Pursuing your purpose: to find freedom and fulfilment, we must first let go of control

The greatest wisdom that I have ever received is that all the answers that we have are already within us. Everything we need is inside us, and we keep going externally to seek answers, to seek wisdom and go and buy this and go and buy that. I’ll do this and do this program and do that. and absolutely, we need to learn and we need to grow. That’s part of the journey. But it’s only to bring us back to what’s already within us. That’s when the answers comes to you. That’s when the wisdom comes to you, because that’s when you are able to plug into the frequency of the energy around you. I’ve got to start this episode right away because the funniest thing happened. I did the introduction with my amazing guest, which I’m going to talk about incredibly emotionally in the second. But we were talking, we were vibing this and that, and I just had this funny feeling that one of the cameras was on Slow Mo. The reason I want to bring this up is, there are some people in your world that you just you just go with it because you don’t want to be embarrassed. You don’t want to say anything. And this is the thing. This is why I want to introduce Jen in this way. I think we’re both going to start crying out. And we I introduced her because I introduced her the last time, because we met for the first time in this office. And I was saying that when you walked in, you just had this energy about you that was infectious. And I felt immediately at ease, like I could tell you my deepest, darkest secrets. And I would have been like, just met you for the first time. And that’s why I’m so glad that you’re on this podcast. There’s just such an energy about you, and I just know I can just see it. I can feel it that you’re already doing so much good for the world and you just bring so much light into the world. And without further ado, Jen McMahon, which we’ll get to in a second. Welcome to the show. It’s just such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me here. Honestly, I, I was actually quite taken aback that you had asked me to come on the show because I know you’ve spoken about it before, that your humility Kath is your greatest strength. And when you reached out to me just to ask if I wanted to come on the podcast, I thought, Oh, really? Me? And it’s so interesting. And this is why we are with the vibe we’re moving here. Because in your initial introduction, you spoke about how when I reached out to you were like, Oh, well, what does she want to talk to me about? Why me, whatever. And yet to me, even though I had known you from a distance and I’d been watching you and following your journey and cheering you on, you were making such an impact in so many people’s lives, and I don’t think you really realized the depth of that impact and how much you were really transforming the way that people see themselves, the way that they see the world, the difference that they’re making in the world in just you didn’t…and that’s your humility. And I had that same moment when you reached out and said, okay, you want to be on secrets In The City? Because I know that, you know, there’s been a lot of famous people that you interviewed. And just because world class. So for me, I’ll say, oh, why me? Sure, I’d love to. But I had a moment of really I got anything really interesting to say. And even today, as I was thinking about my secret, those thoughts kept coming into my mind. Well, what am I going to say? What if I’m feeling a bit flash and I don’t really? Oh, and it was that kind of monkey mind impostor syndrome. All of these these things, your your inner critique that was going through. But yeah, I think humility is something special because there’s not a lot of people that have it truly have it any more. Not in this world, so when you see it, you respect. Yeah, yeah. And that’s the end of this episode because I’ve gotten what I wanted. Who cares about anyone else? No joking. It’s funny that you say that because I remember an actually happened just outside in the driveway. Girlfriend of mine. We were chatting and so forth, and she was saying that she was chatting with someone who was following me for a while, but then stopped because this person said, Oh, daughter Kath is so full of themselves. Wow. And that obviously, out of all the people, that one comment always stuck. And it’s funny about perception, and I guess that’s what I’m trying to say here. Perception can play so many games on us because what you see is not always what you get. Yeah. And perhaps like, when we met for the first time, maybe we both thought, like, you were just you. Yeah. And I think there’s something there. There’s something within all of that. When you’re constantly seeking externally or seeking outward for validation of your worth of who you are and your identity, then you can never truly, truly be fulfilled or truly feel joy or even a sense of accomplishment in what you do because you’re always. And so, it’s hard because we live in a world which is so instant in its gratification, and we seek validation through awards and through successes, through financial revenue and net profit and figures and social media likes and comments. And and so the construct of our world is built around that. So how do you let go of that? To truly go inwards, to build your self-worth from inside so that then when somebody says, Oh, you’re full of yourself or you’re fake, or I don’t really like you, that it doesn’t, it doesn’t affect you. Yeah, and it’s funny because this was years ago, and I think if I got the same comment now, I would just think I wonder why they think that way? I’m curious because I don’t think we’re going to be impervious to those kind of comments, but it’s actually learning from them. And sometimes you say, okay, that’s what you think, but that’s not what I think or it’s so. But this isn’t about me. Firstly, what are you introducing? I’d tell everyone if you were to tell a six year old what you do. What is your reason for getting up in the morning and making a bit of money? Of course, because we can’t help people if we’re broke. What would you say to a six year old? Okay, well, my daughter’s four, so let me think of how this has got good actual training for me, explaining what mommy does. So at the moment when I drop her, I kindie I say, ah, when she says, Oh, I don’t want to go to kindy. And I say, Well, mama does want to go to work. My darling. So. So Mama really, really loves what she does because Mum is going to help some people today. And so that’s how I describe it to a four-year-old. But a six-year-old, let me kind of project into the future here. I think I would say mummy helps people to be better human beings and mummy helps businesses to make a difference in the world. Is it funny that when and we were talking about this before because it’s something that my dad told me, he said, if you’re truly smart, you don’t have to show it to anyone. You don’t have to prove that