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Raising Social Justice Awareness with Meaghan Katrak Harris

May 5, 2022

In Podcast Episode 16, Raising Social Justice Awareness, I chat with Meaghan Katrak Harris – author of Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism about her book and how the arts can be a powerful medium for raising social justice awareness.

Welcome to Episode 16 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Raising Social Justice Awareness.

I’m joined by Meaghan Katrak Harris – Social Worker, Academic, Consultant, Writer and author of Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism.

We chat about writing Memories and Elephants, genres, influences, publishing, casual racism and privileged practices and behaviours and their impact on individuals and society. And how the arts can be a powerful medium for raising social justice awareness.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Meaghan’s background in social work and academia
Meaghan’s Book, Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism
Lived experience and telling your own story
How we’re all more than one story
The insider/outsider dance
Creative non-fiction and memoir-based narrative
Creative influences and inspiring authors
How privilege plays out in racism and other contexts
Raising social justice awareness through the arts

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 16 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 5th of May as I record this.

II’m excited to have Meaghan Katrak Harris, author of Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism join us for the podcast today.

Meaghan is a social worker, academic, consultant and writer. She has a long and diverse social work background. This includes extensive experience and commitment to working alongside First Nations Peoples, families and communities. When not writing, Meaghan lectures and researches in social work at the University of Sydney and works in private practice across social work supervision, individual, group work and organisational change. Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism is her first creative non-fiction book.

Meaghan and I have connected online as fellow the kind press authors, publishing our books within a few months of each other. It’s been exciting to watch Meaghan launch and share her important book, Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism with the world. We chat about Meaghan’s book as well as her work as social worker, academic and writer, and her key themes and lived experiences. They all weave together around the value of community and raising awareness of social justice issues and impacts.

Today we will be speaking about writing Memories and Elephants, genres, influences, publishing, casual racism and privileged practices and behaviours and their impact on individuals and society.

Enjoy listening to this insightful and inspiring conversation!

I hope it encourages you to read Memories and Elephants and to take some time to think beyond the dominant narrative.

So let’s head into the interview with Meaghan.

Transcript of interview with Meaghan Katrak Harris

Terri Connellan: Hello Meaghan. And welcome to the Create Your Story podcast.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Hi, thank you for having me.

Terri Connellan: Thank you for your connection across our writing and books. We’ve connected online as fellow authors in the kind press around writing and publishing. And it’s great to chat further on this today. So can you provide a brief overview about your background, how you got to be where you are and the work you do know?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Sure. Yes. Thank you. So I’m a social worker and I have been for probably nearly 30 years now, working alongside communities in various roles. Probably about the last 15 years, I’ve also been an academic, teaching and researching in social work. So that’s been my career to date and social work’s such a broad profession, it’s given me the opportunity for lots of different ways of working with people. And, academia, I guess, has led me into doing more writing as well.

Terri Connellan: Awesome. Yeah, so it’s great to see how all the different strands of your personal life and professional life have come together to this day. So let’s have a look at your book, particularly, I’m really excited to talk about Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism.

And congratulations on your book published in early December, 2021. So we’ve both recently enjoyed that process of taking a book from that idea from jotting things down, through to published book. Can you tell us a bit about what that process was like for you?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Sure. It actually happened quite quickly, the process, which was exciting and interesting. And it actually started with my submission to the This I Know is True book through the kind press. And that happened really just because a good friend of mine, Annabel Sharman, who writes the introductory chapter, said to me, you should put a chapter in this book. You should get into this. And I looked at it, I looked at the submission and I thought, this looks awesome, but I don’t think that I’m the right fit.

Anyway, I said this to Annabel and she said, look, please just talk to the publisher. Talk to Natasha [Gilmour], everything that you talk about, she has a similar view on crossing genres and perhaps, maybe disrupting genres a bit and writing across academia and also creative writing. And, supporting women led businesses, the whole gamut. So the long story short was I did do the chapter and then I got into a conversation.

I’d already written the essay. And I got into a conversation with Natasha and I said, look, I’ve got about 12 I’d like to publish. And, several months later there we are. I’d nearly finished all the essays. I did another self sort of lockdown to get the last bit done, but, I had the work there and it was just a beautiful fit to find the kind press, I think for me.

Terri Connellan: Yes, I absolutely loved working with the kind press too. Natasha and her team are just really fabulous. Kind, as their name suggests and groundbreaking, I think in the approaches that they take to different voices and as you say, cross genre work, pushing the boundaries a bit. So in terms of the actual pieces, were they written over many years?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Oh no, I smashed it in a few months, probably in lockdown. I got a bit of inspiration and one of the first essays was the privilege of sharing parenting fails. And I wrote that as a response to what I was seeing happening and kind of my internal discomfort with it.

And once I started, I just wrote them all. And, I guess, lockdown probably had something to do with that, time to think, walking and thinking, because I’d written them all in my head. By the time I kind of sat down and put them down on paper. But, I always saw them as a collection. So that’s why I was so happy to put them out together because I kind of felt like it told a story. They are each a standalone essay, but I felt like in their entirety, it was a better story if you like.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And I found reading it that there’s a lot in the spaces between what you write. There’s the spoken of what you experience, but also the unspoken. And I think, as you say, across the essays, it connects off into a bigger picture. So can you share with us a snapshot of what Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism is about?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Sure. So I describe it as a series of sociopolitical memoir based essays. So while they’re memoir based, I share my experiences against the backdrop of a bit of a socio-economic analysis of Australian society, culture, you know, the way we see ourselves.

And I kind of try to shine a broader light on the story, on my story, which I think can be extended to other experiences. So I guess for me, the analysis is as important as the memory or the memoir. And that’s kind of was my focus. Yeah.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, they’re beautifully told, and I think to me, the power of them is really just capturing those moments in life, when, as you call it casual racism and casual because it just seems to slide off, people’s tongues because of that privilege that people feel. And I think it’s that ability to capture the moment, but also the impact on you. You talk about feeling winded at times and the physical reaction of what happens on you is really beautifully told, but also must’ve been hard to tell.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: It was, you know, I shed tears writing it, but I felt like it was an important story to tell. The hardest thing was deciding whether it was in fact, my story to tell. And again, I consulted with people I love and my family and basically, they said, well, you know, this is your story, this is your story. If you can’t tell your own story, then what can you write about? But I was very careful to not to appropriate an experience that wasn’t my own. Because I’m also a white Australian person. So I have with that, all the inherent privileges, that every other white Australian has, but I have borne witness to this casual racism with my Aboriginal family and my multicultural family.

And, it is my lived experience, but I really wanted to be clear to position myself as to not to be appropriating the lived experience beyond what was mine. And I think doing it as memoir based, I just told it how it happened. So hope that that came across and the feedback I’ve had so far is that it, that it did. That’s how I came up with the ‘we’re all more than one story’, we’re all more than one defining characteristic. And, I could be defined by lots of things and lots of things that don’t define me at all, based on my appearance or where I live or what I do when we’re all so much more than that.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. I loved that point where you said, you know now we are all more than one story and I think that intricacy to the insider/outsider dance, that’s hard to get right in your memoir. I was interested to hear more about that dance. It’s a dance you’ve engaged in for many decades now.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: I guess it is, but I think it’s probably something that, as we get older and wiser, we think about more, perhaps the complexities of when we’re younger and we’re living our life. And I was always very sure of my place in my family. Absolutely. And I still am in and in my community. But I guess I talk about when, being part of an Aboriginal community and the commitment to the advancement and activism, when that morphed into work, I felt there was a change in me that I became more aware that I could be taking up, as a white person, taking up space.

And I was never made to feel like that by other people. This was my own internal dance, if you like. And I think it’s an important one to be aware of. And I know at times, I consciously stepped back from employment and changed to work in mainstream as we call it, because I was so fortunate to start my career as a community worker in an Aboriginal community controlled organization. And, that was a privilege that has shaped me beyond anything I could say.

But then I also reached that time in that dance when I realized that, you know what, this is part of who I am too. And if I’m not honoring that, I’m not honoring my Aboriginal family and friends. If I’m feeling like I can’t honour that part of my life, then that’s not showing respect to those people that have had such an impact on my children, my family. And I feel like, in some ways maybe the essay, particularly, The art of casual racism was kind of my showing up for that and saying, okay, this is it. This is how I see it. This is who I am, and this is how I’ve lived it and continue to live it.

Terri Connellan: And I think, as you said before, touching into your lived experience is a really powerful lens for each of us. Particularly for you, telling your story with so many different cultural experiences and community experiences and diversity, which is fabulous. Thank you for sharing that. So, how would you describe the genre that you write in and what were your influences? We mentioned cross-genre before.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Creative nonfiction, I guess. They’re memoir based narratives. I have always been a big reader. and I guess I never really realised the impact that reading creative nonfiction has had until quite recently, when I started writing these. And I talk about it in the first essay where I am suddenly drawn back to reading this genre because my head’s in that space. I’m writing these stories in my head. So I’m back reading Helen Garner, I’m reading, Joan Didion, I’m reading Roxanne Gay. I’m just really quite obsessed with reading other people’s stories. And I found that very validating because there is so many different ways to do this. There’s not one right way to write it. You write it as it comes, I guess. But yeah, I don’t think I’d realised the impact that creative non-fiction has had until now.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And you mentioned Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence too, which I also read when I was writing my book and I found that a really validating book.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Absolutely. And I’m glad you reminded me of that because I read that after I pretty much finished that essay. It came out or I got hold of it anyway. Julia Baird talks about, 20 years ago, as a young uni student, I think finding Helen Garner. And I thought, oh gosh, I’ve talked about that. And then I thought, of course, that’s not an accident. We’ve all talked about that because it is such an influence. So hence, my line about. I know, I felt late to the party, but in good company. So yeah, I found that I bought a copy from several friends. I found that book so important.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, and I think that’s been my experience and from reading your work, I think it’s that trying to find a way to bring our personal life experiences into a narrative that it also shines a light on ways it can help people or guide them on their own journey or give them some tools to think about things.

So, you write in the second person, which I love. It’s one of my favorite voices, I guess, in literature. Why did you choose that? How did you come to writing as you, rather than I, or we?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: I can’t do this question justice and several people have asked me. People have contacted me specifically to ask me why I chose to write the essays like that. And I’ve got no good answer, Terri, other than that’s just have they came out. And I don’t know if future writing will come out like that. I don’t know, but I just couldn’t write them any other way. That’s how they came to me in my head. And so that’s how they went down, and any analysis I’m doing now is retrospective.

I’m wondering why did I need to step back from it? But I don’t know. This is all, you know, with the benefit of hindsight and it’s interesting to think about, and I guess part of the answer will be how any future stuff comes out. If I continue to write it in that style or not.

Terri Connellan: I found it interesting. You said you wrote , the ‘parenting fails’ piece first. Cause that’s the one where I actually really noticed how you’re using ‘you wonder’. The piece is about that ability to joke about something with parenting fails that in other contexts would have dire circumstances or have judgment. And what I found was you were saying, you wonder, hmm, you wonder. I particularly loved how you used it in that context.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Well, thank you. And that was, like I said, I would come home and I would say, can you believe it, this happened or that happened. And I was in a way, naively amazed at how people could not see that or understand, or, even feel a bit embarrassed to be able to joke about these things, because it is such a mark of privilege. You know, I would’ve died before I told anyone that my kids had nits and I’m still like that. And I know it’s a socially responsible thing to do, but when people send those messages, oh god, how can they do that?

If you’ve never been judged, if you’ve never been stereotyped, if you’ve never felt that society could be making assumptions about you, then you have that freedom. And I got such great feedback about that essay. One of the best bits of feedback I got was someone messaged me and just said, ‘Ooph – that got me in the gut – and thank you.’ And that was from the perspective of someone who was in a position to be able to do that. And she had never seen that that was a privilege. And I wondered if I’d been a bit harsh then, but, she was very gracious in her feedback.

Terri Connellan: That’s so amazing to hear. My feeling of reading the piece is I think, cause you took people on the journey with you, of like you said: I’m seeing this, and I’m thinking this, and I’m trying to work this out. I think it just works incredibly well to get the point across and for people to hear you processing, with all your knowledge and all your life experiences, where does this fit? This is not right. And I think, that way of approaching that type of content is going to have more impact than people saying ‘don’t do that’, for example. Yeah. I guess it’s raising awareness, isn’t it and consciousness about the impact?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: It is. And I think honestly that’s probably one of my motivators for doing the essay was I actually feel that the arts is a far better way to address social justice issues and awareness, than straight academia. You know, I joke about, as academics, we might write a paper for other academics to pretend they’ve read or students to read because they have to. It may be great work, but it’s to meet certain criteria for academia and it doesn’t necessarily reach a wider audience.

And I’ve long felt that the most powerful stuff that, I think it can be life-changing has been creative and in the arts. And I didn’t consciously think now I’m going to do this. I got a bee in my bonnet about it. I started that. And then there was that sort of ripple effect where it grew from there, but I feel like that’s where I can make a contribution, if any.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. But then also your academic work is important in another way.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Oh yeah. I’m not diminishing it and I’m not a serious academic like some people are but then I’ve written a few things and I’m part of some great research that I’m very committed to. But I don’t have a full on tenured position. I have had in the past. Then I consciously chose not to stay on that path and it’s important work, but I get far more joy out of creative writing, far more joy.

Terri Connellan: And was it hard to shift from the academic voice or academic way of working to the creative, more personal?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: No, no, this is like the natural state, I think. It was great because a colleague and friend, another academic, who read the book messaged me, and this is the wonderful things you learn about people. She said, ‘oh, fellow over-user of capital letters’. Because I talk about in the acknowledgement that I had a very kind gentle editor who let me have my desire to capitalise important thoughts.

And this friend said, you know, I do that too. Everyone who knows me personally knows I do that. And we joked about it and I joked about how my PhD supervisor many years ago had to beat that out of me. But, in creative writing we can do these things.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it is great. My work was in government and in the TAFE sector, mostly where you’re writing strategic documents and there’s a certain way of writing. So for me, I still think I’ve got a long way to go to get back to probably my more natural voice. It’s sort of dusting off, or shifting from that academic voice. Yeah.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Exactly. Because it is very different . It’s far more rigid in corporate or academic writing. Of course. Yeah, absolutely.

Terri Connellan: But as you say, it sounds like the way that you’ve worked with Memories and Elephants it’s like you’ve hit your natural gear, found a way to really write joyfully and perhaps express things that have been there for a long time.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Yeah. And it was an absolute joy to do. Absolutely. I loved doing it. I had so many ideas and thoughts that I wanted to get down. And as I said in the first essay, I probably think I only had about 12 stories in me. Well, I did, I had 12 and I knew I was done then with that, I felt like that was enough. And I know I spoke to Natasha from the kind press, when I talked about putting them together. And I said, but I’m worried it’s not enough. And she quoted Elizabeth Gilbert, who’s another writer that I really admire as well, in saying that the story tells you when it’s finished, to paraphrase. That the story will end when it ends.

And I honestly felt like that. I would have had enough material, but I just felt that’s what I wanted to say. And I feel that collection is enough as it is. And funnily enough, lots of feedback has been, I didn’t want it to end. And I thought for a minute, oh gosh, is it not long enough. And then I thought, you know, what? It was finished when it was finished. So that’s not a bad thing.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I think it’s beautiful just the way it is. As I said before, to me, it’s that sense of each piece stands alone, but they reverberate and echo and also keep you thinking a long time after you’ve read and something to go back to. So yeah, I think they work incredibly well. So you’re a social worker, academic and author in the social justice area, as well as we’ve mentioned, across all sectors of government and non-government human services. Can you tell us more about your focus, projects and writing there?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: At the moment I’m teaching at Sydney Uni. I’ve been teaching there for the last three or four years, and I’m working on a few research projects with my colleagues there, that I’m really committed to and feel very fortunate to be involved in. So that’s my academic work at the moment. And I’m also working on a couple of other creative writing projects that I’m hoping will come into fruition this year.

Terri Connellan: Oh, fantastic. That’s great to hear there’s more creative work in the pipeline. Yeah. And I’ve spent some time just reading through some of your academic work too. So it’s been interesting just to see the different perspectives. In a way, your theme is pretty much similar.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: It is, my work is all, whatever it is, social justice, underpinned with my commitment to social justice. And it was interesting when I told a friend of mine about the creative work I was doing… he’s a filmmaker, artist, musician, activist. Richard Franklin, his name is, and he’s a very dear friend. And he said “oh, you’ve been dancing around the edges of the arts for a long time. So it’s about time you jumped in.”

Cause I would always be involved, as a participant, as an audience member, as an advocate and a supporter. And I found that very validating from someone, who’s achieved so much in this space.

Terri Connellan: So have you got any advice, if there’s people who have a similar passion or a similar theme or focus in life around social justice and want to write more personally, would you have any particular tips or thoughts for them?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Honestly, I think finding your authentic voice is the key. Then I don’t really have any advice other than particularly as females, particularly as women to be unapologetic about wanting to have a voice and wanting to put something out into the world, not make ourselves smaller or feel we have to justify and apologise for wanting to do that. I think my advice is take up space, find your big voice. As one of my dear friends and colleagues, Dr. Mareese Terare talks about in social work, is find your big voice and find your authentic voice. I think that would be my strongest advice. And it doesn’t matter, if you’re not ready to share your work, I feel that it helps us grow so much in doing it. And you will find your audience.

Terri Connellan: That’s beautiful. I love that. Find your big voice, that’s great.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: I love it too. And I quote Mareese very regularly with that beautiful term.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And as you say, it’s not all about publication. Just working with a group of women writers at the moment and I think publication is important to think about as a potential path. But it’s really great to have that free writing and that exploring and that ability to find your big voice comes from play.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Yeah, I think that we know what we want really in our heart to do with that work. I know when I had written a few of the essays, I told a friend. They said, oh, you know, maybe you won’t want or need to get them published. Maybe writing them will be enough. No, it won’t be, I want them published. I knew, I felt I had something to say and I knew I wanted to put it out in the world. And it’s just about finding the right way to do that and, and the right time and things like that.

Terri Connellan: That’s great that you did find the right way and the right time then. And I think that’s just part of the author journey, isn’t it? It’s meeting the right people, collaborating, the publishers, the editors, the people encouraging us behind the scenes. It’s all part of the rich journey.

So, a question that I’m asking all people on the podcast being the Create Your Story podcast is how have you created your story over your lifetime?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Oh, gosh, how have I created my story? I think that I’ve never really had a plan particularly. I know that works for some people. I’ve always been open to opportunities and not been frightened to take risks, creatively like, in my career, you know, leave a job, find another job. I think I’ve kind of just tried to live true to my values.

And my commitment to my family has been my driving motivator. But, even if five years ago, someone had said that I would be doing creative non-fiction, I would have been like really? It’s not like I had that on the plan. It’s not like I thought I really want to write, I’m going to sit here and think about what to write about. Like, the stories came to me and I just told them, and I feel like a bit of a witness in that sense, that, it’s our obligation to share what we learn. So I guess my plan has just been to try and do no harm and live a good life.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. It sounds like share your wisdom along the way too.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Well, we hope we get some the way. I don’t know, but we hope so don’t we? I say to my students, the more I know, the less I know, I know. And that remains true.

Terri Connellan: Yep. That’s true. So, my book, Wholehearted, is about wholehearted self leadership tips for women and practices. Thank you. And, so I like to add to the body of work I’ve created by talking to people about their top wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices, especially for women. So I’d love to hear yours.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Honestly, more and more. And I just had a conversation with a dear friend today about this, it’s about, you know, we say, lift a sister up. Let’s take every opportunity to support each other, to promote, to validate, to do all those things that lift us up individually and as friends, but also helps all of us, as women, as writers, as creatives, whatever it might be.

And about that authenticity, about just showing up as you are, doing your best to support the cause is what I’m pretty big on. I think it’s kind of that simple and that complex.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And it is too, but I love that lift your sister up and yeah, I just really appreciated your support all the way through my writing journey there in the background saying, well done. Thank you. And you know, just liking posts and things. It really helps.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: I feel like we talk a lot about supporting the arts or creativity whether it be black businesses or, and I have this conversation with students where they say they might really want to support a female led business or a black business, but they may not be in a financial position to do that.

And, you can share a post, you can like a post, you can spread the word. And that is helping, that is supporting and that’s showing up. There’s lots of ways we can do that for each. And if we are in a position to purchase something, let’s think about it. I read a quote recently, the way we spend our money basically is a vote for the world we want to live in.

So, do we want to try to support small business, female led, all those things, and less the, you know, big multi-nationals. If we can do that, we should try try the best we can.

