Welcome to the I. Q. Meets EQ podcast. I'm Jacqui Brauman, principal solicitor at T. B. A. Law and Ceo of legally wise women and as always I'm here with Ush Dhanak former corporate lawyer, then head of HR and now an emotional intelligence coach, high Ush hey, Jackie, how are you going? Yeah, well, thank you. How are you? Good, good. I can't believe it's already 2021. That's right. And while it's the second podcast for the year, it's only the first time we've chatted since new york, correct in a way, but also as you say, like we're so far into january, it's also like, oh, has that happened right, so quick? How has that happened? That's right. Where is the brake gone? Yeah, I know. It feels for me, it feels like there hasn't really been a break. It's sort of gone really quick and january is blown by sort of just had the public holidays off and the days here and there.

And it was sort of the first christmas without JIA properly. So that was a bit like, oh my God, it feels really weird. The part of me was like, it wasn't even christmas, oh, so different. So different this year. Yeah. Yeah, I certainly feel like I had a great break and I feel like I'm clinging onto it because I am really struggling to get my productivity back. I'm really struggling to do all the things that I used to do and I'm struggling to care as much as I used to about whether those things are done or not. Yeah, but you say that like that's a problem. I think you're probably putting too much pressure on yourself to go from 0 to 100 by the sounds of it. Mm hmm. Maybe. Yes. It's a bizarre kind of feeling because usually the start of the year is really motivating and you've got all the plans for the year and you start making things happen.

But now I'm like, why did I book that in for myself? I could not be staffed, yep. I think that's probably what it is. The expectation of going back into it literally just because a date on the calendar in january says that you have to, it's almost like your body hasn't caught up with, you know, the dates on the calendar yet and your mind hasn't caught up and that's okay. It's almost like you just need to go, you know what? I am going to get back into it because you know, you will As much as you'd like to have the whole of 20, off, it's not gonna happen. I think just go with the flow a little bit in this one. Mm hmm. Yeah, maybe the start of the year is the first of feb for me. Yeah, after Australia day. Right? Just take it easy until that's all done. Yeah. Okay. That's a good plan. I'll take one, take it off, take, take january off the office Or are you still well, yeah, I am. I never really stopped going into the office and the majority of us are back in into a usual pattern.

Yeah, it definitely feels a bit better now than it did last year that's for sure. But I still don't feel we've got any sense of normality and you know in new south Wales, we've still got masks and I was a bit cheeky, you know, I sort of don't really want to wear them so you know sort of had it half on, half off and it was interesting yesterday just people sort of not saying but looking and then almost feeling the same. Well she hasn't got it, I don't want it. So I saw a few people start taking theirs off and I had gear with me, she's like put your mask on, she's like one of those so in the end on the right to put it back on. But yeah, it's it's getting a bit better. I think it's better if we don't have compulsory masks that's for sure. Yeah, we've still got masks to, they eased them back just to shopping centers. So at least that's a little bit of a change. But in some ways it's worse. I felt that when we had to wear masks everywhere, even if we were just walking outside, it reminded us that there was something that we needed to be aware of and stay aware of and I think that when they took the maths away again the first time we all just sort of bounce back and thought ah this is over and then there was obviously that little scare over christmas and then we're back to two masks again, I should have just keep them, I've bought so many fashionable masks that I've got something different to wear with every outfit that I'm good, amazing.

So yeah, I mean interesting reflection because we're not just bubbly and jumping up and down about the new year either of us, are we? No, and I think it's it's that case isn't it? We're just sort of easing back in I think when we did the last episode we probably thought oh yeah that's great, get 2020 Behind us and you're right, bounce back into 2021 and I think we're both still in that process of alright were there but we're not at the level we thought we would be no bounce, no bounce, no not yet anyway. I mean it's been busy though, it's not like it's not been busy I sort of Yeah I was back at work on the fourth, it was pretty full on. Well they say it's good to be busy, it's just the level of dizziness I guess, isn't it? That's right. Exactly yeah, so I chatted with kelly badge and it was recorded this before christmas and yeah it was a great chat about a couple of aspects but also a chat with another great woman in a another professional service that I haven't had too much exposure to with the accounting, It really sort of opened my eyes to how broad accounting specialization is as well, kelly badge went and launched a new business during Covid.

