if you move into a better job or a job that's more or less in line with where you are now there is a grieving process in that when it when you move to a new house, or you change countries or you change states, those kinds of things all have you leaving things behind to be able to go into that next phase, and we're attached to things that's what we do, naturally we attach to things and leaving things behind can be painful, it can be really difficult. 

And so, the whole transition thing is fraught with a grieving process, particularly if it's something really big. So, I want to I want to reassure that a lot of people that hey, if you're going through a transition, there are certain difficult things that may show up And that's normal, that's normal, because essentially, you are moving into something new, you've had to leave the familiar behind. 

And there is this process of adjusting to what you've lost, versus what you find yourself in. Now, this is regardless of whether or not you've chosen the change or not. So I mean, you could choose to go and make a change, and there's still going to be some losses attached to that, even though you had a really good reason for moving to the next space. And conversely, if the change has been forced on you, that can actually intensify some of the transition, that transition experience. Because you didn't pick it, you didn't choose it, it was something that happened to you and now you're kind of on the backfoot trying to respond to the new world that you find yourself in that you didn't expect. So in both cases, the transition involves a moving into something that's somewhat unknown, and leaving behind things that are familiar and well known. And there is an emotional, mental, spiritual shifts that has to take place with that, because you need to you need to adapt to what is not what was and, and that can be more challenging in some situations than others.

Petra

6:28

Absolutely. And you made a good point. I'm not sure if that's correct, from just putting it out there anyway, I read somewhere that the brain or a human being is more primed to stay safe, rather than to be happy to reroute a state in something that's okay. to not give up the certainty that comes with it, then to experience maybe something most amazing, but we're not quite sure what that is, is that correct?

Neville

6:51

I would agree that we're kind of really, we want things to be stable. And the stability sometimes overrides the need for change.

So, we keep ourselves in situations that are not good for us, or that we've outgrown far longer than we, then we should, just because this is what we know. And to contemplate moving into something that is new and unknown, can be extremely challenging. 

And it Prime's up the whole fight or flight type of responses that are moving into a situation where I don't know where the dangers are, I don't know what the challenges are, I don't know if I've got what I need to be able to be in that situation and to survive, and then not just survive, but to thrive. So, there's all of these questions that you end up coming encountering in transition about who am I? 

What is the situation that I'm going into? What are the things that I haven't been able to carry with me into this new space that would have helped me in my previous situation? What are the things that I don't yet know, we're here to support me in this new situation, and rebuilding things like networks and connections and all that kind of stuff? 

So it's, it sounds really complex. And so many of the so many of us walk through transitions, feeling like, I should be able to do this. And this isn't this isn't really, this isn't really that difficult. But we've walked around journey, and there's a whole bunch of things that are going on under the surface that we don't always acknowledge, and those things can derail our ability to be able to manage that transition. Well.

Petra

8:36

Absolutely. And obviously, with COVID-19, last year, a lot has changed. So many, very talented professionals lost their jobs, they were made redundant, their industry wasn't there anymore. And the longer you are in an industry or in a profession, the more you become that role becomes an identity part of you. And then all of a sudden it's gone. What are some ways how we can deal with this disruption that we don't see coming and we can prepare for it.

Neville

9:05

It's really challenging to because we can't prepare for it. It often blindsides us we are in we find ourselves in a position where I didn't see this coming, or I didn't expect this to get to this stage. And it can really take the wind out of our sails. So what do you do with that? 

Well first of all acknowledge that this is really hard. And it's okay that it's hard because it's like if you had had the time to prepare for it, that would have been a different story but off in situations like COVID-19 nobody really anticipated that it was going to show up at all and be the length of time that it was going to be having an impact so it's like the goalposts keep shifting with all of this transition as like and we keep sort of sitting there saying to yourself and I find this in my in my situation it's like are when the border right opens up, or when we when we're able to go back and do this or when we're going to be able to do that, and when this lockdown finishes, and then you get hit with another one. 

