The Glocals

Recorded live in Ringwood, VIC 3134 on Monday 2 March 2020.

Having volunteered for Community Four for a while and know how passionate everyone is when it comes to helping refugee women to integrate into the Australian life and culture, I was so excited to finally sit down with Gavin, their CEO, to chat all things life and passion.

A bit on Gavin:

Gavin Ackerly, Chief Executive Officer of Community Four

Gavin is the founder of the Symbiotic Innovation model of social assistance. He is a Churchill Fellow who has worked for over a decade in empowerment services with new and emerging community members. He was the Director of Empowerment and Innovation Hub at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre for 9 years. He later served as the Executive Manager of the Western Bulldogs Community Foundation, and most recently, as a strategic consultant to several community led organisations, including the Islamic Council of Victoria.

Please head to Community Four's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/communityfour.org/ to find out more about the great work that they are doing.

This convo was such an amazing one, and hearing another person's life story and perspectives always bring me so much energy and inspiration. This time, Gavin and I had a meaningful conversation at a local library where Gavin had a coffee and I had an absolutely awesome time.

Just be human and stay inspired!

Cheers,

Gavin and Lu

Recorded live in Collingwood VIC 3066 on Tuesday 25 February 2020.

Meet my new friend Josh, an entrepreneur, a TEDx Talks speaker and most importantly, a really fun person!

In this fun conversation, Josh took out some time from his busy schedule to share his story and help me flip the script! From all that, his message is crystal clear: How you see yourself matters, and instead of focussing on the shortcomings and the hardships, why don’t you focus on your strengths and all the opportunities for once? If you would like to flip the script for yourselves, please give this conversation a listen and try what Josh did. It was great fun, and I guess now I’m BRUCE!

If you would like to know more about Josh, please go look for him on social media @Josh Farr. His amazing TEDx Talk - Leadership is service is one of my faves, especially because I am an aspiring leader. I also reckon leadership is something we all need to go far in life, so give it a watch/listen on YouTube!

Cheers,

Josh and Lu

Recorded live in Melbourne CBD 3000 on Saturday 22 February 2020.

My mate Sanket and I sat down for a conversation, first of its kind between us. We reflected on our journeys in Melbourne so far and discussed how we should all enjoy life, no matter where we are. Life is always tough in one way or another, but we agreed that if we don't enjoy today, it will pass by, and chances are, by the time you know it, your time at a certain place is already gone. So hey, enjoy today, enjoy your life to the fullest, and find joy in the little things. If you are also in Melbourne, there are a million free things to enjoy, and it's awesome.

Cheers,

Sanket and Lu

Recorded live in Melbourne CBD, Australia 3000 on Thursday 20 February 2020.

As a young person, politics to me personally is a highly sensitive topic, and frankly speaking, hard to fully wrap my head around. I constantly read to understand and research to know more about different opinions. The fact that politics can sometimes be absolutely deceiving in the face of world challenges has been on my mind for a while, but I do think that each human can do something about it. And luckily enough, I met Clement from Ghana through my friends, and he is such a passionate scholar in this area. However, when we sat down for this conversation, I could understand for the first time why a human can be so passionate about politics. As much as it can be a topic of avoidance for many, it is also one that sparks hope and interests in others. This conversation is just the beginning of so many others, and I have learned so much about why politics and scholars do what they do to bring understanding to others. However, I also know that it is up to us to learn more about the world and do what we can, especially young people. It is up to us to know right from wrong regardless of which political party to follow or who to vote for. Actions matter.

Cheers,

Clement and Lu

Recorded live in Melbourne CBD, Australia 3000 on Friday 7 Feb 2020.

Noah is back with another wholesome convo! Miss Americana, aka American Sweetheart, aka Taylor Swift needs no further introduction. But is she a topic though?

Oh yes she is! On this week’s episode, we discussed the recent Netflix documentary by her, about her, and spoiler alert: We love it! This is the first time ever that she’s told her story with her own narrated words and video clips rather than lyrics and interviews. There are some stuff that we’ve already known, but what’s deeper is the psychological journey that a famous person’s gone through over the course of her career so far. She is just like any of us, despite the image built around glamorous magazine covers we have all seen. What is special about Taylor’s story is that how people talk about her somehow reflect how sometimes we as humans are drawn to dramas more than the good things, and we advocate bad/irrelevant trends rather than pressing issues.

Noah and I are both Swifties, and we love her wholeheartedly no matter what people say or think about her. And we also emphasised on the fact that she, as a feminist herself, definitely spoke our minds about how women should be and want to be treated: with equality and respect, as much as men do. I reckon the documentary and this convo will somehow allow men to understand women’s struggles and perspectives. In a broader sense, what we took from the whole documentary is how we could all be a bit more empathetic towards others and especially ourselves. Even the Woman of the Decade has her own struggles and face issues like any other human being, so empathy is simply the key to kindness and happiness in 2020. What do you reckon?