So she's one of the two partners at forensic solutions, litigation support in Melbourne, where they prepare a lot of valuations for businesses, for husbands and wives during family law proceedings, mainly as an expert witness and then also business valuations for directors and shareholders that are arguing. She's originally from country victoria, just like me. So let's listen. All right, kelly, Welcome to the podcast. How are you? I'm good, Jackie. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, no worries. I'm excited to dig deeper because I know that you've been a listener and so, you know the format and you've contacted me a couple of times around some of the conversations we've had. So I want to dig in and like I said, find out about your journey and a lot more, a lot deeper than we've gone before. So, absolutely, it sounds good. I know you grew up in the country. I did. That's right. I grew up in Central victoria. So, initially on a dairy farm as a young kid, primary school aged kid and then moved to Europa up in Central victoria, mid primary school and then finished all of my childhood and schooling up in Euro before coming to Melbourne for, for university.

So what did you want to be when you were growing up? So, really as a country kid and coming from a family that were non professionals as well, really your career is or it was sort of pivotal around what you were good at at school. You know, I didn't really have too much exposure to professionals or anybody else outside of my friends group or what their parents were doing. So it came down to what I was good at school. So probably nine I think was a pivotal point for me. Oh, year 10 around, you know, a couple of subjects at school that I thought I was good at or enjoyed. So I did like doing the Architectural drawings that we had in some of our graphic design classes. So I really sort of gravitated towards that. And I was also good at accounting. So when it came to, you know what I can sexually see as a 15 year old and where I would or could end up accounting was for me because it was the class that I did the best at And at that time there were tv shows on that my girlfriends and I would watch and you'd see people in professional suits going, I want to do that when I grow up.

I want to be able to wear a suit because of course none of my family even owned a suit, let alone, you know, the only time you'd see his suit would be at a funeral in the country or a wedding. Mm a celebration. Yeah. Either of you know, life or the end of life. So that was probably an aspirational point for me. And so you know, if you find something that you're good at, you tend to just focus on that and see how far you can take that. So that was pretty much my inspiration for my, I still want to count it today. So yeah, I love the inspiration of all the tv shows with the suit wearing. Yeah, absolutely. So as a comparison, I mean, I went to public school in Northeast victoria like you as well And the expectations of girls in the 90s was pretty low in terms of what a career might be. Did you get a similar experience where you, one of the few who actually went and named ty?

Yeah, I probably was one of the few, we only had a small cohort of students that finished year 12 or went through year 12 at that time. I think there were about 40 of us in the school and it was a regional high school public school. We had some mature aged students. So some of the moms had come back to school as well, which was unusual for the school and we also didn't have the capacity to run all of the VC subjects that students wanted either. So for example, our physics class was run with Alexandra secondary college or high school. So we did and it was all by phone because there was no zoom back then. So that was, that was a challenge. Learning physics over a telephone connection and we did do an excursion once in the year to go over and meet the students that were on the class with as well. So that was quite an interesting episode. But you know, I think I probably was that sort of higher end of the school where they could see that I was someone that could potentially get into university and I guess, you know, the school were pretty good in still driving you or encouraging you to push as far as you could.

Obviously science was that there were quite a number of science classes that were offered at school. So stem was just starting to come in. Although we didn't call it that back then. And I think it was not necessarily that women could move into science, It was more the fact that you could try something a little bit more difficult than humanities class or accounting or anything like that. So yeah, I think that the school was good in that sense, but I don't think we had career advisers or anything like that at school. I was really just, You know, by the time you hit year 10 or 11 and you were in the country and you were thinking that you might like to go to university and maybe get your parents to drive you down to Melbourne to some of the open days and do a little bit of your own research at that point. And I think we had like universities guide or something I remember looking at and and plowing through all the job descriptions and what everything sounded like and most of them just did not make sense to you know 17 16 17 year olds, you guys don't understand that but you try and choose something that you kind of can't understand and and seems like something that might be of interest and you just give it a crack.

I think it's pretty much that you operated. Yeah. So did you do a straight accounting degree straight away? Is that what you went and did? I did. So I had probably an easier transition into city life as a kid. I ended up at Latrobe in Pandora. So there was on the outskirts of the city there are a lot of trees still straight back up the hume highway to home every weekend if I needed to or school or university holidays. So yeah it was definitely just a straight commerce degree. Even that in itself there were really not a lot of decisions to make because the degree was set around the prerequisites to then becoming a professional accountant and getting your C. A. Or C. P. A. Training. So there was a lot of structure even around the university degree that I did. Mhm. Yeah. So then and it's similar for lawyers as well so you get your degree but then you're pretty useless with a degree you can't do much so you have to go and do the extra bit to be able to work.

So. Yes. Did that look like for you? And where did you do your first bit of work? Yes. So what that looks like like most uni students that are going into accounting or you've then got that final year of trying and at the start of that final year to try and find a position in one of the accounting firms. If you're lucky enough to get an internship then that would generally set you up. Well I wasn't the university that I went to went huge on sort of pursuing internships so I started just that grad recruitment process at the start of the third year of uni and it was just a matter of reaching out to all of the mid tier top tier firms in the in the CBD and going through that process. So it's an intense few months and a lot of you know I remember the first suit that I bought to come in to go to one of those graduate recruitment sessions and it was a navy pinstripe long skirt and jacket and like you just would not be able to wear it these days but it was such a cool look and I felt so professional and you walk into the base of the building and the most spectacular buildings you've ever seen as a country kid.