you’re smart. And that’s why I love my dad to bits, but he always did things simply. And when you said that, isn’t it funny that we sometimes we complicate things? Yeah. And that was said so beautifully. Yeah. What got you into this field? Well, I’ve always been connected to people. I’ve always worked in front facing roles, even from when I. When I was studying at university, I was in retail. I was always facing with customers. I loved that interaction. I worked in fashion retail first six years, and I just enjoy hearing about people’s lives and stories. And when someone would put a dress on and they would come out of the change room and they would point out everything that was wrong with themselves and their body, and all I would say was this beautiful, bright orange dress, which just fit perfectly. It fit in all the right places. And it lifted her features, her and her whole energy as colour does. And, I would point out what I saw and I saw how other people would receive that. And so I probably haven’t actually really thought about it like this. But from when I first started interacting and working in my first job, it was all about lifting others up and it was all about. And I think naturally when you do that and then the success comes, you know, like back then when I was 19 and I was in retail, the success came because I was always the top salesperson within within the boutique that I was working in and within. And I had won awards and those. But ultimately I wasn’t focused on the sales targets and we didn’t get paid commissions or bonuses or anything. So it really made no difference how much I sold. But because when someone walk out of the changeroom and I genuinely would just tell them what I saw. And I guess I’ve always been intuitive in that I can feel other people’s energy and I can feel them. And so I would just vibe off that. And if I could say that somebody needed a lift, I would ask them about their day and I would ask them why they’re buying this dress and what is it for and what does it mean to them? What I’m going to a wedding and who’s getting married? All my daughter or my. And I would ask them about their stories. How did they meet? How did they in the mall that they spoke. And that opened up the more that we would connect. And then I was able to then understand how they wanted to to be present on the day, what energy they wanted to bring. And then I would show them how they could do that through the clients and through the colours. Well, you always dress beautifully. And so I guess then that just sort of led. And at university I went and I studied marketing and communications because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. and, and then sort of my first my first role out of university was working in an office environment within retail. I went into buying and then procurement and then operations management. And I kind of just and it was so it’s like everything’s always been around people. It’s always been around bleeding people or inspiring them or back then we used to it to motivate people and we used to influence people, but ultimately it was just interacting and finding out what’s important to them and bringing that out. And so then it seemed like a natural progression to move into human resources. And so I did that and I did some further study and moved into human resources, went into recruitment, executive search and advisory, and then it kind of built from there. And then I started getting into to the corporate world and being in boardrooms with, mostly men three times my age. And I learned very young in my early twenties to really to have a voice, to know what I stood for and to walk into a room and be well-researched and to feel confident in what I had to say. As long as I researched, I knew my staff to have a point of view and not be afraid to speak up and share that point of view. And I’ll always be grateful to my first mentor for giving me that advice and that guidance to bring that voice out in me because it really has shaped my whole career. And without that guidance and mentorship at such a young age, I think it would have taken a lot longer for me to find my voice. And it’s so interesting because you go on that journey in the corporate world and at that time, you know, we then I bought into the business, we had a partnership. It was a national company. We had international contracts. We had a team of 150 employees at its peak was back in the days of the resources boom and I was in my twenties, I was living the dream. I was… All this in your 20s? I was 27, I was a director of a national company. We had at the time an office in Melbourne, an office in Perth, a contract in Brunei. We were just yeah, we would get up out of bed and I would just be bouncing off the walls because I got to find people their dream role. I got to go in and be in some of the boardrooms of the biggest deals in, in Western Australia at the time. I got to know the entrepreneurs who were shaping the city, who are shaping our future and earn their trust, You know, when they needed to find a CFO and we would go out and find one. And then all of a sudden they said, Well, actually, you know, my wife’s feeling a little bit lost at the moment. My daughter is about to go into uni and doesn’t know what to study. Do you mind? Just can you talk to her? Can you guys to have a coffee with her? And then I then started to naturally just coach them and just all by finding out what people want, what people value, what’s important, what actually really matters to you, not what your dad wants you to do, what your family expects you to do. But what is it that you actually really want to do? What is your heart? What is your intuition and your soul telling you? And they would open up and they would share that, but they would share things that they didn’t feel confident to share to anybody else. And so then I thought, okay, well, maybe I need to go and study coaching then maybe that’s the thing. Maybe that’s it. And so then I just naturally started doing that and bringing that into the business. And then through that journey of success, I, I was going to a meeting one of our clients in in Exchange Tower. Never forget in the top of the top of Exchange Tower, he was one of my successful entrepreneurs at the time, and I had known him really well. I had met his wife, his kids. You know, we had a contract with him for about seven years at the time. And and I remember being in the elevator and all of a sudden I was getting really hot, hot, sweating was, Oh, God, I’ve got to get out of this elevator of course, you know, going up to like level 27. And he answered, Feels like you’re in there for an hour and you and and I couldn’t breathe. Oh, my God, You know what’s happening to me? I started to have an anxiety attack in the elevator. And I thought to myself, What is this? That? Why? Why? Why? So I got out of the elevator and I walked into the boardroom. I was sweating. I was. I was jittery. I just wasn’t in my body. And I sat