November 10, 2025 • 60 mins
Change is inevitable, but growth is a choice.
In this episode of Baskets of Knowledge, we sit down with Janelle Hulin, author, speaker, and proud “emoji enthusiast,” to unpack the beauty and chaos of change.
From raising six children while homeschooling across continents to losing a career she loved, Janelle shares how she discovered the power of the Liminal Space, that uncertain in-between where transformation begins.
You’ll learn how to:
💡 Let go without losing yourself
💡 Build resilience through uncertainty
💡 Bring lightness and laughter into serious change
💡 Find Confident Hope even when life feels messy
If you’re navigating transition, career, identity, purpose, or perspective, this episode will help you find humor, healing, and hope.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey everybody, it's Prajesh herein Tana here.
Welcome to our podcast, Passes of knowledge chats with a
difference. In our podcast, we invite guests
from around the country and around the world to talk about
how they got to where they at the moment.
It's about a journey, it's aboutan experience, it's about their
life. Get a coach, everybody.
(00:27):
Welcome to another episode of Baskets of Knowledge.
We had a break last week as lifegot crazy busy and this morning
or this afternoon, this evening,whenever you hear the podcast,
it's just me. Tana is away doing something
pretty cool. He's off to celebrate people's
success as they celebrate their final year of school.
He's the way to celebrate the that big moment in life when
(00:47):
there's big change happening in their worlds.
What I've been putting into my passive knowledge since I last
was online. I think the biggest thing that I
put into a lot and to my passiveknowledge was I, I went to a a
Pakistan New Zealand business thing yesterday.
And why, what was really beautiful about that was a lot
(01:07):
of times we see places like Pakistan in in a certain light
that the media portrays on us. But listening to these business
people from Pakistan speak aboutthe country with so much passion
and so much love and so much adoration.
You pause and go, actually, how much of the world is tainted?
I mean, we know this here, but we don't stop to think about
actually is the message that we're seeing is actually the
(01:29):
actual message that is out there.
It just got me thinking about and these people are so proud of
where they come from. It reminds me that, you know,
wherever you come from the world, we all have pride from
where we come from. We might not agree with what the
situation is, but the pride for where we come from, whether it
is a country or it's a village or a suburb, you know, there's
pride there. And sometimes you forget about
(01:49):
that because we let the world dictate the pride that we have
for our for our place. That was just a reminder for me
and a profile. This is how you think about
where you're actually from. And you know, don't don't hide
the pride because it is part of who you are.
But hey, let's change tech rightnow because it's not about me.
I could be only having a monologue for hour and hours and
hours and hours. As you know, we scour the
country and the world to find people that we think we
(02:11):
interesting. We think everyone is
interesting. Everyone's got a story to share.
And today I'm really excited, proud and really privileged to
introduce our guests. It is someone that you all have
spheres. And this is someone that came
into my sphere in my world a fewmonths ago when we did at a boot
camp and just by sharing the little banter of the currently
the fun person have been. As you all know, I enjoy the
(02:34):
world of LinkedIn. And this person is not just fun,
but they have a lot of gifts to them.
They have a lot of life experience.
And you know, every post they put onto LinkedIn, I either I'm
smiling because it's really funny or it's very thoughtful.
Kiss me thinking. So when you have someone that
can make you laugh and make you think at the same time, how
amazing is that? So I'm really proud and very
(02:55):
excited to welcome to Pastor Knowledge Janelle Cure Janelle.
Hello and thank you. I'm really looking forward to
the conversation. Beautiful Janelle for people who
know nothing about who Janelle is, Who is Janelle today on the
7th of November? Well if you look on my LinkedIn
today I'm the owner of free range chickens in my backyard.
(03:16):
I have 3 chickens. We have a love hate
relationship. Other than that I live on the
Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia which is about
two hours north of Sydney. Beautiful beaches, I live on a
couple of acres, hence the chickens, but I'm also a mother
of six kids that are now grown and one grandbaby of which we
(03:38):
are very proud. Oh wow, how how amazing you know
it's I always love starting a conversation for people who work
with you today and I love your first step one was 3 free range
chickens. So how?
How awesome is that? It's it's awesome until they get
into my seedlings and then it's we have conversations that make
no difference at all. But the eggs are amazing.
(04:00):
Yep, eggs, eggs, eggs, all the matter, right?
That's just really beautiful. But you know, this is who you
are today. If we, you know, rewind and go
back to Janelle 20 years ago anda passage Janelle 20 years ago,
maybe 25 years ago that Janelle,hey, in 25 years ago, you're
going to be doing exactly what you're doing right now or you've
said to me at that point in time.
(04:21):
Wow, 20 years ago I was a stay home mom.
I home schooled my children 620 years ago.
The baby was one and then I havestair steps up from that.
We were living in the US in Cincinnati, OH, which was a
(04:44):
completely different world. We were into aeroplanes and we
travelled a little bit, completely different
environment. We lived in a suburb, it was
wild, kids everywhere. We'd be home schooling with
toddlers sitting on the table. We're trying to do, you know,
high level math with the older ones.
(05:04):
So I wouldn't have actually thought that we would have been
back in Australia. I thought we were going to be in
the US forever. So 20 years ago it was a pretty
different time than it is now. Yeah, and I always like to ask
origin stories because, you know, each one of us thinks that
we're in a state in our life that, you know, at that point in
time, this is where we are. But you know, one of the big
things when we talk about today is change.
(05:26):
And you've had so much change, change between years now.
But I'm going to just deep dive a little bit.
Homeschooling. Was there a active decision to
do that or did life make you go?Actually, this is what we want
to do because six children, homeschooling.
I'm just trying to do that math there.
It was beautiful. They didn't happen at the same
time, you understand? Yes.
We'll have to go back. Let's go back.
(05:47):
Let's go back, let's go back. Let's go back.
Yeah, let's keep going back. Three years, we have my husband
and I newly married, great jobs.I'd gone back to uni the first
time, decided that we wanted to change.
And so we orchestrated this hugelife change for ourselves and we
moved from actually here where we had grown up and moved to
(06:10):
England. And in the middle of all that
packing and moving and visas andall that sort of stuff, I
discovered that I was pregnant. So that was a bit of a change
right there, unexpected, shocking.
The doctor told me, I think my face just went white, said sit
(06:31):
down. But we decided to go anyway.
And, and so in all of that, I had another child and we decided
that we didn't know where we were going to live.
So we decided that as our oldestchild got to five, that we would
home school and it would allow us to travel, to do other
things, you know, to be more flexible.
(06:51):
And, and it was a great decisionfor us, not always easy, but it
was a great decision. Yeah.
And I and I love asking that because you don't want people to
think about home schooling day. They think people do it because
they don't trust education system or, you know, whatever.
But increasingly, I'm finding people who are homeschooling for
that exact reason that you say actually gives us a lot of
(07:13):
freedom of the way we can live our lives.
Yeah, and that was true for us. So when I when we had our third
child, she was six weeks old, myhusband took a contract in
America. So he he left to go over there
and I packed up the house with asix week old baby and two
toddlers. Never doing that again.
Very bad idea. I mean, it worked, but it was
(07:34):
hard. And, and we continue home
schooling. We found a group there more
prevalent back then because we're talking nearly 30 years
ago, more prevalent there. We found a group of like minded
people who some who definitely didn't agree with the the
schooling system. There is definitely that, but I
kind of think of them as ICP years in a way, because we we
(07:57):
were free to go. You know, it's a windy day,
let's go fly a kite. There was that flexibility and I
liked it. I'm still in touch with some of
the people from over there, which is pretty cool all.
Right. I, I love that.
And you know, what I love about that is because, you know, you
start pulling your own sense of community and you know, you'd go
off the beaten track, which is alittle bit different but still
allows you to have an enriched experience to see young people.
(08:19):
Yeah, I think that for me is thekey of homeschooling.
It was the enrichment it, it allowed us to do a lot of stuff
that we wouldn't have done if ifwe'd had the structure of school
years and, you know, we would travel at odd times and we could
come back to Australia too to visit, you know, families.
For us it was a great decision. Yeah, yeah.
(08:40):
You know, and I think it's important to realize that
everyone's decision is their decision.
And you made the decision. And here you are today, you
know, living, living the fruits of whatever you those adventures
and. You know, and it can always
change your mind, right? You make a decision and this is
not working. Let's do something else.
What's shocking this is this is important to remember everyone.
You can't change your mind because what we, and generally I
(09:01):
think this is important and willcome through quite a bit in
today's conversation, I think ispeople get too married with
about the ideas and they they'reso fixed that they think they
can't change their mind. Yeah, that's a really good point
out. And I, I hear that a lot on the
whole homeschooling thing too. You know, I'm going to, I'm
going to homeschool my kindergartner and it's, it's not
(09:21):
a forever decision. It might just be for a year and
then you think it didn't work. You know, I've had friends
who've gone in and out of schooling and and different
types of school too. Yeah, certainly.
And again, that's such a schooling, right?
We use school as an example, butthis could be anything.
And you know, you could try whatever and you can go this
didn't work and it's OK. Yeah, business.
(09:43):
I tried a business and it didn'twork.
I haven't yet, but you know, I hear it.
I tried a business, it didn't work.
I'm a failure. No, you're not.
Let's just shift a little bit and try something else.
Yeah, totally, exactly. But it's a mindset thing.
And I think, you know, this is something that's really
important. The whole mindset of letting go
is OK. Yeah, and it's actually good for
us to let go on something that'snot great.
(10:06):
If it's not working, it's not working.
If you had a car that wasn't working, you would either get it
repaired or get a new car. Totally.
And you don't think you know If it's anything material, you
wouldn't think twice, but you'd replace it or you'd fix it.
Yeah, yeah. But when it comes to sales, when
it comes to us, you never do that, do we?
Sometimes, no, yeah. And and I want, I want to touch
(10:29):
on that because I think it's important that we talk about
this reviews the word change multiple times.
Now, change is something that you're really, you know, ever
since I've seen your post, ever since I've gotten to know you,
change is something that you really talk about.
And what got you into that spacethere?
And you know, why is it such a big part of your your messaging,
I guess? That's an excellent question
(10:53):
because we've had such a lot of change in our lives, you know,
planning to go overseas for adventure, no other reason, but
let's do an adventure. We're young, you know, And then
and then choosing to keep going with that change really set
something inside me that that change is good.
And then as my life has gone on,I had a job that I loved and was
(11:17):
shifted out of the job. And that change really sent me
spinning and it made me think about why.
And it's easy to talk about resilience, but I think there's
a, a deeper conversation about that because yes, we do need to
be resilient, but we also need to embrace change.
(11:37):
And that helps us be resilient. And so I was very surprised at
myself when losing that job. Like I was in a Whirlpool of
emotion and it was, it was really tough.
So that made me think, I need toput some stuff down here.
I've learned some stuff. Let's let's kind of arrow in on
it and think about it a little bit.
Yeah. And when you think about when
(11:59):
you think I'm going to take you back into the moment there when
the change happened, what surprised you the most about
that, that moment for you, because, you know, you're
surprised by the way you reacted.
Was it the loss of identity withthe job or the loss of a job,
you know, you know, what was the?
And I, and I'm asked this because people sometimes go,
yeah, but that's just normal. But some people it's not.
You know this is the whole big change process.
(12:22):
Yeah, I think it was. It was very, I want to say
messy, but that's not quite whatI mean.
I think I mean more intertwined.I loved the job.
If you know something that you love and you lose really is hard
to let go of. It's like you, you want to keep
your fingers in it because you loved it so much.
(12:43):
So losing that. And then I would say that some
of my identity was in the job about what I was doing to help
people and it was a not-for-profit.
And I really loved the role it was.
It felt like it was perfect for me.
People and process, process. People love them both the
process. And so being moved out of that
(13:05):
role really sent me into probably six months of crying.
Every morning I would sit beforethe kids woke up and not
howling, but just tears. Just, you know, I didn't know
what to do with myself. And then the messiness of that
was also I was the main money earner in our family.
(13:26):
There was no income. So it was quite a stressful
time, but it was that finance identity, some friendships too,
you know, and, and my thoughts about myself as a person who
could work, what do I do with that?