Terri Connellan: So true. But I also agree with your point, that there’s so much you can do that doesn’t cost money too. Doing reviews for people, sharing their podcasts, different reviews on blog posts. It’s certainly been part of my journey to both acknowledge others and be acknowledged by others. Again, it’s another type of dance that we can engage in with others and I know my life is so much richer for it as I can see yours is too. So thank you. And, that wraps up our conversation for today. It’s been lovely to have a chat with you, so thank you for your time.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Thank you for having me, Terri. I’ve really enjoyed thinking about some of those questions you posed, so thank you.

Terri Connellan: My pleasure. So where can people find more about you and your work on line?

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Well, I’m on Instagram and there’s a link to my stuff there. I’m late to that party, but you know, I’m there for it. I’m finding it a very supportive environment. I’m on Facebook. I’m on LinkedIn also. So I’m not hard to find.

Terri Connellan: And we’ll pop the link to your book too, in the show notes and yeah, just encourage everybody to read Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism. It’s a really important book. I think everybody should read it. And make sure you do all those things we’ve talked about: post a review and share it with others.

Meaghan Katrak Harris: Thank you very much.

Terri Connellan: My pleasure.

About Meaghan Katrak Harris

Meaghan Katrak Harris is a social worker, academic, consultant and writer. She has a long and diverse social work background. This includes extensive experience and commitment to working alongside First Nations Peoples, families and communities. When not writing, Meaghan lectures and researches in social work at the University of Sydney and works in private practice across social work supervision, individual, group work and organisational change. Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism is her first creative non-fiction book.

You can connect with Meaghan

Memories and Elephants

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-meaghan-katrak-harris-37718a209/

Memories and Elephants: The art of casual racism is a collection of memoir-based essays set against the socio political background of Australian society.

In these essays—written with clarity and compassion by Meaghan Katrak Harris—you’ll explore the intersectionality of Australian culture, classism, racism and identity as the author has lived it.

Drawing on her experiences of being a teenage mother, a member of a large multicultural family, a social worker, and an academic, Meaghan uses powerful personal narrative to illuminate often uncomfortable aspects of our society—the elephants in the room that have been historically downplayed and ignored.

Taking you from memories of country life to the city, from the street to national television, Memories and Elephants invites you to think beyond the dominant narrative of Australian identity.

Terri’s links to explore:

My books:

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching & writing programs:

The Writing Road Trip email list – community writing program with Beth Cregan

Connect on social media

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

Ep 10 Intuiting, Channelled Writing & Connecting with Natasha Piccolo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

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Ep 13 Embracing a Multipotentialite Life with Laura Maya

Ep 3 Wholehearted Virtual Book Launch #2

Ep 2 Wholehearted Virtual Book Launch #1

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Welcome to Episode 15 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Valuing Difference Through Type

I’m joined by Sue Blair – Personality Type Coach & Educator, Author, Speaker and Resource Creator.

We chat about Sue’s 20 plus year passion for personality and psychological type and how she works with educators, parents, careers advisors, young people and type practitioners to communicate type concepts clearly and simply as a guide for living and decision-making. Sue has ESTJ preferences – so is extraverted and sensing in preference. With a focus on introversion and intuiting in our chats and guest profiles so far in the podcast, you’ll notice the difference in style chatting with Sue! We explore extraversion and introversion, sensing and intuiting and valuing differences in people and ourselves through type.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Parenting children who have very different personality types
How type can help educators, parents and young people
Offering choices for different personalities in educational contexts
Lenses of type: Cognitive Processes, Temperament and Interaction Styles.
‘Simplexity’ as Sue’s signature style in type work
Common misconceptions about introverts and extraverts
Being extraverted in preference including in covid times
Differences between Sensing and Intuiting preferences.
How type helps you be comfortable in yourself and value difference
Reframing Imposter Syndrome and self-doubt

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 15 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 19th of April as I record this.

II’m excited to have Sue Blair, Personality Type Coach and Educator, Speaker, Author and Resource Creator join us for the podcast today. More on Sue and our conversation in a moment.

But first, I want to share a personal update and an exciting new program open for enrolment now. I’ve been busy shaping up The Writing Road Trip community writing program I’m leading with my writing partner Beth Cregan. We kick off on 2 May for 6 months of writing together and enrolment is open now if you want to join in. There’s an early bird 10% off now before Thursday 21 April, 9am AEST so if you’re listening before then, take advantage of that. The Writing Road Trip focuses on accountability, community and support to help you write what’s in your heart with the companionship of others. We’ve shaped up a program based on what worked to help us write our books and we know it will help you with your writing practice. Plus we’ll have a ton of fun along the way. You can find out more here:

Find out more about The Writing Road Trip

Now onto today’s fabulous conversation with Sue Blair. Sue has been working with psychological type for 20 years. She is an international presenter and keynote speaker, as well as a qualified MBTI practitioner and adult educator. She is the author of The Personality Puzzle coaching cards, now used worldwide by coaches and counsellors. She has taught thousands of teachers, parents, students and businesses about the importance of self-awareness and communication. Sue is the recipient of the APTi 2015 Gordon Lawrence Award. This award recognises an outstanding achievement to the field of education.

Sue and I met as fellow psychological type practitioners through the Australian Association for Psychological Type. New Zealand based, Sue is a valuable and sought-after contributor to international conferences and forums on psychological type. I’ve had the pleasure of attending several workshops and conference presentations led by Sue. They are always immense fun and incredibly practical. Sue’s teaching and sharing about personality work is characterised by strong roots in educational work, use of images and graphics such as through her Personality Puzzle coaching cards and stunningly clear descriptions about personality types. And with more than 20 years’ experience in the field, all her work is enriched by deep knowledge and experience.

Sue has ESTJ preferences so is Extraverted and a Sensing in preference and with many Introverts and Intuitives, like me on the show so far, I was keen to explore different preferences in conversations with guests. We focus on this and on personality preferences generally and how they play out in practice to value difference in all kinds of ways in this episode.

I hope it inspires you to explore more about how personality insights can help you with self-leadership and self-knowledge.

So let’s head into the interview with Sue.

Transcript of interview with Sue Blair

Terri Connellan: Hello Sue and welcome to the Create Your Story podcast.

Sue Blair: Hi Terri, thanks so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

Terri Connellan: Thank you for your connection. And I can’t wait to explore more about you and about psychological type today. So we’ve connected in many ways around personality and psychological type as part of AusAPT the Australian Association for Psychological Type and the global type community. And it’s great to be able to share those conversations. So can you provide a brief overview about your background, how you got to be where you are and the work that you do now.

Sue Blair: Yes, absolutely. So, way back a while ago, I was born in London. I am the youngest of five. And, we’ll come onto this later, but I am the only extrovert in the whole family. I have a twin sister who is my absolute opposite in type. My preferences are ESTJ. My lovely twin sister is INFP. I started out business wise in the travel industry and really enjoyed it. That’s something that came very easily to me. I worked in business travel. It seemed to suit all of my requirements, meet my needs, got into management and into sales and was a sales manager for quite a while before I then stopped to have children.

So I met and married my lovely husband, John, who has ENTP preferences. We actually met commuting on the underground. Clearly being an ENTP, he wasn’t following any of the rules that you don’t speak to anybody on the underground and somehow or other, we got to be married and 33 years later, we still are. So, always an interesting experience to marry someone who’s totally your opposite, but a good learning opportunity, I think.

So we moved to New Zealand 25 years ago. I moved with an 18 month old and then had my son James here. So we have two children Louisa, who has ISTJ preferences and James who is ENTP. So not a huge amount of diversity in the family, but my goodness, parenting those two incredibly different children was what really got me into psychological type.

I found out about it through doing a parenting course when I was in New Zealand and it completely resonated with me and I kind of got well, would obsessed be the right word? I’m not entirely sure, but I just thought this is the most helpful thing that I have ever discovered about parenting. And it’s so clear to me that I had these two children who were different and if I parented them the same, then things were going to go downhill rather quickly.

So Louisa, unsurprisingly was somewhat more like me, although that difference between extroversion and introversion was very clear from the outset. And then parenting James, I just had to learn a whole new set of skills.

And so getting them through the school system was also very, very different. Louisa was born for school. She accelerated herself. She was just like a pig in mud really. She was happy other than socially, sometimes she found it difficult. And James was just a square peg in a round hole. And we just had to get him through, those 13 years until he exited and is now doing very well, thankfully.

But it was that experience, that personal experience that really introduced me to type, and I can remember going to a workshop, a Myers-Briggs workshop and listening to a really lovely woman presenting on time and just sitting there going, I want to do what she’s doing. And eventually I did get to do that, but not necessarily in the corporate world. Yes. I have gone back to the corporate world and done a lot of work with teams and that’s a place that I feel very happy. But I really did want to use type to help parents, to help young people, to help teachers, to help educators. Because it was really difficult. It was a real challenge to get an ENTP through school, my ENTP through school.

And so really I’d like to alleviate some of the headaches and just help people understand that people are going to learn differently. And that means that you can make that journey a lot easier. So I now work with teachers, with educators. I’ve done a lot of work with teenagers, helping them understand themselves, and more recently working a lot with careers advisers in schools, because I really do believe that we’ve got a lot of young people who are making choices that are not as well informed as they could be.

So the work that I’ve been doing has been in educating the careers advisors within the school or university environment to say include this. But this is not the only thing that you need to know, but please include something on personality types so that the young people who you are working with get an understanding of themselves and why either a job environment might suit them or not, or why a particular career option that they’re looking at might suit them or not. Bearing in mind that we’re not matching a career with a type. You know, we’re not saying that people of this type can only do this sort of career. The world is your oyster in many, many ways.

But it is absolutely necessary to see the essence of somebody. And just say, let’s just discuss this and maybe look at some other options. So it opens up the conversation as soon as a young person feels that they’ve got that self-awareness piece in mind.

Terri Connellan: That’s fascinating. And it’s always amazing to hear how people’s life experiences have taken them down a path and into their passions. And your work really focuses in educational contexts obviously from the expriences that you’ve been through, working with teachers, working with students, working with teenagers and career advisors. So can you tell our listeners a little bit more about this work and the value of type in these contexts, cause I’m sure there’s just so much value for people in educational contexts.

Sue Blair: Absolutely. I really love working with educators and I’ve worked with them at all sorts of different levels going from early childhood through primary, through to high school and in almost every setting, as soon as we start talking about personality type, they just look at me aghast and they just start saying, why did we not learn this at our teacher’s education college? What was missing? This is an enormous piece of the puzzle that was missing. And I think they’re absolutely right.

It really is the case that you have to know the people who you are speaking to, or at least understand difference. So what we are not saying, you know, obviously in a high school context, it gets even more difficult at the younger years, it’s a little bit easier. But we are not saying that you have to teach to everyone’s personality type a hundred percent of the time, but you have to offer choices within the classroom that is going to appeal to all students at some point in time.

And it is definitely the case that they often learn most, in some cases, from doing something that doesn’t fit their natural style. But unless they’ve got that knowledge that some of the time their needs are going to be met, then they can find the learning environment very difficult indeed. So it’s a question of offering choices.

What does that mean to both the educators and to the students, but also a lot of the time, we’re looking at team-building within schools because teachers work in clusters and more and more now we have the modern learning environment. And that means that teachers are working very closely together. So I do work closely with my local primary school, where both my children went to school and they now have a modern learning environment where they’ve got three teachers who have 90 children for the year.

And that means that it’s far harder for them to know how the child is progressing all of the time. They can manage 30 children and they get to know them throughout the year. Really getting the same level of connection with 90 children is not that possible. And also to be able to connect well, and work well with the other teachers who are working in that same situation. So how they get on, what their personalities are, how they can really leverage each other’s strengths and understand that you don’t have to be good at everything. You can have some gaps, you can have some holes, but if they work in a team where they’ve got multiple preferences, then you can really work together, everybody working to their strengths and everybody having a trust in each other that they can ask for help.

So I spent quite a lot of my time doing that as well. So it’s not just, how do you teach a child who’s different to me, but how do we get on as adults and also, how do we manage? One of the things that I find working in corporate life is that there are plenty of people who are given training on managing your staff, but nobody or very rarely are you given some training on how to manage up. How do you actually manage your boss? Because your boss is one of the most important peoples in your life. The person who is managing you, you need that connection to go well. So how does that look? And how can I make some changes? What sort of perspective shifts can I make in order to make that relationship work?

And that’s the same in schools or in corporate or in families. Everywhere you go, your personality is your permanent companion and you carry it with you wherever you go. So. Yeah, being able to cut and paste to different situations is really important.

Terri Connellan: Yes. And I’ve had the great opportunity of attending workshops with you and had so much value from those workshops, particularly where you’ve emphasized the three lenses of type, the idea of cognitive processes, temperament and interaction styles and also the fantastic visual resources that you use.

All of the things that you mentioned, it’s about understanding ourselves, but it’s how we work with others, how we work with our children and how we work with children as teachers, how we manage up and absolutely that understanding your boss, understanding how your team works. All of those are just such critical life skills. I agree. And why did we not learn this? is absolutely a question I’ve asked myself too. So, and you also said early on, it’s like a piece of the puzzle missing. Is that why you called your cards Personality Puzzle?

Sue Blair: I guess it was in a way, other than there’s a beautiful alliteration having Personality Puzzles. But you know what? I was sort of thinking about names and I was like, puzzling it through and I was thinking, okay, this seems like a good way to go because it is. Every family unit is different. Every working unit is different. And I’ve been doing this work, for 20 years plus, and I’m not bored with it yet because there’s always a different puzzle. There’s always something else that you haven’t sort of considered so yeah, probably.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And I had a chat with Joe Arrigo, who I know you also know, recently. He talked about in coaching, he sees personality as a puzzle, he said not to be solved, but a puzzle to sort of put the pieces together.

Sue Blair: Absolutely. And you mentioned there those three lenses, which I think are invaluable. So having the cognitive processes, temperament and interaction styles, I consider them as being a bit like spinning plates. You know, when I’m doing some coaching with someone. I’m like, have I have, I twizzled that plate? Have I gone through all three? And you’re just gathering the information and then coaching in relation to what you’re hearing, but definitely using those three elements of type, those three perspectives, I find incredibly helpful.

Terri Connellan: They’re so valuable. So how would you describe your signature style in your personality type work?

Sue Blair: I often use a word that I kind of made up, which is ‘simplexity’. And I rather like it because it really, I think puts across the fact that we have to make things simple.

You know, if we’re going to get to speak to people who are not type practitioners, then we have to make it as simple as possible. But I certainly want to honor the complexity of the model. You know, we are all very complex people. We are all this dynamic and incredible mixture of physics, chemistry, and biology. We are complex human beings. The human brain is the most complex thing on the planet, so many people say.

But trying to make it simple, I think as an ESTJ, my type preferences are pretty unusual in the type community. When I go to type conferences, probably 10 or 20% of people have a sensing preference and I love hanging out with you intuiting guys. I think you’re fabulous. I love the way that you think about things and you explore and you’re so curious about everything. But my goodness, you can make things complicated from time to time.

So I think my role within the type community is one that can just get through some of that, make things more simple, use a process to help people understand that involves grounded descriptions, communication style that is perhaps more direct. And getting to the point quickly. Because we haven’t got time. We are all time poor. So the more we can make the most of the time then, hopefully I provide resources that allow people to do that.

Terri Connellan: Oh, you absolutely do. And I mentioned your Personality Puzzle and Type Trilogy cards as we’ve talked and they’re fantastic resources because they’re very visual and they do make the complex clearer. And, when I’m coaching, if I’m working with a client, I grab those cards. I have them around me as resources to prompt me, which I find really helpful. And yeah, they’re great. And your LinkedIn posts that you’ve done recently are just fabulous. You look like you’re really enjoying that social media work.

Sue Blair: Well, the first time in my life, I can actually say that I am enjoying social media and I have to thank Joe Arrigo for that who got me onto it. Because I was just wondering, what do you do with this? How do you communicate with the world about something that you find that so important without kind of being too salesy. And he really got me into this frame of mind that you just share what you know, and I’ve just been really happy doing that. I’m not trying to sell anybody, anything. I might mention a few things that I’m involved with, but you know, after 20 years of trying to put across this message on type, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.

And I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed on a weekly basis, putting some information out there that has been something that I’ve learnt along the way. And I’ve been to what I have been to dozens of type conferences by now, which are all fantastic. I enjoy it. If I come away with three or four things that I’ve learnt, that I can describe a bit differently then it’s just a wonderful experience.

And just being with a whole group of type enthusiasts is fantastic. So I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed sharing that and getting the comments back. It’s been a joy and a pleasure, I have to say.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it’s been really well-received. And Sue you have preferences for extroversion. Can you explain what this means in practice and how it plays out in your life?

Sue Blair: Absolutely. I think it certainly was striking. As I mentioned to you before I come from a largish family, there’s five children and my two parents and I am the only extrovert in the family. I’m in my fifties now. But it was just a few years ago that my mum said to me, you know, that must have been quite difficult for you. Yeah, it really was. I went out a lot. I had a fairly quiet sort of cerebral household that I came back to. And I’d walk through the door and go, Ooh, I’m home. And there was this sort of collective rolling of eyes. Yeah, you came through the door and the rest of us knew about it. So that’s been interesting and also, raising a highly introverted child, my daughter, Louisa has been a really interesting experience too. And as I mentioned again, before my twin sister has preferences for introversion.

So, how it plays out in my life is, it didn’t take me long to realise that I needed that need met hugely. I think it allows me to understand that that is not something that I can let go of, that I do need to communicate with other people. I do need connection with other people and I’ve needed it all my life. You know, this is something that has never changed.

Even though I’m working from home a lot, sometimes I’m working by myself, I do organize my day so that I can get that need met in any way that I can. Often it is just going for walks. It’s just connecting up with people. If I look over my week, I’ve got meetings, I’ve got people I’m seeing, I’ve got things I’m doing. And you know, there’s wonderful occasions where I’m doing workshops, which is fantastic. I get my tank filled on a regular basis. But I understand it. I think I’ve also got a bit of a handle on when I’m too much. I do sort of have this understanding that, there are times when I need to sort of stop now and just quieten down a bit.

When I go to see my sister, it’s quite funny, an INFP and her partner is an INTP and they have a lovely quiet life together in a very small village in England. And I stayed with them for a week. And I think I knew more people in the village at the end of the week than they’d known living there for three years. But they’re also very appreciative of my need and they love me arriving, but I’m pretty sure when I go, it’s, ‘okay well, we got through that little sort of hurricane that just came through our house.’

Terri Connellan: So it must have been difficult as a person with extroverted preferences over the past two years with COVID impacts. So how was that for you and how did type insights help you navigate these times?

Sue Blair: Oh I think I have never been more thankful for understanding type. So my situation was possibly somewhat extreme in many ways. So I visited my elderly parents who both live on the small island of Alderney in the Channel Islands, which is an English island, but just off the coast of France. And I was visiting my parents who are in their nineties. This was in March of 2020, and basically I got stuck there. So they needed some assistance at the time. And we got to the point where covid was shutting everything down. And in New Zealand, either you got back by the 31st of March, or you had no idea how long you’d be away for. The whole place was sort of shutting.

And it wasn’t possible for me to leave. My parents needed me at that point in time. And so I said, I can’t go, I’ll have to stay here. Anyway, I was on the island for five months. So this was tricky in many ways. I didn’t have my usual routine. I didn’t have structured.

In fact, out of any of the needs that you could possibly think of that an ESTJ might need, absolutely all of them were taken away. So I couldn’t work at pace. I couldn’t be productive doing my own work. I was looking after my parents and I have to say, I do adore my parents, the pace was glacial. It was so slow.

Terri Connellan: And it’s not a big island, is it?

Sue Blair: It’s a very, very small island and I walked every single inch of it. I paced around the island every afternoon, while they were resting. And yeah, it was a difficult time. Not only that, but I had no idea what my future was, as far as, when I’d be able to leave or would I be there for months? Would I be there for years? This was the time we had no vaccines. We had no idea how, how long this was going to be going on for. So nothing was available that gave me any sort of security.

It was an extremely difficult time, but again, understanding type, I got my needs met. I got involved with the type community who were fabulous as support people. I went walking on the island everyday and found a lovely lady who I’m still friendly with today. We used to go walking literally for hours at two o’clock every afternoon. So I could do everything that I needed to do at my parents’ place. And then I had this lovely person to go walking with for two hours every day. And we did, we just walked for miles and miles and miles. And so we were definitely therapy for each other.

So that was great, but I knew what was difficult. I knew what I needed to do to try and cope with it. Most certainly my experience wasn’t the worst experience in the covid scenario. We were all well and covid didn’t hit the island very badly at all. And so, we were fine. We were safe. So that was one of the things. One of my core needs was met, but challenging in many ways. Yeah. And even recently in 2021, just last year, my city Auckland was locked down for a hundred days. And again, sometimes you feel you’ve pivoted so much you’re pirouetting around the place.

But by then I was back at home. So that was a little bit easier. So I got to have more of my normal things around me. Yeah. But definitely I think covid pulled the strings on extroversion far more than perhaps the introverts. Again, my twin sister was gleeful.