And I think I went through maybe four or five different recruitment drives for different firms and ended with a role at Picture Partners, which is a mid tier or large, mid tier accounting firm now. And at that point their roles for graduates were quite broad. So you would enter a general accounting group. So you would have a lot of experience around preparing tax returns, financial statements, doing some auditing as well as management accounts that was really Fbt and a few other tax time matters as well. So it was quite a broad beginning, which was excellent as a graduate, being a country kid. I think I was also sort of gravitating towards the clients that they had based out in the country as well. So I would find myself traveling quite a bit up into, back into central victoria to a number of clients up there. So, you know, I had a couple of timber clients, sawmills, so really sort of blow key country type environments.

But you know, I felt at home in those environments anyway. So, you know, I was more than happy to be able to get in the car and drive up to a client, you know, four or five times a year And mm hmm, learn more of the intricacies of accounting but still being able to apply that almost in a home like environment for me that I was so used to growing up in. Yeah, that sounds great. It's the broader the experience you get the earlier I think it often sets you up really well. Yes. Being a country girl myself. I think with so little exposure to that corporate world, it was even more important to have a broader exposure to work out what you actually wanted to do to. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think as you move through your career and you start to get ingrained in your line of work and the areas of expertise that you sort of move into, you start to understand just how broad accounting is and that that is multifaceted.

And although I'm still an account and I've moved through many different areas of accounting over my career and I think that's fascinating to see as well and watch that evolve as you get more experience and move through different firms as well. Yeah. Yeah. And so you've moved through some firms but now you're out on your own correct. Yes. And you also, I suppose talking about specializing of really focused down on forensic accounting, haven't you? Absolutely. I have. So that was a bit of a path within itself actually. So after doing a few years as a general accountant, I used to sit over the petition from the insolvency team and I would hear their conversations all the time and they were the most fascinating conversations and so for me, you know, I was sort of sitting on on the other side of the petition almost thinking maybe the grass is greener on the other side and maybe I'd like to have a bit of more knowledge around, you know, what the insolvency sphere of the accounting area looks like.

So, as part of my professional studies, I actually moved and did a CPA delegation as opposed to see ah because they offered a specific subject in insolvency, which I did do that subject as part of my accreditation, liked what I had heard across the fence, liked what I had studied and decided that I'd move my career in that direction as well and that was an area that I was interested in. So as I was moving along that path and to be able to do that, I needed to move firm because it didn't have a position available for me in the firm that I was at. But in looking at other positions, I came across a really unique role with the commonwealth government body. It's a at the time, which is the insolvency trustee services of Australia. They actually oversaw and managed the proceeds of crime files from a commonwealth perspective. So very different from a firm environment. I actually applied for the commonwealth role and I was successful. So I moved into that role for a short period of time, got in there and they didn't have or they hadn't had anybody in the proceeds of crime area managing that for a good six months.

So the files had been left untouched and there was a bit of work to do on those. So it took me about six months to get them back into order to get the communication rolling again. And to really open up the lines of communication with the DPP and Australian Federal Police as well. The three organizations had to work quite closely with one another because quite often we'd have assets that were confiscated and once the matter was finished they would be handed over to and we were then to deal with those assets. So we needed to have that really good communication between all three departments to ensure the smooth completion of files. That was an extremely interesting role. And really opened my eyes up to the forensic nature of matters. Yeah, it sounds fascinating. Yeah, it was I learned a lot, learned a lot about life actually in that role as well. And you know, a different side of life and the ramifications of, you know, at one point we were asked to go out to a factory, there was a piece of machinery that had been used to import drugs into Australia.

And as part of the peculiar penalty order, we had this massive plastic injection molding machine that needed to be disposed of. So I needed to go out and get basically a scrap metal person to come out to the premises, have a look at it, give us a quote on the value of the items so that we could then effectively destroyed the cash and and put that into the government bank account. But in the process, the police hadn't quite finished cleaning up the scene. So there are a couple of piles of white powder sitting on the floor and as a country girl, I'm still, you know, a bit naive to the ways of city life. Surely that's not leftovers from the hall that they had uncovered through this machinery. And I don't know to this day whether it was because the police went out there at that point in time, but I suspect that it wasn't, they just hadn't quite cleaned up. So, you know, I think that open certainly opened up my eyes city life definitely. But then That role I did for about 12 months and then moved into the insolvency role that I had initially planned on moving into and had about 2.5 years experience at that insolvency is a very particular area of accounting and I think you really need a particular way of dealing with things and mentality and for me, I'm very much a person who likes to assist people and you can in insolvency, but it's a really negative environment to be in like you are dealing with people who are at the most lowest of points rear in their life if it's a personal insolvency matter and it takes a toll.