down and I remember coaching myself through, Come on, Jen. And I was it was quite harsh. Come on snap out of it. You know what’s wrong with you? It’s got to get on with it. And what’s, you know, what is this? Just focus, Focus. Get in the game. Get in. You know, all those kind of harsh motivating. Yeah, Negative. Negative. Yeah, exactly. Negative reinforcement and. And sat down and we went through the meeting, we went through that what his problems were, what he needed, how we could help etc. etc. And the entire time my inner voice was saying, just it’s okay just to share how you’re feeling. how you’re sharing. But the other stuff, my analytical mind or my monkey mind was, Oh, no, gosh, you definitely can’t do that. And I remember leaving there and getting back to the office and I sat down, I burst into tears and I thought to myself, how is it that I’ve known this man for such a long time? And I would say that he is one of our top clients, really good relationship with him. But I don’t feel safe to tell him that I had an anxiety attack on the way in, and so then I had to sit with that for a while and I had to and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. And and what I realized that I had a lot of shame around not being that confident has not built myself up in my twenties to be this, you know, this confident, this person who was fearless and this person who was successful at such a young age and had all the things, you know, big circle of friends and networks and and and how could I possibly admit to myself, let alone anyone else, that I was struggling. And I thought, why am I having this? Why am I having anxiety? Because I love what I do. I’m so blessed and fortunate. You know, I had a very traumatic upbringing. And, there’s a lot of research around when you come from trauma traumatic backgrounds that you either go two ways, you know, it can be post traumatic stress or it can be post-traumatic growth. And the post-traumatic growth is where you build that resilience because you turn that trauma into a positive and you turn it. And I had done the work, I’d been to psychologists, I’d done the work on myself. And so to me, I was I was living that truth. I was I had turned that trauma into growth and I was moving forward and and the success was coming and I was feeling vibrant from it. So why was I. And then I thought, hang on a second. My body is obviously telling because, you know, when you when you ignore, when your inner intuition, your soul energy, when you’re when you ignore that, when you let your mind take over, then your body will tell you because the universe, source, the high power, whatever you want to call it, has a way of of showing you what you need when you need it. And if you’re ignoring the signs, you’re ignoring all the synchronicities, you’re ignoring all the cosmic crumbs, it will just manifest in in your body. And it started to do that. And then I started suffering from anxiety more frequently to the point where I couldn’t get on planes. I could get in elevators. It was debilitating and I felt I couldn’t share it with anyone. I felt so ashamed of the anxiety that I just kept it all inside. And then that became a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? And so then I thought, so I went back. I started seeing my psychologist again. I started unpacking all of that. And then through that, started reaching out to different types of of thought leadership, of different types of teaching. And back then, you know, there was Tony Robbins, there was Landmark. There wasn’t a lot, you know, it wasn’t not like it is now podcast running, just kind of, you know, coming out. And there was so so I did I listened to a couple of podcasts and never forget a coach back then, Matt O’Grady, who is kind of a high-performance coach but a spiritual coach as well. And, and so anyway, I found a coach online and I, we used to Skype and he was over in the US we would Scott late at night and so then I started to unpack why I was feeling this way. And then I guess that kind of catalyzed a journey of just being obsessed with learning, with learning and growing and unpacking and understanding why I was feeling this anxiety, why somebody who could be so blessed in what they have and what their and be so driven and committed and energized. Why would I be suffering from anxiety? And what I realized on that, that journey was it was I had lost connection to my purpose in my values on that wheel of tendering, winning tenders, profit margins, getting more bums on seats, amassing, you know, building out our contractor payroll, all of the things I had lost that true connection to what really energized me, which was that human connection, you know, going back to when the when a woman would walk out of the change room and feeling so critical of herself and feeling so low and she would leave the store with a bright orange dress feeling alive, I wasn’t I wasn’t doing that every day. I was doing it, but I was doing it sporadically, not not every single day. And I realized that if I wanted to live my truth and I wanted to really, truly, I realized and live my purpose, I had to do it every day. I had to find one moment in every day big or small where I was connecting with people in that way. And so then I started to kind of bring that into what we were doing in the company. But I realized that my business partner and I, we just we just weren’t values aligned. We she was a an entrepreneur of the eighties who was very she grew up in a man’s world and she had to be hardened and she had to be. And that was that was the identity that she took on and but she really valued money and profit over anything else. And so I realized that I couldn’t realize my my, my dream if I stayed in that company. So I walked away from that partnership in 2018 and and started to create Modern People. I wanted a blank canvas and our purpose that modern people is to humanize the new world of work, is to bring that humanity, to bring that heart and that soul back into work. Everyday work, whether or not you are on a construction site, whether or not you are in a high rise building in mergers and acquisitions, or whether you are in a mining camp or office, you know, regardless of what the industry is to bring that humanity and that heart and soul back into work. And with that comes the meaning, connecting people to why, what is their purpose? Why are they here and what is the difference that they’re making the world? Because purpose can only truly be authentic purpose or your higher purpose. If you are impacting another life and the other life can be a human life, it can be an animal life. It can be the planet Mother Earth. It can be but for it to be truly higher and transcendent, it has to you have to be making a difference. You have to be impacting. And I’ve got a couple of things out of that. The first is that it’s so important to listen to your body. And I always say that sometimes we listen so much the loud voices of others rather than the silent