Carolyn & Priscilla – Absolutely Fabulous in their own way!

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It’s a Friday lunchtime.  We could be at the gym, we could be reading a book, we could be running around crazy, performing any number of juggling acts, like most days, oh yes, and we could be at work…  but instead we are  drinking champagne, eating delicious food from The Mabel, and chewing the fat on flexibility. 

The fact that we each have the flexibility to do so is worth celebrating, but for single mums, Carolyn and Priscilla, flexibility is not a luxury but a necessity.    

Carolyn and Priscilla join us to chew the fat on the flexibility it takes to raise a child on your own – from deciding how many days to work once the kids are at school, to learning how to stop and smell the roses (roses?), to being able to ask for help, to feeling like you are not alone… and then there’s the conversation about … oh, that’s right, we had pressed stop by then thank goodness!  There was a limit on the warts and all… just!

Carolyn and Priscilla are both human resource champions.  They have both managed  and developed their careers whilst raising their children, sought out the flexibility they needed, and very much kept their sense of humour throughout.  They shared with us openly and candidly their challenges, what they wish they had known and what they do to make the juggle work for them.  We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.  Thanks Carolyn and Priscilla for your generosity, openness and for the ripsnorter laughs. 

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Thanks to the Mabel for a great lunch.

Holiday Queen

Laini

Laini Shaw is the Holiday Queen.  And I’m jealous.  She has managed to intrinsically manouvre a HR career and massive chunks of time off to enjoy her passion of travel.

How? What? Why? How? Blink, gulp, how on earth did this HR Professional manage to challenge the status quo, re-align her entrenched professional ethos of 4 weeks annual leave per year and move to a more holistic, laid back, balanced lifestyle.

Well, her gorgeous bloke had something to do with it.  A Mr “Challenge the Status Quo” kind of guy who adores the pants of Laini and gives her passion room to roam and her head space to think.

Laini is fabulous.  She talks us through her background and how she came to breakthrough her thinking of enjoying life more, embracing her passion and loving life more and more, enjoying and thriving in her career and taking stock on what’s important.  Laini lights up my world when I’m around her, I hope she lights up your life for 40 minutes or so and you can enjoy her story.

Laini hopes her chat with Helen will inspire others to think outside the box of 9-5 and do things that make their heart sing – including travel…take that trip!!!

You can check Laini out on Facebook or Instagram – The Occasional Israeli.  

Enjoy x

Finding Your Balance

Balance-scales

It’s a pleasure to bring you the altogether fabulous Jo Stevens.  Jo is someone who is ridiculously talented, hard working, courageous, smart, delightful and effortlessly classy.

I have had the pleasure of knowing Jo for over 8 years now and she helped me pass the dreaded Performance Management Class at Uni – I’m forever grateful Jo!  

Jo and her gorgeous partner Jamie, have a little guy Alfie and some ups and downs along the way which Jo talks about which will break your heart.  We want to acknowledge and thank Jo for sharing her heartfelt story with us, her candour, raw honesty, yet gentle and exploratory way of embracing life, hurdles and all that she shared was truly humbling for me.

Her approach to flexibility, pursuing life and passions and sharing the family load is gorgeous.  She’s considered, smart, breathtakingly refreshing in her pursuit of life.

I take my hat of to you Jo Stevens, you amazing Lady.  Knowing you professionally was an honour, but to have a journey with you into some of your most sacred world and for sharing it with us, was truly special, I sincerely thank you.

Ladies and Gents, the amazing Jo Stevens.

The Whole Package

CarPool Karoeke

What do you get when you put a Car Karaoke Queen who is a HR Guru together with a Travel Queen & highly intelligent CPA/IT/Business Transformation Specialist ….. you got it, The Whole Package.  We are delighted to introduce to you Sharna Peters and Deanna Spowart, the newest and brightest combination to hit one of Australia’s well known organisations right between the eye balls, in a totally awesome way.  The Job-Share Dynamos!

