Self unLimited - Stories of the Brave

Eps 62: Deb Marks on transitions from employed to self-employed and back again by Published by Questo

Brayden shares how he navigates his workscape while living with physical impairments, offering a candid look at the real challenges and practical adjustments that make meaningful work possible. He speaks openly about what being “abled” means on his own terms, and reflects on what peers and managers can do—from recruitment to day-to-day support—to genuinely include and empower someone like him. His story invites deeper understanding, not just accommodation.

Soph shares her journey of embracing neurodiversity as a strength and a cause. She explores challenges and ways workplaces can better support neurodiverse individuals and mental wellbeing, including learning about mental health first aid. Her experiences inspire action for inclusivity, showcasing the value of diverse thinking and creating spaces where neurodiversity is celebrated.

Premila shares her journey of rethinking her career path, stepping into mentorship, and finding fulfillment in shaping her own workscape. She reflects on the transformative decision to design her career on her terms, rather than climbing traditional corporate ladders. Through stories of early mentorship experiences and participation in board governance, Premila offers insights into embracing self-directed growth, confronting self-doubt, and helping others unlock their potential.

Geeta Pyne shares her experiences of fostering collaboration and supporting others in their workscape. She highlights the value of building trust, creating connections, and helping people unlock their potential. Geeta reflects on the power of embracing growth, offering practical insights for anyone looking to cultivate personal fulfilment in their work.

Delia shares how three defining threads of core values have shaped her learning, her quests and her activism in a life that is 78 years young. These threads providing an intentional focus to what's meaningful to her. With a healthy dose of reflection and journalling, she follows a simple framework that provides wisdom for how to participate in life and in groups with clarity of purpose.

Darryl Carr shares his journey as introvert who has become a connector extraordinaire. With Helen Palmer, he talks about the power of building professional relationships. He emphasises a community-centric mindset and the value of shared experiences. With practical tips and personal insights, Darryl offers inspiration for anyone looking to expand their workscape village and grow professionally.

Em Ruzvidzo shares about her experience of taking a month-long sabbatical from work. It was a time of introspection that helped her gain valuable perspective for what comes next in following her passions. It's not the first time, she's taken time out from work. She learnt in her 20s from her aunt about the value of rest to prevent burnout and maintain alignment with one's purpose.

Troy shares about his personal experience of an experiment to have 30 conversations in 30 days. It's just one of the ways he makes it a priority to connect with others in his workscape because he values deep, meaningful interactions. In his experiences lie insights for enhancing one's networking skills, fostering meaningful connections, and understanding the broader impact of relationships on workscape success.

Logan sees the beauty of life through a unique lens shaped by his love of nature, puzzles, and the connection he finds in playful experiences. He talks with Helen about his interests, sliding door moments and agency. He shares how he crafted an autobiographical game, which is a deep dive into pivotal events and decisions that shaped him. He demonstrates how he embraces vulnerability, introspection and the human spirit's capacity for growth. Learn more about his tabletop game at https://breathingstories.itch.io/logan and his work with game design colleagues at Amble Studio (https://amble.studio/).

Ingrid Jones shares with Helen her transformative journey into daily journaling. She reveals how this practice has enabled her to deeply examine her emotions and reactions, offering her valuable insights for personal growth. Ingrid shares some highs and lows of her life, illustrating how journaling has become a crucial tool for self-understanding and emotional resilience. She offers a taster session for those who want to try out the journalling framework she created and follows. Learn more at https://www.journalwithingrid.com/

Phoebe dances literally and figuratively between Samoan and Western cultures embracing both in her professional world. Her unique way of working is harmonious movement with the rhythms of nature. Drawing on indigenous knowledge, she embodies a gentle consideration of herself and others in her workscape. She moves forward despite fear, towards things that bring fire to her belly. And as a result she has done, and is doing, very interesting and enterprising things with her life. Like the enterprise Living Koko - learn more at https://www.livingkoko.com/

Ali (SU Ambassador) and Helen (SU Founder) celebrate the 50th episode of the series with a special session. They explore what is means to each of them to be intentionally kind and do acts of kindness in their workscapes. They muse about and unpack what kindness could mean in a work context as they seek a meaningful definition as the basis for writing a personal workscape policy on kindness.

Niko gives us a peek into how he created his diverse workscape where he creates marketing content in the automotive industry. He loves cars - they are his passion! His active involvement in various racing activities, draws attention and showcases his talents ... and readiness to walk through doors that open. One of those doors was hosting a podcast series called Car Talk - The YTG Podcast (found on all good podcast channels). It is an ideal way for him to share and fuel his passion alongside his own business Niko French media. Find more of his work at https://nikofrench.com/

Samantha shares her journey of self-discovery and employee empowerment. She's a self-starter and a content creator and this attracted a potential employer. Her content creation activity enables her to express her creative self and to help people through her passion for productivity with Google apps - which she didn't want to lose in being an employee. In exploring the new employment opportunity, she navigated the complexities of potential conflicts of interest and preserving her rights to her intellectual property. She has insights to share about how she achieved a harmonious blend of self-fulfilment and professional commitment.

