Terri Connellan: Mastering Midlife Transitions & Coaching

Nigel Rawlins: Welcome, Terry, to the Wisepreneurs podcast. Can you tell our listeners something about yourself?

Terri Connellan: It's great to be here, Nigel. I'm an author, a life transition coach, a psychological type practitioner, and, I'm a teacher. I work with women who go through life transitions particularly to develop more wholehearted lives through areas like creativity, self leadership, personality. I live on the outskirts of Sydney, in a beautiful location surrounded by beach and bush.

My background is as a teacher and leader in the adult vocational education sector. And I worked in TAFE for 30 years, so I had about half that time was as a teacher of adult literacy and numeracy and language, in communications and the other half was in leadership roles. So leading up the organization, strategically, organizationally and, yeah, it was a great opportunity.

But what I did find is that, whilst I was very successful in my career and gained a lot of satisfaction from it, it didn't fulfill me completely. So that was when I started looking at making a transition myself into a more fulfilling life. And that's what I've structured my work around.

Nigel Rawlins: So in making that transition, what were some of the steps you did? You obviously didn't quit your job to do that. Were you doing some courses or doing some reading? What sort of things did you do to help yourself with that transition?

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it's a great question because I think a lot of the time we have a sense of we want something else. We don't want this life that we're in, and we know we want to make a change, but it often just seems such a huge step for us. For me, it was about having a sense of what a future life might look like.

And that certainly had a core around creativity and writing, which was very important to me and had got pushed back a little in my career in the vocational education sector. So I started by stitching in learning new skills. And, also engaging with people who are living the sort of life that I wanted to lead.

So it was particularly with online creators, people who were writing books, people who were creating online courses, people who I could see were starting a bit further down the track and people who are, paving away, shaping up what I, the sort of path that I wanted to take in my life. That sort of thing was around reading books.

It was around engaging in online courses. I did a lot of online learning to both learn new skills, but also to, to see how those people were operating in creating this life that I wanted to create. In practical terms, in terms of the workplace, it also meant looking at trying to carve out time. Because it often becomes a conundrum, we know we want a different life.

We often find it hard shave out the time to create that life. So a key step for me was to negotiate a job share with someone who had a similar skill set to me. And I can remember punching the air when that particular job share arrangement was approved. And that to me was an opportunity to have a few days in the workplace, but a few days to start to carve out in practical terms, what that new life looked like.

And I had three goals around that time. One was to become a coach, like to train and life coaching. The other was to skill up in psychological type in personality work. And the third was around upskilling in intuition and tarot system, a personal goal so I had just moved into that phase of transition and starting to work out what the next phase might look like, when my mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, which is a Illness for which there is not a clear cut solution. So it was a really difficult time, so I was thrown into a completely different dynamic of making a life transition whilst also caring for my mother, who was very unwell. And I think this is something that happens to a lot of people in midlife.

They're caring for elderly parents, have a lot of caring responsibilities whilst also trying to make significant transitions themselves. So it can be really challenging.

Nigel Rawlins: Is that easier for women to do that?

Terri Connellan: To make the transition or to step into caring roles.

Nigel Rawlins: Step into that caring role.

Terri Connellan: I think women are often in a position to step in or the ones expected perhaps to step in and to play those caring roles. For me, I was the one in the family who, it was the obvious choice for me to step in and support. So sometimes it's practical, sometimes it's because women choose to do that work, but men do it too.

My partner also did the same for his mother, so I think that can happen for both men and women. I think it depends on the relationship that you have, the dynamic in that. But certainly, midlife is a time when we often are called on in many different ways, shapes and forms, but we're also trying to work out what the next step of life might look like for us, if we're not entirely satisfied with the path that we're in.

Nigel Rawlins: You're in the middle of making a transition, you're caring for your mother, how did that affect your plans?

Terri Connellan: It was like everything was just thrown up into the air. It was a time of incredible uncertainty. I was actually unable after that diagnosis to go back into the workplace. So even though we'd made a plan for job share I unfortunately was unable to honor my part of that because I had to immediately step into a caring role and support my mother.

