Challenges That Change Us

We have talked about losing a loved one on the podcast before but often have focused on the grief that comes afterwards and not as much on the moment of when someone first learns of that loss. This week’s story covers this moment but with a twist.

Jessica Ritchie has had several challenges in her life, but for her, the one that stands out is the moment a national news headline led her to genuinely believe her husband had died in a police shoot out. She had been making small changes up until that point, but the response she felt to that moment and the way that she reacted made her realise she had to make a change. It’s what led her to completely overhaul her business and life and it formed the basis of her book.

In this episode she shares:

• The time her husband was caught in enormous shooting incident and she didn’t know if he was alive or not
• The anxiety and stress that came from not being able to find out about her husbands safety
• The time she found her baby brother in a comatose state when she was a child
• The days after her husband came home after the shooting
• How traumatic experiences caused her to disconnect herself from her husband and loved ones so she wouldn’t feel the pain again.
• Her significant personal challenges of floods, cancer diagnoses in close friends, and personal health struggles and having children when doctors said it wasn’t possible
• The creation of a methodology based on mindset, authenticity, resilience, and kindness

Key Quotes

“I went through grief. I felt like every cell in my body changed because to me, my husband had died.”

“When I was 5 I found my brother in a comatose state due to juvenile diabetes.”

“So I turned it on, and there, straight up on national news was the headline, Helidon police officer, father of 2, shot and killed in the line of duty.”

More about Jessica

www.transformationalbrandlab.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritchiejessica/

https://www.instagram.com/the.jessica.ritchie/ https://www.facebook.com/thejessicaritchie/

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website: http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s the second part of the episode 100 celebrations! I still can’t believe we have made it this far and grown the community to the size it now is.

Now, so many of our guests stories have been about overcoming adversity and the lessons they have learnt from doing so. But one of the big key factors I have noticed for so many of these stories has been the persons resilience.

Resilience is a word that gets thrown around a lot, and is something so powerful that I have even built a workshop around building resilience.

So I thought for this episode we could do a deep dive in on resilience and give you a free resource on how you can utilise it as well.

In this episode I share:

-      What resilience is and isn’t

-      That you're allowed to grieve and I encourage you to grieve for all the things that have happened

-      The importance of 'working out what game you're playing'

-      Why you need to know what you can and cannot control

-      What to do after sorting out your controllables

-      How to figure out your support and why you need it

-      Why you need to give yourself permission to not be ok

-      What to do if you mind is moving into the fear space

-      Why it is ok to 'clear your plate'

Key Quotes

“The most resilient people I know fall over.”

“You’re not going to be content and happy for a whole week 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.”

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:

www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

@trialtitudeperformance

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is episode 100. Can you believe we have made it this far? I could not believe it when it was pointed out we were about to reach episode 100 and I was asked “what do you want to do for it?”

But I felt, the Challenges That Change Us community has been such an amazing source of support and love ever since we started, that I had to do something to give back.

So to celebrate we are releasing two solo episodes all designed to give you something!

The second episode will be all about resilience with guidance and advice, but for the first episode I wanted to reflect on all we have done, but also give you a behind the scenes peek at what goes into making this podcast.

In this episode I share:

-      My reflections on what I have loved about doing the podcast

-      How the community has grown and become such a big part of the podcast

-      The wins we have had with the podcast

-      The challenges we have faced behind the scenes with the podcast

-      What we are planning to do with the podcast in 2024

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:

www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

@trialtitudeperformance

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

Trigger warning: discussions of suicide

This week we are joined by someone to share two very different stories.

Myfanwy Maple is Professor of Social Work in the School of Health at the University of New England in Armidale.

Her first story is around her area of expertise, where she researches trauma and loss and how we can support those at risk of suicide better.

Her second is the story of her journey to being diagnosed with an auto immune disease.

In this episode Myf shares:

·      Her passion about better understanding the experience of suicide to improve how we support people

·      How there is a need for a better support system around suicide

·      About how personal stories are powerful, and how people’s stories are different from others perspective.

·      The diagnosis of auto immune diseases and how that creates challenges in her life but it’s not a death sentence.

·      Shame, and how you can overcome the shame you have done to yourself. 

·      Why you should be caring and kind to others because we don’t know their story

·     How her job helps Australian’s live, work and play

Key Quotes

“I spend too much time in my head and not in my heart.”

“Not all disability is visible.”

“Do I need to push myself a little bit more and I’ll feel better or if I push myself a little more will I fall over completely. And I still don’t know how to make that calculation.”

