Full transcript of call

Luanne: Hello everyone! Welcome to Answering the Call of Your Purpose. I am Luanne Mareen and I have the beautiful guest, Julia Ann Black with me today and just a quick reminder of what this is all about. So for me, Purpose is everything and meaning and I wanted to bring on amazing people who have really inspired me to also get on Purpose and how they live their life and through their business so that’s what we’re here about; how to find your Purpose, express it and for all that joy. 

We’ve got the shiny beautiful Julie-Anne, so hello Juls! 

Julie-Anne: Hi thanks for having me Lou, I’m so excited about today. It is always a pleasure chatting to you. 

Luanne: Oh my goodness and beforehand, we had a good catch up, because we haven’t seen each other for quite a while but we’ve been on this journey together for a long time so I hold you in my heart and in such high regret regard and I just love the way we were talking just before that you’ve pulled me on a few adventures in this journey of Purpose. So first of all, tell us a little bit about you and what you are doing right now? 

Julie-Anne: Well what I’m doing right now is running a business called Be Brilliant Now, 

Luanne: Best name ever 

Julie-Anne: Yeah I want to be brilliant now and we all can be… it’s all possible and so that’s primarily around peak performance and how we can have emotional well-being as well as behavior change so they’re my specialties in being able to call people lovingly on the bad habits that they continue to have that we can be blindsided by. I like to talk about it in the way of if your life was a TV show, would you watch it? If yes, why? And if no, why not? 

Luanne: Oh that’s brilliant! So then what led you to this work? Because knowing you for over 10 years, I think my kids, Cooper’s 17 now and he was only like 4 or 5 then and you say the TV show? Oh wow! Okay, so you’re working with peak performers now and people who want to like clear those blocks? 

Julie-Anne: I’m working with high achievers. I have actually, most of them are entrepreneurs and they’ve got very successful businesses and they’re at a time in their life where they’re kind of looking around and they know that there’s something left untapped, unresolved or unfulfilled and they’ve got the time and the success on their wrongs and I call it their “inner transition of shifting from ambition to meaning” and they’re looking now for what’s going on here? What got me here? Like yes there’s a lot of hard work and determination but they’re finding that sometimes, they’re still sabotaging themselves and they’re wondering why that’s coming up. They want to clear their family history, they want to clear the plot twists and the story lines that they know are habitual and they know they’re not serving them to perform at their best right now. 

Luanne: It’s like that drama that keeps on going like some I was watching. So for instance, is it the highlander or what’s that with that beautiful man with the red hair? The highlander or anyway, so his wife is in this movie and it’s drama after drama after drama and it’s kind of exciting to watch for a little bit but then I’m like, “oh no I can’t do this anymore. I’m over it” like surely you’ve got to get out of this, so it’s kind of like that but what led you to this work? I know it’s never a straight line, it’s all over the place. 

Julie-Anne: So for me, if we go all the way back I started as a child model. I was in front of the camera when I was a child, did that from I don’t know until 14 or something like that and then went behind the scenes and was an assistant to a casting director during my school holidays and then I went on and I managed a modeling agency when I was 19. I helped a gorgeous girl, Melinda Clark run a small business for the map of Melbourne which has got huge popularity again now and then when I was 22, I was like, “ah I want to get back into the TV or the entertainment” and at that stage, I was aspiring to be a Producer in Advertising. I thought making TV commercials would be super cool but I got into TV and I landed in the light entertainment quiz shows. I landed a gig on the price is right when I was 23 and before my 25th birthday, I was producing that show. So we brought Larry in but ender to you, you’re welcome ladies and just kind of I had this meteoric rise and just and I absolutely loved what I did. I worked as a production manager for the Sydney Olympic Games Opening Closing Ceremonies. I came back to Melbourne and produced Who Wants to be a Millionaire and there were a whole lot of things that were going on but I kept on having this metaphysical tap on my shoulder saying that there’s more that I could be doing to inspire people or being TV, there’s a lot of dysfunction. 

Luanne: And we all just like to get on 

Julie-Anne: And we all just get on and do the job and it’s meant to be glamorous but it’s far from glamorous in a lot of ways and I was like who am I to think that I could have anything to offer? And so rather than me jumping straight into thinking that I went into a personal quest to find out how and why do I communicate the way I do, why do I know how that movie is going to end? Why do I choose to take that road anyway? Why do I poke the bear? Why do I have to continually clean up the collateral damage? Why do I find myself at high highs and extreme lows? What is going on in my makeup, in the background of me? And that led me on this pretty amazing journey of getting a master coach in life coaching and going all the way through my training in NLP. 

