Max's Island

Cynthia Bartolomei and her husband decided it was really important for their family to experience a journey around Australia together. So taking their two boys out of school, with the blessing of the headmaster, they chose to follow the sun and head north from Perth WA in April 2021. This was just when WA was being locked down due to the pandemic … and whilst getting into WA was not possible, actually leaving Perth and eventually the state, was not a problem.

They soon discovered the two boys were actually learning so much from their experiences on teh road and most importantly, learning from things that interested them … and not just what was in a formal curriculum.

An early highlight occurred in the Kimberley region, in the far north of WA. On meeting an indigenous elder, they were invited to travel on some rugged tracks to this man’s traditional lands, at a bay on the coast. They were invited to stay the night with his family and had the unique experience of listening to “Dreamtime stories” and be totally immersed in the real history of the place.

This was just one of the amazing places they went to and the full trip delivered unique, unexpected and confronting experiences.

This trip lasted just under a year and has created the desire to do it again … so Cynthia and her family are now planning to leave Perth by the end of this year to do it again and visit places they missed the first time around.

You can follow the new adventures of Cynthia and her family.

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In her own words, Jay Wood got a “bop on the head” in a motor vehicle accident. But this was really serious … and resulted in a major “invisible injury” … a catastrophic traumatic brain injury.

The symptoms are so unique and specific to Jay it often makes it difficult for her to acknowledge how her behaviours are perceived by others. Nonetheless, she honestly believes she didn’t lose her essence following the accident … as she says …”her heart didn’t get damaged”. She still believes LOVE is the most important thing in the world and tries to live her life this way.

The impact of the accident, which happened in her early twenties, robbed her of many youthful experiences and doing the things she wanted to do. So, re-learning the forgotten skills of her life … those lost in the brain injury … was important. Especially re-capturing the magic of her music that now inspires her ongoing passions. It took two years for Jay to re-learn to play the guitar and understanding the essence of her old songs … how the lyrics and music went together …was her greatest challenge.

Unable to fully capture this previous essence, has allowed her to re-create the ‘awe” of her music in a whole new way… by writing the songs again … now influenced by her new “life experience”.

Now following the path of reality she is on … Jay’s driving force is to try and show others who may feel stuck, that they can overcome anything.

Her music is a big part along this pathway for her life.

Check out Jay’s music at :- www.jaywoodmusic.com

or follow her on Insta @jaywoodmusicofficial and on Facebook @ jaywoodmusic.

Suzie Aries … actor, performer and someone with a positive outlook on life.

Her world was shattered following the removal of a “mass” from her body and the realisation she had to acknowledge the diagnosis of cancer.

Her acting career was still at the forefront of her life focus, even when the cancer treatment resulted in losing her hair and having to deal with the physical and mental challenges of fighting this horrible disease.

Recovery was long … but positive … and eventually Suzie was able to recover her health and the zest for a full life. BUT, this became a new life … different from being an actor. She discovered a passion for “sign language” and the career path toward becoming a “communications support worker” for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

With a “glass half full” approach to life, Suzie is now forging this new career and looking forward to a future that is exciting and complete.

Paul Hansen is a confident, well educated and strong professional, who has built a successful career for herself in organisational development and leadership. This has been both as a senior manager in major mining companies and as an independent consultant in the sector.

So it came as a shock, when once a ‘new’ manager of her team adopted an adversarial approach that featured a high level of personal bullying and unsupportive team behavour. The explicit negative actions and the implied undermining of individuals in the team … including Paul … saw a number of them leave within a 3 month period. Paul was the second to leave the team, and this was at a time that coincided with the start of the infamous GFC in October 2008.

So, she was not only challenged by the personal impact of the bullying, but had to deal with starting a consulting business in financially risky times.

Using her lived experiences from this event and also acknowledging the need to personally accept and cope with the emotional fall-out, Paul was able to successfully craft an ongoing career until her recent retirement.

Tara Ulrich went on a years travel following high school. This gave her a chance to reflect on the career expectations she had to be an Auslan interpreter … and those encouraged by close friends and family. Whilst this expected career direction was something she new well, was emotionally close to and was something she could easily do … she had doubts. Did she really want to do this.

On her return to Perth, an opportunity to enter the corporate world appeared … she took a leap of faith, and ultimately has found a place to professionally thrive.

This was quite different to her previously “expected” career.