And it's like the resilience to be able to keep going and keep holding on to hope when all the time the goalpost keeps shifting is really difficult. So first things, first thing to recognize is that it is difficult, and that it's not a reflection on your resilience that you might feel like you're not coping, it's actually a reflection on the circumstances that you're facing. 

It's a reflection on the fact that all of us only have a finite tank of resilience. And that gets used up over time. And if it's not given an opportunity to replenish by moving into some stability, then it just keeps getting drained. And we get lower and lower and lower in our resilience and ability to handle stuff. So we've had 18 months of varying experiences of restriction lockdown, and so on throughout. Yeah, and that's going to have a residual and a cumulative impact on all of us. So be aware, be conscious of that, be conscious of that is I, I have been resilient up until this point. And if I'm feeling like I can't do this anymore, it's an indication that I need to find some ways to refill that resilience tag because the outside circumstances are not helping.

Petra

11:31

And it also comes down probably to self-awareness to identify what fills my cup, because we cannot control what's in our ability be anything from exercising to eating the right food to reduce drinking, whatever it might be.

Neville

11:45

Yeah, and that can be that will probably very, because the current situation with COVID, depending upon where you are in the country, or where you are in the world, there are different impacts. So in some of the things that you would normally go to for, for rebuilding your resilience may not be accessible, or may not be accessible to the degree that you need them. So there's a place for being a bit creative about how do I how do I feel my resilience take? 

How do I find ways to recharge me so that I can continue to put one foot after another in this constantly changing environment? And there's not really a single answer that because everyone's got to do that differently. But yeah, I certainly hear the challenges that I'm feeling that for myself in the current situation too

Petra

12:40

Acknowledge that it's something that we haven't experienced before. And it's okay to sometimes just go off the track, because it's usually not that events that tip you over it was just the last drop to the very overflowing buckets that ticked

Neville

12:56

Yep. And that's a good picture there about the bucket. It's just like, rather than having an empty bucket, it's just like, there's just too much to process too much to deal with in this shifting environment. 

Petra

When something happens to us, that's probably the best way to deal with the situation to acknowledge is to see how we can build resilience and be more mindful and more self-aware about your own needs. 

What about the other way, a lot of my clients get stuck in their role, because they're too scared to take the next step they say, but when it comes to actually action on it, and taking different activities that are required to get there, they drop out, and then you stay where they are, how to prepare for this transition?

Neville

13:38

I think, again, there's a there's a level of acknowledging the significance of the transition, okay, you're contemplating something that is going to change your world. So and they're big, they're big ramifications to that there are be consequences to that. So spending some time looking at what is it that I'm feeling about this transition? 

What are the obstacles that I'm fighting, and that I'm putting in the way of actually taking a step that I that I could take? What's that about? and exploring the fears, exploring the anxieties around taking that next step exploring the possible scenarios that might result from taking a step? 

I think you kind of need to work through your emotional response because if your emotions your emotions are signalling something to you about the place that you find yourself, that's what I say to say to my clients regularly, it's a slight your emotions are not good or bad. They're giving you information and you need to work out what they're trying to tell you. 

So if I'm having reluctance to move into a transition, which on paper looks like that this should actually be a good fit and I can do it and I should be able to do it. Then what is it that's holding you back sometimes that can Be, I'm afraid that I don't have all the information that I need to make this decision. 

So maybe there's a I need to gather some more information. Don't get stuck with that, because there comes a point in time where you have to actually sit there and say, Enough is enough, I have to make a decision. 

But sometimes it's about I don't have the right kind of information to make the decision. So your emotions might be telling you as I need to, I need to hear more about this. For me, I walked through a situation to burn out very early on in my in my career. And, and one of the things that came out of that, for me was that I needed to ask the question of future employers who what kind of support do you have available for me, I would never have asked that question if I hadn't walked through that experience. But it was kind of like, I needed to know that because I had walked the experience of burnout. And part of my experience of burnout had been there wasn't support around me anymore. There had been initially, and it disappeared. 

