Latest / Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves / 196: Dr. Halaina Winter - From Australian Ballet To Doctor Of Psychology

Transcript

196: Dr. Halaina Winter - From Australian Ballet To Doctor Of Psychology · Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There was one point I remember I was I was talking to my husband, now husband, and um and I said to him, I think I'm losing my mind.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is this what a stroke feels like?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like honestly, I felt so full in my head with everything that I was trying to do for the team, for my family, for myself and my degree, and that was hard.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and just kind of to a degree not going mad.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you beyond the game?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ryan Gonzalvez.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I became a professional footballer at 16 and eventually had to answer that myself.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is Career Cloud with Athletes from Second Wind Academy, a show about career transition.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: This season I'm sitting down with athletes still competing, athletes years out, and the sports psychologists, coaches and practitioners who guide them.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: We get into the decisions, the identity, and the practical work of building what comes next.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Athletes hit this earlier than most people.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: But what they learn works for anybody.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Each episode, a story, and where it goes from there.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let's be inspired by the stories of others.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Helena, welcome to the show.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me today.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: My pleasure.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to be here actually.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am looking forward to as uh I guess continue continuing a conversation we started a few months ago on uh all things athletic career transition and I guess finding our second wind and moving forward.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we shall delve into your past, but also spend a bit of time on what you're up to nowadays, because I do think that is quite fascinating.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sounds great.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, Helena, for those who don't know you, can you give us just a brief intro who you are and what you're up to?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so my name is Dr.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Helena Winter, and that's something I'm incredibly proud of.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: However, let's rewind about 10 years.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was an Australian ballet dancer.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was a Corife in the Australian Ballet.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was with the company for about eight years.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, I was in the ballet school down in Melbourne for three years.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess my kind of professional career spanned about 11, 12 years.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I left school when I was 15.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's actually why the doctor part is like, I'm so, I'm so proud of it.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like, yeah, leaving school at 15, I did distance education for a year, and then we sort of did this like scratch end of school, like finals, you know, HSC or VC.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Victoria at the time.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it was all just ballet, ballet, ballet, ballet my whole life.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so I traveled.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we would we were based in Melbourne in Australia, and we were sort of six months in Melbourne, but not like, you know, January to June.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of all over the place.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then we just lived out of a suitcase, four months in Sydney, a couple of weeks in Adelaide, Brisbane, an international tour.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that was my life for almost, yeah, a decade, really.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Which was amazing and hard and amazing and hard.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said to you, it was in and out of of home of Melbourne, of, you know, being in Victoria six months, but it sounds like that six months is merely a number of days.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So he's in and out and traveling and things like that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds well, it makes sense.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Ballet starts young.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I was three or four when I started, you know, just the standard, you know, you send your kid to ballet.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and then by the time I was nine, my ballet teacher was like, you know, you should really be doing some competitions.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then that led to, oh, why don't you audition for the ballet schools, the Australian Ballet Schools Interstate program?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then why don't you audition for the full-time program?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then why don't you move to Melbourne?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then yeah.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it really, it was something, I guess the journey started from when I was incredibly young.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it was ballet was always a part of my life.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Even, yeah, it was always a part of my life, really.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm interested as to to why it was always part of your life.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So from that young age, were both parents, were they, you know, formerly dancers themselves?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Was it something they were passionate about?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So this is so okay, so here are the hard facts.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was, I was very good at it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was very good at it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It just it was something that came quite naturally to me.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: My mother was a music teacher.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: She could have been, she actually got into the Royal College of Music in London when she was like finishing school.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: She was going to go over and study musicology, but they were way too poor.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just not an option for her family.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then she always wanted to be a dancer, she always wanted to dance.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you can sort of start to imagine the storyline that's coming in there.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And because she was the youngest of two sisters, it was, you know, we've got a piano because your older sister wants to learn piano, so you're gonna learn piano.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that was my mom's story.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: When I came along and, you know, they put me into ballet class and I was just very good at it.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it was never something that I think it was never planned in that way.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was never like, this is what you're gonna do, and you're gonna go to the best school, and you're gonna, you know, do all these things.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It just kind of happened, but I think because, you know, and I don't hold anything against my parents at all, but because I'm a bit of a people pleaser and like I just wanted to make my parents happy, I just kind of went on on the journey.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: My mum wanted it more than my dad.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: My dad was a bit like, are you sure you're gonna leave school?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But he just supported what I was doing.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm really honest with you, like, and this is the reality, the day that I got my acceptance letter to the Australian ballet school, I would have been 15 at the time.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I went to my room and cried because I didn't want to go.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to stay, I wanted to stay at school.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was, you know, but I went and I had an amazing time and it was hard.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so it was sort of like this weird, like I I think what I'm trying to say is that it was something that I I'd been doing so long and was such a part of my identity that I didn't want to stop, but it was also something that I didn't want to do anymore.