Do Motivational Speakers Have Role Models Too

Don’t let the packaging fool you! Help with career decisions and life choices isn’t always obvious.

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Sister Anne Marie raised her gold cross from her chest to her lips, kissed it and said ’Lord bless us and get us there safely’.

Strangely comforting words for the non-religious person I am as she gave the small plane full throttle and we lifted - no, bounced in the turbulence - heavenward.

She made her radio calls, studied her dials, gave me a reassuring smile and said ‘They call me the Flying Nun you know.’

This slight city woman, single-handedly, served the emotional needs of isolated people across a chunk of outback Australia - the size of Germany.

How she became the flying nun offers so many clues to the career decisions and life choices that expand or shrink our lives. 

Sister Anne Marie Jensen was working in a beachside retirement home on Australia’s Gold Coast. The parish newsletter wrote that Father Bob was retiring after 30 years of servicing a remote parish - just cattle stations and small towns - by plane. They needed to find a replacement.

Next month’s newsletter had the same story. The following month. The next. Eight months later Sister Anne Marie couldn’t ignore a niggling voice inside.

Her thoughts were with the women of these remote cattle stations. Sometimes they were the sole woman for hundreds of kilometres. She knew that just to be able to talk to another woman would be so valuable.

“Am I making a big mistake here,” she wondered.

She raised her hand anyway.

➤ I can’t fly. No problem. We can teach you.

➤ I’ve never really left the city. No problem. We can introduce you.

➤ What if I don’t like it? No problem. We’ll support you.

👏 She practised making radio calls - with a potato peeler as the microphone - as she cooked dinner at the retirement home.

👏 She learned to trust the people who told her the dirt airstrip had been cleared of rocks and shrubs.

👏 She learned that just listening to people was a powerful gift for people who need to be heard.

👏 She understood that there is no wrong choice, only choice. Every day the world needs us to step up and make choices. To be paralysed by the fear of making a wrong choice is to shrink, instead of having the possibility to grow.

It reminds me of the Theodore Roosevelt quote.

The best thing to do is the right thing.

The next best thing to do is the wrong thing.

The worst thing to do is nothing.

Thanks Sister Anne Marie.