When Life Serves You Lemons - See Challenge as Opportunity (Ep 4)

When Life Serves You Lemons - See Challenge as Opportunity (Ep 4)

Christine Wan PM

🎙️ New Podcast Episode Released Today: Christine Wan's Inspiring Journey 🎙️

Today, we invite you to tune in to a remarkable episode of "For Your Ears from the Early Years." Meet Christine Wan, who fled Vietnam with her family at just two years old after the war. This journey as a refugee shaped her deep commitment to education and the power of language, ultimately leading her to found C3 Education Group 20 years ago.

Christine's passion for helping children and families thrive has driven her to establish four successful campuses across Sydney and an expansive online service. Her innovative approach, embodied in the philosophy and emblem of three triangles, focuses on creating adaptive learning environments, leaving no gaps unfilled, and transforming students into their best selves.

In this episode, Christine shares her story of resilience and dedication, her challenges, and how the power of language became central to her work. From tutoring to childcare, her mission is clear: to provide essential support that places the student at the heart of a collaborative effort between teachers, tutors, and parents.

Don’t miss out on hearing Christine’s inspiring journey and how her work continues to profoundly impact the lives of so many.

🌐 Discover more about C3 Education Group and our locations at www.c3educationgroup.com

📞 Call Christine at 1300 235 437 (1300 C3KIDS) for more information.

#NewPodcast #EarlyChildhoodEducation #VietnameseRefugee #LanguageLearning #C3Education #CommunitySupport #Transformation #SydneyEducation

Transcript

Audio file

Episode Four Christine Wan.mp3

Transcript

Speaker 1

This is for your ears from the early years. The podcast connects you with the leading voices in early childhood education. Join me, Lili-Ann Kriegler weekly. Join me, Lili-Ann Kriegler weekly. I bring you engaging interviews and fresh insights to inspire and inform your practice. Welcome everyone to the 4th episode of what your years from the early. Yes, I would love to thank some of our pod listeners. Such a big shout-out to some of our friends in Lagos, especially Rosemary Paul. And I think your interaction with the podcast has been instrumental in growing the listeners by about 300%. Nigeria, thank you so much, and if any of you recognise your city in our little post, let us know it was you, and you can always text. That's all that catches us on LinkedIn or Facebook. Very soon, I'll invite a private Facebook group where you can share and chat with our interviewees. Let's get on to our interviewee. So, in this 4th episode of For Your Ears from the Early Years, we welcome Christine Wan PM. A dynamic and inspiring voice in the early childhood sector, Christina's journey into this field grows out of her deep passion for making a difference in the lives of families and children. Christine, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much for having me. Lili-Ann, I was very excited to be invited on your podcast and to speak about such a passionate topic of mine, which is children's education families.

Speaker 1

That is wonderful, and I want to know straight off what the PM, after your name, stand for.

Speaker 2

Thank you for asking me. It actually does not stand for Prime Minister, even though my children think it does. It stands for professional member of the Professional Speakers Association of Australia. This is not just a title, but a global recognition accreditation, just one step below the CSP. So, I'm very fortunate to have those letters behind my name, a testament to my dedication and expertise in this field. 

Speaker 1

Well, I met you the other day at the 100th speakers event at the Melbourne Convention Centre and to say your talk was riveting is not saying enough.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much, Lili-Ann.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it was a great event. Now, usually, Christine, I ask my interviewees at the end of the podcast to share a. Quote that I am so loving your quote. When life serves you lemons, read Shakespeare. So, can you start by sharing your background, which some people now refer to as our origin story and tell us a little about why that is your favourite?

Speaker

Quote.