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like those both things were true at the same time, and that's I found that really hard as a 15-year-old to reconcile, so I just kept going.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it does make sense.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: It makes sense to me, but I want to try and see if we can explain it to others who are who perhaps haven't had that.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it it gives a good anchor as to how people might feel without realizing it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they see the behaviors and their emotions, uh actions, I take them down the path.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps because they haven't thought about it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I yeah, does uh so so when you talk about it was this identity for you, you wanted to keep going.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe you didn't want to keep going.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when you look back at that moment, what was hard?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: What was what was holding you back?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: What was it that was in fact not holding you back, but what is it that was keeping you wanting to stay at school, to stay within the family?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was yeah, gosh, what a good question.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think staying at school represented a lot of opportunity, you know.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I could do lots of different things.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas ballet was obviously ballet, and maybe I think something about me is I do like doing lots of different things.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I, you know, wouldn't say I get bored easily, but I just I like to keep moving and I like to keep my fingers in in lots of pies.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think school for me was a little bit like that in the sense that you know, you got different subjects and different, you know, things that you're working on, whereas ballet it was it was just maybe it's all of the same.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um which, you know, as we get to the end of the story is basically why I retired.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I don't know, I just yeah.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Another way of explaining it is I know many athletes, many professional athletes who perhaps grow up in socioeconomic disadvantaged areas have a root out of that through sport.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: They have a natural or a physical gift that means they're really good at that sport and they're gonna get paid well for doing that sport.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Which for for them might mean actually I don't want to necessarily go all the way and do that sport, but I can see that it is a means to an end.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's something I'm I kind of have to do, I'm good at it.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be soon not to do it because most people aren't as good at it.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and I totally get that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess my story is very different to that, but I totally understand that.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe, maybe the connection to my story is that so many little girls dream of being a ballerina and wearing the tutus and the point shoes and being on the stage at the opera house.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think there was definitely a part of that dream that kept me going, and that was the the I don't, I'm not ready to stop this yet.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And also naturally, you know, my mum was so proud of me.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: My family was proud of me, you know, there was this real excitement that I was doing something that was very unique.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So at 15, I guess I didn't really have the skills to be able to talk it through and be like, let's pause for a minute there.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's have a conversation about this.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: That age, what was the goal?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: You you'd signed this, you'd gone and achieved this dream.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: How far ahead did you think?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: How far ahead did you dream of what this could mean to you?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think I definitely dreamed of the job.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the goal, what I basically was signing up for when I auditioned and got a position in the school is 12 girls and 12 boys from all around Australia and the world were given positions in the Australian Ballet School for a three-year program that would basically be a feeder into right, now you're ready for a job, whether that's the Australian ballet, Queensland Ballet, West Australian Ballet, the Royal Ballet, Birmingham, rah-rah, rah, wherever, wherever it is that you're gonna go.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: That that was that's pretty much the standard story, whether you do it in Australia or in London or or or wherever.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think Where did you want to go?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think the Australian ballet was definitely where I wanted to be.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I did achieve that.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was real This is the brutality of ballet, okay?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: We started with 12 girls and 12 boys.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: By the time we finished the third year, we had six girls and six boys left.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was three girls and three boys or two three girls and four boys.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: We got jobs.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: In that wild.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think my dream was, I mean, this is all before social media and everything.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was looking at people on, you know, online and stuff, I'd be like watching some YouTube videos or DVDs of people.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I hadn't really like I I didn't really think to myself, I want to be in the Royal in London and Covent Garden or I want to go to the Paris Opera.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wasn't really there, if that makes sense.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Australian ballet was yeah, what I wanted and I achieved it, which was amazing.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested in during that time, the focus that you had on academics.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it was something clearly you enjoyed and were able to enjoy up until the age of 15, which I I don't know, was that year nine or year ten from an Australian perspective?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that was year so I was at regular school, like you know, normal, normal school.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Till the end of year nine.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I did year ten distance education, and then I did year 11 and 12, so which would have been like the HSE or the BCE equivalent.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I did year 11 and 12 as part of the Australian Ballets program.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the three years was 11, 12, and effectively a tertiary year.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And how did you find how did you find it then?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, we didn't really do school.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: We did we were we were teamed up with the Victorian College of the Arts, secondary school, and they would send like an English teacher, and I think we had English maybe once a week or something on a Wednesday afternoon.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we did English, music, anatomy, psychology, drama.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: That was it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: They were our only subjects.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually I, and this is again coming back to like the title now.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't technically get an ATAR or like, yes, you can go and do something with this certificate.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: My route to where I am now has been quite, yeah, twisty turny, I guess.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Had a bit of a circuit.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: But well we'll we're gonna jump forward.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm interested at the time, on a scale of one to ten, how much did it bother you?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: That I wasn't educating myself?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, to an extent.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as you were someone who was academically focused at school.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: But one, not not doing that, but then also two, as you left, not having a NATO or simply having um, for someone who's academically focused, having a high school lever, sir, did it bother you?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say no, because I was so focused on the ballet at the time that it was all about getting the job.