So yeah, it ended up being, just over 12 months, that period of time. And it was a time of incredible uncertainty and, personality wise, if anyone, understands personality, I'm an INTJ and I really like to know where I'm going. I really like structure. I like to know the next steps in the framework.

And this was a time when I really felt tested and, yeah, it was challenging and that was a time when I then had to really pull deep on my resources, pull deep on what I've learned in the workplace about leadership and really start to apply that to myself. And, from that time, I started to, really dive deep into particular strategies that were helping me to get orientated in a really uncertain time.

And then from that, I wrote a book about that whole experience because what I found is that, as we're going through these times, there's not too many guides that, that can help us through that incredible time of uncertainty, particularly when things keep changing. We start on one track, we make a plan, something else happens.

It's a time of great uncertainty. So for me, it was a matter of using that learning that I was going through as I was trying to shape a transition, the new skills that I was learning to bring that together and put some sort of shape and framework around it to, to support myself, as I was supporting, others and then to take that forward to be able to help others as well.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay, so let's talk about the book.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, my book is called Wholehearted, self Leadership for Women in Transition and there's a book and a companion workbook that sit alongside each other and complement each other, and it was very much shaped from the center of my transition journey. I wrote it during that time of making the transition from full time work role to a more creative lifestyle and whilst I was caring for my mother. So I wrote 50, 000 words of the book in one month when I just really made a commitment to trying to get some of these experiences down on paper, but again right from the middle of that transition journey.

In the book I share my journey of transition, going to I guess more memoir style or, narrative style, about how I felt before I started my change journey, what it was like to go through the middle of that transition, the footholds that helped me to move through that time, and the strategies that helped me to make the change from one step to another.

And in the heart of the book, chapter six is quite a large, section of the book and there's 15 wholehearted self leadership skills in that chapter. And they're 15 skills that really helped me, skills and strategies to navigate this time of uncertainty and to successfully make a shift from a time or from a role that wasn't serving me anymore, even though I was successful and felt quite satisfied in it for many years, to a lifestyle that I felt more fully reflected where I wanted to be at this stage of my life.

Nigel Rawlins: Let's talk about some of the steps involved. Somebody reading your book, what are some of the steps that they would go through, through reading, that you would recommend them to, to focus on?

Terri Connellan: Yeah, the book takes you through, the first parts really about my experiences, but I start to, share a little bit about, what it might be like for people. And I think the opportunity for people reading is just to feel that they're not alone. I think when we go through such experiences we can feel terribly isolated, and that was how I felt.

We feel isolated, we feel uncertain, we feel our identity is changing. So I think the first thing that people can gain from reading my story and from reflecting on their own is just a sense that they're not alone. To understand that it is a huge identity shift that you're going through if you're shifting from perhaps where your identity has been shaped through a work role to something that's a bit more self driven.

So whether it's freelancing or consulting or working for yourself in some way, you could be retiring and choosing to shape a life that's quite different to the one that you've had, but you feel you've got a lot to give. How's this new life going to look like? So I think the first thing that people can gain is just an opportunity to read through and reflect on my journey, but also what's actually happening for them as they're moving through.

Secondly, there's a group of bigger frameworks that I just encourage people to look at, which is about how you might imagine another way, like what the stepping stones might be what tools might help you, what skills, what strategies, looking at your inner talk, just messages that you're saying to yourself and what can help you.

I also encourage people to go back and tap into their passions, like what are their passions over time? Because they can be such beacons for us in guiding us into what will be meaningful, what will feel wholehearted to us. Sometimes they get covered over, by work that we do for others. And for me it was creativity and writing, for example.

I'd always wanted to write a book. I left with the plan of writing a novel, which I have a draft of, but these books emerged first instead. So I think having a sense of what is important to you, what you're passionate about can be a really strong anchor in a time of uncertainty. So I walk people through that process, to identify your natural gifts, your desires, things like your personality and your preferences, being a psychological type practitioner. I just think it's such an important, part of getting to know ourselves to, to learn about ourselves more deeply and to be more self aware. So understanding a bit about our motivations and what drives us, how we want to feel.

They can be such powerful touchstones for us. Another key area I talk people through and encourage them to work through and provide the structure for them to work through is looking at our body of work. This is a concept in a book written by Pamela Slim. And her idea is that, again, it's this idea of getting back to the essence of what's important to you and looking at your body of work over time.