Deanna & Sharna are Job Share Partners in their workplace and they talk us through the dicy, amazing, often sizzling world of Job-Share.  The insights, laughs, intelligence, thought and results that these ladies bring to the table will give you goose bumps.  This is a warts and all look at how they’ve manufactured the path of Job-Share within an organisation that absolutely raves about all things flexibility, and they are pioneers in their space.  They very much remind us of our PodCast “My Work Wife” and we hope you enjoy the effervescence of these two, and you learn and glean tips of how much hard work they have put into making their Job-Share work, and work well.

 If you hang around at the end, there’s a little surprise for you, something you might be able to sing along to …. and that’s all we’ll say!

The Incredibles

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OK, so juggling isn’t your forte, ours either, but we’ve found a family that juggles a full life – working professional parents, 5 kids, 4 families, 1 very gorgeous dog, 15 acres, sporting events, school drop off and pick up and manage to be so happy.  They talk about the kids being the barometer of their family.  They have family meetings, regularly.  No subject is off limits.  This is a family of incredible care and communication skills, and we are profoundly grateful to Steve & Liv Zan for letting us have a privileged sneak peak into their beautiful, caring and organised lives, that for most of us ordinary folk would turn into some sort of chaos, but for them, works like a well oiled machine.  But it wasn’t without hard work, dedication and a solidarity of leading by example by Steve & Liv.  There’s some lessons here that were hard fought, not without trial and error but delightfully the universe has rewarded their hard work and commitment to provide a strong, stable, reliable and comfortable home and work life for all of them, all 8 of them (dog included of course!).

So what was the secret for them.  Steve is a Change Manager and has applied those principles from the workplace into his family life.  Communication, Consultation, regular Family Meetings and a clear and unwavering support of each other.  Liv is absolutely gorgeous and nurturing in her role of keeping the Zan Ship full steam ahead and pursuing her career.  She speaks delightfully about the joys of study, being a Mum and entering the workforce and finding her confidence and balance.

We were so privileged to get an insight to the workings of a blended family who clearly have a focus on providing strong, considered, nurture and love to their lives and the lives of their gorgeous kids.  A true privilege to hear their story, and we truly think they are the incredibles.

The Dynamic Duo

The divine and effervescent and absolutely fabulous Dynamic Duo who are “Coaching for Mums” Nina Marshall & Vanessa Potts joined us for a vino and cheese to discuss all things flexibility.

Nina & Vanessa have a fantastic story to tell, from Global Corporate High Flyers to travelling the world (several times), career breaks, becoming a family, returning to work and then becoming Business Owners.  Their stories are amazing, thoughtful, inspiring and altogether fun, but there’s no denying these ladies are smart, hard working and committed to enjoying life as best they can.  We loved it!

These women are fabulous and we are truly honoured to have them along to share their thoughts, journey, flexibility paths and now, how they are helping Mums get back into the workforce.

Shake your Bon Bon

The delightful and talented Harry & Sally Bonning join us in this edition of Chewing the Fat on Flexibility to discuss their take on flexibility in life.  Harry & Sally are a dynamic duo – successful professionals who’ve travelled the world for work and pleasure, now have two gorgeous children, a raging social life but also a love of everything they do.

We were envious to know how they did it – and they told us!  Sally shared alot of tips and tricks that helped her with balancing her work and children, and Harry was a superb act in linking up how technology can assist with improving flexibility, for everyone.

We hope you enjoy shaking the Bon Bons as much as we did, the background noise is there a wee bit, but persevere, the message that the Bonnings give us is a joy! Enjoy!

Our Legal Talent

Alison Baker is a partner in the Employment and Workplace Relations Team at Hall & Wilcox Lawyers.  We caught up with her over coffee and delicious cakes to talk all things flexibility and the law.  Alison also happens to be a mum of two and chats with us about her own journey of managing maternity leave and working flexibly as a partner in a law firm.

We hope you enjoy the chat as much as we did … grab your own coffee and cake while you listen!

My Work Wife

Jane & Jo have joined us for this special edition and talk about their work journey through working full-time, having a family, maternity leave, returning to work and finally their magnificent job-share arrangement.

It is a cracking interview of really inspiring and dedicated women who have carved a wonderful and rewarding path for themselves.  We recorded this lovely interview over a vino or two, please excuse the background noise.

Enjoy!