voice inside us, meaning that we, as we were speaking about before, it’s that validation. You know, this is what you know, we’re on this hamster wheel, might as well just go for it. But then you start hearing voices. You’re like, No, no, no, this is great. I’m making money, I’m doing this. You just sort of ignore them. The other thing I got from that is that you were really, really busy. It sounds to me that you were chasing your own tail so much that you actually didn’t know which way you were going, which I think would be a good time to what secret did you choose? The secret, there were so many and I know everyone says this but there was about five that I could have chosen. But I when I reflected further, I think one of my greatest fears is that there just isn’t enough time. There isn’t enough time to do the work that I want to do to achieve what I want to achieve, to which my purpose is to bring the light in every person out and share it with the world. There is not enough time for me to get around and do that with every person on this earth. There’s not enough time for me to go and and interact with those people and show them what potential they have and to turn those businesses around so that they equally value their purpose and their profit and that they are using their their commercial ability to to solve the world’s problems. There’s just not enough time for me to do all of that. There’s not enough time for me to visit every country in the world like I truly want to go to every single country in this world. And I find myself almost breathless sometimes because I think about everything that I want to do and the difference I want to make. And it’s like, oh, my God, I have this fear that this lifetime is finite, you know? And and I guess that’s another conversation. You go around. But this lifetime is. And so in my journey, this is very this is one of the reasons why I chose this secret is this is very alive for me right now. Because, when you talk about vulnerability we can talk about could talk about a secret and an experience that I had, you know, five years ago, ten years ago, two years ago, and talk about everything that I’ve learned and, you know, give you a break. But really, that’s what Brené likes to call conditional vulnerability, because it’s vulnerability on the condition that. Well, I really worked through that, right? So I’m not really so vulnerable anymore because that’s that’s what I went through two years ago. And this is what I learned. This is how going this is takeaway, but how are we actually all being vulnerable right now? It’s we have to put ourselves in a state of emotional openness and and fear and almost distress to be able to share your innermost fears and anxieties now without necessarily having a solution for it. I can share what I’m doing and what I’m working towards, but, it’s very alive and very real for me right now. And so that’s one of the reasons why I chose it. it’s such a valid point, and I’ve actually never thought of it that way. Have you thought that this is almost like version two of what happened before? What I mean by this is you’re going up in the elevator, you’re having that anxiety attack in your bodies, trying to say, Hey, Jen, why don’t you listen to me? I’m just wondering if it’s almost like the sequel that is happening again. And there’s a great analogy I believe Michelle Obama uses that there is on the Volvo line, a random car gets picked up with this massive giant arm and it gets shaken side to side. And you find out what falls out because you know what to fix. And in my head, what I’m seeing you is you’re in the car and you’re being shaken side to side. And I see you in the car saying, Been through this before. Hmm? Yeah. Yeah, that’s I agree. Absolutely. And I really I feel that because I feel that every time. And, you know, anxiety is something that it never it never goes away. You know, you learn to manage it, meaning you learn to work through it. You learn to to breathe through it to to almost live and live with it in a way that you can turn it into maybe an adrenaline boost before you’re about to speak or get on stage or before you’re about to go into and make a person that you feel anxious about meeting or and you learn to, but it never actually goes away. And so I find in life, I often, I have to separate from teachers at the moment and one I’ve had for about 14 years. And, you know, I was on my way to his house a couple of months ago and I was on the freeway. And I know absolutely no power. I was listening to music. I was feeling really relaxed. And as I was on the freeway, it’s just like something came over me. Just something, just a wave came over me. And I thought and I started to feel a little breathless and all that goodness. And my heart started racing. And then that sort of anxiety coming in and, you know, I were, I breathed through it and I, I, I was able to remain composed on the freeway, but it was still it was if I had a heart rate monitor on, I probably would have seen a spike in that. And it was for no reason. There was no apparent thought that came in. I just, gosh, this is really why why am I feeling so? I’ve had a really good day. It’s not. And so when I sat down and we did our meditation and we always have a chat afterwards and I asked him, I said, Hey, you know, I was on my way here and this just came over me, you know, this anxiety, you know, what’s your thoughts on that? And he said, It’s clearing. What you’re doing is you’re clearing past moment out of your body. But I didn’t have any thoughts. And he said, But it’s not your mind that clears that. The trauma, the energy, it’s it’s your your life’s energy is that energy. And so when the anxiety calms because something needs to move through you and be cleared out. So just and what what should I do in that? And he said, well, just just acknowledge it and allow it to pass through and let it go. Don’t attached to it, don’t hold on to it. It is just part of your clearing. So he he spoke about past trauma. Is there a similar narrative from your childhood to the we’ll call it the elevator attack versus more recently? Is there like a similar narrative that in your motion? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think from my childhood, growing up in a a home a quite a violent home, my father was quiet, he was violent. And so I ran away from home when I was 13. And, and they say that there is a life, you know, you go through the different life transformations. There’s there’s milestones in your life. And 13 is one of those. And I just realized at that time that I just it was quite like it was on Christmas Day. I, I just woke up one day and and said to myself, not anymore. As of today, you will never hurt me again. And I packed up my plastic bags. We were so poor, you know, we were living in state housing. You know, we were I mean, in in Darwin, my father had custody of me, my mom, you know, because my mum couldn’t speak English. And so back then, you know, it was some a while ago they she, she just didn’t have, she couldn’t get a court representation and because my father was Caucasian and he was educated and so, you know, he, he won custody. He was the top yet. Exactly. Yeah. And so, so I just decided that day that no, that was it. And I packed my clothes, my plastic bags and went to the phone booth and I called a taxi and I’ll never forget the taxi man. There’s this lovely, lovely, lovely Indian man. And he looked at me, went, Oh, oh my goodness. Oh, are you heading away on Christmas Day? And I was like, Yes, yes, I am. It’s like, okay, where do you want to go? And I said, I want to go want to go to my my best friend’s house. I can you the address, Can you take me there. So lucky you know that. Did you all that Nothing. You have it at that time because there wasn’t I didn’t have a mobile phone or anything like that. No. And so so yes, it took me to my best friend’s house and my mum was traveling, My mum was in the travel industry and so she used to travel on. Educational was a lot. And so she was away, she was in Thailand at the time and so I, I stayed with my best friend for the ten days while my mum was away and, and I’ll never forget my, my dad, you know, he went through all of my friends and he found a birthday card because my is just before Christmas and found a birthday card from my friend Caroline. And that and so through that he saw that there was an address on it and went and to Caroline’s house just looking for me and and I was there but Caroline’s mum said no, look, you know, Jen has made it very clear that she doesn’t want to come back to you and Mum and she wants to wait to get back. And so I think it’s best that we wait until her mum gets back and then, we can decide from what to do. And that was it. And then so I never went back. And so I think that, you know, there’s always been a, a part of me that if my I’m not happy with my current state that I feel the power to just to make a change. And I think if I am in a position where I don’t feel like I can make it because but whatever limiting belief I have or in a critic or monkey mind, mind that whatever I have that I feel like I can’t make a change, which of course is not a truth right? But this is just what my narrative is, is that I feel trapped and I feel that I can’t make a change. Then that’s when the anxiety takes over. Hence why time has you trapped. Because you can’t do anything about it. Nothing at all. So was it that you were almost trapped in a home when you’re such a young soul and all of a sudden you had to be this confident woman to escape that to get back in control? And then throughout your working life, in the elevator, you were trapped in an elevator and you were controlled by the corporate structure and how things were, you know, how things were done. But that and now finally found your calling. But you found another thing to trap you. I think the time and I think this will be my this is my life assignment. My life assignment is to completely surrender to the the energy that surrounds us, to surrender and know that my soul is here in this life to accomplish an achievement, to learn and to grow what it’s going to and then when this life ends, my soul will continue on and continue on that work and that path and that mission, but just in another form and to just kind of let go and surrender to that and not feel that I have to try and control it or I have to try and achieve a certain amount in a certain amount of time, or that it’s never enough or it’s just what it will be. And I, I actively work on that now with my meditations, with my energy work. I actively work on it with even the mantras and the affirmations that I have. I actively work on it in, in even in stable and rebuilding my thoughts. And when a thought plays out and it goes down that rabbit hole, I can go back and re program that. But it takes it, it all takes a lot of work, takes a lot of work, takes a lot of energy and a lot of it. But you know, and so that’s why I say it’s my life’s assignment because I’m doing it now, but I still feel the way that I feel. So it’s not there’s no end to it. It’s not like, oh, this is like, this is the solution. Just go away and do this for three months, 90 days, and you have it and off you go. But yeah sure, I can do those things and I’ll do those things, but I’m still going to feel the way that I feel. And, and those thoughts are still going to come in, you know, that narrative is still going to come in. That critical self-talk will still come in. And I guess my life assignment is to when it comes in, to acknowledge it, to honor it for what it is, and to let it go and just keep going. Yeah. So it’s almost like you’re learning how to be, I guess, okay with figuring things out as they come and not actually trying to control time in a way, if that made sense whatsoever. It’s like, you know, that time is going to pass too. Might as well just make this your life challenge. Yeah, go with it. It’s interesting because as you know, I sort of quit. I had that, as Brené Brown would say, a spiritual awakening last year, and I was just like, I Quit, I’m done, I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. The best thing that ever happened. And I restarted Dr. Katherine Brand, and I’ve never been so in passion in my life. But the point of story is, is one day I was driving home 44 years old, and I was just thinking to myself, I caught myself thinking by you, starting now, you’re 44. And I was like, You don’t even think about it. And I remember talking to that voice. I was like, Nah. And I thought to myself, rather than think about time, why don’t I just enjoy the process of building something that I finally want to have ownership of? And that’s really helped me it’s just powerful. Yeah, just to slow down and think, why am I trying to rush something when I actually could be enjoying it? And I enjoy I’m here on the weekends I am never been so much more motivated in my life and I found that was incredibly helpful, especially the people listening. You know, maybe have a think about what are you trying to speed up where actually you want to slow it down, doing it right. But that’s what true purpose is right? You know, like this is your purpose is not just a set of words, it’s not a destination. It’s not you don’t go and find your purpose. That’s such a myth. You know, purpose is a state of being. It’s a state. It’s what you feel. It’s what you do in your actions every day. It’s how you craft and create that life that brings fulfillment and joy to you and others that you interact with in the world around you. And so when you know what that is, sometimes you want to we can’t articulate it into words. Sometimes you can’t quantify it into a something like that. Measurable. But that’s okay. It’s just it’s a state of being. It’s an energy purpose is an energy. And when you know, because you know in yourself, when you aren’t feeling energized, when you’re not feeling vibrant and full. And so but you know when you are