Speaker 2

Thank you again for asking me such a profound question because there is so much to that title. When life serves you lemons or gives you lemons, read Shakespeare, which speaks to my origin story or really where I came from, which was as a 2-year-old child on a boat as a result of the Vietnam War. And that was back in 1978. So here I am, floating on the Indian Ocean as a refugee in the late 70s and 80s Australia. Look, dare I say, there were very little resources for people like me, English as a second language learn. And I really needed that support, but obviously, it was not a landscape with those resources available. Regarding my journey, I look back on why I am in this space and why I'm dedicated to helping not just the migrant community now. But you know, back then, definitely, that was my initial spark, so to speak. So, my journey in teaching English. With. Really because of my migrant community and because of my migrant background. 
 
 Now, here's just a little bit about how I got there. As any good child, a good Asian child, I trekked the usual journey of academia, which is graduate High School graduate university. I got a nine-to-five job, and I thought that would be my life. My ticket out of corporate, which I spent ten years dedicated to my ticket out, was when I became a mother for the first time; I thought to myself, I don't want my daughter to go through. The trials and tribulations you. The hardship of navigating education and the biggest challenge for someone like me was literacy, and where school doesn't just teach literacy, it teaches literature. It teaches English as a language of appreciation, but beyond that. Obviously, to be able to read something is just one part, but also to comprehend what we're reading deeply means that we can get beyond Shakespeare and the poetry. 
 
 But you know, if they wanted to do law, they need to be able to navigate that landscape. If they just want to get a job, write a resume. All of that, I think, really fuelled why I got into this space. I want to link this back to Shakespeare because, as always, he's my first love. I always say that. Now, Shakespeare invented so many words that we use in the English language today, and one of the one of phrases that I came across was ‘in a pickle’. So as a migrant, as a refugee, it's just someone not really knowing how to navigate school. I found myself in a pickle and didn't want my children to continue being in a pickle in their learning journey, which is why I'm so dedicated to the space. So that's really where all of this sparked my journey.

Speaker 1

Your description of that origin story is humbling and inspiring at the same time. I can't imagine coming across anywhere in the boat at that age that you were and arriving in a country with clearly no English and then going through that entire educational journey, which you've just described and developing this deep appreciation for English literature is remarkable. So, thank you so much for sharing that. I don't think many people understand how perhaps difficult and how hard it was and how disciplined you had to be to do that. But it does also exist. Say why you feel that working within your community to develop literacy is a very, very important thing. So, describe your journey. You found the C3 education group with a partner you shared with me, Sharon Hagner. So, from your initial interest in the field to where you are today, how did you do it, and what are some of the pivotal moments in that experience?

Speaker 2

When I go back and reflect on my journey, I wanted my learners, my students, my staff, who are also my learners, you know, to have very strong philosophies that were anchored into how they. Were educators or how they are educators, how they are? Learners and how that will resonate with the people, children, and families that they educate. So, I just wanted to make a point about what the three C's stand for in C3. The first C stands for creativity because. You need to have a creative mind, and creativity is beyond just, you know, drawing and all of that. I'm talking about thinking outside the box creativity. We want the children to also have confidence in their ability to be creative. And finally. To have the skills to communicate this creativity and the confidence to communicate all of this creative learning OK to make a change. 
 
 So that's important to me regarding the three C's.  Now pivotal moments. When I started C3 education 20 years ago, I think that was a long journey. As I mentioned before, it was my ticket out of corporate, and that was when I became a mum. Like me, reflecting on my parents and their journey and sacrifices, I thought to myself, look, I am in a land of opportunity right now. So, what can I do? To contribute to my new child and any future children. I'm a mother of four, so I'm not going to bring any more children into this world, but more so, it's a community whereby I can contribute to families. So, the pivotal moment was the realisation that I practically found a gap in the market. Nobody else 20 years ago was teaching English the way I was teaching it, even today, and I commend the teachers at school; they are trying to make this subject engaging and interactive. But 20 years ago, it was not. It was the teacher in front of the students. You know, facing the students and English was always, quote unquote dry. So that pivotal moment you see whilst I started being accredited as a high school English teacher. So, I'm accredited to teach that. I thought to myself, many of these children are coming to me with absolutely no framework, understanding, or purpose as to why they're staying, studying this subject and the power of this subject for their future. It was just beyond reading Shakespeare.  Shakespeare was compulsory from year seven through to year twelve. Nor is it just about reading the poems or that novel. The children didn't understand why and how they could use it.
 