And sometimes we define that just as we've been in this work role and this work role, and that's important, but it's also looking at perhaps the volunteer work we've done, the not for profit roles, how we've helped other people outside our work roles what's been really important to us.

And by mapping that body of work and those really key drivers and things that satisfy us and fulfill us, is really powerful. And then I have the, 15 wholehearted self leadership skills, which are really practical things. The book is a weave of thinking big, but also working practically.

And in the practical areas, it's things like writing every day. It's working with intuitive tools like Tarot. It's setting intentions. It's, understanding a bit about your body of work. It's using visioning and strategy skills. It might be working with opposites. So you might work with one area of life, but playing a little bit with the opposite of that.

So shifting and making changes. It can be working with natural rhythms and cycles. So there's a real mix of practical skills that I draw all of those out of my personal experiences, out of my learning and my transition time, my learning over long, over a long time as well. These tools can provide you strategies for self leadership for helping you to be more self aware.

And it's also very much about guiding yourself in the day to day, particularly with this uncertainty, this loss of identity that you can go through as you make a change. You need some anchors, some frameworks, some compasses about yourself and about the journey that you're on as you move forward.

Otherwise, I think we can really get quite lost. And I certainly did feel quite lost as I went through my transition journey. Yeah, so there's some of the practical tools I provide and help people with through the book and through my work.

Nigel Rawlins: Yes, a very interesting thing you talked about there was identity, and that we have a work identity, and then we stop working. Who are we then, or, in your case, you were already thinking of shifting to a new identity and you went out and you started exploring and meeting people who were already doing that sort of thing.

There's a philosopher in America, in Chicago, called Agnes Callard, and she talks aspiration. But her aspiration means moving towards a new value perspective because we change all the time, but that aspiration is to become something different and it is a journey. So it sounds like your book helps you on that journey.

Now you mentioned writing every day and you also mentioned the tarot. So maybe we could talk about those two things. What do you mean by writing every day?

Terri Connellan: Yeah, so for me, I started a practice called Morning Pages, which was made famous by Julia Cameron. And the concept of that is just write three pages each day on whatever comes to mind. So I, I started with that framework in, I think it was July, 2017, which was the first year I was caring for my mother.

And it's pretty simple, it's not complicated, and I think sometimes we can overcomplicate things, but just having that anchor , I started off in a notebook, just writing anything, three pages each day. Now it's a bit less structured, I work on my computer, I have osteoarthritis in my hand, so I find it easier to do, I still call it morning pages, but it might happen any time of the day, but it's just making sure I take time. just to reflect on what's happening. But around that too, I'm I'm looking at what cycle the moon's in. I draw a card, Tarot card for each day and have a look at what that might be highlighting for me. So yeah, the writing is a way of practicing self awareness.

When I say self leadership, it's that idea of being self directive of making choices of not feeling like you're buffeted by circumstance, but reflecting on what's happening, what you might've learned another time. How are we stretching ourselves, feeling comfortable in our skin, all those sorts of things come into play when you take time just to write and reflect on what's happening.

And it might be just capturing what's been happening for you in the day, but I think if anything's worrying you, or if you're moving through a difficult time and each day feels like a small step. I think capturing that and then having a sense of your journey over time, whether you go back and read it or not, is just really powerful.

So of all the strategies that I share in the book, and it's probably what reflects my passions that practice of writing every day or regularly without putting too much pressure on ourselves is a really top, top one for me.

Nigel Rawlins: So in writing, what's happening in our heads when we do that ?

Terri Connellan: I think it's probably different depending on your personality type because people will probably be doing different things. But I think it's an opportunity for us just to pin down some of the swelliness that's going on. That's certainly how it works for me. If we're attuned to ourselves, which most of us are at one, one level, we can feel when we feel out of whack or we don't feel right, or we feel really happy.

Or we feel. motivated today, or we don't feel so motivated. And I think writing just provides us an opportunity to reflect on why that's so on perhaps any self talk we might've, subtly, embedded in our day that took us down without realizing.