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no one cared.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And like no one, like within my cohort and within cohorts before me, like there was no sort of tradition of some people doing more.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't really something that bothered me.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think that though when I got my job in the company, I was only probably in the company for maybe two years and I started a degree through open universities.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I was kind of like something clicked by then.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: But in in that in that three-year period as that that journey, you weren't necessarily in an environment that supported or encouraged, hey, go do extra, keep moving.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, no, it was all about the ballet.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so for you at the end of that period, you you you got into the Australian ballet, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's you you tick.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Did it feel?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, 18, 19, dream.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Tick achieved.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to a degree.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I push myself pretty hard.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think most sports people, elite athletes, do.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you always sort of want the next thing.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally it was like, right, now I need a promotion.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now I need the roles.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's always the next thing.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I don't think I don't think because you know, I was 18 and earning money and in the Australian ballet and traveling the world, like there was no real sense of, gosh, I wish I had that ATAR so I could go and do medicine.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: It just like, yeah, it wasn't there.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of living life.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing what's in front of you.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so I'm I'm I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but it's like, yeah, you're doing what's in front of you.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're dancing, you're living the dream, you're young and burning and traveling the world.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty cool.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is cool.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why when I reflect on things, you know, yes, on a superficial level, I could say, God, I wish XYZ was different, or I wish I hadn't have gone to Melbourne, or I wish I hadn't have, you know, whatever it might be.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I actually try and be really calm, kind to myself and recognize that, well, no, at that moment in time, I was doing I was making the best decisions that I could with the information I had within the environment in which I was living, with the support or no support, you know, I was living away from my family.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I literally was in an apartment on my own.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was no boarding house, it was it was very much cook and clean and do everything for yourself.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you know, it made sense that I made the decisions that I did.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: What made you two years in?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: What made you think it's time to do a degree?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I think similarly, linking back to what we were saying earlier, I think that there was an element of me that was bored.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, with any kind of training that is pretty relentless and the same day in and day out.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wanted I guess I knew I knew that ballet was finite.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I watched the How did you know that?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I watched the the the people who were older than me who, you know, were already principals and they were in their 30s or mid-30s, or and you know, they they were retiring and making way for us new, new fresh, fresh ones to come through.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I always had it in my head that I didn't want to be a ballet teacher.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be a Pilates instructor, I didn't want to be a yoga teacher.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: It just like those things are what people will naturally fall into.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with any of those things.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love my Pilates instructor, but there's nothing wrong with it.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew that I wanted to do something different.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's two years in, or whenever it was, maybe maybe three years, whatever it was.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was when I started to realize hold on a second, I'd have stayed at school, I'd probably be doing that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe let's just start seeing where we end up.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: It does make sense.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: The I think you sound like someone who you got this brief glimpse of what life would be like without ballet, you know, at school.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because as you were taken away from school and home, you're like, oh, I could be doing all those things that my friends are doing.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you went into ballet and you were aware enough, it seems, to see the older uh dancers retiring and the perhaps the challenges or impacts it had for them on life.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's interesting.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, why do you think you were did you have any fear then?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Did you think you were scared of having to become and like you say, it's not negative, but having to fall into one of those jobs where you're like, I don't think I really want to do that.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh definitely.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was fear.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was also I don't think at least when I was in the company, I don't think I recall maybe one or two people that retired and had a positive experience of it.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was about it.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like everyone struggled.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone struggled.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you were retiring and deciding you didn't want to do that anymore in your early 20s, or you'd had a really long career and you were retiring at the top of your game, you know, and you're 38, 39, and you were, you know, ready to hang up the pointy boots.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't, I honestly I could count on my one hand, maybe not even feel that hand of like people that I saw that had a good experience.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that really stuck with me.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you know, I had had a positive experience at school.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was very lucky.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I know that a lot of a lot of dancers, you know, they were like, I'm a dancer because I hate school.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was gonna be like, oh, I love school.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love learning.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is a hard decision for me.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: So when you were doing then your well, how did you know what to study?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that my first degree that I have from open universities, which is technically through Griffith Uni, but I did it all online, you know.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was a Bachelor of Communications.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was like just, I don't even know why I chose it, to be honest.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think because my sister had done a communications degree.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was like, oh, that sounds good.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I wasn't very, yeah.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, no reason.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's just what I chose.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: How long did it take?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I finished it in I did it some part-time.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes I was studying part-time, sometimes I was doing full-time.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of just as the year would go.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: You just jumped in and tried to smash it out.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Drew it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, quite simply.
