Challenges That Change Us

Trigger warning: This episode covers the details of a genocide and discusses murder, rape, assault, slavery and more.

This episode I have the privilege to be speaking to someone truly courageous and incredible.

Living in Australia and the rest of Western society, our understanding of what can happen oppressed minority groups in other countries can be hazy at best.

So it goes without saying that even our imagination cannot truly help us what it must have been like to have suffered through a genocide.

That is exactly what happened to Salam Qaro and his Yazidi community in 2014.

Abandoned by governments, Salam witnessed atrocities committed against his people when ISIS attacked. From there he began the long journey through refugee camps, seeking asylum and eventually travelling all the way to Armidale, Australia.

Now we are truly honoured to have him talk to us about his story.

In this episode Salam shares:

-      What actually happened during the 2014 Yazidi Genocide

-      The horrific war crimes committed by Isis against the Yazidi people

-      How he worked to save and rescue people during the attacks

-      The reality of what it is like in a refugee camp and why it’s not how we imagine

-      The drawn out process of seeking asylum and why it took him years to have it granted

-      What it has been like settling in Armidale  

-      The strange challenge they are having with getting the Government to recognise the Yazidi language and why it is costing lives

Key Quotes

“I hate the term refugee, because we are not refugees, and we feel we are a part of this beautiful country and community.”

“Be kind to yourself, treat yourself with the same compassion you would offer to the others.”

“That’s the only thing we want. We just wanted to be safe and in a life and to support the community around us.”

More about Salam

If you want to show your support you can attend the Yazidi Genocide commemoration on 3rd August 2-4pm at the Armidale Town Hall.

Resilience course

To subscribe to our resilience course use this link: https://altitudefitnessarmidale.clickfunnels.com/from-surviving-2-thriving

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

For this episode we’re going to have a little change of pace with an expert to give us some amazing guidance and advice on positive education and the science of well being.

Marnie Thomas is the head of positive education at Newcastle Grammar School and loves making wellbeing visible for her students, colleagues, and the wider school community.

She has a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology, University of Melbourne and won the Top Visible Wellbeing Teacher Award in a K-12 School – Global Visible Wellbeing Summit in 2021. 

In this episode Marnie shares:

-      The moment she realised it's not her role to fix others, but to listen and learn and the personal challenges during this time that shaped her.

-      Why it’s important to understand that grief and gratitude and strength and struggle coexist in relationships

-      Her belief that we should be moving beyond individual well-being, focusing on systems.

-      The importance of knowing your strengths, relationships, and learning from mistakes.

-      How they implemented a well-being system at a school.

-      The power of having language around emotions

-      The science of well being

-      How gratitude and micro moments can change perspective.

Key Quotes

“Grief and gratitude also co-exist.”

“I try to notice 3 micro moments every day. It’s that shared human moment that you have with somebody else.”

More about Marnie

You can connect with Marnie professionally on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marnie-thomas-she-her-mapp-9588b9223/?originalSubdomain=au

You can also follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marnie.j.thomas/

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

Cancer is an enormous challenge that many of us, or our loved ones may encounter.

But somehow a lot of us are still unaware of what is involved in the recovery journey.

And for Australians, an alarming number of us are unaware of the journey with Melanoma in particular.

In 2019 Jarrad Bolton’s life was changed forever when he was given a stage 4 Melanoma diagnosis.

Since then he has gone through an incredible journey to remission and then the insane journey to become an ultra distance runner to run the 660 km’s of the Gibb River Run

In this episode Jarrad shares:

-      What happened when he found out it had stage 4 melanoma

-      The experience of being on a 5 year trial

-      How it felt being part of the melanoma community

-      Why the hardest part was not being able to provide for his family

-      The experience of taking part in the 660km run

-      Why his dad is his biggest hero

-      Why his biggest take away is to not be afraid and just try things

Key Quotes

“It’s so easy to get caught up in life, life’s hard…but you have to just enjoy it.”

“Knowing I couldn’t provide for the family, that was probably the hardest part.”

“Without even knowing you become a bit of an inspiration to the outside world.”

