Speaker 1 0:00
Hi there, welcome to this week's episode of the podcast and you've got me, you've got me again, a solo episode, I've received feedback from quite a few people that are wanting me to do more solo episodes. And this one you'll be glad to know is not me in the middle of a crisis. It's one that's more reflective on just life generally. And one of the things that I've been reflecting on has been blossom, my mobile office, my happy mobiel, and how my journey with her has kind of reflected a fairly poignant journey in other areas of my life. And I'll share my thoughts. You know, I'm not going to overthink what the lessons are for this podcast or anything, anything special, I'm just going to trust that it'll be like the podcasts that I have, when I'm chatting with other women that the the pearls of wisdom just dropped when they need to drop. So I'm going to trust that that will happen. I must admit, I do find solo episodes more difficult than when I'm chatting with others. Because when I'm chatting with others, it sort of flows. And we engage when it's just me, it's sort of my thoughts, and there's not the other person there directly. So anyway, we'll see how we go, I have made a few notes. And so you might hear me rustling my paper as we go through. So for those of you who don't know, I have a mobile office that I affectionately call blossom. And my mobile office is a huge, huge bus. It's a 1980 school bus that had been converted into a mobile home by somebody else. And then I purchased her. And I've since converted her, I've used her up, and I've converted her into my mobile office. And I'll just share with you why I've done that. I, gosh, maybe it was about six years ago, it was definitely before COVID. It was in a couple of years before COVID, I'm sure. And working predominantly in the corporate space coaching clients, and I go into the client's premises and do the coaching there. And there was one particular client that said, Do I have my own office that she could come to she didn't want to do her coaching on site? And I said, No, I didn't. Then she was asking about whether we could meet in a cafe and you know, at some coaching, it's okay for that. I prefer to do it in a more private setting. And I didn't at that stage. So we made some other arrangements. But it got me thinking about, wouldn't it be cool, if I had a little mobile van I pictured in my mind at this stage, a combi van. And if I could go and pick people up with drive down to the lake in Canberra. Now, Canada's not very big. For those of you that don't know Canberra, it's probably half an hour from one side. Or maybe it's a little bit more than that now, but it's probably half an hour from one side to the other. So it's not huge. So I could pick people up, we could pop down to the lake. And the lake here is absolutely beautiful and stunning and gorgeous. We could pop down to the lake have the coaching session be private, then I could drop them back to their work. So I got my manifesting magic happening. And I started looking at Combi vans and thinking about, you know, getting a combi there, the VW Volkswagen vans, and they'll from the 70s. And a lot of them have been done up and they're just kind of hippie, super chic. Cool. So I was looking at those that that would like a screen box, and then you'd still have to do it up. And I was thinking when I was looking at them going, I could pick one person up and we could go into our coaching session. But how cool would it be, if I could do mini workshops. And if I had a bigger then and had maybe six people that I could pick up and we could go off and do like group coaching, and little mini workshops and events. So I got super excited about that. And really started to look to see what was around. I'm just getting my manifesting journal out. So for those of you that are listening to me, on the podcast, you won't see this but I'm getting out my vision book. For those of you that are watching on YouTube, you'll see my vision book. And I started to I've got a picture here of what I was actually wanting. So a van that had a space that we could sit in. We could all see Random chat, be so cool if I could, you know, even show or have a little TV that I could show some slides and stuff on that, of course it was going to be used up and be absolutely beautiful experience for people for women to come and just hang out. And there's some pictures here of having events like a picnic set up outside the bus. And so I was just so excited by this. And we started to look in Canberra for dinner, and I was looking on social media, I was looking everywhere, bus websites, there was a place here in Canberra that sold all buses. And John, my husband is really handy. So I thought he could get involved in the process and do it up for me, I could do the pretty ink stuff. And he could do all the, whatever needs to be done. So looking, looking, looking, looking everywhere. And then probably some months into the process, not hugely long. There was a bus that came up here in Canberra, and it was an old school bus. And we went and had a look at it. And it was super cute, but it had no fit out in it. So it was the shell of the bus that had been stripped. And the person decided that they that was all too hard for them. But it was a blank canvas. And it was probably a little bit expensive, because we would then have to do our fit out in it. But we were really really seriously considering that. It was kind of a Magic School Bus kind of looking thing. And then when I remember looking on Facebook, when we were driving home from checking out that bus, and there was one that just popped up, and it looked similar to the bus that we had just saw seen. But it was already fitted out. It had a leather lounge suite in it that converted into a bed, it had a little seating area. It had a queen size bed, a fridge, a kitchen, a telly, a microwave, a shower and a toilet. And it looked really cool that I could run the little workshops and I could also pick