More about

You can find Myf on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myfanwy-maple/

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

Our childhood, and how we are treated during that period of our life, has a massive impact on us as adults.

I think it’s fair to say we have covered stories of a variety of childhood traumas in this podcast and each one has been unique and stunning.

But one area we have not covered is the experience of being a foster child, and the situations that can lead to that.

This weeks’ guest is the incredible Raphaella Lees. This is the first time she has gone on a podcast to share her story of living in the foster system and she provides a truly eye opening experience

In this episode Raphaella share:

-      Her Foster Care Experience.

-      About losing her brother, and taking on the responsibility of her sister.

-      Feeling judged and attacked when asked about being in foster care

-      The stigma that is around foster care in our society

-      How she deals with her anxiety about her attachment issues

-      The grief and loss of foster family relationships.

-      How carers need more education.

Key Quotes

“I'm grateful for the person who made the anonymous phone call that put us into foster care, I think they really were a blessing and they possibly saved my life.”

“I think that’s part of the reason why I don’t remember a lot of my childhood. There’s a lot of trauma block there.”

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites:

www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

@trialtitudeperformance

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

Trigger warning: this episode discusses domestic violence

Our guest for this episode is someone whose tenacity and ingenuity helped them overcome a big personal hurdle, but also helped them take on a challenge to help other Australians as well. Ashton Wood runs DV Safe phone, a charity that gets safe phones into the hands of domestic violence survivors AND he has also lobbied to change the Australian Consumer Law to better protect new car buyers in Australia. With no formal training or experience in Consumer Laws or domestic violence his attitude is “if not me, then who?”

In this episode Ashton shares:

• How one person can make a huge difference
• How he took a stand and publicly destroyed his lemon of a car to call out the company after they stuffed him around
• The importance of having a voice for people who don’t have a voice
• Why you have to take the harder road to get an outcome
• How he was donating goods, but they needed phones for victims so he decided to start a charity, to donate phones to victims of domestic violence
• The unbelievably high number of how many phones are needed by DV survivors
• The importance of new phones for those fleeing a domestic violence situation

Key Quotes

“I was shocked to hear what happens in the life of a domestic violence survivor, the phones can be tracked, and the only real way to get them safe is to get them a new phone”

“If a victim doesn’t have a phone how do they make a call to enact the plan and get safe.”

More about

You can connect with Ashton via linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonwood/

To find out more about DV safe phone, you can go here: https://dvsafephone.org/

You can also find them on socials. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DVSafePhone/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dvsafephone

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website: http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

 For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

We’ve spoken on this show before about highly controlled religious groups before, but it has been more from the outside looking in.

This episode’s guest experience being born into just such a group and living in it for 20 years before being expelled simply for asking questions.

Lindy Jacomb is the founder of the Olive Leaf Network, a recently launched charity in New Zealand that supports former members of high-demand religious groups. 

In this episode Lindy shares:

• About high controlled religious groups
• Her experience growing up in a high control religious group
• How the group appears to use technology to control its members
• The process she went through to realising she didn’t believe in the religion
• How she experienced shunning and was cut out of the community for asking questions
• How someone threw out a rope when she felt like she was drowning, even though her religion said they were evil 
• How she is now helping others go through the process of leaving high cost situations.
• The importance of having the courage to make the choice to change

Key Quotes

“This whole thing is a construct of lies”

“It wasn’t an external force that took (my family) from me. They have actively chosen to be dead to me.”

“If anybody finds out I’m questioning the faith, I’m essentially socially dead.”

More about Lindy

Lindy is the Founder and Team Facilitator at the Olive Leaf Network which you can find out more about here:

Website: https://oliveleaf.network LinkedIn: Olive Leaf Network LinkedIn. 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theoliveleafnetwork Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olive_leaf_network/

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

We often end up discussing big medical challenges on this podcast but there are so many other challenges that can have lingering effects.

We can all agree that teachers have an enormous responsibility on their shoulders, but what happens when one of the children in their care goes missing?

That’s what happened for Aimee Parkinson the first time she was in charge of a big sleep over at the school she worked at.

After seeing first-hand how the wellbeing of staff easily becomes a low-level priority when other pressing matters demand attention, Aimee has started her own mission to support teachers. Along with her experiences, she combined her Masters of Educational Leadership, Health and Wellness Coaching Professional Certificate, Accredited Practitioner Credentials with Work of Wellbeing and research gained from hosting The Wonders of Wellbeing Podcast, to create Well-Nest. 