More about Jarrad

You can watch the documentary about his journey here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlN7_hgwtwo

To help donate to Jarrad’s go fundme you can do so here: https://diy.melanoma.org.au/page/JarradBolton

Or follow him on social media

Instagram: @bolts88

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

This weeks episode is all about overing MS or Multiple sclerosis

Lynda MacCallum grew up on her family’s sheep and cattle property in a little district called Timor, in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales.

In 2018 she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and to many that would see an end to any career that requires hard physical work with animals like horses.

Instead she has gone on to run MacCallum Performance and achieve so much more.

In this episode Lynda shares:

-      The moment she started to develop symptoms of MS

-      How she had to lay on a bench in the doctors office to get a diagnosis

-      The grieving process of letting go of who you were before MS

-      How she learnt to listen to herself and learnt to say no

-      The journey she went on to not allow her illness to define her

Key Quotes

“I did grieve that person that I’d been and the person that I couldn’t be.”

“I need to live every moment for what it is and take the good out of every moment.”

“I need to learn to listen to myself and do what I need even if that means saying no to something that my husband or my children want me to do.”

More about Lynda

You can find out more about Lynda via her website: https://maccallumperformance.com.au/

Or follow her on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maccallumperformance/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MacCallumPerformanceHorses

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

For this episode we are examining a very different kind of challenge. The journey of launching and running a national charity at the age of 10.

Jack Berne is the founder of the Jack’s Mate’s Foundation and the campaign A Fiver for a Farmer that he started when he was 10 years old. Since launching the campaign in 2018, more than $2 million dollars have been raised to help support farmers. Jack has continued to use his small but mighty voice to continue raising awareness.

In this episode Jack shares:

-      The story of how he started A Fiver For A Farmer

-      His experience with public speaking

-      Why being a kid is an advantage, Kids want to go to that next level

-      What it was like on Little Big shots, with Melissa McCarthy

-      Why he’s not worried about the future 

-      Finding the balance of working and being a kid

Key Quotes

“One small act for some one else every day. If everyone did that, the world would become a better place.”

“Public speaking is finding what’s best for you, its about being passionate”

“Fail stands for First Attempt In Learning.”

More about Jack

You can find out more about Jack via his charity website: www.afiverforafarmer.com.Au

You can view his speech via the live link here https://www.youtube.com/live/ivzyw827q6g?feature=share which to date has 1.8k views.. you can scroll to his speech at 1 hour and 13minutes. 

You can also listen to his episode of Pinna podcast ‘One Small Act’: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/one-small-act/id1292020504?i=1000541686758

Or follow him on social media

Instagram @jacksmatesfoundation

Facebook @afiverforafarmer 

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

Work, life balance is something we are all becoming a lot more aware of, but being aware and enacting it are two very different things.

Most of us will be familiar with the feeling of burn out, over work, or being stuck in a toxic work place, but what happens when those very circumstances result in you waking up in the hospital in your twenties?

That is exactly what this weeks episode is about.

Wayne Reuben is the host of Hard Yards in leadership and he is an accomplished CEO with decades of senior leadership experience focused in APAC and Australia.

Now he is an international leader who provides coaching, mentoring and advisory services to Founders and C-level leaders.

But in his early days he encountered work place stress that had a significant impact on his health and completely changed how he approached work and his own life.

In this episode Wayne shares:

-      The experience of being targeted by a boss at work

-      How his experience with work led him to a heart attack

-      The journey he went on to prevent a similar experience from happening again

-      Why he was actually happy when a later job made him redundant

-      The pieces of advice around work and leadership that he has learnt

Key Quotes

“When you make things complex, you never make progress easy.”

“When people define themselves by narrower and narrower things, you run into all kinds of consequences when everything doesn’t go perfect.”

More about Wayne

You can find out more about Wayne via his website: https://engage4performance.com/

Or follow him on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/  

Or listen to his podcast Hard Yards In Leadership: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/hard-yards-in-leadership/id1671457626

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

In this episode we are delving into the topic of ‘Chronic pain’. It’s a term that is being used more and more often, but for those on the outside, how much do we really understand about it? How much of the impacts to we truly know?

Ellen Howland is a 44 year old mum of 3 and is a Health, Lifestyle and Nutrition Coach with 18 years coaching and mentoring experience. Ellen had a life changing health journey which completely transformed her life, going from walking zombie to ultra marathon runner and really finding her passion and purpose in life. Ellen now uses this knowledge and experience to support other women on their own health and wellness journey.