So it was, it was a multi layered thing.
And I think anything, any changehas multi layers.
(13:48):
It's never just a thing. It it affects different parts of
our lives. Yeah, and I and, and I love that
also because, you know, as you said, everything is
multilayered. Nothing is a singular dimension.
And as you mentioned, you know, versus identity, then the
finances, then your own soft worth.
And, and that's important because for anyone listening out
(14:09):
there, whenever anything happensin your life, it's not a single
brain of, of thinking. There's so much behind it.
And also when you think about other people going through
change. And I'll give you an example.
This morning I had a meeting with my team and we, I reframed
our meeting this this morning totalk about challenges.
So everyone comes to wins, wins of the week.
(14:29):
And I think, yeah, cool. We've all had wins.
They talk about challenges and everyone raised more than one
challenge, which is great. You know, this is which one
here. It wasn't just about work, it
was about the life challenge. And then one person is where I
got thinking. They said to me, oh, my
challenge is so tiny. It's not the same as blah, blah,
blah. You know, in the context and
(14:49):
this is my my challenge. That challenge was, we need to
remember that our challenge is our challenge.
You know, we, we can't really compare it.
You know, I can't compare Janelle's challenge.
It's my challenge. It is everyone's challenge is
valid. But then her response to me was,
yeah, but it doesn't seem the same.
And it's, it's interesting aboutthat mindset that, you know,
when you start comparing, because comparing is not always
(15:10):
about the good stuff. It's also about the bad stuff.
It's, you know, when people say it's not as bad as yeah, it
might not be as bad as, but it is still bad in your world.
It's. All about our context to change.
Some people have a high capacityfor coping with change and other
(15:32):
people look like they have a lowcapacity.
However, it might be because of the filter they're looking
through. So if you've had, if you've had
change after change after change, it's a bit like you
graze your knee and if you keep picking at it, it doesn't really
heal and it's a bit change can be a bit like that.
It can be a change and then another big change and another
(15:55):
big change. It's like we don't have time to
heal from one or recalibrate from 1 is a better way to put
it. And yeah, your change is not my
change. They might look the same on
paper, but we will have a, you know, filter that we look
through and we feel through. Yeah, and, and, and I love that
(16:16):
your change is nothing is my change because of the thoughts
that we come through, which is so beautiful.
And as you've started going on this journey of the change
revelation, the change message, what's what's come up for you as
something that's really common or something that's going to
think about change a little bit differently?
(16:37):
I've now orchestrated big changes for myself, so moving
countries I've worked in, not for profits, and then I've
worked in corporate. So which is a very, three very
different ways of managing change.
And I've learned a lot about implementing change for people.
(17:02):
And so when it's your own change, let's move overseas.
Yay, because you've done that too, right?
Let's move. It's big, but you feel in
control of it. So what I've really learned
about change is the ones we're not in control of, those changes
that we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of, whether it's a
diagnosis or redundancy, some kind of loss, it's those sudden
(17:26):
changes that can really tip us into what feels like a washing
machine of emotion. It's that if you think about the
washing machine. So those looking at change from
three different perspectives hasbeen very interesting, personal
then different, you know, work organisations and then even
(17:48):
observing other organisations dochange or other people do
change. It's really interesting.
You know, some people have a massive change and they tiptoe
through it and other people fallover.
They, you know, it takes years to to get back again and it's
(18:10):
really interesting to to watch and just to kind of pull all
those threads of ways of coping with change together.
I think that's, you know, that'sbeen really important to see
people, people. Yeah, people, yeah.
Because at at the heart of the doors, people, right at the
heart of any change. Yeah.
(18:32):
And we forget, especially corporates, sorry to any
corporate. And we often forget because the
decisions are made at a high level, say a restructure, the
decisions are made weeks and weeks and weeks out.
You know, the, the, you know, the leaders are, are looking at
what the new structure needs to be, how it works.
They're looking at all that. And so it's so firmly fixed in
(18:54):
their minds that sometimes the trickle down doesn't work well.
And that's when we get blindsided as the, as the team.
It's a it's an interesting thingto watch.
That is interesting. And, and you know, as you said
that the, you may think about when change happens, there's two
kinds of change, change for the sake of change or change because
(19:15):
you're reacting to something in the world that is that is
happening or you are making thatchange.
And I talk about change for the sake of change because, you
know, I speak, when I speak to young people, they're like, oh,
I want to change my job. And I was like, tell me, tell me
the reason to change my job, though I don't actually know,
but I just think I have to change my job.
So there's no reason to it. Like there's no reason.
But like, I think I've been herefor too long.
(19:36):
They have to change my job. And when you have a
conversation, actually they don't want to change their job.
They just think they have to change their job.
And then you have things that happen in your life.
As you mentioned, you had thingshappen in your life, which and
you, you react differently. But at the heart of that is
people, you know, people. And when process takes over
people, sometimes, you know, I loved how you said process in
people is what you love. But often in organizations,
(19:59):
process takes over people and orsometimes people take over
process in both ways. Does does, doesn't doesn't work
well? Is it?
That's that's true. And I think it flows between the
two sides. Process helps people, which is
great. Everybody knows what's going on,
but sometimes the people are really what's important in that,
(20:21):
in that moment. And when I look at teams of
people, all all of that team will be going through different
things in their life and might not be telling us.
And it's it's not their work performance, it's their home
life is a mess or their health or whatever.
But you know, people taking timeto see people I think is super
(20:44):
important in change when we're instigating it for them or when
we're just looking at the person.
And that's, and that's so powerful.
And sometimes you forget about that, right?
And I, it's really interesting when I go into coaching, it's,
it's just so different because in coaching you have to be
present 100% in you. And I think about that in my
(21:05):
working world and the other things I do.
And I think if I didn't give people space and time, I'm
cheating myself because I'm not getting, for example, today
talking to Janelle, I'm getting to hear Janelle's full story.
Conversely, if I just said OK, call Janelle's a person in my
sphere, don't just know about her.
When I leave this conversation today, I have a high
understanding, a bit understanding of you as a human,
(21:26):
but also I learned something from a different perspective
which I didn't ever think about.Yeah, perspective.
Yeah. Perspective is good.
Yeah. Especially with change I I write
myself a little note. I have a few sticky notes around
here and I and I wrote one. Just a thought was changing the
(21:47):
perspective. So recently I changed the
orientation of my desk. I changed the perspective of my
desk. So the view behind me is looking
out out the window. So before I could see out the
window, but behind me was just a, a wall, a corner.
So now I'm looking into the corner and you will get the
(22:09):
perspective that's, you know, mylovely plants and my, my
beautiful pictures. And I miss that perspective, but
it's a better perspective for you.
Yeah. So is it?
I just, I thought, oh, I must must look at that.
How we chat when there's change going on.
Our perspective matters. Yeah.
And and that's, that's so powerful, right?
Perspective matters in in any situation, actually, right.
(22:32):
So but but I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna think about this very
well, actually, what you just said that change happens every
single second. You know, we think, we think, we
think about change, big changes.But you know, every word that
comes out from my mouth, it changes the way you think about
what's going to be coming, not consciously, but subconsciously.
And you know, when I before I jumped on a call this call with
(22:53):
you or this podcast with you, I just reflected about between the
time I start speaking to you till the time we end, my
perception and idea is going to change dramatically, even though
nothing has changed dramaticallyin my outer worlds.
Just one conversation. And I think, you know, the more
we think about change happens all the time and we see that and
acknowledge that there just likeyour example of a disk that
(23:17):
happens and it changes so much for you.
Yeah, I that's our words are really powerful too.
Yeah. And how we talk to other people
about ourselves is really important because it settles in
here totally. Yeah.
It's, it's not just what we think.
It's what we say as well, which is what podcasts are powerful
(23:40):
because people can listen to them while they're, you know,
driving the car, doing the gardening it.
But it changes. It does change something inside
us it. Sure, sure does.
I'm going to slip this changes just a little bit because I want
to talk about, you know, we're going very deep and very
serious, but I want to talk about something that I really
love about what you do is in your LinkedIn post, you get a
lot of you get humour and I lovehow you have those fun facts,
fun Fact Fridays, and I mean just really random.
(24:03):
Is there something that you you have you humor is part of your
world or is it something to realize actually, hey, the world
is serious. I'm going to have some fun and
Chuck it in. I just, I just love to know why,
how people think when they thinkabout.
I'm just going to check in something randomly fun on.
AII really enjoy the LinkedIn world.
I I enjoy because it is quite corporate, but it gets very
(24:24):
worthy and I, and even when we look at depending on your, what
you follow on Instagram or Facebook, even just the news,
it's all very serious, very. And, and we're all trying to
sell something or sell ourselvesor get a following, you know,
whatever it is. So I, I think humour is such an
(24:47):
important thing to just say, Hey, it's fine.
You know, let's, let's put it something a bit of bit of humor
is sprinkle around and humor is quite hopeful and it calls out
what sometimes the silliness of the world.
Like my chicken post. I love the chickens, but
(25:07):
honestly, sometimes I want them in the pot because they do dig
my gardens. I root my carrots.
So a bit of humor connects people.
And what I've actually noticed on LinkedIn is when I do those
silly posts, it gets quite a high engagement because I think
a lot of us say, oh, thank goodness, something to laugh
about because the world can be very serious at the moment.
(25:30):
There's a lot of big things happening and a bit of a bit of
day-to-day. This is my life.
Humor is really good. It's very intentional.
Yeah, and I love it. I just want to acknowledge that
because I think when I see a post in the, I think somebody
will Friday just, it's just, I just smell.
It's just smell. It's really funny and I'm going
(25:51):
to acknowledge you for this yearbecause I love your love the
Friday cost. So recently on LinkedIn every
day. I don't know if you've seen this
this viral video. They that's obvious.
Someone's just laughing like they have a laugh song like and
I put them every day on my exactsame post on my LinkedIn on my
Instagram every day and just call it my daily life and it's
just infectious. You just people just reply back
(26:13):
going I'm just in the bed and I'm like, it's just for me as
well. It's very selfish because I'm
bringing up there because it makes me laugh.
But hey, shooting the laugh, butintentional because as you said
before, there's some you're either people either selling or
they're promoting or they're sharing some stuff that's like,
oh, but hey, but if a laugh is, why not, right?
What's the worst that can happen?
Nothing. Phone feels good.
(26:33):
I've seen one clip that it's a fellow on a bus and he's got his
headphones in and he's, you know, looking at something and
just starts laughing and and thereactions of the people.
Now I think it's AI think it's amaybe a setup, but it's pretty
funny because people can't hit the smiling because he is
laughing. They have no idea what he's
(26:55):
laughing at because I can't hearit or see it, but just that
infectious laughing. I mean.
And you know, I have quite a strong emoji game as well.
Project I was going, I was goingto bring that up.
I was OK. For those of you that don't know
anything about Janelle, there's one thing I want you to take
away. Hey emoji game is like next
level epic. It's a bit of fun.
It takes two or three seconds longer than putting a like,
(27:18):
yeah, thumbs up. But it's just there's a, there's
a depth of emojis out there thatreally help bring emotion.
Yeah, and emotionally, to know your hair, you're like,
actually, this is really, this is describing exactly how I
feel. No, I love it.
I love it. I love it.
And let's talk about your liminal space idea.
Let's talk where did that come from and what is it all about?
(27:39):
And well, let's just know nothing about that.
Let's explain where that comes from.
Sorry, I have hay fever, that's why I'm a bit sniffily and I was
running. I'm fine.
I'm not crying at Prajesh. Crying with laughter, right?
Crying with laughter or something that's.
Kind of with laughter, yeah. Liminal space is is a middle
(28:00):
space. So think about known past,
uncertain future, the two spaces.
And my deep thinking about liminal space really came out
when I lost that job. So I'd gone from about six
months of crying at night because I knew something wasn't
right with the job. You know that inside you can't
identify what's wrong but you know there's something wrong.
(28:22):
Then walking out the door from that job.
And then I cried every morning for about 6 months.