people up for the coaching. Oh my god, I have never done this before in my life. But do you know what I did? I rang the woman and she said it's a quick sale. I'm I need to sell it. life circumstances have changed. And you know, if you make me an offer, I'm not going to mess around with anything. I just need it. Want it to be sold. So I made a deposit. And so I'd seen the photos of it. We lived in Canberra. She was in Queensland. So she was it's probably a 14 hour drive. And I bought the bus on Facebook. I checked with John and it was kind of like oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. So then a week later, we flew up to Queensland to pick the bus up. And it was just a comedy of absolute brilliant errors that she picked us up from the airport. And then she was just this afternoon. There was something weird going on. She took us to the bus she hadn't. So within then we had to drive another hour, hour and a half. So with her with this woman we'd never met before. We drove and took us to the bus that she had had stored at a place where you store caravans and buses. When grey nomads store them. They're when they're not travelling in them. So we went and we drove there. And when we drove up to the bus that was packed with all these other big school, like full. We call them action buses here in Canberra, but full length passenger buses, and it was there and I'm looking for this smaller bus and she said no, no, that's it. I just when we were in the car, John got out. And he was kind of he was pretty excited. But I just sat in the car. And I went, Oh, my God. What have I done? Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. What have I done? It was big. It was bigger than the bus that I had seen in Canberra. And it's funny because I had to wait for this particular bus. She said you're going to need to get a truck licence to drive it you can't drive it on a normal licence.

Speaker 1 9:44
And that kind of surprised me but there's just like, Oh, it's just looks like in my mind it was going to was the same size as the bus that I'd seen here in Canberra, which was a mini mini kinda How sighs bus. So I just had it in my mind that same thoughts. So I went and got my I did the knowledge test for my truck licence. And for those of you in Australia, you have to get your ILS your learner licence and you have to have your learner licence for a period of time, then you have to go and have a test and be assessed and because it was a truck licence, and for those of you here, it's a medium rigid, and I had to do the test as though I would drive any medium rigid truck. So that's not just about the road rules. It's about driving a 10 tonne vehicle. And also because it's a truck licence, I had to demonstrate and learn how to do all the Truckee high down loading knots and everything. So anyway, I kinda I got my my knowledge test for my learner's so when John and I went to Queensland, to get blossom, the plan was that we would get her and then we would drive back to Canberra, stopping in to see my brother at Newcastle, so that was halfway. So it was going to be maybe about a 14 hour drive. So we're going to break it up, stay overnight, and we're super excited. And to be able to do this. So when we got to the bloody bus, I just sat in the car, and I just couldn't move. I just kind of move. I'm just going, Oh, my God, I have paintable sight unseen. And we're going to pick this bus up it is probably maybe three or four metres longer than I was expecting it to be. And like maybe twice as big as. And John was walking all around the bus, he was doing all the check. And everything hadn't been driven for two years that was in this parking lot for two years. And when he went to start it, the battery didn't work like the batteries were flat. And surely this woman would have checked that. So we had to go off and buy new batteries for it. And bus batteries are not like normal car batteries, we have to get to bus batteries that were like a screen backs. And then we had to do, the wipers weren't working and it was raining. And it was just all these like comedy of bloody errors. So what we thought we would be able to get on the road that afternoon because we were up there, like nine o'clock in the morning. And then all these friggin around with the bus and doing all things a major city. in complete shock. We only made it to a caravan park just 10 minutes down the road and we stay down it was dark. So we left the next morning. I could not drive it. The plan was that I was going to drive there but it was so big and so scary. John had to do all the driving. And we didn't know where we were trying to use the GPS and I just sat in the passenger seat in silence. I just like Oh my freaking god, I don't even know where we're going to store this bus. I don't even know what we're going to do. So all this naivety was to play and we're driving so we left Queensland, we're heading back to where we were living. And she was slow, she was slow, slow, slow and we we kind of anticipated that but she was super super chuggy slow. And we were going up you know even just gentle incline she was struggling. And I said we couldn't talk to each other because it was really loud in the bus. And John was John's got his truck licence. So he was concentrating and I was sitting in the passenger seat and I had my Garmin watch on and I was just sitting there and I think all all through the day. We just sat there for hours we got out and had you know toilet breaks and things like that. So I would have maybe walked I don't know 100 Steps not much my watch said that I had done 20,000 steps because sitting there and it was so bouncing my watch thought that I was actually walking what was just bouncing noisy. It lots of kind of like oh my goodness and it was starting to get dark was taking us so long. We're expecting to be at my brother's place before dark and we'll probably about an hour out and it was getting dark. And we're just going up this incline like to do to do to your