And I needed to know that I wasn't going to walk into another situation where I was going to be by myself and working with a huge load of expectation and no one around to help me to succeed.

Petra

16:09

So level of self awareness again,

Neville

16:12

This is like looking back quite a number of years later, I can actually put more words around it than I could at the time. But it was just a real awareness that I needed something different. 

And my own reluctance to actually find a full-time job or go back into that was about I don't want to repeat what I just went through. So I needed to pay attention to that. What is it that I didn't want to repeat? 

What is it that I needed? And what is it that would give me an indication that this might actually be a good place for me to sort of make a commitment to. And that was a process, it took a while. 

And my one regret in that whole experience was that I didn't know that I could access professionals to be able to work that through in a somewhat impartial environment. I did lean on friends, I had chats with friends and other people that I knew who were able to give me a little bit of direction. But I basically worked through that on my own. And that was hard. And I regret that now. And yeah, it just it just made the process longer because I was doing it by myself.

Petra

17:30

Now, when we want to transition, especially if we want to get into a completely new industry profession, or a higher level role, and we haven't done it before, one of the biggest reasons people actually don't go for it is imposter syndrome. But who am I to talk about this? Who am or even social media to put a post out there? somebody knows more about us? And this is often what keeps us stuck? Are there any ways how we can deal with this niggling language in our own head?

Neville

18:00

I think one of the one of the things that can be really helpful, it's funny, because I was just doing something with a client recently. 

It can be really useful to sit there and look at your own experience and unpack your own experience and think about what is it that I've actually done that and be really specific about? What is it that I've actually done? 

So what are the projects that I've done? What did that involve? What are they? What are the roles that I've held, and what were the pieces to that particular role? 

And, and, and sort of tried to try to get as much detail is possible about what it is that you actually did? And then step back and look at that list and say, Okay, let me cluster the things that seems to be similar that go out there that are kind of common threads that go through all of this, and sort of cluster them in in categories if you want. And say, 

Okay, these ones are all about, say, it might be frustrating experience, this is about project management, this is about whatever. 

Then take a look at like, what does it say about me that I've had all of these experiences that can be incredibly difficult to do for yourself. And that could be something that you might need some somebody to bounce ideas off and to reflect back what they are seeing brissac because sometimes we're way too close to it. 

It's kind of like, and I've had, I've had people and in a number of situations where I've got them to do this process, and they look at it and go, but that's just what everybody else would what anybody would do. And it's actually no, it's not what anybody would do. I mean a classic case, I had a client that I was working with that was looking at a job transition, had been wanting to move from temporary work and finding full time employment, and had all of these administrative skills. 

And so I've got my client to bring to bring in their resume, we had a look at it, and I got the client and then tell me a little bit more about their roles because their resume was jam packed ladies and squashed into one page and it was really hard to read and I'm just gonna And so if I ask the question it's like, so when you start in a new role, what do you find yourself doing? 

The comment was, I get in there, and the first thing I did was I fixed the filing system. Because the filing system nearly always is out of whack. And it needs to be needs to be systematized and seems to be, it needs to be updated. And there needs to be a clear process about how to keep the filing check. And nobody's done it before. And I said, where is that in your resume. And the client looked at it and said, it's not, because that should be what anybody does, we're clearly you've walked into a number of situations where it's not being done. 

It's like, that should give you a clue that this is not as common as you think it is, it's, it's a no brainer for you, because that's how you work. And that's one of your strengths, that demonstrates your organizational skill at demonstrate demonstrates your ability to create systems that develop it demonstrates your ability to put a process in place that other people can follow. 

Because in doing temporary roles, you'd go and do this, and then move on. And so the system carried on without her. But those were amazing skills, and amazing abilities that she didn't actually even recognize as anything worth mentioning.