Again, not wild sobs, just sitting there thinking what on
earth is going on. And that feeling of the the
washing machine of emotion or, or thinking about it felt like
white water rafting. You're in a raft, you don't have
(28:43):
a paddle, there's no hand holds and emotionally is a mess.
You're travelling somewhere but you don't know where.
So that's the liminal space and it's a, a middle ground.
It's it's not a was and it's notan is, it's a present.
It's a good space though, if we lean into it so we can, we can
(29:06):
be liminal. So it comes from the Latin,
which means threshold. So don't think about stepping
through a doorway. You're stepping into a new
space. And so that's what the liminal
space is and whether you have intentionally stepped into a
liminal space. So some people do radically
disruptive things in their own lives.
(29:27):
They quit jobs, they move countries, you know, that's that
I'm deliberately stepping over athreshold and disrupting.
But most of us will experience disruptive change that is thrust
on us. It's that again, that diagnosis,
redundancy loss type thing. And you're in a space of I can
(29:48):
see the past clearly and it was comfortable.
I had a job or health or a home,whatever it is, I can see that,
but I'm no longer part of that. And the layering of liminality
is your head is in one space andyour heart, but you still have
to cook dinner. It's it's these multiple layers
(30:09):
at one time. If we, if we acknowledge that
it's liminal and that we actually don't know what
tomorrow looks like, it's actually really helpful for us
because it, it allows us to takechange, reframe it and think
about what is tomorrow. But it's quite, it's quite a
(30:30):
meaningful place. And yes, we can be resilient to
the change and like, I've got a change and I can get through it.
And sometimes just sitting in that liminal space is really
helpful to form what we're goingto be.
Yeah, that is so, so powerful. And it's powerful because we, we
(30:51):
don't do that. We always either here or here,
we're in the past or the presenteven, sorry, not the present,
the past of the future. This is where we always go, you
know, unless we, you know, we have the whole be mindful, be
present and all that fun stuff there.
But I love how you're framed as,as liminal because, you know, we
we think about mindfulness and even when we're mindfulness,
(31:12):
we're not, we're just there for like 10 seconds and we're not
actually thinking about where wereally are, what we were
actually doing. And I love how you how you spoke
about there's a heart hit disconnect from reality
sometimes. And yeah, it's very beautiful.
Yeah, it it can be really hard. Oh yes.
And particularly, I think in thein our Western culture, we say,
(31:36):
oh, just move on. The past was there.
It's gone. You know, just move on to the
next thing. I think we do ourselves a
disservice when we don't acknowledge the struggle and it,
and it can be a spiritual place too, of sort of like reformation
of who we think we are and who we could be.
(32:00):
It's it's, yeah. It's the, it's like it involves
all of us. And to move through a luminal
space takes intentionality. It's that one small choice, and
it doesn't have to be a big choice.
So it doesn't have to be a radical.
I'm going to start a new degree.It can be just today I will go
(32:22):
for a walk. It's it's that one, one step at
a time. Yeah, sort of thought.
And, and again, it's so crazy because yesterday at this event,
I was that we spoke, we were speaking about something very
similar in terms of people have a goal to get to and they have
awareness, but do they have, do they have the willingness?
(32:43):
And this is where, you know, awareness and willingness are
two very, very different things.So it's a bit, it's a bit like
what you're saying. Now I have the awareness of
getting into my my present moments, but am I willing to go
there because I'm afraid of whatI'm going to find That's.
Good. I like that.
Awareness and willingness. Yeah, because in in this the
(33:04):
space of change, liminal space, think about if you have you've
been made redundant from your job.
You loved your job, you've been made redundant and it's gone.
Do you find another job the sameor do you use it as an
opportunity to say, well, actually I've always really
(33:25):
wanted to, Yeah. And there's, there's room for
both. But yeah, awareness and
willingness. Yes, OK.
It's, it's really interesting you've said it because right now
I'm working with a client of mine who wants to find the same
job, exact same job that she wasmade redundant from.
(33:47):
And I asked her, what makes you want to go back to the exact
same job? Like, you know, And she couldn't
answer that question. She couldn't ask that question.
And then she came up with the, I'd say it was like when I said
to her, now that you've got thisspace and you, if you were going
to rewrite your job description,what would your job description
(34:10):
look like today? And this is the power of, as you
said, the luminous space where you give yourself time to
actually pause and go in this moment in time, who can I be
right now that's going to affectmy future based on the limits of
my past? The.
Familiar has a strong pull. It 100% does.
(34:32):
And and that's part of grief andloss, like, so if you if you
lose someone who's dear to you, you want to rewind the clock
back. Yeah.
And the same with with Jobs, youknow, that was familiar.
I knew what was happening back there.
And now I don't know who to be without it.
(34:54):
Yeah. The yeah, it's, it's the the
resetting. It's almost like you could say
it's deconstruction and reconstruction.
We're leaving something behind and building something up.
Yeah, which is uncomfortable. It is very comfortable, very
uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.
And you know, another thing thatI'd like to, to get just, it
(35:17):
just came to my mind as well is change is inevitable, but so is
grief. Grief is inevitable in our
lives. You know, whether, whether we
can live the most amazing life, but there's we're going to have
grief. You know, the grief could be the
loss of somebody or the grief could be your iPhone battery
died. Believe it.
It doesn't, it doesn't matter, right?
But every one of us, it's every single one of us.
(35:37):
I promise you, he's going to experience grief in our lives.
And grief is probably changed. And as you said before, it's
it's that identity of the familiar that you just attach to
the familiar. But now you're thrust in the
place that actually there's double whammy and change and
grief at the same time. What do I do with that there?
Yeah, even I, I don't even like to change handbags because the
(36:01):
old handbag was familiar and thezips the ride and the pockets
and the and and so it usually takes me a week to transition to
a new handbag because it's a it is, it's trivial, but it is, it
is a bit of loss. I like the familiarity of that.
And now I have to refigure a newone out.
(36:25):
I'm I'm smiling because you can buy some trouble, but it comes
out even you're getting a new phone, right?
So you are so comfortable with your phone.
I mean, you've got to change your phone.
Like I'm so not used to this newphone and and it does those
things. You know, we think about big
things in life when it comes to change, but your handbag, your
phone, you know, and those kind of things really makes a
(36:48):
difference. And it small changes happen to
us all day, every day. Think about an update on your
laptop. Where did that?
Where's the I, you know, Oh my goodness, something just changed
recently. And I thought, what what's going
on? So it's incremental and it might
only take a day or two, but it'sstill a layer of change.
(37:11):
Yeah, and that change and also because you're, it's so
unexpected, right? It's an unexpected change.
If you knew there was a, if you,if someone said to you, OK, hey,
Janelle, this you're going to have 600 updates in the next 6
months and each update is going to do this year.
Even though you were never goingto read those updates, you're
not going to read the document in your mind.
You're cool. At least I know about it, you
(37:31):
know, you know, and then if the change happens, you blame
yourself for not reading the update.
But because it just happens, yougo, oh, it sounds so crazy.
My husband's phone recently did an update without telling him
again without telling him it wasthe message app and so instead
of it scrolling this way that was showing limited messages and
(37:53):
it's taken him weeks. He hates this new thing so it's
really rocked his what it looks like.
It's also made him a little cross because I didn't ask him.
There you go. Just Yep, it's crazy.
So the power of control again, right.
The power of choice and control and I and I and what I'm loving
about today's conversation is, you know, each of those things,
(38:13):
everything is linked. Everything is linked.
If we, if, you know, if we step back and zoom back and think
about it and, and I'm pretty glad we're having this
conversation because I never think about these things.
I think about separate things. But hey, change choice, grief,
it it all, it all links togetherand, and come back to your
concept of liminal spaces. How many times, how much time do
we actually stop and go? Actually, this is uncomfortable,
(38:38):
but I've got to be uncomfortableto be comfortable in wherever
I'm comfortable where I'm going.Yeah, it's John C Maxwell says.
Change in an inevitable growth is a choice.
Yeah. And it's easier to go back,
definitely easy to go back. And sometimes going back is
(39:00):
fine. I mean, it's not a, it's not a
bad thing. It's it's just that that choice
but to be somebody else or something else, the the.
Stretch is painful, yeah. And but even even when you go
back, you're going back to a different person into a
different space. You know, if this, if things
have changed, it's it's like, it's like that I'm going to
(39:20):
butcher this cot. I'm really going to butcher this
cot. But when, when you cross a river
and you really cross it again, the river is different.
And so are you. Yeah, it's a code.
It's a, it's a, it's a ancient Greek.
But Tony puts. It sounds like an Angel.
It's true. I, I talked about in my book
that I've just launched. It's like being on a river with
(39:45):
a team. So when I, when I stepped out of
the job that I loved, it was like we were all on the same
river together. And we're all in our own little
canoes and we were, you know, down the river and there was
Rapids and we did it together and smooth places.
We did it together. Whirlpools.
We did it together and then it'slike one of the team feeling
(40:07):
exhausted and getting out onto the riverbank, but by the time
you look up everybody's already swept down the river and you
really can't rejoin that same place.
And I think that's some of the difficulty when you lose a job,
if your identity's in it, which mine obviously was, what's gone
is gone and you can't get back there.
(40:29):
There's no way to jump in again.Yeah, I love that analogy.
That's such a great analogy of white water, often beautiful.
I want a great segue from Liminal Space to your book.
How did we go from stay at home,Liminal Space employed, crying
about losing a job to being an author and writing about, you
(40:55):
know, and congratulations because that's what happened
recently. So congratulations.
Yeah, yeah, the the digital version hasn't come out yet, so
that's the next exciting thing. I've learned a lot about
publishing. It's been a whole journey.
I like words, so if you gave me the choice of words or numbers,
I'm definitely your words girl. Yeah, because I've always liked
(41:17):
writing. It's those connections that we
talked about, the things that connect together.
And and I met somebody who was apublisher and and said to me,
are you going to do it? And I thought, well, yes, I am.
And, and I did. So I've had a lot of the content
(41:37):
in the book in my head for a while.
And I, and I would like to, you know, put some thoughts down,
you know, in a Google Doc every now and again.
But talking to my friend who's apublisher, I was given a
framework of how to do it. So skeleton, how to do a book
skeleton. And I actually put all the words
(41:58):
of the book down between March and May this year.
I got up at 5:00 every morning and wrote.
I was still working full time atthat point on corporate role.
May was my deadline because winter comes and my house is
very cold and you can't type with cold fingers.
(42:20):
Your brain doesn't work properly.
Doesn't matter how you know how many layers.
You put on. So I gave myself a deadline and
and just put words down. No, it's not a very long book.
And that's very intentional because it's called verging on
normal. And it's about that change
moment, the one moment in time where you get the bad news of
(42:43):
some kind. In those moments, you don't need
a great huge textbook. To my mind, in my hardest times,
I've just needed something easy to read that's going to give me
hope to get through it. So that that's, that's how that
journey went. A confluence of people time the
(43:07):
right season, I guess you would say.
And that's so that's how that you know it's been coming for a
while. It's you don't suddenly write a
book, I don't think. I think you have it in your
head. Yeah, no.
And I love how you set yourself,you know, into the reality of
winter and you know, because we always say we, you know, we all
have ideas. We all have thousands and
(43:29):
thousands and millions of ideas.But until you actually, actually
there's just an idea. And I love the fact that, you
know, everyone's got a story, but you make you made the
intentional choice to write it. How did it feel having the book
in your hand? Oh, is it so exciting?
I actually I have one here. This is my book.
There we go. It's a it's a milestone and it's
(43:54):
a great milestone and I was keento start the next book.
Oh well, I started to do the skeleton and someone very wise
said to me, let this one settle first.
So you need to have your head inthis one to do have
conversations like this. Or if I'd already moved on, my
(44:14):
head would have been somewhere else.
You. Know it's a it's a pretty good
thing. And then to go to a launch, we
had a launch in Melbourne. There was three of us who wrote
our books to get not together, but we met every week for three
months to encourage one another to be that community that pulls
(44:35):
together. How's it going?
I'm going to give up. No, you're not.
Come on. Here's a couple of emojis.
