My dear friend...

grab a quintuple shot coffee, this is going to be a little 1000+ words background story on how MYturn came into life...

If this is too far from where you want to go, then we can keep hanging out as we do now. I enjoy it very much and think we can learn heaps from each other. If not, welcome to the show…

(insert random epic music here)

For the last years I have been working my butt off to find the best way to help people figure out who they are and what life is all about.

Why? I am frustrated and disappointed with 3 things.

1) Education

Youth have little knowledge about

• personality

• strengths

• future careers

• business

• critical thinking and

• problem solving skills

This results in a lack of awesomeness, such as

• leadership of self and others

• human potential

• emotional intelligence

• resilience

• creativity

• energy

• purpose

This leads to drugs, alcohol and social media addictions, shitty relationships, broken families, anxiety, depression and even suicide.

(NZ leads the world statistics when it comes to teen suicide, methamphetamine and ecstasy use. When I spoke to youth and businesses about those topics, they agree that the lack of self-worth, vision and purpose is the main reason.)

2) Recruitment

Recruiters seem to be trapped in systems and processes that

• treat people like numbers

• putting "bums on seats"

• judge people by labels & titles

• select applicants based on (bad) IT programmes scanning CVs

• don't respect people's unique skills

Similar to 1, those things result in a lack of self-worth and purpose.

3) Politics/ Religion/ Media/ Marketing

The use of fear and manipulation techniques to keep people

• compliant

• ill-informed

• distracted with trivia

• not questioning things

• do as they are told

• comparing themselves to others

• doubting themselves

This results in

• less self-worth

• reduced confidence

• keeping up with the joneses/ rat race

• debt

• doubts

• stress

• voting between idiot 1 and idiot 2

• eating the wrong stuff

• buying crappy products

• exploiting others and the planet

• putting insane amounts of chemicals onto and into their bodies and the environment

• illnesses, lifestyle diseases, early deaths

• environmental damage

• violence

Everywhere I went, people shared the same issues and challenges with me. I needed to find a way that works across languages, ages and background. A universal solution.

Also, I am very lazy - cough, cough - I mean, efficient.

I am obsessed with creating “something” that is fun for me to do while I am alive.

I want this “something” to be scalable and simple so I can train people in other regions.

I think very long term, this “something” should be useful for generations to come. 

So the hero of this MYturn story went out into the world with a quintuple coffee shot mission....

Put the whole fucked up system on its head.

Like good old Buckminster Fuller said - you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change things, you need to build a new model that makes the old one obsolete.

There was my 1 million dollar question:

How do you help people in the simplest, most efficient way to:

a) understand and respect themselves and others

b) find purpose and motivation and

c) make the changes they want to make?

You may have heard of "reasoning from first principles" - that is the way I think. I can’t help it, and it can get pretty annoying but that’s the brain I was given. You can pretty much think of me as a grown up 5 year old that still asks "why" a million times a day and doesn’t accept “because I said so” as an answer.

So to understand change, I first had to change. BIG TIME.

I had to turn into a self-development junkie that practiced the tools that are out there. I had my brainwaves measured, spent 30 days in silence, tried different diets from keto to vegan, tested music styles from classic to binaural, went from having all the toys to being a minimalist, lived in the richest and poorest suburbs in the region, answered around 2000 self-development questions and read a crazy amount of books and blogs around the topics of human behaviour and change management. I combined stuff from project management, leadership psychology, biology, woo woo stuff and feedback from amazing people I met along the journey.

I tried, tested, adapted, threw out, combined, learned and practiced some more until I was satisfied. Well, as satisfied as an obsessed, curious 5 year old can be.

Bit by bit, I created my own "thing". The "thing" is now called MYturn. The reviews are on my site. A side effect of all that change I get to see in me and others is that it made me insanely happy. When I go out, people ask if I am on drugs. Nope. Try meditation, you'll fly way higher…

Now while that's all great, I learned how crucial set and setting are for long lasting results with people. I would do MYturn sessions for 2 hours in a work environment like a boardroom, a school or an office. Results were great, people left happy - but the impact fizzled after a couple of days under the day to day stress people experience.