And also where we might be our own cheerleader to take I really want to do this today. My aim is to do one, two, three things this week or today, whatever it might be. It can really be, I think, whatever you want it to be. And certainly my writing has changed over the period that I've been doing regular writing or practicing regular writing. And at the moment it's much more, yeah, just getting through.

I've had a significant bereavement, over the last 12 months. So for me, it's been a really powerful tool for just day by day. This is the first thing I've managed to do since that time. And now I've managed to do this. And again, it's just taking ourselves through whatever difficult time or productive time it might be to reflect on what's happening and to strengthen our self awareness to take ourselves forward.

Nigel Rawlins: Now you also mentioned the tarot. So let's have a little talk about that. You've done psychological type work, and is it MBTI?

Terri Connellan: Yes, I have trained in the majors, which is similar to the MBTI, but people will probably know it as the Myers Briggs, psychological type, stemming from the work of Carl Jung, of course.

Nigel Rawlins: So tell us how that works and your tarot reading.

Terri Connellan: Okay.

Nigel Rawlins: What's the connection there?

Terri Connellan: Great. Yeah, great question. To me, these are all tools and frameworks that we can use to put some structure and some framework around ourselves and also around our experiences. Firstly, psychological type or personality type or MBTI, as people might know it for me is a really powerful tool about understanding ourselves.

Through Working, through various psychological type assessments or working with a practitioner or just reading online, you can get a sense of what your personality is like. And it's not about putting ourselves in a box. It's about just having a way of explaining what our preferences are. And understanding that we have a preference, in my case it's for introverted intuition or intuition that's internal an imaginative world and being highly strategic. So it's the ability to understand ourselves, to know what we do prefer, what we don't prefer, to work with our strengths.

To try and bring up those areas where we have a few blind spots, if we're aware of them and they're not so blind, we can work on those and strengthen them. So for me, personality, psychological types, just a great tool for, understanding how we interact with the world, how we absorb information, how we make decisions, how we organize ourselves.

Some people are naturally more, organized and others prefer things to flow a bit more and both are fine. Everybody's different. So I think as we're going through transition, it really helps us, it helps us at any time, of course, but in those uncertain times, it helps us to anchor into what our strengths are. Also helps us realize where things that we're not so aware of can knock us off course. So if we're a bit aware of those, it can help us to identify them and again, not feel so blindsided. Now, let's talk about the Tarot.

Yeah, so Tarot likewise, it's also for me a tool or a framework for moving through life and Tarot is particularly helpful for working with what is more unconscious. So as many people would know, there's a set of 78 cards. There's some major arcana and minor arcana, which major ones are like big life themes, and the major arcana split into four sort of aspects of life, like feeling, thinking, and those areas are like sub themes that we can explore.

And basically we're working with our intuition when we're working with tarot you can work in many different ways. I've just keep it pretty simple these days. Before I write, I choose a card, take some time to realize this is going to show me something that perhaps is a bit below my self awareness, below my conscious awareness.

Take the time to choose a card and then reflect on what that might mean. So for most decks there's a guidebook these days, there's beautiful decks around, beautiful creative, independent work. There's the traditional Rider Waite Tarot, all of them will have some sort of guidebook, there's information online, so you don't have to even know all the cards, what they mean before you start. The idea is to pull out a card and just find out what it means according to the book and just think about how that relates to you as well. It's just a little bit it's part of your, you're talking about doing some daily writing to get the thoughts out of your head. And the Tarot card is to try and connect with what might be in your mind that you might not even be aware of,

absolutely, and sometimes it's might just be flagging areas of opportunity or I just drew a card before we started talking and we're going to talk about transition and the card that I drew is one of the key cards in my book, all about transition, which, to me was just a lovely way of tapping into, yes, this is your story.

This is what you'd be talking about, this transition journey, what it was like to go through those uncertain times. And I think in all sorts of different ways, shapes and forms. Intuition via tarot can really help you to just either just tap into something that you are aware of that just reaffirms that.

It can help you to be aware of something that might be just bubbling a little bit below your conscious awareness and you don't quite know what it is, but just through drawing a card sometimes it can just help you realize what that might be. So it's a great tool for self awareness and I do very much dovetail it now with writing.