because it’s an intuitive thing. And when we can when we can be still and silent enough to tune in to that frequency of our intuition, we know how we’re feeling. And I feel like there’s such a misconception that we have to have this even like a purpose statement, you know, something that instead of words, it’s nothing like there’s such a misconception. We create purpose statements for people and for organizations. But when we do that, we say this is just a starting point. This is just because the analytical mind, the masculine energy or the logical brain, however you want to define that construct needs something that’s tangible. So we’re going to give it that tangible thing. We’re going to give it a statement so it has something to feel comfortable with. But what we don’t want is for you to hold on to that and go, okay, this is it. Then. This is finite. This is absolute because that is not how it works. We we want the feminine energy, which is your creative mind, which is your deeper energy, your intuition to take that set of words and to start realizing it, to stop manifesting it or living it or just being it. And it’s not actually what the words die. It’s what you do every single day. That is what living your purpose is about. And I love that you took that time to reflect and to because it’s allowed you then to really tune into that intuition to go know what is it that you’re an amazing CEO, you’re an amazing technologist, speaker, you’re an amazing human to be around. But what is it that really fills up your energy centers? What brings you life and fulfillment and joy and and wisdom? What brings you all of those things? And the Dr. Katherine Brand is all of those things. Because, Coach, you speak, you mentor, you teach, you train, you advise, you guide you, you energize, you inspire, you do all of those things just through different channels. Right? And that’s your purpose. Isn’t that interesting? I Did this post I think it was a month ago, and I said, I don’t have a purpose, but if you read the caption underneath, I said, I just don’t have a purpose yet. And I have found that in the past couple of years I just I was so stressed because everyone’s like, Oh, what’s your purpose? But your mission, your vision statement? I’m like, I don’t know. And they were like what do you like doing? I said, And I always joke about this. I like hugging people, I like helping people. And I sure as shit like to buy shoes. And you know, the last one’s a bit of a joke, but the first two, that’s all I want to do. If I could just. How can I help people for the rest of my life? That’d be great. And all the things that are associated with it, and that’s really been helpful. Yeah. My purpose is to hug and to help every person that I meet yet. And the shoes is a byproduct of that because the shoes comes as a result of that. Because through hugging and helping people you make money through that. So that on one side is how you live in a modern world, but on the other side, it’s what brings you joy and fulfillment. It’s what brings you a sense of significance. When you can help someone and you see the expression on their face, you feel the energy you feel that radiating from them that gives you life. And so that’s and that’s what it is. It’s, it’s, you know, purpose is what brings us significant. But what brings us significance is how we make a difference in the world. Absolutely Funny story about hugging, which I probably shouldn’t tell on this, but my girlfriend Melinda, if you’re listening, you will remember this. We had a couple of cocktails downtown in the city or not downtown. And we’re like, Why don’t we go to Hay Street Mall and go to the Mecca store? And this? And then I was, you know, quite happy. You can see time. And it was like Friday, 6:00. And I’m like, I just want to hug people now. Anyway. So we I can’t remember she got this on camera, but if you were on St Georges Terrace, how is hugging everyone? And I think I, I think I managed to hug about 30 people, 30 people. There was only one person who looked at me and basically thought I was a psychopath. There was even a guy that was in his car and I could see that he was thinking, God, I’m going to be stuck in traffic for the next hour and a half to get home. I knocked on his window and I’m like “Do you need a hug?” and he let me hug him. It was the best day of my life. It was the best day of my life. I love that so much. And it’s because and this is the thing like living in this this in modern society, it creates this barrier within us. All this armor as as Brendon lies to to put this armor that stops us from realizing our true self. See, and so because you had it took a couple of cocktails and that’s what alcohol does right it brings down probably do without alcohol but then she does the thing right like how often would we go to St George’s Terrace without any forms of and go and do that. But yeah, you probably would now because you’ve had that experience, that for somebody to actually just go and do that straight off the bat without any form of a barrier breaker, it’s really difficult, you know, it’s really, really challenging, really difficult. It’s not something that people would do, but that’s what we need to lean into, right? It’s like that’s why psychedelics have become such a big thing, because it breaks down that that wall. It breaks down that barrier that that living in modern society has has has created. And we have then taken that on. Because, you know, I think it’s our choice to take that on that we’ve then taken that on either consciously or unconsciously, and then that stops us from from realizing our true self. Have you ever done that? Psychedelics? No, I haven’t. Yeah. No, I haven’t. I would you, would you ever, um. I feel like if I had a if I called to do it then, then I certainly don’t have any aversion to it. No, but my meditation, my energy work that I do is very deep. And I have I have gone into the quantum field many times. I have astrally projected before I, I have those experiences already. So I don’t feel that’s why I don’t feel like I don’t have a calling to to take any any, you know, herbal medicine to to to reach that plane. You, you know, I did a breathwork workshop, uh, October last year with a facilitator who’s just moved back from London to to Perth and has studied Breathwork for 15 years. And it’s an intricate breathwork which goes through and it’s 2 hours mouth breathing. And in that the 2 hours felt like 10 minutes. Yeah, you’re in a deep sense of, of transcendence. And in that, in that breathwork session, my father, who has passed, came to me. We had a great chat. We spoke in that. So I yeah, I don’t feel I am called to do that, but I have a lot of friends that have felt called to do it My best friend actually, you know, she she went to the Blue Mountains and she did an ayahuasca ceremony. She’s done it twice she felt called to do it because and the outcome of it was that reconnection back to nature for her. You know, she spent her entire second