It'll help, you know, like pull it together.
And it was wonderful to be therewith them and cheer them on as
this community, little communitythat we've built together.
Fantastic. So good, so good.
(44:56):
How did you how did you celebrate to now how?
What does your How does you not celebrate?
Oh, did I celebrate? Well, we had the Melbourne
launch, which was the public able publishing launch.
And then two weeks later I did one local to where I live,
pulled in all my friends to helpthe caterer and the venue and
(45:17):
the you know, that and pulled people in who just to say thank
you, you know, friends, family, people came from, you know, 4
hours drive to come and just hada great time with it.
Read a little bit of the book, did a little bit of a speech,
had a good time. So that was my idea of
celebrating was to to it was a bit of marketing, but bring
(45:41):
bring the friends together. I had work friends, other
friends, long time friends, friends who went well, who came,
You know, it was, that's my ideaof celebration is community.
Yeah, and, and I love that because, you know, it's an
intentional question because a lot of times we, we achieve a
goal and we don't take a moment to celebrate.
(46:01):
And you know, as you, as you just just before you like, OK,
next book. But, and we all do that.
Then we all just chase that next, whatever the next thing
is. But actually pausing and going,
it's a bit like it's, it's a bitlike when you run a half
marathon or a marathon, you know, before that you never
think that you want to run ever,ever again with all the
training. And then you get there and then
(46:21):
you immediately sign for the next one.
But you haven't had time to justsink and enjoy or actually
compensate what you've actually done because you just sign up in
such a high. I'm going to sign that up
straight away, but just pause and celebrate the that
achievement, whatever that achievement is.
In Melbourne at the physical book launch, Able Publishing do
a really interesting thing. They gave there was 15 authors
(46:45):
who were launching books and there was awards ceremony.
There was a lot going on. It was a busy weekend and they
gave each of the publishing authors, new authors, an
opportunity to stand on the stage for one minute.
We're allowed to speak, but you could do whatever you want and
(47:05):
to just stand. And for the audience, there's
probably 200 people there, the gala dinner.
So there was lots of sequins andsparkles and ruffles, but the
opportunity to stand there for one minute and be honoured.
Oh wow. It was very impacting, never
done anything like that before. I don't particularly enjoy being
the centre of attention, but to just stand there and know that
(47:29):
there was a room full of people who were saying we honour the
time that you've taken, we honour what you've achieved in
doing this was quite impactful. It's very, very cool.
It's actually, it's actually gotme thinking about, you know, how
whenever we acknowledge somebody, we expect them to give
(47:50):
us a speech. So that moment is actually
taking away because they've got to, they're in their heads, but
they're not taking that exact moment.
So how it's so powerful when youjust go?
I'm just honouring you for what you've achieved.
Yeah, it's not easy to stand to stand for a minute.
And some people only did 30 seconds, you know, and that was
(48:12):
enough. I took the full the full one
minute actually for a minute because I was trying to count it
down in my head. Yeah.
Very powerful moment. And isn't that that's liminal
space right there? So you're living in liminal like
that's four similar space essentially.
Actually that's, yeah, you're right.
A good, good pick up. Yeah.
Middle, middle space of it's, it's almost like being in
(48:35):
freefall. Yeah, you're just, you're just
there in the center. I'm glad you got that time
because, you know, doing anything hard is hard.
But it's awesome to get the acknowledgement.
And I said that because it is hard.
Things are hard, you know, and people be like, oh, you can do
hard things. Yeah, but they are still hard.
Doesn't make it any easier. It's still hard.
(48:58):
What's what's challenging. You know, I have, I have a
friend of mine always says, yeah, you can, you can do hard
things. I think you have it doesn't.
It's not hard. It's like, yeah, you can say
that as many times as you want. It doesn't mean it's not hard.
Still hard and and it's made onemoment at a time In our family,
(49:19):
we say, how do you eat an elephant?
And it's a common saying you eatan elephant one sandwich at a
time. You don't you don't eat the
elephant, you eat, you know, andI always say, can I have a
coffee as well? Because that will help.
It's that, it's that one moment of this is the moment that I'm
(49:40):
going to do the one thing to watch the hard thing.
That's right. That's so powerful.
That's so powerful. Yeah, I love that.
I love that tag there. And as we think about your book
and diminals space, I'm also going to ask you, your, your
little journey on being a speaker as well, because that's
also something you you've you'vedone or you do as well.
(50:05):
What does that journey be like for you as well?
Sometimes change comes because it's thrust on us.
We've talked about that. And sometimes you need to be
your own disruptor. In this case, I'm being my own
disruptor, and the book is part of that.
I wrote that while I was still employed the end of June this
(50:26):
year. I resigned to work on a speaking
career. Something I've wanted to do for
a very long time needed to be able to devote the time to it.
And again, it's it's challenging, it's learning, it's
putting yourself out there asking, can I come and talk for
(50:47):
you? Can I tell you about this And
that that's, that's challenging too.
I wouldn't say this for me is a liminal space, but I would say
that it's full of challenge and progress and one step at a time.
It's interesting. I've learned, I've learned a
lot, had some some small speaking opportunities looking
(51:11):
at where that goes. Yeah, it almost was a now or
never. If I don't do it now, when?
Yeah. And I'd rather I'd rather try.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And what's the worst that could happen?
It doesn't work out. And you have other options in
life which you can do other things as, as you said, Right,
right, right. The start, right.
(51:31):
You, you're allowed to have a season of a specific thing and
then go, cool, the season was amazing.
I'm going to level up or the season, not really my jam.
I'm going to choose a different different thing.
Do something else good to assessalong the way.
Before we started the podcast, Iwas thinking about it.
(51:52):
What does it, what does it look like in a year?
And then what does it look like in three years?
Book speaking, developing workshops around the book normal
is a bit of a fallacy because we're never actually normal.
We're we're in place for a whileand then something happens.
(52:18):
But normal feels good. And so when the changes come,
they disrupt us and, and how do we support, how do we support
our friends, our work teams, family in, in those changes?
Yeah, that's my, you know, my three-year goal.
It's not just to be on platform with a microphone, although I do
(52:40):
enjoy that, to be honest. It's more what can you give
away, you know? So how can you help your work
team? Yeah, that's right.
Raise the hope in this situation.
Yeah. And this, this ties back into
the stuff that you spoke about, you know, being for non profit
community, all these things thatyou speak about, which are high,
(53:01):
you're high value. So it comes across really, it's
not, not a, a surprise to me that this is really important
for you, that what is the value that I'm adding with whatever
I'm doing to the people that arelistening, reading or in my
workshops. Hope.
We all need hope. We all do hope and hope exactly,
(53:21):
and I would have laughter and laughing gives us hope, which is
fantastic. Would.
You. I think laughing is hopeful.
Yeah, sure is it. Gives us it gives us something
to hold on to when it can feel dark.
Life can feel messy and dark humour helps.
(53:42):
It sure it sure does. Sure does.
So we've been speaking for almost an hour.
I knew this would be a very pre playing conversation.
And you know, I can't believe it's an hour already.
And I'm just going to ask you one last question, which we do
with our, I'm sorry, before I ask the question, was there
anything else that you wanted toadd which I haven't covered,
which you think would be would be great for our listeners to,
(54:06):
to hear about? Any the other thing I'd say is
grab hold of hope. Not I hope it doesn't rain on my
picnic today. Hope.
That's how we use the word hope,yes.
But hope is that there will be better, that tomorrow will be
different, that the past was great.
(54:28):
I can learn from it. The future is coming.
That kind of hopefulness, I callit confident, hope.
Hope. That there.
Is a future. It feels often like we're stuck
in a messy and nothing will everchange.
It does, One day at a time. Confident home.
(54:49):
Yeah, because as we've learned today, that change is
inevitable, but that's part of life.
So if you can grasp on to comprehend help, that is really,
really beautiful. Do you know you've probably
stole my so you've probably given me the answer to my last
question, but I'm going to ask the question anyway because you
you'll have to think of something really quick as well.
Our podcast is called Baskets ofKnowledge and every episode we
(55:11):
invite our guests to share a piece of knowledge to put into
our baskets. You've shared a lot today, but
if there's any other piece of knowledge to put into our basket
apart from confident hope, or itcould be confident hope, is
there anything else that you'd, is there anything you'd like to
share with us? Definitely confident hope, but
(55:31):
the basket of knowledge is neverfull.
No it isn't. So my my piece of wisdom that I
would add to that is don't ever let it feel like it's full.
Keep learning, keep having interesting conversations, keep
learning, do courses, do interesting things.
(55:52):
I never want to be the person that as I'm getting older, pulls
back and stops learning, stops being the encourager, stops
experiencing new things. It's easy to settle.
We get at times in our lives, wethink goodness, but that basket
(56:12):
of knowledge, it's to feel for yourself, but also to give away.
So I, I love that concept of thebasket of knowledge.
Keep learning, keep being hopeful, keep giving it away.
I don't know I I love that you know what I love about that was
your basket of knowledge is never full.
That's such a great, great way to look at life because as you
(56:35):
said before, we, we settle sometimes easily, But if we go
actually this basket of this basket is not full, but also
this basket can be shared. It's a basket.
It's there to share with other people.
And when you don't share with other people, you think soft
percent of basket anymore. It's a prison.
Actually, it becomes a prison ofknowledge.
And so that's a that's such a great way to to round off the
(56:56):
podcast. Janelle, thank you for that
there. It's been, it's been a pleasure.
And I, I did do a little research on the podcast, you
know, the history of it and sucha great thing to do to encourage
people in the, in the change moment, you know, especially
young, young people are amazing.Yeah, they show up, but so are
(57:19):
people that are that are young at heart.
Yeah, Yeah. Do you know, bro, this is out
there if they want to connect with you or get a copy of your
book or if they just want to know more about who you are as
an amazing human being, how what's the best way for them to
do that there? Or if they want to see your
emoji game, how how do they do that there?
For emoji game, LinkedIn for sure.
(57:41):
That's my vibe. My LinkedIn is Janelle Hewlin.
I try and get on there a few times a week.
I I really love the connections that are coming through
LinkedIn. Definitely emoji game on that
one. My book will be out on Amazon in
a couple of weeks, still coming.And then they have the big, the
(58:01):
big burst date where everybody pushes it.
And I will be announcing that onLinkedIn is the best way.
I do have a website, janellefueland.com.
It's it's out there, it's live, but it's under construction.
All right. Yep, it's.
On the way. What we'll do is we'll share all
those links in the in the show not as well.
So if anybody who wants to connect, have that to, to wait
(58:22):
for your book to be launched or to maybe have a chat with you or
just to challenge you to some emoji, an emoji battle, it's
there for them to do that there.You know, thank you so much.
You know, it's, it's, as I said during the, the podcast that I,
I, I know you through connection, but I don't know
you, but as a, as a human and over the last, you know, over
(58:44):
over an hour or so, I've learnedso much about you as as a human
being, but also the value of thevalue and the lessons that you
bring into the world is really powerful.
And I can see why you want to beon stage talking about, you
know, whatever you're talking about, because the impact, as
you said, is about people. So thank you so much for your
time today. Even though we got the times, I
got the time zones totally wrong, but that's not my fault,
(59:06):
it's Google's fault. I'm going to blame Google
because that's what bad workmen do.
They blame their tools and that's what I'm going to do
today. Thank you, Janelle, for your
time. So listeners out there,
hopefully you enjoyed this episode and hopefully you found
something to take away. Hopefully you've, you've thought
about the liminal space that you're living in.
And if you're not living in, think about that there.
(59:27):
And hopefully as you've listen to the podcast and especially
towards the end, you've thought about your context of life and
how you can implement confident hope in whatever that context
looks like. And just remember, like, like
Janelle said, it's your life is your life.
Your hope is your hope, your confidence, your confidence and
your change is your change. And don't ever try and compete
(59:47):
there with anyone else because if you do that, they will start
changing for you directly because change is inevitable and
you want to control some of it. You get disrupted.
Until next time, keep smiling. Don't forget to have confident
hope. And most important all, don't
forget to put something into your bosses of knowledge the
next time. Calculated already.