  English as a tool to further themselves in maths, sciences, and any other creative subjects they were interested in. I dtried to put teaching English on its head. The more pivotal moments that I found were that because I'm a high school English teacher, many of the children were coming to me as young teenagers. And the gap that I identified. Was in their formative years of learning, and I felt that I was reteaching a lot of things that had fallen by the wayside, that the gaps were not filled. 
 
 By the time they were at essay writing time or creative writing time. I was teaching things that they should have learned years ago. Yeah. I realised that I was going further and further back, just filling in the gaps. When it came to pivotal moments in my curriculum development, I realised that I had to start younger and younger and younger so that the gaps were not getting bigger and bigger and bigger. By the time they get to the high school years and then the very, very crucial years of, you know, years 11 and 12, they were not left stranded. They had not lost their confidence that they were no longer looking at not just English but all their subjects at school as if it was just that mountain that was too high to climb. 
 
 When you asked me about pivotal moments, there were so many along the way, and it was even my learning. Do you know those moments when I say to myself? Oh, here is a gap that I should go back to. And write something to teach so that the children are solid in that concept before moving on. And I don't want any child to be left behind. But you know, sometimes it is reality. Time is of the essence. And I can talk about it all day long. But so many pivotal moments. Along the way, just for my learning as an educator to make. Other people's learning is much smoother than it really should be.

Speaker 1

You underlined the ‘why’ of what you were doing, and I love the three Cs: creativity, confidence, and communication. I believe that when children learn something and receive it, they don't have the opportunity to process it. And it can be half understood. It's in the creation of your communication and your articulation that you learn and understand what comes at you from the world. 
 
 Then, you add what you believe and think about it. So, the articulation of the communication is extremely important. And young children can do that if they're given the opportunity. The other word. I love that you used was ‘concept’. That is because you know vocabulary; you've probably realised it isn't enough. If you know a word, you have to deeply comprehend it, and you use that word as well. 
 
 You found the gap and realised that you needed to find the children younger to embed these concepts, but you took action, and then you interacted with your community. And I'm delighted that you see language for children as a power. In fact, it's a superpower. So, Christine, what steps did you take? I mean, it's easy for people to, for you to say. Oh,  I started this Tutor Group or business? Or whatever it was. How did you set yourself? Up in this field.

Speaker 2

I returned to uni multiple times to learn aspects of children's learning. I'm qualified and trained as a high school English teacher. And a childhood educator. But beyond that, I went back to Uni just to study things like head and neck anatomy to understand how children develop anatomically and specifically from a speech pathology point of view. How do they communicate? So these things are my first love to taking steps to ensure that what I'm bringing to the table for my children, that I teach the students, that I teach in the families is research evidence-based research to ensure that I'm not just pulling things out of the air and saying, oh, this is how I feel about it, and this is what you I I think you should do. This is evidence-based research on how children learn. 
 
 I most enjoy everything that has to do with how individuals learn from birth. To beyond, and I don't say birth to a specific year because you and I are still learning and I find that I'm learning every day. And when I look into human learning, you know, human learning, you think, wow, there's more development on, you know, how we adapt to our environment. We must adapt to our context, how fast the environment is going, and how emotionally and intellectually we respond as human beings. If we, as adults and grown people with developed prefrontal cortex in the brain, find it a struggle, how are we, or what are we doing for our early years learners to be able to also cope?   I think, you know, this is a continuous learning journey for everybody, and it starts with ourselves, you know, so it starts with us as grown people being able to navigate a landscape. So that we can put in really practical and safe learning boundaries for our children to navigate. And I say the word safe because they need to be confident, comes back to that confidence. They feel safe to experiment. They feel safe to question. They feel safe to be curious. So that creativity is there, and before you know it, when they can verbalise and physically express themselves, communication comes in. So, coming back to how I establish myself, it's continuous learning that I can bring evidence-based research to the table that supports what I'm saying to families. What I'm instructing to the children.