experience just she spent 3 hours hugging a tree But what it did when she came out of that that trance state was it reconnected her back to her love of nature. And now she spent a lot more time out in nature than she did beforehand. So, you know, I think there’s absolutely a time and a place for it. But I do feel on a spiritual level that there is a there is a deeper calling. And what I what I don’t agree with is how it’s almost become this trend like. Yeah. That really that that feels really uncomfortable for me because yeah yeah because it’s not the tribes that have used it. The ancient wisdom that comes with plant medicine is sacred and it’s been used for centuries and it’s it should be honored. It’s not something that is just like a fad. It’s almost becoming even like a social media trend, you know, that people are, you know, doing it and people are profiting from it. And it’s dangerous. It’s really dangerous. Yeah, it is. I remember that it maybe 30 years ago in Canada, you know, go with the Inuits. They have sweat lodges. Do you go to the teepee? They get the steam and you do it. But this was 30 years ago and this was just part of their custom. And it’s interesting exactly how what you’re saying is basically, you know, we’ve been connected to our self for a long time, but somehow along the lines, we’ve lost that connection. And it sounds like for you everything is about connection. But sometimes you go down the path and you just sort of lose that and then you gain it back. And I could just imagine the audience right now, they’re in that state, you know. What would be your advice if you feel like you’ve lost connection with yourself for it, you sit with yourself. That was and that’s really uncomfortable for most people today. And so start small. So if that means just walking, just walking, cause sometimes sometimes I’m so hyped up that I, I need to walk and I don’t, I don’t feel comfortable to just sit down inside silence. And so I’ll start by just going for a walk. But not with no music, with no stimulation, just a walk in nature. And listen to I focus on what sounds I can hear. There is a a Hawaiian meditation, which is a listening. It engages your auditory senses and the practice is listening to the further sound that you can hear. And then coming and slowly going from the furthest to the closest to the closest. Until then, you is the most the closest sound that you can hear. And actually and you can do that walking or you can do it sitting, but just bringing awareness back into the present moment. Present moment. Awareness is the cure for almost everything. Because what happens is, is when we’re on that state, on that wheel and we’re moving at a fast pace, or when we’re in that be a state or worry state or high stress, high cortisol, What we’re not doing is we’re not in our body and we’re in the present moment. When you bring everything back to now and bring it back to our senses, there’s a five senses activity as well that that I do often. It’s five things that you can see, four things that you can hear, three things that you can smell, two things that you can touch, and one thing that you can taste and you can do that. But I’ll do that when I’m in a meeting and I’m feeling that I’m getting into a stressed state because perhaps I’m not really happy with the way the meetings are going. I’m not really happy with what’s happening in the room or I’m not. I don’t like the outcome and I feel myself getting a bit tense and I want to go. I’m feeling that urge to go into my masculine and to stop just coming out with No, I don’t agree. This is when I start getting into that kind of state, I’ll just take a deep breath and I will do the five senses activity and I’ll rein in myself in the present moment. And while that’s all going on, I’ve actually missed about 2 minutes of what’s happening in the room, which is great because I’m not caught up in that energy in that whirlwind. So then I can I speak from a different perspective? Yeah, you take yourself out of that to see clear because I’m not caught up in what this person said. That person says how they’ve reacted, what they because sometimes I can be too focused and hyper focused on body language and words and and emotions and that five senses activity just takes me away. And nobody even knows that I’m doing it. I’m doing it when I’m in a room full of people to a little something for yourself. But I know my partner is going to be listening to this. The obvious jokes we have for the audience. My partner’s office is probably about 30 feet away from mine and he’ll be sitting there and he might be clipping us nails and I’ll send him a message going, Clip, clip, clip. And he had no idea that I can hear it. He’s like, How do you you have like incredible ears. I know. I so that’s going to be my one of the five senses is always going to be a nail clipper. I can hear those suckers everywhere. Oh gosh, this has been so helpful. I think the one thing that I’ve learned is almost like to fix oneself. It’s a bit of a paradox. And the reason why I’m saying that is on one hand it’s about the stress in high anxiety, but the the medicine, if you will, for it, is doing exactly the opposite. Going into that uncomfortable state of trying to pause and be in now. And would you say that pretty much every solution in life is kind of like that? Like you look for the simple solutions in ways that a lot of time and money and looking for them, whether it’s weight loss or anything like that. Oh, and that is my my dog having a little throw up. Awesome for the viewers at home. And then, eventually the wise self finally realize, you know what, maybe I’m trying to take too many shortcuts and maybe I should just pause and take a longer cut and enjoy the process. Yeah. Look what I got. Absolutely. I mean, the greatest wisdom that I have ever received is that all the answers that we have are already within us. Everything we need is inside us, and we keep going externally to seek answers, to seek wisdom, to get. I will buy this and buy that. I’ve got to do this. How do these programs do that? And and absolutely we need to learn and we need to grow. That’s part of the journey. But it’s only to bring us back to what’s already within us. And that’s why whenever I take moments and I just do it and I, I breathe and I listen and I reflect, that’s when the answers come to you, that’s when the wisdom comes to you, because that’s when you are able to plug into the frequency of the energy around you. And regardless of what you believe, this isn’t about spirituality in terms of religion or anything like that. It’s just about plugging into the frequency of the energy. I mean, you know, if anyone follows any of Joe dispensers work Doctor Joe Dispenser, you know, they’ve even proven now that, you know, our cells vibrate energy and frequency. It’s no longer what we were taught in school about it being positive and negative neurons. It’s actually now there’s now light. They’re able to see that. And it’s the frequency