Terri Connellan: Yes. We’re both introverts in our house and we’ve been quite happily ensconced.

Sue Blair: She was completely content. It was almost like her whole life had been validated. Stay in. Thank you! Work by yourself. Again, tick! So everything she needed was provided and everything I needed sort of wasn’t.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it must’ve been super challenging. So what would you say as some of the common misconceptions about extroversion and introversion?

Sue Blair: I think the key one is this idea that extroverts are always sociable and introverts are always shy. Obviously, we each need to have a little bit of our other preference. There are times when I certainly enjoy my sociability. I really enjoy connecting with other people. It’s something that I sort of like about myself, but I need time by myself. Yeah. I really do, but not as much. I think there is a time and energy component to both of those preferences.

Those with a preference for introversion again, then they’re not always shy. I know introverts who say to me that they don’t have a shy bone in their body. And I believe them. I really do, but they need an exit strategy for when things become a little bit overwhelming. And they can get overwhelmed by a social event, way more quickly than I can.

So I think for extroverts, we don’t need to conserve our energy in the same way that introverts do. We get our energy from being out and about. It is exhausting for somebody with a preference for extroversion to spend all day by themselves. In the same way that it is exhausting for somebody with a preference for introversion to be out connecting all day. You know, you need a break after that. We need a break after having time by ourselves. So that time and energy component I think is really, really important. And I think it is the most misunderstood thing about extroverts and introverts. You know, we are not all one and none of the other. We are a lovely company.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And you explained that beautifully in your recent LinkedIn post, which I’ll link to in the show notes about solar versus battery energy. That was a a beautiful analogy.

Sue Blair: Yeah. Extroverts are solar powered. We literally do just get our energy back from being out there in the world and that battery power, that resource, that inner resource that you go into, that introspection that you get your energy back from is very different. And understanding that, appreciating that with the people we live with, people we’re raising, people we work with, in all contexts.

Terri Connellan: Just as in the renewable energy, well, we need both of those aspects of energy. We need both those in our community, a great analogy. You have preferences for sensing also as opposed to intuiting. And this is probably one of the aspects of type that are perhaps harder to understand, I think, than some of the others. So can you explain these preferences, sensing and intuiting, for gathering information in different ways?

Sue Blair: Sure. I think if you have a sensing preference that your mind is far more converging than it is diverging. You think of an idea and you zero in on it. If you think about going into zoom and you’re looking on zoom and then you zoom in further and you zoom in further and you zoom in further and you go, aha. That’s where I need to go. The sensing brain does that naturally, whereas the intuiting brain is very much more divergent. It just has this natural outward curiosity to it.

So the sensing brain looks at the real, looks at the tangible, looks at what is, and, and really has a joy of that. And the intuitive brain looks at the possible, looks at the patterns looks at what could be. And I’m often talking to people about creativity because some people seem to think that those within intuiting preference have sort of got a monopoly on creativity and that isn’t the case at all.

Those were the sensing preference can really have a huge amount of creativity within them, but they use reality as a spring board to go to these different places. But let’s gather the information first and then we can just launch ourselves off, into all sorts of different spaces, but ground me first. And those with an intuitive preference, the imagination is the tool that they use by which they can craft their reality and know what to do next.

So it’s sort of going outwards, for those who have a sensing preference from base upwards and outwards. And it’s the opposite way for those, with an intuitive preference. You just see that sort of big picture and then you just wriggle around in your mind to get to, okay, so what does that mean right now? Diverge, converge.

Terri Connellan: Yes, I can certainly relate to that with my partner Keith who is ISTJ. So he has sensing preferences and I have intuiting and the times I notice that is when he’ll ask me a question and then I will tell him all these different things that relate to it. And he’ll say, no, I just asked this question. I just went through, but it’s yeah, it’s that meandering that to me is obvious, like, it’s that relates to that. Whereas he goes, no, I just want this fact.

Sue Blair: Yeah. And also I think the surprising thing for those of us who have a sensing preference is how many different interpretations you can make from one single sentence. You know, it’s just, I didn’t mean that, what I meant was. And that it can be misinterpreted so that you can get 10 different things out of one simple sentence.

Terri Connellan: So there’s probably a lot of argument for intuitives working with sensing coaches, isn’t there and the opposite way around?

Sue Blair: I think so. Yes. I think often about the sort of coach I would go to. There would be no point in me going to a coach who had my preferences. I’d probably enjoy it, we’d probably have a marvelous time. Why go to another ESTJ or ISTJ? I can ESTJ somebody out of the park. I need to have another perspective.

And perhaps that’s why a lot of people who have my opposite preferences, cause I think there’s some statistics around that the people with intuiting and feeling preferences and sensing and feeling preferences are the most likely people to require or to go towards having coaching. Maybe an ESTJ perspective can be really helpful as indeed I find intuiting preference is really helpful in coaching. Let’s go and talk to somebody that had just has a different view. Because I don’t want to hear the same thing again. I want to see what I’m missing. And though I can do it by myself, under stress, we do tend to exaggerate our natural preference and so we can kind of block out and have blind spots to some of those areas that aren’t as easily available to us. So yes, I would agree with you on that.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. Interesting point. You mentioned creativity. And one thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of creatives and writers that I work with, they’re often intuitive in preference, and when I talk about sensing and intuiting, they often find it hard to understand that they’re not sensing in preference because I guess perhaps as writers, they see themselves working with the five senses and noticing what’s around them. What would you say to that? It was just an interesting conundrum.

Sue Blair: Yes, I think it is. And I think when you’re looking at type, you have to really differentiate between what is being human and what is type? Where is the line there? And there are a lot of people who I speak to say, well, I, you know, I use sensing and I love going for walks in nature. And I love enjoying all of the beauty of the things around me. I say, yeah, but that’s being human. That’s not type. You know, when you have some information that you need, when you have got a problem to solve, where do you go to? And that’s where your type difference comes in. So I think there’s definitely that distinction to draw. What is human and what is psychological.

And I think if those with an intuiting preference didn’t use sensing, well they’d be bumping into things all the time? You’ve got all of your senses and you’re going to use them. Those with an intuiting preference absolutely do that. Those with a sensing preference still do have an imagination. We are very skilled with our imagination. We just use it at different times and in different ways.

Terri Connellan: So yeah, it’s about what your preference is, what you go to perhaps first or naturally.

Sue Blair: Yes, absolutely. Although, I was talking to a friend of mine who has INTP preferences and she says, I am so in my head that I do bump into things from time to time. She was just saying, I don’t just bump into something that is a surprisingly, there. She said I bump into my kitchen table, which hasn’t moved for years. I’ve just got myself inside my head thinking something through. And I literally don’t notice. I’m not aware of what’s going on, that does happen also.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And I often say that to clients who are similar types to me, like that introverted, intuitive, dominant, I have to actually make myself leave this room because you know, I’ve got to have all my resources, my imagination, my whole world’s in this room and I actually have to lever myself to go out and go for a walk on the beach. And when I do, it’s the best thing in the world because I get that balance that I need.

Sue Blair: Absolutely. And I really think that knowing type, you can be intentional about using these other preferences. And I think that’s really important because you do need to recognize your blind spots and just go, what am I missing here? That’s an important conversation to have for everybody to know what your strengths are.

And sometimes your superpower is to understand your flaws and not be frightened of them. I can’t do that. Yeah. But that doesn’t worry me. I’m okay. I will either get some support in this area or I would kind of intentionally force my brain to just ask a few questions that I wouldn’t normally ask. Think outside the box. What am I missing here? Is there an elephant in the room? Is there something I haven’t noticed? And sort of direct your attention in a different way, which is a lot easier to do when you’re not stressed.

Terri Connellan: That’s for sure. Yeah. And I’d love your writing and insights on the inferior function, which is in part what we’re talking about here, that real opposite of our dominant preference. So can you explain a little bit about the inferior function and why people might choose to work with it as a form of self-awareness and growth?

Sue Blair: Yeah, actually it’s a good segue having had that conversation just now, really, because I think in my view, the inferior function would be better if we reframed it and retitled it. I think it isn’t actually inferior. I call it the balancing function. We all need to have a balance. Some of the images that I put across when I’m doing workshops is that I have the image of a horse that’s got out of control. You know, when your dominant function runs away with you, you literally can’t put brakes on it.

But neither are we going to trot perfectly round a dressage arena and get out sort of extended trots working smoothly. Life isn’t like that, you know, we’re not going to do things perfectly. So we are going to have to rumble with things and we will just maintain as much control as we possibly can. So I think that’s what the inferior function allows us to do. It just reigns us in from making some stupid mistakes from just letting the whole thing, get out of control. And try and engage with it rather than ignore it completely, which is going to send us off in the wrong direction.

So the presentation that I’ll be doing for BAPT is called Type in Tandem. And that’s really thinking about what is it like to ride a tandem bicycle? You know, you’ve got somebody on the front and you’ve got somebody at the back. If you think about that as your dominant/ inferior function. If the only person that’s working is the person who’s at the front, who’s got the steering wheel and is driving everything, but is not getting any power from the back, then it’s just hard work.

You need to have that person on the back. You need to have like this psychotherapist, that’s tapping you on the shoulder. That’s going, excuse me. Have you thought about this? Let me help you with. And that combination of types can be really great. So with my preferences, for example, and as ESTJ, my dominant function, extroverted thinking, it needs introverted feeling to say, is this important? Does this really matter? Is the energy that you’re putting into this activity worthy? Is it something that is going to produce good results? Not as it necessarily going to give you happiness? But it’s what you are doing going to make you happier than you were? Are you working towards something that’s meaningful and important to you.

And I do really find that in certainly in my later years, I’ve been able to tap into that. Similarly, as I’ve mentioned, my lovely sister has INFP preferences. She works the other way around. She actually is an artist, she does beautiful work. She does work that is meaningful to her and her values are strong. But if you just sit with strong values and do nothing with them, then that’s not a life well led either. So she needs to take those inner values and those inner core resources that she absolutely has in spades and just say, okay, so now what am I going to do with this? What am I going to put out to the world?

Because that doesn’t need to stay within me. I need to put something out into the world so that I have this legacy that I believe in and is strong within me. And you can use extraverted thinking to do that. You know, how am I going to organize my life so that the introverted feeling that is key for me has an external expression that is helpful to others

So the inferior function can just be incredible. It can be incredibly powerful and it can also be very, very difficult if you have no access to it whatsoever. We need to have those functions, whatever is your dominant and inferior function, they do need to be working in cahoots. They need to understand each other and tap in and say, hello? What advice can you give me on this one?

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I love that article that you wrote for BAPT (Invoking the Inferior Function) a little while ago, and again, I’ll link to it in the show notes, on the inferior function. And for each function, you’ve got a lovely question just as you’ve shown us in those examples of, if you’re really strong on this function, how to bring in the opposites through just asking a question. Certainly for my type, that question was like, oh, you know, just takes you back, because it’s completely where you need to be focusing, but it’s not in your consciousness.

Sue Blair: Absolutely. And I think we can all, have even a list of questions available to us before we’re decision-making certainly. I mean, your dominant function is the one that I really fail to get. You know, that future thinking. Looking back in my past, I would take my life one term at a time when I had children one year at a time was the maximum I’d look out. To actually go to the top of the mountain and look any further was, is really difficult for me. And for anybody who’s saying, well, what’s your five or 10 year plan. It’s like, I have absolutely no idea, but it’s probably a good idea to look five and 10 years ahead.

What you’re doing now could be really relevant to what you might need to be doing in five or 10 years time, but it just simply doesn’t occur to me to go and do that. So I need to be dragged, kicking and screaming into your head, Terri, tell me a few things.

Terri Connellan: Must be great having a twin who’s your exact opposite in terms the types.

Sue Blair: Yes, it’s got better and better as we’ve got older. As you can imagine through our younger and teenage years, there was some tricky patches, but I think we’ve forgiven each other. I think she had to forgive me for a whole lot more than I had to forgive her to be honest, but we’ve absolutely worked it out. But I would highly recommend anybody who understands type and who knows their type preferences to find somebody who is their complete opposite and just build a connection so that you can just link in with each other and say, I’m thinking like this. Can you help me out with that?

Terri Connellan: That’s a great idea.

Sue Blair: Link up with someone who’s your opposite, so you’ll have to find an ESFP, Terri.

Terri Connellan: So the last couple of questions are questions that I ask each guest on the podcast because it’s the Create Your Story Podcast, interested in how you have created your story over your lifetime. It’s a big question, but interested to see what pops up.

Sue Blair: If I look back over my life, I can really see my type preferences being in action from the early years, as you can imagine. I think what understanding type has really given me as an adult is it has absolutely allowed me to make sure that I’m doing work that uses my strengths. And that there are some things that I can’t do. So if you’re waiting at a bus stop and several buses come along, there’s been several buses in my life that with my type knowledge, I’ve gone, that one’s not for me. I can do this, but this one I can’t. And then my bus comes along and I go now that one I can do. Yeah. That one’s for me. And to not be anxious or worried about it.

So I’ve found that increasingly helpful as I’ve gone through the years, being able to adjust and use the skills that I have in a way that I know is going to enable me to give my best to the world. We were saying earlier about my role in type is to take the complication out of things, make things simple and communicate it as clearly and concisely as I possibly can so that people get it first time. They’re not just struggling and having things ramble around in their minds, giving them something that’s concrete. And so I feel like I’m able to do that. Even with the Personality Puzzles. I had a prototype of the Personality Puzzles, when I first went on my certification program. So before I’d even been certified to use type, I realized that I needed a tool, a resource to help me talk to people about it so that they could understand it clearly. And I could get that, that information back.

So I think it that has definitely assisted me. And I think it will assist me still going forward. So creating my story, I think it also enables you to be happy with the story that you’ve got. I’m happy with the fact that there are some things that I can’t do. I really admire people who have different talents to me. I think it’s allowed me to not be so swift to step back and watch and enjoy people, having other talents, without feeling envious of them or wishing that I had them those sorts of feelings and, and just being a lot more comfortable in myself. It’s just helped enormously.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. What I’m hearing from you with that, that type has been such a huge part of your story as it’s evolved. And it sounds like it’s been a real tool for wisdom.

Sue Blair: I hope so. It definitely has given me other perspectives. One of the things that I really like when I’m writing, I’ve done as, you know, several resources and I write type descriptions, and they’re not easy to write, especially when you’ve only got an A five piece of card in which to put as much information as you possibly can about a particular type.

And my modus operandi for doing that was to literally sink myself into each of the 16 types while I was writing about INTJ or ESFP or whichever one, and it would be quite a task in any given morning that I knew I would be doing some writing, and I just go, which one do I want to be today?

And then just immersing myself in this ENTP brain of like, well, okay, let me be this for a day or two days and just thoroughly enjoying it, being able to glean so much from not only the other types of descriptions that you’re reading, but just to create something that is different and valuable that people are going to get in just by reading those type descriptions. It’s a very therapeutic way of doing it and an interesting dive into being someone else for a while. I guess actors do that a lot with their characters. I can’t claim to have any acting skills whatsoever, I imagine it’s a similar process that you cloak yourself in someone else for awhile, and then you can shed it. It’s fascinating. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it must’ve been amazing working through all 16 types. I’ve had a taste of it with doing workshops, with Dario Nardi with his priming, where you put yourself into exactly what it’s like. I worked particularly on INTP and just putting myself in the shoes and working with an INTP as a a partner in that exercise made me realize how different life is and how running so many processes in your mind as an INTP typically does all the time. It was incredibly cognitively busy.

Sue Blair: One of the sensing activities that I do in workshops is they literally have different colored acetates, blues greens, yellows, and I just get people to hold them up to their eyes and just say okay, looking through the red acetate looks like this. Now change to yellow or change to blue or change to green. And it’s as different as that.

People just see their world with totally different filters and unless you know about it, then you can’t be aware of it. But once you know about it, you will never not know it. And that’s the beauty of understanding type. You will never go through life, not knowing this information. And I think it is, It’s a gift really. It’s gold in people’s lives.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And I think that’s why so many of us who work in type have chosen to do that. Just as you’ve explained, once you learn the value of it for yourself, but also working with others, it is really gold. And as you were talking there, it sounded like type was like a framework for choices, for discernment too, which I think is really powerful.

Sue Blair: Yeah, absolutely.

Terri Connellan: Awesome. So in Wholehearted, my book, I have 15 Wholehearted Self-leadership skills and practices for women. And to add to that body of knowledge, I’m interested in your top wholehearted self-leadership practices, especially for women.

Sue Blair: It’s an interesting one. Isn’t it? And I think one of the things over the years that I have come to really want to reframe in people’s minds is this imposter syndrome. People are talking about imposter syndrome a lot at the moment, and I’m not too sure that it’s helpful. I think that both men and women do get it, but I think women may have it more obviously, or more often. I haven’t got any research for that, but in my knowledge of, in the work that I’ve been doing. And I kind of like to reframe it because I think that it is absolutely necessary to have a reasonable and realistic doubt about some of the challenges that you might take on.

Now that doesn’t necessarily mean you have a syndrome, you are not an imposter. You just have some reasonable doubt and it certainly doesn’t mean that you’re not going to take on the challenge. So instead of saying, well, I’ve got imposter syndrome and I’m terribly worried about it and I might not do it. Why am I here? It’s like, okay, I’ve got some reasonable doubt, but I’m going to do it anyway. And I think that’s a far better way to look at it because we all have some doubts along the way.

And I remember going to a conference for careers advisors. And they said that the research there is that before women apply for a promotion or a new job, it is very likely, more likely than with men, for them to think, well, I haven’t got some of the things that this job description is requiring. So I won’t apply until I have consolidated and done an extra course or done another two years or built up my skills so that I can apply for the job. And men tend not to do that. They tend to tick 50% or 60% of the boxes. And say, I’ll just give it a go.

And I think we need to do that as women a bit more often, and to stop consolidating and thinking, yes, I need to do this, this, this, this, this, and this before I can do that, that, that, that, and just, yeah, it could be a challenge. You may have some reasonable and rational doubts, but do it anyway. I know that there is that book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, but it’s experience the doubt that’s reasonable and rational and do it anyway.

Terri Connellan: That’s a great top tip. A coach that I trained with a little while ago, he stressed the importance of not waiting until you’re free of fear or free of doubt, but to move ahead with those, because he said, they’ll always be there with you. And if you wait until you’re free of doubt or fear, you’ll never move.

Sue Blair: And get support. I love the work of Brené Brown and she talks about vulnerability. And it’s okay to have that vulnerability it absolutely is. We need to shift this idea that we may have in our heads about leadership that means that we don’t need to be vulnerable. You know, we’re going to make mistakes and failure we learn from and grow from. We don’t want to make huge mistakes. but we don’t want the fear of it to stop us doing something. And so, saying to yourself, this is a reasonable and realistic doubt. Okay, let me just go ahead and just give it my best shot.

Terri Connellan: Mm. I love that. That’s a great thing to remember. So we’re just about at the end of our time together. So thanks so much for joining me today, Sue. It’s been great to learn more about you and to chat more about type and through all different aspects of how type can be such a powerful framework for us in guiding our lives.

So where can people find out more about you and your work online?

Sue Blair: Oh, thank you. So I’ve got a couple of websites, one of them for my resources, which is PersonalityPuzzles.com. And then for the coaching work and the presentation work that I do. It’s sueblair.co.nz. Or in fact, personalitydynamics.co.nz. Either one will get you there.

Terri Connellan: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining me today. It’s been wonderful.

Sue Blair: You’re very welcome, Terri. Thanks so much for having me.

About Sue Blair

Sue has been working with psychological type for 20 years. She is an international presenter and keynote speaker, as well as a qualified MBTI practitioner and adult educator. She is the author of The Personality Puzzle coaching cards, now used worldwide by coaches and counsellors. She has taught thousands of teachers, parents, students and businesses about the importance of self-awareness and communication. Sue is the recipient of the APTi 2015 Gordon Lawrence Award. This award recognises an outstanding achievement to the field of education

You can connect with Sue:

Website: SueBlair.co.nz or PersonalityPuzzles.co.nz

Personality Puzzles: https://www.personalitypuzzles.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-blair/

Terri’s links to explore:

My books:

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching & writing programs:

The Writing Road Trip six month membership program – enrolling now for a 2 May start

The Writing Road Trip email list – community writing program with Beth Cregan

Connect on social media

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

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

Self-Styling Your Life with Janelle Wehsack

March 25, 2022

Styling a life on your terms with what you love and self-belief guiding the way.

Welcome to Episode 14 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Self-Styling Your Life.

I’m joined by Janelle Wehsack – Certified Life & Style Coach, Creative Writer and Distant Francophile.

