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I am so excited about today’s guest, Jane Lindley. Thomas is a South African broadcaster. She is a person who is all about color and connection and community. And after about 20 years behind the market East Coast Radio, she has started a whole new creative endeavor. And that is a podcast called the House of madness.
Con way for you to hear all about it. I think you’re going to love her just as much as I do. Jane, what on earth made you decide to start a podcast? I think I asked myself that daily.
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Look, it wasn’t something that happened overnight. It was something that I knew I wanted to do. Um. But after I left East Coast after 20 years, I wanted to take a bit of time away from the microphone. Um, and I wanted to start missing it again. I wanted to kind of start from the bottom up and fall in love with being behind it.
And now that I’ve been behind it for a little bit of time, having just started this new podcast channel, I can’t believe I ever left because there’s such a beautiful connection between me and this microphone. And for me, being allowed to be a conduit for storytelling is 100% with no shadow of a doubt in my mind, the space that I need to be in.
So although I knew that I’d go into podcasting and I would be asked week in and week out by people, when are you going to start? What are you doing? I knew it had to be for the right reason. I’m very methodical and very purpose driven, so I knew that if I was to start a podcast, it had to have a heart for community and it had to be something that was encouraging.
It had to be something that was a safe space. So I knew the things that I wanted to do, but I had to I had to build it. Um, and I think in building the House of Madeleine, I had to reinvent myself as I started to build myself up from the ground again in my reinvention. Were you filled with fear? I’ve come to realize that fear means, like.
Okay. Um, I often say that if you’re not scared, you’re not doing it right. Right. I mean, I’ve emceed. I lose count of how many events I have been in front of people most of my life, and I still get scared. But what I’ve come to realize is that fear and excitement live in the same pocket. And if you don’t have that fluttering adrenal feeling in some way, shape or form, like a little butterfly’s wing knocking in your tummy, then you, then there’s something wrong because it means that I deeply care that this goes well.
I deeply care that the product that I put out into the world is received and soothing and encouraging. Jane, can you tell us a little bit about the journey? How how did it feel? What did you go through? What was it like getting this off the ground?
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It took me a year to actually do. Okay. Um, I think I got caught in my head, I think having come from a very, uh, shiny media background. I was very Concerned that it wouldn’t be the quality that I was used to hearing in my headphones. Could I do it? Could I be on a camera as well as a microphone? And looking into the deep, deep pockets of my guests eyes while holding space for the story?
I get so overwhelmed by all the cogs that needed to be moving in the same direction that I just kind of I just been like with, like paralyzed, like, oh gosh, this is a lot more than just starting a podcast. Again, it goes back to that care of wanting it to be something that is, you know, an episode can be a lantern in the dark for someone.
An episode can be a laugh or a laugh for somebody to jump into. And I don’t take that lightly. So as much as I knew it was my calling, and as much as I knew it was my purpose, I knew that there was a lot to go into it, to make sure that it looked and sounded and felt like I wanted it to feel. So I think I got very much caught up in my head, um, around the perfection of what this thing needed to sound like.
And every time the noise got louder in my head, my purpose started to dilute and dilute and dilute. I lost my courage. There’s no two ways of remixing the words. I lost my courage. Mhm. Um. And I think also when people kind of put you on a pedestal, it kind of, it makes that noise even louder. Yeah. And I had to keep saying to myself, why am I doing this.
Be so clear on your why. And I think with anything in life, if you’re really, really clear on your why, you’re able to kind of put that, that, that that critical voice into juxtaposition space where you’re like, hold the phone here, friend. You don’t get to drive this. You can sit in the passenger seat, because I know that your your care and your worry for this going well, it’s great, but it can’t override the imperfection and the purpose of why I’m doing this.
So it took me a year to the day. Let’s talk about this caravan, this madness. It’s it’s completely bonkers, 100%. And the week that I resigned from East Coast, I bought her, okay, and I can remember how it happened. I was lying in bed on a Thursday evening, and a mutual friend who owned a beautiful antique shop in the upper highway sent me a message, and she said, hi, Jane.