Stuart riffs with Helen about taking a personal approach to knowledge management in their workscapes. There are shared stories about gaining knowledge from the experiences and interactions with others, and the value of sharing knowledge to learn. And some interesting tangents taken in curiosity, including emotional aspects of knowing, learning, creating and sharing.

Elisa Dominique Rivera shares how her creative writing fuels her day-job and her day-job fuels her creative writing in symbiotic relationship even though they are not strongly related. Her writing is an important part of her voice and well-being so she's made it an intentional part of her broader workscape. She shares about what that involves and how she makes it work. Read one of her published stories here: https://www.writersplaygroundllc.com/free-range Elisa recommends these places for creative writing support: https://writershq.co.uk and https://www.writerscentre.com.au

Rhys Paddick is a man with a mission - mixing being an educator, artist and entrepreneur on business ventures with a creative collaborator. He's using his talents to stimulate conversations (aka yarns), and new customs at the intersection of culture and organisations in Australia. He shares with Helen about how he's not been following a plan - his path has been organic as he follows what he loves and where he believes he can have a positive impact. To learn more about the Acknowledge This! training, visit https://www.acknowledgethis.com.au

Kate decided to shift to the perspective of her workscape … her career, being a series of experiments. This liberated her from an unhelpful perspective of failing, to give more room to her emotions and to expressing a more authentic self. She shares with Helen about her year of fun and the learnings that had unexpected flows in and through her workscape.

Will Snow, an employment lawyer, provides an enlightening perspective on employment law and employee-employer relations. He explains how employment law plays a role in shaping an individual's workscape, and what you can do to influence your workscape experience for mutual benefit. He also shares useful thoughts about the nuanced aspects of shaping a workscape, that benefit from an approach that isn't always legally-driven or legally-led.

Rebecca's workscape included tangling with a major medical situation. This had her reflecting on limitations and directions. With such a challenge, she found herself using techniques learnt at work to nimbly navigate a way forward without having all the answers to her questions. She shares with Helen wisdom gained across her whole (and long) workscape.

Theresa is a serial entrepreneur. She's had the opportunity to recruit and work with many people in her entrepreneurial ventures. She's observed and learnt about the mindsets and skills that are necessary for people to thrive when working in a start-up. She talks with Helen about these things so budding entrepreneurs can prepare and check for themselves about whether this is a path they might want to take.

Ket Patel loves cultivating communities. It's this desire to connect people and possibilities that led him to behave entrepreneurially - to create value for others regardless of whether he was employed to do so. The way he thinks and acts is very Self unLimited and he was doing this long before he heard of Self unLimited. His workscape is rich with stories of what he's done, and dreams for what he'll do next as he leads himself while being an employee.

Jasmine Malki doesn't have a singular career path, she's mixing it up in a portfolio career where she's consciously attending to and activating her strengths. She's on an ongoing journey to test out possibilities, explore the nuances of what gives her joy and fulfillment in work, and live her life to align with these. This gives her great energy and enables her to be effective, productive and valuable wherever she contributes her talent and experience. It just so happens she once did that working part-time in two different disciplinary areas in two different organisations. She's an example of what's possible when there's open eyes and open conversations with your employers.

Jen Holder was re-evaluating what was happening in her workscape, and what she wanted to do about it. She choose to use the Value Exchange Ledger activity to help her figure out what questions to explore, and what answers made sense. She was literally e-valu-ating what value was important and getting attention. She started with herself, and expanded this evaluation to hold important conversations with two organisations in her workscape. It was a game-changer for her.

Michelle Fotheringham 'escaped' from corporate life to work in the professional gig economy. She also created the means for others to join together in doing such work, providing an alternative pathway for organisations to access great talent. She explains about her creation, Werkling and shares advice for individuals who might take their own path to becoming a Werkling. It's a very Self unLimited way of working! Learn more about Werkling here: https://www.werkling.com/

Jacqui Williamson took an intentional break as she finished one gig in her workscape, and contemplated what next. She explains why she did this, what she did and what steps she's taken previously in her workscape to make such break-taking possible. She challenges the status quo about having 'empty' spaces in her 'resume'.

Neville Christie is 80 years young, and he's not retired. He's currently on a sabbatical as he readies himself for the next chapter in his workscape in a radically evolving future of work. He proposes bold ideas and predicts big changes for his workscape and yours. Listen out for the seven sources of income, and great advice for the young starting out and the brave ready to reset.

Michael Amsoms has added pottery making into his workscape. It is enriching his day-to-day job with insights about craft, mistakes and creativity. He shares with Helen how this came about and what he's been learning about himself as he crafts pottery artefacts and his professional practice.

Vincenzo Danilo Esposito and Bronté Jackson are special colleagues-from-another-organisation of Helen's. During the pandemic, they created a space (virtual, social, temporal) to support each other through challenges in their individual workscapes. The nature and purpose of this space emerged over time. It gave them all some 'wind beneath our wings' to explore thoughts, feelings and potential resolutions. They reflect on how it came about and what it meant to each of them. (Hear first from Vincenzo; then from Bronté.)