So I tend to draw the card before I write and then often take that as an opportunity to, reflect intuitively on how that card might apply to what's happening, what it's bringing up for me. And like all things, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get with it, the more insights you gain, the more comfortable you feel with working with the imagery of Tarot cards.

A lot of people think it's about predicting the future, and to me it's not about that at all. It's certainly about divination, and divining things, but not necessarily about the future. It's about, here I am working with myself and working with others. What can this card highlight for me at this time to, to make a difference for myself and for other people?

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, I agree with that. I guess I'd say it as a tool that can help you focus your attention on something and then to reflect on it and guide your thinking, not say this is going to be my future or something like that. It'd be very easy to go down that track.

So talking about all the things you've done the foundations that you've created you've worked for 30 years as a teacher. You've gone through the transition of making that shift and then the transition of your mother getting cancer and then developing your book.

How do you go about helping people? Because you mentioned you're a coach, a life coach. So did you do some life coach training to do that? And you have clients? Could you tell us about that?

Terri Connellan: Yes, for sure. Yeah, as part of my transition, I identified the three areas I mentioned before. So the becoming a life coach, working with psychological type and intuitive out of Tarot was one of my three goals. So as soon as I was starting to make the transition, I identified the areas that might be able to help me.

So, in terms of life coaching or coaching, I trained with the Beautiful You Coaching Academy, which is based in Melbourne, but online and trains mostly women. And that was fabulous for me because I came with a skill set of teaching and I had done a lot of coaching and learning about coaching in the workplace.

But I think to be able to just really learn that skill of coaching, in a really deep way was really fabulous, to connect with other coaches. So that was what the first, one of the first things I did. I also trained up in psychological type. So I chose the Majors Personality Type Inventory Certification.

It's similar to the MBTI, but it's an area again where you can take people through assessment and just deeply understand psychological type as a tool. I also connected with associations, so I joined the Australian Association for Psychological Type, which is an organisation I've now been a part of for about seven years, and I'm now president of.

So I think these, all these skills that you learn, these connections that you make, can build such a rich richness in your life in different ways. So I'm really committed and passionate to that not for profit work of extending people's self awareness through the organization. So those were the two areas.

And in terms of the work that I do, I started coaching when I finished in my training in 2017. So I've worked primarily one on one, but I've also done quite a lot of group coaching with people. I had a book club, for example, of my wholehearted books. So we worked 12 months in a group coaching program, reading each chapter of the book and working through the workbook, which was a really deep transition support program for the women in that group. I've also worked with women on, it was called Sacred Creative Community. And it was about really how women can dive into that creative work that they want to do in their life, which, it doesn't have to be painting, writing, create, creativity, can take all sorts of forms, but just really tapping into what's meaningful for them and all the practical tools that can take them there.

So yeah so it's been really valuable work and work that I really enjoy sharing my knowledge and building my skills to help people.

Nigel Rawlins: So tell me, what does a life coach do?

Terri Connellan: Okay so a life coach helps people in various areas of their life to work out where they might be not achieving what they wish to do. So a lot of the time it's about setting goals. Most life coaches specialize in particular areas. For my area, it is transition, creative transition and moving to more creative lives.

Others might be life coaches in financial areas, wellness areas, sexuality, sensuality, midlife coaches. A life coach helps the person to identify what their goals might be. and I typically worked with my clients over a three month period. six Sessions, over fortnightly periods, just to really set some goals, to identify where the blockages might be. Often I bring psychological type or personality in, so using my tools, but really helping people to be able to identify what their goals are, to make the path towards them.

And then the setting incremental actions that help them to get there and to have the accountability to get there. I've worked with quite a number of life coaches in my own transition and I don't think I would have been able to get through the process without it. I think just having someone who's a bit further down the path, has a particular skill set and framework that can help you and someone who can provide accountability for you and just listening ear when you're going through a difficult time and need support is really powerful.

Nigel Rawlins: So how do people figure out when they do need a life coach? So what's going through their heads? And obviously, they've got to have some money to be able to pay a life coach. So, at what point does somebody say, I need some help and identify the fact that they need a life coach to help them.

