Career Detours, Reinvention and the Courage to Build Something New

Careers rarely follow the path we expect.

In this episode, I'm joined by Rachel Abad to talk about the twists, turns, and unexpected experiences that ultimately led her to founding her own communications consultancy.

Growing up in regional North Queensland, Rachel always knew she wanted to leave her hometown and build a career beyond its boundaries. While law was her original plan, missing the grades led her into a Communications degree instead, a decision that would shape the rest of her career.

Through internships, she discovered a love of teamwork, fast-paced environments, and working to deadlines. After a challenging start to her job search, Rachel landed a role in a small agency working with Telstra licensees, which eventually led to positions with a Telstra master licensee and later Telstra's head office.

Along the way, she developed expertise in stakeholder management, communications, and navigating complex environments, skills that would later transfer seamlessly into infrastructure, rail projects, and community engagement work in Melbourne.

But like many people, Rachel's career wasn't without challenges.

During COVID, years of pressure and overwork caught up with her. Burnout, hospitalisation, and a diagnosis of intracranial hypertension forced her to reassess her relationship with work, success, and identity.

Our conversation explores:

✅ Building a career when the path isn't clear
✅ The value of internships and early career experiences
✅ Stakeholder management and transferable skills
✅ Burnout, recovery, and redefining success
✅ When work becomes too much of your identity
✅ Starting a business and overcoming fear
✅ Finding purpose and meaning in your work
✅ Why nobody really has it all figured out

Rachel also shares the story behind founding Looped In Communication, her audience-led research and communications consultancy, and why understanding people sits at the heart of effective communication.

This is an honest conversation about career detours, resilience, burnout, entrepreneurship, and the reality that most successful careers are built one step at a time.

To connect with Rachel 
Website: looped-in.com.au 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-abad-59303452/

Can you also find episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmmaGrahamCareerCoach/videos

Your host, Emma Graham, Career Coach and ex-recruiter, is here to help you with:

 💡 Gain clarity on what’s important to you
 💡 Confidently communicate your value
 💡 Build a personal brand and a strong network
 💡 Take a strategic approach to your next move
 💡 Navigate the job market effectively
 💡 Build career confidence with a repeatable success blueprint

🌐 Explore my coaching programs and free resources:
 Website: https://www.egconsulting.au/
 LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/emmajgraham
 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmagrahamcareercoach/

🎁 Free Resources:
 📄 CV Development Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/cv-advice
 📄 LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/linkedin-profile-guide

📅 Book Your FREE Career Strategy Discovery Call:
 https://calendly.com/emmagrahamconsulting/discovery-call

Transcript

Emma: Hello, and welcome to Your Career Journey, the podcast designed to be your compass through the twists and turns of career development.

In this episode, I'm joined by Rachael Abad, a human-centered comms and marketing strategist, to talk about the career journey that's taken her from regional Queensland to founding her own consultancy. We explore the ups, downs, and lessons along the way, from finding her path when the destination wasn't clear to navigating complex stakeholder environments, experiencing burnout, redefining success, and ultimately building a business aligned with her values and strengths

Emma: Rachel, thank you so much for joining me. Nice to see you.

Rache;l: Oh, thank you for having me. It's so nice to see you this morning.

Emma: very welcome. Tell me a bit about where your journey started. When you were kind of in school and, you know, thinking about this thing, this career thing, what was in your mind? Was it always [00:01:00] marketing and comms at that point? where was your head at? Take me back.

Rache;l: Oh, it's a good question. I grew up in regional North Queensland, so I think the only thing that I knew I wanted to do was get out of the tiny town that I was living in. when it came to figuring out what I wanted to do with my life at the age of fifteen, sixteen, it felt like a Really heavy burden. So

I think for me, I had two options in my mind.

I wanted to be a lawyer and I, was okay if I did

something in the creative space with words, 'cause I had won a few, like junior writing competitions, but I didn't, like, feel like That was what I was supposed to do, which is really interesting. So when I applied for university 'cause I knew to get out of my town, I needed to go to university, it's kind of what my parents told me As well. I applied for four, law courses in, in Brisbane and Sydney, and one Bachelor of Communications, which had just come out- I think a year prior and was a new kind of program of study.

[00:02:00] And I didn't get the grades to make it into law, and so I got my fifth and final preference, which was a Bachelor of Communication. so I was like, I guess I'm studying comms." It was the best decision I ever did.

Emma: Yeah. Life might have looked quite different.

Rache;l: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's funny when you're that young, I didn't have this,

I guess, innate drive to, you know, work or learn, to be honest. I was just having a really fun time meeting people, kind of just exploring what it is to be a young person in the world. And it only came to my third year at university, which I'd never been to the library before

then, And I got the opportunity to do an internship. And so they were like, "You can go into a organization and work a little bit." And I fell in love with, like, the idea of a team and getting things done and deadlines and outputs and

it was crazy. I ended up topping my

whole grade, or like cohort, for that one specific subject [00:03:00] and realized, "I think I'm gonna have a great time working."