I feel completely compelled to tell you that I am moving to New Bethesda and I have a caravan for sale. And I remember turning to my husband, Mark, and saying, hey, we’re going to go and look at a caravan on Saturday. And he was like, what? And I was like, there’s a caravan that’s available. And for anyone that knows me really, really well, they know that when I, you know, make wishes on birthday candles, I obviously wish for my family and a couple of personal things.
And then my go to was always and I really, really, really, really want to caravan. I really want to caravan. So Mark was like, you’ve lost your mind. Like you’ve just left your job. Where? How what? And I said, can we just go and look at her? So we drove up on this rainy day up Fields Hill towards where she was waiting for me.
And I remember I was sitting having a cigar. At the back window of her. And my husband was like, babe, this isn’t going to sit in our driveway. Is it going to become like a DIY project? I said, I can’t explain to you how I feel on this caravan. I just know in my heart of hearts that she has to come home with us. So we hitched it to the back of my psychedelic leopard print car and drove down Fields Hill to the sound of the Beatles Blackbird.
And I remember looking in the gushy rain in the rearview mirror thinking, oh, this is so exciting, because while I’m going to reinvent myself, I’m going to give this pastel pink caravan she’s going to she’s going to be my project to, we’re going to build each other. We’re going to go through a transformation together.
So we put it together with through as many designs and colors all together. And we took her to Splashy Fen this year for the first time, with her velvet and her trimmings and her Chesterfield buttons and all of her things. It was so lovely to be at the festival. I mean, I’ve been going to Penn since 1997 and I’ve always been in the tent.
So now to be in a plushy caravan of darn lights and like, a
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wardrobe and a velveteen beard. Yes, please. And then after splashy, I started like a cabinet. I’m going to pursue this podcast thing. And then she went through a complete rebrand all over again. And here we sit in this place that I feel is so far removed from anything that is normality. And I think it kind of gives people, no matter who they are, where they come from.
Like a disarmed play space. You know, it’s like we can really delve into deep pockets of hard conversation. But I’ve got a canary sitting on my microphone and it looks like we have all taken acid together legally. So there’s like this disarming thing about it, but it’s just been such a joy to, you know, the fake flowers and all the birds hanging from the ceilings and the lights.
I mean, it’s just it’s just it’s just joy and play. Okay, Jane. But what happened on that day? Something. Something must have have kicked you off. What was it? So my very, very dear friend came from the States to stay with me. I haven’t I hadn’t seen her in 15 years, maybe. Wow. So we both made a holiday worm and counted down, like, 40 days to go to her arrival.
She arrived. She stayed in the caravan because this was our guest room. And, um, we went and spoke at our school that we both attended. We were invited back to go and chat to the girls. So we went and we chatted to them and on the way home she said to me,
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remind me again why you haven’t started your podcast. I was like, oh yeah, you know, it’s an idea. And she said, But I’m confused because you’re sitting on a calling. You’re sitting on a purpose.
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You’ve got a skill set and all the equipment and a fully branded studio in your garden. What is stopping you. And she said to me, I’m not leaving. I’m not going back to the States until you get in there and you record your first episode. And we recorded the first episode the next day. It was a shove, because every day I would get up and have my coffee and look at my brand new caravan and feel like I’d failed.
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And feel so guilty about not having had the courage to just do it. And I speak about that so often in the line of work that I do. In mental health, advocacy is like being brave. And I was like, oh gosh, I’m sitting here in a disingenuous space, like, I want to live a very authentic,
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honest life, not ordinary. I don’t want to tick boxes, ever. I don’t want to do things just for the sake of doing them. But I would look at it now. Just feel so sad. Hmm. So that shove ignited. I’ve got this saying, like, as long as you are moving forward, you’re going somewhere, right? Even if you’re falling.
And I feel like I’ve been free falling for a long time, and this idea of starting a podcast and listening to the nay saying voices in my head, and I was like, what’s the worst that can happen? What’s the worst that can happen? And I can’t tell you how. I just love coming into this caravan every single day and creating content.