But then an unexpected visit from her mum to Tara’s workplace changed everything. The introduction of her mum, who is deaf, to her work colleagues, inspired a process that has seen Auslan being taught in her organisation through out Australia and New Zealand…And Tara’s mum has been an important trainer in this program.

Tara has become a “Champion of Change” for diversity and equity across the organisation … with particular focus on disability, especially with her unique insights and connections to the deaf and hard of hearing community.

TRANSCRIPT:

"Because ... I was bringing her into my world for once!"

This link is a transcript of Tara’s episode with Tony (Aka Max) from Max’s Island.

Stefan West is a solo artist from Melbourne Australia. Pulling from his own life experiences he uses music as a canvas to paint the experiences of his own life. His previous project, The Velvet Addiction, saw many successes with the likes of national airplay on Triple M, Rebel Fm and MTV.

During his visit to Max’s Island, Stefan continues to openly share his past experiences with drug addition, mental health and friends lost to suicide. He uses this opportunity to weave a story of how his realisation of the past and the personal reconciliation of his actions can be shared through his music.

Stefan has just left the studio finishing his debut album “Cambridge”, with the first single “Take what you need” to be released on September 1st, 2023.

Connect with the creative work of Stefan West today.

https://stefanwestmusic.com/

open.spotify.com/artist/0PBx1cYritKInSKLkn3Zea?si=tJPoCIviTqGLa6ZSZKC7XA

https://www.instagram.com/stefanwest_/

https://www.facebook.com/stefanwesttt

Stefan’s PR is arranged by Karen Harding @ Rise Indie https://riseindie.com/

Shaun Williams was professionally well entrenched and purposefully building on the foundations he had already laid in his corporate life.

Then, following a chat with a friend at a party, he became aware of a “nature quest on Noongar Boodja”, run by Claire Vanderplank from Partnering with Nature. He researched, prepared and finally made the decision to do it.

So, not long after the suggestion was made to him, Shaun found himself travelling to country Western Australia early one morning - after attending a “bucks night” - to test himself over 8 days - 4 of them in solitude - and experience something that was approaching spiritual enlightenment.

In this episode, Shaun shares the impact this quest had on him at the time and the changes he has made to his life following this experience.

James Hoare was born with a brain injury called hydrocephalus and had 4 brain surgeries before he was 7 years old. However, that didn’t hold back his inherent competitive nature to try challenging and exciting past times during his life.

He started mountain climbing in 2011 with Mt Kosciusko then Mt Kilimanjaro in 2013. After Mt Kosciusko he created the goal of being the first person with hydrocephalus to ever climb the 7 summits - the tallest mountain on every continent.

But, everything changed when training for his next climb, Mt Aconcagua in South America. He was assaulted at work twice in the space of 10 months and lost both his eye sight and the ability to walk over time. This required life saving brain surgery. He was given a choice, do the surgery even though there was a 1 in 3 chance of something going wrong including a stroke, a seizure, an aneurism, a bleed or a heart attack, and if the issue was big enough he could die, or don't have the surgery and live for about 2 more years while on extreme pain killers. 

He chose surgery and immediately regained his sight and mobility … enough to actively pursue his lofty goal to be the first person with hydrocephalus to climb the 7 summits of the world.

James’s story is one of courage, persistence, resilience and most importantly the will to live.

Follow James @ Aiming At Everest on Facebook.

Clare Allen has been a successful C-Suite executive for many years. Her intensity to performing at the highest CEO level comes from self-confessed personality traits … but also has been complimented by strong philosophies toward life and work balance.

The heavy spiritual influence in her life was highly influential when she chose to re-assess her approach to work following a series of serious, related health challenges.

This experience steered her toward writing books on how to balance the human spiritual and belief system with the physical demands of leadership and being a CEO.

Clare is driven and uniquely gifted but see’s the need for moments of reflection and continual reassessment of 5 year goals.

See more of Clare’s work at https://www.drclareallen.org/

Dylan Lamb had a recent experience that he finds difficult to explain.

This mentally challenging episode may have been influenced by drugs … it may have been influenced by his state of mind at the time … or it might have been influenced by deep mental health characteristics. No-one really knows.

This event lasted for just over a week, but it saw him become paranoid around his business and social network, take a swim with sharks in a Brisbane river and even discard valuable possessions as a way to protect his identity.

He was supported by family and friends to recover and reset, but a mystery remains around the entire occurrence, as Dylan continues to really understand what happened.