• 20:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I'm the person like you'd be sitting in the green room at the opera house, and everyone would like go and do and be hanging out on the couches, and I would go and find a table and I would be studying.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because we finished rehearsals at three, and then the performance always started at 7 30.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you start getting ready about five, so at a couple of hours to, you know, rest, have dinner, that sort of thing.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: I would just study.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd read and and things.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: How many other dancers around you were doing the same thing?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can think of maybe two.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe two others.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it was when I started doing, I think there's more now from what I hear.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's more now.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: But from um when I was there, I mean, this is going back to like the early 2010s.
• 21:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: So long ago.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: But really, it is long ago.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that long ago.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Make me feel good as well here.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that long ago.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not that long ago in early 2010s.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was pretty much one of the only ones.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think, yeah, there were maybe two others.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: In a company context, in a company of like 70 dancers.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this is kind of where I'm getting to is so so you could recognize it was finite, maybe a couple of others coming through with you at the same time.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Was there any what type of structural support was provided to you as a dancer to think about what comes next?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: In my generation, absolutely none.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: They had this.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was one particular board.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Member when I was dancing, who was very, you know, very pro.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, the executive director at the time, his name was Richard Evans.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: He he was very supportive of like the dancers doing something and having a plan for after.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: But to be honest, like there was meant to be this re-education fund, but you had to be in the company for I think it was like 10 years or something.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I applied for it, having been there by the time I finished for eight years, and I was like, but I was in the school and rah-rah rah-rah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: But they, yeah, they did not fund my re-education.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it's like these days.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I hear it's different, but essentially, like, there was no support.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was no, oh, Helene, you've got an exam tomorrow.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can take the night off.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, absolutely not.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's really tough because we talk about environment and being in an environment that supports you.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, an environment that supports you to do anything.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Be it extras in in in dancing, be it um exploring nutrition differently, be it doing pure studies, but an environment that that encourages beyond.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is it that do you think made you or allowed you to keep going?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: What trait do you think was, yeah, I'm doing this?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm a highly conscientious person.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I set my mind to something, I will invariably do it.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I think there was also a little bit of like, hmm, I didn't want to disappoint myself.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to, like, in five years, in ten years, or whenever been like, oh, I wish I'd have, I wish I'd have done that.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I know I said before, I know I said before, you know, at the time I made the best decisions I could within the environment, within the the setting and my age and all of those sorts of things.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I think by this age that I'm talking about now, I'm starting to become aware, as you say, of like, what is the life after ballet?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what do I have available to me to do?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I took that really seriously as something that I needed to controls are not the right word, but like I needed to respect that thought and respect that, like, hold on a second, I'm of an age now where I can make these decisions and decide to give myself options, I guess.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you spoke about doing the degree, the bachelor's in communication.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: What did you decide to do next and why?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well this is where the this is where the story becomes a little bit Okay, so I hadn't finished my degree yet, but I decided to retire from the ballet.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I actually ended up moving over to Europe.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was dating a guy at the time.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: He hold on, this is big.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I know we just got a we just got a wind back to the um dropping out of ballet.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Mid-degree.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Retiring, retiring.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't drop out.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Retiring.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Retiring.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Retiring.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm making it sensational.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting the uh okay.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: So what was the decision point there?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think it comes back to, you know, that theme we were talking about earlier.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was kind of bored, to be honest.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was, you know, you come in every day and you warm up and you do your plies and your tundus and your class and then you rehearse and you know, it it's great and it's fun and and things, but I just I'd really got to the point where I was I was actually starting to become a bit resentful, bored, angry.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just wasn't when I reflect on it now, I was not the best version of myself.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you think caused that?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Frustration, wishing I was somewhere else doing something else, wishing that I'd stayed at school.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think wanting so much to be a hundred percent there for the ballet, but not being able to, if that makes sense.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I wanted so much to, you know, be the principal, be the prim ballerina, like get all the roles.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And don't get me wrong, I was getting great roles.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had an amazing career, and I'm really, really proud and grateful for that.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I felt very stifled and I felt very much like I was just living this kind of weird ballet rap race, and I didn't like that anymore.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just becoming increasingly frustrated and angry, and as I said, just not the best version of myself.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I look back on yeah, some of the things that I did or said or was, and I'm like, hmm, that's not who I want to be.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so where to?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: What to drop you some retiring to do what?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: What was the plan?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: There was no plan.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I I followed my boyfriend of the time over to Europe.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was a musician, so a classical musician.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we uprooted and I went off.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I went off with him.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when I arrived, I was in Hamburg, up in Germany.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I did a few classes with the Hamburg Ballet, very world-renowned ballet company.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I had a few people from my network from Australia who I knew.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent some time with them, and it was actually really good because I thought I did keep wanting to dance for a period.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: However, like getting away from my space and in Australia and like my routine, and then going over to Germany and then dancing in their space, I was like, oh, hold on a second.