your jaw. And she stopped and then John was like, I need to turn off. This is on the main highway for those of you Brisbane to Sydney. And he said I need to pull off the road. So he pulled down this dirt last night. And because it's such a big bus crew turn it around. And he had to do this like scoring point turn with me frozen in shock, trying to give him instructions. So we could go back to this little village, we went back to this little village. Oh, and the NRMA when you buy a vehicle that it's one of our in car insurance places in Australia. We were coming back that day. And I thought, oh, shoot, I haven't got the NRMA on what happens if it breaks down. So at lunchtime, this day, I did ring up NRMA. And I said, Look, can you just give us the roadside coverage? Got a vehicle. So we did that lunchtime, that six hours later, Blossom broke down. She broke down. We turned around into this little village, we called the NRMA. And they said you're supposed to be covered for 48 hours before we actually cover you but because your Gold members and you've been members with us for so long, and we'll we'll cover you. And so anyway, they said that we can't do anything tonight. We'll come out the next day and we'll check out what's wrong, came out and they said we're going to have to talk to the nearest town and that's that was Tiree, which was probably an hour away. Anyway, big truck guy came and towed the bus and asked to Ra and they said we're gonna need to keep it here and check it out. And we're on our way back to Canberra. So we got a higher car. We went back to Canberra, I'm still paralysed with like, oh my god, what have we done? And we spent like, it's not like she was cheap either. So anyway, she spent a week in Tiree, they picked her it was dirty fuel because this woman hadn't driven for so long. Somehow. Plastic bag had got into the fuel and all disintegrated so they kind of cleared her up and when we you know, and NRMA were amazing, we got to hire car as part of the coverage. They didn't pay for the we had to pay for her getting fixed, but the towing was all covered. Did that. So then we hire car back to Canberra. Then the next weekend, we hired back to get her. We drove back to Canberra, John had to drive through Sydney. So luckily, he's a great driver. I was still absolutely frozen and scared and just was like, holy holy hill. What am I even thinking what are we going to deal with? I guess we can always raise seller, blah, blah, blah. But I thought no, I'm gonna actually persevere with this. I'm gonna get my bus, my bus my truck licence. I've got my learner's and I'm going to learn how to drive her. And John and I would go out where we used to teach the kids to drive drive when they were younger was out to for those of you that know Canberra, the Marin, Bateman show ground, and I John would drive out there then I would get in her and I would drive around the show ground which had, you know, dirt roads and tracks that I could just get the feel of her. And I was nervous, like I know how to drive but driving a 10 tonne bus that you know, compared to a zippy little car, so different so we just went out weekend after weekend just driving around the show grounds. And you know, I just had all of this Amen, I just had so much self doubt and worry and fear because I felt intimidated. I felt intimidated and that I knew that I could make it work. I knew that I could make it work so I persevered through what I needed to do and it and I guess just sharing with you because I had to get the licence so I had to go for my test and so it probably took me a year maybe of pregnant I can't remember now. It was a lot of months anyway for me to just build up that courage and you know, we did the show ground and I drive a little bit on the road and then I would always had John with me. And then when I had to do my test, oh my god, I froze again because the driving bit was I actually felt really confident driving and the instructor. He said it's quite different with women driving two men, that he said that I did a really really good job and I was one of the only ones that had passed part of a test he said a lot of the blokes I have to keep repeating this with them, but the bit where I struggled was at

Speaker 1 19:45
the time Deanna load and I had to do the truckies hitches and I had to do different I think there's a dog hitch or a some bloody thing and I my go to is when I'm stressed is I cry And I was just and he couldn't give me any assistance or any advice. So he had this load where I had to actually tie it down. And it just wasn't working. I've got I can feel it now I can feel it coming back for me now. And it just wasn't working. And I just had all these I was trying to hold these tears in, and it was just like, oh my god, I'm not going to be able to do it because of these fucking knots. And anyway, just looked at me and he said, How about we have a little break there? How about we actually just go and do it? He said, I know that you can do it. He said, But how about we just have a little break a little breather? And then we'll come back and we'll start afresh. And I just looked at me said, Oh, thank you so much. And we did that we had a little break. We walked around the track, he was really kind really motivating. And I went back and he said, You can do it. He said, You know, I know you can do it. So I went back and I only just did it bloody hell. So I passed, I got my truck licence. And he said, I know what he said. He said I was because it was a bus. I had to get tested as though I was picking up passengers. And he said my parking was the best that he had ever seen. So that was cool. Anyway, so head blossom, got blossom. And we're still intimidated with her by her. And that thought of intimidation. I was driving her the other day, to one of the life strategy success Express Express strategy sessions that I was doing with the girlfriend, she lives a couple of hours away. So we decided to meet halfway. And I was driving BLUs