Thank you heaps for having this convo with me Noah, it’s always a good time with you! More on Noah if you are keen to get to know him:

We cannot stress this enough: Please go watch the documentary Miss Americana on Netflix no matter how well you know Taylor Swift, for you will definitely take something from it.

All our love,

Noah and Lu

Recorded live in Ringwood, Melbourne, Australia 3134 and Hanoi, Vietnam 100000 on Sunday 2 February 2020.

Welcome to my coffee chat with my little sister from another mother, Su!

We have discussed this topic so many times, but this time is a bit different because she reminded me about the time she asked me to be her friend.

You know, at 20-something, when someone asks you to be your friend, it’s kind of a big deal. Or at least it was (when she did) and still is to me. We started off as tutor and student, yet here we are. I’d always wanted a sibling until her. Having someone to share stuff with and to care for is awesome. I don’t fight with her like siblings do, but still, I’m super grateful to have her in my life. This chat is just one to reveal how a 16-year-old who is not particularly active on social media thinks about the way friendships work in this day and age. Spoilers alert: it is super fascinating, but essentially, you need to have conversations to maintain one.

I adore her so so much, because she’s always there for me for moral support, and I love her authenticity. There was this one time she taught me something that I’d never forget: In life, it is not about the people you meet, but rather the timing. Your best self right now might meet someone’s best self, but you two are not compatible as friends. But at a different time, your new best selves might be, and so the possibilities for friendships and relationships in general are endless. How profound. I think she taught me that when she was 15. I wish I was that wise at 15. I love how much I learn from such a young lady, and from young people in general, always. I love you Su Su!

If you are keen to understand why a 16-year-old is not active on social media and how she sees friendships in this digital age, in 2020, perhaps this is the podcast episode for you.

All our love,

Su and Lu

Recorded live in Dong Da, Hanoi, Vietnam 100000

Hello from Melbourne! I am back in Melbs and it was absolutely lovely to be home for a bit before diving into the hustle of 2020.

One of the best things about being home was reconnecting to my best mates in Hanoi. A lot of us flew home from all over the place, and we picked up right where we left off after almost 2 years. Before I begin writing about this conversation, I would just like to give a huge shoutout to all my friends, and to all the deep convos we had that really energised me. I love you all.

In this episode of The Glocals, I welcomed you to my family and shared a convo I had with my damn best cousin/best friend/neighbour: Ha (Paul). It was the first time that we could properly sit down and talk after almost 2 years apart. We talked about our quarter-life crises, anxiety, ethics and friendships. We went all over the place but the key takeaways were how the power of vulnerability and being open could really help us to overcome anxiety and also filter our circles. The funny part about all this was, I did most of the talking, but it was a really good convo to me. I did not feel weird for doing most of the talking because I was open to my best mate who happened to be a quiet person.

Being a twenty-something is always associated with figuring out where you wanna be and how to get there. And we are the same, but if there is one thing I would love to share with everyone, that is how you can SWOT yourself! Yes, that is a thing. I picked that up from a workshop I attended not long ago, and I realised that I’d been doing that all along. Maybe you have been doing that too, but I am positive that we can truly get somewhere by focusing on our Strengths and Opportunities while looking out for our Weaknesses and Threats. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this, and please shower us with tips to deal with our quarter-life crises!

Another thing that we discussed in detail was how our best mates could save us heaps of therapy money, and Ha told me that he has more girl besties than guy ones because with girls, he could express himself and be deep on a whole different level compared to that with guys. Personally, I have had the chance to talk to guys who are expressive and also listened to podcasts about/by expressive men, so I believe that by opening up, Ha could really find those guy friends to be deep with and learn from. What do you think? Should we open up more? Are guys also expressive and deep? We would love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you for listening, and thank you Ha for being a part of The Glocals.

All our love,

Ha and Lu

We hope you learn something new today!

Recorded live in Bundoora, Melbourne VIC 3086 on Tuesday, 17 December 2019.

Hey hey my friends, Happy Lunar New Year if you are celebrating this occasion. If not, I hope you are having an awesome start to the week!

Meet Jess, a perfect stranger at La Trobe University that I had the chance to talk to the day before my graduation for my Master’s. I was listening to this conversation again and I realised how long it is, but it makes sense considering how this is how 2 perfect strangers got to know each other.

We started out discussing our uni lives, and coping plays into that A LOT, no matter how our journeys have been. As everyone has been a student at some point, I thought this is absolutely relatable and would help a lot of our peers out there to realise that when we are so caught up in our busy schedules juggling between studying and working, it is okay to accept whatever coping mechanism you are using. In our cases, we discussed overeating and having an unhealthy diet when coping with our busy uni lives and how taking a break really helps to re-evaluate what we have been doing and how to change our behaviour. What’s even more awesome is how Jess referred to The Glocals’ Convo #3 with Noah and discussed schemas. She gave me some more insights into how our behaviours can only be changed when things are built into our schemas. However, we agreed that sometimes we just don’t have the luxury of stopping to reflect and re-evaluate, so it is okay to change our behaviours bit by bit as we go and give empathy to ourselves and people around us. At the end of the day, we don’t know what a person is going through until we really talk to them and they openly share their stories, which is why we briefly mentioned how a person’s reality is completely different from their Instagram feed.