We chat about Janelle’s signature approaches to coaching based on clarity, mindset and action and self-styling your life. With 30 plus years in corporate along with concurrently operating both a successful coaching business and Distant Francophile focused around a love of all things French, Janelle is an inspiring example of how to intentionally shape a life that you love. Plus she is a Self-Belief Coach with an extensive tool-kit for wrangling self-doubt.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Creating a self-styled life
Self-doubt and building self-belief
Janelle’s signature framework: clarity, mindset & action
Embracing a multi-faceted life
Choosing to work part-time in corporate and coaching
Integrating different skills and roles
Both/and thinking
Following breadcrumbs and experimenting
Working with evidence
The value of blogging
Distant Francophile

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 14 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 25th of March as I record this. There’s been a little gap in episodes as I’ve been travelling over the past few weeks, visiting Melbourne, the beautiful Great Ocean Road in Victoria and Mt Gambier in South Australia. We had a fabulous time away and it was wonderful to see new vistas, swim in pristine water and catch up with family and friends. You can see pics on Instagram @writingquietly.

I also met my writing partner and The Writing Road Trip collaborator, Beth Cregan, for the first time in person. That was a truly joyous moment. We’ve enjoyed such a rich connection, supporting each other with our writing and then creating a writing program for others to join us. So it was so lovely to meet in real life and we presented our Writing Road Map session together in the same room instead of miles apart. We will be kicking off the next stage of the Writing Road Trip soon with a membership program to help get your book or writing project completed with opportunities to write in community with support. And have fun on the journey. You can join our email list for the latest news.

I’m excited to have Janelle Wehsack join us for the podcast today. Janelle is a certified life and style coach and a creative writer who also happens to have 30 years experience – and counting – in the corporate world. In her coaching practice, Janelle employs her signature coaching framework that combines clarity, mindset and action to support professional women to dance with their self-doubt so that they can build tailor made, self-styled lives.

Janelle and I met online as fellow Beautiful You Coaching Academy life coaches and Janelle has also worked with me as a coaching client focused on transition. Our work dovetails around self-belief, self-leadership and shaping the creative, integrated life you desire. Janelle frames her coaching work around creating a Self-Styled Life which she also shares via her Self.Styled.Life podcast too. Self-styling your life means, in Janelle’s words: ‘you write your own rules and set your own limits. Or you choose to have no limits at all.’ Janelle shapes her creative, self-styled, highly individual life and business in new and exciting ways and that’s what we’ll be exploring today in the podcast. There are plenty of gems of insight to inspire you in self-leadership and navigating a path that integrates the unique aspects of you!

So let’s head into the interview with Janelle.

Transcript of interview with Janelle Wehsack

Terri Connellan: Hello, Janelle and welcome to the Create Your Story podcast.

Janelle Wehsack: Hello, Terri. It’s so awesome to be here.

Terri Connellan: So thank you for your connection. And I can’t wait to explore more about you and your self-styled life work today. So we’ve connected in many ways around coaching, living creatively, transition and self-leadership, and it’s great to be able to share those conversations today.

So can you kick us off by providing a brief overview about your background, how you got to be where you are and the work you do now?

Janelle Wehsack: I’d love to Terri and it is really awesome to be able to share some of the snippets of our conversations with all of your fabulous listeners. And I feel like my background is something that people might resonate with because it’s a story of decades.

So back when I was a teenager, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I finished high school and got a job in a bank, interestingly 31 years tomorrow to the day since I started in with that job at the bank. And so my twenties turned into something that I would say was full of life lessons. Or what we’d commonly call life’s lessons. I was married at 21. I had a baby at 23. I was a single mum by the time I was 25. At 27, I remarried. And then at 29, I decided it would be the perfect time to go casual at the bank and head back to uni full-time. So we squeezed a lot into that decade. And then the thirties was all about building my career, which I did quite quickly.

And then my forties probably got me to where I am today. It was during that time that I started a blog all about France. I studied life and style coaching as well as deep diving into self-belief coaching while still working in that banking career. And today my life is a perfect for me mix of a blend of my day job, my coaching practice, writing, growth, Distant Francophile, which is that blog I mentioned earlier. And it really is a life I’ve styled myself.

Terri Connellan: Fantastic. What an amazing journey you’ve been on. And congratulations, firstly, on 31 years in the bank, that’s amazing.

Janelle Wehsack: Yes, can’t say that when I started there 31 years ago that I ever expected that I would still be there, but the bank’s been an awesome opportunity for me and certainly a really good lesson in the fact that you can thrive in corporate. And that you can also reinvent yourself in corporate, which I don’t think is something we talk about too much.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think something we’ll explore as we go through today is sometimes we can find ourselves being pushed from one view of life to another. And I think the fact that a theme or a thread of corporate life can be really positive thing in our life is something that ‘d be great for us to explore as we talk further.

Congratulations too, on all those incredible shifts and pivots. And I love that, like me blogging, coaching appeared as key markers and tools and supports in your journey. That’s fantastic too. So, a common feature of our work is self-leadership and as you frame it in your work, a self-styled life. Can you explain to listeners what a self-styled life means for you and what it might invite in our lives?

Janelle Wehsack: It’s really interesting, isn’t it, how we can language, what is essentially the same thing so differently? So your work around self leadership and what I call self styling for me, they both come down to really leading a self-determined life, however we language it.

Now, I dragged out the good old Collins dictionary Terri for this one. And that dictionary defines self-determination as ‘the act or power of making up one’s own mind about what to think or do without outside influence or compulsion’. And practically, I think that translates into a life where you know what you want and you know where you’re going and you live by your values and define your measures of success.

For me, when you’re living a self-styled life, you fill it with beautiful humans and beautiful experiences and objects that bring you joy and fulfillment. And I think it’s true for all elements of your life. Be it career, your relationships, your creativity, finances, your wellbeing, all of the things. And it’s about, for me having all of the areas of your life, firing, like you want them to fire. For instance, it’s not just about having a great career and no hobbies, nor should you be sacrificing perhaps your professional life or your creativity, because you’ve chosen to have kids or babies have come along.

It’s about deciding that it’s okay for you to be excited by all areas of your life. And for me, when you decide to self-style your life, you write your own rules and you set your own limits. Or you choose to have no limits at all. And I think you start to let go of that endless comparison that’s so ingrained in us from such a young age.

I’m sure some of your listeners will have heard that quote that’s attributed to Theodore Roosevelt about comparison being the thief of joy. And yet our whole societies are set up to compare us right from the start. From the minute we’re born, we’re compared by our birth weight, then we’re compared by our grades that ends up deciding what we’re going to do in terms of school or life choices. So whilst we talk about comparison being something that we want to let go of, it’s something that’s ingrained in society.

But for me, I think letting go of that comparison, or if you can let go of that comparison, that really does help you to live life your way. And I think the last thing I’d say on this one would be when you choose to self-style your life, you also build out the skills that help you deal with self-protective behaviors, like perfectionism procrastination and people pleasing that get triggered by self doubt. You’re regularly giving yourself permission to say ‘I’m okay to do life my way’. And I think that’s a really powerful thing for women in particular, to be able to do.

Terri Connellan: Beautiful. And I love that in your reflections there, we had so many beautiful words like, self-determination. I often use the word self-directed, which is quite similar, I think. Self-honoring, self- styling and a term I use in my work self leadership, and I so agree that we often have a set of experiences that takes us towards something similar, but we all bring our own take to our coaching work and our unique vision on life that leads us to shape what might seem to be something similar or something that dovetails in different ways.

So I love that self-styling and self-leadership can be two different ways of looking at one particular, or many-faceted, a gem comes to mind, something that reflects different angles.

Janelle Wehsack: Yeah. I think that’s a really beautiful way to think about it too. And I hadn’t considered it in terms of a beautifully cut emerald or a beautifully cut diamond at all. But that’s part of the self-leadership or the self-styling for me as well is actually choosing the words that resonate for you out of that piece. And for me, I’m not sure I was comfortable enough in the early days to have chosen different language or picked the words that meant something to me.

So again, I think that just emerges as you start to get better at this stuff, as you dance with your self-doubt, build your self-belief and really start to step into doing life your way.

Terri Connellan: Yes. I think a lot of the ability to really embrace some of these things we’re talking about comes as we get older, as we mature, as we experience more, as we grow in wisdom. But it’s all those life experiences and you gave us a beautiful snapshot of all the different milestones and hallmarks that have come in your life as you’ve moved through your journey. So with all of the things that you’ve been through and all the choices that you’ve made, how have you self-styled your own life?

Janelle Wehsack: If I really reflect on it, Terri, I don’t think that I really started self-styling my life, or living life my way until I got into my forties. It was around my 40th birthday when I looked around and realized that I’d built an amazing career or an apparently amazing career, but I hadn’t really built a life.

I was working seven days a week, almost every week in my corporate role. I was fighting hard with an inner critic who told me that I was a fraud and that I was going to be found out at any moment. I had zero hobbies. Whereas my hubby Scott had heaps and I was endlessly counting the days till our next trip to France.

Then there was the fact that my role as a mum was downsizing. Our son was starting to live his own life, and I’d been filling up the increasing space with my day job. And it was all leaving me feeling exhausted and dissatisfied and seriously questioning my life choices. And I realized at that point, that’s not what I wanted my life to look like. And so I started working with a coach myself to help me build more confidence in my career and build creativity into my life. Because if I was going to be able to do it on my own, I already would have.

So that decision started a journey for me that I now know is called following breadcrumbs. And this is where the blog piece started because when I was young, I really liked to write. And then as an adult, I love traveling to France. So I started blogging about France and then because everything style-related in France is just so fabulous, that led me to doing a style coaching qualification. And then in turn that led me to life coaching and becoming a certified life coach. And then ultimately discovering self belief and self-belief coaching.

So it really was a journey that started just with that creative piece. But in the meantime, because I was doing all of those things, my confidence grew as I was taking new actions, undertaking experiments, doing all of the things and that supported me in my corporate role.

So I actually went from having a big job to having an even bigger job. But interestingly, because of all of the other things I was doing, I was able to handle it better because I had so much more, I don’t even want to say balance in my life, but I had other things in my life that allowed me to, I guess, keep my job in perspective and it could be remain big, but I had other fun things that I wanted to do. Like I said earlier, today my life looks like everything I love and I find interesting all swirled together in a way that’s just uniquely me.

Terri Connellan: Mmm, and as you were talking, I was thinking of the other women and men that I’ve interviewed on this podcast and it often seems to be a journey. I think that we perhaps spend time focusing on things like corporate or like our work, like our family, for example, being a bit one-sided. And then, realising typically as we get into our forties and fifties, for me, it was more in my fifties, realising that there’s these passions we’ve left behind or there’s these things we really love that we want to incorporate more into our lives. And, almost it’s like becoming more multifaceted as we get older, bringing those threads back in. But I think also too, reflecting on what connects them.

Janelle Wehsack: Yeah. I’d agree. We’re back to that gem analogy though, aren’t we, around allowing things to be multifaceted. And I know for me, I didn’t bring any of that creativity forward in my life. And then I had to consciously go looking for it. And what’s interesting is how often we don’t know what it is that we want to do. So we understand something’s missing, but actually working out what we want to do can be a real challenge.

And so I think that’s where that idea of following breadcrumbs is really helpful because you can just start with something and see if you like it and then see where it leads you without putting any pressure on yourself for it to become the be-all and end-all or for it to fill up your whole life. You’ve already got a full life and you can add more in, it turns out.

Terri Connellan: Beautiful. I love that bread crumb analogy. It’s something I’ve used in my own thinking, whether it’s following the trail of the books that you love or the passions that you love, the skills that you love, there’s lots of different trails that you can follow.

And, yeah I love that idea of testing and trying and not feeling like we’ve got to find the one thing that’s the answer.

Janelle Wehsack: Yes. I agree entirely and yet, so often it is that we think we’ve got to find the one thing. But yeah, that either or thinking doesn’t always serve us.

Terri Connellan: No, not at all. So you integrate a corporate leadership role in the banking sector with coaching others in your own business. So what have you learned about how these two areas support each other.

Janelle Wehsack: Yeah. Well, we’ve mentioned we’ve had lots of conversations in the past Terri and one of those conversations has been around how I’ve consciously chosen to work part-time in both arenas. And that’s not necessarily typical for people to be coaching and still working in a big role in corporate. And like all working environments, both the corporate and the coaching industries have stories that tend to tell you how you’re supposed to do these things.

So if you’re in corporate, you’re giving all of your blood, sweat, and tears and your weekends and your nights to corporate if you want to do a good in inverted commas job.

And then similarly we know in some coaching circles, certainly not all, but some coaching circles, it’s the be all and almost end all to be coaching full-time and leaving your corporate role. So I know the way that I’ve put things together isn’t necessarily the norm.

But for me, apart from providing a really good example of how I’m self-styling my life, I feel like I get the best of both worlds and show up better to both worlds because of the way that I’ve integrated these pieces. Coaching’s my way of supporting others and I absolutely love it, but I also enjoy the leadership opportunities that come with working in corporate transformation, which is what I do for a day job.

I have stimulating work. I’ve got an awesome team. I have options for growth and I value all of those things really, really highly. And I feel like, although my team might tell you differently, but I feel like I show up as a better workplace leader. Thanks to my coaching skills, I have a deep understanding of those protective beliefs that hold professionals back, and I’m able to use those skills to support my colleagues’ success.

But similarly, I think I’m a better coach and mentor because I’m still working in that corporate space and I’ve got three decades of experience behind me and my coaching clients work almost exclusively in multi-national and national corporations and things shift really quickly in those spaces.

So for me remaining in corporate helps me to understand their environments, their trends, and even their language. And that I think helps me support my clients even better. And then finally, I think one of the key words in your question is around integrated and it’s become really important to me that I use all of my skills and experience in an integrated way.

It’s not something that I’ve always done, but it’s become more and more important. And as I said, just a minute ago, either or thinking doesn’t really support me or my clients or my employer. And if I can bring everything together and show up wholeheartedly in everything that I do, I think it means that I add more value both to my employer and to my clients. And ultimately to myself.

Terri Connellan: That’s an incredible story of the value of not engaging in either or thinking isn’t it? It’s that idea of, some people talk about both/ and thinking as the opposite of that. So have you found it’s easy for people to get into either or thinking about their life options?

Janelle Wehsack: Oh my goodness. Yes, absolutely. I see it all the time. And as I said, if you talked to me in my thirties, I think I’d fallen for it absolutely myself and I think what we were saying before, especially for those of us who might be in our forties or beyond, that idea of having to choose the one thing and get it right was ingrained right into us, right from the start. And you can tell from that question that we ask every child or that every child’s been asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? Like we have only one choice when we answer that question. And I think while it’s really pleasing that we see books like Emma Gannon’s The Multi-Hyphen Method and Barbara Sher’s Refuse to Choose, sharing a different message now, I think there’s still a whole lot of societal rules that tell us what you have to be, X or Y. Or you can only have one or the other, you can’t have both.

And I think for women in particular, that means that they can limit themselves. Surely you can’t have only one or two things, hobbies or passions for yourself if you’re being a good girl and putting everybody else first.

I think my best advice for exploring more integrated options is to adopt what I call the ‘and’ strategy. So whenever my clients or my team share an either or option, I always ask them to explore whether there is an and or both option available to us. One where we don’t have to choose and we can get the best of both worlds. And often I find just opening people up to that thinking can bring forward other ideas and there can be a real excitement when that creeps in, when they realize, oh, I could have both. Maybe I don’t have to choose.

But I feel like I’m the wrong person answering this question because I think you’re the real leader in positioning the fact that we can bring together the many facets of our lives in a whole hearted way. So I’m curious to know what you’ve seen in that space.

Terri Connellan: Thank you. That’s a great question to ask of me cause it’s what I’ve certainly thought about and often work on with coaching clients. And as you were talking us, I was reflecting on my situation, which is post paid employment in the job that I was in, but crafting my own creatively focused life.

And the question I often get asked by people is: how’s retirement? So, there’s again this dichotomy in society that, you finished paid employment, therefore you are retired and therefore you’re just spending your days relaxing and freewheeling. But my life, my partner’s life, we know we both work in different ways, but similarly are both very busy and I think it’s about choosing to see that the life options that we have don’t necessarily fit into those categories that society chooses for us, whether it’s by lifespan or by definition of paid employment or role, mother or grandmother or whatever it might be, retiree.

But I think it’s important for us to tap into what we really want to do, back to those breadcrumbs and those passions and those life options, and craft a life. That’s why I called this, Create Your Story. It’s about creating the life that you want from all those different passions that you have, including earning an income in one way, shape or form, because we need to have money to survive, but also being creative about those aspects too. Like how do we earn an income? How does money come in? What’s a portfolio career look like?

Meredith answered it beautifully too in the podcast chat with her where she divided up her week into: How much time have I got for counseling? How much time have I got for making films? How much time have I got for doing psychological work? And I think that’s was a beautiful way too of looking at all the things you want to do, seeing how you can take those life options and craft them into a life. And I know that’s something you’ve really explored beautifully in the work that you do.

Janelle Wehsack: Yeah. And I loved the episode with Meredith. That was just such a beautiful conversation. And certainly I’d encourage anybody who hasn’t listened to that episode to go back. I thought it was just perfect for these times, but I think it’s also really great Terri, that you are leading these conversations because we’ve talked a lot about the societal norms, but they’ll only shift when we start having a different conversation about, you know, no, just because you’ve finished, paid traditional employment doesn’t mean you’re retired and it just that you choosing to do completely different things in a completely different space.

And similarly, no, you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can work in corporate and you can coach at the same time. And I think just having these conversations and normalizing this will be the start of making different choices for our children. Down the track, it sets a new example.

Terri Connellan: Thank you. And I really appreciate those comments and yeah, it really excites me to be having this conversation, to be chatting with people on the podcast about where they’ve been, where they’re going. Those turning points where you make a choice, what you decide to open things up, I think they’re important times and we have many of them in our lives and they continue. I think they’re important conversations to have. So another string you have to your very busy bow is working in self-doubt area. And you’re a self-doubt coach having graduated from Sas Petherick’s Self-belief Coaching Academy. So how does self-doubt and self-belief play out in living or embracing a self-styled life?

Janelle Wehsack: The first thing that I would say, Terri is that Sas is an absolutely incredible teacher. And so unsurprisingly working with her in that course fundamentally changed how I approached the concepts of self doubt and self belief. And in terms of coaching tools they’ve really changed the way I think about approaching these topics with my clients. Because unfortunately, oh well, it’s not unfortunate. It’s just natural, that everyone feels self-doubt at different times and different levels. The bit that is unfortunate though, is that for some of us, that self- doubt can really, really keep us stuck and it can stop us from living wholeheartedly, as you would know, it slows down self-leadership and it certainly slows down living a self-styled life.

And I think it’s really helpful to remember that any time we encounter protective behaviors like procrastination or perfectionism, it’s just our way of keeping us safe from psychological risk of things like failure, disappointment, rejection, and judgment. But in remembering that it’s also good to reflect on the fact that by not doing the things, by not following what you love, by not taking that brave step and maybe trying something brand new for the first time, you open yourself up to the same levels of feelings of failure or feelings of disappointment or judging yourself. So it becomes a cycle where whether you act, or you don’t act, you end up facing into the same risk.

Choosing to self-style your life helps you grow your self belief and your self-trust, because in taking action for the things you want, you gather a whole stack of evidence about yourself and the things you can actually do, rather than just listening to those stories that we all tell ourselves about what you can and can’t do, or even the societal stories we’ve been talking about today. And you also get to know more about you. Your own likes and dislikes. For so many of us, we’ve been almost conditioned to like what others have told us we like, and we’ve never really looked into what’s important to us.

So I think self-styling your life helps you overcome that self doubt. And at the same time, build the self-belief. So the two really do go hand in hand.

Terri Connellan: And do you think it’s something women experience, particularly that self-doubt piece? We talked about societal conditioning.

Janelle Wehsack: I think all humans experience self-doubt. It just shows up differently for different humans. I think for women it’s that there is the extra pressure, particularly I think, as any of us that have 40 or older probably came from a different era and so had different environments when we were growing up that might feed into that.

But at the end of the day, I think we all have the capacity to doubt ourselves. It’s about actually being brave enough to take a step anyway, and just build up that evidence that those psychological risks might feel really scary. But once you put yourself out there, it’s not as bad as you first thought.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that’s great. And I love that reminder that self-doubt looks different for different people, whether it’s from a gender perspective or even individuals. Everyone’s going to have their own brand of self-doubt. I love too that idea of gathering evidence in the face of self-doubt and it’s something I often remind my clients when I’m working with them, if there’s areas where they’re feeling uncomfortable is to just start looking at the facts.

Janelle Wehsack: Yeah, there’s nothing more powerful than really questioning whether the stories you tell yourself, have any basis in fact, or there’s any factual evidence behind them. Because so often when you ask yourself the question about, well, is that true, the answers, often, more often than not, well, no, it’s not true. And it’s just a way I’ve been protecting myself from taking a step forward and things may be not going my way.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. That’s a great way of practically tackling those limiting self beliefs that we’ve often been carrying around for many years, that just become part of how we live and breathe. Don’t they?