In this episode Aimee shares:

• The responsibility and challenges of teaching, and the pressures of looking after kids
• The moment she first had responsibility for a large group of kids at an overnight sleep
• How things nearly went terribly wrong
• Her reaction to a child going missing and how it made her question herself
• How she was to hard on herself and needs to stick to facts to cope
• Why you need to have the toolkit for different situations, as all situations are different
• The importance of debriefing a situation
• Why we should be creating space for teachers to reflect and look after themselves

Key Quotes

“The last thing teachers do is look after themselves. And when teachers are not well, they can’t teach and lead well.”

“I try to just stick to facts, I can be very hard on myself”

“It was less about can I do it, it was more do I want to? Do I want this level of responsibility?”

More about Aimee

You can hear Aimee on her podcast, The Wonder’s Of Welling: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-wonders-of-wellbeing-podcast/id1616618044

Head to her coaching and support website: https://www.well-nest.com.au/

She can be found on LinkedIn https://au.linkedin.com/in/aimee-parkinson or Instagram: well_nest_collective_co

You can get involved with the podcast online

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

To contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected] Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

To find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website: http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business go here: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

We have spoken about living with disability on this podcast before, but one disability that we don’t often understand the full impacts of is deafness.

Today’s guest is David Brady and he has ample experience to share, including his insights into living with hearing loss. Profoundly deaf since birth, David grew up in rural Armidale, NSW and overcame many challenges. David was the Chief Executive Officer of Hear For You from 2013 to 2021. Prior to this, he worked in the Sports and Recreation management industry for 15 years. David represented Australia at the 2005 Deaflympic Games in Melbourne and played state-level Water Polo, Hockey, and Beach Volleyball. He is the current Chairperson of Deafness Forum Australia, member of the Advisory Board for Macquarie University Centre for the Implementation for Hearing Research, and was one of the architects of the Commonwealth Government Roadmap for Hearing Health for Australia.

In this episode Dave shares:

• What his life was like growing up deaf
• Despite his hearing impairment he was determined to be more than people expected, from getting his HCS to graduating University
• The negative reactions people had to accommodations for his disability
• Whether to put deafness on your resume or not.
• Being an athlete and the barriers around communicating on the sporting field.
• How he took his career further than anyone ever expected, and became a leader.  
• The moment he heard his daughter for the first time.
• How he has contributed and wants to continue to contribute to the NDIS.

Key Quotes

“Do you put deaf in your resume? They’ll immediately focus on your disability, or use it to tick off a box, and use you.”

“When people are not including you you've got to include yourself.”

“When you have to think about an $8000 hearing aid or $8000 on the family budget…For us we have to make the choice.”=

More about Dave

You can connect with Dave via linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-brady-ceohfy-chairdfa?originalSubdomain=au

You can get involved with the podcast online

To try out our resilience course: https://www.challengesthatchangeus.com/surviving-2-thriving-course1

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website: http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

@trialtitudeperformance

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To book a spot in our High Performance Leadership Summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

To book into our free mindset reset workshop on January 2nd head here: https://trialtitude.as.me/Mindsetreset

We’ve spoken about burn out before on this podcast, but no one quite encapsulates what it’s like to burn out from hitting the dizzying highs of a high performance job quite like Jessica Spendlove. Jess is one of Australia's most respected and experienced Sports Dietitian. Over the last decade, she has accumulated more than 30 seasons in various professional team sports, worked with world record holders, Olympic athletes and many corporate organisations. But after achieving all of this an issue with her health made her realise she had to start looking after herself first. This is one of those stories that has it all. The challenge AND all of the information and lessons you need to help yourself.

In this episode Jess shares:

· Her early years of winning in swimming

· Her role as a dietitian, in professional sport

· How she thrived professionally, but it had consequences

· What happened to cause her high performer burnout

· What happened during covid and how an Illness was a trigger to change her life

· The experience of having a business partnership breakup and starting again

· Starting a new career as a podcaster and a coach for high performers

Key Quotes

“If its 80% done by someone else it’s pretty much done.”

“I was getting it wrong before I was getting it right.”

“I felt rejected. I felt probably somewhat worthless. And I also was like, I have sacrificed so much of my own life, for what?”

More about Jess

Listen to her podcast Stay At The Top here: https://pod.fo/e/1fab22

Follow her on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessica.spendlove.31/

Take her High Performance profile quiz here: https://jessica-spendlove.mykajabi.com/Elite-Energy-Blueprint-Quiz

More about CTCU

On facebook in our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/challengesthatchangeus

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

If you want to contact the podcast, email us here: [email protected]

Or check out our website: www.Challengesthatchangeus.com

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au

For her other business you can find it through the websites: www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.