blossom. And I felt really, really confident. Like really super just oh my gosh, loving loving it. And I'm just I was reflecting on my journey, which I've just Galbally shared with you. And that word intimidation just kept coming up. I was intimidated by blossom, she was being I was scared, I was frozen. There kind of my go twos when when I'm not feeling confident. But what happened is I had this flashback to a memory of when I was probably about 25. And I was learning to be a trainer in the Taxation Office where I worked at the time. And I was getting accredited in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. So that's a personality preference indicator. And I was 25. I was I'm tall, I'm five foot nine. And at that stage, I was probably one of my heavier weights. Just trying to think There's been ups and downs and ups and downs. But I probably was at one of my bigger, bigger weights and sizes then. And I remember getting going through this accreditation, where we're talking about all the different personality types, the strengths and just getting to know them and the instructor who was a middle age, no, he was older, he wasn't middle aged, he was in my eyes. He was 100. But I don't know, maybe 60 ish, something big bloke, and he said, Catherine, you're a big woman, you're a big woman, and you intimidate people said, so what you need to learn to do is to make yourself small, like to physically make yourself small, but also, don't take up space, when you're going into meeting rooms. If you're training, I would suggest that you try and sit down so you don't take up this space and intimidate people. And I'm just like, Oh, my goodness, that would be the last thing that I would ever, ever wanting to want to do is to intimidate people. So I need to do what this big old instructor said to me, I need to make myself small. And it's interesting the impact and I wouldn't say that it's just his words. But if you think about what I've thought about is after my mom died when I was 12 I certainly did not feel like I intimidated people. But I felt frozen. I felt scared, I felt unsure. So there are the patterns that run when and, and the platens that ran for me scared, unsure. Fear, self doubt. But that's frozen bit. But on the flip side of that, I'm also very capable, very competent, just get on with life because that's all I had to learn to do. As a 12 year old. I had to learn how to get on with life. I could just fall in a heap and just crumble and part of me on the inside did that but on the outside. I kind of became very, very capable and very competent. So the pattern is if you're thinking about after mum passed away, there was these two parts of me running one it's probably a million parts of me running but capable, competent. Just get on it's you know it it'd be relatively successful. But on the inside that fear, self doubt, and that frozen and being scared. So when I was at this training programme, those words were really impressionable for me. So I'm layering those on to already a whole lot of things that I've been dealing with around self doubt. This person who was in a, I guess, a position of authority, telling me that I had to make myself smaller because I intimidated people. That was not really helpful. I very shortly after that, I travelled overseas, I travelled overseas on my own for six months, and I felt a real shift in my personality happened, then I felt, oh my gosh, I can't be who I really want to be. Because that's not okay. Now, wouldn't have just been these guys work. But I reckon that they were very impressionable on me at a period when I was kind of just starting to learn about self development. And that was a quite a big, you know, a big setback, I would say, and I've, you know, this theme running through my life is, I have to keep myself small. Even though there's part of me that knows that that's crazy and silly. And all those things. There's been this theme of, I kind of needed to keep myself small. And it's been it's held me back. And I guess it's been this form of self sabotage. And reflecting back on blossom, I felt intimidated by her by her size, and her manoeuvrability. So there was some kind of consciously it probably doesn't even make sense. But there was some links at this subconscious, that she was another version of holding me back, because I felt until kind of more recently, intimidated by her, she's not easy, she's not easy to drive around, she's not the easy van that I thought I was going to be able to just drive down to the lake and park at the edge of the lake, I've got to put forethought into where I go. Because if I get trapped somewhere, and I can't turn around like that from Brisbane, that still scares me, I'm not at that level where I can get myself out of those tricky situations. So she was another version of you know, I was kind of holding myself back with what I wanted to do with blossom. And you know, when I was driving to that, that session the other day with my girlfriend, I was just reflecting on where I've been holding myself back. I really hadn't put the pieces consciously together until just fairly fairly recently. And I'm not sure if you relate to any of this. I do know, it's probably all a little bit gobbly as well, once I get talking. But do you have your version of what's holding you back? Mine has been beams of having to keep myself small. And it's even interesting, as I talk this through, you know, that whole diet merry go round, that, you know that the some of my eating habits have not been very healthy, because there's been this feeling that I've had to keep myself smaller than what I am. Now, what I've learned is that that's kind of crazy, bullshit stuff. But it certainly played a big part in who I am in my life. So I've had some aha moments More more recently, around those and I heard, I was attending a webinar the other day, and the presenter was talking about self confidence, and presenting in communication and confidence in your communication. And a couple of the things that she said was that she's always been authentic. But she likened it to the frosted glass that you have often in a bathroom that you can't quite see through. She likened her authenticity to like that frosted