And my husband actually works in insolvency as well. So it wasn't great having two people in the insolvency industry in the one household. So I'm more of an optimist and a pessimist I think. So that there was a change that needed to take place more for me internally though as well, it just wasn't the right fit for me. So at that point I then had already started studying a master's in forensic accounting. So I finished my accreditation and decided that I hadn't quite finished studying. And I tend to find that I keep sort of pushing through life in trying to expand one alleged your interests through study pieces of paper for the wall. Absolutely. So at the point of finishing my accreditation and realizing that I felt that I hadn't quite finished my study, I went to a careers forum in the Melbourne Town Hall and the University of Lola Gong were there with the stall, our stand advertising their master's in forensic accounting.

Oh, well that's very different. So I started studying my masters and halfway through that when I decided that insolvency probably wasn't right for my personality type, that I would move and try and align my career more in line with the forensic accounting, I managed to find a role quite quickly, that sort of a fairly, not really junior, but sort of, you know, a couple of tiers above um to that allowed me to get in and and space to learn as well because I had some of the textbook knowledge but not the on the ground experience. Although I had already had experiencing preparing financial statements whereas really that forensic accounting is undoing and pulling apart the financial statements. So certainly the auditing the account preparation and taxation had a massive input into being able to understand the role that a forensic accountant has in sort of trying to unfold it.

The insolvency once again dealing with situations where businesses had collapsed and that certainly assisted as well. And you know the proceeds of crime in the street smarts that also helps as well. And so from there it was just a matter of honing in on that that forensic accounting learning as much as I could from some really preeminent forensic experts and taking it from there. Yeah. Fantastic. And for all those thinking that it's sexy it's not sexy. No no numbers but certainly not with hard evidence or bodies or anything else. No. Quite often people say oh forensic accounting what does that mean? What does it actually do? And I said well it's a bit C. S. I. But we're not really we don't actually see any physical bodies or anything else. There's no blood spatters that we've got to analyze or anything like that. Yeah. Alright so the decision to go out on your own. Yes so that's just recent it's happened through Covid.

I mean so many people have had to change or pivot pivot is such an overused word during Covid, but I think it's reflective of where everybody has been, whether it's their personal life and having to homeschool kids or whether it's a business environment and having to effectively move everything back home, set up home officers work out how you run as efficiently as you can in any environment. So Covid has provided me the opportunity to effectively start up my practice forensic solution, still doing the forensic accounting. And I've joined forces with a fellow forensic expert who had worked with for a decade before my last firm. So he was the expert that I initially started out with a couple of others, which is great. Yes. So we've reunited and set up a firm together and have launched forensic solutions together. So it's been given, it's really given us the opportunity to reflect on, you know, where the marketplace is at the moment and the niche areas that we can service just being a firm of two people as well as being smaller and nimbler and understanding that there is a big unmet need there that couldn't afford probably where you were before.

Exactly. And to be flexible around fee arrangements and everything that professional services firms sometimes struggle with and particularly at sort of that mid level. Um, and during Covid as well, I did a little bit more study, imagine that. Um, and did a collaborative law course as well. So once again, that sort of dovetails into what we do and my area of expertise around that financial peace. Um, and particularly with the the aspect of family law, which we operate in quite significantly as well, and being able to assist parties being able to work through their separation and settle that outside of the court system. So a lot of the work that we do is within the court system, but there's other alternatives. So it was opening my eyes to what those other alternatives are and how my services can be applied in that different setting, which has been liberating.

It's been really interesting to see. And it's for me, I guess, really great to know that my services can go across all of those facets, whether that's, you know, within the legal sphere or, or collaborative and outside. So very much that's been great. Yeah. Another little area to explore, which is fantastic. Yeah, it is. And it's um I mean, it's still hard work, but it feels like perhaps you're closer to what you realized you wanted to do when you're in insolvency, which was to help people. Absolutely, yeah, it's great. So, I just also want to touch on something we were talking about before we hit recording because you are, you know, you're a high performer, you're doing a million things, you've got a home life to look after as well. Um you study while you work full time and we were talking before about having checklists in our head and being as efficient as possible with our tasks, Tell me about that conversation you had with your husband, this is just on the weekend.