Bye. Thanks, Janelle.
(01:00:12):
Thank you for listening to Bastards of Knowledge.
Yeah, we hope that you found something useful to put into
your Bastards of Knowledge. And as we said before, remember
to put something that'll into your Bastards of Knowledge every
week. And as always, feel free to
like, comment and share this podcast.
Thanks, everybody. Bye.
Hey everybody, it's Prajesh herein Tana here.
Welcome to our podcast, Passes of knowledge chats with a
difference. In our podcast, we invite guests
from around the country and around the world to talk about
how they got to where they at the moment.
It's about a journey, it's aboutan experience, it's about their
life. Get a coach, everybody.
(00:27):
Welcome to another episode of Baskets of Knowledge.
We had a break last week as lifegot crazy busy and this morning
or this afternoon, this evening,whenever you hear the podcast,
it's just me. Tana is away doing something
pretty cool. He's off to celebrate people's
success as they celebrate their final year of school.
He's the way to celebrate the that big moment in life when
(00:47):
there's big change happening in their worlds.
What I've been putting into my passive knowledge since I last
was online. I think the biggest thing that I
put into a lot and to my passiveknowledge was I, I went to a a
Pakistan New Zealand business thing yesterday.
And why, what was really beautiful about that was a lot
(01:07):
of times we see places like Pakistan in in a certain light
that the media portrays on us. But listening to these business
people from Pakistan speak aboutthe country with so much passion
and so much love and so much adoration.
You pause and go, actually, how much of the world is tainted?
I mean, we know this here, but we don't stop to think about
actually is the message that we're seeing is actually the
(01:29):
actual message that is out there.
It just got me thinking about and these people are so proud of
where they come from. It reminds me that, you know,
wherever you come from the world, we all have pride from
where we come from. We might not agree with what the
situation is, but the pride for where we come from, whether it
is a country or it's a village or a suburb, you know, there's
pride there. And sometimes you forget about
(01:49):
that because we let the world dictate the pride that we have
for our for our place. That was just a reminder for me
and a profile. This is how you think about
where you're actually from. And you know, don't don't hide
the pride because it is part of who you are.
But hey, let's change tech rightnow because it's not about me.
I could be only having a monologue for hour and hours and
hours and hours. As you know, we scour the
country and the world to find people that we think we
(02:11):
interesting. We think everyone is
interesting. Everyone's got a story to share.
And today I'm really excited, proud and really privileged to
introduce our guests. It is someone that you all have
spheres. And this is someone that came
into my sphere in my world a fewmonths ago when we did at a boot
camp and just by sharing the little banter of the currently
the fun person have been. As you all know, I enjoy the
(02:34):
world of LinkedIn. And this person is not just fun,
but they have a lot of gifts to them.
They have a lot of life experience.
And you know, every post they put onto LinkedIn, I either I'm
smiling because it's really funny or it's very thoughtful.
Kiss me thinking. So when you have someone that
can make you laugh and make you think at the same time, how
amazing is that? So I'm really proud and very
(02:55):
excited to welcome to Pastor Knowledge Janelle Cure Janelle.
Hello and thank you. I'm really looking forward to
the conversation. Beautiful Janelle for people who
know nothing about who Janelle is, Who is Janelle today on the
7th of November? Well if you look on my LinkedIn
today I'm the owner of free range chickens in my backyard.
(03:16):
I have 3 chickens. We have a love hate
relationship. Other than that I live on the
Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia which is about
two hours north of Sydney. Beautiful beaches, I live on a
couple of acres, hence the chickens, but I'm also a mother
of six kids that are now grown and one grandbaby of which we
(03:38):
are very proud. Oh wow, how how amazing you know
it's I always love starting a conversation for people who work
with you today and I love your first step one was 3 free range
chickens. So how?
How awesome is that? It's it's awesome until they get
into my seedlings and then it's we have conversations that make
no difference at all. But the eggs are amazing.
(04:00):
Yep, eggs, eggs, eggs, all the matter, right?
That's just really beautiful. But you know, this is who you
are today. If we, you know, rewind and go
back to Janelle 20 years ago anda passage Janelle 20 years ago,
maybe 25 years ago that Janelle,hey, in 25 years ago, you're
going to be doing exactly what you're doing right now or you've
said to me at that point in time.
(04:21):
Wow, 20 years ago I was a stay home mom.
I home schooled my children 620 years ago.
The baby was one and then I havestair steps up from that.
We were living in the US in Cincinnati, OH, which was a
(04:44):
completely different world. We were into aeroplanes and we
travelled a little bit, completely different
environment. We lived in a suburb, it was
wild, kids everywhere. We'd be home schooling with
toddlers sitting on the table. We're trying to do, you know,
high level math with the older ones.
(05:04):
So I wouldn't have actually thought that we would have been
back in Australia. I thought we were going to be in
the US forever. So 20 years ago it was a pretty
different time than it is now. Yeah, and I always like to ask
origin stories because, you know, each one of us thinks that
we're in a state in our life that, you know, at that point in
time, this is where we are. But you know, one of the big
things when we talk about today is change.
(05:26):
And you've had so much change, change between years now.
But I'm going to just deep dive a little bit.
Homeschooling. Was there a active decision to
do that or did life make you go?Actually, this is what we want
to do because six children, homeschooling.
I'm just trying to do that math there.
It was beautiful. They didn't happen at the same
time, you understand? Yes.
We'll have to go back. Let's go back.
(05:47):
Let's go back, let's go back. Let's go back.
Yeah, let's keep going back. Three years, we have my husband
and I newly married, great jobs.I'd gone back to uni the first
time, decided that we wanted to change.
And so we orchestrated this hugelife change for ourselves and we
moved from actually here where we had grown up and moved to
(06:10):
England. And in the middle of all that
packing and moving and visas andall that sort of stuff, I
discovered that I was pregnant. So that was a bit of a change
right there, unexpected, shocking.
The doctor told me, I think my face just went white, said sit
(06:31):
down. But we decided to go anyway.
And, and so in all of that, I had another child and we decided
that we didn't know where we were going to live.
So we decided that as our oldestchild got to five, that we would
home school and it would allow us to travel, to do other
things, you know, to be more flexible.
(06:51):
And, and it was a great decisionfor us, not always easy, but it
was a great decision. Yeah.
And I and I love asking that because you don't want people to
think about home schooling day. They think people do it because
they don't trust education system or, you know, whatever.
But increasingly, I'm finding people who are homeschooling for
that exact reason that you say actually gives us a lot of
(07:13):
freedom of the way we can live our lives.
Yeah, and that was true for us. So when I when we had our third
child, she was six weeks old, myhusband took a contract in
America. So he he left to go over there
and I packed up the house with asix week old baby and two
toddlers. Never doing that again.
Very bad idea. I mean, it worked, but it was
(07:34):
hard. And, and we continue home
schooling. We found a group there more
prevalent back then because we're talking nearly 30 years
ago, more prevalent there. We found a group of like minded
people who some who definitely didn't agree with the the
schooling system. There is definitely that, but I
kind of think of them as ICP years in a way, because we we
(07:57):
were free to go. You know, it's a windy day,
let's go fly a kite. There was that flexibility and I
liked it. I'm still in touch with some of
the people from over there, which is pretty cool all.
Right. I, I love that.
And you know, what I love about that is because, you know, you
start pulling your own sense of community and you know, you'd go
off the beaten track, which is alittle bit different but still
allows you to have an enriched experience to see young people.
(08:19):
Yeah, I think that for me is thekey of homeschooling.
It was the enrichment it, it allowed us to do a lot of stuff
that we wouldn't have done if ifwe'd had the structure of school
years and, you know, we would travel at odd times and we could
come back to Australia too to visit, you know, families.
For us it was a great decision. Yeah, yeah.
(08:40):
You know, and I think it's important to realize that
everyone's decision is their decision.
And you made the decision. And here you are today, you
know, living, living the fruits of whatever you those adventures
and. You know, and it can always
change your mind, right? You make a decision and this is
not working. Let's do something else.
What's shocking this is this is important to remember everyone.
You can't change your mind because what we, and generally I
(09:01):
think this is important and willcome through quite a bit in
today's conversation, I think ispeople get too married with
about the ideas and they they'reso fixed that they think they
can't change their mind. Yeah, that's a really good point
out. And I, I hear that a lot on the
whole homeschooling thing too. You know, I'm going to, I'm
going to homeschool my kindergartner and it's, it's not
(09:21):
a forever decision. It might just be for a year and
then you think it didn't work. You know, I've had friends
who've gone in and out of schooling and and different
types of school too. Yeah, certainly.
And again, that's such a schooling, right?
We use school as an example, butthis could be anything.
And you know, you could try whatever and you can go this
didn't work and it's OK. Yeah, business.
(09:43):
I tried a business and it didn'twork.
I haven't yet, but you know, I hear it.
I tried a business, it didn't work.
I'm a failure. No, you're not.
Let's just shift a little bit and try something else.
Yeah, totally, exactly. But it's a mindset thing.
And I think, you know, this is something that's really
important. The whole mindset of letting go
is OK. Yeah, and it's actually good for
us to let go on something that'snot great.
(10:06):
If it's not working, it's not working.
If you had a car that wasn't working, you would either get it
repaired or get a new car. Totally.
And you don't think you know If it's anything material, you
wouldn't think twice, but you'd replace it or you'd fix it.
Yeah, yeah. But when it comes to sales, when
it comes to us, you never do that, do we?
Sometimes, no, yeah. And and I want, I want to touch
(10:29):
on that because I think it's important that we talk about
this reviews the word change multiple times.
Now, change is something that you're really, you know, ever
since I've seen your post, ever since I've gotten to know you,
change is something that you really talk about.
And what got you into that spacethere?
And you know, why is it such a big part of your your messaging,
I guess? That's an excellent question
(10:53):
because we've had such a lot of change in our lives, you know,
planning to go overseas for adventure, no other reason, but
let's do an adventure. We're young, you know, And then
and then choosing to keep going with that change really set
something inside me that that change is good.
And then as my life has gone on,I had a job that I loved and was
(11:17):
shifted out of the job. And that change really sent me
spinning and it made me think about why.
And it's easy to talk about resilience, but I think there's
a, a deeper conversation about that because yes, we do need to
be resilient, but we also need to embrace change.
(11:37):
And that helps us be resilient. And so I was very surprised at
myself when losing that job. Like I was in a Whirlpool of
emotion and it was, it was really tough.
So that made me think, I need toput some stuff down here.
I've learned some stuff. Let's let's kind of arrow in on
it and think about it a little bit.
Yeah. And when you think about when
(11:59):
you think I'm going to take you back into the moment there when
the change happened, what surprised you the most about
that, that moment for you, because, you know, you're
surprised by the way you reacted.
Was it the loss of identity withthe job or the loss of a job,
you know, you know, what was the?
And I, and I'm asked this because people sometimes go,
yeah, but that's just normal. But some people it's not.
You know this is the whole big change process.
(12:22):
Yeah, I think it was. It was very, I want to say
messy, but that's not quite whatI mean.
I think I mean more intertwined.I loved the job.
If you know something that you love and you lose really is hard
to let go of. It's like you, you want to keep
your fingers in it because you loved it so much.
(12:43):
So losing that. And then I would say that some
of my identity was in the job about what I was doing to help
people and it was a not-for-profit.
And I really loved the role it was.
It felt like it was perfect for me.
People and process, process. People love them both the
process. And so being moved out of that
(13:05):
role really sent me into probably six months of crying.
Every morning I would sit beforethe kids woke up and not
howling, but just tears. Just, you know, I didn't know
what to do with myself. And then the messiness of that
was also I was the main money earner in our family.
(13:26):
There was no income. So it was quite a stressful
time, but it was that finance identity, some friendships too,
you know, and, and my thoughts about myself as a person who
could work, what do I do with that?
So it was, it was a multi layered thing.
And I think anything, any changehas multi layers.
(13:48):
It's never just a thing. It it affects different parts of
our lives. Yeah, and I and, and I love that
also because, you know, as you said, everything is
multilayered. Nothing is a singular dimension.