Terri Connellan: I think often we can solve things with our own resources through our own research and through our own inner strength. But often there comes a time where you, I just found I just knew I didn't have the resources for this. I Just knew at the point where I reached out for a life coach, I hit rock bottom a little bit.

And I knew I didn't have the skills to help me navigate. I intellectually knew what I had to do, but doing it is another thing. So I think it's often a time where you just really know you don't have the internal resources, and then it's about reaching out to find somebody who's a great match for you, who you know is a specialist in that area, who's a bit further down the path, but who also can resonate with and you feel that you can develop a relationship with that person who can guide you to move through that.

Coaches can be fabulous for a whole range of areas of life. And, yeah, I think whenever you feel you are wanting, you dunno where to go or you just need that extra support. I think a life coach is a really valuable investment to to help you.

Nigel Rawlins: So where do you find one?

Terri Connellan: My academy for example, has certified coaches on their website. There's areas like that where you go through to a coaching organization and find what coaches they have and their particular modalities or specialties. I connected with people and I found out about through my coaching school, through social media.

So being active on Instagram and connecting. I first connected with people who were leaders in introversion, about being an introvert and making a difference as an introvert, which has always been a strong theme in my life. And my first experience with a coach who was from that coaching school, I ended up being trained with, was someone who really focused on working with people who were quieter.

But making the best of that strength, which is something I also do in my work now, because it's important. So sometimes it's just having a bit of a follower of people whose messages resonate, whose experiences resonate, to just help you see, and obviously hashtags can help you to find that.

Nigel Rawlins: You mentioned it's worth doing at least a period of time, so a minimum of say three months?

Terri Connellan: Yes, most coaches will work differently, but it works quite well to have a particular goal. it might be To get started on your book, or it might be to make a life transition change. Three months is actually a really nice time frame to work with. Twelve months we can often make our goals way, way too big, even six months, but three months you can see it, you can map it out a little bit and you can connect with a coach either weekly or fortnightly on your accountability around what you've mapped out.

It's often a metric that is used just because it's a framework in which you can set and achieve goals that are meaningful and make progress.

Nigel Rawlins: So in your coaching practice, what are some of the main themes that you, have worked with clients? I've worked with women wanting to make change. So similar to myself that often we end up coaching in the areas that are a personal experience. I've worked with women who were planning to retire, for example, but couldn't quite work out the path how to do that. We talked about identity, all the identity shifts that means, because often we do define ourselves hugely by the work roles that we're in.

Terri Connellan: So to suddenly leave all that behind, it's just really helpful to have support to work out what that transition might look like and how you might move through them. Helping people to make changes from work roles that they're not happy with. People can often get stuck for one reason or another in either a particular job or an industry where they don't feel happy.

So what might that change look like and what practical steps can you put in to make that change? I also helped people a lot with just working out what their new life might look like. Often people go, I'm in this full time job role now, and I want to become a coach, so I will shift from this full time role to this full time role coaching.

In reality, there's lots of different ways we can structure our lives. Like I tend to think of as like a portfolio, so you might have two or three days working in a paid employment. You might provide a service for people, like website design, or I've done social media work for people because I've built up skill in that area.

What the future looks might be quite different to what we have in our minds. So a lot of the work that I would do with clients is about opening up the options and seeing what that new future might look like. I've also worked with people practically on writing and how to get going with books, how to get their creative business moving, and they might be artistic people who want to get out into the world, whether it's as a sideline or a full blown option in life, what that looks like, how to get out and create that more creative business life.

Nigel Rawlins: So is there a particular age group that you prefer to work with?

Terri Connellan: I tend to work with midlife women, but often I'm working with people in my age demographic, which is fifties and sixties. So that's probably the main area I work in where those big shifts are happening of having been in a work role for a long time and wanting change, feeling sense of times running out a little bit and you want to do what's important before you don't feel you have the strength or the opportunity.

But I've also worked with younger women as well, where the themes can still be similar. People can still in their 30s and 40s feel that they are not happy in the work that they're doing, and they want to make a shift to something that's more meaningful, whether it's in a workplace or more self driven.