It is just such a universal blessing. Tell us about that first recording. It was pretty smooth sailing because of the connection that we had with each other, so it felt very organic. Mhm. Um, however, I was very aware and listening to it very shortly after we had ended the session, that the sound was not great.
Okay. And now here I start again with content that is so valuable and so rich, but the quality is not where I want it to be. So then I’m like, okay, let’s not release this. Let’s use it as a test, and then we can launch with the second one. and someone said to me it was just the most freeing line. They said to me,
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you’ve got to remember that people are not out there to watch you fail. They don’t want to see you fall. How do you know that that episode isn’t going to be hope for someone that needs it the most? And there I was again, wrestling with this ego of perfection of like, okay, so it sounds a bit tinny. Let it go. Let’s build the house metaphorically from the ground foundation up and just get better and better and better as we go.
Yeah. Very intuitive. Very. Mhm. So the content was beautiful. SJ was extremely vulnerable and I’m so grateful that she kind of set the tone. Um, and what’s been so interesting is, you know, I’ve done probably nearly nearly ten episodes already. The common thread between all these incredible people
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is creating through either pain All creating through not feeling worthy and how able and willing they are to go to those places in order to be light bearers for other people. And for me, that just turns my brain on. Regardless of the quality of the sound or the intro or the ultra. Get away from the technical and sits in that heart space.
Hmm. What? What would you say to people who maybe find themselves in a similar situation? A great idea. A solid reason for existing and creating content, but a lot of uncertainty about whether or not they’re good enough and whether or not they should actually start such a loaded question, because I think, you know, our narrative as human beings is always to default into that.
Am I good enough? Uh, so you know, what I’ve really learned over the last five years of my life is really having to drill down into that relationship with myself. So that is the first space you belong in. is is really getting into the nitty gritty of loving on yourself. Um, and then I’m going to coin a quote from SJ episode, which I just thought was so powerful is momentum over mastery?
So that is every day getting up and just pushing that needle in increments. It doesn’t have to be big sweeping movements. It just needs to be consistently moving that needle. And sometimes that needle just needs to be incrementally moving that headspace from a scarcity into an abundant headspace. So it’s a mixture between consistently being methodical and showing up and giving your craft or your dream or your relationship you’re buying and your attention and your love and your care, but making sure that you’re doing that for yourself as well, because there’s no way that you can be caring or hard working in the world if you’re not working on the most important relationship, which is yourself.
So that is the cornerstone of any type of work that I do. As first and foremost, that’s why, you know, the House of Madeleine, the name. It’s all around self mothering and holding space for self. Um, and then using the kind of principles of being a daughter. So having had a mother, that role model and then being a mother to three children, and what I am taking from the learning from my mother, from me being a mother and self mothering and all of those just have the principles that are trying to live my life by, you know, the boundaries and the playfulness.
And my word is my bond and my encouragement and my self-compassion and my care, my devotion. All of those words go into my relationships, but they’ve also got to come home to the homing pigeon. Um,
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I think that, uh, it’s it’s scary because maybe we don’t all have that relationship with self. So not only are we worried about what everyone else is going to think of our bit of content or our episode, or our video or our reel. We’re also maybe too critical of ourselves, the hate speech that comes out of women’s mouths about themselves day in and day out.
It is just horrific. So I would say it’s the hardest relationship to get right. It’s so easy to love on other people. It’s so easy to pour. I mean, you remember getting into a new relationship and it’s like you put the phone down. No. You mean, you know, you you hang on every bit of that person, but where where’s the tending to hear this person?
And it’s got to be relearned. It’s actually a rewiring. I had to go into a real solid, deep dive with myself and start building that relationship with myself up again. I come from a beautifully solid family. My folks are celebrating their 50. I remember the number. But long, long, long, long, long ago. Sound family.
Some way in the wiring there’s like very unkind voice started to take center stage in my life and I started to believe it. I also need to say that everything you think is not true. You know, you seem to think, oh, I thought that thought. Therefore we know. Slow down and tell me and show me. Where’s the evidence?