And as you mentioned, you know, versus identity, then the
finances, then your own soft worth.
And, and that's important because for anyone listening out
(14:09):
there, whenever anything happensin your life, it's not a single
brain of, of thinking. There's so much behind it.
And also when you think about other people going through
change. And I'll give you an example.
This morning I had a meeting with my team and we, I reframed
our meeting this this morning totalk about challenges.
So everyone comes to wins, wins of the week.
(14:29):
And I think, yeah, cool. We've all had wins.
They talk about challenges and everyone raised more than one
challenge, which is great. You know, this is which one
here. It wasn't just about work, it
was about the life challenge. And then one person is where I
got thinking. They said to me, oh, my
challenge is so tiny. It's not the same as blah, blah,
blah. You know, in the context and
(14:49):
this is my my challenge. That challenge was, we need to
remember that our challenge is our challenge.
You know, we, we can't really compare it.
You know, I can't compare Janelle's challenge.
It's my challenge. It is everyone's challenge is
valid. But then her response to me was,
yeah, but it doesn't seem the same.
And it's, it's interesting aboutthat mindset that, you know,
when you start comparing, because comparing is not always
(15:10):
about the good stuff. It's also about the bad stuff.
It's, you know, when people say it's not as bad as yeah, it
might not be as bad as, but it is still bad in your world.
It's. All about our context to change.
Some people have a high capacityfor coping with change and other
(15:32):
people look like they have a lowcapacity.
However, it might be because of the filter they're looking
through. So if you've had, if you've had
change after change after change, it's a bit like you
graze your knee and if you keep picking at it, it doesn't really
heal and it's a bit change can be a bit like that.
It can be a change and then another big change and another
(15:55):
big change. It's like we don't have time to
heal from one or recalibrate from 1 is a better way to put
it. And yeah, your change is not my
change. They might look the same on
paper, but we will have a, you know, filter that we look
through and we feel through. Yeah, and, and, and I love that
(16:16):
your change is nothing is my change because of the thoughts
that we come through, which is so beautiful.
And as you've started going on this journey of the change
revelation, the change message, what's what's come up for you as
something that's really common or something that's going to
think about change a little bit differently?
(16:37):
I've now orchestrated big changes for myself, so moving
countries I've worked in, not for profits, and then I've
worked in corporate. So which is a very, three very
different ways of managing change.
And I've learned a lot about implementing change for people.
(17:02):
And so when it's your own change, let's move overseas.
Yay, because you've done that too, right?
Let's move. It's big, but you feel in
control of it. So what I've really learned
about change is the ones we're not in control of, those changes
that we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of, whether it's a
diagnosis or redundancy, some kind of loss, it's those sudden
(17:26):
changes that can really tip us into what feels like a washing
machine of emotion. It's that if you think about the
washing machine. So those looking at change from
three different perspectives hasbeen very interesting, personal
then different, you know, work organisations and then even
(17:48):
observing other organisations dochange or other people do
change. It's really interesting.
You know, some people have a massive change and they tiptoe
through it and other people fallover.
They, you know, it takes years to to get back again and it's
(18:10):
really interesting to to watch and just to kind of pull all
those threads of ways of coping with change together.
I think that's, you know, that'sbeen really important to see
people, people. Yeah, people, yeah.
Because at at the heart of the doors, people, right at the
heart of any change. Yeah.
(18:32):
And we forget, especially corporates, sorry to any
corporate. And we often forget because the
decisions are made at a high level, say a restructure, the
decisions are made weeks and weeks and weeks out.
You know, the, the, you know, the leaders are, are looking at
what the new structure needs to be, how it works.
They're looking at all that. And so it's so firmly fixed in
(18:54):
their minds that sometimes the trickle down doesn't work well.
And that's when we get blindsided as the, as the team.
It's a it's an interesting thingto watch.
That is interesting. And, and you know, as you said
that the, you may think about when change happens, there's two
kinds of change, change for the sake of change or change because
(19:15):
you're reacting to something in the world that is that is
happening or you are making thatchange.
And I talk about change for the sake of change because, you
know, I speak, when I speak to young people, they're like, oh,
I want to change my job. And I was like, tell me, tell me
the reason to change my job, though I don't actually know,
but I just think I have to change my job.
So there's no reason to it. Like there's no reason.
But like, I think I've been herefor too long.
(19:36):
They have to change my job. And when you have a
conversation, actually they don't want to change their job.
They just think they have to change their job.
And then you have things that happen in your life.
As you mentioned, you had thingshappen in your life, which and
you, you react differently. But at the heart of that is
people, you know, people. And when process takes over
people, sometimes, you know, I loved how you said process in
people is what you love. But often in organizations,
(19:59):
process takes over people and orsometimes people take over
process in both ways. Does does, doesn't doesn't work
well? Is it?
That's that's true. And I think it flows between the
two sides. Process helps people, which is
great. Everybody knows what's going on,
but sometimes the people are really what's important in that,
(20:21):
in that moment. And when I look at teams of
people, all all of that team will be going through different
things in their life and might not be telling us.
And it's it's not their work performance, it's their home
life is a mess or their health or whatever.
But you know, people taking timeto see people I think is super
(20:44):
important in change when we're instigating it for them or when
we're just looking at the person.
And that's, and that's so powerful.
And sometimes you forget about that, right?
And I, it's really interesting when I go into coaching, it's,
it's just so different because in coaching you have to be
present 100% in you. And I think about that in my
(21:05):
working world and the other things I do.
And I think if I didn't give people space and time, I'm
cheating myself because I'm not getting, for example, today
talking to Janelle, I'm getting to hear Janelle's full story.
Conversely, if I just said OK, call Janelle's a person in my
sphere, don't just know about her.
When I leave this conversation today, I have a high
understanding, a bit understanding of you as a human,
(21:26):
but also I learned something from a different perspective
which I didn't ever think about.Yeah, perspective.
Yeah. Perspective is good.
Yeah. Especially with change I I write
myself a little note. I have a few sticky notes around
here and I and I wrote one. Just a thought was changing the
(21:47):
perspective. So recently I changed the
orientation of my desk. I changed the perspective of my
desk. So the view behind me is looking
out out the window. So before I could see out the
window, but behind me was just a, a wall, a corner.
So now I'm looking into the corner and you will get the
(22:09):
perspective that's, you know, mylovely plants and my, my
beautiful pictures. And I miss that perspective, but
it's a better perspective for you.
Yeah. So is it?
I just, I thought, oh, I must must look at that.
How we chat when there's change going on.
Our perspective matters. Yeah.
And and that's, that's so powerful, right?
Perspective matters in in any situation, actually, right.
(22:32):
So but but I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna think about this very
well, actually, what you just said that change happens every
single second. You know, we think, we think, we
think about change, big changes.But you know, every word that
comes out from my mouth, it changes the way you think about
what's going to be coming, not consciously, but subconsciously.
And you know, when I before I jumped on a call this call with
(22:53):
you or this podcast with you, I just reflected about between the
time I start speaking to you till the time we end, my
perception and idea is going to change dramatically, even though
nothing has changed dramaticallyin my outer worlds.
Just one conversation. And I think, you know, the more
we think about change happens all the time and we see that and
acknowledge that there just likeyour example of a disk that
(23:17):
happens and it changes so much for you.
Yeah, I that's our words are really powerful too.
Yeah. And how we talk to other people
about ourselves is really important because it settles in
here totally. Yeah.
It's, it's not just what we think.
It's what we say as well, which is what podcasts are powerful
(23:40):
because people can listen to them while they're, you know,
driving the car, doing the gardening it.
But it changes. It does change something inside
us it. Sure, sure does.
I'm going to slip this changes just a little bit because I want
to talk about, you know, we're going very deep and very
serious, but I want to talk about something that I really
love about what you do is in your LinkedIn post, you get a
lot of you get humour and I lovehow you have those fun facts,
fun Fact Fridays, and I mean just really random.
(24:03):
Is there something that you you have you humor is part of your
world or is it something to realize actually, hey, the world
is serious. I'm going to have some fun and
Chuck it in. I just, I just love to know why,
how people think when they thinkabout.
I'm just going to check in something randomly fun on.
AII really enjoy the LinkedIn world.
I I enjoy because it is quite corporate, but it gets very
(24:24):
worthy and I, and even when we look at depending on your, what
you follow on Instagram or Facebook, even just the news,
it's all very serious, very. And, and we're all trying to
sell something or sell ourselvesor get a following, you know,
whatever it is. So I, I think humour is such an
(24:47):
important thing to just say, Hey, it's fine.
You know, let's, let's put it something a bit of bit of humor
is sprinkle around and humor is quite hopeful and it calls out
what sometimes the silliness of the world.
Like my chicken post. I love the chickens, but
(25:07):
honestly, sometimes I want them in the pot because they do dig
my gardens. I root my carrots.
So a bit of humor connects people.
And what I've actually noticed on LinkedIn is when I do those
silly posts, it gets quite a high engagement because I think
a lot of us say, oh, thank goodness, something to laugh
about because the world can be very serious at the moment.
(25:30):
There's a lot of big things happening and a bit of a bit of
day-to-day. This is my life.
Humor is really good. It's very intentional.
Yeah, and I love it. I just want to acknowledge that
because I think when I see a post in the, I think somebody
will Friday just, it's just, I just smell.
It's just smell. It's really funny and I'm going
(25:51):
to acknowledge you for this yearbecause I love your love the
Friday cost. So recently on LinkedIn every
day. I don't know if you've seen this
this viral video. They that's obvious.
Someone's just laughing like they have a laugh song like and
I put them every day on my exactsame post on my LinkedIn on my
Instagram every day and just call it my daily life and it's
just infectious. You just people just reply back
(26:13):
going I'm just in the bed and I'm like, it's just for me as
well. It's very selfish because I'm
bringing up there because it makes me laugh.
But hey, shooting the laugh, butintentional because as you said
before, there's some you're either people either selling or
they're promoting or they're sharing some stuff that's like,
oh, but hey, but if a laugh is, why not, right?
What's the worst that can happen?
Nothing. Phone feels good.
(26:33):
I've seen one clip that it's a fellow on a bus and he's got his
headphones in and he's, you know, looking at something and
just starts laughing and and thereactions of the people.
Now I think it's AI think it's amaybe a setup, but it's pretty
funny because people can't hit the smiling because he is
laughing. They have no idea what he's
(26:55):
laughing at because I can't hearit or see it, but just that
infectious laughing. I mean.
And you know, I have quite a strong emoji game as well.
Project I was going, I was goingto bring that up.
I was OK. For those of you that don't know
anything about Janelle, there's one thing I want you to take
away. Hey emoji game is like next
level epic. It's a bit of fun.
It takes two or three seconds longer than putting a like,
(27:18):
yeah, thumbs up. But it's just there's a, there's
a depth of emojis out there thatreally help bring emotion.
Yeah, and emotionally, to know your hair, you're like,
actually, this is really, this is describing exactly how I
feel. No, I love it.
I love it. I love it.
And let's talk about your liminal space idea.
Let's talk where did that come from and what is it all about?
(27:39):
And well, let's just know nothing about that.
Let's explain where that comes from.
Sorry, I have hay fever, that's why I'm a bit sniffily and I was
running. I'm fine.
I'm not crying at Prajesh. Crying with laughter, right?
Crying with laughter or something that's.
Kind of with laughter, yeah. Liminal space is is a middle
(28:00):
space. So think about known past,
uncertain future, the two spaces.
And my deep thinking about liminal space really came out
when I lost that job. So I'd gone from about six
months of crying at night because I knew something wasn't
right with the job. You know that inside you can't
identify what's wrong but you know there's something wrong.
(28:22):
Then walking out the door from that job.
And then I cried every morning for about 6 months.
Again, not wild sobs, just sitting there thinking what on
earth is going on. And that feeling of the the
washing machine of emotion or, or thinking about it felt like
white water rafting. You're in a raft, you don't have
(28:43):
a paddle, there's no hand holds and emotionally is a mess.
You're travelling somewhere but you don't know where.
So that's the liminal space and it's a, a middle ground.
It's it's not a was and it's notan is, it's a present.
