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Friday Flurry #8: From here to there and back again

Friday Flurry #8: From here to there and back again

An unvarnished high-level explanation of my career as prompted by curious conference-goers this week

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Alicia McKay
Jun 15, 2023
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Friday Flurry #8: From here to there and back again
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Welcome to Friday Flurry, my weekly round-up. These posts, which are a mixed bag of what I’m doing, reading and thinking about, are exclusively for paid subscribers. Many of the people who read my work aren’t subscribers. I get it, you’ll get to it next time, right?! But if you’re a regular reader, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support makes this work possible.

Me, circa 1990. The mullet didn’t age very well.

I spoke at a conference in Queenstown this week, and it went pretty well. I was the middle of the day speaker (tough slot) after three others, directly before lunch. The day was packed with keynotes, so I tried something a little different. Instead of a high-energy presentation, I facilitated a contemplative session that encouraged people to draw on their inner skills and knowledge to plot their path toward a goal.

We sought perspective: we thought about where we want to go, what’s in the way, what skills we already have to move past that, the people we most admire, and how we can bring some of those qualities into our own lives.

It wasn’t exactly what a room of farmers were expecting, but they were great sports and played along. People came to talk to me afterward and told me what they’ve got in mind for their own journeys.

The most common question I got, though, was about me. Leaning in with curiosity and confusion, people would ask quietly - “How did you get to be doing work like this?” “What did you do to get here?”

I get it. Making a living talking on stage is a strange prospect. It’s definitely not one I would have thought viable just a decade ago. I’m still not sure I believe it sometimes.

I get questions like this a lot, so in this week’s Friday Flurry, let’s do something different. I’ll tell you the story I told them (and a lot I didn’t) about my messy path from broke single mum and foster kid to writing-speaking-training-consulting. It’s not a ‘how-to’ guide by any stretch. It might be more of a cautionary tale.

But here’s the unvarnished, high-level overview of my career, and the life choices that shaped it. It’s incomplete. It’s banged out in haste. It’s really just a collection of stories about my experience as I remember them. I hope you enjoy it.

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