So I went from practitioner to master practitioner to become a trainer then I could teach practitioner and master practitioner training and just so many different modalities. We went to the states and studied analysis together. We did so many different modalities together and I didn’t find that it was just one, the culmination of all of them that gave us real depth and NLP was definitely a catalyst for me. Not only did it save my life but it helped me claim my life. It helped me harness my determined spirit, it helped me understand and appreciate the success strategies that I had in place rather than thinking I was a complete muck-off. 

Luanne: Yeah and they’re always there aren’t they jewels? But because we’ve got ourselves out of some pretty streaky situations and not just you and I together, but by ourselves as well and we quite we kind of forget that as we grow or it’s like well, I use that strategy so the NLP and then not just that, so all of it so what do you do? I mean obviously it’s led you to your Purpose. What would you say your Purpose is if you had to put it in a sentence or a paragraph? 

Julie-Anne: A very dear friend of mine calls me the “truth bomber” right? He’s like you just use the truth bombs with such love and such a kind heart and so I’d say that it’s lovingly calling people on their stuff because there’s always blindsiding areas and that we don’t realize that we’re doing. It’s like in the life purpose scenario at the hand analysis, it was a visionary leader in the spotlight, sharing a message to the masses and there’s an innovative piece and there’s a community piece in there. I like to think that my passion for TV and then because I couldn’t understand, I love full integration right? So being fully a person needs to be fully integrated so if they’re shifting and transitioning into another arena then they’re bringing all the goodness from their past into this, it shouldn’t be separated. 

So I had a really big struggle going well. How am I going to marry TV with this and that’s when I developed the metaphor of “if your life was a TV show would you watch it?” and I started to define the fact that there are 5 real elements if you want to be brilliant now and that’s knowing your Purpose and your big dream and your mission. So that’s being the producer, then there’s the script writer which is about your storylines, the plot twist, what are the themes that you continually write yourself into that you’re not very happy with writing yourself into but you can just feel like you do it verbatim anyway? And then there’s the star which is being; are you performing? Are you performing congruently with the storyline that you want to have as well as the vision that you want to have? Because that’s where the element goes a bit poofy because a lot of the time we can look at, I can see someone’s behavior and the results they’re achieving now. And the results that they’re achieving now is in conflict with the story they say that they want and the vision they say they want and so therefore we’ve got our work just in that little section. There’s all the work, the thing, a lot of the times, it’s about being able to lovingly say we’re doing this again even if we’re here again. The reason why you’re doing this is because of this, isn’t it right and then there’s the director which is about being able to influence your focus on the run, right? So if you can imagine that you’re in the control room of your life and you don’t just have one camera angle coming at you and so you can choose what goes to air. You can choose what goes on the cutting room floor and it really is if you’re there and you need and you know that it goes into slow motion. 

I was working with a client one time and she was telling me about this scenario and she’s like, “but Jules, I just found myself doing it anyway”. I said, “yeah so let’s rewind that movie back to the moment because I’m sure in the moment you would have seen that there was a split second pause like sliding doors moment and in that pause, you could have gone this way which would give you the results that you’re used to or you could have gone this way which is a little bit different because it’s unknown.” You don’t know what the results are going to be, you could go down that road and the result could be different and you could celebrate yourself and go, “well yeah I did it” or you could just go with what’s familiar. And she’s like, “oh my god you’re so right! There was a pause and I did it anyway” 

Luanne: Choice right? 

Julie-Anne: As long as you remembered that there was a pause then next time you’re in that situation, the pause or the gap will get bigger. So if we can hit the pause button at that moment, realign with ourselves and go “okay so who is it that I want to be? How is it that I should that I would like to behave at this moment? Take a nice deep breath in, reset call action and get back into the scene again and all of that can happen in a split second. That’s not like a time warp of like to and sometimes if you need it, go to the bathroom, reset, come back out again but always  reset back on to your highest intention; your Purpose. Whether it be for an interaction or a big dream over time.  

Luanne: I love that because the truth bomb… so saying your Purpose is the truth from it, I love that scenario that you just took us through! I’m like, you don’t have to say who it was, but did you receive some truth bombs yourself to get you on Purpose? What can you share if you want to? Like one of the biggest ones that really went or was it a lot of little ones, it’s poor grenade rather than the big goal? 