And my husband was sitting at the table and we had breakfast and I barely finished my breakfast cup of tea and I'm up and off doing the next thing. He said, do you sit down ever and just, you know, take a moment. I said, I've got I've got like 1000 things on a to do list in my head right now, and I've just got to get through them. And he said, looked at me blankly, I said, don't you have a checklist that you run through in your head? And he said, no, I said, not at all. He said, no, I said, don't you have something like, you know, you've got things to do? He said, no, not really. I said, well I certainly do, I've got a checklist. And you know, I said, my checklist will go for, you know, there's days to a week of tasks that need to be done. But I said, not only am I working through my checklist, I'm actually working through it on a, you know, 5, 10 minute timeframe for you know what I need to do now, what I need to do in the next hour and what can I chunked together and get done at the same time, so if I can, you know, I knew I had some errands to run.

I thought, right, if I drop one kid off of sports and then I call past buntings and pick that up and I go and get the bread and then I come home. I've chunked down three things off my to do list and I've done it in the one trip and that's great. That's sort of, you know, you kind of feel a sense of relief to go right, there's three things off my list. I just keep working down the list of the others. And you just looked at me blankly and said, I don't do a checklist. I said, okay, I didn't, I didn't go down the avenue of look, I didn't want to generally sit and I didn't want to genderless it either. I guess if that's a word, so I didn't want to say Maybe that's just cause your mail and you just don't think three steps or 10 steps ahead. I think it comes down to people's personality to be honest. I think males do have some males, if they choose to have a checklist in their head going constantly and it's constant real. And you know, maybe that's one of my downfalls. I know I've got a checklist and it takes a fair bit of work to turn it off when you need to turn up and I think it comes down to, when people say, you know, they'll go on a holiday and they need two days to settle into their holiday before they can start and relax.

And I, I think the number one question for them would be, do you have an internal checklist that is constantly ticking over for you? And is it that you've got to hit the pause button and it just takes a while to reel itself back and slow down to actually sitting in a pause mode? Yeah, and I'm giggling because my mind works exactly the same and it's such a relief to hear that other people are just as crazy. It's a relief when we had the conversation. Okay, so I'm not completely losing my bibles and maybe I am kind of normal and a weekend is not long enough to stop the checklist from running either if I have a day where I'm not doing the task on my checklist. My God, do I feel anxious about the next day, making sure I can get through everything on the checklist to do that as well. And I almost think that sometimes you put a pause on the checklist and you might get three quarters of the way through the day and you know, I'm going to impress that pause. I'm gonna knock a couple of things off because then I might actually feel a bit of relief that I've actually achieved something today and then I'll fully release the handbrake tomorrow and just keep burning through that checklist.

Yeah. The other thing you reached out to me about was some of the things that I had expressed in one of the episodes about always trying to prove myself as a regional person, and maybe some of the perceptions that I think others hold of me versus what they actually might, and you had some reflection around that too. What do you think I did have some reflection around that? And, you know, I think we, you know, I find that I don't necessarily call out my background too, people within the professional spheres, and quite often, I will certainly say that I've come from the country quite often, people will pick it up though as well, and I think that comes across once again, it's a personality trait, people in the country, I think, I wouldn't say more naive, but they're more open, generally more open book, happy to have a conversation or strike up a conversation. Um, but then, you know, and I generally don't take it to the next level of, you know, what my upbringing was, and the fact that, you know, I'd come from a single parent family, and I've grown up in a commission home and, you know, I did not come from the traditional city spheres of a private school with a whole lot of connections and, you know, when I was earlier on in my career, and probably even still today, um it was certainly something that I wouldn't bring up in conversation and I wouldn't even take conversation down that route, because I didn't really want to talk about, I guess too much and reveal that thinking that I would have a perception made upon me by others in the room, not one of pity, but one that, you know, you look at almost looking down on you maybe, or second guessing, you know, why you're there or what road you had to take to get to that point, you know, I think from, from the way that I sort of look at it, you know, there was an opportunity that ever presented itself throughout my career, just took the opportunity and ran with it and did the best that you could with it, and, you know, if it didn't work out, it didn't work out, but at least you gave it a go.

And I think it was more that attitude that I took from my upbringing, just like, you know, if you see a scary of an opportunity, then grab it and just run with it and, you know, learn from it and see how far you can you can push it and work with it and and what other doors open up as a result of it as well, Really good learning from that. Very much so, and around not telling people about things because of perception. I also think that it's, it's almost, it's just your feeling that there will be a greater divide between you and them. It's not even what they may think about it. It's just you want to be on the same page and you are professionally. So why put any element of doubt in there about that is sometimes what it is, too, isn't it? Absolutely. And I think, you know, for professionals that are, you know, you don't even have to be at the same age level, but generally the conversation will go along the lines of, you know, do you have Children?