It's a good space though, if we lean into it so we can, we can
(29:06):
be liminal. So it comes from the Latin,
which means threshold. So don't think about stepping
through a doorway. You're stepping into a new
space. And so that's what the liminal
space is and whether you have intentionally stepped into a
liminal space. So some people do radically
disruptive things in their own lives.
(29:27):
They quit jobs, they move countries, you know, that's that
I'm deliberately stepping over athreshold and disrupting.
But most of us will experience disruptive change that is thrust
on us. It's that again, that diagnosis,
redundancy loss type thing. And you're in a space of I can
(29:48):
see the past clearly and it was comfortable.
I had a job or health or a home,whatever it is, I can see that,
but I'm no longer part of that. And the layering of liminality
is your head is in one space andyour heart, but you still have
to cook dinner. It's it's these multiple layers
(30:09):
at one time. If we, if we acknowledge that
it's liminal and that we actually don't know what
tomorrow looks like, it's actually really helpful for us
because it, it allows us to takechange, reframe it and think
about what is tomorrow. But it's quite, it's quite a
(30:30):
meaningful place. And yes, we can be resilient to
the change and like, I've got a change and I can get through it.
And sometimes just sitting in that liminal space is really
helpful to form what we're goingto be.
Yeah, that is so, so powerful. And it's powerful because we, we
(30:51):
don't do that. We always either here or here,
we're in the past or the presenteven, sorry, not the present,
the past of the future. This is where we always go, you
know, unless we, you know, we have the whole be mindful, be
present and all that fun stuff there.
But I love how you're framed as,as liminal because, you know, we
we think about mindfulness and even when we're mindfulness,
(31:12):
we're not, we're just there for like 10 seconds and we're not
actually thinking about where wereally are, what we were
actually doing. And I love how you how you spoke
about there's a heart hit disconnect from reality
sometimes. And yeah, it's very beautiful.
Yeah, it it can be really hard. Oh yes.
And particularly, I think in thein our Western culture, we say,
(31:36):
oh, just move on. The past was there.
It's gone. You know, just move on to the
next thing. I think we do ourselves a
disservice when we don't acknowledge the struggle and it,
and it can be a spiritual place too, of sort of like reformation
of who we think we are and who we could be.
(32:00):
It's it's, yeah. It's the, it's like it involves
all of us. And to move through a luminal
space takes intentionality. It's that one small choice, and
it doesn't have to be a big choice.
So it doesn't have to be a radical.
I'm going to start a new degree.It can be just today I will go
(32:22):
for a walk. It's it's that one, one step at
a time. Yeah, sort of thought.
And, and again, it's so crazy because yesterday at this event,
I was that we spoke, we were speaking about something very
similar in terms of people have a goal to get to and they have
awareness, but do they have, do they have the willingness?
(32:43):
And this is where, you know, awareness and willingness are
two very, very different things.So it's a bit, it's a bit like
what you're saying. Now I have the awareness of
getting into my my present moments, but am I willing to go
there because I'm afraid of whatI'm going to find That's.
Good. I like that.
Awareness and willingness. Yeah, because in in this the
(33:04):
space of change, liminal space, think about if you have you've
been made redundant from your job.
You loved your job, you've been made redundant and it's gone.
Do you find another job the sameor do you use it as an
opportunity to say, well, actually I've always really
(33:25):
wanted to, Yeah. And there's, there's room for
both. But yeah, awareness and
willingness. Yes, OK.
It's, it's really interesting you've said it because right now
I'm working with a client of mine who wants to find the same
job, exact same job that she wasmade redundant from.
(33:47):
And I asked her, what makes you want to go back to the exact
same job? Like, you know, And she couldn't
answer that question. She couldn't ask that question.
And then she came up with the, I'd say it was like when I said
to her, now that you've got thisspace and you, if you were going
to rewrite your job description,what would your job description
(34:10):
look like today? And this is the power of, as you
said, the luminous space where you give yourself time to
actually pause and go in this moment in time, who can I be
right now that's going to affectmy future based on the limits of
my past? The.
Familiar has a strong pull. It 100% does.
(34:32):
And and that's part of grief andloss, like, so if you if you
lose someone who's dear to you, you want to rewind the clock
back. Yeah.
And the same with with Jobs, youknow, that was familiar.
I knew what was happening back there.
And now I don't know who to be without it.
(34:54):
Yeah. The yeah, it's, it's the the
resetting. It's almost like you could say
it's deconstruction and reconstruction.
We're leaving something behind and building something up.
Yeah, which is uncomfortable. It is very comfortable, very
uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.
And you know, another thing thatI'd like to, to get just, it
(35:17):
just came to my mind as well is change is inevitable, but so is
grief. Grief is inevitable in our
lives. You know, whether, whether we
can live the most amazing life, but there's we're going to have
grief. You know, the grief could be the
loss of somebody or the grief could be your iPhone battery
died. Believe it.
It doesn't, it doesn't matter, right?
But every one of us, it's every single one of us.
(35:37):
I promise you, he's going to experience grief in our lives.
And grief is probably changed. And as you said before, it's
it's that identity of the familiar that you just attach to
the familiar. But now you're thrust in the
place that actually there's double whammy and change and
grief at the same time. What do I do with that there?
Yeah, even I, I don't even like to change handbags because the
(36:01):
old handbag was familiar and thezips the ride and the pockets
and the and and so it usually takes me a week to transition to
a new handbag because it's a it is, it's trivial, but it is, it
is a bit of loss. I like the familiarity of that.
And now I have to refigure a newone out.
(36:25):
I'm I'm smiling because you can buy some trouble, but it comes
out even you're getting a new phone, right?
So you are so comfortable with your phone.
I mean, you've got to change your phone.
Like I'm so not used to this newphone and and it does those
things. You know, we think about big
things in life when it comes to change, but your handbag, your
phone, you know, and those kind of things really makes a
(36:48):
difference. And it small changes happen to
us all day, every day. Think about an update on your
laptop. Where did that?
Where's the I, you know, Oh my goodness, something just changed
recently. And I thought, what what's going
on? So it's incremental and it might
only take a day or two, but it'sstill a layer of change.
(37:11):
Yeah, and that change and also because you're, it's so
unexpected, right? It's an unexpected change.
If you knew there was a, if you,if someone said to you, OK, hey,
Janelle, this you're going to have 600 updates in the next 6
months and each update is going to do this year.
Even though you were never goingto read those updates, you're
not going to read the document in your mind.
You're cool. At least I know about it, you
(37:31):
know, you know, and then if the change happens, you blame
yourself for not reading the update.
But because it just happens, yougo, oh, it sounds so crazy.
My husband's phone recently did an update without telling him
again without telling him it wasthe message app and so instead
of it scrolling this way that was showing limited messages and
(37:53):
it's taken him weeks. He hates this new thing so it's
really rocked his what it looks like.
It's also made him a little cross because I didn't ask him.
There you go. Just Yep, it's crazy.
So the power of control again, right.
The power of choice and control and I and I and what I'm loving
about today's conversation is, you know, each of those things,
(38:13):
everything is linked. Everything is linked.
If we, if, you know, if we step back and zoom back and think
about it and, and I'm pretty glad we're having this
conversation because I never think about these things.
I think about separate things. But hey, change choice, grief,
it it all, it all links togetherand, and come back to your
concept of liminal spaces. How many times, how much time do
we actually stop and go? Actually, this is uncomfortable,
(38:38):
but I've got to be uncomfortableto be comfortable in wherever
I'm comfortable where I'm going.Yeah, it's John C Maxwell says.
Change in an inevitable growth is a choice.
Yeah. And it's easier to go back,
definitely easy to go back. And sometimes going back is
(39:00):
fine. I mean, it's not a, it's not a
bad thing. It's it's just that that choice
but to be somebody else or something else, the the.
Stretch is painful, yeah. And but even even when you go
back, you're going back to a different person into a
different space. You know, if this, if things
have changed, it's it's like, it's like that I'm going to
(39:20):
butcher this cot. I'm really going to butcher this
cot. But when, when you cross a river
and you really cross it again, the river is different.
And so are you. Yeah, it's a code.
It's a, it's a, it's a ancient Greek.
But Tony puts. It sounds like an Angel.
It's true. I, I talked about in my book
that I've just launched. It's like being on a river with
(39:45):
a team. So when I, when I stepped out of
the job that I loved, it was like we were all on the same
river together. And we're all in our own little
canoes and we were, you know, down the river and there was
Rapids and we did it together and smooth places.
We did it together. Whirlpools.
We did it together and then it'slike one of the team feeling
(40:07):
exhausted and getting out onto the riverbank, but by the time
you look up everybody's already swept down the river and you
really can't rejoin that same place.
And I think that's some of the difficulty when you lose a job,
if your identity's in it, which mine obviously was, what's gone
is gone and you can't get back there.
(40:29):
There's no way to jump in again.Yeah, I love that analogy.
That's such a great analogy of white water, often beautiful.
I want a great segue from Liminal Space to your book.
How did we go from stay at home,Liminal Space employed, crying
about losing a job to being an author and writing about, you
(40:55):
know, and congratulations because that's what happened
recently. So congratulations.
Yeah, yeah, the the digital version hasn't come out yet, so
that's the next exciting thing. I've learned a lot about
publishing. It's been a whole journey.
I like words, so if you gave me the choice of words or numbers,
I'm definitely your words girl. Yeah, because I've always liked
(41:17):
writing. It's those connections that we
talked about, the things that connect together.
And and I met somebody who was apublisher and and said to me,
are you going to do it? And I thought, well, yes, I am.
And, and I did. So I've had a lot of the content
(41:37):
in the book in my head for a while.
And I, and I would like to, you know, put some thoughts down,
you know, in a Google Doc every now and again.
But talking to my friend who's apublisher, I was given a
framework of how to do it. So skeleton, how to do a book
skeleton. And I actually put all the words
(41:58):
of the book down between March and May this year.
I got up at 5:00 every morning and wrote.
I was still working full time atthat point on corporate role.
May was my deadline because winter comes and my house is
very cold and you can't type with cold fingers.
(42:20):
Your brain doesn't work properly.
Doesn't matter how you know how many layers.
You put on. So I gave myself a deadline and
and just put words down. No, it's not a very long book.
And that's very intentional because it's called verging on
normal. And it's about that change
moment, the one moment in time where you get the bad news of
(42:43):
some kind. In those moments, you don't need
a great huge textbook. To my mind, in my hardest times,
I've just needed something easy to read that's going to give me
hope to get through it. So that that's, that's how that
journey went. A confluence of people time the
(43:07):
right season, I guess you would say.
And that's so that's how that you know it's been coming for a
while. It's you don't suddenly write a
book, I don't think. I think you have it in your
head. Yeah, no.
And I love how you set yourself,you know, into the reality of
winter and you know, because we always say we, you know, we all
have ideas. We all have thousands and
(43:29):
thousands and millions of ideas.But until you actually, actually
there's just an idea. And I love the fact that, you
know, everyone's got a story, but you make you made the
intentional choice to write it. How did it feel having the book
in your hand? Oh, is it so exciting?
I actually I have one here. This is my book.
There we go. It's a it's a milestone and it's
(43:54):
a great milestone and I was keento start the next book.
Oh well, I started to do the skeleton and someone very wise
said to me, let this one settle first.
So you need to have your head inthis one to do have
conversations like this. Or if I'd already moved on, my
(44:14):
head would have been somewhere else.
You. Know it's a it's a pretty good
thing. And then to go to a launch, we
had a launch in Melbourne. There was three of us who wrote
our books to get not together, but we met every week for three
months to encourage one another to be that community that pulls
(44:35):
together. How's it going?
I'm going to give up. No, you're not.
Come on. Here's a couple of emojis.
It'll help, you know, like pull it together.
And it was wonderful to be therewith them and cheer them on as
this community, little communitythat we've built together.
Fantastic. So good, so good.
(44:56):
How did you how did you celebrate to now how?
What does your How does you not celebrate?
Oh, did I celebrate? Well, we had the Melbourne
launch, which was the public able publishing launch.