Janelle Wehsack: Yes they do. And that’s where I think the evidence and taking some action in the face of those things builds up that evidence of, oh, maybe it’s not true. And quite often you end up with more evidence about what you can do than what you think you can’t do. It’s just a matter of building up that filing cabinet full of evidence that says, Hmm, maybe there’s a different perspective on this.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And speaking of different perspectives and gathering further evidence, you also have another fabulous business, life interest and website presence, which is Distant Francophile, which you mentioned early on, and that’s focused on your love of all things French and inspiring others from this.

So can you tell us about Distant Francophile and how it connects with other aspects of you and shaping a self-styled life?

Janelle Wehsack: Ah, yes, Distant Francophile. It was really my first step into exploring creativity back as I said around the time I turned 40. I’d let all of that go in my twenties and thirties and starting a little blog about France, which is a country that I simply adore back in 2014 was actually my way of establishing a writing practice.

So, I remember my son saying to me, if you’re going to start a blog, mum, you’ll need to be committed. Uh, I managed to raise you for this long, I’ll probably be able to stick to a blog for a little while. But he had a point because I think just saying that I was going to show up and write and post every week. I made that promise to myself, but I made that promise to my readers.

And so by doing that, I had to start creating and I look back at some of the early blogposts and I don’t think that they’re going to win any awards Terri at all, but, it was a place for me to just explore creativity and joy and beauty without any expectations. If nobody had ever read Distant Francophile, that was okay. I was going to show up and I was going to write and share something that I love.

And interestingly, it’s still that today, but it’s so much more and I feel like it’s almost taken on a life of its own. I would never imagine that it would introduce me to so many opportunities and amazing people. We’ve got to experience so many things in France that we wouldn’t have been able to do without the DF community.

And we talked a minute ago about those baby steps and experiments. And DF was a real place for me to experiment with all sorts of things. So. I could experiment with writing. I could experiment with recording podcast interviews. I could experiment with all sorts of different things that have then led to, or have supported me as I’ve moved into coaching and expanded in different areas.

So I would never have expected that Distant Francophile would become the jumping off point for so many other things in my life. And then interestingly, because we share a lot of my hubby Scott’s photos on Distant Francophile, there’s been a real interest in the fine art photography that we share there.

So fairly soon, Distant Francophile’s going to be a business in its own right and I’m super excited to see what the next evolution of that ends up looking like.

Terri Connellan: Hmm. That’s another beautiful story of the breadcrumbs and following the breadcrumb trails of passions and seeing where they lead. And, yeah. congratulations on your commitment. You obviously did take that advice on board and extend the success of distant Francophone. Your Instagram posts are just beautiful. Your website is stunning. And in terms of self-styled life, it really shows, you know, if you took that out of the equation, it wouldn’t be the same sort of self-styled life that you have. It gives you another dimension to style in itself and the things that you love being part of that self-styled life.

Janelle Wehsack: Yeah. And I think for me, it was all of the aesthetically beautiful things that I love about France was what triggered me to look into style and that then went to style coaching. And so I can’t imagine my life without Distant Francophile. It is the outlet that I can play with the pretty things and the things that just look nice just for the sheer joy of doing something that I like with that.

Terri Connellan: And I love that your creativity started as a blocker cause that’s what also happened with me because I knew I had to make more space for creativity in my life. And that was how I did it through starting a blog. I started a blog in 2010 and I remember putting that first one out in the world and just feeling so fearful.

But for me, it was about working out what I wanted to focus on, what I wanted to say, where I wanted to focus. In my ten tips for people about developing meaning and purpose in their life, blogging is actually one that I offer up as a tip because I think whether anybody reads it or not, it’s actually that beautiful way of shaping up what’s important to you, working out what you want to say, finding your own voice, plus developing skills, the amount of technical skills that I have learned through that experience that I’m applying in launching courses and podcasting. It’s also building up practically, isn’t it?

Janelle Wehsack: That was absolutely my experience of it as well, Terri. It always makes me feel a little bit sad when people say, oh the era of blogging is over and it’s like, yeah, I’m not so sure about that. And particularly for those of us who want to explore our creativity or perhaps have it on their hearts to write, but aren’t quite at the point where they’d contemplate a book or something like that, even just starting, as you say to craft your words, find your voice. I think there’s still a lot to be said about having a writing practice and the practice, as you say, with sharing it with the world, because I think we all feel like that the whole universe is going to read our first blog post or maybe our first 10 blog posts.

And then after we’ve written hundreds of blog posts, we realized that perhaps they’re not. But it still gets us used to writing and sharing. And I think that’s the powerful thing about creating and for me it created such a community. And as I said, an almost a life of its own that I would never have imagined.

Terri Connellan: It’s a beautiful thing. And again, in the podcast chat with Penelope, she gave a tip about free writing and then writing for publication and doing both. And I think that’s a really lovely way of looking at it. And blogging is a way of writing for publication, writing for audience. And I think frames up our writing in a different way to have both those lenses.

Janelle Wehsack: Yeah. I hadn’t thought about it like that, but you’re absolutely correct.

Terri Connellan: And podcasting too can be a very similar thing. So I’m sure everyone listening is wondering how do you manage all these different aspects of your fascinating and rich life Janelle? So can you share some tips about how you balance and integrate it all in practical terms?

Janelle Wehsack: I’ll give you a theoretical answer and then I’ll give you some practical ones as well. I think Terri, I think the first thing is that I’m incredibly intentional about my life and the things I bring into it because I wasn’t in my thirties. But as I’ve moved through my forties, I now choose very deliberately about what’s in my life.

I didn’t like where I was at when I had a big job and an increasingly empty nest. And I’d really prefer it if I didn’t end up back there. So as a result, I really choose where I focus my time. And right now I love investing my time into my day job and the creativity of Distant Francophile that we just talked about and supporting my clients through coaching and creating new tools and new ways of thinking for my coaching clients. And building that into my coaching practice and that blend of intellectual work, creativity and service really sparks my energy. And one of the things that I’ve noticed in both of my clients and in my corporate colleagues is that when we put all of our energy into things that don’t actually make us feel good or don’t make us excited, that’s when burnout tends to creep in especially I’ve noticed in women.

And so, if the things that I have in my life really drain me rather than fill me with excitement and vitality, I don’t have a problem anymore with putting them on the shelf. And the best example I have of that is French lessons. I did French lessons for many, many years, but the minute they started becoming a chore and not something that I thought was fun and interesting and exciting, I had no problem shelving them.

And it’s not the side that I won’t pick French up again one day. But for right now, it’s just not something that I want to spend time on. And I think being able to pick things up and put things down without feeling like you’ve got to stick with things forever, really helps with that idea of, ‘No, no, I’m going to do things that fill me with excitement and energy and I get to choose what that looks like.’ So I think that’s just the first position on being intentional and choosing what you want to do is for me how I can pack things in, because any time I choose to do anything, it’s something that I love.

So I’m either creating, or I’m playing with Distant Francophile or I’m working at my day job. And when you’re filling your life up like that, I don’t get overly tired, I think because I have all of the variety. It just seems to work really well for me because I’m choosing to do a whole lot of fun things rather than things that I feel like I should do or have to do. I think too, in the downtime of that, I’ll cook or I’ll read, or I’ll walk along the beach. I’ll still do other things as well, as long as everything is, feeling like fun. So that’s sort of the theoretical position on it.

The practical things. I’m really good with my calendar. Thirty years in corporate has taught me that my day runs by my calendar. If it says I’m going to be somewhere, I will show up. And so I do the same thing with my personal life and my calendar there. If it says I need to write for DF right now, I’ll show up and I’ll write for DF. And like, that’d be fun. But similarly, if I’m coaching I’ll coach and so I’m very good at stopping one thing and picking something else up because the calendar tells me so. And I think probably just the other thing, Terri, is that, I don’t watch telly. I don’t watch telly very often. And so I always thought that I’d rather create rather than consume. So I guess that gives me a bit more time too.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, for sure. And, I love that you mentioned how the blend of things, sparks energy. And I guess it’s back to that bringing together different strands of our life and it sounds like one sort of bounces off the other. And, back to that multifaceted gem that we’ve created in this conversation, that idea of bouncing light and energy from one thing to another. Doing a range of things that you don’t enjoy might be draining. When things spark each other and reflect aspects of each other, the story that I’m hearing from you is that it’s actually energizing.

Janelle Wehsack: It is for me. And I think I knew the difference because when it was all work and I was just filling up the time that I used to spend parenting with more work, it wasn’t like that at all. And it’s interesting that it’s a different role within the same company, but I’m still at that corporate job. But by building more things into my life and not expecting my corporate role to fulfill all of the different desires and wants that I had. So it doesn’t have to cover the creativity for me. It doesn’t have to cover service for me. By just letting it give me the leadership opportunities and the intellectual part, it took the pressure off. It made me enjoy it again.

Terri Connellan: That’s lovely. So we’ve touched on aspects of how you’ve created your story, but it is a question that I’m asking every guest of the podcast. And I’d love to hear your answer. How have you created your story over your life?

Janelle Wehsack: The short answer is that I’m still creating it, and I think that I’m going to continue to create it just one baby step at a time. And the longer answer around that is that I think just following my curiosity and heading into things in a wholehearted way. And you know how much your books have really supported my thinking when it comes to living wholeheartedly. I think just still consciously doing that and understanding that I get to choose every day. I get to write my story every day, underpins the way I’m choosing to live my life at the moment.

Terri Connellan: I love that – it’s come to this point, but we’re still creating our story as we go forward. Yeah. And it’s lovely to hear that Wholehearted has been really helpful in framing up some of that thinking too and adding to your own thinking.

And I think any body of work we put into the world, it’s lovely, the way other people can receive that work and then take it forward in new ways. So thank you for reflecting that back to me too.

Janelle Wehsack: Oh it’s, such a resonant piece of work, Terri, I think. It’s certainly one that I recommend all of my clients, you know, I think you gave the world a real gift when you published that book last year. So, there is a lot to take from it.

Terri Connellan: Thank you. I appreciate that. As you know, in Wholehearted, I share 15 wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices. So to add to that body of work or amplify, what are your top wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices, especially for women.

Janelle Wehsack: Before I get to that. I said the word ‘ book’ in the singular. I think everybody needs to know that there’s two books and they’re both recommended reading on any list. You do share so many tips in the books for wholehearted self-leadership and I could go any which way with trying to pick out my favorite tips.

But I’m assuming you don’t want this to be the world’s longest podcast episode. So I I’ll start with the fact that clarity, mindset and action form the basis of my signature coaching framework, Terri. And I created that framework after I’d seen so many women either burnout or walk out and leave just so much goodness on the table behind them. And so it was a really career based thing when I started thinking about it.

But today I believe that women everywhere can tap into the benefits of clarity, mindset and action to live wholeheartedly. So my top tips would include getting clear on what you value and how you define success. I’d also suggest you spend some time thinking about how you want to spend your time.

And then when it comes to mindset, I think the place to start is catching those stories that we were talking about before and really digging into whether there is any truth in any of them, or if we have any of that evidence that we mentioned earlier. Finally, I would suggest that we take some of those safe forms of actions. So those experiments and the baby steps, we pop on our lab coats, or our imaginary lab coats, and we just go out there and try some things. And by trying the things, by following the breadcrumbs, that’s when I think we take ourselves as close to wholehearted as we can.

Terri Connellan: Oh, what a truly beautiful answer and example of clarity, how you could express that so clearly. Your signature program in your coaching around clarity, mindset and action is beautifully framed. And I think the ability to share that with people is also a real gift and something you’ve developed over time from your own experiences. So thank you for sharing that with us through your coaching and also through the conversation today.

So we’re just about at the end of our time together, and it’s been a lovely chat. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with me and it’s been fabulous exploring all the things we have chatted about together. Can you let people know where they can find out more about you and your work online?

Janelle Wehsack: Well, thanks so much, Terri and thank you for having me on today. It’s been an absolute honor and a joy.

If listeners are interested in self-styling their lives, they can find me on the interwebs at janellewehsack.com and make sure you check out the free resources that I have to help you do life your way. You’ll also find me on Instagram at @janelle.wehsack or on my new podcast, Self.Styled.Life which should be out in the wild by the time you are listening to this episode of Terri’s podcast. And if you’re after a dose of French inspiration, you can join me over at distantfrancophile.com or on Insta, where we are @DistantFrancophile.

Terri Connellan: So many places to be. It’s wonderful. And so many wonderful places for people to find out more about you and explore your work. So thank you so much for sharing so much about you and encourage people to check out your work, all the different angles and to engage with you if they feel called. It’s very important to connect with coaches and people’s work that feels resonant with you with.

Janelle Wehsack: Yes. I know for me, that’s how we’ve built such a beautiful community across a number of these online platforms. So, yeah. But like I said, Terri, thank you so much for having me on it’s such a joy.

Terri Connellan: Oh, my pleasure. All the best with your podcast. Look forward to listening.

Janelle Wehsack: Thanks again.

About Janelle Wehsack

Janelle Wehsack is a certified life and style coach and a creative writer who also happens to have 30 years experience – and counting – in the corporate world. In her coaching practice, Janelle employs her signature coaching framework that combines clarity, mindset and action to support professional women to dance with their self-doubt so that they can build tailor made, self-styled lives.

You can connect with Janelle:

Website: Janelle Wehsack.com

Website: Distant Francophile

Instagram: Janelle Wehsack

Instagram: Distant Francophile

Terri’s links to explore:

My books:

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching & writing programs:

The Writing Road Trip – community writing program with Beth Cregan email list

Connect on social media

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

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

personality and story podcast transition

Embracing a Multipotentialite Life with Laura Maya

March 3, 2022

Riffing with change and living an unconventional, nomadic, multipotentialite life.

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Create Your Story Podcast on on Embracing a Multipotentialite Life.

I’m joined by Laura Maya – Writer, Nomad, Multipotentialite, Author and Coach.

We chat about Laura’s new book Tell Them My Name, the writing journey and living a life that is unconventional, nomadic and multipotentialite. And we explore how she supports and inspires others who are curious and wanting to live a less conventional life.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Laura’s new book Tell Them My Name
Writing your first book
Being a constant beginner
Giving ourselves permission to quit
Being a digital nomad
Embracing a multipotentialite life
Opening up life options
Riffing with change
How change is always hard

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 2nd of March as I record this. It’s been raining for about two weeks here in Sydney and there have been massive and devastating floods further north. Along with the tragic Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s been a strange and unsettling time lately. My thoughts are with all those impacted by these events. It’s a very sad time.

In positive news, I’m excited to be a finalist in the Beautiful You Coaching Academy Awards for Book/Product of the Year for my Wholehearted book and Companion Workbook. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on Friday 4th of March this week. I’m so honoured to be a finalist and look forward to celebrating at the online awards ceremony. I’ve been thrilled to kick off The Writing Road Map short course with my writing partner and collaborator Beth Cregan. It’s part of The Writing Road Trip in 2022 and we will be offering other opportunities to work with us further on in 2022. You can join our email list for the latest news.

Speaking of road trips, I’m excited to have Laura Maya join us for the podcast today to chat about her new book, Tell Them My Name and the process of writing it. We also chat about Laura’s fascinating and somewhat unconventional life, which features variety, constant change and movement that she embraces wholeheartedly.

Laura Maya is a writer, coach and culturally curious ‘digital nomad’ who has spent over twenty years wandering slowly through 59 countries. Laura is the author of Tell Them My Name (2022, the kind press) and she runs an online business offering professional matchmaking, project management and coaching programs that help women step into the life they want (even if it’s a life other people may not understand.) Laura has spent the pandemic years living in a converted school bus in Australia but usually bounces between Oz, France, Nepal and Tonga and tries to explore everywhere in between.

Laura and I met as fellow certified Beautiful You Coaching Academy life coaches and as writers and fellow authors published by the kind press. We’ve chatted together about the writing process, becoming an author and ways to publish and share our work with the world. We’ll share insights from these conversations and connections and learn more about Laura’s unconventional, nomadic and multipotentialite life and what she inspires in others from this.

Today we will be speaking about writing, publishing, creativity, being a multipotentialite and nomad and opening up life options to consider unconventional and original paths that integrate our passions and purpose.

So let’s head into the interview with Laura.

Transcript of interview with Laura Maya

Terri Connellan: Hi, Laura, welcome to the Create Your Story Podcast.

Laura Maya: Thank you, Terri. Thanks for having me today.

Terri Connellan: Thanks for your connection across our work, our passions and our businesses, and we’ve connected in many ways around creativity, writing, publishing, coaching and more. And it’s great to be able to share those conversations with people.

So can you kick us off by providing a brief overview about your background and how you got to be where you are and the work that you do now?

Laura Maya: Yeah, that’s always a tricky question to answer for me. My background is a hot, beautiful mess I think that led me to where I am now, which is doing a lot of different things that don’t really connect.

So yeah, my background is that I left Australia in 2001 on what I thought was a gap year to go traveling and to live in school. And I’ve just been traveling the world ever since kind of living nomadically. And I have worked in lots of different businesses and had a lot of different jobs in a lot of different careers.

So, in your book, when you talk about being in transition, I’ve been in perpetual transition, I suppose, for most of my adult life. But that’s what brought me to where I am now, which is running my own business, where I work as a coach and a consultant. so yeah, I do lots of different things. Everything from life coaching to project management and people and culture consultancy, marketing, social media management, translation, writing, whatever. I do a little bit of everything and I enjoy that kind of diversity in my work.

Terri Connellan: Awesome. That’s a great snapshot. And I love that you say being in transition for most of your adult life. You must be incredibly skilled at managing change.

Laura Maya: Yeah, I think I’m a professional beginner. That’s the only thing I’m an expert at. I’m a professional at starting from scratch and I enjoy that process. I really like that point where you kind of get a bit bored or restless and then you think, oh, okay, well, what am I going to do next? And then finding that thing and not being able to do that thing and then having to learn that whole process. It’s a process I really enjoy.

Terri Connellan: It sounds like almost a love of beginner’s mind.

Laura Maya: Yeah. I don’t become a master at anything. For example, I learned the ukulele. I was really obsessed with that for a little while and I can’t play the E chord. It’s been what, seven years now I’ve been playing the ukulele and I can’t play the E chord and that’s okay. I just don’t play the songs that have the E chord in them. I just get myself to the point where like, I’m happy enough with that. And then I kind of get bored and I move on to something else. That’s that’s how I roll.

Terri Connellan: Great. So we’ve both recently enjoyed the process of taking a book from idea to draft, to publish. And as we speak, it’s the 21st of January, 2022. And your book, Tell Them My Name is soon to be out on the first of February, which is very exciting. Congratulations. So tell us about that writing journey and what it was like.

Laura Maya: Yeah. Before I do that, I just want to say a massive congratulations to you for your book, your beautiful book. It’s such a valuable resource. I’ve read it. And it’s such a valuable resource for people in transition.

So I just wanted to congratulate you because having been through the writing process, myself and the publishing process, I know I will never look at a book the same way again. It’s such an achievement just to get it to the point where you can hold it in your hands. So I just wanted to honor you for that.

Terri Connellan: Thank you much appreciated.

Laura Maya: Yeah. And for me, I guess the writing’s journey, I don’t know about you, but it was your first book, it was wasn’t it?

Terri Connellan: It was, yeah.

Laura Maya: For me, I think my first book was all about learning how not to write a book. I don’t think I would do it the same way again. I think the writing journey has been pretty tough. I’ve always wanted to write a book since I was probably about six. I always thought I would be a writer one day. And about seven years ago, I started writing this book. I spent about two years getting a draft down. About three years trying to edit that draft down from about 280,000 words to about 130,000, but without bringing anybody else in that process. Like that was my big mistake. I didn’t get any help. I didn’t get anybody to read it or anything like that. So at the five-year mark, then I thought, oh, I probably need to get some support here.

So I thought I was finished. I arranged a manuscript evaluation from a publishing house and they came back and said, look, there’s a really good story in here, but you’ve tried to squeeze about three other stories into it that shouldn’t be there. So you should start from scratch and start writing the book again. Which was just horrifying, heartbreaking to hear after five years of working on it. But I could see their points when they pointed it out and I took their advice.

I threw a little bit of a temper tantrum and had a moment. And then I decided, okay, they’re right, I’ll take their advice. And I started from scratch and I wrote the book throughout 2020 when, of course the world was in turmoil. And there was a little time to be at home and finished at the end of 2020 and was offered a publishing contract in January of 2021 which I ultimately decided not to take. And I spoke with you. That’s when you and I connected, and I did a shout out in our coaching group, our certified coaching group and said, does anyone know anything about publishing contracts? Because I don’t. And you put your hand out to help me, which was amazing.