Julie-Anne: Constant… There have been so many in regards to the master teachers that I’ve worked with talking about them. Look, there’s been so many and I think that one back even on my like the intake weekend for my life coaching course back in 2004. I’ve arrived completely full of not and stick with the flu and the cold and I’ve like turned up anyway thinking that I’m a soldier and the master trainer was like, “wow! You have to do everything the hard way. Don’t you?” 

Luanne: Right whoa yeah 

Julie-Anne: And in the end, I was like in a restaurant swearing, “where do you think you are, what are you talking about? Why don’t you unpack that for me? You can’t just drop me in that and then not explain what that actually means and how I can get myself out of that?” Which in itself keeps it alive. And then yes in that particular training, he is feisty and passionate and so I’m sitting there and sitting on my hands and biting my tongue pretty much the entire training and I’m like giving myself lectures in my head going “don’t open your mouth Julianne, don’t open your mouth! She’s gonna take you down. Don’t do it, don’t do it” and then we get into this arena where she talks about stories and beliefs and beliefs of stories that we believe are true and I just went and she’s like, “Julianne you have something to say?” and I’m like, 

Luanne: I didn’t say anything but the look of my face 

Julie-Anne: And me being a teacher and an international speaker now, I can look at the audience and I can see my own behavior right? Waiting patiently for me to pop! I did, and essentially that came through and we ended up doing this beautiful process that went through and me feeling like I was paged and she’s like, “well can you find the key and let’s open the door” and I was this beautiful majestic tiger and came out of the cage and she’s like, “how good does it feel being out of the cage?” And I’m just like, “oh my god it feels amazing” and she’s like, “can you appreciate that you can stay out of the cage now?” Because you know where the key is and you know how to unlock it and that perhaps the door wasn’t really locked in the first place and a beautiful tarot card that demonstrates that as well with the devil. 

So what I found really interesting with myself in that moment as well was that the moment the process was open, I just ran straight back into the cage and I held the door closed because I went into the old pattern which hadn’t been cleared because none of this had been cleared yet because I’d signed up originally to have a life coach not to become a life coach. 

Luanne: Right, okay!

Julie-Anne: I was a highfalutin TV producer with no interest in changing careers and here I was, she was very good at sales and I was very good at signing my name so I went on this journey and so we hadn’t cleared anything but what happened was that, I reverted back to a time when I had felt such intense humiliation and I felt like this was that example little did I appreciate back then, that was the beginning of me letting go of some of these stories that no longer served me and even though I couldn’t change history, I could negate and neutralize the effect that those stories were having on me because every time I retold it, I was so attached to the emotional intensity of it, that it was as if it was happening now even though it may have happened when I was 11 12 13 or 15. 

Luanne: Oh wow yeah 

Julie-Anne: And that’s kind of, that is the pinnacle and then there’s been lots of kind reminders over the years and how I’ve twisted that into darkness.

Luanne: Right so yeah because that leads me to the next question, so thank you for that and just the way you tell or give us that information or I was going to say tell a story but it’s not a story or perhaps it is the story right? But I can just see you coming out of that cage and then I’ve had conversations with people about issues and I’ve been that person too. Like we had a conversation just before we got on about oh that’s gone now! I went, how many times did you hear me say that to you or to somebody else thinking you were right there in it? So then you talked about the “pat on your shoulder” that there’s something more, how did you answer that call? I mean I call that the “call to your Purpose” how did you go oh okay what’s going on here? 

Julie-Anne: Well I’m a bit of an all-in girl so I kind of just jumped off. It would have been in 2005 maybe 2006 where I just jumped off and went, “okay what does this thing called life coaching, teaching, presenting business look like?” and I didn’t do too much research into that so I just kind of made it up as I went along and to be really real, it’s been a monster hard journey I think because I’d set it up like that and I always felt like I had been an accidental coach even though it is my calling and even back then when I was doing pro bono work with clients, they would write in their testimonials to me like, “Juls, you were born to do this! Your lifting skills, your attention to detail, your ability to see what it is that I want to go for is phenomenal and I’ve never experienced being heard and held like what you do” and that was from men and women. And I was like, “it’s still this my battle or my hero’s journey where we’re always up against an arch nemesis or a villain one of mine has been being crippled by self-doubt and second-guessing my ability” and I think that it’s been a self-perpetuating. It’s been an ongoing battle. 

Luanne: Well then that kind of leads me to the next thing right? So then why do you know knowing our purpose is one thing and I want to kind of… yeah you know where I’m going with this right? Knowing it’s one thing, what is one of the tools and you’ve given so many tools here already but it’s not just knowing it. We’ve got to do the work to implement it and the shadow work and the values work and whatever… what’s one thing that you can share with us that’s good for you? 