Speaker 1

You've done one of the things that I think would be so valuable for children: link what you're doing to a contextual framework.  Going out of what children are saying to how they say to understand that anatomy. I wish our children would have that curiosity to link other areas of learning to what they are doing and to love it with the sense of passion you are displaying. 
 
 I think it's crucial for educators to know that things are evidence-based and to find their research. But you have developed a culture within these tutorial groups, a culture where, as you've said, children are safe and have a sense of belonging. Because that develops the wellbeing their emotional wellbeing. And you can only learn when you feel secure.  You have done what sounds like neuroscience, which underlines how vital wellbeing is for learning.  
 
 Now, Christine, can you share any specific examples of how this work has made a difference, other unique perspectives or approaches and how it benefits the families you've worked with?

Speaker 2

That question is very all-encompassing because I think, ultimately, in the work I do, I have one pair of hands, and I can't do it all alone. Regarding uniqueness, philosophy, or importance, everything I communicate with my staff, the people I work with, my partners, and my children. It's almost like a philosophy that you live and breathe every day. When I carry this, this is how my family is that I work with the children of these families, which will also resonate with me because I'm living and breathing that philosophy. 
 
 I bring it back to the 3 Cs. Creativity, confidence and communication are the foundation of the entire belief system and organisation. I thought about the names for so long, and I thought, you know what, what three words can embody everybody's attitude? It's that attitude that I'm after because I want children to be playful. I want them to be outside-of-the-box thinkers, which I mentioned before, and I want them to have the confidence to express themselves. When they're grown-ups, they will have all of this to navigate what we already know is an increasingly complex world. Whilst I might say, oh, it's a tuition school, and then later on, we established the childcare, my work is about something other than cramming information into them. It's more about giving them that information to create a framework for themselves regarding early childhood education. Our centre is located in Croydon, NSW. It's called C through childcare, and I worked with my director. As you know, her name is Sharon Hegner. The philosophy of C3 continues to be implemented daily, and of course, you know we have the EYLF, which has five outcomes. This is a given. This is a given. So, your question is about what you do that's unique. 
 
 What do you do that's different to the norm? I had this conversation with Sharon, and we have this conversation together continuously. Sharon has 30 years in the early childhood education landscape, and she told me, Chris, we have to bring it back to intentional teaching for the children. Whilst we're only sometimes guiding them while promoting invitations to play, we need to sit beside them. We need to sit next to them to fill in the gaps. Of their learning, for example, if they're building a block or, you know, stacking some blocks and those blocks fall over. Is that a teaching moment? Is that a learning opportunity for them to understand gravity and why blocks fall over? 
 
 You know, so, and that's physics. Teaching moment. It's not just about the invitation to play, and I think because of her experience as well, she has reflected on her 30 years, and she says sometimes we are so focused on a play that we forget that play also has the learning aspect of creating the whole child. So sometimes it doesn't hurt to go back to some, quote unquote old school ways. I don't like to use the word ‘old’, you know, because it gives too many other implications, but it is. It's about the old-school ways of sitting next to the child and sitting with the child. And observing possible learning and teaching opportunities because it's not just about free play, you know, because the free play sometimes gives the wrong impression that it's just nanny. We're not nannying. We are educators. We're working towards that whole child. We're in it; if I return to your question about uniqueness, I don't think what we're doing is unique. I think we're spotlighting the importance so that we can further the needle of a child's learning experience, right, so that every day our touch point is to create that whole child.

Speaker 1

Working from philosophy and values always makes something solid and authentic. I can hear it in every word you say, every word. Words can embody an attitude you're walking version of what you say. And I love that you said ‘playful expression’ as well because I think if people listen to us and they only hear about structure, they think we've forgotten about play. But we never have.
 