And after speaking with you, and speaking with a number of other people, I decided to go a different way. And that’s what led me to the kind press. Now we’ve ended up being publisher house buddies.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that’s amazing to hear your journey. And there’s so many things that resonate from that description of your journey and lots of commonalities in that journey. It indicates what writing a book, that first putting your heart into a book brings up. Beth Cregan and I, who’s my co-writing buddy, and we’re running a writing program together, we have joked that we’d like to run a program called how not to write a book because we know so much about how not to write a book. It’s like all these things not to do. And like you, I wrote a really, really long, mine was a hundred thousand words.

Laura Maya: That’s tiny!

Terri Connellan: 280 is huge, but I have heard people say that often the early books that we write, we often do put a lot of in there and then it’s either a whittling away or in my case, creating two books. But starting again, must’ve been incredible.

Laura Maya: Yeah, we do put a lot of ourselves in there and I’d heard that. And I thought that I hadn’t done that so much, but then when I got that feedback and I realized, I’ve injected myself into places in this book that are really not relevant. I didn’t know what to leave out was my big problem. I didn’t know what would be interesting for the reader. So going back and starting from scratch, because I said to him, I was like, well can’t I just edit the version that I’ve already done? And he said, no, no, there’s too much in there. And you actually need to start with a blank page.

So that was daunting because I’d spent, gosh, I reckon that number of hours I’ve spent on putting together that first draft I could have become, maybe not a surgeon, but I could’ve put myself through law school, I think probably like in hours that I invested, and yeah, sitting down and saying that blank page, but then just having to look at it, like, okay, what does the reader want to know about this and where would the reader want to start this story? And I started the book in a completely different place than where I would have.

And the beauty of this too, is that now I actually have 65,000 words, which I’ve cut out, which will be the basis of my next book. And so those years, it wasn’t wasted time. And I do think it’s a much tighter, cleaner, more enjoyable book to read now than it was before. I think I would have lost the reader in the original version because it was too all over the place.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that’s great to hear. And it’s also wonderful too that you can repurpose some of that first draft because 280,000 words, is a huge commitment in time and intellectual energy, creative energy. So to be able to take some of that work and craft it and shape it in new ways.

Laura Maya: That is a positive.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. That’s great. So can you share with us a snapshot of what Tell Them My Name is about?

Laura Maya: Sure. In a nutshell, it is the true story of two indigenous Nepalese elders who leave their Himalayan farm and travel to Paris on this great quest to understand Western culture. That’s the book in a nutshell.

The slightly longer version of that story is that, my husband and I went to live in the Himalayas in Nepal with this elderly couple in 2009. We were sent there by an NGO to build a library in a local school and this couple, took us in and they sort of adopted us as their children. We called them mum and dad, Aama and Baba. And they taught us how to speak Nepali. They taught us how to take care of ourselves because it’s not the same. In Nepal, they don’t eat with cutlery. We had to learn how to eat with our hands. They don’t have a bathroom. So we had to learn how to wash ourselves in the public communal water source and things like that.

So after five years of coming and going from Nepal, they were just really curious to know where we were from and why we were so incapable of doing some of the most basic tasks, I guess, in the village. And so we offered them the opportunity to come back to France, to Europe, where my husband’s from, and we would travel around with them for a month. And we would just explore the differences between our cultures and, and they could see how we lived. So that’s what the book’s about. It’s really about their impressions of Western culture and a look at everything from loneliness and religion and race.

There’s a lot of big concepts in there. And then there’s a lot of really funny moments, obviously when things happened because they don’t know how to navigate life in our culture.

Terri Connellan: I can’t wait to read it – it just sounds incredible. When I first heard about it, the whole story just sounds like an amazing way for us to understand different cultures, but also get a different perspective on ourselves too. When you take yourself out of your comfort zone, as you’ve done many times, and obviously your Nepalese mum and dad have done. That idea of just getting a different perspective, that sounds like that’s what the book’s about, like really turning the world upside down and just seeing things anew.

Laura Maya: Yeah, that’s exactly it, because I think in some ways, I mean, the book is full of questions, really? The kind of questions that Aama would ask when we were traveling and most of the time, as you’ll see, when you read the book, I didn’t have answers to those questions.

Because there was everything from, ‘why is the supermarket floor cold?’ Well, I don’t know. I’ve never reached down to touch it. To ‘why are people so lonely in your culture’ and like, ‘ why did you set my food on fire on my birthday?’ These sorts of things that I’ve never stopped to ask myself those questions and it’s my culture. And I guess it was a real look at all of the things that you just take for granted.

Terri Connellan: And to capture and remember those moments, did you keep a journal at the time or were you capturing those moments as they happened?

Laura Maya: Yeah, I think that’s the reason why the book blew out at 280,000 words, because at the end of every day, I sat down with a voice recorder and I spoke when everyone else was asleep because the trip was exhausting. You can imagine translating between Nepalese and French all day, obviously neither of those are my first languages. And we were traveling, we were doing a lot of stuff. And so at the end of the day, everyone would collapse and I would get out my phone and I would spend an hour recounting the day to myself.

And then when I sat down to write, I basically did a transcription of what we’d done. So I ended up with this book that was just like, this happened and this happened, this happened, this happened. And then having to then distill that into something that people would actually want to read and would take them on a journey without boring them to tears. There were things in there that just wouldn’t be entertaining for people or inspiring for people or educational. So, that’s how I, I did it. I don’t know how I would do it differently next time, because it was good to have all of that data, but it was too much.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that’s what I was just thinking, as you were speaking, it’s amazing that you did take the time to do that work and it’s almost like a field research isn’t it? And gathering the data, having the records because so much gets easily forgotten. So apart from the writing, it’s that whole note- taking, gathering of information as well on way through that’s the books obviously created through.

Laura Maya: Yeah, exactly.

Terri Connellan: Congratulations. That’s huge – so how many years in all?

Laura Maya: I started writing in December, 2014, so seven years. A big part of my life. It’s been great. I’ve learned more than I could have, if I’d done a university course in creative writing, I think, by doing it this way in some ways, but I’m excited that all of my other books I think will be easier after this because I’ll have a better idea going in.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. You learn so much writing a book about everything, I’ve found, the drafting, the editing, just knowing what the process is like means, you’re better prepared for next time.

Laura Maya: Absolutely. Hopefully. Yeah. We’ll see.

Terri Connellan: So you’ve also recently had your story, ‘The Truth About Quitting’ published as part of the brilliant kind press collection ‘This I Know is True‘ in 2021 so tell us about that story.

Laura Maya: Yeah. So that story relates to the book that I wrote. It’s the story of the non-profit organization that my husband and I started to prevent human trafficking in Nepal. It’s the story of starting that organization and then ultimately burning out and closing that organization down even though obviously human trafficking still exists in Nepal. So the ultimate goal that we set out to achieve there was never going to be really a way to achieve that and the nature of the work, yeah, I burnt out. And so it’s the story of giving ourselves permission to quit when we’re doing something that no matter how much we want it, we’re just not really able to continue whether it’s for mental health reasons or physical reasons or those sorts of things.

So I think in our culture, we have this belief, never give up, you have to see things through to the end and that’s true in some cases, but I also think that sometimes your personal finishing point might just come sooner than other people’s.

Terri Connellan: I love that. That’s what I love about your life and your work is that you take a really fresh perspective on things. And I think that, we do have this cultural bias towards perseverance and keep going no matter what. And sometimes that’s helpful, like writing a book, you definitely need tenacity and perseverance, but, there may be, you know, like your first book draft, I guess you had to learn to stop that and start again. And sometimes the wisdom is in knowing when to stop, when to pivot.

Laura Maya: Exactly. And knowing when to quit, I think it’s a skill. I quit over and over and over again, but like obviously writing the book, I have felt like quitting at many stages of the process, but it was important to me to keep going and I knew that I could. And so I’ve kept going. But with our non-profit organization, one of the most important things to me in my life but it came at the expense of my mental health. And so, you have to make a call and it’s not easy to do, but I think actually cultivating that skill of evaluating things and walking away when it doesn’t serve you or you’re not serving it anymore, I think is really important.

Terri Connellan: And is that something you share with clients too? That skill? Do you see that for clients?

Laura Maya: Yeah, I do, particularly because I work predominantly with multi-passionate people. who quite often come to me because they’re frustrated with themselves because they quit all the time. They leap from one thing to the other and, they feel like they don’t finish the things that they start. So it’s really drilling down on, okay, well, how important it is for you to finish this thing? Or are you only trying to finish this thing because you think that you should. Like you talk about in the book that these words that enslave you, like should.

Terri Connellan: And that abandoned success idea too, maybe it’s okay to walk away from something that’s successful too. Just because something’s going well, doesn’t mean you have to stay either. That’s something that comes up for me, with clients as well. that’s about looking at what serves you ultimately.

Laura Maya: Yeah, I guess that’s even harder, isn’t it? When you’re at the pinnacle of your career in something you’re actually really successful, but it’s just not giving you any joy. I do have one client like that at the moment, actually. She’s carved a name for herself in a particular industry and now wants to do something completely different and it’s hard to make that choice to walk away from the status and the money, it’s really tricky.

Terri Connellan: So one of the key themes in your life story is being a digital nomad and traveller and you’ve been living nomadically since 2001. You’ve lived, worked and traveled in 60 different countries and you’ve learned to speak four foreign languages, which is amazing, had dozens of career changes and held over 40 different jobs. So what do you love about being a digital nomad and what does it offer that other more conventional lifestyles might not?

Laura Maya: So I, yeah, freedom is just ultimate freedom. I think, because when I first started traveling, I was 21. Last year was my 20 year nomadiversary, but in the beginning, the internet wasn’t really a thing. I mean, we had emails and we would go into an internet cafe and check our emails for half an hour a day. But, we didn’t really have access to the internet, like we do now. So I would get jobs as I went along. I was a nanny in Spain and then I was a tax auditor in the Netherlands. A bar manager in Scotland, always moving around too. I was always changing jobs and there was always the stress around, like where was the next job and the next money coming from. Whereas now being a digital nomad. I have the freedom of taking my income with me.

So I’ve built up my business. I’ve got lots of different clients. I do lots of different things with them, as I mentioned earlier, and I can just take that income wherever I go. All I have to do is make sure that the work that I take on is not bound to a certain time. Like I don’t have to turn up every day at midday. I can just do it over the course of the 24 hours. And it means that I can work from anywhere that has internet access. So we lived in Tonga for four years and I ran my business from this beautiful little private island in the south Pacific. And I’ve worked from Paris and Santorini. I went to Greek school in Santorini for a while in Greece.

You just have that freedom to move around and go, okay, well, where are we going to live this week, obviously with COVID that has all been kiboshed, but up until then, that was the freedom. And even during COVID, my income, the way that I earn it, and I’ll be able to travel around and we’ve been able to house sit all over New South Wales and live in a bus. We’ve been living most of the last two years in a bus traveling around. So we have the freedom to keep our costs really low. And weather the pandemic perhaps more easily than others. I think a lot of people over these last couple of years, if you have a mortgage and expenses and things like that, it’s been incredibly stressful.

Terri Connellan: So it sounds an incredibly creative lifestyle too.

Laura Maya: Yeah. We’re kind of creating all the time. What’s next week gonna look like, where are we parking next week? Or where are we living next week? Yeah. And we’re heading back to Nepal in April and getting back onto the international road again.

Terri Connellan: So, do you think you need certain personality preferences to be able to live that way, or is it something anybody can do if they shift their mindset?

Laura Maya: Yeah, I think it definitely takes a shift of mindset because you have to live a very minimalist existence. So you need to not be very attached to stuff. Or if you are attached to stuff, it makes it very difficult to have that freedom to be able to move around. I don’t know that it would suit everybody. I think that if everybody lived like me, the economy would probably collapse. I don’t know that that’s a good idea, but I think that if anybody’s got that sort of curiosity or that desire for freedom, it’s definitely possible, but I don’t know that it is a lifestyle that would suit everybody. Or even a lot of people.

Terri Connellan: I haven’t asked about the challenges because I was more interested in the positives too. Cause most of us could probably think about the challenges, the lack of stability and the things that would throw people. But, it’s great to hear about the positives and what’s exciting about it.

Laura Maya: Different challenges. Yeah. Everyone’s got challenges in their lives. Mine are just different to everybody else’s.

Terri Connellan: So you also identify as a multipotentialite, and you’ve explored this in a fabulous post on your website, Are You A Multipotentialite, Scanner or Renaissance Soul? How did realising it’s okay, and in fact, amazing to be a multipotentalite impact your life?

Laura Maya: Yeah, prior to hearing that word, multipotentiality. I thought there was something really wrong with me. I thought that I was a quitter. I was a dilettante. I just jumped from one thing to the next, I couldn’t finish anything that I started. I was like, oh, I’ve just got shiny object syndrome. I had all these really negative words, Jack of all trades, which has bad connotations these days. So I thought it was a bad thing.

I thought that even though I was happy and I was enjoying my life that I was doing it wrong because the people around me seemed to have a more linear approach to life. They stuck with their careers for a bit longer than I did or with their jobs for a bit longer. They put down roots, they had homes, they had families, they had children. It felt like I didn’t know how to do any of that normal, ‘normal’ like in inverted comments stuff.

And then when I heard about multipotentiality, I’d realised that there were actually a lot of people out there that have like me, this insatiable curiosity, to just keep exploring and to experiment with lots of different careers and interests and hobbies and those kinds of things.

So, I think it just gave me permission to really just be myself and also to know, once I understood that this was actually a thing that my brain is wired this way, it makes me approach my new careers and interests and hobbies in a different way. I’m not jumping in now going, oh my gosh, I found this great thing. This is the thing I’m going to love forever. And then getting really disappointed when it turns out, but it’s not again. And I want to move on to something else.

I go into everything now, this is the thing that I’m excited about doing now, and let’s just see how it all goes. And there may be an end date and actually taking that pressure off, it sometimes means that it lasts longer than it probably would have before when I used to berate myself for getting bored with things too quickly. So I think it’s just helped me shift my mindset around the fact that it’s not a bad thing. It’s just who I am. It’s just how my brain works. And now I can work with it.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that’s why I love personality work for similar reasons. There’s such strength in knowing how you’re wired, this is what’s your natural preference. Once you understand that it’s the self-acceptance just reframes your whole life. That’s what happened for me with understanding myself.

Laura Maya: So, yeah, I totally agree that. I mean the personality type things, I’m an ENFP on the Myers-Briggs and I’m a nine on the Enneagram and I love doing all those kinds of things and it does provide a framework that makes me not feel like the way I am is wrong. It gives you the tools to then go, okay, well, this is one of my quirks. How can I a) use that to my advantage and b) make sure it doesn’t get in my way.

Terri Connellan: That’s great. And I know of Barbara Sher’s work in this, I love her., this area started there. She was an influence for you. Are there any other particular influences?

Laura Maya: Massive, yeah. Barbara Sher. So I originally found Emilie Wapnick’s TED talk where she talks about multipotentiality. She’s the one who coined that term. So I saw that. And then I saw a lot of people in the comment section saying, you should read Barbara Sher’s book, Refuse to Choose. So I downloaded that and I cried through the whole first and second chapter.

Oh my gosh. It’s not just me. This is just describing who I am and that book has just become my Bible. And I use a lot of the tools and tricks in that. I think it might’ve been written in the eighties or nineties. It’s been around for a long time. She just passed away I think last year.

Terri Connellan: She did. I was doing some research on her a little while ago. I think it was last year she passed away.

Laura Maya: She was such a pioneer. She did such great work for people like us.

Terri Connellan: Again, it’s that reframing and somebody taking the time to wrap the book to articulate, you know, it’s okay to refuse to choose. It’s okay to say yes to lots of things and live the incredible life that you’re crafting and encouraging others to craft who have similar preferences.

Laura Maya: She did. If anybody is resonating with the way that I’m explaining multipotentiality, definitely read Refuse to Choose because she lays it out perfectly to give you the tips and tools to set up your life, to create your life in a way. And I’d been doing those things unconsciously, but, reading that book was really helpful.

Terri Connellan: So just to touch a little bit on that, in what ways can we limit ourselves and what tips would you give for people opening up and integrating life options?

Laura Maya: This is such a great question. This is looking at me personally. But I think one of the ways that I’ve limited myself and I see this in a lot of my particularly female clients and most, all my clients are female, is that we limit ourselves by what we think we’re qualified to do. So we won’t leap into something unless we feel like we have a certificate or a piece of paper that says that we know how to do what we’re doing, or we have X years of work experience that qualify us for that.

And I see this too in my work in hiring, one of my hats that I wear doing a lot of hiring for startups, Australian startups and high growth companies. And the women have a hard time putting themselves forward for jobs that they don’t necessarily feel like they hit all of the necessary criteria. Whereas the male counterparts might send through a CV when they’re not really qualified at all. And I know that I’ve done that like, oh, can I write a book if I haven’t got a Masters of Fine Arts or I haven’t done a course in creative writing. Yes, you can. I think, that’s definitely an issue.

And I think another way that we limit ourselves is with the beliefs and the stories that we tell ourselves about what we’re capable of. I know I’ve spent most of my life saying, oh, I’m not very sporty. Like I’ll only run if someone’s chasing me, like I’m not very graceful, like Bambi on ice, those have always been my stories. And just in the last couple of years, I’ve really been working on dismantling those stories. I took up running and I’ve started learning Kung Fu and maybe it wasn’t super sporty or graceful in the beginning, but with a bit of effort and determination, you can improve. And you don’t have to live with those stories that you’ve been telling yourself, just because you were always the kid that got picked last for teams in primary school.

Terri Connellan: I’m coming up against one of those stories at the minute. I mentioned a little bit in my book about me and story, like ‘I can’t do plot’. And my plan this year is to draft a novel. So, it immediately rears up: ‘ You don’t understand plot.’ ‘You don’t know this’, so it’s fascinating how we limit ourselves with those. Like who says?

Laura Maya: Exactly. And that’s definitely something that can be taught. There are some things you need qualifications for, you’re a surgeon or even coaching. I think that’s a great thing to get qualifications for because you’re working with humans. But I mean, you can do a course in learning how to plot or you can just, what did they say? If you can pants, what are the two?

Terri Connellan: Pantsers and plotters.

Laura Maya: Do it and then give it to someone for feedback. And they’ll say, you could’ve done that better. Or put this there or whatever. And you can learn just by doing it.

Terri Connellan: Exactly. And in early conversation about writing books, learning how not to write the next one is all part of that opening things up and having a go. Yeah. So, I loved a recent posts you popped up on Instagram that you’re aiming to fail this year. I loved that and it was so refreshing to read that because everyone’s going and I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that. And then you pop in and say, well, I’m aiming to fail this year. That’s amazing, especially with all the uncertainty around. That’s part of what you’re talking about. So what does that mean for you and why is it important this year?

Laura Maya: I guess it’s two things. The first part of it is that what’s coming for me this year, which is that the book is going to be released. And, I’m very comfortable in my writing cave, just tapping away on my own, writing stuff, but I’m not comfortable with the promotion and the marketing and media interviews like this. You and I have some rapport, we know each other so it’s easier for me to do this with you today. But thinking about being interviewed on radio or things like that, make me really nervous. So, I guess aiming to fail means putting myself into positions where there’s a big chance that I’m will stuff it up.

And I’ll make a fool of myself, but just putting myself in that position anyway and going, okay. Well, if I failed and I’ve hit my target, I’m pushing myself to do things that, that make me really uncomfortable. So that’s sort of aiming to fail. But then also on the other side, it’s really just living my life this year without obviously because of the pandemic organizing my book launch, even though I know that it might get shut down because of COVID at the last minute. I’ve thought to myself, should I have a book launch? Maybe I shouldn’t because of everything that’s going on.

And then I thought, well, I’m just going to do it. If it all falls apart at the last minute, it all falls apart. If it fails, it fails and booking our flights to Nepal, that probably sounds a bit crazy. Why would we go to Nepal in the middle of the pandemic? But if the flights get canceled or things go wrong or whatever. Okay. Well just going to have a crack this year and if I fail, I fail. That’s really what it’s all about.

Terri Connellan: I love that. Your word freedom. It sounds very freeing, it frees you up to do the things that you want to do without feeling that it has to go down a certain path. If it goes down another path, then that’s okay. I love that. You’ve inspired me. So I’m taking that on board too.

Laura Maya: Aim to fail to craft a beautiful plot this year, Terri!

Terri Connellan: I will. I think it’s great. We talk about different definitions of success, but it’s still really easy to say I’m going to draft this 80,000 word and it’s going to look like this, but we just got to take ourselves through the process.

Laura Maya: And be kind to ourselves. Absolutely.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. So two questions I’m asking guests on the podcast and they’re fairly big questions, but interesting just to see what pops up for people. So how have you created your story over your lifetime?