In this episode Ellen shares:

-      Exactly what is Chronic neuropathic pain

-      How one moment hitting a cow changed life

-      What happened when her chronic pain led to depression and medication.

-      Why the hardest thing was not living up to being a mum

-      The importance of fighting limiting beliefs.

-      Why you should go public with your goals and embrace vulnerability.

Key Quotes

“Have the people that fan your flames around you at all times.”

“I wasn’t living up to be the person I wanted to be and definitely wasn’t being the mum I wanted to be.”

“That one moment completely changed everything in my life.”

More about Ellen

You can find out more about Ellen via her website: https://www.ellenrenee.net/

Or follow her on her socials:

https://www.facebook.com/ellenreneehowland

https://www.instagram.com/iamellenrenee/

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

For this episode we are welcoming back my incredible friend Jess Lawton who you might remember from episode 22 “When no one notices you have anxiety”.

But this time around she is sharing a completely different story about her journey to the stage of under going bariatric surgery and what the process was like.

For those who don’t know Bariatric surgery is a weight loss measure that affects the stomach and how food is digested.

This surgery is shrouded in a lot of mystery because those who undergo it are often accused of ‘taking the easy way out’ when it is anything but that.

In this episode Jess shares:

-      Her early journey with weight and her body

-      How the fertility journey set her on the path to bariatric surgery

-      The long process of researching the surgery

-      How much she had to prepare and what the surgery was like

-      Exactly what she is limited in doing after having the surgery

-      How people treated her differently after the surgery

-      What she learnt from the journey

Key Quotes

“The risk of major surgery is not something you put your body through lightly.”

“I’m in control of my thoughts, but that also means that ‘I’ am in control of my thoughts.”

More about Jess

If you want to look into Jess’ services you can check out her website: https://www.mindemporium.com.au/

Or find her on socials,

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themindemporium/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088916512713

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

Trigger Warning: neo natal death and miscarriage

While we have previously touched on difficult pregnancies, today’s episode follows one incredibly strong woman’s journey through the trauma of neo natal death.

Kim Grundy is an incredible woman, wife and mother to two boys, but before she had her two children she lost her baby girl Chloe at 23 weeks of pregnancy.

In this episode Kim shares:

-      When she started to think things were wrong but the doctors said it was fine

-      The process of being hospitalised when her pregnancy started to go wrong

-      How confusing and unclear the process of finding out what was happening was

-      The traumatic moments after having to give birth to her daughter

-      What happened to her after the neo natal death of her daughter

-      The scary process of falling pregnant a second time

-      How her second pregnancy almost ended in a similar way

-      The lessons she has learnt

Key Quotes

“I could see her face and I knew it wasn’t ok.”

“I remember for months I would just feel numb.”

“You don’t know how much strength you have until you have to engage it.”

Support around miscarriage

Bears of hope is an organisation that provides help and support: https://www.bearsofhope.org.au/

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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

For this episode I am so excited to introduce you to a guest who is extremely special to me. I want to introduce you to my beautiful Aunty Di.

This is a story that when you see it on paper you think, there is no way that so much could happen to one family at one time.

In the space of forty days, my Uncle Barry, Aunty Di and cousin Laura were all diagnosed with cancer and this was all during the peak of the covid pandemic in the UK.

Their resilience and zest for life is extraordinary and for anyone going through or is going through the cancer world you know how challenging it can be and I am still blown away by how these guys tackled this head on.

In this episode Di shares:

-      The journey her family took to relocate to the UK as her sister died from cancer

-      Living through the covid pandemic with an immune compromised husband

-      What it felt like to suffer from long covid

-      Discovering her husband had cancer, then shingles

-      How she felt discovering she had breast cancer shortly after her husband started cancer treatment

-      The devastating moment they discovered her daughter also had breast cancer

-      What happened when her husband did get struck by covid

Key Quotes

“We went 6 weeks from being a perfectly normal family to 3/4 of it having a cancer diagnosis to deal with.”

“We thought cancer was bad, we knew nothing about covid.”

You can get involved with the podcast online

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

Or on Instagram: @challengesthatchangeus

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

Or you can follow them on Instagram:

@Altitudefitnessarmidale

@trialtitudeperformance

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