Julie-Anne: The thing that I really appreciate about the gifts that I’ve been given is to make it playful. So throughout my life, I have gone in and out of seeing psychologists and the overriding theme for all of them was that it was my fault. So the reason why I was in the situation that I was in, was because it was my fault and so what I like to do is that I like to get really playful and say to people especially when they’re in the middle of a tantrum or they’re either in the middle of something going on and I’m like, “you deserve an Oscar for the performance that you’re giving right now but is it the performance that you’d actually like to win an Oscar for?” And more often than not it’s enough of a state breaker in order to kind of go “no it’s not but this is all I know” and so it’s time to write a different story. It’s time to start to see that there are some different options here. You don’t have to be in this old rerun anymore, you can change how you’re being perceived and write a completely new script for yourself. You can have a completely different vision for yourself and it’s going to take time but we’ve got to remember that it’s taken like in my instance, it’s taken 30-40 years for me to be entrenched in that same theme and so if I want to release myself from it, there’s got to be like a daily reminder that I’ve got other choices available and so for me now it’s very much of like “you love what you do, let’s get on and do it” and so there’s a vibrancy and a radiance that kind of comes out of that because it’s filled with joy even though we’re going to be looking at straight in the mouth of the lion, it’s going to be a joyful even humorous time together. 

Luanne: And I think that’s why I would find it so bad because it is, I think life is funny like I do like it, like we make it so serious sometimes I’m like “oh that’s actually hilarious” you know how we got, how I got myself into that situation like “well let’s look at this” but why do you think it’s so important for us to do our purpose work? 

Julie-Anne: The purpose work for me personally, it’s always lit my fire. So when I was working in TV, I freaking loved it and i’ve just got asked to do Spot on Lego Masters which is just 

Luanne: Oh right yeah 

Julie-Anne: And stepping back into the studio again after so many years, I’m like “oh yeah put on this car yeah like it was just like a duck to water” and it was really beautiful and I just feel like there’s a… I don’t know whether it’s a permission piece to be able to feel alive and to love who you are and what you’re up to in the world? Like I love being able to help my clients get to that space especially because they’ve already achieved a certain amount of success in their world and yet they feel they’re down on themselves for a reason for some reason. I remember going through a particular strategy session with one client and we got through the strategy call and I said to her, “do you realize that you have the life of your dreams right now?” and she’s like, “not until we did these you asked me these questions” 

Luanne: And that’s not always the case to everyone right? You wouldn’t say that yeah, so wow! 

Julie-Anne: And I think that there’s a certain element where we can look around and we can also be really hard on ourselves like the majority of my life, I’ve been so hard on myself and so there’s times when I’ve missed out on the joy or I could have flipped the script really quickly and kind of had a laugh rather than being so casualized by this situation and just thought, “oh why does this always happen to me?” and yet just kind of flipping the script and having a laugh about the situation in the moment and then imagine how many beautiful kinds of things from the universe could have come in to help support me because I would have been much more open to seeing it? 

Luanne: Absolutely I love that and one thing I don’t know what to do I mean you built your website we’re gonna put all the links, you’ve got a free before us later but your website is Be Brilliant Now. Every time I speak to him, I just was like brilliant, that’s brilliant! I don’t know what it is you just tweeted something in me I’m like, oh it sounds so weird but it is. You are that you are this radiant brilliant amazing woman bringing joy into on Purpose in your own life and those who you touch not in a weird way but that’s… 

Julie-Anne: Not in a creepy way 

Luanne: So I don’t, I know this is probably a hard one well maybe it’s not but as we kind of wrap this up, I’d love you to tell us about one of the favorite people that you’ve worked with as their mentor not who you… and the story like why are they your favorite? You’ve kind of mentioned a few anyway but I’m thinking, “god what else has she done with these for the amazing people how lucky are they to have you as their mentor” but yeah what’s this a story? 

Julie-Anne: I’ve got like a thousand flooding but yeah, one is on the same theme right? I was working with their boss and they were having trouble and he was very much oh but it’s not just me bills like everybody like has trouble communicating and connecting with this person and I was like “wow” and he’s like what I said wow he has no idea, the power that he wields right? Because he’s just in his office doing his thing and if he’s like what you say that he is, he’s just like he’s so far in his own head that he can’t see everything that’s going on but you were all… they’re assuming a character role because you’re looking at this person and you’re obsessing what this person is like in the mood that they’re in and so you assume the role and your shoulders start slouching and your head goes down and you start having a negative dialogue in your head and he’s like “yeah wow! How do you know that?” And then he’s like well but I do this thing where I like literally, he drops his papers and, he gets completely confused and he gets tongue tied and all of these things go on and of course that makes him feel terrible afterwards because he’s like “oh god I did it again! I’m better than this, what am I? What’s going on?” and it’s because he’s assuming the role because he’s giving all the power over to this other person and so therefore he’s behaving in a way and performing in a way that is out of alignment with who he actually is and the brilliance that he has to provide. 

