Raising Girl Shaped Flames

In today's episode, I am thrilled to be joined by teen cake artist, the very talented Ceara from Ceara Bakes.

Ceara courageously reached out to me to be interviewed for this podcast. It wasn't just her cake creations or karate skills, but her drive and determination blew me away from the get go.

Her passion for baking brewed in the classroom when science taught Ceara about chemical reactions along with her Grandmother's baking influence, but it's her self assurance and confidence that allows her to continue to grow her passion.

In today's discussion, we dive into a range of topics including:

• Where her motivation comes from
• The role her friends play when it comes to combating demotivation and overwhelm
• Social media and managing negative commentary
• The confidence she draws upon and now that she has moved her hobby into a business
• Insight into how her parents supported her journey from the beginning
• Juggling her priorities including school work
• Key advice for young people wanting to follow their passion

Ceara’s passion for baking stems from her Grandmother, a professional baker from Ireland. She cooked her first cake on her own at the age of seven, and now seven years on, Ceara sells her incredible cake creations online.

In January 2020, she posted in the Mornington Peninsula community Facebook group about her idea to bake cakes and donate all proceeds to a charity during the Victorian bushfires. Her hobby quickly grew into a business that she manages alongside her school life and championship karate practice.

As a teen role model to other girls, Ceara wants girls to know that business ideas can come from anywhere and anyone, no matter their age. Her advice is to be patient, start with friends and family and:

Click here to check out Ceara's Instagram!

In today's episode, I am absolutely thrilled to speak with our first ever international guest, Irene Bangwell from Raising Girls in Nigeria.

Irene and I connected over our respective Facebook groups, Raising Girl Shaped Flames and her Parenting Champions Community. We instantly connected over our shared values, beliefs, and of course, our hopes and dreams for young girls in each of our countries, myself in Australia, and Irene is in Nigeria.

I can genuinely say that this was one of the most empowering, exhilarating, insightful discussions I've had with a guest on this program to date. What we cover in this episode is so aligned, and really heartening to find someone on the other side of the world that not only believes so infallibly in the premise of Girl Shaped Flames and why I've started and what we're doing, but also the fact that she's over there doing it herself.

The work that Irene is doing to support parents in Nigeria predominantly to raise strong, confident, independent girls, brimming with self worth.

I do want to flag up front that we touch on a couple of topics that might be sensitive to some listeners, but I do want to stress: everything we spoke about is very real and very now, and is being experienced right now by thousands of girls in Nigeria.

In today's discussion, we do cover a lot of ground including:

• Her own personal confidence journey and influences from a teenager to now
• The importance of the proactive development of confidence in young girls
• An example of what life is like for a 15 year old girl in Nigeria
• Some of the key challenges girls in Nigeria face when building their confidence
• Some of the key challenges parents face when trying to raise confident daughters in Nigeria
• We also spoke about The KNOSK N100-a-day Secondary School, Kuje that Irene runs

About Irene Bangwell​
Irene is the Co-founder, The KNOSK N100-a-day Secondary School, Kuje and Raising Girls Coach at Parenting Champions in Nigeria.

In this week's episode we look at the the relationship between CONFIDENCE and COMMITMENT.

It's easy to think that an ultra marathon runner is going to be some kind of "alternative human being", who's unflappable, focused on an invisible horizon that we 'regular people' can't actually see!
But speaking with Jacqui in this episode was exactly as I had hoped. It revealed that an athlete of her ability and stamina ultimately holds everything that they need within themselves in order to reach the incredible heights (and in her case distances) that they want to. Specifically I wanted to speak to Jacqui about the topic of commitment.

In this week's discussion with my special guest, Jacqui Bell - a 25-year-old ultra marathon runner and motivational speaker, we covered:

• Her attitude towards 'commitment' in high school
• The key role her parents played in helping her see the importance of commitment to reach her goals
• What compelled her to become the Youngest Person in the world to run an ultra marathon on all 7 continents!
• Her relationship between confidence and commitment
• Advice for parents of teenage girls who want to help them build resilience, confidence and 'staying power'

Stick around to the end to hear from Dr Diane Harner who is BACK with another ‘9 Minutes of Neuroscience’. In this episode we look at the difference between commitment and discipline (hint - it’s to do with the choices we make with our own intentions). We touch on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as how parents can help their daughters identify when to ’stick something out’ and when to move on.

Download our Free Confidence Calendar here.
ABOUT JACQUI BELL
Jacqui is a 25 year old ultra runner from Brisbane, Australia.