in the energy of our cells. So, you know that that energy is around us. And so when we pause and we breathe, we tune in and it may not come to us straight away. There’s no kind of magical pill or quick fix. Then we say, Right, yep, I’m sitting here. I have been sitting here for 10 minutes still and nothing is coming to me. We have to truly let go and we just keep doing that, keep taking those moments, whether it’s 5 minutes in the morning, whether it’s 3 minutes in the afternoon, whether. But just keep doing that. Just keep breathing and being still. And, you know, it’s a lot of people, you know, they’ll stay in the shower. They get their creative moments in the shower or when they’re sitting on the toilet. And the reason why is because they’re actually alone and they’re still. Yeah. And they’re not thinking about anything. And I think another thing that has really helped me was letting go of meditation, being having no thoughts, because again, that’s a myth, right? Because thoughts they come and thoughts they go and and putting that expectation that all the amount of times that somebody will say to me, Oh, no, I can’t meditate, meditation is not for me. What else? What else have you got? How else can you help us?Meditate. Because I can’t meditate, you know, I can’t sit there and I have, you know, 10,000 thoughts. And that’s exactly why you need meditation, because you sit down and have those 10,000 thoughts. Maybe meditation for you is just clearing those thoughts. Yeah, having them playing that play out, letting that whole scenario play out while you’re sitting down or while you’re walking and then letting it go. Because once you play it out, no. Yeah. Okay. Well, that wasn’t really real and you let it go. But if we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to let those scenarios play out, they stay with us and they we keep over and over again. Like it adds to tension and it adds to anxiety and it causes that stress and that cortisol response. So we just need to to just breathe and walk and let it out and let it go. Maybe that can be a challenge for the listeners. If you’re listening to this, you know, we’ll end with a challenge that for 30 seconds, even after this podcast, just be with yourself, enjoy the process and see comes up. Who knows? Who knows what problems you may solve. Again, as as expected, this has being just a wave of wisdom that I knew you were going to provide. So thank you so much for your time. WE really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve just love this little hungry. Stay quickly with you. Oh, Oh, there you go. Now we’re back to your problem again. I’m going to on that note, guys, thank you so much for listening and spending the time with us. And once again, never forget that every day is your chance to shine. Love. You’re seeking outward for validation of your worth of who you are in your identity. Then you can never truly, truly be fulfilled or truly feel joy or even a sense of accomplishment in what you do because you’re a waste. And so, you know, it’s it’s it’s hard because we live in a world which is so instant in its gratification, and we seek validation through awards and through successes, through financial revenue and net profit and figures and social media likes and comments. And and so our the construct of our world is built around that. So how do you let go of that? To truly go inwards, to build your self-worth from inside so that then when somebody says, Oh, you’re full of yourself or you’re fake, or I don’t really like you, that it doesn’t, it doesn’t affect you? Oh, I’ve always been connected to people. I’ve always worked in front facing roles, even from when I when I was studying at university, I was in retail. I was always facing with customers. I love that interaction. I worked in fashion retail first six years, and I just enjoy hearing about people’s lives and stories. And, you know, when someone would put a dress on and they would come out of the change room and they would point out everything that was wrong with themselves and their body, and all I would say was this beautiful, bright orange dress, which just fit perfectly. It fit in all the right places. And it lifted her hair. Her features, her and her whole energy, as Carla does. And, you know, I would point out what I saw and I saw how other people would receive that. And so I probably haven’t actually really thought about it like this. But from when I first started interacting and working in my first job, it was all about lifting others out and it was all about. And I think naturally when you do that, then the success comes, you know, like back. I think it would be a good time to, you know, What secret did you choose? The secret. And there were so many and I know everyone stays is that there was about five that I could have chosen. But I when I reflected further, I think one of my greatest fears is that there just isn’t enough time. There isn’t enough time to do the work that I want to do to achieve what I want to achieve, to which my purpose is to bring the light in every person out and share it with the world. There is not enough time for me to get around and do that with every person on this earth. There’s not enough time for me to go and and interact with those people and show them what potential I have and to turn those businesses around so that they equally value their purpose and their profit and that they are using their their commercial ability to to solve the world’s problems. You know, there’s not just not enough time for me to do all of that. You know, there’s there’s not enough time for me to visit every country in the world like I truly want to go to every single country in this world. And I find myself almost breathless sometimes because I think about everything that that I want to do and the difference I want to make. And it’s like, oh, my God, I have this fear that, you know, this lifetime is finite, you know? And and I guess that’s another conversation you go around. But this lifetime, you know, is, is. And so a my journey and this is very this is one of the reasons why I chose this secret is this is very alive me right now. Because, you know, when you talk about vulnerability, you know, we can talk about you know, I can talk about a secret and an experience that I had know five years ago, ten years ago, two years ago, and talk about everything that I’ve learned and, you know, give you a break. But really, that’s what Brené likes to call conditional vulnerability, because it’s vulnerability on the condition that. Well, I’ve really worked through that, right? So I’m not really so vulnerable anymore because I that’s that’s what I went through two years ago. And this is what I like to have going. This is takeaway. But how are we actually all being vulnerable right now? It’s we have to put ourselves in a state of emotional openness and and fear and almost distress to be able to share your innermost feel, fears and anxieties now without necessarily having a solution for it.