So I think I did-- ended up doing about three different internships in a year period.

Emma: That's cool. and were they specific to, to the comms space? what type of internships were they?

Rache;l: Yeah, it's interesting. they were all marketing. So I had

a-- my bachelor was in communications, majoring in PR and creative writing.

so ended up following that, that writing

train. But all of the internships, that were on offer were marketing led, so it was like a small marketing agency and then like a small

production agency, like really tiny, maybe two, three people max, And I just kinda came on board to help as like, I guess a marketing intern. And it's

really ironic because my whole career started in marketing, and I didn't even have a single subject of marketing that I had completed. And it kind of is really ironic because even the world that I live in now is this interchange of marketing and comms.

So

yeah, two internships in really small, tiny marketing agencies.[00:04:00] 

Emma: was fascinating. And it kind of is really our first role that I work in now is in communications, marketing and comms. It's funny, isn't it? Like, as you were saying, you know, you sort of, I don't know, 15, 16 and thinking about what you're gonna do. it's such a, it's such a kind of almost unreasonable thing to expect people to do.

I mean, how are you meant to know? Obviously, I speak to a lot of people through the podcast, through, you know, years in recruitment. The percentage of people who can s- who say, "Oh, I kn- I always knew," like it's very small. They're out there, but it's not that many people. And for most of us, I mean, I thought I wanted to be a stockbroker, so Thank God I didn't thank God I didn't do that.

But I spent quite a few years with, mainly 'cause I, you know, did economics and all of that kind of thing. So that was, you know, that's where I thought my life was, was going. Thank God I was wrong. But,it's really difficult for people to know and yet we kind of expect people to make these, what at the time feel like super consequential decisions.

And in some respects they are, but I think as you get older you realise that, you know, it's not one path for life. [00:05:00] there's lots of kind of variations of it out there, but it just always seems, yeah, it just always seems a little bit unrealistic to expect people to be able to answer those questions at that age.

Rache;l: Oh, it's crazy that, that pressure you feel as a 15,

16-year-old, you're like, "I have no idea what I wanna do

with my life." And they're like, "You need to make the right decision. You need to work really hard, like this is gonna set

your future." But no one actually tells you, "Oh, you know, you can actually change degrees.

you can change careers multiple times in your life." And I think, you know, I'm at the

precipice of that period where it's like the 

people before me... a lot of people before

me, worked in their career for 60 years. Like my parents both only had one career from the moment they,

you know, finished school to the moment they retired.

So it was kind of spooky, but it's been such a joy and a pleasure to realise you can actually change halfway through and that's so fine.

But yeah, it's really heavy. 

Emma: a pleasure to realise you can actually change that. Absolutely. Yeah. It is. A- and it's interesting you saying about law as well. I was [00:06:00] speaking to someone recently who, who also did law and has gone off in a digital marketing kind of SEO direction. But, she was saying actually that the law degree was actually quite helpful to her 'cause it was around synthesising information, being able to take complex information, translate it into kind of everyday,everyday English as it were.

and the fact that now law is almost seen as one of those degrees that's, not fixed, that you do law and then you can go in lots of different directions. which is quite interesting maybe as well in the whole kind of AI world. But anyway, that's an aside. So when you, when you left and kind of went into the, the wide world of work, tell me about that.

Tell me about the, the early days of your career.

Rache;l: Yeah, of course. It was actually really challenging for me to

find a job straight out of university. You know, I kind of coasted the first start of my degree,

then became really passionate and invested about what I wanted to do. and so I was working for free, interning at like, music PR agencies and then [00:07:00] marketing agencies, while also working to pay my rent at the time.

So I was working in an RSL, and I finished my degree and applied for, it felt like a million jobs, and I couldn't get one for six months. So I continued

working for free, interning so I could get that experience And figure out if this is what I wanna do. And after six months of, you know, pretty much working full-time in the hospitality space, I got one of the first jobs that I could, which was, I was so stoked about.

but it was a tiny marketing

agency above a pet store.

it was about an hour drive, out of Brisbane, and I was just so stoked to

have this job. And the whole premise of the agency was servicing, Telstra licensees, so helping them with their, essentially above the line marketing. So utilizing the Telstra templates and kind of supporting their marketing activity. It was so niche at the time, but I kind of was like, "A marketing job, great." And it really did [00:08:00] kind of start this journey within Telstra marketing for me, because I worked in this little tiny agency servicing Telstra

licensees. Then I got poached

by the master licensee, so, you know, looking after about two hundred Telstra stores nationally. So that was my next step. kinda getting into that, you know, midway role.