As this conversation happened at the end of 2019 and coping for a whole year leads to a desire for change, we also went into New Year’s Resolutions and discussed how they work for us. Even though the last day of 2019 wouldn’t be much of a difference compared to the first day of 2020, it is totally worthy to set some new goals for the new year and change things around. How do you set goals? Personally, I shared with Jess how I set goals based on Project Management’s principles, so yes, my yearly goals have got to be SMART. Well, I do understand that some intangible things cannot be measured with numbers, but there are other ways to see our improvement, say tangiblising the intangible. If you are not keeping a gratitude journal yet, perhaps it is worth it to try and record good things somewhere and see if you are happy with your day at least once a week, then go from there. Whatever comes in 2020 will only be the results of all that you have been working on in 2019, so brace yourselves for the best!

It is such a long conversation but its flow is just natural and I love it, so thank you Jess for joining me! Our senses of sarcasm are different but I really enjoyed having this conversation and I learned a lot from you.

To my listeners: if you are listening in real time and are celebrating Lunar New Year, I hope this can help you re-evaluate your 2019 and set new goals for 2020. Whatever it is that you had to cope with in 2019, I hope it is a bit easier now to cope with. Please know that whatever you have been working on will go somewhere in 2020, and this will be the best year yet, for each year is only getting better.

Cheers,

Jess and Lu

Recorded live in Melbourne CBD, Australia 3000 on 16 December 2019.

I met Keith at a Meetup on Knowledge Management in Melbourne not long ago thanks to Arthur, who I met while volunteering for Community Four, and this enlightening conversation couldn’t have happened without all their help. So thank you so much to both Keith and Arthur!

Before I start going into detail, let me just say that never had I imagined having such a fun time talking about a professional topic while relating everything to our personal lives!

As Keith is a professional with decades of experience, I was really intrigued to see how the conversation would turn out to be and what I would be able to learn from him. Honestly, I am still in awe of how we could effortlessly go straight into such a meaningful conversation while we are from really different walks of life. As a young person, I am so grateful to have had this talk with a professional like Keith, since he not only shared some insights into Knowledge Management, but he also related everything to real life, especially parenting. He was an absolute star with his energy and humility. After listening to this conversation again and again, I am happy to share that I have learned a lot from it more and more every time. I am also sure that the more I grow, the more I will benefit from the knowledge gained through this talk. I know for sure that I will use all of his tips for my professional career and for parenting in the future. When asked how he would describe the message of our conversation, Keith’s view was “Tips for increasing personal effectiveness and creativity”, and it is another way to see it in the grand scheme of things. I hope that you can give this conversation a listen and learn something new today.

If you would like to learn more from Keith or simply connect with him, you can easily find him on some social media platforms like Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kdelarue, Twitter at http://twitter.com/kdelarue, Linkedin at http://www.linkedin.com/in/kdelarue, and Instagram at http://instagram.com/kdelarue/. Thank you for listening!

Cheers,

Keith and Lu

Recorded live in Melbourne CBD, Australia 3000 on 13 December 2019.

Have you ever felt intrigued by a quiet friend but never had the gut to ask the person about their story? Well that is my case with Sally, my really sweet lady friend from Malaysia that I had barely got to know then. When I told her about this podcast series and asked her to be a part of this journey, she said yes right away. And I gotta be honest: I did not see that coming, because she’d always been the quiet one in our group of friends and she seemed like a really private person. The fact that she agreed to come onto this podcast series did not prove those things wrong, but it did say a lot about how passionate she was about sharing her lessons with the world. Thanks to this conversation, I got to know more about her journey so far and what led her to Australia. What’s more is that I got to understand another human’s experience and perspective on depression and anxiety while coping with changes. It’s a beautiful conversation, and we were both so so glad that we had that talk. Depression and anxiety are part of our ongoing battle with the hardships and changes in life, and they are no longer the taboo topics that they used to be. As we were open about our experiences with them, we learned more about each other and ways to deal with these mental health issues. In this conversation, we discussed the book “Who moved my cheese?” by Spencer Johnson and a bit on the book “First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story about Anxiety” by Sarah Wilson, both of which are related to these topics. This conversation was really personal, and as people who value our privacy, we only decided to share these parts of our stories because we hope they could inspire people who are struggling mentally to know that there is a way out for everyone, and everything will gradually get better. So please hold on if you are struggling. And if you are okay, please spend a bit of your time checking in on your close ones. You never truly know how much of a difference it can make to a person’s life. Thank you.

All our love,

Sally and Lu