  And you're going to be amused and interested and I hope listeners will be as well, but when you're talking about creating different ways of interacting with children around their actual play. I've just written a book, and it has not one but seven different learning zones for play, each with its interaction. And I didn’t expect to be telling you that right now. But it fits so well with my work that I can't let it go. And the zones go from free play through to auto-generative creativity. And there are several zones in between. And it's mediation. It's mediation; it's planning. And again, it is action and furthering the needle because it makes the children push their learning up in a spiral. Play is wonderful and beautiful and important. But, if we aren't optimising the play and if we aren't observing and assessing and maximising the outcomes for the child, then they are left at a particular level. 
 
 We all know and love Lev Vygotsky’s zone of approximal development.  There's a floor, and there's a ceiling. And your work. I see it pushing children through that ceiling every day. And it is. It's almost commonsensical, but it isn't easy to talk about anything that isn't allowing children to play in a kind of romantic sense. So, I thank you for that. And I just, I've never seen the confluence of our work in this way until now. 
 
 But let's get back to you because this is a bit of a sidestep into my work, and I apologise. So, what challenges did you face? What challenges did you encounter along the way?

Speaker 2

There are many challenges because when we want to make a change and advocate for the betterment of anything, there will always be challenges. I will be very honest with you. I see that there are few challenges. I don't look at challenges as a negative, nor do I look at them as a challenge or a setback because challenges are just opportunities. When I think about the word challenge. I always do, and this is my communication with my staff. That's not a challenge. That's an opportunity for Betterment. That's an opportunity to learn. I filter this right through from top to bottom. And when I say top to bottom, I mean executive level to that baby in our care. A challenge could simply be that I don't know how to engage that child. That's a challenge. 
 
  The biggest challenge for us was during COVID-19; how will we take care of the children? And whilst it's in the distant memory, it is still fresh and raw. These challenges are just opportunities for us to say, well, let's assume that childcare is no longer because COVID has decimated the world. Does that mean that every child no longer learns? You know, and in these moments, we say, well, we have a framework, we have a curriculum, we can communicate with parents. Parents may not be as knowledgeable as we are in early childhood education, but how do we communicate with them? How do we get them to be creative in their world? I don't always think that challenges are negative at all. I never think of challenges are negative. I'm very fortunate that my staff always thinks about challenges as opportunities. I'd speak to Sharon every day. Our team talks daily. We always discuss things that have little roadblocks. You know how we can overcome these roadblocks and always bring it back to our philosophy. 
 
 So, if anyone is ever lost. You just go back to your philosophy. You know, you return to your framework and then find the opportunity. And you overcome it. Regarding challenges, I don't think you know we've had anything debilitating at all. No matter how big or small, there have been big challenges, but we learn from those.

Speaker 1

Isn't that an incredible thing to share with children as well? If they have a difficulty, that's an opportunity to learn something new. To find a new creative way to think about their world, to become confident again, and to know how to reverse challenges and use that lens of opportunity.  COVID has a very long tail, Christine. There’s so much talk about this often. And there's an enormous amount of talk about how children have been left behind in their social and emotional development. And I'm a great believer. That emotion is very important, but if we try to counteract emotion with emotion by just saying we feel sorry for you and, you know, we commiserate with you. But we need to do more. Again, we have to take some action. And the interaction that you've described being beside those children, injecting your wisdom.  I believe that sometimes people talk about us as ‘transmission’ education. I believe we're in a transheritance education. Children inherit how we have learned, how we cope, and our knowledge. And we don't want to just package it; we want to share it and give them those opportunities. So you've described COVID as a time when you could accept. Or you can refresh.  And I think it has given us phenomenal new opportunities for action. And I, yeah, I so commend you for the way you think about that. It's not what I expect to hear, but I just absolutely love it.