And then you'll find a common element around that, or, you know, what activities do you do outside of your professional life? Are you a cyclist or are you a runner? And, you know, you'll generally find an area of commonality that you then start to build that rapport and a personal relationship or a deeper relationship with somebody as opposed to delving back to your childhood and your upbringing and which school you went to. But I guess, because I knew that I would not very rarely find someone that had the same sort of upbringing. You just didn't really go there. It's not, you know, I didn't know all of the private schools in Melbourne. So, if they brought up a school, I did not have a clue of where that school was, whether it was a private or a public school. And it didn't matter to me either. I think that's one of the other things that, you know, there's I didn't have a perception around the fact that I will see you went to a particular school and therefore you're smarter than me. Like it's something that sort of entered my mind I guess.

So, I didn't ever sort of take conversation there either for that reason, but I couldn't hold a conversation an equal level either because I didn't have the knowledge of the Melbourne um schools, so it was easier not to take the conversation there. Yeah, Yeah. Knowing everything that you know now, what would you go back and tell yourself in that third year of university? What advice would you give to yourself? I would probably say to myself that I needed to be confident internally. And by that, I mean, being, being someone that comes from the country, you tend to be a bit more open and happy to have a conversation with anybody and people might see that as soon as you have in confidence. But I think that that internal confidence is the ability to try and subdued that imposter syndrome. So that questioning around and am I worthy? Should I be here? Why am I here? What if I'm found out? What are they going to find out anyway?

Like that that whole self doubt and imposter syndrome. But I think that is such a common thing for so many women men as well, but women in particular And actually the whole confidence pieces really interesting. I just had a conversation actually with my trainee solicitor about that this morning because we've also got a work experience student here at the moment, but his work experience doing his law degree and he's 30 odd. Also, yes. Um whereas my trainee solicitor having finished her degree, she's more like 23 or 24. Yeah. And we were reflecting on him and how sometimes confronting it was that he was so confident in just immediately asking, yeah, I'm not scared of coming forward and saying, you know, I need to know their sunny to know this. What about this blah blah blah. Whereas both of us in our own heads would go, okay, I need to ask this, how do I ask that?

When's the right time to ask that if I ask that, will I sound stupid, blah blah blah? We have this whole internal conversation with ourselves and yet yeah, this this guy is confident enough just to go just to ask and like it's refreshing, but it's also confronting because we don't do it. No, I think we have the question, we might research, we might try and solve it so that when we actually go to ask the question, we think we might know the answer. And if we don't know the answer, we've got ourselves into such a flat panic because we've tried to find the answer, whereas we should have taken a leaf out of his book and just going, you know what? I know there's an issue here, find someone that you trust is going to not knock you down a peg or two as in not make you feel inferior but actually go, okay. So I actually know the answer to that one. Let's work through this together and support you through it and mentor you through it. So very, I think a very good point that we need to sometimes take into account that you know, sometimes you just got to ask the question last question to keep yourself well, well we've heard about the checklist checklist, but other little well being tips because you don't just sit and give yourself a moment.

So we've heard that you don't do that. What things do you do to check in that you're going okay. Um how did you check in with yourself that you were doing? Well, you know, with covid changes and all the stress around your own business and all those things. You know, some little things that you do for your well being. There's probably a few things that I do. I've got a really good support network of friends of girlfriends. So I will check in with them every now and again and particularly if you're feeling a little anxious or like you're not losing control, but you're a bit, you know, just having that one of those moments and I generally try and check in with my friends group and just have a conversation, not even necessarily about what's in your mind, but just to try and remove your mind from what it's going trying to internally process at the time and just have a break. So I think it's about giving yourself a break from the situation that you're in at the time. So for me, you know, it might be, you know, I'll go into a bit of gardening or I might do something to satisfy my creative side of the brain.

So, you know, I love baking cakes and decorating them. So if I really need a bit of head space, then old planner cake and go and do that, I'll decorate that or do something with the kids along that line. So it's turning your brain off from what it's focused on and probably bogged down in at the time to then give yourself a bit of space and a break and give your brain a different way of processing a different activity altogether, walks out a bit of fresh air also helps. So I think it depends on where you're at that particular point in time, how much time you've got to be able to give yourself that headspace as well. Sometimes you don't have a whole lot of time. So if that's the case, then breaking the cake might not have the time to be able to focus on that. Actually might stretch yourself out more because it won't necessarily work out the way you're hoping to in that space of time, but it might be that on that internal to do list, that little garden bed is doing my head in because there's a whole lot of weeds there.