And then after a few years, Telstra poached me. So I ended up working for the, retail marketing team. So managing the Telstra catalog and all of the virtual merchandising, or visual merchandising, in Telstra stores. So this kind of, random first start in a marketing agency above a pet store, ended up with me, yeah, working at head office at Telstra.

It was awesome.

Emma: and kind of the, from one extreme to the other there of small marketing agency to, you know, corporate beast of that is Telstra.

Rache;l: I also remember my first day at Telstra and the marble foyer in Brisbane [00:09:00] CBD, and I had this reflection. I was like five years earlier,

I was walking through a pet

store to go to work. Like, I was so stoked about that

kind of next step. it. was

Emma: it. Yeah.

Rache;l: Yeah.

Emma: and how did you find working for such a big corporate? 'Cause it's a completely different kettle of fish, isn't it?

Rache;l: I fell in love with it, to be honest. I really loved it for a few years that I was there. It was so complex and there were so many stakeholders. And when you're, I guess, managing

the Creation of a catalog, you have. so many stakeholders, and I think that was

something I didn't really understand and was such a vital skill that I learned to be able to manage, you know, a bunch of changes,

a bunch of feedback. conflicting thoughts, supplier relationship.

we had to talk to Google and Apple to, make sure they were happy with, you know, the advertising and the catalog as well and virtual merchandising or visual merchandising.

So I think it was just the complexity I-- like the c-

the [00:10:00] complex environment is such an important kind of space that I was in because I learnt so much about like big organisation that I would never have unless I kind of went into that corporate space.

But it was

crazy Sometimes we'd have 52 stakeholders doing a single review of a catalog that you'd have to manage within like a one-week period. It was chaos.

Emma: say 100%, but I know- Wow.

That is hardcore. 52, 

Rache;l: Yeah. 

Emma: nuts. It's amazing anything gets done with that many stakeholders.

Rache;l: yeah. You have people like me going, please do it," all day. It's like someone's whole job doing project management,

 especially when you join a marketing role. So that's another skill that I learnt through that space too.

Emma: Yeah, and a really important one as well is she said, like, you know, communication, influencing, competing priorities, and, I think one of the most interesting things about talking about career journeys is often that the beauty of hindsight, of being able to kind of [00:11:00] put together the little building blocks.

And often, you know, nature of hindsight, you don't always realise at the time. you can see, "Oh, I'm, you know, I'm learning good skills," and you can enjoy the work, but you don't always understand quite how vital those skills are going to be to you in the future. And I think, as I say, it's one of the things that I really enjoy in looking back is like, "Ooh, that was a really key building block.

Ooh, that was really key." And something that might on the surface appear quite random even, you can sort of look back and go, "If I'd have missed that bit, I'd have missed something really vital that actually now I use every day." and just kinda hearing you talk about that, you can see how vital that would be in, gosh, so many parts of what you do now.

Rache;l: Oh Yeah. truly. It is pretty interesting the certain roles that I'll find myself in, whether it's working for a massive tech conglomerate or maybe it's,a major infrastructure project, and, you know, the complexity of those environments to be able to help me when I'm working in really small [00:12:00] agency environments so that I can have the context of, you know, the different type of environments I'm supporting It's been so awesome to look back and go, "I really needed every single one of those experiences," whether it was challenging or complex or easy and boring, you know? 

Emma: before I started." Yeah. A- and I think as well, I was at an event recently and there were a number of, junior marketers and grads there, and they were sort of asking, you know, questions about early career paths and all of that kind of thing.

And I said a very similar thing, actually, that I think it's easy in the beginning to sometimes, overlook how important some of those experiences are. Like, even if it's not your... You know, like you said, I got my first job and I was just so pleased to be, you know, on the career, roundabout and, you know, I had my first role.

Maybe it wasn't your dream role, but, you know, you were doing it. A- and I think it's so easy, to the earlier point about pressure, to kind of get caught in that, "I have to get it right." Like, it's so, "I have to get the perfect first role. [00:13:00] I have to get, you know, it has to be this, it has to be that."

And as long as you're learning, I mean, at any stage, but I think particularly at the beginning, as long as you're learning and you're increasing your toolkit, even if it's not even in your preferred profession, you're still learning skills. Ideally, it's in your preferred profession. And sometimes, yeah, you just don't realise how important that is until later on.

And I think it's easy for people to be a bit despondent maybe at some of those early stages of, "Oh, well, you know, it's not really the role I want." But, I think just, yeah, focusing on what you're actually learning and trying to keep that as broad as possible sometimes in the early days, I think is really helpful.

Rache;l: Yeah, I completely agree. I think especially at the start,

you're not figuring out what you want to do, you're figuring out what

you don't wanna do.

And so Every role that's a little bit kind of, not it-" 

helps you to select the next role because you already have a criteria of what you don't wanna do.