Petra

21:24

It's basically collecting data and everything. Because also what you said before, I don't want to go back because I don't have the same experience. So we are drawing back from those memories and experiences that we added to something or not. And the same goes with our strength and the positive experiences we have. But usually we put it aside and say, doesn't everyone do it, and I agree with you, it's hard to see that yourself because it is natural to you. But others is valuable. 

And this is exactly how you can actually commercialise your uniqueness by being able to pinpoint it and communicate it with others. 

Neville

22:00

And one of the things that let me know to start doing that for myself was that I was in a role. I was living overseas for about eight and a half years and I was in an administrative role, and was doing a whole bunch of things. And I thought that my manager saw what I was doing. And so it came to my performance review, and my manager was just kind of like, Oh, well, we're just going to give you an average pay raise because we don't know what you've done. And it's like we're happy with your performance. 

But it doesn't seem to be anything particularly stellar. And I sat there, I thought, goodness sake, I did a whole bunch of extra stuff that was outside of my role. And this doesn't even write a mention in my performance review. And I was really quite annoyed. So I started tracking quite specifically what I was doing from day to day, here's might be and then I started not just categorizing but also looking at  what are my routine tasks? What are the things that I do on a regular basis? And then what are the what are the one off projects that I engaged in that are not part of my regular role, but that I've just managed to find time to do. 

So I started making a list of all of those. And that was absolutely great for when I went to then apply for new jobs because I could sit there and in my selection criteria responses or in my, in my even in my applications, I could sit there and reference specific examples of things that I had done. And even in the way I've designed my resume, because I've been in so many different careers, it's like, the challenge for me was to not sit there and present myself as a flighty person who was just going to move at the drop of a hat. 

And I realized that if I listed all of my jobs in chronological order that that was the impression that people were going to get it doesn't stick, he doesn't stay anywhere. And it's like, okay, I needed to work out how to reframe that.

But I also needed to work needed to present what I'd learned out of those experiences and what I had to offer and make that the focus. I can offer all of these things, because I've worked through all these different experiences which somebody who has been stable in one role may not have had been able to develop because they just, it wasn't important for them to move into different spaces, it was important for them to be stable.

Petra

24:15

And what I love about your example is that you own your narrative, he said, how I'm explaining it, because if you can't make sense of your background, and what you learned, and how you would apply it in your next role, nobody else can pick it up either because nobody walked in your shoes, and especially these days where we actually transition a lot more frequently. One of the skill sets in that we need to focus on in the future of work is storytelling. How can we bring somebody with us on the journey that will demonstrate our skill sets in the strength, not just the qualifications and so forth? provide video?

Now you've landed at your sweet spot and when I sent you a couple of questions on what we would discuss, he said, I'm not quite sure if I've actually found your sweet spot. But I would love to hear your story how you landed where you are right now, because I think it's an inspiration for many who are on the fence as to, but I've got this interest but also have this remote control about that?

Neville

25:10

Well, as I'm reflecting on this whole idea of a sweet spot in business, I have to say that, for me, my experience has been the sweet spot has transitioned over time. And I, it's hard for me to sit there and say that the sweet spot that I'm in now is where I'm going to stay. And it's also hard for me to look back at the past and sort of like, Well, that was a sweet spot for a time. But it didn't stay a sweet spot and, and my own growth and development actually moved me out of out of areas into something new. So a lot of what a lot of what my experience was is that I was I would sit there and stay in an industry or a role for a while. And then I'd get bored.

25:53

And that was one of the one of the biggest things for me, it was just I'm feeling like I'm just churning through the same old thing. This is not exciting anymore. I'm finding it very tedious. And that was I started to pay attention to that. And it was like, okay, when that starts showing up, it's either something needs to change in my current role, so that I can actually spice things up and get some joy back in what I'm doing. Or I need to find something really quite different. So as I said at the beginning, I started off in in education, I was a primary school teacher. 

And when I did my, my teaching degree, I was convinced that I was going to be a teacher from my whole career. I didn't have any aspirations for anything else, I didn't have any thoughts about anything else that could happen. I didn't even think that I had anything else that I wanted to pursue. 