And that is really kind of. How can I tell you the statement that actually started me on my self-love journey? Oh, and it was hard. And I was so angry when it was said, please. My mom said to me one afternoon I got home from my radio show. I had three tiny kids. I was overwrought, overwhelmed, and she said to me, I feel like you give your listeners the best of you.
And I was, so I can remember snapping around and just being like, oh my God, I’ll get how dare you say that? But she had struck such a note with me, because how many of us go to work and give everyone the best of us? We enthusiastic, we effervescent. We. Problem solved. We are there. We are there. We’ve got energy.
We’re in. We’re in. Pygmy. And then you get home. And your kids. Like when you jump on the trampoline with me, you’re like, are you bloody mad? Mommy is so tired. I got no time to do nothing for myself. Because you’ve been worn down and you’ve taken all of that energy and you’ve given it away. So I was very angry with her.
And then I realized, wow, I have got some serious work to do here. And that is where I started to look at how I was showing up in the world, why I was showing up in the world in different spaces and different versions, and then sort of to really drill into that internal relationship with myself, best thing I ever did for myself.
I am deeply flawed. Don’t get me wrong, and I get things wrong all the time, but I can guarantee you that I’m working hard every day to do the best that I can. You tell us a little bit about your creative process you spoke earlier about, you know, being methodical, showing up and Momentum over mastery, which I also absolutely love, and my style.
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So what does it look like? How do you how do you plan for your episodes? How do you decide what you want to cover? Ah, you write things down. Draw pictures. What inspires you? How do you how is your creative process? What does it look like? Um, yeah, I mean, I have insane ADHD, which is a blessing. Um, it’s been able to see me in situations like being on air in between songs, setting up an interview and recording a voice over and checking this.
I can do, like, a lot of things at a lot of time, a lot of things at the same time. Um, so my my creative process is quite sporadic. Okay. But it’s very clear for me as well. So it’s like a bit of a, um, a bit of a complicated one to even talking about wrap my head around. But for me, the House of Madeley has to be a place that is inclusion.
Um, so when I plan for sessions, I basically just try and get a really beautiful cross-section of people
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that can share these stories. I’m a huge, huge believer that the more we share our stories, the more we realize that we are so similar. I mean, there’s nothing more incredible than being in a room in a high school where you’ve got, you know, the whole high school sitting in front of you and you ask them, like, who here wants to live a life that is a life of being seen and loved?
And you just see the whole room’s hands got up in the air and you ask all these questions that we all want the same thing, right? And I think we got to really see that during the looting. And the writing is that we are so connected in community when the chips are down. So for me, the House of Melody had to be a representation of a cross-section of people.
So my creative process is people come to me kind of just in thought, I will kind of, you know, go through my phone book or be on the socials and be like that person that I mean, that person is doing something really clever. I’m going to contact that person. So it really is just creating a dream guest list of people that I would love to come into the house.
Okay. And then it’s always got a backbone of mental advocacy and navigation. I want it to be story led, but it’s got to have tips, tool and application so that it’s always going to leave you having something that you can apply into your here and now. Because I think a lot of us have been to like motivational speakers or sessions or seminars, and it’s so key from the moment.
And then you get to your car and you’re like, oh, I forgot, what can I take with me? I need something to take with me. So storytelling first and foremost, I like to go under the hood as well. So if you’re going to have, um, recently had Waylon Murray in the studio, which is so lovely to see this, like big, big Springbok rugby player on the other side of the table with me.
But speaking about frequency, the way in which you you live your life in a certain frequency, and how do you love and how do you have courage? And is courage mean you have to be strong, or can you be soft and have courage? Um, you know, so for me, it’s like, no matter who I speak to, you know, how no matter how successful they are, I need to get into that underbelly to find the relevance between all of us.
Do you find resistance? Because it’s hard for people to do all those things they know. Um, I’m not going to say who love you though a lot. Uh, he is a current. He is a current Springbok. And when I asked him, he just came back and said, listen, like love and respect, but I’m not the man for this job. And I get it.
It’s not for everybody to come and sit here and just be wide open. I’m going to circle back to him. I will get him.
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Maybe. No doubt. Maybe not now I’ll get him.