So- I feel like especially when I was taking [00:14:00] roles that I'm like, "I don't know," it definitely helped me to solidify, oh, I actually don't wanna do that

type of comms or in that type of environment or the opposite.

I was like, "Oh, this is pleasantly

surprising, and I guess I do wanna explore this in the future." So

I think if you kind of look at it in-- with that lens, it's a little bit more helpful than putting all that pressure of picking the right one

Emma: Bit more comfortable then considering all that pressure I think that's a great point, actually, and something, I often say to people as well that I think, you know, blank piece of paper, what do you want to do can feel a bit overwhelming, and it's hard to know where to start. But we often do know what we don't want, and actually just starting to kind of narrow down and go, "Okay, well, actually, I don't want that," or, "I don't want that particular type of industry," or by, by process of elimination, you end up with things that you do want.

And I think sometimes it sounds a bit counterintuitive or maybe feels a bit, I don't know, negative, but I actually think it's an incredibly helpful way to, to think about it. What, what happens after Telstra? what comes [00:15:00] next?

Rache;l: great question. I feel like I had my whole career to that point where I was only working on the Telstra brand in, you know, Different forms, And I was kind of at a bit of a standstill being like,

 I'm at, I think the third cycle of the Christmas catalog or the second cycle, and I was like, "Oh, this is feeling repetitive." You know, it's the same

challenges and, you know, the same design. 

and

just by chance, I had a friend of mine call me and I had, originally worked with her at the first agency, that we were at together.

And she had moved into, like infrastructure, major infrastructure. And She called me and she said, "Hey, Rach, do you wanna work in trains?"

Like, literally that sentence. I was like, "No, I don't." And she was like, "Oh, I'll 

Emma: live stream.

Rache;l: Yeah." I was like, "No, thank you. Not trains." and she's like, "Well, I'll double your salary." And I was like, "I love trains. Yep, let's do

Emma: Yeah, I'm all about the trains, yeah.

Rache;l: one of those chance kind of [00:16:00] encounters where I was like, "Why not? Like, let's see where the world will take me." And I got an opportunity working on the biggest, freight rail infrastructure project in Victoria, which sounded awesome. you know, I was kinda like, it's not really passenger facing, but it'll be really interesting to understand the community engagement, side of those things. So it was a comms

role supporting community engagement, and I was kind of working FIFO, so spending half the week in

Melbourne and, you know, coming home for the weekend most weeks.

So it was definitely one of those periods in my life where my life was work, which I hadn't experienced as much when I was younger and in junior roles, being able to kind of go home at 5:30 or 6:00 and, you know, leave work behind.

So that was a really awesome experience and completely different, you know.

It was community

engagement. It was more about understanding and

more about kind of communicating process and really complex, architecture and building terminology, which even for [00:17:00] me to get my head around was Was crazy at the time. So that was a really interesting kind of step forward, led me to move to Melbourne from

Brisbane, which felt even bigger and broader, more beautiful.

And I did in fact fall in love with trains, so I had multiple ro- roles working in, yeah, passenger communication after that.

Emma: And how did you find that?

Rache;l: Oh, I actually really loved it. I loved the, I guess, the ever-changing and ever-moving environment of projects. So essentially it was projects.

I went from working in Telstra where it was the same thing every year, same catalog, Christmas, Mother's day to working, on the rail lines,for major infrastructure projects like level crossing removal and Melbourne airport Rail. And these are projects with a limited lifespan.

with crazy complexities, and you're dealing with shutting train lines down that have millions of passengers on it every day.

So it was, it felt like a really intense, you [00:18:00] know, exciting next step. And I fell in love with how

we were communicating to

the everyday passenger, because we're talking to such a broad audience. set. But in reality, when you're looking at different, you know, pockets of Melbourne, different train stations, every kind of passenger has a unique thing about them that you can talk to them about. So yeah, I fell-- I-

absolutely fell in love with trains in the end.

Emma: and some of that Telstra complexity coming back to, to help you again, I'd imagine.

Rache;l: Oh my God, absolutely. Especially in those major infrastructure project spaces, you work within a consortia, so you have to not only wear your,

I guess your employer hat, but you've got your project hat, And then you have your builder's hat. And so you're having different conversations with different stakeholders that are either in the same business or different business, same project, all with kind of conflicting priorities 'cause at the end of the day, you know, we're all there to build whether it's a bridge, [00:19:00] or a new rail line

or, you know, helping passengers have a simpler journey.

We're all there for the same reason, but you know, the way to get there, everyone has a different perspective. So they were incredibly helpful skills that I learnt, that whole stakeholder management piece. 

Emma: Yeah, I'm sure. And how, how did you come to go from that to, essentially working for yourself and starting your own agency?