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, this isn't what I want to do.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it was good to like just be in a different environment and realize that I am ready to finish.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then so I learned German in a cafe and earned minimum wage for a couple of years.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whilst I finished my degree, I didn't have that long to go.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I eventually got an intern role, also earning minimum wage, in like an English-based small German startup, but we spoke English.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: We were working in English.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Germany for about four years.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just kind of making ends meet and learning German and which is great.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, very big fall from grace.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Ballet, but m my question is how happy were you?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think the I loved the freedom.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: I loved the freedom.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I loved not having to work six days a week, having my nights off, having a two-day weekend, being able to just travel.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it was there was it was very freeing in a lot of from a lot of perspectives.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I because, you know, when I was in the Australian Ballet and we would it was a Saturday morning, and you're walking up Circular Quay towards the opera house.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're about to go inside for the next 12 hours, and it's a beautiful day, and all the tourists are on the forecourt, and you think to yourself, I know that everyone wants to be me right now, but God, I'd love a Saturday off.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to be you.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I really enjoyed the freedom of not having to do class.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: My view right now is the Sydney Opera.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it is beautiful.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I think.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Stunning.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Stunning.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I hold both this idea of like, I'm so grateful, and it's really created a lot of my story and how I approach things in my life, for better or worse.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: But also like, I'm happy that I'm not part of that anymore.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you describe that period in your life as you look back?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Being in Germany or Yeah, four years, Germany.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: There are too many stories of bankruptcies, mental health issues, and unfortunately suicide.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's time for to act.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Every year, we see thousands of athletes that reach a point where they need to consider their life activity sports.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: It might be a retiring, injury, or they need to juggle your careers between sport and a job.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: As a former English professional footballer, I have somehow managed to transition from sport into banking, strategy, innovation, and now life coach, career practitioner, and founder of the Second Wind Academy.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to help those around me find their career secondwith.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Find me on Insta or through my new Facebook group, Second Wind Academy, where I'd love to know your thoughts and suggestions.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think I it was what I needed it to be.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it was also hard in a really different way because I was very trying to work out who I was, you know, I was selling cosmetics and coffee.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just, it was just very different.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it so it was hard.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And because I like I'm the type of person who likes to know the direction I'm going, that was uncomfortable.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it was also, I felt like I was having the gap year that I'd kind of obviously never had.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or the gap four years.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Gap four years.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had the gap four years.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So what came next for you?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: What what were you then after this period, what what had you started to design for yourself about where you wanted to go?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and how did you start making those decisions?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could tell you that it was something that like I had this, you know, moment of wisdom or epiphany.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: I did not.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually something I really fell into.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I had been in Germany, my parents came over to visit.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had just broken up with this guy that I had come over to Germany with, and I was very like, I actually got in to do my MBA over in Germany.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: I got into the university, but I failed the written component of the German test.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I asked, you know, what I needed to for speaking, reading, listening, but I failed writing, so I couldn't start the course and I was really devastated.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and then my parents came over and we went on a love trip to the south of France and Monaco and Cassis, and it was beautiful.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, my dad's like, I'm gonna start this business.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, based around the NDIS.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: My brother was on the NDIS or is on the NDIS, so like there was a bit of knowledge of what it was all about.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: NDIS in Australia.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you should come home and you should join the family business.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was a bit like, oh yeah, maybe I'll think about it.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think I was quite ready yet.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, came home, did Christmas.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: My dad ended up actually, he was diagnosed with bowel cancer, operated on.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, right, I'm coming home.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's fine now, by the way.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that was all good.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: But but it was like, it was more of like that catalyst moment of realizing that when I came home that actually I really did want to be here.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And life was just a bit easier in Australia.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I didn't have to go to the Auslander Behurder every couple of, you know, months to get my immigrant immigration papers signed, you know, and I could speak to the electrical company and not have an issue.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, just stuff was easier here.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I came home, moved, went into the family business, and from there I got a mentor, and she was like, you know, you really need to do a degree or something in the field in which this is.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so naturally I did the thing that I always do.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's the hardest, most reasonable but hardest thing that I could do?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: That isn't, you know, medicine that's gonna take me 20 years.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I started with an undergraduate psychology degree.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really lucky, actually, because that really kind of shitty Bachelor of Communications that I never used and was never gonna use, it came in handy because from that I could have used the graduate diploma of psychology rather than having to do the whole undergraduate.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a shortcut.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that is absolutely the reason why doing that initial bachelor were, you know, was so good in the end.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well still it it's good, it turned around for you in that, in that regard, in that it it helped you.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like the degree probably gave you a bit of at least some level of respite or focus whilst you were in Germany.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: So including that meant yeah, you had something to do.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you demonstrate the benefits that if you have the time to study, study.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because you'll, you know, hopefully you'll nearly always be able to use it again.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: But coming back home into a family business or coming into this sort of business and environment.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Was that something you'd ever contemplated?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'd always dreamed of working, you know, very much in the CBD or for an opera house, but like within the the management, the business side of the opera house, you know, or working in the ballet company, but you know, in the back end.