Laura Maya: Yeah. This is like a really interesting question. I think one way I create my story, I’ve consciously created every aspect of my life. Because we’re changing so much, there’s no such thing as getting stuck in a rut really for my husband and I, because we change and move on and move to different countries or change our jobs and things so quickly.

So, I feel like a consciously create my life and my story through that way, but coming back to what we were talking about before, I think part of me is constantly trying to dismantle the stories that I’ve created for myself as well, it’s been a big thing for me lately. I think since I turned 40, I know that you follow a lot of Brene Brown’s work as well, and there was this great post that she wrote about the great unraveling when you turn 40. And it’s really since I’ve turned 40 suddenly trying to put myself into all of these situations and positions that the story of who I am would normally not feel comfortable doing.

So, yeah, I feel like I consciously create my story, but now I’m just kind of trying to break it down and stretch it and see how far I can go.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I just love in everything you do, your writing, your story, being comfortable playing with change almost. It’s not even being comfortable with changes. Sometimes it’s the discomfort of change, riffing with change.

Laura Maya: Riffing with change. I love that. Yes. I love that. And it’s not comfortable. Change still isn’t comfortable for me, even at the position that I’m in. I think that’s the thing that I love to be able to tell my coaching clients is that even after you’ve been through as many transitions as I have, it’s still hard. It’s still uncomfortable. It can be painful. Feeling that discomfort with change, that’s totally normal. Even for somebody as accomplished at being a beginner as I am.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I love that. I think again, it’s about expectations. Sometimes we expect ourselves to be or do something we’re not, which is be totally comfortable with change. Change in its very nature’s moving out of one comfort zone into another.

Laura Maya: It’s always going to be hard. Even though I make the decision to travel and to live this kind of transient life, I’m always anxious right up until it happens. I always cry when it happens. It always feels like the end of the world. And then I do it anyway. I just cycle through that process faster than most, but it’s always hard.

Terri Connellan: Hmm. That’s interesting. So as you’d know, from reading Wholehearted, I share my top 15 wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices. So I’m interested in, to add to that body of work, what your top wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices are especially for women.

Laura Maya: I think and you certainly touched on this in the book, for me, it’s following your own light. There’s lights that light the path in every possible direction. And certainly I think in our society we’re given some really clear runway lights of like where our life is supposed to go. And it’s just being able to really look inside and go, where is my light and following that because I work with clients who are looking for maybe a slightly unconventional life or off the beaten track. And it’s detaching yourself from what you think you’re supposed to do and what others expect you to do and what you think society expects you to do. And just following your own light.

Terri Connellan: I love that. Yeah, it’s true. Certainly myself too, working with clients, you often hear, how a parents light of you should take this path has impacted somebody else’s life when they’ve maybe started off on a track that perhaps would not have been their own choosing. It was just part of societal or familial expectations, or what the family has always done or what’s considered to be a good thing. So yeah. I love that, that idea of following your own light and what lights you up. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I love that and it’s not being afraid to be unconventional.

Laura Maya: Yeah, exactly. It’s okay to live a life that other people don’t understand. It’s just having the courage to take that first step sometimes is the hardest.

Terri Connellan: Beautiful. And I hope our conversation today encourages many people who maybe feel that that’s part of what they’re doing or part of what they’ve been looking for in life that living that unconventional life, following their own light is a really positive way to go.

So thanks for sharing your insights today. It’s been a great joy to chat. Where can people find out more about you and your work online?

Laura Maya: I’m at lauramaya.com and @lauramayawrites on Instagram and Facebook and probably soon Twitter, but I haven’t sorted that out yet, but I’m told that writers need to be on Twitter. Are you on Twitter?

Terri Connellan: I am. Yeah. There are a lot of writers on Twitter.

Laura Maya: Yeah. So I need to jump on that horse. Holding off, but yeah, potentially Twitter by the time this is released.

Terri Connellan: It’s a good way to research too on Twitter.

Laura Maya: Yeah. I think it’s a good way to share other writers’ work as well, too, and be part of that community and support each other.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. Cool. Well, encourage people listening to check out your work, to buy your book, Tell Them My Name out on the 1st of February, so by the time this is released, it will be out in the world. So we’ll pop the links in the show notes and, yeah, thanks again for our beautiful conversation today. It was really lovely.

Laura Maya: Thank you so much, Terri, for inviting me here to have this chat, it’s been really beautiful chatting with you today.

About Laura Maya

You can connect with Laura:

Website: https://lauramaya.com/

Instagram: @lauramayawrites

Terri’s links to explore:

My books:

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching & writing programs:

The Writing Road Trip – community writing program with Beth Cregan email list

Connect on social media

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

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

personality and story podcast self-leadership + leadership

Personality Type Coaching and Social Media with Joe Arrigo

February 11, 2022

Helping people find their place in the world through personality type clarity.

Welcome to Episode 12 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Personality Type Coaching and Social Media.

I’m joined by Joe Arrigo, Personality Type Coach, INTJ and LinkedIn and YouTube aficionado.

We chat about Joe’s journey to psychological type and type coaching and how he shares and connects with people on social media around personality.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Joe’s journey to being a type coach
Learning type as a language
The magic of understanding your type
Personal growth as an INTJ
The power of focusing on our weaknesses
Social media and type
Being extraverted via social media as an introvert
Tips for LinkedIn
Being visible on social media

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 12 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 11 of February as I record this. I’ve been enjoying two weeks of The Writing Road Trip Free Challenge inspiring and chatting with writers over the past two weeks with my writing partner, Beth Cregan and launching The Writing Road Map short course which starts on 28 February. More on that in a moment.

I’m excited to have Joe Arrigo join us for the podcast today to chat about Personality Type Coaching and Social Media and it’s a fabulously fun and deep conversation all at the same time with two INTJs, type coaches and social media lovers chatting.

Joe Arrigo is a newbie to the professional Type space. What started as a mild interest exploded into an obsession and a coaching business. His goal is to help people find their place in the world by bringing clarity to their personality type. Joe believes that the most important aspect to self-improvement is first knowing yourself. Everything else branches out from there. If a stubborn INTJ like Joe can have a transformation due to Typology, it can certainly do the same for others. He resides primarily on Linkedin and YouTube, and tries to bridge the gap between the Old Guard and New Guard of type.

Joe and I met on LinkedIn through our love for social media and via our mutual interest in personality and psychological type, particularly through the Australian Association for Psychological Type. (AusAPT). I’ve had the pleasure of attending Joe’s session at the AusAPT 2021 Conference on being a new type coach and learnt more about his journey in psychological type and personality. But there’s so much more I didn’t know about Joe and there was so much more to explore.

Today we will be speaking about Joe’s work in personality type and coaching, the magic of understanding type as a lens and language in life, being an INTJ and understanding your type, the power of focusing on your weaknesses, social media especially LinkedIn, social media and introverts, and how to be more visible on social media.

Before we head to the conversation with Joe, I want to let you know that The Writing Road Map is now open for enrolment. My friend, writing partner and brilliant writing teacher, Beth Cregan and I are your guides for this course which kicks off on Monday 28 February. This is a 6 week intensive to plan your writing project from beginning to end and map the supports and tools that will make it happen. It’s about planning your writing journey now and getting clear on your writing project direction, terrain, scope and path, instead of wasting time on dead ends and by-roads and procrastinating. Plus you’ll enjoy community support, accountability and guidance along the way to inspire you and keep you going.

What you’ll get:

6 x 90 minute weekly Masterclasses (60 min workshop + 30 mins Q&A)
1 x 2 hour virtual writing retreat
Guidance, skills & inspiration from 2 experienced writing teachers and authors
Weekly accountability prompts and follow-up
Community support & connection including via live calls and our private Facebook Group.

Plus a second bonus 2 hour virtual writing retreat with Beth and I if you sign up by midnight Monday 14 February AEDT Sydney time. So don’t delay!

So, if writing is a priority for you in 2022 – whether it’s writing a book, blog posts, a course, family history, anything at all, join us. Head to quietwriting.net/writing-road-map

An easy way to find them is to head to quietwriting.com/podcast and click on Episode 12 for the transcript of this intro and the podcast!.

Now let’s head into the interview with the fabulous Joe Arrigo.

Transcript of interview with Joe Arrigo

Terri Connellan: Hi Joe, welcome to the Create Your Story Podcast.

Joe Arrigo: Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me. I just want to say upfront that I invited myself onto the show. I saw your posts on LinkedIn and I didn’t even know you had this thing going. So I was like, I absolutely need to be here. So thank you for letting me be here.

Terri Connellan: I’m so honored. That was great to receive your thought that you’d love to be on the show. I’m really excited to chat with you today. So we’ve connected around the personality, psychological type, via social media, and also through the Australian Association for Psychological Type where you joined us as a speaker at our recent conference, which was really exciting.

Plus we’re both INTJs so that’s really exciting to chat about how we see the world with similar preferences. So can you provide a brief overview about your background, how you got to be where you are and the work you do now.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. So what I usually say is that I was in film school and that I did what every film graduate does is after they go into sales because the film doesn’t work. And, so I did sales and I was like, a sales development rep and I was doing cold calls and things like that. And I was a recruiter and then COVID hit and I got furloughed and then, I was just like, maybe this MBTI obsession that I have, I should try to do something with, while I have the perfect amount of time in life to do this. I probably would never get another time in life where I get to have like commission checks still coming in, but like, they’re paying me to not be there. Maybe I can try to get this business going.

And that’s kind of the quick story of the furlough allowed me the time to start doing MBTI work. And, I always say that it’s sort of a synchronistic Carl Jungian type, like the door opened and it was a signal and it was like fate and I just said, okay, I’m going to do this thing. So that’s the very short story. I thought I was going to do a lot of corporate workshops, but I really found passion one-on-one coaching. I think it’s the more intimate, the more you get to know people more that you can really apply type. I just thought that the corporate way would be better, but it’s not as good as doing one-on-one coach.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I love one-on-one coaching too. And I think that’s that ability to really engage with individuals about their story that I love.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. It’s interesting. There’s a lot of like every story is unique and I believe that for the most part, but I think that every one is a puzzle. Not to solve. I don’t want to say to solve, but there’s a unique aspect about them that I think the INTJ is really well suited for. Like helping find that missing piece or something.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. That’s a great way to think of it. I hadn’t thought of it as a skill for an INTJ coach to help solve the puzzle of the person. I guess that’s what I do, but you’ve said that beautifully. So thank you. That’s a great insight. So just to chat further about that, personality and psychological type of key frameworks that you employ in your work. Why did you choose to specialize there and how does type help people be more whole and self-aware?

Joe Arrigo: Well, I think type is universal. It’s always applied to people since we crawled out of the ocean type has always been something that applies and doesn’t matter what time period you’re living in. It doesn’t matter what age you grew up in, type can apply. You probably agree. We like the universal things, like personality type has always evolved, but like the core of the people stay the same, but it’s always evolving slowly over time.

So it really appealed to the authenticity, my Introverted Feeling, which was, I want to do something that is real work. And I was kind of doing jobs that were selling other people’s products or stuff that people didn’t need. So that really felt inauthentic to me. I also want it to be productive. It’s funny, I say this because I’m really good at LinkedIn, but there’s a lot of people that have made a career on being a LinkedIn coach or being a LinkedIn influencer, which is to me like the last stage of just like, it’s so meta for a job, but it doesn’t really help people. Personality type and psychology is always about helping people, so I think that’s what I gravitated towards.

And to answer your question about how to help them become more self-aware I think it’s that universal shared language that Jung created. Learning type is a new language. You are learning a new language. That is the hardest part. That’s where most people get stuck. But once you learn the language, you can articulate yourself to yourself or to other people in a way that previously you were like, I’m the only one that thinks this way. There’s no one else has ever had these thoughts before. And now you’re like, wow, this is what that’s called.

I think Ni [Introverted Intuition] for me was like, oh, that is the thing that I do. But before Jung, I don’t know if people knew what that was called, that shamanistic quality, I guess. I like to say that it’s when it’s that point in life, where you go from standard definition to 4K definition where you’re like, wow, I didn’t know what I wasn’t seeing.

It’s like when you put on glasses for the first time, you’re like, how did I live my life like blind before? How did I even function? And so that’s what I got out of it. And, I think it applies to most people.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I love that. And I often say to people, working with personality type and understanding your type is like having an operator’s manual for your personality. So similar to what you’re saying, it’s that ability to have both the language and the framework. I often talk about frameworks to be able to make sense of…And you mentioned Ni which is that Introverted Intuition that we both share as a dominant function and certainly for me, and I know working with others, understanding what that Introverted Intuition for example is about and what it’s like and why I do what I do was just like magic. Wasn’t it?

Joe Arrigo: It is. I think all the functions have their own magic to them. I don’t know if you feel this way, but I think Introverted Thinking types are interesting to me because their capacity for deep diving into a subject or understanding that true essence of a thing is like unparalleled. But all the functions have their magic to it. I think in the community, there’s a rush to talk about Ni as if it’s like, the only one, the best one, that’s probably just like more NT types being in the community so they pump themselves up about it. But all of them are special, I think.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Just for those who are listening who don’t perhaps know about the types. There are 16 types, which you might’ve seen, the Jung/ Myers-Briggs types and we’re talking about INTJ, which we share. But as Joe has mentioned, all 16 types, all of the cognitive functions have their strengths, have their values and have their unique way of working.

And, there’s eight cognitive functions or cognitive processes, which came from Jung’s psychological type work. So, I’ll put some links in there for people who maybe want to know a little bit about that. So, I love that idea of that universal shared language. And where I really experienced that is at a type conference. And it’s the same on the internet, people who understand type, it’s just an ability to make connection as with any community where you have a shared language and shared understanding. But I think the real value for me is that it’s about personal development, personality development, understanding yourself and understanding others.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. And I’m writing something now. I don’t know where it’s going, but I’m writing something now about that’s why I value the one-on-one coaching is because it’s first about understanding yourself. And then only then can you do anything about your interpersonal relationships. So I think like presenting type to a bunch of newbies at a workshop has some utility, but you can’t get that nuanced approach that you can with a one-on-one. So I think that would be the way to go if anyone’s like here’s this podcast and wants to move forward. I would say like getting involved with a coach one-on-one is probably the best path for development, rather than a workshop or something.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I totally agree. I think the value of doing that deep inner work. And to me, it’s an ongoing thing. You start, you get your frameworks, you start to learn the language, the skills, get the insights, connect with other similar and different folks in different ways. And read the books and I think that group aspect and that interaction aspect is much stronger once you understand a bit more about yourself.

So we both have INTJ preferences as we’ve mentioned, so that’s introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging, and it is one of the rare of the types. So tell us about your personality type and the psychological insights you’ve gained over time that have helped you with self leadership and with personal growth.

Joe Arrigo: That’s so funny. People kept telling me that I had a bad memory and I was like, no, I have a good memory. I remember things. But then once I learned type and I learned the cognitive functions and I have memory for weird things, but I don’t have like a photographic memory.

So like first thing I learned was like my weaknesses, bad memory. The misunderstandings that come along with some of the jokes so that I would tell, or like the subtleties that I thought were really funny, but people didn’t understand it. I didn’t get why, what they didn’t get. And that was like part of the Extraverted Feeling that I’m not very good at.

So I learned my weaknesses and I go, okay, that’s what I have to deal with, these are my paths for growth. But some of the successes I attributed to being a pretty good thinker, extraverted thinking and taking action, being effective and not just having the wild-eyed idea, but then be like, okay, what are we going to do about it?

So I learned that, but then once you know what that’s called, then you know how to use it. If you don’t know what anything’s called, then you’re just like, assuming that you’re just walking around just like everyone else. So kind of like a zombie where you just don’t know you have no direction.

But, I think I learned that I had drive, that came out of my personality. Like I, and you probably feel this way, if you see something, you see the road very clearly, then it’s almost an inevitability that it’ll happen. As you get older, you’re just like, okay, I thought about it, I’ve planned. It. The only thing is like, when is it going to happen?

I learned that the worst thing to say to an INTJ is time is running out because like you want to accomplish all this stuff. But I learned that I had a vision that I couldn’t explain and that it wasn’t doing me any favors to try to explain something that I wasn’t really sure where all the dots were connecting or all the lines of best fit were coming together.

I thought it was funny that they would call INTJ’s a conspiracy theorist. And that’s just because the lines that connect don’t quite make a lot of sense. So I learned in my speech and when I pitch projects to people or pitch ideas, I have to be like, don’t take your crazy idea and tell them like, take the more linear approach and do it that way. So I learned that in the first one or two years of understanding myself.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I really relate to those too. As you were talking, I was thinking about how I’ve experienced similar things in my life. And one area is in leadership, for example. So I would know as a leader where I wanted to go, I could see the vision. I could see where I wanted to take people, but I really had to then break down that vision into the practicalities, the steps of, we need to do this and here’s why we need to do it. Both for myself and for other people. Because I think one thing that can happen if you’re not connected with the practicalities and tapping into the logical steps side of ourselves too, is get carried away with the vision itself. You’ll get it done, but maybe it’ll take longer because of not rooting yourself in the practicalities of it. Do you relate to that?

Joe Arrigo: I do. I do think we’re willing to try out a bunch of ideas and not be sad if they don’t work. But I do think that there is a bit of idealism that the INTJ has about how things will turn out. So I think like when Keirsey kind of put the NTs as the Rationals, I think NTs actually can be very idealistic about things too. So like, are you being practical with this idea? Like you’re going to create the first trillion dollar company? I don’t know. Joe, how do you think that’s going to happen?

Terri Connellan: The other example I thought of is when I come up with an idea, say for a group coaching program, it’s the sales page that is the hardest part for me. It’s how do I take what I know it’s going to look like, what I know is going to be great for people into language and into something that’s going to connect with people. And again, it’s tapping into that feeling and it’s almost like slowing yourself down to have a really good look at, so what is this actually going to do for people? And how can I put that into words?

Joe Arrigo: I struggle with that. I’ve struggled with this whole thing. And I talked to a lot of INTJs, NT types that for coaching, psychological type specially, personality, the ROI for our customer is not always apparent. If I’m a sales coach, I’m going to say, oh, in the next year, you’ll have a 10% better return because I’m going to write better sales scripts. Like it’s super easy to quantify that ROI. But for some people it’s like understanding yourself better isn’t a number. That you can go, like you’ll understand yourself 75% better, or you’ll have 33% better communication with your spouse. Like good luck trying to quantify that. I always go like, if people are asking, well, what am I going to get out of it? They’re not the right customer for me.

Terri Connellan: It’s funny, isn’t it? We’re talking about one particular personality type, but what we’re sharing too through how we’re talking is that this is the same, in a coaching conversation, in a one-on-one conversation, particularly using type insights, it’s clarity you can get to help you be clearer on your strengths, but also your blind spots.

Joe Arrigo: Yes. Sometimes I think just the weaknesses are better because your strengths are always going to be there. You’re just going to naturally either plateau or get a little better as you get older with your strengths, but the weaknesses are where you can have that real growth.

Sometimes, I think it’s just helpful to focus on the negatives out of the gate and manage the way forward. There’s some people that talk about balancing your functions or like doubling down. I think doubling down on your weaknesses or on strengths is good, but I don’t think you’ll balance. There’s no such thing. You’re just not going to balance like, be the same level of intensity and awareness of all of them.

Terri Connellan: I relate to what you’re saying. What I find in my coaching is I like to focus on areas for development and often it’s just one small thing which can be tweaked. Like it doesn’t have to be huge. Sue Blair’s particularly talked about how just making some minor differences, just a small tweak in some of areas which might be our weaknesses or our blind spots or our non preferences can make a huge difference to everything.

Joe Arrigo: It’s funny. It’s like you talk to, for those that know the type you can, you’ll laugh, but for those that know the ENTP, you’d be like, I think that sometimes ENTP can be a bit, you know, argumentative. They’re like, no we’re not. So it’s like, okay, you’re not even aware of that thing that you just did. So I think once you put that mirror up in front of people, they’re like, oh, I guess like everything’s a debate, even if I agree. So I think all the types have that moment, they all have it. If you’re, if you’re decent enough at coaching the model, they all have this revelation that’s life changing.

Terri Connellan: I think probably that journey we went through ourselves is exactly why we chose to get into type coaching, using type in our coaching because we saw the huge difference it made for us. So, I think the majority of us working in this field would have had that same revelatory moment.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. I haven’t asked everyone about this, but I’m sure that like 99% of the people that are in type had that light bulb moment. Like there’s nothing else I can do with my life besides this now.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. For me, when I went through my transition, I made a list of my things I wanted to do to shift from the job I was in to the work that I do now. And top of that list was get skilled, more skilled in personality type. So it was right up there. So we met through social media, particularly LinkedIn, and you have a passion for social media and very active on LinkedIn. And you also have a great YouTube channel and you’ve got inspirational posts, great engagement. So interested to explore that area with you. Why do you engage so actively on social media and what do you love about it?