So I mean, I had part time jobs while I was studying and so on. But in retail and, and they, it was just very much I was so single focused on I'm going to be a teacher that it was like I never thought about those things as even a possible option. For a full time career. 

Well, that's not what I want to do. And I guess at that point, it was like, Okay, I had a focus. And I stayed there. And then I found out that teaching was not at all what I thought it was going to be. 

And, and I had got hints of that through my extra teaching practice in my degree. But when I actually got out there and it was just like, Whoa, this is really hard. And there's a whole bunch of stuff that's going on here that I'm I like pieces of it. But the actual whole context in which my classroom work is happening is kind of like this doesn't fit. This isn't me this is really, I feel like I'm working against myself, I feel like I've got my own hang ups about wanting to do an excellent job that's actually interfering with me doing an excellent job, on top of feeling pressured from the outside to produce a result that I wasn't sure I was able to do. 

So hence my burnout. And then, and then I had to sit there and do a whole reassessment phase, I sat there for a year, moving out of the education of being out of the education space, and wanting to work out what do I do now, I thought that I was only going to be a school teacher. And now I have no idea. I have no idea what I'm going to do if I don't do that. 

And so I ended up doing temporary work because I thought I don't want to commit to anything because I've just been through this burnout experience. And I can see that sometimes some employers are good, and some are not and, and I want to really be very sure that I'm going into a place where I'm going to be supported. And I probably couldn't have articulated it then. But I think that's what I was looking for. And so I did the temporary work and got this experience in a whole range of roles and a whole range of environments and got it got skills, develop skills in admin administration, got skills in a lot of my software applications, the Microsoft Office Suite, all that kind of stuff, learned how to be a transcriptionist. And it's like, and I kind of thought, Oh, this is different. I can't see myself doing this for a job. 10 years later, I was doing that for a job. It was really weird. 

But it was just like this, read over these random experiences, built skills, built experiences and clarified for me that actually, I don't want to be an admin. I've got all these admin skills, and I can do the job. And it was it was fine as far as being able to produce the result. But it didn't really it didn't do anything for me. 

It was like this is purely a money earner, it feels dead end to me, this is not what I really particularly want to be doing. So I went back to teaching to basically work out was the problem with me, or was the problem with the context and went back and did relief teaching, which is harder than regular classroom teaching in a lot of ways and found that actually I could do that. And that was like, Oh, okay. And then that relief teaching opened the opportunity for a contract which opened up the opportunity for another contract. And by the time I did by the time I got done with the first contract, I was sitting there going, I've got a little bit of money in the bank, and I have a fork in the road, I can stay, the school that I was at was really happy to have me, they were happy to keep putting me on contracts. I could have stayed I had parents that were wanting me to stay. I was enjoying the children that I was working with, I was enjoying the school environment. I wasn't particularly overly fussed with the classroom work, but it was like, I could sort of deal with that.

30:34

But it was like, well, I could say I could stay and develop my career in education. With or I have this opportunity. I'm at an age where I could go into a working holiday over in Europe, and see what comes with that. And so it's weighing up those two things. And it's funny, it seems like every time I get in a position where I've got choices to make, there is always something that comes up that tries to scare me in a particular direction. And I very rarely take that one, which is really, it's funny. It's like so I mean, I had the first contract i was i was filling out, I was replacing a teacher who had gone on leave, and, and had the option to come back the following year. And she didn't come back the following year. So I got another half year contract. And that she was debating whether or not she was going to return to retire. And, and I was sitting there going, I'm thinking about going overseas, I don't want to commit to a full year. If I if I if I go overseas, I want to go sooner rather than later. I don't want to go at the end of the year, I want to rather go in the middle of the year, there was a particular reason why I needed to go in the middle of the year and so I was sitting there going, I need an answer. By the end of February. 

