What is your safety parachute, and how is it stopping you from doing and living the way you want to live?

For me it was my salaried consulting job, which I used as a parachute even when I was on a leave of absence and not even earning a salary. It wasn’t until I summoned the courage to resign that I had room to consider the other options available to me.

For Jo Le her parachute was something much harder to part with, and much more confronting to her friends and family. So much so that she barely told a soul about it, including myself until this podcast even though we had know each other well for over 15 years.

Jo started her career at the not-for-profit World Vision, ran a serviced office/coworking space along the way, and worked for the boutique stationery design company kiki.K. For many these do not sound like the type of jobs where you are sell-our or not following your passion. But for Jo there was something not quite right with them for her. Each was good in its own way, and she learnt much through each, but each was also very safe in their own way as well.

It was at the Journeyman Cafe in Prahran, Melbourne (also the location for our conversation) that Jo decided to be brave, to listen and trust the voice inside her that was calling her towards something more. Back then it was called Dukes Coffee Roasters, and while Jo spent many a morning sipping a latte and intending to contemplate business strategy for her current job, she found herself drifting in her thoughts to what she would love to be doing if she was doing her own thing. Through journaling and doodling and pondering, Jo had many a tough conversation with herself about what it truely was she wanted to do with her life, and what was stopping her from doing it.

After discarding her parachute, she finally too the plunge, resigning from her job without any immediate source of income, and starting her own design and customer experience business: The Visualary.

As Jo reflects on where this decision has led her today, and where it could lead to from here, she looks at how seamlessly to dots seem to be joined in retrospect, linked by the commonality of following her curiosity and a joy of pondering and solving puzzles.

Jo now enjoys applying her design and customer experience skills to a variety of projects, including photoshoots, events, interior design, personal branding, and is now excited about how they may be applied to her growing interest in tech startups.

Jo talks about her dream to disrupt motivation, finances and spirituality. She leaves those who are wanting to embark upon a similar path of disrupting their own life to live out their courage with some easy and practical tops on how to take small steps in this direction. Along the way we discuss gap years, Stefan Sagmeister, wellbeing, deprogramming and uneducating ourselves.

Jo is a beautiful person with an amazing positive perspective and open heart. I hope you are as encouraged and inspired by her journey as I am.

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