Speaker 1 29:23
glass that it was always that she was always who she was, but there was this filter that she applied to her authenticity. And that really related to me, like I'm super I'm authentic, I'm absolutely authentic. But I've also applied a very carefully curated filter about which parts that I will let people see and which parts I will keep very private and hidden. Now I think that there's nothing wrong with that. It because we don't want To, you know, I see a lot of people who say, you know, I'm being my authentic self. And I don't give a shit about what people think about that if they don't like who I am then stiff shit. Yes. But it's also about we need to modify and adjust depending on the situations that we're in. But what I resonated with was this filter of not letting people see the real me. And I think the patterns I think I know the patents for me have been, it's not okay, for me to be the real me, even though I'm authentic. So it's like those two parts of me remember, capable, competent, get on with things. So yes, I, I do show up, I push through a lot of those fears. But there's this feeling internally about, that's not okay to be who I am. So I think those bits are actually lesser and lesser and lesser. And it's almost like the pieces of the puzzle around that, for me, just all falling into place. And when this woman said it the other day about that filter, it's like, yeah, that makes sense. And it's not something new that I've heard, but I needed to hear it at that time. So my process for the aha moments are about just I guess, what's it been for me? It was it started from this reflection was when I was driving blossom the other day. And I felt really confident driving her. And then I went, Ah, I haven't always and then I was remembering back on the process. And going, Oh, my God, I have not felt confident I have been really holding myself back. Because they found her intimidating. And then that word intimidating, just transported me to this event where this instructor told me that I was intimidating. I intimidated people. That crushed my that crushed me. Because that would be God that would if I ever knew that I was intimidating somebody. So it was not okay to be me is the message that I took from that. It's not okay to be me. And I have to keep myself small. And you know what, I've done a lot of work on myself. And know that that's not the case, but but it's also still been running in the background around that, that that's not okay to be me, I have to keep myself small. And that's why I work a lot with women about helping them to really truly be who they want to be you hear my messaging, lots about, embrace who you are, and be the person that you want to be not the people that the person that other people expect you to be. And it can be hard because we often don't know what the things are that are holding us back for me for many years or says this feeling. It's not okay to be me. I didn't go Oh, yeah, that's because that bloke said, oh, yeah, that's because of all these other things. It was just this feeling of Art's not okay. So if you're struggling with that, I would love to love to help you. Because I do have some tools, techniques that can help you it's often hard to do on our own. It's hard, like I'm talking through this podcast. And I did make some notes. I haven't really referred to those notes. Sorry. But it's hard when you're doing it on your own. When I do a podcast when I'm with somebody else. It's easy. It just flows. And I'm able to draw things out of them that we wouldn't have planned or scripted. So if you're going through, you know, if you've just got that little feeling of, ah, something's just holding me back, and I'm not exactly sure what it is. And you'd love another set of eyes on it. Just reach out, we can have a chat around that. So anyway, hopefully, some little pearls of wisdom have dropped for you and that this this wasn't too gobbly. Once I get in and start talking, it kind of takes a life of its own are actually one thing I did want to share. Sorry, I'm gonna go back to this. When I was reflecting on am I intimidating somebody I've had that said to me before and you know what it's often said to me by men, which is interesting in itself. They say, Katherine, you intimidate people. And what I've learned now to say to them is do I intimidate people or are they intimidated by me? For me, they are two quite different energies. If I'm intimidating people, that's on me. I will take ownership of that and I will change my behaviours. If people are intimidated by me. That's on them. That's about What their feelings what's going on with them. And often people reflect things that in us that either are a mirror of that, well, they're a mirror of us. So when we see people who we admire, and we respect, it's reflecting something within us that we have, because otherwise we wouldn't be able to see it in them. But if people are projecting negativity, that were intimidating them, I would actually question are they intimidated? And why are they intimidated? Is it their own self doubt and fear? Is that that I'm saying some things that maybe they don't want to hear? Or is it that I'm doing some things that they would love to do and they kind of not? They're not brave enough to do. So that was just a thought. And that's come through a lot. So I'm with my confidence level. I felt intimidated by blossom. She wasn't intimidating me. I felt intimidated because of my own skills and abilities. And what it was bringing up for me, I drive her quite well reasonably confident. I still need Jonathan Becker up the driveway. So that just that last parting thought, hugs and bright big happiness and have a beautiful, beautiful day. Bye

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