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'd honestly never thought about, you know, a family business.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: It yeah, I really fell into that.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Which I'm grateful for.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: But as the story continues, it ended up harming a lot as much as it helped me.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let's kind of go there because now I'm interested in this this now life after sport.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So today you talk so I know the answer, but I'm realize we've missed the gap in terms of how we get into the you becoming a doctor and and and sort of continuing to push through from both the practice and a self-development perspective.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So here you've just got this grad diploma in psychology.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: What was the goal?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: What was the aim for you now?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because we've come from ballet, we've done our gap four years.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm working in the family business.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can I swear on this show?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can swear, go for it.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Fucking hard.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working so fucking hard in this industry that I don't really know.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it was early intervention, young, young kids on the autism spectrum.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm working in this industry, trying to learn as much as I can on the tools, you know, delivering, delivering therapy, working with teachers and speeches and OTs and this whole world.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, trying to rapidly upskill myself with this grad dip, realizing that, because I I knew nothing.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I knew nothing.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know what the pathway was to become a psychologist or a clinical psychologist or a clinical psychologist with a PhD, you know, like so it's I was working really, really hard.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then I sort of realized, oh, if I want to be a registered psychologist, bare minimum, if I'm gonna stay working in this field, then I need, I need to do my honors year.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then I need to do a master's.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then so one thing kind of led to the other.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd always, I guess there was a part of me that always wanted to be a doctor, medical doctor, not a doctor of philosophy, which I am.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, but you know, you take what you can get.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I just I just kept pushing and I worked my entire time in the family business whilst also doing each degree.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, well, not obviously my master's, my honours I had to do full-time.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was COVID.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I was kind of lucky in that sense that, you know, here in Sydney, you know, we weren't allowed, like the workplace was more than two K's away, so we weren't allowed anyway.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a whole situation.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I was actually very lucky in that year.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: My mother also died from cancer.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Then I got into my master's, and then I was doing full-time masters whilst working.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started the PhD jewel with my masters, and then kept working there, and then yeah.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's I've sort of that's a very, very quick like how it all happened.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess, I guess once I realized that I needed to do all of this to have the qualifications, you know, that ballet training of like working six days a week, 7 a.m.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: to 11 p.m.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: at night, like 48 weeks of the year, that really came into the fore because I just I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and I look back on it and I'm so proud of myself, whilst also recognizing that you know, it's probably not normal, if I'm really honest.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think you mean I just mean that like, you know, may how do I say this?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I gave up a lot.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I gave up a lot to be able to do all the things that I did in the time that I did whilst working.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that in a way, that's just the story of the ballet, right?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or elite sports.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: You just learn to give up a lot of stuff to be able to focus.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I'm very good at doing that in I'm gonna say the healthiest way possible.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not always healthy.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe 7 to 7 a.m.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: to eleven p.m.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: trying to find the health in that might be a challenge for many.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but what but what I'm hearing though is when I asked you the question at 15, leaving leaving school to go into ballet effectively, and you know, not doing the academia didn't feel like you were letting that go.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: You you was no, you were you were focused.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um here you talk of uh at this time in life, you you recognized you were making a conscious decision to not do certain things in order for the work and dual study uh of sorts to take place.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair representation as to what was going on?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so what was the hardest part for you at that time?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I was doing my like doing your everything masters and the everything.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you were doing everything, what was hard?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: That moment in life.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think a lot of it was was probably the um pushing through the exhaustion was hard.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: There was one point I remember I was I was talking to my husband, now husband, and um and I said to him, I think I'm losing my mind.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is this what a stroke feels like?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like honestly, I felt so full in my head with everything that I was trying to do for the team, for my family, for myself and my degree, and that was hard.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like and just kind of to a degree not going mad.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um and get through it.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Day to time.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: I never took leave.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: I never took work like I never took sick leave so that I could just study or focus on one thing, or I never, you know, like I just one day at a time.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's very much how I see study and I see time, like I'm very much like the time's gonna pass anyway.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just do what we can each day.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: And at least in ten years, you come away, and I'm a doctor of philosophy and clinical psychology, and you know now I have my own business and and for someone who believed in ballet, believed that ballet was your answer, that was the goal, that was what you were to become a young girl.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: As you look at where you are today, how does that make you feel?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: So proud, really proud, and like if I could now you're gonna make me cry, right?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like if there was anything that I could do, I wish I could just go back and like give her a big hug and tell her it's gonna be okay.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was hard, because it was really hard leaving the school, and yeah, it was both amazing and awful.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing and amazing, it was all of the things.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm so proud of myself for like getting through it and having a whole nother life now, you know?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And being able to like I think there was like this I had this Russian teacher, she was amazing, but she was fucking crazy.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was like probably 12 or something when she was my teacher, and she'd always be like, Mallet dancers, you're all stupid.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's just always been in my head, to be honest.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is the stuff that kids remember.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is the stuff that kids remember, you know.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think like I was just, I'm so proud of myself not being that, you know, showing myself that just because I left school and just because I, you know, haven't come through a traditional route into this profession, like I think that I bring so much more to my sessions and my work with people than perhaps maybe some other people.