Rache;l: Yeah, I feel like I had a interesting

process or journey, throughout the COVID period

which I'm sure is a common story. but I was very grateful to

have incredibly secure work during that period. But it comes with a interesting other side because when there are no passengers on the rail line, it means that project works can absolutely ramp up. So for me, during

the pandemic, I was working nearly double what I was

[00:20:00] beforehand to try and get all these project works done, all these

communications updated, with, the changing needs of, you know, the government communication protocol through COVID.

So I actually ended up getting incredibly burnt out, I was managing a team who were navigating this stress as well and kind of just took on as much as I possibly could, of their stress so they could navigate,

this, you know, weird

time that was 

Emma: Yeah. And so I 

Rache;l: And so I got really

unwell. I got burnt out. I ended up in, in hospital for a

while and, I ended up getting diagnosed with intracranial hypertension.

So-

that is a condition where

my brain was swelling. there's a water retention element to it, but it was a incredibly serious, diagnosis, that made me realize, oh, something's not quite right here, and I'm gonna have to shift my priorities which I hadn't, from quite early on in my career-

as I [00:21:00] mentioned. Work was

a lot of my life. So I ended up taking some time to, I guess,

get healthy

and, come back to equilibrium.

and my employer at the time was incredible gave me a part-time role, and that made me see work so differently. I was starting to, think about Work in a way that--

Emma: that-- 

Rache;l: I was starting to think

about work 

Emma: think about work

Rache;l: as a avenue

to kind of make a difference and make an impact rather than kind of just working for the sake of working 'cause it made me realize or question more so why was I doing this?

You know, does the

work I do really matter? So it kind of led me to, behavior change and impact-led work. There was a small boutique consultancy that I ended up getting a role with which I tried. We had conversations for eight months

I was just so in love with them and I wanted to [00:22:00] work there so much and they gave me the job finally.

"

Emma: No does not mean no."

Rache;l: No. I was like, "I need to work there." and they gave me the opportunity, and I ended up being the associate

director of comms after a few years and the work that we did there was incredible, working in the energy space, in the gender equity space, the sexual health and health space. so a lot of for-purpose work. So really strategic research-based work and then, you know, developing strategy and communications based on the need of the people we're trying to support.

So that whole frame of mind completely changed me as a person and made me realized, oh, I can do work that is really complex, that's talking to mass audience groups, and that makes a difference. So That's kind of how I started to move towards where I am today. 

Emma: where I am today. Interested when you're going through a [00:23:00] time like that and you talked about the kind of the way that you thought about work changed quite significantly from then to now.

how did you think about work before? do you have sort of a, I don't know, a definition or even a conception of, I guess, what it meant to you then versus, versus now? When I was 

Rache;l: That's a really good question. I think when I was younger, I kind of

had this work ethic instilled in my brain, from my parents who were both migrants and they came to Australia, the land of opportunity, and worked incredibly hard. And so for me, they were like, "We are giving you the opportunity to be the first ones in our family to be university educated, so you can get a job and do whatever you wanna do and do it well.

And so this like, sense of striving and need to be perfect or work extra or work hard was just so [00:24:00] ingrained in my head. And my life priority ended up being work for such a long period of time. It was like, you know, you've gotta do more, You've gotta work harder, you've gotta be better." You've gotta be more innovative, you've gotta make change.

and that really shifted when I realized I hadn't thought about who I was as a person and what I really wanted out of life that may have been separate to work. I didn't even, you know, think that was a opportunity to think of myself separately to my occupation. so I think that was probably the biggest shift is that, you know, work, you know, absolutely can be your life, but, you know, as human beings we're so multifaceted and we have to remember that as well 

Emma: that as well.

As you were saying that, it, it-- the thing that kind of was, playing in my head was it's, it becomes your identity, doesn't it? it's kind of-- it's not just what you do for work or, you know, how you make money. It literally becomes part of [00:25:00] you and it's this key part of your identity and listening to your story there with your parents, like you can see how it happens and, you know, I'm sure as they're saying those things they're thinking that's really positive, you know, instill work ethic, like they're all really positive things to a point.

and, you know, any good thing can tip too far and start to, to have a toll on the person and it sounds like that's what had happened. It kind of tipped the other way and, and particularly, it's interesting in, you know, I guess it's always you're asking these questions in hindsight, isn't it?

I wonder if it hadn't been for COVID and the, accelerated nature of the work that you were doing and, you know, and the overall environment, 'cause let's be honest, that was a pretty shitty time in Melbourne and I think we've all got a bit of collective PTSD about it. But I wonder if it wasn't for that very unusual kind of pre- pressure cooker situation, I wonder whether you'd [00:26:00] have got to the same outcome or maybe you would, would've taken longer.

I don't know. I always think those types of questions are really interesting. 

they're always questions in hindsight. what do you think?