Speaker 2

I wanted to go back on what you mentioned before about action and not just commiserating with the children and saying, "Oh, you know, you poor thing, you know, you've lost, you know, all sort of social context. I just wanted to extend that a little bit because during that time, I think, yes, you know, the whole argument about you’re left behind. The most pragmatic thing is precisely what you said before.
 
  The children can see action as a way to overcome challenges and find opportunities. In our centre and our tuition colleges, that is what we reinforce to the children and the families. But if you give yourself small, achievable steps. Then you can overcome big, significant, big challenges. Gradually and consistently. So, for example, let's say a child was in a room during Covid we were all masked up. And I remember this because my little one, who's seven now, went through that period in her preschool years.  When the children had to be masked up, we had to be masked up if we were in the centre. For them not to have some basic understanding of social cues because they couldn't see our faces. Now, what does that mean? 
 
 First, COVID, whatever that means, is when you give them pragmatic steps by introducing books that show different emotions.  You are more expressive now because you can allow that.  Then, that problem, that challenge, and that inability to socially network becomes dust bunnies. You know it's that distant memory now because you've replaced it. You've replaced it with consistent drills of showing them what emotion looks like. You know? So, does that mean you're just doing more than one thing to overcome that challenge? Well, yes, because it's an opportunity now to read more books, explore, and play around with emotional context. So that's just one example. I think of 1 overcoming a challenge and. You, you know, conquering that idea of children having been left behind because I think acting, interacting, it's going to be very rewarding to us as educators, to their families as we teach the families and the children who are going to be benefiting from this. You know, rewarded as a result of what we're doing to overcome.

Speaker 1

How dare you use the word drills?  (Laughter)

Speaker 2

And I almost retracted it. But this is talking about drilling the emotional beauty of humanness.

Speaker 1

I know, and it's strange because there can be a very binary view about how you work with young children. And sometimes, that drilling is essential because they've yet to have that experience. They would have had the experience through repetition in their families before, in the classroom, before in the kindergarten space and in the baby room, which they haven't had. So now it's a quick catch-up.  And sometimes the drill is very important. Another word, I love ‘dust bunnies’. What! You don't just forget them. They become Dust Bunnies. There's. No problems. I love that. So cool.
 
  OK, OK, now I want to know. If there's any fun or shareable moment of the people and the communities you've worked with, and perhaps even in your own family, from your work, Christine.

Speaker 2

I would love to share that because these are the most fun moments where you are. We are very privileged to be observers of learners. Be that. Newborns through to people our age, because that aha moment is priceless. Now, as you all know, I love language. I love how language impacts and one of my key lines is to ponder on the power of words. Because you need to ponder sometimes that word must think about the hues, the colours, the variations, and how that word lands differently for different people. Now, my children, I've got four, and I always have fun playing with words. Games with them, and it just gets their brain working. I know with my little one, one of the games that we would play would be, you know, teaching her about relationships because they don't have a concept of relationships, and one of them is just knowing that you know that Uncle James is my brother or, you know, Auntie Jimmy is my cousin. So that you know where the ‘Oh, she's your grandmother. But that one is your father. So the idea of relationships is very interesting. I always told my little girl that Robert was your father's brother. That is a saying that we always say, and it's Bob's your uncle. It gets her brain working on relationships, connections, and synapses. And how to use words more creatively. So instead of saying, ‘Oh and Bob's your uncle, you can say well, Robert is your father's brother. So, in these little word games, I always encourage my staff and my family to introduce words that children can then decode, and they have the power to interact with them and take action with the words with purpose. Now, I also mentioned that I studied head and neck anatomy, and one of the elements of the human body is the word epiglottis. And I just wanted to read what my daughter said the other day, which left me slightly stumped. She said mum because she was pondering the power of the words she would use for me. She said, ‘Mum, what happens if I'm eating? And the epiglottis doesn't come down fast enough?’

Speaker 1

Oh, my goodness.  That’s almost a moment when you choke! What a what a precious child. How did you respond?