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I know what hard feels like in my version, obviously, and I know what pride feels like, and I know what pain feels like, and I know what exhaustion feels like, and like I can sit with the person in the room and really connect with them on that.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if I reflect on all of it, I'm really grateful for the journey.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: There you go, you may be.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's wonderful.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad Yeah, thank you for being open.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank thank you for for sharing the emotion as well as the story um on your journey, because like you say, there are the there have been very difficult moments and you know wonderfully inspirational moments for for positive reasons throughout your your ballet journey, but then also the journey that you've taken out after ballet.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: And here you're talking about that the full circle moment where your experiences, your lived experience, your your learned um knowledge.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Come together and help you be present for your clients now.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and um but I think for for everyone's knowledge as well, what you you say you now you run your own business.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you know the story about deciding to run your own business and what Yeah and and how?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Also great questions, right?
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um Yeah, so I I got married doing my masters.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just before I started my master's, we got married.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's important.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's important that that's noted there, you know.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Did my masters, started my PhD, working in the family business the whole time.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, I work up the ranks from just being a therapist on the floor to being like the clinical director and running two sites and had lots of staff reporting into me, and I was the clinical vision for what we were doing and all these sorts of things.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, working in a family business, which is no mean feat, it was, I'm gonna be really politically like if anyone is listening to this, it was awful.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have my own experiences about what works and what doesn't work in family business from the inside.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had a lot of consultants who worked with us in the over the period, and I I can tell you what works and what doesn't work.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I went and had a baby.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: And whilst I was on maternity leave, I was made redundant without a conversation by my own family.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: By my yeah, it was the whole business actually ended up effectively folding.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: And whilst I was on Mat Leave, and you know, it was just not a not a very nice time.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it was the catalyst that I needed to get out because I knew I wanted to get out anyway, and it was just when and how and what's the journey.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I started my own psychology practice in March earlier this year when I returned from Mat Leave.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Started just three days a week.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm four days a week, and I'm just slowly building that up.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm about to launch my second business.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the first business that I run is called Sydney Child and Family Practice.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is very much aligned with some of the work that I used to do.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it felt like a bit of a safety blanket.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, yeah, working with children and family systems and stuff from the more mental health perspective.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: And not just children, by the way, adolescents and adults.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've got I have adult clients as well.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm really excited about is the business that I'm about to launch, which is called Insight Dynamics.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it is new.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is new.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is new.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, what is this?
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Told me more.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I would love to, right?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I think what I've really, what I've really learned from my experiences across my whole life, you know, I think Sydney Child and Family Practice is something that, you know, my the last 10 years really, you know, it makes sense and and things, but insight dynamics is a more of a reflection of all my life's experiences.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really clinical psychology and coaching in high performance.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just it's not just mental health work.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is mental health work because I am a clinical psychologist and that is the lens that I bring.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: However, it's about high performance, whether that's in corporate family business, high net worth families and kids not knowing what they're gonna do, athletes, dancers, and so on.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a space that I'm really excited about because I think it really resonates with a lot of my own experiences.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: That yeah, so there you go.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's what I'm that's what I'm doing now.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds fascinating.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: We build it to keep chatting.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna keep chatting anyway.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: But no, but specifically about that.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's quite interesting.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: A few people um I think who've probably actually been on the show as well, but should definitely have a conversation with um on that.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: But but again, it's it's that continuation of you bringing your your lived, your learned experiences together and now applying them for a cohort of individuals who you know can benefit from it.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and I do think that's wonderful.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I see a pattern or hear a pattern, um, although as I say it out loud, it might not really be there, but it it's there's something it's it's like there's a catalyst that arrives and then and you react.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's your reaction to that, your positive reaction to that that comes through as I hear it.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, as we hit those transition moments, sometimes we need a little nudge.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: And from school into ballet and from leaving ballet to um spending the the gap four years.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's a new phase.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's important.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: But then the I guess the relative disappointment of not getting into the MBA, that catalyst to then come home.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you it's not like in those moments you stop and take average or drop off.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: There is something in you that thrives or that that seeks that high performance.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you come into a family business and you don't cruise as a uh Nepo baby.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I wish I was a Nepo baby.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take that.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: You pushed and you you drove as I guess as you know, to to the top of that.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and then here now in in your own business businesses, which whilst new, you know, I get a sense from you that that same motivation, that same drive is going to come and will shine again as you as you step into to this period of of your life as well.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I look, thank you.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope so.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: So far, uh Sydney Child and Family Practice is blowing my mind at how beautifully it's developing.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I really took stock on Friday.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about it and having a conversation with someone that I was like, you know what?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: God, I'm proud of myself.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Since April, mid-March, but like since April, I have built this thing from nothing.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even have time to market.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: I do no marketing.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's all referrals, it's all word of mouth, and I'm really proud of that.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I've not had to, you know, beg my husband for money.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, I would never have to beg.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what I mean?