Rache;l: Oh,

I definitely believe that everything happens for a reason, And I am eternally grateful for all the experience I've had, whether they're challenging or not because A, I wouldn't be where I am today

and I wouldn't be the person that I am today,

 wh- which I'm proud to be. and I also believe that

Emma: this mindset

Rache;l: because it was kind of brewing, you know, this mindset and this approach to work was continuing in an upward trajectory and yes, we were in a situation where we kind of had no choice. well, I felt like I had no choice. so I'm sure there would've been a future scenario where

I was pushed to the limit because I would've found

myself there and I would've done the

same thing. It just may have been [00:27:00] delayed. but I also guess we, we will never know,

and I do truly believe that it was supposed to happen, to be able to change the way that I think and, you know, the sooner, the better really, to be able to improve your life, I say.

Emma: To be able to say it's a no, I think goes sooner for better, really, to be able to- Yeah ... move past it. Yeah. I think it's so interesting with, you know, e- events like that, like really significant life events, whether it's, you know, your own health of a loved one. often I hear people, talk about really significant change around, you know, divorce or something like that, these big kind of life events, and they do seem to coincide with quite significant change.

certainly been true in my own life. I've had my own, health issues a few years ago, and it was same for me. Like, it was a period of really rapid change and fundamentally kind of changed the way that I think about life, actually, to be grandiose about it. But certainly how I think about work and [00:28:00] how I want my life to be, and the more I have these types of conversations both on the podcast and off the podcast with, you know, with clients, it does seem to coincide these big, really challenging, really difficult a- at times, you know, life-threatening events do lead to periods of really significant change.

and I'm infinitely fascinated by that because it does just seem to be that the two things go, almost go hand in hand.

Rache;l: Yeah, I completely agree. I also think

When

we have such

intense experiences,

we have no

choice but to question why. And I feel like a lot of... I know for me, I didn't really have that question. I was chugging along, I was doing my thing, and when I'm forced to question

why and not have the answer, it really made

me think.

And Opening that can of worms for me put me on a completely different [00:29:00] trajectory, not only with, you know, the work that I did, but also the way that I approach

my relationships. You know, in that period of

time, I broke up with my long-term partner. I, you know, moved homes. I quit my job. 

Emma: job. Yeah.

Rache;l: like I needed to continue ru- like rumbling

the world so that I could keep answering

the question of 

why. and yeah, funnily enough, I don't know if we'll ever have that answer. but being able to think about it, you get a little bit closer, and that's a really powerful activity because a lot of the time you don't have time to think. 

Emma: time you end up having- Yeah.

A- and it's almost a bit of a, a bit of a reset was the word that was in my mind as you were kind of talking about that. It was like you're almost kind of resetting and going, "Right, okay. Don't wanna do that anymore. Don't wanna live that way. I'm resetting. I'm starting anew. I'm gonna, you know, make some different rules for myself," whatever kind of terminology you, you [00:30:00] want to put around it.

A- and that actually leads me on to something else that I've, wanted to talk to you about around the kind of, you know, s- different set of rules for yourself. how do you come to define or sort of think about success for yourself now? how do you think about that? What are the things that are important to you?

Rache;l: even, you know, just in a work sense or in a work-life sense, have you... As you said, you know, we're all still answering those questions on a daily basis. I'm not sure we ever really get to the answer. But how do you tend to think about those things at this point in time? Yeah. Yeah, it's a really awesome question because I think that I struggle to articulate, you know, what success looks like for me 'cause it's also ever-changing. what success looked like for me

five years, ago is very different what success looks like for me now. but the way or the

lens that I like to look at success through is how do [00:31:00] I feel?

do I feel good? Do I feel challenged? Do I feel supported? Is my nervous system okay? and I think I will always look at opportunities and relationships and interactions through that lens. I even say now I don't work in particular industries, I work with good people doing good things. so success for me

feels good to

say in a really simple way.

I

don't feel overly stressed in a way that's not manageable. I'm

happy, I'm looking forward to experiences and life, and I feel free. So that feeling also does shift, the feeling that I'm looking for, but essentially looking at it through that lens helps me to define success a little bit better. 

Emma: a bit better. I, I love that. and just to hear you kind of say, you know, it sounds simple.

It does, and I think that's probably why [00:32:00] it works, because I think we're probably all guilty of overcomplicating a lot of this kind of stuff, and actually just bringing it back to- How do I feel within my body, within my life, within my, you know, Am I stressed out of my mind on a daily basis? Am I, you know, as you said, nervous system all over the place, like cortisol through the roof, whatever it is.

And I think maybe, again, to that earlier point about, you know, significant change, maybe if the thing that brought about significant change was a health-related issue, it maybe lends itself to you looking through that lens kind of going forward. Because having felt very unwell, how you feel in your body and how you feel and whether you feel, you know, quote-unquote "well" becomes incredibly important, when you didn't feel that way for a long time.