So I said to him, “okay so how do you want it to be?” That’s like the key question to ask in all situations, so how do you want it to be? And he’s like, “whoa I want to like” and he’s like straightened up his posture so he’s put his shoulders back and he’s looking at me face in the face and he’s got a clear head and he’s articulating what it is that he wants and he knows exactly what he is trying to share because he’s done the preparation and he’s got all his paperwork and his facts and his figures to back up what he’s saying and it’s all amazing. And I said, “brilliant!” so he did a process of anchoring that into him and he’s just like, “wow! I feel like a completely different human. This is amazing!” and then he rings me the next day and he’s like, “man well man what did you do to me?” And I’m like, “what are you talking about?” he’s like, “I just had a conversation with my boss and it went exactly as we played” and he’s like “but check this jaws because we had a little word” and I said “so what’s the one thing that you want to what’s the one outcome you want?” he’s like, “I really want to have a robust conversation with him”. Now, that’s not normal language 

Luanne: No exactly well that’s interesting yeah 

Julie-Anne: And he’s like, Juls, he said to me when I was leaving, he said, “hey thanks for the robust conversation, that was great” 

Luanne: Oh wow 

Julie-Anne: Because he then started getting along with that person, all his colleagues were seeking advice from him then and not only that, but the big bosses were coming directly to him bypassing this manager and asking him to be involved in secret projects. 

Luanne: Wow, that’s amazing! 

Julie-Anne: They came to me story when they first sat down and in the first hour that we were together, I have helped him heal the story that he’d carried around with him for 27 years. 

Luanne: Wow we need to call you we also need to add the story healer in there somewhere! That’s brilliant 

Julie-Anne: And there’s like magical moments like that right? It’s like I know let’s get to the root cause of what’s going on here and let’s give you another happy ending, like let’s create a happy ending. 

Luanne: I’m sure there’s a book that you are writing with all these beautiful stories 

Julie-Anne: I am apparently painting it. 

Luanne: I know I kind of felt them, so where can we find you? Where can we find you online on the socials or where do you hang out? Where can we go and sign up to? And I will put the links in below for everybody

Julie-Anne: So bebrilliantnow.com and very simple and on socials like even if you did “be brilliant now” or Jewells Black, that’s my instagram handle. My twitter and Facebook is “be brilliant now” or “julia” 

Luanne: And you’ve got a an e-book opt-in when we opt-in what we talked about? 

Julie-Anne: Yes I’ve got a success mindset checklist because often when we’re… it’s so simple to go through and go I’m actually operating with a fixed mindset here and so if I just shift just ever so slightly to thinking that life is happening for me not to me or how can I be grateful about this like very poorly wrapped gift or it’s just a very subtle shift so I’ve created a checklist that is just like boom! Very visual, okay let me stay on this side of the equation rather than… 

Luanne: Awesome and that’s at bebrilliantnow.com right? Well I mean I would love to chat to you like I said these interviews are just so too short but that’s the way they are! I made it that way, but can you end like I always like to end on something kind of playful or well maybe it’s not as playful as what you think it is but tell us something that no one knows about you or I mean maybe your partner might have had but it’s not widely known about you? The vision I have now I’ve got you’ve got this big bag in front of this big huge sack in front of you like which one can I pick out? 

Julie-Anne: I think surfing keeps coming up for me. I love surfing, I’m not very good at it but I’ve been doing it for years and years and years and years and years and so we would ultimately love to travel the world surfing! 

Luanne: Oh brilliant! That’s brilliant, I love it. Well thank you Juls, it has been an absolute pleasure having you here. I’m sure you’ve inspired everybody who’s watching and is there anything, any last word you want to just share before we close off today? 

Julie-Anne: Thank you so much beautiful Luanne. I’m so excited to be… it’s always a joy and the work that you’re doing in the world is so beautiful and so helpful for all of us so I am really appreciative of you. 

Luanne: Oh thank you so much, all right everybody. Thanks Juls 

Julie-Anne: Let’s go and be brilliant now! 

Luanne: Be brilliant now, see you next time. Bye!

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