Anetta Pizag has been shaping her workscape with conscious decisions about when, where and how she works so that she can be productive and work smarter not harder. With her experience and insights, fuelled by a healthy dose of research, she's collated practical advice for 35 Smart Choices in her new book, so others can be their best self each day by developing their unique work style. She guides Helen in addressing four genuine challenges in Helen's workscape.

Helen talks with Cassie Goodman about self-fidelity and what it means to her. She's been on a journey to explore and shape a practice of being true to self, and restore faith in the very best version of self. It's an idea that stands out in a world when there are many voices that attempt to influence who we are or who we should be. Cassie advocates for clarifying one's own strengths and recommends starting with the VIA tool: https://www.viacharacter.org/

Helen Palmer and Dani Sirotic muse about creativity and what it means to them. They explore ideas of showing up, trying things, keeping eyes open to find new connections, placing self in different situations both to restore self and to find new things. In their everyday lives there are different things they do that are creative.

Helen talks with Catherine Grenfell about her recent action to leave the world of 'normal' work and move to a state of retirement. Well, not retiring as you might expect … she says it's a state of discoverment. She's got many things on the go that tap into and grow her abilities and interests. One project is mixing her love of books and travel in videos published on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/user/CatherineGrenfell/

Helen and Julien Leyre talk about unconventional lives and independent work choices. This includes what Julien does, who he works with and what value he seek from his work away from the mainstream. His decisions are partly based on a conscious understanding with his partner about lifestyle choices that connect to work choices. There's a deeper philosophy at play in the reign of Julien unLimited!

Helen Palmer (creator of Self unLimited) and Natasha (Tash) Redman riff on the subject of Imposter Syndrome - something they don't experience. They reflect on what they do experience, choose to do and who they listen to in their workscapes as they step into situations of not knowing, and growing.

Helen Palmer (creator of Self unLimited) talks with María Recaman in a second conversation about the challenges in finding a job and creating a workscape in a foreign country. María moved to Australia from Columbia and navigated general cultural, as well as professional cultural changes.

Helen talks with Ali Farajala, originally from Sudan, now living and working in Australia. Ali shares key moments in his journey and advice he'd give his younger self. He shares his reflections on what graduates want and how Self unLimited thinking helped him change his perspective on work and working life.

Helen and Steph Clark riff on what is work, and ways to actively create varied opportunities for having new experiences and gaining new skills. They explore being intentional, experimental and taking break periods as part of a contemporary working life.

Helen Palmer talks with Joanne Hansen about value and what's valuable to Joanne personally. It's a mix of enduring, and things that change because of context. Together they riff on different notions of finding value in work, tapping into Joanne's HR perspective.

Helen talks with Blair Morgan about how his interest and skill in music are enriching his workscape, both when he's employed and when he's on a work break. And he's not the only one benefiting from the musical experiences.

Helen talks with Wendy Grimston about how much change she's seen, and the changes she's personally made, as she celebrates 40 years in her workscape. She's had core values as her guiding light through a diversity of opportunities, and commitment to learning.

Helen talks with Lizzie Webb who works to improve the lives of those around her, creating a world of which she can be proud. In her very diverse workscape, she's mixing volunteer and paid work where she can align what she does with her values. She has great advice for others ready to contribute through volunteering.

Helen talks with Sheillah Bagayana from Uganda to get a view of the current workscape of a young bio-medical engineer working in a NFP (Fre02). Sheillah is passionate about the work she does and has a resilient learning mindset with which she navigates challenges.

Helen talks with María Recaman about her experience of being in a 'limbo state' in her workscape. She had moved to a new country and sought to find work. Two things that are challenging under normal circumstances, but she had to also contend with the early phase of the COVID pandemic. She shares about her emotions and strategies for coping and find a way through.

Helen talks with Samantha (Sam) who's venturing inside her organisation, Using Technology better. She's tapping into her creative energy for personal flow and to create new value for the small enterprise of 20 and its clients. Also in the conversation is Mike, her boss, who's supporting and backing such emergent activity with useful guardrails from strong core values that Mike's set for all team members.

Interview With Prateek Kapur by Published by Questo

Helen becomes the subject of the podcast, rather than the interviewer! The microphone is turned around so Dani Sirotic, good friend of Self unLimited asks Helen the questions. Dani probes to learn more about Helen's past workscape and what shaped her thinking in creating the Self unLimited idea. Spoiler alert - there's a recurring theme about possibilities!

Helen talks with Maire Ruane about the challenging health situation she experienced and how she's found ways to use this experience to help her thrive. She connected to her strenghts in relationships, learning and sharing and has got a buzz from purposeful activity to help others and save lives.

Helen talks with Matt Mulrine about his adventures in passionately choosing to run his own business, and what he's learnt from the challenges in this choice. Mindset is an important part! There are risks and rewards should you decide this is the life style you want.

Helen talks with Ruari Wood-Freeman about his decision to create space with a temporary break from employment with a large corporate organisation to creatively explore a different workscape. A bold decision for a young person so early in their working life!