And I... There's something... As you said, there's something so simple about that, and I think that's [00:33:00] incredibly helpful. just this, one example I guess of just thinking about a conversation I was having recently with a client and, you know, we were asking these type of questions about, you know, what do you want to do?

What type of role? And they were struggling to define a lot of that. And to the point around simplicity, what are the activities that give you energy? What are the activities that take away energy from you? and actually just taking a step back and looking at these things simply and asking these simple questions.

And sure, you know, nothing's ever gonna be 100% amazing and, you know, that, that's just not realistic, but you might be able to get to 80%. And certainly if you're doing a role that's 50/50 or, you know, God forbid 80/20, then you might wanna think about making some changes. So I actually love the simplicity of that framing and,I think in so many scenarios that I can think of just kind of asking that question of, well, how do I feel in this scenario?

Is it literally draining the [00:34:00] life out of me, or do I feel energized? Yes, I'm challenged. It's, you know, I think and it doesn't mean it's necessarily easy. there, there might be challenge there. There's, you know, growth there. But if it's giving you energy to do that thing, I, yeah, I really like that.

That's an awesome way of thinking about it.

Rache;l: I also think, being able

to take a second and articulate how you're feeling, whether that is excited or scared or nervous, or whatever it is a skill that must be practiced.

And I remember many years ago, I wouldn't even know what to do

in order to tap

into how I was feeling. And so that in itself, being able to go, "I feel uncomfortable.

What is that discomfort? Let's kind of be curious," rather than completely living Outside of your body And going and going. there's a really great book, c- by Brené Brown, I don't remember the name of it- But it essentially gives people [00:35:00] the, I guess, breadth of different, emotions, so you can start pinpointing, you know, different versions of the feeling that you have.

And I think something that I found really interesting is that excitement and, nervousness- I think, or like anxiety, it Feels the same.

it's the

same on the, emotion wheel. So

sometimes you might feel like, "Oh, I feel a lot of things," but unless you sit with it, you're like, "Oh, I'm actually just really excited for this.

I'm not anxious." and

then you can move forward. But a lot of the time we just feel weird, and we don't actually think about it.

Emma: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's such a good point. As you were saying that, I was thinking I know I'm really guilty of that. I don't think I necessarily have the breadth to be able to understand some of those emotions, so it be- it comes a bit default of I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm angry. Like, you know? Sure, but there might be a few other things kind of going on there at the same time.

and actually being able to understand what those things are is super important. And, the [00:36:00] other thing that, that, stood out there is that I think so often... And I wonder as well, like I m- I think it's a broader kind of society thing that we're, I was gonna say taught, I don't know if that's the right word, but to shove those things down.

don't worry about it, just shove it down. Keep going. Like, that's not important. We, you know, we've got a task to do. we get on and do it. And again, I'm super guilty of that. I am, I'm personally quite task-focused, so I have a tendency to do that, and not always to my benefit. and actually kind of taking a moment to go, like, what is that thing that I'm feeling?

and the thing that you think on the surface, you realize actually there's something else going on underneath it. and particularly with things like, you know, feeling uncomfortable around something, listening to that because, you know, there's thousands of years of evolution that have gone into that feeling and might be quite useful for you to actually pay attention to it.

Rache;l: And I think conditioned is probably a better word than taught. I [00:37:00] think we've all been conditioned to actually stop listening to that. And personally, I believe we'd all be a lot better off if we listened to that more. Yeah, I agree. Also, it can be seen as a bit of a weakness. I've definitely had, you know, managers in the past that are like, "You know, you need to not be so emotional. You know,

you need to be a little bit sterner or harder or more assertive." But I really think we haven't been told that listening to our emotions and expe- like expressing and

experiencing our emotions is actually such a superpower because we all have them, so let's start recognizing them.

But also a lot easier said than done.

Emma: Yeah, absolutely. And just as you're saying that, I think that is such a narrow definition of, you know, that is weakness. It's,I think the complete opposite is true. But, a-again, I think that's part of that conditioning that, that's what we've been, conditioned to, to think about it.

[00:38:00] But, it's such a, such an interesting topic. I'd could actually do a whole series of podcasts just to, just on that topic alone. the one thing we haven't touched on that I did just want to touch on before we get to our final question, Rachael, was, just to hear a bit more about your business and kind of how you've come to be doing that, just to round out the circle of the career journey.