I needed to change my tactics again. While my tools were great, I understood that real, deep personal and professional development doesn’t happen in a boardroom in 2 hours. Not in a conference hall, not in an office. Whenever I got random people like tourists and acquaintances to test my tools, I took them into nature, go to forests, rivers, beaches. I added healthy food, ambient music and guided meditation exercises to the sessions. I spent a full day or 2 with them in the right setting, often joined by their friends or partners - and they made changes that lasted. I got calls and emails years later from them, telling me with a big smile about how happy they were with the results that they created for themselves and their family.

When I was consulting to a local community centre, the “disengaged” youth was keen to join projects involving making food, music and being outside. When I assisted in the aftermath of the CHC earthquakes, we had outdoor potlucks and street barbecues. When I helped refugee families getting settled, they didn't speak my language but invited me to garden parties with food and music.

Food, music and nature are universal.

They bring people together, make them relax and feel good. When people feel good, the workshop tools work better. When people relax, their brain is creative, can solve problems and dig deep inside to find purpose.

The big industries here in the Nelson Tasman region are food and tourism. Employers are seeking people with skills. A large portion of youth need and want stuff to do. They start to realize that university isn't the answer for everyone but they don't know better options.

I started to research the food and tourism trends in New Zealand, went to future food hackathons, plant-based cooking classes and events around sustainability, conserving nature and permaculture.

Veganism is one of the biggest trends in Europe, where most of our tourists come from. There was a 600% increase in the last 3 years in the USA of people going plant-based. 22% of the people in HongKong are plant-based as of now. Australia is the third fastest growing vegan market in the world…

Nelson Tasman leads in NZ with the google search term “vegan” by 30%. But why trust google when you can ask the people who work in the food industry? The NZ restaurant association sent a survey out and 2000 of their members responded that the biggest food trends for 2019 are plant-based, sustainable foods.

When you check data for the top worldwide activities on Trip Advisor in 2018, you find that 4 of the top 10 are around cooking classes and garden visits. This is where quality tourists spend the most money and feel they get the most value. It’s here to stay.

Now here is the challenge for the hero of this story...

(Are you still reading? Awesome! Have another coffee).

As everyone in life, I made it through a bunch of ups and downs…

• childhood in a religious cult

• leaving a well paying “lifetime” government job

• move across the world, starting from scratch in a new language

• - $ to get permanent residency

• my flatmate got killed in the CHC earthquakes

• divorce from a depressive husband

• supporting friends financially

• - $ to move across the country for a guy (with depression...seeing patterns?)

• another move, starting from scratch

• silly investments

• years of testing and tweaking

Now I had another challenge. I needed a venue. A special place. A sanctuary where I can design and create the space we all need to heal, learn and grow. With healthy food, nature and music being the foundation of my proven personal and professional development workshops.

I had found extreme happiness and developed a great system but ran out of petty cash to buy a decent place and turn it into “the space for the thing”.

Every good story has helpers, guardian angels and fairies though…

I kept working away, trusting the process, manifesting my vision, focusing on one step and person at a time and following my heart and soon enough… a piece of land falls into my lap. It is strategically placed perfectly in the top of the south in the Nelson Lakes. It has a small house on it, sitting on an acre with pine trees and flax bushes, coming with a sauna, a hot tub and a magnificent view. HELL YES!

(Insert unicorns neighing, drumrolls and angels singing here...).

I will do whatever it takes to turn this place into a learning and project centre, where businesses receive high quality professional development. Youth can grow skills, connect and learn - together with their future employers. My workshop is tested to fit both groups and I can run it with minimal prep and materials. Using hands-on projects around growing and preparing healthy food is the best way to grow our economy for years to come.

We give our people education, health and improve the quality of local food and tourism opportunities. Suicide numbers need to go down. Cancer rates need to go down. Energy levels need to go up. Jobs will increase and youth can stay in the area instead of gaining student debt for jobs that won't exist in 5 years. We attract high quality tourists and conserve our beautiful Aotearoa.

Why am I doing all this??

It's a f&%$* paradise here, and I can see myself living here for a long time.
I feel at home here and this is worth doing. It needs to be done.
And if it fails... then I get up again and know more and do something better.

Now you know where I am going. And where my energy comes from. And why we attracted each other.

Just a "change the world and drink good coffee" kinda thing…

Love & Aroha,

Jen