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But no. For the most part, people are so flippin excited. I think, um. I think people that know me know that I. It’s the same thing. I don’t want to catch you out. Mm. I’m not bringing you in to make you look bad. I’m bringing you in. I think also the house of stories tells stories told and held with love and care.
Mhm. I want to hold you. Yeah. I want to put you on my bosom. And like Rocky from side to side I want to swaddle you. You know what I mean. If I could swaddle your word but I’m not going to catch you. So it’s really just the opportunity to just. Yeah, just take a breather, soften a bit, you know, soften. Have a good breath in and out and just in this space again, just
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people. They end up with hats with propellers on them and glasses that have got, like, unicorns and stags and flowers. And it’s just it’s just fun. It’s fun. I was going to say it’s very hard to be super serious in that scenario that people, when they feel safe, I mean, people feel held and they don’t feel like they’re under threat.
They’ll go places with you. Mhm. Jane, what advice do you have for people who are just starting out? Maybe they have some of the same fears about making sure everything’s perfect after the journey you’ve been on. What advice would you tell a newbie? The first thing that comes to mind is surrounding yourself with people that are going to support you.
So community, I always go back to community, community, community. Um, I’ve got to be honest that having Grand Kandy hold my hand has just been such a freeing journey for me that I can stick to my knitting. And I have people that are
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so invested. I mean, the team of Brand Kandy. I’ve got a WhatsApp group of them and it’s just it’s such a beautiful space. It’s inspiring, it’s uplifting, it’s encouraging. I went to meet the team, uh, this week and I took in cupcakes and I don’t want to leave there either. Like every time I go to the office, I never want to leave Brand Kandy.
So for me, it’s just been such a blessing to journey. You know, I think when you’re journeying alongside people. It makes that trip so much more enjoyable. So that for me has been huge. As far as gear is concerned. I mean, I remember walking into the music store a year ago because I’ve had my gear for a year.
I remember thinking like, okay, I want to start a podcast. Guys like, what do I do? And they were like, okay, you need this and this and this. And I was like, but can the microphone be pink and can the baby blue? This is boring. Where’s the fun one? Exactly. I want the fun ones. Oops. Um, so I went for the Roller Coaster Pro two, which is my SanDisk.
Okay. Which is a really cute little plug and play guy. It’s got your channels for your max. It’s got your touch little panels for sound effects, and you can have an external line, which is so lovely as well. So I can have a person in studio with me, and then we can make a phone call. Art anywhere around the world, which is so rare it makes everything just feel so small and connected.
So I mean, as far as technically sorted, I’ve got my two road max, um, powered speakers connected to my laptop with my RODECaster. I’ve got a selfie ring stuck in the caravan cupboard with a battery pack for like, lighting. The big dream is to obviously get cameras mounted in here, um, so that we can have the visual of this beautiful space.
But again, I’m not going to get tripped up by that. It will come in time. So I think first and foremost is surround yourself with people that can support you, because there’s going to be a lot of cheering and throwing backwards and forwards. And then be clear on your why. I think with anything, if you’re clear on your wire, the rest will happen.
It probably won’t take your year like it did me, and I hope. And if you’re listening to this podcast now and you’re needing encouragement, please find me on the socials. I will hold your hand because I know what it’s like to stand at the end of that diving board and look down and think, oh my gosh, it’s so far.
But I know the rush I’m going to get when I live off the side of this. So I’m here for you and you can do it. Amazing. I think that, you know, even if, even if you feel that a year was too long to get started. There’s all the things that are happening in that year that builds you up
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to that starting point. And I think part of it. Yeah, I don’t believe there’s a right time or a wrong time. It’s a there will be a moment. And and it’s about noticing that and seizing it and, and then jumping in with both feet and maybe two canaries.
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Three, three. Even
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though it’s a personal, it’s a personal.
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No judgment on the number of canaries. Thank you. Jane, you have been absolutely wonderful to speak to and so inspirational. I really appreciate you giving us your time today. Hi everyone. Thank you Jane. I hope you found that as inspiring as added. Please go and follow the House of motherly podcast on Spotify and I’ll see you next time.