Yeah. So, kind

Rache;l: Yeah, absolutely. So, I am the founder and director of Looped In Communication. So it's essentially an

audience led communications and research consultancy. the whole, I guess, methodology of the agency I'm trying to build or the consultancy I'm trying to build is all about being led by the people you're serving or talking to. So really gathering that audience insight early, whether that's through, you know, co-design protocol, whether that's interviews, whether that's research, doing literature reviews, but just getting a really solid understanding of the people that you're talking to, whether that's your customers or your stakeholders.

and then [00:39:00] using those insights to develop a really cohesive strategy or framework. So for engagement comms, marketing, change management, anything to do with people and with messaging. and then I have a wonderful team of, brand designers, web developers, copywriters, social media strategists to, to help with that implementation.

So, it's a purpose led, consultancy. we service a lot of, government bodies, not-for-profits. but as I said, I-- the premise of who we work with is good people doing good things, And, yeah, it's incredible. we're in the really early stages, so about three months. But prior to launching Looped In, I was a contractor, so doing, I guess, essentially the same work.

but for agencies. and I think that I realised that being able to articulate, you know, the unique kind of lens that I bring to projects was [00:40:00] important, so Looped In

was born. 

Emma: Congratulations. Very exciting. it does, does it to you feel like a kind of a full circle moment when you talk about the career? 'Cause again, like to my earlier point about building blocks, like you can see it in everything you just said there, like the building blocks of how you got there and all those experiences kind of adding up to the whole.

Rache;l: Yeah.

it feels really awesome to have this thing out in the world, essentially,

that really reflects who I am

as a person and the work that I care about. and the work that. I'm good at. I think it's important to also note that when we talk about conditioning as well, it took me a very long time to get to a position where I felt comfortable to be able to launch. I had So many friends and colleagues

who were like, "Just launch Looped In. Why is it taking so long? Like, what are you doing? Just launch. Just launch. Just launch." And it literally took me two years to be able to do it, but I have no regrets, and it's been an [00:41:00] incredibly fruitful

endeavor. I have wonderful partnerships and projects that really matter. So it does feel, good. 

Emma: feels very fitting. Congratulations. On that, on that point about your friends telling you for two years to, to launch, do you know why? Like, what was holding you, what was holding you back?

During the 

Rache;l: journey of working for myself as a contractor. it was this constant kind of relationship with fear and doubt. Like I I know that the work that I deliver is good, But I think the fear of not being able to pay rent- not secure the projects, you know, 

kind of was 

there. It was really prevalent.

You know, as I kind of alluded to,

I have a lot of emotions and feelings, and sometimes those feelings can be negative and it can hold you back and then sometimes they can drive you forward.

and launch a business eventually. So I think fear really held me back and it was really [00:42:00] interesting because a lot of the time the, you know, the push to launch didn't even come directly from friends and family. It came from strangers. I remember I, I did a lot of hustling in the early days where I would just wanna grab a coffee with people that I wanted to learn from- and connect with, and they had never met me before, and I would tell them my story and they'd be like, "Just launch a business. why is it taking you-" so long?"

So it was continuous nudges from,people in the industry that I didn't even know. So that's actually quite funny.

Emma: It is. Final question, Rachel, and it's always the final question here, and that is: what do you know now that you wish you knew then?

Rache;l: Oh, I think one of the biggest things that

I share with people that I mentor and people in my world is that

no one really

knows what they're doing, and I wish that I would've learnt that

earlier. We're all just giving it our best based on the experiences

we have. [00:43:00] 

Emma: Everyone's making it up as they go along.

Rache;l: Truly. I remember

when I was-- I remember when I was younger, and I was back at Telstra, and I was at the first Christmas party, and I ran into, I don't... It was an executive, maybe the

CMO or, And I was like, Thank you so much for the opportunity to let me work here. Do you have any advice for people who are starting in their career journey?"

And she said to me, "We have no idea what we're doing, Just absolutely wing it and do your best." And I was-

shocked by

that. 

Emma: You'd be like, "Oh my God."

Rache;l: I was like, "What?"

Emma: "But you're meant to know everything."

Rache;l: Yeah, that was a reality shift for me. And

so whenever I do something, I don't know what I'm doing, I just keep in the back of my head that I'm trying my best,

and I tell people that, and it feels good. So I guess

that's something for everyone. Just try your best. we're all winging it.

Emma: Yep. It's so true, isn't it? [00:44:00] I remember that kind of realization as, as well of, you know, I think particularly when you're a kid and then, you know, you go into the workforce and you do just assume that, you know, the adults in the room are literally the adults in the room, but they're kind of not.

And then you get to be the adult in the room, and you're like, "Oh no. We're not."

Rache;l: pretty funny. You're like, "Oh, wow, we're

all just trying to figure It out, aren't we? Okay, 

Emma: all just trying to figure it out. Thank you. thank you so much, Rachel. Such an interesting conversation, and really appreciate just your openness and, you know, your honesty to, to talk about it all. And, as I said, could have that conversation for hours and hours.

So yeah, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your journey and your story. I've loved it. Thank you.

Rache;l: Thank you so much for having me, Emma. What a pleasure

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