And then two weeks later I did one local to where I live,
pulled in all my friends to helpthe caterer and the venue and
(45:17):
the you know, that and pulled people in who just to say thank
you, you know, friends, family, people came from, you know, 4
hours drive to come and just hada great time with it.
Read a little bit of the book, did a little bit of a speech,
had a good time. So that was my idea of
celebrating was to to it was a bit of marketing, but bring
(45:41):
bring the friends together. I had work friends, other
friends, long time friends, friends who went well, who came,
You know, it was, that's my ideaof celebration is community.
Yeah, and, and I love that because, you know, it's an
intentional question because a lot of times we, we achieve a
goal and we don't take a moment to celebrate.
(46:01):
And you know, as you, as you just just before you like, OK,
next book. But, and we all do that.
Then we all just chase that next, whatever the next thing
is. But actually pausing and going,
it's a bit like it's, it's a bitlike when you run a half
marathon or a marathon, you know, before that you never
think that you want to run ever,ever again with all the
training. And then you get there and then
(46:21):
you immediately sign for the next one.
But you haven't had time to justsink and enjoy or actually
compensate what you've actually done because you just sign up in
such a high. I'm going to sign that up
straight away, but just pause and celebrate the that
achievement, whatever that achievement is.
In Melbourne at the physical book launch, Able Publishing do
a really interesting thing. They gave there was 15 authors
(46:45):
who were launching books and there was awards ceremony.
There was a lot going on. It was a busy weekend and they
gave each of the publishing authors, new authors, an
opportunity to stand on the stage for one minute.
We're allowed to speak, but you could do whatever you want and
(47:05):
to just stand. And for the audience, there's
probably 200 people there, the gala dinner.
So there was lots of sequins andsparkles and ruffles, but the
opportunity to stand there for one minute and be honoured.
Oh wow. It was very impacting, never
done anything like that before. I don't particularly enjoy being
the centre of attention, but to just stand there and know that
(47:29):
there was a room full of people who were saying we honour the
time that you've taken, we honour what you've achieved in
doing this was quite impactful. It's very, very cool.
It's actually, it's actually gotme thinking about, you know, how
whenever we acknowledge somebody, we expect them to give
(47:50):
us a speech. So that moment is actually
taking away because they've got to, they're in their heads, but
they're not taking that exact moment.
So how it's so powerful when youjust go?
I'm just honouring you for what you've achieved.
Yeah, it's not easy to stand to stand for a minute.
And some people only did 30 seconds, you know, and that was
(48:12):
enough. I took the full the full one
minute actually for a minute because I was trying to count it
down in my head. Yeah.
Very powerful moment. And isn't that that's liminal
space right there? So you're living in liminal like
that's four similar space essentially.
Actually that's, yeah, you're right.
A good, good pick up. Yeah.
Middle, middle space of it's, it's almost like being in
(48:35):
freefall. Yeah, you're just, you're just
there in the center. I'm glad you got that time
because, you know, doing anything hard is hard.
But it's awesome to get the acknowledgement.
And I said that because it is hard.
Things are hard, you know, and people be like, oh, you can do
hard things. Yeah, but they are still hard.
Doesn't make it any easier. It's still hard.
(48:58):
What's what's challenging. You know, I have, I have a
friend of mine always says, yeah, you can, you can do hard
things. I think you have it doesn't.
It's not hard. It's like, yeah, you can say
that as many times as you want. It doesn't mean it's not hard.
Still hard and and it's made onemoment at a time In our family,
(49:19):
we say, how do you eat an elephant?
And it's a common saying you eatan elephant one sandwich at a
time. You don't you don't eat the
elephant, you eat, you know, andI always say, can I have a
coffee as well? Because that will help.
It's that, it's that one moment of this is the moment that I'm
(49:40):
going to do the one thing to watch the hard thing.
That's right. That's so powerful.
That's so powerful. Yeah, I love that.
I love that tag there. And as we think about your book
and diminals space, I'm also going to ask you, your, your
little journey on being a speaker as well, because that's
also something you you've you'vedone or you do as well.
(50:05):
What does that journey be like for you as well?
Sometimes change comes because it's thrust on us.
We've talked about that. And sometimes you need to be
your own disruptor. In this case, I'm being my own
disruptor, and the book is part of that.
I wrote that while I was still employed the end of June this
(50:26):
year. I resigned to work on a speaking
career. Something I've wanted to do for
a very long time needed to be able to devote the time to it.
And again, it's it's challenging, it's learning, it's
putting yourself out there asking, can I come and talk for
(50:47):
you? Can I tell you about this And
that that's, that's challenging too.
I wouldn't say this for me is a liminal space, but I would say
that it's full of challenge and progress and one step at a time.
It's interesting. I've learned, I've learned a
lot, had some some small speaking opportunities looking
(51:11):
at where that goes. Yeah, it almost was a now or
never. If I don't do it now, when?
Yeah. And I'd rather I'd rather try.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And what's the worst that could happen?
It doesn't work out. And you have other options in
life which you can do other things as, as you said, Right,
right, right. The start, right.
(51:31):
You, you're allowed to have a season of a specific thing and
then go, cool, the season was amazing.
I'm going to level up or the season, not really my jam.
I'm going to choose a different different thing.
Do something else good to assessalong the way.
Before we started the podcast, Iwas thinking about it.
(51:52):
What does it, what does it look like in a year?
And then what does it look like in three years?
Book speaking, developing workshops around the book normal
is a bit of a fallacy because we're never actually normal.
We're we're in place for a whileand then something happens.
(52:18):
But normal feels good. And so when the changes come,
they disrupt us and, and how do we support, how do we support
our friends, our work teams, family in, in those changes?
Yeah, that's my, you know, my three-year goal.
It's not just to be on platform with a microphone, although I do
(52:40):
enjoy that, to be honest. It's more what can you give
away, you know? So how can you help your work
team? Yeah, that's right.
Raise the hope in this situation.
Yeah. And this, this ties back into
the stuff that you spoke about, you know, being for non profit
community, all these things thatyou speak about, which are high,
(53:01):
you're high value. So it comes across really, it's
not, not a, a surprise to me that this is really important
for you, that what is the value that I'm adding with whatever
I'm doing to the people that arelistening, reading or in my
workshops. Hope.
We all need hope. We all do hope and hope exactly,
(53:21):
and I would have laughter and laughing gives us hope, which is
fantastic. Would.
You. I think laughing is hopeful.
Yeah, sure is it. Gives us it gives us something
to hold on to when it can feel dark.
Life can feel messy and dark humour helps.
(53:42):
It sure it sure does. Sure does.
So we've been speaking for almost an hour.
I knew this would be a very pre playing conversation.
And you know, I can't believe it's an hour already.
And I'm just going to ask you one last question, which we do
with our, I'm sorry, before I ask the question, was there
anything else that you wanted toadd which I haven't covered,
which you think would be would be great for our listeners to,
(54:06):
to hear about? Any the other thing I'd say is
grab hold of hope. Not I hope it doesn't rain on my
picnic today. Hope.
That's how we use the word hope,yes.
But hope is that there will be better, that tomorrow will be
different, that the past was great.
(54:28):
I can learn from it. The future is coming.
That kind of hopefulness, I callit confident, hope.
Hope. That there.
Is a future. It feels often like we're stuck
in a messy and nothing will everchange.
It does, One day at a time. Confident home.
(54:49):
Yeah, because as we've learned today, that change is
inevitable, but that's part of life.
So if you can grasp on to comprehend help, that is really,
really beautiful. Do you know you've probably
stole my so you've probably given me the answer to my last
question, but I'm going to ask the question anyway because you
you'll have to think of something really quick as well.
Our podcast is called Baskets ofKnowledge and every episode we
(55:11):
invite our guests to share a piece of knowledge to put into
our baskets. You've shared a lot today, but
if there's any other piece of knowledge to put into our basket
apart from confident hope, or itcould be confident hope, is
there anything else that you'd, is there anything you'd like to
share with us? Definitely confident hope, but
(55:31):
the basket of knowledge is neverfull.
No it isn't. So my my piece of wisdom that I
would add to that is don't ever let it feel like it's full.
Keep learning, keep having interesting conversations, keep
learning, do courses, do interesting things.
(55:52):
I never want to be the person that as I'm getting older, pulls
back and stops learning, stops being the encourager, stops
experiencing new things. It's easy to settle.
We get at times in our lives, wethink goodness, but that basket
(56:12):
of knowledge, it's to feel for yourself, but also to give away.
So I, I love that concept of thebasket of knowledge.
Keep learning, keep being hopeful, keep giving it away.
I don't know I I love that you know what I love about that was
your basket of knowledge is never full.
That's such a great, great way to look at life because as you
(56:35):
said before, we, we settle sometimes easily, But if we go
actually this basket of this basket is not full, but also
this basket can be shared. It's a basket.
It's there to share with other people.
And when you don't share with other people, you think soft
percent of basket anymore. It's a prison.
Actually, it becomes a prison ofknowledge.
And so that's a that's such a great way to to round off the
(56:56):
podcast. Janelle, thank you for that
there. It's been, it's been a pleasure.
And I, I did do a little research on the podcast, you
know, the history of it and sucha great thing to do to encourage
people in the, in the change moment, you know, especially
young, young people are amazing.Yeah, they show up, but so are
(57:19):
people that are that are young at heart.
Yeah, Yeah. Do you know, bro, this is out
there if they want to connect with you or get a copy of your
book or if they just want to know more about who you are as
an amazing human being, how what's the best way for them to
do that there? Or if they want to see your
emoji game, how how do they do that there?
For emoji game, LinkedIn for sure.
(57:41):
That's my vibe. My LinkedIn is Janelle Hewlin.
I try and get on there a few times a week.
I I really love the connections that are coming through
LinkedIn. Definitely emoji game on that
one. My book will be out on Amazon in
a couple of weeks, still coming.And then they have the big, the
(58:01):
big burst date where everybody pushes it.
And I will be announcing that onLinkedIn is the best way.
I do have a website, janellefueland.com.
It's it's out there, it's live, but it's under construction.
All right. Yep, it's.
On the way. What we'll do is we'll share all
those links in the in the show not as well.
So if anybody who wants to connect, have that to, to wait
(58:22):
for your book to be launched or to maybe have a chat with you or
just to challenge you to some emoji, an emoji battle, it's
there for them to do that there.You know, thank you so much.
You know, it's, it's, as I said during the, the podcast that I,
I, I know you through connection, but I don't know
you, but as a, as a human and over the last, you know, over
(58:44):
over an hour or so, I've learnedso much about you as as a human
being, but also the value of thevalue and the lessons that you
bring into the world is really powerful.
And I can see why you want to beon stage talking about, you
know, whatever you're talking about, because the impact, as
you said, is about people. So thank you so much for your
time today. Even though we got the times, I
got the time zones totally wrong, but that's not my fault,
(59:06):
it's Google's fault. I'm going to blame Google
because that's what bad workmen do.
They blame their tools and that's what I'm going to do
today. Thank you, Janelle, for your
time. So listeners out there,
hopefully you enjoyed this episode and hopefully you found
something to take away. Hopefully you've, you've thought
about the liminal space that you're living in.
And if you're not living in, think about that there.
(59:27):
And hopefully as you've listen to the podcast and especially
towards the end, you've thought about your context of life and
how you can implement confident hope in whatever that context
looks like. And just remember, like, like
Janelle said, it's your life is your life.
Your hope is your hope, your confidence, your confidence and
your change is your change. And don't ever try and compete
(59:47):
there with anyone else because if you do that, they will start
changing for you directly because change is inevitable and
you want to control some of it. You get disrupted.
Until next time, keep smiling. Don't forget to have confident
hope. And most important all, don't
forget to put something into your bosses of knowledge the
next time. Calculated already.
Bye. Thanks, Janelle.
(01:00:12):
Thank you for listening to Bastards of Knowledge.
Yeah, we hope that you found something useful to put into
your Bastards of Knowledge. And as we said before, remember
to put something that'll into your Bastards of Knowledge every
week. And as always, feel free to
like, comment and share this podcast.
Thanks, everybody. Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.