Lisa Messenger is one of Australia's most recognisable entrepreneurs, best known for building The Collective Hub into a global media brand that inspired millions of people to think differently about business, creativity and taking risks.
But Lisa has never been someone to stand still. She has spent her career reinventing herself, and today that reinvention looks a little different. The Collective Hub has evolved into a digital community and app, she's become a passionate advocate for helping people embrace AI in practical ways, and she's continuing to challenge what modern entrepreneurship can look like. She's also, in her own words, living on a farm with 29 chickens, a three-year-old, and another baby on the way.
In this warm and wide-ranging conversation, Jules and Lisa talk about reinvention, motherhood, identity, AI and what it really means to build a life that evolves as you do. Lisa opens up with remarkable honesty about the rise and the reality of The Collective Hub, growing too fast, losing control, and the brave decision to let go of the thing everyone knew her for. She and Jules go deep on the identity question that follows, who are you when the thing that defined you falls away, and how you learn to hold your achievements a little more loosely.
This is an uplifting, honest and inspiring conversation about the courage to keep becoming who you're meant to be. Pour yourself a cup of tea and settle in.
Connect with Lisa Messenger and The Collective Hub:
Website: https://collectivehub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisamessenger/
The Collective Hub: https://www.instagram.com/collectivehub/
00:00 — Introducing Lisa Messenger
01:14 — Setting the Intention: Anything Is Possible
01:33 — The Pinup Girl for Doing It Anyway
02:33 — Farm Life, 29 Chickens and a Baby on the Way
02:47 — Why She Says No More Than She Says Yes
05:15 — The Queen of Reinvention
06:22 — Forty Books and a Life of Curiosity
07:52 — Writing Fiction: The Story of Jess and Justin
08:15 — What's Next: The New Book, Matchstick
11:07 — Where It Began: The Collective Hub Magazine
14:50 — Growing Too Fast and Losing Control
15:21 — The Systems and Processes She Never Had
19:27 — The Brave Decision to Let It Go
22:13 — Who Am I With All of That Stripped Away?
23:05 — Attaching Your Identity to the Thing You Built
25:26 — When Fewer People Want a Piece of You
27:44 — We Meet People at Different Stages of Their Lives
32:43 — The Collective Hub Reborn as a Community and App
34:42 — Live Sessions, AI Tools and a New Digital Age
37:55 — From Technologically Inept to AI Advocate
41:04 — Model the Greats: How She Teaches AI
42:53 — Her Simple Secret: Just Keep Asking
45:20 — Getting Productive and Protecting Her Time
46:41 — The Fertility Journey: Eight Years and 18 Rounds of IVF
47:57 — Surrogacy and Welcoming a Second Baby
48:55 — The Sweetest Question From Her Son
51:57 — Why Success Means Less to Her Now
53:45 — What She Wishes More Women Knew Before Chasing Success
54:46 — Reinventing Is Fun
55:19 — Barefoot, Giggling and Truly Happy
56:16 — Wrapping Up Tea with Jules
Connect with Jules
Credits
Produced by ME Entertainment
Producers: @lisajohnston_, @julessebastian, @Eggoau
Sound Engineer, Video, Editor & Music: Mathew Eggleston – @Eggoau
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