Maybe if I take the space and time, get the fresh air, go and do that little job, takes it off my internal list. But it's also given me some chill out time as well and then get back into it. So I think you know, it's compartmentalizing different activities in your brain as well. It's very neuroscience of you to think that way. Thank you so much for your time. It's wonderful. Great conversation. Thank you. So, we're going to give everyone links to your new business website as well but is linked in the best place as well to connect with your personal link. Absolutely, yes. So linkedin or forensic solutions dot com dot au um, and my email address and mobile phone numbers on the website as well. Very generous. Thank you. So yes, thank you so much kelly for your time. Thanks Jackie. So I think a couple of things about my chat with kelly, like I love reflecting on, particularly because of our chat just now about how our minds work with all these checklists and to do lists that we have in our mind and how we segregate our day up to try and get everything done and make it as efficient as possible.

And yes, as I said earlier, my checklist is just not working at the moment. Yeah, I was actually gonna pick that point up to funny you mentioned that as your starting point of the interview? And it made me laugh listening to you both at that point of the interview too. And I think it's not only you and I, you know, a few people I've spoken to have said that they haven't got back into the swing of things. And I think part of it is the uncertainty of what's still going on out there. But I think also the other part of it is that everyone had an expectation that the new year would bring about certain things for them. And it hasn't. And I think the fact that it hasn't brought what we probably thought it was going to bring is throwing us into it is to go, well, I don't really know what to do or how to deal with this. And for me, it's sort of just been let go of the control and surrender a bit to be honest. And and go with the flow. So for me, what that looks like is still doing the non negotiable for me, which is my morning routine. And I think it's it's keeping things in the day that you can control that make you feel good.

So for you, it will be your exercise and you're walking and you're running and your dogs and the routine around that. And then I think the rest of it is I'm going to just go where the date hates me. And I think that's okay too. Mm hmm. Bush answer. Yeah. And I just think why are we putting so much pressure on ourselves to be a certain way? And you know what? It's not even the end of january and we're doing this to ourselves. Well, yeah, no, that's right. Um it's just I guess that because january feels so this january feels so differently from other Januarys and we do have an expectation. But it's funny that we have an expectation around such an arbitrary calendar date when we can, you know, restart our life, I guess any fresh day, can't we? Mhm Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, for me it's about going in the flow really. Um and I think it's funny you mentioned that thing about time, I did a subconscious hypno session doing about four of them with them with a friend of mine in the UK and he was talking exactly about this.

So he got me to fly into my subconscious mind, which is pretty cool, meditative state. And he said there's a clock in front of you and it's a large clock. That's, you know, four times the size of you. So you got to climb onto the hands and he says instead of numbers on the clock, there are words like certainty now in three months, four months, five months, six months. And he said, I just want you to move the hands of that clock to say now. Okay. So you did that and then he goes that now come in, whatever it means to you whenever it means to you, that you want to take action, you want to be in the state of being. And I thought that was really powerful. It's exactly what you say is that we can change that time to be when we want it to be. Yeah, maybe before you hit record, you know, you said that your time might be first of feb Yes, yep, maybe first of feb can be the start of the new year and if it doesn't seem quite right, maybe the first of March, because that's a monday as well, just keep pushing it back or then maybe it's second quarter or after easter or maybe just started christmas might as well.

That's right, that's right, we've written 2020 off, let's write 2021 off as well. Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the things I did to ease back into it is outside of the delivery, which is just in the calendar anyway, it was to focus on one thing and and for me that was, I had some really cool interviews lined up. So for me it was like, okay, I'm just going to focus on getting through those. I've got one today, I did one last week and for me that was cool just to go, that's my focus for january is the interviews outside of normal client delivery? Yeah, Yeah. Good way to focus. And because we feel this way, I wonder now how kelly's feeling now we're into january because you know, she started a new business during Covid as well. And so she had that extra hustle and uncertainty during that period and now the hope of the New year and the dizziness of it all. Yeah, it'll be interesting.

Well, we beat to get an update from her. Yeah. Look, I think the few people that I've spoken to that have started businesses in Covid are actually doing quite well. So, you know the fact that they've started a business in Covid shows there's been a need for what they do. So I think the majority of them, I know the ones that I've had a chat with there is a sense of excitement to go, you know what, This is something new we've created Over COVID and and to keep the momentum of that up into 2021. Yeah. Yeah. What a great mindset. Mm hmm. So what is the one thing that you want to sort of focus on? I guess between january and february to get you back in your routine? To be honest. I don't know if I want to go back to the same routine that I've had for so long. It's been Intense and a lot of people have been talking about how, you know, they had a break in 2020 and it's helped them reassess And I didn't have a break in 2020. I was the one keeping everything going.