No word had got out within the school community that I was considering finishing up in the middle of the year. And the parents are like, Oh, no, no, we don't want you to go and sit there going. 

Okay, I hear you. And I have got these plans. And I can't, I can't do both. And here is the timeframe, I've got to book flights by the end of February. If I haven't heard from the other teacher about what she's doing, then I'm leaving at the end of the semester. It's like because as far as I know, she's coming back in middle of the year, and I won't have a job. 

So I put that deadline for myself, which was interesting. I'm not sure that I looking back. I'm realizing that was quite significant that even did that. But February came and went and I heard nothing. And so I said I'm booking my flights, I'm going to be finishing at the end at the end of June. Two weeks later, the teacher resigned. So I still think I could I have waited two weeks. 

Probably if it was like no I this was it almost seemed like the path was set. And so that moved me into transitioning overseas, which opened up a whole bunch of other opportunities that didn't expect it. And it led to me actually getting out of the education field altogether. 

Working in schools, because I suddenly realized this is not where I want to be anymore. And there were some interesting things that led me to that conclusion that happened within myself. But also some of the experiences that I had working overseas in schools was just kind of like, this is really not where I want to be. And so again, I was saying that in this transition point, I was now living in the US. And I had to make some decisions about what I was going to do if I wasn't going to be in education. So I decided, well, temp work works last time. 

So let me try and do temp work again. And so I got shunted off to a hospitality organization, working in admin. So here it was, I'm pulling in all of these skills that I had learned probably 10 years earlier, not even, maybe not even 10. There's like five or so years earlier, which had still been useful in my education role. But now I'm focusing on those again and bringing them to the fore and promoting myself as being somebody who can do admin work because I didn't know if I could do anything else. 

So I got shunted off to this hospitality organization in the human resource department doing admin and doing transcription specifically because they specifically needed it for the for the role, which was like, Who knew that I was going to need that, but I had it. And so I did that for two years. 

And realize that after 18 months I needed to get out of it because it was driving me crazy. And so there was an opportunity in the department I was working forward to move into the secretarial still more admin, and I thought okay, this is different, moved into that role. And then I did that for a year and realized after the initial craziness to try to work out what all the routines were the whole job was routine based and I was bored as hell.

35:08

It was just kind of like, I really don't want to do this long term. So the enemy somewhere toward the end of that, that year of me doing the secretary role, there's an opportunity in another part of the organization to move into business training, and work with managers and so on. So it was just like, Oh, this will utilize my teaching background, I can do that.

 So I just like threw myself into that I had to work quite hard to go and demonstrate to the powers that be that I was actually a suitable candidate, which I found very interesting. And then we moved into that space of doing business training, which I did for two years, and quite enjoyed. 

And then the organization was going through its own transition that I felt like I didn't want to be a part of, and I had come back to Australia for a visit and realize that I'm ready to come back. And I didn't know what I was going to come back for. And then found the course that I ended up doing. And it was like, This is tailor made for me, I just could not believe the opportunity was there. I didn't even know that this was out there to go and do this postgraduate degree in counselling. And, and it was just kind of like I came back from that trip to find that my director had resigned, and was trying to entice me to go and take on this training manager role in her new location. 

It's like, oh, again, here is these choices. It's like, Do I go with where my heart is? Or do I go with where the carrot is being dangled by somebody else. And it's like, and I didn't choose the carrot, I chose the harder route, which involved in international relocation and involved having to re establish no work to come back to no house to come back to. And it was just kind of like, well, and actually returning to the college where I'd done my teaching degree to be able to do my postgraduate studies. And that had changed a lot in the time that I've been away. 

Since I’d graduated from my first for my undergraduate degrees, so having to adjust to all of those things, too. So it was like the first year was massive, like dealing with all of the things that I had to leave behind and even preparing to leave all of the detaching from relationships and people suddenly realizing you're not going to be there anymore. And we're your best friend. But you're not you haven't been my best friend up until now. 