Nigel Rawlins: Now, you've also, I noticed on your website, you've got a podcast. Tell us about that.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, my podcast is called the Create Your Story podcast. And, in line with what we've been talking about is that idea of how do you create your personal story through your life. I've been really fascinated to work with a range of people, some from psychological type personality world, creatives, writers, people that I've written with and created with, and just their whole journey of moving through from where they are to where they were to where they are now and what's really helped them to move through that. Depending on the area of the person being interviewed, for writers it might be how they came to write their book, how they move through that process, what helps them to get their creative practices happening to really achieve what's in their heart about what they want to create.

For the work conversations with the psychological type people, it's a bit more about personality and understanding, personality preferences and what difference that's made in their lives. Each of them, I think just provides some input and some clues and some inspiration for people to tap into these frameworks and be self aware about what they might do their own life. So, yeah, they've been really great conversations.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay, so at this point, we're coming towards the end of our, talk, what advice would you give to somebody who's mid career right now? Like you said you started making your transition before you were retiring or leaving work. So obviously what we're thinking about here is that somebody's got an inkling that this is not what they want to do.

What are a couple of ideas that they could start looking at right now before, they get bogged down and lost.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it's a great question. I think a really important thing they can do is just try and carve out some time in the week for what is really important to them. So often that desire to shift has a bit of a motivator in, I want to write or I want to create or I want to practice this art form I haven't been able to, whatever it might be, just try and carve out some time for that.

it might be Three hours a week or two hours a week initially, but I think often it can be a bit in our heads, what we desire to do, but to actually take action and to realize that it's important to place this priority somewhere in our lives and to safeguard it, put some boundaries around it.

I think that's really important. and it might Be learning a new skill. It could be, if you have a particular thing in mind that you're more interested to move into it might be aromatherapy or Feng Shui or whatever it might be learning a technological skill. Just carve out some time for that to learn about it.

And then the other thing that's been really important to me, and again it's something I share about in the book, is just to have some great role models, just somebody who's that little bit further down the track. For me, it was Joanna Penn, who is an author, her podcast is called The Creative Penn, and I have followed her for more than 10 years.

She continues to inspire me and motivate me. And I think if we just have somebody or a creative role model, whether it's a person we know in person or somebody online. Whose story we can follow or who we can continue to keep in touch with and be inspired by. I think that's incredibly powerful because one, we can see it's possible and two, we can learn from them.

We don't have to copy them, but we can just... I think, ah, that's a really great skill. That's something I can take into mind. So I do have five people who really supported me who I've outlined in the book. And I've just explained why those people were so important to me and what I learned from them as I was going through my transition journey.

I think those creative role models or inspirational role models are really important. You

Nigel Rawlins: Yes, thank you for that. Okay, so is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you'd like to speak about?

Terri Connellan: I just think, let people know that being wholehearted, just as a term, perhaps what that means might be helpful. For me it's very much the opposite. If you think of half hearted soul often we find ourselves thinking about a situation where we say, I feel half hearted, I feel soul destroyed, I feel like I'm leaving half myself at the door when I walk in.

That's the opposite of what I'm talking about. So often we can get a sense of that from, thinking about what it doesn't feel like. And for me, the whole idea of whole-hearted really was stitched down in my mind when, through my podcast, where Mark Nepo, talking with, Elizabeth Gilbert, chooses that as a word to share.

And he reads from his poem, Breaking Surface, and he says, let no one keep you from your journey. And I think that whole idea of how we can show up fully in our lives, whatever shape that looks like, is what drives my work and what I really encourage people to do.

Nigel Rawlins: Alright, so how are people going to find you? How would you suggest?

Terri Connellan: I'd love to connect with people, my website is quietwriting. com and on social media I'm at writingquietly on most platforms and I'm also on LinkedIn as Terri Connell.

Nigel Rawlins: And I'll put all these in the show notes so people can find you. And if they want to purchase your book, where's the best place for that?

Terri Connellan: If they head to quietwriting. com forward slash books, you'll see Wholehearted there and the companion workbook with links to where you can purchase. It's available in paperback and ebook.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, lovely. Fantastic. All right. Terry, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast. It's been wonderful speaking with you. Thank you.

Terri Connellan: Thank you so much Nigel. It's been great to have the opportunity to speak with you.