I never really stopped to consider how I did what I did, I just got on with it. But, once I began to consciously reflect on it I fell in a heap and couldn’t really figure out how I’d done it. Or perhaps more importantly – I didn’t know why. And, I certainly didn’t know what I was going to do next.

I came to recognise this place of limbo as the ‘Neutral Zone’ – or the second phase described by Bridges.

“In between the letting go and the taking hold again, there is a chaotic but potentially creative “neutral zone” when things aren’t the old way, but aren’t really a new way yet either. This three-phase process-ending, neutral zone, beginning again-is transition. Transition is the way that we all come to terms with change.”

- William Bridges

We live in a world that is obsessed with answers and action. We have a problem and immediately search for an answer, implement a solution, or ‘do’ something to address the issue. Our natural tendency is to find solutions to the challenges we face or the crisis we find ourselves in or we get busy with something else so we can ignore it for a while. Whilst understandable, this single-minded focus on ‘doing’ is interfering with our ‘being’ and is often getting us further away from our truth as we continue to drown out the inner voice within.

We arrived in Melbourne, Australia on 31st March 1988 and it’s been our home ever since. I will always be so grateful to Dick Milnthorpe, his warm counterpart in Melbourne Bruce Plaice-Leary and Alan Findlay. I am indebted to Australia for opening her doors to us and welcoming us into such an amazing country.

I am reminded of a story that an old friend once shared with me that seem to reflect the ups and downs I had faced from the point I was forced to leave my homeland to the date we arrived in Melbourne….

Business and self-discovery as merely different sides of the same coin. What we experience ‘outside’ in business, in life, in our friendships, relationships, and family dynamic are a direct reflection of what is going on for us ‘inside’.

Confusion or the feeling of being lost or stuck are not necessarily bad places to be. It is easy for us to feel uncomfortable with confusion but if we embrace it, welcome it and pay attention to the nudges it creates in one direction or another we can use it as a signpost toward a better outcome.