You know, it wasn't luck that our business revenue didn't drop and that we couldn't get job keeper. It was my never ending hustle. And so now that I've had a break over christmas, maybe I'm now having that same reassessment that so many people have had and saying, well it's not worth my health and the sacrifice of all the other bits and pieces in my life. Mm hmm. Yeah, I hear you, you're right, you didn't have the break. So now that you have, it's like, okay, I want to continue this break for the rest of the Yeah. So, I mean that's how I'm feeling now. I mean, as you say, like two weeks time I may have taken this off and be well and truly like just so motivated to do all the things again.

Um but yeah, at this point in time I'm just like, well I know I'm not doing my routine as I usually would. I'm not as productive and while I'm noticing that I'm not sure that I care so much. Hmm well that's what I'm picking up from you is the fact that you're sort of okay with that and I think that's awesome. I think it's, it's a really, really good thing. I think the old Jackie would have been fretting and stressing over the fact that you haven't got back into it, whereas you, you're actually really calm about it and okay with it, which is really refreshing to see in you Actually you should just keep the feeding going for awhile. Cool. Well that's sort of your sort of validating where I'm at too, which is good because I don't want to be told by, you know, any of my business peers or coaches at the moment that you know, I need to be accountable and need to be doing these things. I'm just like, no, no, exactly.

Right. And I think embraced that fact because knowing you how I do know you, it's rare. So I think it's a beautiful state of being. Yeah. So let's give it a couple of weeks because you're in that surrender mode. That's exactly what you are. You're not trying to purposely shift the state because you feel you have to, you're just like it is what it is. This is what I feel and you're owning that, which is huge. And I think, you know, you're almost giving other people permission to feel the same. And I'm sure there are many other people like yourself that haven't had a break or you know what, even if they did get that break in 2020 aren't ready to go back yet. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And how are you going to break out of that feeling? That you, you know, you back into it, but but not quite as productive as you could be. Yes, I've done a few drastic things in total Bush style as I do to shake things up. So there's a client of mine that I'm finishing work with after about nine months to be honest, started with them.

Covid time and it was quite time intensive and it was three days a week. It was pretty full on delivery and that's finishing at the end of the month. So there's this awesome feeling of liberation of wow. In first week of february, I'm going to have three full days back to myself to sort of work on the business and yes, there is that potential fear, which for some reason I'm not feeling of losing the income of that client, but the other part of me goes, wow, it's actually allowed space for other things to come in and focusing on some of those larger corporate clients I want to focus on. So it's actually quite exciting space to be in. For me. It's a bit novel to go, wow, I'm going to have three days to myself in a week. It's sort of like, I'm like, wow, I've decided for the first two weeks I'm just going to sleep and do nothing those three days because I don't know. Um So I think having that little break will help me get back into it and then Mhm.

Yeah. Reassessing what I want to do with that time and who I want to attract back into the business. Yes, that's the thing who you wanted to attract because I think you said at the end of last year, you know, you really want to get some more international people to work with. Mhm. Yeah. And we've, you know, we've got our BDS now that are working in the business that have been trained. So, you know, I think part of me wants to invest some of those three days into training and development of other people. Cool. The focus of 20, being that the business isn't just a one man band and me mm hmm. In like a let go of a little bit of that control. Yeah, I mean that's huge for you too because you know, listening over some of the older episodes and you were talking about leadership and how you did lead a team, but now you by yourself, it's hard for you to delegate and lead. But you're coming back into that again, I am and it's a whole different skill set. It really is. It's like, you know, when you run your own business and you're on your own, you where every single hat and you beat yourself up, you're hard on yourself.

You drive yourself to the ground is what you do and what I realized and this is I know we've had chats about this, it's a reflection from what you've said is other people will not have the same care or ethic as you do and it doesn't mean that they're not working or they're not being productive. It just means it's not the same as yours. I've totally embraced that. And let people be them. Mm hmm. And trust that they're going to do what needs to be done to get the results. And I'm getting a tattoo in two weeks. Good. The Sanskrit one. Yes, surrender. Because it's exactly what 2021 is for me. So yeah. So you found someone who could read it. Thank God. Yes. It doesn't say my bitch or something like that. Yeah. And it says surrender. So that's going to be happening in the next few weeks. But yeah, it's a really good reminder of being the flow. It is. That's great. Look at us how far we've come so different to how we would have started Our energy and pace at the beginning of 2020.

That's for sure. When we didn't even know that COVID was around the corner completely. Yes. Well, welcome everyone to 2021. Yeah. We want to hear your comments. If you're feeling like us, let us know. You can go to like you meets EQ to leave comments directly on the episodes or we're both on linkedin. And where else can people find you? I'm on insta at underscore eq. Oh, great. That's where people are being sent this year. That's awesome. And yeah, you can find my email at legally wise women dot com dot au. We'll catch you next fortnight