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've been able to carry myself.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important for me.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think reflecting on what you were just saying, it's all this is, you know, this has been such a lovely opportunity for me as well to really process, I guess, my life story in the sense of there has always been a catalyst.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Things have gone well, things have gone really not well.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've come out of it, I've gone into the next thing.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all as you stitch, like as individual pieces, it's not, you know, it's kind of not that it's like, oh, well, this happened and then this happened, but it's like the story of the whole.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, right?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: The whole is the story that I now bring to my work.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like, you know, maybe call me a late bloomer.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think three or four.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: From the age of three or four, you were somewhat distracted in ballet.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there was something it, you know, the the bit that runs through this is you there was there's a beacon, you you heard the sirens singing, and you are always looking for that.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, what is the something else that's there?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: And like you say, you whilst you described us perhaps getting bored or something like that, it was you've got this desire to to keep moving, to keep exploring.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and you know, that helps you through sport and it's helping you now.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so so I suppose it it we come to this conclusion point where I say as you look back from your experiences for someone else who's going through similar, what advice would you give to them to help help them to be able to thrive or at least respond positively in in helpful ways so that they can continue to progress to that and find their second wind?
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: What what would you say?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have to frame the first part as, you know, be kind to yourself because the journey, you know, I think through the course of this podcast, anyone could listen to my story and think to themselves, like, oh, you know, you always knew what you wanted to do or you always had it made.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like honestly, I hope that the listener has realized that I haven't.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: I really haven't.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've really been just on what's quite felt like quite an amorphous, abstract journey that has completely come together at the age, the ripe old age of, you know, 39, almost 39.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that for but I but I retired 12 years ago, right?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a long time.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I hope that, you know, for your listeners to to be able to understand that like maybe you won't understand at the time why something is happening, but just continuing on that journey and striving to bring everything that you learnt, you know, the good and the bad, into this next phase, because it will help you in some way.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then you'll learn to shed the bad, and then you'll learn to be kinder to yourself, or you'll learn to not be as competitive, or you'll learn to, you know, to use that competitiveness in a different or self-discipline in a in a healthier way.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, one day in front of the other, one chapter in front of the other, if you're studying like one, you know, I should say this to myself because I'm really bad at marketing, but like one Instagram post in front of the other, like there is a story at the end of it.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your whole story is so much greater than that instant, than that moment.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Be kind to yourself.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: Continue on the journey, but small steps.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I like the don't forget what you've learned because the the whole picture will start to make sense.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think each of those are here in others, be it through sport, be it through business or you know, an executive in in that regard, is you know, if they could hear what they say to themselves, they would hear that person, they would hate that person.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I tell some people all the time.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: All the time, like, would you say that to a friend?
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Would you?
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, listen, I gotta again I say thank you for sharing your journey, bringing the emotion, um, but then also giving us something to to think about.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, really appreciated your perspective on finding a second wind in life after sport.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think you've you've done that really well.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: There are gonna be others listening, watching, who are going to want to follow your story, get in touch.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: Where can they find you?
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I mean, I'm on LinkedIn.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I am on Instagram very poorly.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to try and be better at it at at that.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's drhelena.scfp for now.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that will morph as I as I open my doors properly to Insight Dynamics, but it is essentially helena.winter at insightdydynamics.com.au.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I am a clinical psychologist and I know your story and I feel your story, and I will we will work together and get you there wherever it is wherever there is.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: Alayla, thank you once again for joining me today.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's been great.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to this week's episode.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: Reshaping a career is a team sport.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do it alone.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you want help working out your next step, it's all at secondwindadvisory.com forward slash academy.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Book a conversation with me there, and the link is also in the show notes.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, a couple more things.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: Send this episode to the person you thought of while you were listening.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's how this show reaches the people who need it.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ryan Gonzalez, take it easy, and I'll see you next time.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, before I do go, I want to drop a short thanks to Claire at Betty Brook Design, Nancy at Savvy Podcast Solutions, and Therese at copying content by loader.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: Without them, this show would never have got together.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.