Speaker 2

And I had to tell her. I have. To go to Mr Google. Because I then had to ponder how I would use words for a 7-year-old. To process, so see how we're always learning. While she was introduced to the word epiglottis, she used it very well. You know, she was pondering that word. Then it was my turn to learn. And it wasn't about my understanding of the word epiglottis, but how I would communicate that creatively to a 7-year-old so that she understood.

Speaker 1

That is something in Reggio Emilia's approach. they talk about a ping pong ball.  The child will hit the ping pong ball, and then you hit it back. And so, you grow your understanding and knowledge of the project. But I don't know, Christine, if you've been watching the Olympics and the ping pong in the Olympics, it's very fast. That's a bit of a sideliner for the Incredible Olympics we've been watching. I love the examples that you shared with us. 
 
 And a woman of your calibre and your knowledge and your trajectory. I know you're not standing still. So, what are your plans? What are you, professionally and personally? What's on the horizon for Christine PM?

Speaker 2

I am very privileged to be in this space because it is about. Humanity. It is about my contribution to the human race as a community, and, as far as I'm concerned, that little me, you know, in a grassroots movement, will. Make an impact one day.  What are my current projects and plans, professionally and personally? I will continue to grow the philosophy of C3 education and C3 childcare because I hope it will make an impact. So that is definitely. I will continue on the horizon personally, and I have found that this is the case because the students I used to teach are now becoming adults. They're having children of their own. It's almost like a virtuous cycle. And they're also continuously learning. So, I want to continue being this educator being, you know, a coach because if they're the best version of themselves as an adult, they can give back to their children with the right mindset. Because. I believe that the growth mindset is the foundation of success. OK, a growth mindset. You know this is not new, but you have to embody it at the end of the day. You have to live it, and you have to breathe it. So, if you ask me what my next step is, I want to amplify my voice teaching and others speaking. To others talking to people like yourself, who will have people tuning in and going, ‘I want to learn more about it. I want to be a better human. I want to be a better learner and teacher to the next generation’. So yes, it is a movement in itself.

Speaker 1

Pondering the power of words, I see how you've created that landscape of the future, and I can see you doing that well. I saw you doing it a few weekends ago. The human aspect of that is very important. Every one of us is unique. Every one of us has a voice, and we develop expertise. I'm so grateful for your emphasis on language. I listen regularly. People will probably hear me say often that my car, Honeybee, is a university, and I always listen to audiobooks. And many coaches say you must calibrate your language to a 12-year-old's age. But, I don't believe that because I don't believe that that gives us the best from our language, and I don't think that makes us the most competent, contributory person we can be on this planet.

I would like you to share some advice with our listeners. If you have more quotes in your collection, please share one I didn't steal right at the beginning of our podcast.

Speaker 2

I have many messages, and we will be here all day long. But I will only take up some of the time and the podcast. I want to share what Shakespeare wrote in one of his historical plays, Henry the Sixth. He has a quote that landed so well with me, and I want to share that with you today. And the quote is, ‘Let me embrace thee sour adversities. For wise men, say it is the wisest course.’ Now when you find yourself in a pickle. Because that's the version of a sour adversity. Or when life gives you lemons, that is also a sour adversity. He's pretty profound, isn't he? Shakespeare, he says. Well, embrace them. Because you can make a variety of sour things. Lemonade. Limoncello. You be the boss of what you want to do with those sour adversities. What would you like to do with those lemons? When life gives you those moments, they become opportunities. They become opportunities when everyone at your Early Childhood Centre has a meltdown. And you don't know what to do. Read Shakespeare.

Speaker 1

The Bard, the Bard’s to the rescue. What a sensational way to end this podcast. I thank you so much for everything you've given us for your wisdom, journey, and future because I know. I'm going to be part of that too.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much, Lili Ann. I am so privileged to be here to share my thoughts. Thank you to all the listeners and to you for being so generous with your time.