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Update on 177 Nation of Tasmania...learning patience and looking beyond Hobart

Writer's picture: Mark ThomsonMark Thomson

Updated: Mar 7, 2021

At the beginning of the year, one of my resolutions was to be more aggressive and pro-active in finding people to be on my podcast. It is easy to become passive and hope that people will come to you, but you have to be on it constantly. But to be honest, in the first few months of the year I haven't been so successful with this and one can get pretty quickly disheartened and fatigued after a few wild goose chases.



I've found some great people through the help of various people in my network, but given the scope of my task, I need to do better than 2-3 interviews a month ! So, I've made a real push lately, going through my list of contacts that have been helpful or offered help and contacting organisations who could share my project and a call out for people. I also was fortunate to have the opportunity to make a presentation to a meet up group for migrants interested in networking for employment and enterpreneurship opportunities ( For those interested, check out the Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/Tasmania-Cross-cultural-Employment-Entrepreneurship-Meetup-100558721877177 ). This was at the Migrant Resource Centre and some MRC workers were present also. It made me realise that there'ss nothing quite like personal contact to arouse interest and it was great to get live reactions to some of the audio clips I played from the stories I've already done.



However, even more useful was visit to World Street Eats in Launceston ( www.worldstreeteats.com.au ) , where I was introduced to a number of different nationalities and got contacts of many others. As a result, I have several interviews organised in Launceston next week. It was great to be able to meet people in person and tell them about my project, which I feel is worth ten times as much as reading a social media post. I met Santosh, the rep from Multicultural Council of Tasmania, who put me in touch with a member of the Kiribatian community working on a farm in Forth, and who I hope to interview later in the month when his schedule eases up.


I've also had numerous contacts in the last week, but the difficulty is now nailing down times to meet and interview people. I feel like I've spent half the week just waiting for people to get back to me to give me a time or to confirm an appointment. But this is where patience has to come in. People have their own lives to lead, and while they may be enthusiastic to talk to me, there are often other things that take precedence and I have to remind myself of that. At the same time, one has to be a bit pushy as otherwise I will never get anything much done ! It can be a tough balance sometimes and it's probably the thing I least enjoy about the work on this project.


Despite this, things are gradually moving forward, with now many more leads on the board which will hopefully snowball. The psychology of having things to do and look forward to is really important, because working alone on a big passion project, it can be so easy to lose momentum, energy and hope at times. But these ups and downs are all part of the journey !



For now, I am focussing on the positive signs - more interviews organised with a variety of nationalities, some connections to some difficult-to-find nationalities, listener numbers gradually rising and some positive feedback. So, please, keep on listening and sharing !




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