And you're wanting me to be really buddy intimate with you. But we haven't worked on this prior to now. And this is not the time for us for this to happen, because I'm leaving. So and having to having to deal with all of those things was just amazing. Having to work with that. 

Then I think I was somewhat prepared for the move this time, because in the course of in the lead up to me, deciding that I was going to return to Australia, I had a friend of mine gave me a book called third culture kids. 

That totally identified for me, my situation, my story, I had grown up, like for those of you who don't know, a third culture kid is anyone who has spent some or all of their formative years. So from ages, from birth through to about the age of 18, maybe a little bit beyond, outside of the culture of their parents. So that was my story. I hadn't spent my whole childhood outside of my parents’ culture, but the complication is that I've got parents from two different cultures to begin with. 

And I'd lived in both cultures and in other cultures on top of that, so. So there was a whole bunch of stuff around identity for me about where do I fit? What's my cultural identity when I've actually lived in so many, and have heritage ties to multiple? And who am I, when I keep turning up in situations where people think that I belong, but I don't, or I turn up in situations where I shouldn't belong, but I feel like I'm really connected. And, and so the whole concept of the third culture kid put a whole bunch of things into place for me to understand why what my struggle had been in where he'd had come from and what to do with that. And that was really, really it was a it was a big turning point.

39:24

For me, it was a big turning point also for my family as well because of our own experiences as a family, working through the transitions that we'd been through our international relocations and how that impacted each of us uniquely. 

So, so that was it was actually really, really quite helpful in a lot of ways. on a lot of levels. So yeah, and that that actually gave me a little bit of an insight as to what I could expect when I made the international relocation to come back to Australia. Is that okay? There's going to be cultural shock. 

There's going to be some grieving stuff. And I wouldn't have said at the time that I knew that it was grieving, but I knew that there might be some difficult emotions that come through that and doing the calcium degree actually heightened my awareness of that. And apparently, I had to one of the requirements by courses that we had to do some of our own counselling, and that the grief stuff came up a lot in the counselling work that I did, and coming to terms with what I've left behind, and the regrets that I had, and the things that I wish had been different and, and all of all of that, and then also where I found myself in the current situation, and the, the process of re-establishing and forming connections and, and all of that process. 

And that was actually quite significant for me to actually look at that not just what was happening in the present, but how I dealt with it in the past. And what were useful ways of me dealing with that. And what were not useful ways for me for me to deal with that. So yeah, so that's kind of the counselling, the counselling seems to be a natural progression for me, I'd always had a sense of, I want to come alongside people, and really empathize a lot with the pain that people feel I'm really quite comfortable with that. A lot of people aren't. But for me that that's never really bothered me, when people are hurting, I'm actually okay to be around them. 

And I had, when I had first had my burner that's got me first started getting me to think that counselling might be something that would be useful, and something that I would be interested in doing. But I didn't know how I was going to get there at that stage. And it took quite a number of years before I found the pathway and had other experiences and so on. So I guess the gist of it is that I'm now in the space where the counselling is like, Yes, I can still do it. And I still enjoy it. And I've got to put limits around it for me. Because it drains me in ways that I didn't anticipate initially. And there are other skills that I don't get to use if I just focus primarily on counselling.

So the sweet spot seems to be morphing from being the counsellor for other people into doing some counselling work, but also supporting other therapists who are moving into private practice. And I've discovered that actually, my I've reflected on my own experience, and I have something to offer. That whole you talked about imposter, the imposter that that shows up as like all that shows up for me a lot because they're going my business is not a stellar example of somebody who is a raging success. It is not, it's not a failure. But it's not a raging success at this particular moment in time. And that's just what it is. I've had a journey that I've had to walk through to be able to get to where I am, I've had a lot of learning that I've had the luxury to be able to do, because of the circumstances that I mean, and time to reflect on that. And somehow, I've got a lot that I can share about how to do that, which I didn't expect. And that's been something that's been emerging. So that's very, very long story.