Joe Arrigo: I think it really gives me a chance to be more extraverted. Like there’s certainly a persona online. I do think my authenticity comes across. I’ve had many people say that I’ve met in person or just like had real intimate conversations with it. Like, oh, you’re the exact same person that is represented. So there’s not like a big change. I can just tell some people have a real difference in their persona and their real life.

And I think it’s just a good creative outlet for our type. I wasn’t really good at graphic design, but I knew that I was so jealous of people that could do it. So I learned through Canva and made some cool designs, then I started doing some memes and I’m like, I can learn this and I can expand my creative outlet, which I don’t think INTJs, are known as being very creative in the artistic sense. But I think, LinkedIn and social media gave me that outlet I would not have had before.

And then it gives me a place to reach people, possibly clients or reach people that just through normal networking I wouldn’t be able to meet. It gives me a chance to let all the vision and stuff come out and see how other people actually respond to it.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I love seeing your posts and seeing how you interact with people. And I love too that you see it as a chance to be more extraverted and I think that’s true. It’s almost like being extraverted on your own terms, like choosing when you engage, choosing when to create the material, but then being able to connect with people, have the conversations you might have perhaps at a function if you were together, but asynchronistically in our terms, when it suits you, managing your energy. So, that’s an interesting perspective and I definitely agree, creativity is definitely a big one for me.

I love the creative aspect of social media. I tend to focus more on Instagram. That’s the place where I hang out. But, I love watching your LinkedIn and I think many could learn from how you bring that creativity, that engagement, and particularly memes and using video. You use video a lot too, don’t you?

Joe Arrigo: Yeah, it’s more time consuming. It gets less views and engagement on LinkedIn, but, I’m just convinced and many books have been written about this, that they see you, they see how your mannerisms are, they see how you talk, my wife is in a lot of my new videos.

So like Joe is a real person, he doesn’t have like a PR team of social media managers that are answering his emails or stuff like that. So when they’re ready to engage with me, if they’re like, oh, it’s like, this is the guy, I already know him. So that helps a lot with building trust because you need that with what we do.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And it’s just a fantastic way to connect. Connecting with people in the field, like, Dario Nardi and the guys from Personality Hackers, yourself. Authors for example, I love connecting with people who’ve written the books that I read. I just think that’s gold.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. Gosh, I really took a different path. I read a lot. I read all the books before I got really involved with the YouTube community. I’ve been kind of making my way through a lot of the books. I know that you have a book, right? Is it fiction?

Terri Connellan: Yeah, my book’s, Wholehearted, it’s nonfiction, self-leadership for women in transition, and I weave personality type into that book.

Joe Arrigo: Okay. Well, that’ll be one I’ll have to read then I’ll have to get a signed copy though. So, and I think I’ve had some luck. I’ve had some people kind of pull some strings on my behalf. I just interviewed Linda Berens, which is great. I got to interview John Beebe, Dario, of course. So yeah, those are the people that really have pioneered parts of personality type that we need that knowledge, especially as a young type coach. I wouldn’t go to YouTube right away before you have the basics, like have the real structure of it settled. So, I’ve been really fortunate to talk to those people.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, and I think that ability to have conversations like this, or I know you do the LinkedIn shorts for example, have chats with people. So it’s all great ways to connect and to learn, to engage and do it on our own terms and in ways we can manage our energy as introverts particularly. So do you have any specific tips for LinkedIn given it’s a platform that operates a little differently? A lot of people in my community for example, are on Instagram and Facebook, not so much on LinkedIn and I know some people find it more challenging than other platforms. So what tips do you have for LinkedIn, for people engaging or getting into that platform?

Joe Arrigo: To come up with a consistent way that you can provide or create content. I wouldn’t say get as stringent as a content calendar, but be consistent. If you’re going to post, make yourself post a certain amount of times per week, around the same time so people get used to that. People follow you. They might not consciously know, but they’re like, Joe always posts at 7 45 Eastern time and he’s always in the morning. And so that helps to be consistent. It also makes you create content. I think consistency is better than like the absolute best content in the world. Some people say, don’t post, unless it’s fabulous content, but most LinkedIn influencers and people that have grown a decent audience will say consistency is the most important thing.

I would say have a real opinion that’s not manufactured. Commenting on the new story of the day is great, but it doesn’t provide anything new. So if you’re not going to be adding something new or unique or a new spin. Think of something, keep thinking until there’s something like, wow, that’s a unique thought.

Respond to comments. A lot of people post and then never respond to their audience. So that’s a quick way to alienate people like, oh, he’s just in it to get likes and clicks and he is not in it to actually engage. I hate when people do that. And then proactively connect with people. So don’t wait for your inbox to fill up with invites. For six months, I was only searching for people by their type on LinkedIn and a ton of people put their types. I was just doing quotes, INTJ. And I was like adding all the INTJs I could find.

And then I did ISTJ the next day. So then you can connect. Then I was doing MBTI certified. And then I was finding all the MBTI folks. So that’s how I built up the community that way. And then just mix up your content, videos, memes, texts, pictures. Don’t just be a text poster.

Some people will definitely disagree with me. I know there’s one person who’s like all text posts cause it helps algorithm. But I think seeing your face on video really is helpful even though it’s way more work. So I think those would be my tips.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, great. That’s so much value in those quick tips you’ve given us. And, I think that idea of proactively connecting, particularly around the content that you’re creating and going, seeking out connections is a really great tip and it can apply to anything, can’t it? Like if you’re in recruitment or coaching or authors for example, anything you do, you could use that same technique.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. I do some side coaching on LinkedIn. I don’t advertise it, but people will just ask me if I can help. You would be so shocked at what people will put on their, About section on LinkedIn. That’s a searchable term. You could just put like, A Trak enthusiast or collector of stamps. Put that in on LinkedIn. And there’ll be like thousands of people that are into that, that you just didn’t realize they put it out there in the world. And now you have a whole new audience of people to talk to. So ridiculous search terms are the way to go.

Terri Connellan: Interesting. Yeah. I wonder if some of the challenges people have, probably people like me, is because they used it in a corporate sense in their job role. So it was more a way to say, well, here I am, here’s what I do, not that way of connecting. So it’s actually a mindset shift to see LinkedIn in a different way.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah, most people aren’t their jobs. Like on their gravestone, they’re not putting digital marketer, I guarantee you they’re putting something else. So that’s a better place to connect with them is what they’re about, not what their title is and all that stuff.

Terri Connellan: Yeah and your YouTube channel is fantastic. I was just hopping in there to have a look at your latest and you had a fantastic video there about why the INTJ will end up poor and homeless, which was a great grab title about why we don’t see money as a primary focus, which I’d again, totally agree with. I’m married to an ISTJ as I know you are. And that was a great move.

Yeah. I think, again, it’s just an example on YouTube, you’re obviously doing different content, maybe some cross-fertilization, but using this specific channel in a way that’s going to reach people on that platform.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. I think dynamism or being dynamic is interesting because there are more facets to people. So like I have my professional LinkedIn persona, but then I also have like a whole other field, which is YouTube, where it’s obviously a lot more informal, but it’s kind of funny but it’s still helpful because it’s still all around types as a professional use of type. And then there’s like a fun use of type. But I have booked some of my closest clients through YouTube. So you just never know what’s going to get people to be like, oh, Joe, what you said about being poor and homeless, like really resonated with me. I’d love your help. Like you never know.

Terri Connellan: That’s great. I love seeing the way you work, and there’s plenty to learn from engaging with you and connecting with you. So recommend that to folks.

Given you have so much and produced so much fabulous content and engagement, people must be wondering how much time you spend, what helps you to keep up such a regular schedule of posting and interacting. So if you could share a bit about that with us, that would be great.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. I kind of said something about like a content calendar. I don’t have a content calendar. What I have was that running idea list and now it’s muscle memory now that like I gotta post, I was like four times a week. So I have a constant note that says, make a new meme, write a new blog. Probably like 25% of my posts are not planned. They’re just spur of the moment that like that Ni lightning hits you and you’re like, I gotta do this post right now, but that’s like 10% of the time. So you can only do it if you’re passionate about the subject.

Like if you hate what you do, you will not be able to post that consistently. You’ll be so like, your soul will die a little bit each time you have to post. But for MBTI, there’s limitless possibilities.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, for sure. My problem’s often, what do I post today? Cause there’s so many ideas buzzing around, but, I like that idea of just having a running ideas list. I think sometimes too, we can over-complicate things.

Joe Arrigo: I think that people that are in situation need to just start. Just throw an idea out there. It may not do well at all. I had the same conversation with Sue Blair right after my presentation. And she did three or four really good posts that got like incredible engagement. And she was like, oh, Joe, this actually was really good. And I’m like, yeah, all you gotta to do is start. You have so much knowledge. Like, you’re basically like holding back humanity by not putting your knowledge out there.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, they were a fabulous posts. It’s just a reminder for all of us, working at our zone of genius and where we want to show up how we want to show up and what ideas we want to put together and just putting that together. So, one thing I’ve noticed is working with clients is visibility and vulnerability is something that particularly some types seem to struggle with more than others or maybe it’s individuals. So have you noticed any patterns around type or do you find it’s more an individual thing that issue of visibility and vulnerability in social media?

Joe Arrigo: Well, I do think it is a type thing. I think it’s more the F types you see engaging. So either introverted feeling types or extroverted feeling types tend to be very into vulnerability. There definitely is a shift towards mental health and the celebration of those who talk openly about mental health across the world with the pandemic, even more. So I think that those types are much more okay with being visible as someone that’s had mental health issues or struggles, or saying, ‘Hey, if you are struggling, reach out to me, I’ll help you.’ Or ‘can I help you?’ I think that is more the F type if you want to just speak broadly. F types tend to be more open with the visibility and vulnerability aspect of social media.

But you can almost see the types so clearly in a discussion, especially in argument, how some people want to argue very factually or they only post memes about facts or they actively say like, stop crying about this. Like you can clearly see the TF dichotomy so clearly, I think that’s the easiest one to see is like that dichotomy of which types are willing to be more controversial, argumentative. There’s some people that’ll just like back down from an argument and that might be more of an F type. Like they’re agreeing with everyone. They don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. So they’re like, yeah, thanks for your input. I appreciate it. Yeah, you could see that there. Do, do you see that? Let me ask you that question.

Terri Connellan: I work a lot with NF clients, INFJ, INFP, and I do notice that for some of those folks, the connection is really important, but what I see is that, it’s almost like, every post has got to be right. This connection, the feeling has gotta be right. So it’s almost too much, becomes too challenging. And I also say that that people who tend to have those types tend to be the ones saying I’ve got to step off social media. I need a break. I need some time and I’ve said that before, I very rarely feel that. To me, it’s just part of my everyday. I’ll post beautiful birds on my deck and on Instagram and I’ll share about the books I’m reading. And sometimes I’ll do much more crafted posts related to my book or my content, but social media isn’t a drain to me. So that’s one thing I see and, if people need to do that, that’s what they need to do. It’s not a criticism. It’s just an observation and everybody’s different. And certainly for me, I don’t find social media drains my energy, for example,

Joe Arrigo: There are certain times when it drains me but I do think that certain types are much more effected by what’s going on, on social media that day. Like if there’s some sort of political event or there’s some sort of social unrest, they see too many people posting negative things, they actually have physical sensations of like depression or like something will happen to them so that that’s when they’ll take the breaks, as you said, that’s a good point. That would be an interesting experiment just to get the data. You don’t need the data we know, but, yeah, that they are more likely to just take a mental health break.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that’s right. So I think that’s a really good observation too. So lots of different ways we all engage with social media, some of them influenced by personality, some by individuals and some by what’s coming into our feed. Interesting to have a look at those issues. So what tips would you provide for people who want to be more visible on social media and on podcasts, but find it challenging?

Joe Arrigo: I think the first thing would be to be extremely good, looking that’s number one, just kidding.

Well, like I mentioned, you really just have to find something that you could do a presentation on right now. Has to be a topic that any second of the day, you could do a speech on it, cause that means that you have enough content in your brain, that you could be visible in your niche, whatever your passion is about. So that’s the first thing you got to figure out what that is. I think that people will find it challenging are those, there are certain types of tend to have like analysis paralysis. I think the INTJ falls into this. I think a lot of thinking types might fall in this as well, where they just need to get one more search or they just need to read one more book or they need to take one more LinkedIn class before they can finally, I’ll be an expert and I can start talking about the subject.

If that is your goal, you’ll never be ready to get out there and post on social media. It’s kind of a sales technique, but give yourself like 30 days, 30, 60, 90 days, see where you’re at. You might post and get zero likes and then just get depressed and no one likes your content, but you gotta be consistent or you’ll never really know. So, I think to answer your question, start with something you could talk all day about, and then chop it up into little anecdotes or content.

Terri Connellan: Great. I love that. It’s nice and simple. And I think like a lot of things it’s just starting and learning from doing rather than trying to get it perfect. For a lot of people if we looked back on our early attempts at social media, it’d be nothing like what we’re doing now, because we’ve been on the journey. We’ve connected with more people, we’ve learnt skills along the way. So, I think encouraging people to hop in and have a go and do different things. But yeah, definitely start with what you know, where you feel comfortable’s a really good tip. So thanks for that. So a question I’m asking each of the guests on the create your story podcast is a big question, but interesting to see what comes to mind for people. How have you created your story of your lifetime?

Joe Arrigo: Man. I’m one of those people that like, every time I hear this thing about what is your story? People want to hear your story? Like, I never think it’s interesting. I’m just like, it’s really basic. There’s nothing like, people have to hear this because once they hear Joe’s story, like, oh my gosh, those people are going to be booking you like crazy. And all these book deals are going to be coming in. And, how have you created your story?

Terri Connellan: Something that’s been a real driver or a purpose, or maybe some learning that you learned early on, it’s something you can consistently provide. Some people commented, and it’s interesting looking at type is that it’s tended to be, they’ve just done what they’ve done. And then they’ve had a backwards view to see what actually worked. So is it intentional?

Joe Arrigo: I think it became intentional, like I think my story has been one of striving for intelligence, or some sort of universal knowledge that can be applied, like finding the essential truth. Recently there was a quote I saw from Tesla, who’s an INTJ and he said something like, my brain is only a receiver and that’s how I in through that, I get the secrets of the universe.

And I was like, that is exactly what I’ve been doing. Like every thing I want to do or strive for is like an essential truth or how things are, how things are all connected. So in 2020 I made a goal to read a hundred books and I read 105 and I was like, okay, that’s great. And that’s a goal that I could accomplish, put my mind to it.

But within that is like, I want to be a sponge for knowledge, because eventually I’ll take that and I’ll do something amazing. So I think that is my story arc is lifelong learning will lead to some sort of universal discovery that I can then apply to everyone. I think that’s going to be my arc. I don’t think I’m going to be a millionaire. I don’t think I’m going to be like, Forbes 40 under 40, anything like that, but I don’t think that would match the profile of me as an INTJ.

Terri Connellan: I love that idea of essential strengths, patterns, how things are connected and that idea of investing yourself in books, in learning, discovering things, that universal discovery, the patterns. Again, that’s very introverted intuiting, the patterns, how things connect and then making new connections, new insights to share with others.

Joe Arrigo: Yeah. And just to go back to the Tesla thing, I think that all the types, as dumb as it sounds at the beginning, all the types need to find a type that inspires them historically. Like Personality Database whatever you think about the site, it’s kind of funny, but it’s all user driven typing, but they’ve typed everybody from everywhere across the world. And every literature, non-fiction, fiction, like everything that can be typed has been typed. And you go to INTJ, you look at the historical figures, political figures, authors, and you read those authors books, or you read the story about like, I’m reading a book on Elon right now. I’ve read a book on Bobby Fischer. And I’m like, these guys have the same in a way mindset that I did and look what they did. So an ENFP could do the same thing with famous ENFPs, read their story, read their struggles, like, cause I believe things are cyclical. So if you can see where things are going or other ENFPs or ISFPs have been, I think that’ll be more valuable than just randomly reading books, because like they’re a top seller.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. I did my training with Mary McGuiness, who you might know, the Australian psychological type leader, and she’s a great lover of memoir and story, and biography. And when you’re training with her and spend time with her, she’s talking about people’s stories and that’s what I’m interested in too, that idea of, as you’ve just mentioned, read the memoir, find the inspiring stories, find people, maybe like you and look at their life story and see what you can learn from it. So, that’s great advice. So the other question I’m asking folks, in my book Wholehearted, is about self-leadership for women in transition, applicable to men as well and I have 15 wholehearted self-leadership tips in there. So I’m just interested in what your top wholehearted leadership tips and practices might be, whatever that means to you. So, again, just drawing from your experience, what would you draw out as a few key tips to give to others, to help them with leading themselves through life?

Joe Arrigo: Yeah, this is a question that comes up in my coaching and I was going to mention it earlier, but, this is a perfect time for it. First thing it’s like, Fi, it’s the, what’s your values? What’s your inner compass? Most people will not admit it. They really won’t. When you say, what do you want to do? They’ll give you like some answer that’s not actually what they want to do. Because either they’re embarrassed that society would say, oh, no, you want to do that? No, that’s never going to make any money or that’s so childish or like, how are you even going to do that? So they, they just don’t tell you really what they want to do.

Like, I want to do greeting cards. I want to write greeting cards. I feel like they’re never gonna make any money. So they just don’t, they’re not honest with themselves. So then they pursue things that are like only half-heartedly into. So I would say like your north star, whatever you want to call it then once you do that, you can have passion towards actually accomplishing your goals. Like, in terms of self-leadership, it’s kind of funny because I really have been promoting the 8 Keys to Self-leadership book by Dario, which is kind of a perfect way to just open the book, look at any page and go, oh, can I do that well? Oh, I need to really ask myself this question about introverted sensing. Am I making the same mistakes a bunch or something like that?

In terms of self-leadership I was doing an interview with another INTJ and he said the first thing is make sure you’re not lying to yourself or make sure that you’re internally consistent with your beliefs. Like don’t criticize people for being overweight and drinking while you’re at a bar. You know what I mean? So I think that’d be the number one thing is don’t deceive yourself, which is why I get so upset with people when they use their title, their position, as a way to say that I don’t need to develop. I’m already the C-level person at this company. Like I’m done, but that’s just, self-deception right there.

Terri Connellan: I love that. Just starting with your values, which for some people will be quite natural and for others, it won’t be so natural. Your values I guess are pretty consistent, but they get shaped over time and you’re clear about them over time. So I think that’s great advice. And Dario’s book, 8 Keys to Self-leadership there. Dario Nardi. It’s mentioned in my book. It’s a great resource which I use a lot in my coaching as well.

And it’s that idea that it’s each of the eight cognitive processes and functions. And as you’ve said, just that ability to open it any page and have a think about, introverted thinking, extraverted feeling, where does that sit? You don’t have to have a huge knowledge of personality type to just dive in and understand more.

And Dario’s a very accessible author and based on neuroscience. So it’s a great place to start. So, yeah. Thanks for that tip too. Okay. So, that wraps up our conversation for today. It’s been a fantastic chatting with you. Where can people find more about you and your work online?

Joe Arrigo: I would say first, thank you for having me. This is really fun. I could talk double this amount of time about personality types. So could you. So thank you for having me. This has been awesome. And I really think LinkedIn is the place where I’m at the most. I respond to direct messages. You don’t need to fill out a form. It won’t take me 24 hours to get back to you. So if you want to engage, we can do LinkedIn. My YouTube channel is Ghost of Jung so I also respond to comments there, but I honestly say LinkedIn is the place to start.

Terri Connellan: Great. I’ve certainly loved connecting with you on LinkedIn, and you’re definitely a great person to engage with, your posts themselves, but also just chatting and getting to know you. And I know many people have taken that opportunity and I encourage others to do the same.

So thanks again, Joe. It’s been a real pleasure talking with you today. And yeah, I agree. We could chat all day about all these fascinating topics. But I hope what we’ve shared will be really of interest to people and gives them some tips for going further with social media, with psychological type, with thinking about themselves. So thank you. Appreciate you spending the time chatting today. Take care.

Joe Arrigo: It’s been great. Thanks Terri.

About Joe Arrigo

You can connect with Joe:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-arrigo/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GhostofJung/videos

Calendly to book a time: https://calendly.com/advisr/30min

MailChimp (to get on Joe’s newsletter ) http://eepurl.com/htJ2XH

Terri’s links to explore:

My books:

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching, personality type & writing programs:

How I fulfilled my vision to become a Personality Type Coach

Personality Stories Coaching a personality type course + 90 minute coaching debrief

The Writing Road Map – 6 week intensive starts 28 February with Beth Cregan

The Writing Road Trip – community writing program with Beth Cregan email list

Connect on social media

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