Coming from a tennis background and working as a personal trainer since the age of 16 Jacqui always kept fairly fit. At 19 Jacqui signed up to her first 50km Race, not even knowing this counted as an Ultra Marathon at the time, she placed 3rd and was on a high for a week. From here Jacqui entered a number of other events sporadically over the years for fun and to give herself some goals.

Then in 2017 when Jacqui was at rock bottom after battling with a number of health issues that were affecting her physically and mentally. This is when she set herself the goal of running 250km’s across The Simpson Desert in Australia – The Big Red Run. Jacqui had 8 months to build up her fitness... the starting point being about 30km’s a week. Jacqui got researching on all things Ultra Marathons and that is when she discovered Racing the Planet’s 4 Deserts... next thing she knew she decided to go not just one bigger but 4 times bigger... forget the Simpson Desert, hello to one of the toughest enAn Ultra-marathon runner.

In 2018 Jacqui went on to become the Youngest Female in The World to conquer Racing the Planets x4 Desert Grand Slam running 250km’s self supported across the scorching Namibian Desert, Gobi Desert, Atacama Desert and the blizzards of Antarctica. This was just the start for the young gun as Jacqui has now become the Youngest Person in the world to run an ultra marathon on all 7 con

In this week's episode we look at the the relationship between CONFIDENCE and CREATIVITY.

Now as a creative person, myself, it's actually been really powerful to reflect on the idea that confidence might actually have an impact on something that's perceived to be quite innate or natural within certain people and personalities.

This week's discussion with my special guest, Racheal Sarra - an indigenous artist from Goreng Goreng Country, dives into exactly these things, as she opens up about her own confidence and creativity, and how powerfully the two actually work together. We covered:

• Her personal relationship with confidence through high-school until now
• What she believes is the relationship between confidence and creativity
• The role her culture has played in shaping her creative expression
• Situations (or people) who affect her confidence and creativity
• The role her family has played in supporting her creative journey
• Advice she would give parents nurturing a creative daughter in their family
• How professional experience has actually helped her find the right zone in which she now combines her emotionally charged creativity with running a really successful business.

I'm super-excited to announce that Dr Diane Harner is BACK with a cracking 9 Minutes of Neuroscience. We dive into pretty much as many things as you actually can within nine minutes, but specifically this week, Diane takes us through:

• Busting the left brain, right brain myth
• The three key neurological networks that play a role in creativity (I bet you didn't know there were three!)
• The impact stress, or even just reduced confidence can actually have on the creative brain function
• And what teenagers ultimately need in order to foster increased creativity (I'll give you a hint: daydreaming is allowed and boredom is encouraged!)

ABOUT RACHAEL SARRA
Rachael is an extraordinary indigenous artist and designer whose creative style is feminine, fun and engaging, and strongly drawn from her heritage and her role as an Aboriginal woman in a modern world. For anyone familiar with her work it's immediately apparent that her work is an extension of her being emotions and experiences as a contemporary Aboriginal artists from Goreng Goreng Country.

Rachel uses art as a powerful tool in storytelling to educate and share Aboriginal culture and its evolution, and it often challenges and explores the themes of society's perceptions of what Aboriginal art and identity actually is.

Follower her on Instagram here.

See and purchase her incredible work here.

This week we're hearing from the GIRLS! One of our absolute most favourite things at Girl Shaped Flames is to connect with the girls themselves as regularly as we can, so we sent our resident Grade 12 Girl Shaped Flame Charlotte out into the playground to unearth what's on their mind when it comes to all things CONFIDENCE.
And we loved what we heard!!
Tune in this episode to gain some fantastic insights about:

• What girls believe confidence 'is'
• What helps their confidence
• What hinders it...
• What they would do if they had more of it
• What their parents can to do help build it
• And loads more!

Charlotte also offers her own thoughts and insights around what's going on for her generation of girls right now, including the most powerful thing a parent can do to help start building their daughter's confidence as early as possible.
PLUS! In this episode we're celebrating an awesome "Confidence Is Key" COMPETITION we're running with partners RED by Modibodi and Bright Girl Health. Open to Australian residents over the age of 13, we want to know "What does Confidence mean to you?" and you'll go into the running to win a super exciting Confidence pack! (Competition closes 5pm AEST Friday 10th July, see Terms and Conditions for details).
ENTER HERE: https://comp.girlshapedflames.com
And finally, we mention our Stronger Than You Know online self-paced course for girls in the episode - it's a really powerful tool for them to understand their own strengths, values and goals and well worth checking out here: https://girlshapedflames.com/styk-course