Challenges That Change Us

My gift to you all:  FREE High Performance Leadership E-book   https://events.highperformanceleadershipsummit.com.au/strategic-blueprint-high-performance-leadership Do you love High performance then check out our 3 day summit in October this year, only 30 places   :  https://events.highperformanceleadershipsummit.com.au/october-summit-2024 After we released episode 10...

Trigger warning: domestic violence and racial slurs   Find out about our High Performance Leadership Summit here:   https://events.highperformanceleadershipsummit.com.au/october-summit-2024   Today, amongst other things we will be talking about the very nuanced topic of the foster system, but also growing up as an Aboriginal Australian. Dave Widders is a proud Anaiwan man from...

Trigger warning for suicide and sexual assault and domestic violence. When it comes to resilience, there are few who have survived as much as Melanie Eyles. Mel is a breathwork and trauma informed mindset and wellness coach and she has a lot of experience to draw from. With a childhood founded in domestic violence and sexual assault Mel already a hard start and the health issues that raised their...

Damien Thomlinson is someone who has seen his fair share of adversity. Damien is an Australian Afghanistan war veteran, inspires globally who lost both his legs to a Taliban bomb in Afghanistan. He undertook intense rehabilitation, learned to walk with prosthetics and from there he kept going. He authored his best-selling autobiography "Without Warning.", took on various challenges like the TARGA...

Trigger warning: Suicide, addiction Todays guest is someone who truly embodies resilience. Alexa Towersey is an internationally published celebrity trainer, sports cover model, motivational and mental health speaker with over 16 years experience in the health & fitness industry. Born into a military family, her journey started after she was bullied at school for being too skinny - her nic...

Trigger warning: This episode discusses eating disorders Eating disorders are something we are still coming to understand as a society, and one of the things many of us don’t realise is that they can really affect anyone. Even an athlete, who has to be healthy to compete can find themselves with a disordered style of eating. That is exactly what happened to Holly Harris, who quickly experienced th...

Trigger warning: this episode discusses the topic of suicide Muscular Dystrophy is something that has really only started to become more commonly known in the past decade or so. But even now most people might have a rough general idea of it, but not actually know the details of just how varied and complicated it can be. Rhiannon Anderson was diagnosed at 3 and her parents were told she would not l...

If you’ve been a long time listener of this podcast you’ll know the advocating for awareness around POTS is something very close to my heart. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome can be absolutely debilitating, and that’s not taking into account how many years it can take for someone to actually get a diagnosis. All of this can be truly crushing for anyone, but is especially so for someo...

We’ve spoken before about what happens when High Performers push themselves so hard that they break down. But what happens when the physical break down symptoms occur, but you don’t realise it is because of your anxiety and mind? That’s the position Georgie Dent found herself in when her anxiety and stress sent her into a physical breakdown that took her over 4 months to recover from. Now she is t...

Trigger warning: this episode discusses suicide and family violence. If you feel you need someone to talk to, call lifeline on 13 11 14. By now you know how I feel about Family Violence. This is something we need to eradicate completely. The effects of family violence on survivors can reach through decades of life and that was very much the case for this episodes guest, Coen Tan. Growing up as an...

This week we are talking about a challenge that almost 50% of the population will experience. Menopause. But like everything, menopause can come on a sliding scale, and even if we think we are prepared it can hit, very hard. That is what happened to Susan Northey. Susan now works at my new business Soul Studio in Armidale as a breath work facilitator but also works in the nutrition space. She had...

Firstly I want to thank everyone for their patience when we were unable to release an episode last week. It’s been a big few weeks in the Flynn household and sometimes you just have to admit you can’t do everything. If you were in our Facebook group you would have seen that my daughter Jess has been quite sick and I just didn’t have capacity. But I was talking to Jess and I said I didn’t think I’d...

We’ve spoken about burn out on this podcast before, but this episode’s guest highlights possibly the most extreme case of burnout at the highest level. Stacey Luces was putting everyone and everything before her own needs and was still battling feelings of ‘not being enough.’ She was forced to reassess her entire lifestyle when she found herself in the hospital fighting for her life. Now she is a...

Challenges That Change Us – Trigger warning: suicidal ideation and depression The path to suicidal ideation varies for so many people, but for some it can start from a place of not feeling like they belong. Masking and hiding their true self in a failed attempt to fit in and please everyone can set most up for failure and it can let to even further challenges. This was the case for Lachlan Cameron...

Trigger warning: domestic violence This episode is a truly raw and personal look at the impact of not only domestic violence on children, but also the impact that unsecure parenting can have as well. Our guest is Emma Schaeffer, a mother of three fabulous humans, a wife of a genuine salt of the earth guy, a Creative, a Teacher, and more recently a Cycle Breaker. Emma grew up with a tumultuous chil...

We have talked about losing a loved one on the podcast before but often have focused on the grief that comes afterwards and not as much on the moment of when someone first learns of that loss. This week’s story covers this moment but with a twist. Jessica Ritchie has had several challenges in her life, but for her, the one that stands out is the moment a national news headline led her to genuinely...

It’s the second part of the episode 100 celebrations! I still can’t believe we have made it this far and grown the community to the size it now is. Now, so many of our guests stories have been about overcoming adversity and the lessons they have learnt from doing so. But one of the big key factors I have noticed for so many of these stories has been the persons resilience. Resilience is a word tha...

It is episode 100. Can you believe we have made it this far? I could not believe it when it was pointed out we were about to reach episode 100 and I was asked “what do you want to do for it?” But I felt, the Challenges That Change Us community has been such an amazing source of support and love ever since we started, that I had to do something to give back. So to celebrate we are releasing two sol...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 Trigger warning: discussions of suicide This week we are joined by someone to share two very different stories. Myfanwy Maple is Professor of Social Work in the School of Health at the University of New England in Armidale. Her first...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140   Our childhood, and how we are treated during that period of our life, has a massive impact on us as adults. I think it’s fair to say we have covered stories of a variety of childhood traumas in this podcast and each one has been unique and stunni...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 Trigger warning: this episode discusses domestic violence Our guest for this episode is someone whose tenacity and ingenuity helped them overcome a big personal hurdle, but also helped them take on a challenge to help other Australians as well. Ashton W...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 We’ve spoken on this show before about highly controlled religious groups before, but it has been more from the outside looking in. This episode’s guest experience being born into just such a group and living in it for 20 years before being expelled sim...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 We often end up discussing big medical challenges on this podcast but there are so many other challenges that can have lingering effects. We can all agree that teachers have an enormous responsibility on their shoulders, but what happens when one of the...

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 We have spoken about living with disability on this podcast before, but one disability that we don’t often understand the full impacts of is deafness. Today’s guest is David Brady and he has ample experience to share, including his insights into living...

To book a spot in our High Performance Leadership Summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 To book into our free mindset reset workshop on January 2nd head here:  https://trialtitude.as.me/Mindsetreset We’ve spoken about burn out before on this podcast, but no one quite encapsulates what it’s like to burn out from hitting the dizzying highs of a hi...