Charmed as we were when Gwyneth Paltrow walked through the sliding doors of a train into a parallel universe in the 1998 hit movie, it can be less charming when we find the doors slamming shut on the path we’ve been travelling in our own lives. No more job. No more baby. No more partner. A cancer diagnosis. Losing the ability to walk…

It’s the stuff that we secretly hope only happens to ‘other people’ – and some of those ‘other people’ have been interviewed by entrepreneurs Audrey Thomas and HerCanberra’s own Emma Grey for a series of free podcasts with inspiring women, each speaking candidly about “The 15 Minutes that Changed Their Lives”.

“They’d said it would be a week until I got my results,” explains communications specialist, Kylie Walker. “Ten minutes after I left the scan the radiologist called me. He said you have a very large tumour and we need to send you for an urgent biopsy. He gave me two potential diagnoses. Both of them were cancer”. Ms Walker was a single mum of two young children when she learned that she had advanced, non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

“I had to keep working,” she says. “I had a mortgage to pay and food to buy for my kids… Psychologically it stripped me right back to my absolute core. For the first time, I really learnt who I was and I learnt how to love that person.”

ACT Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher MLA, tells of driving in her car in search of her fiance, who hadn’t returned home from a bike ride. She was 14 weeks pregnant with their first child, and she heard about his death in an announcement on the car radio.

“It set me off on a completely different path,” she explains. “For the first time in my life I was really, truly on my own. I’d never had to be my own person. It forced me out into the forefront. I had to be a single parent. I thought I had my life planned out…”

“I would never have gotten to where I am today… I wouldn’t wish this trauma on anyone, but the outcome is going through that changed me as a person. Through that hardship, I’ve become a better person.”

Author, Rebecca Sparrow tells a similar story of triumph through adversity, after her baby daughter was stillborn 36 weeks into the pregnancy. “Grief is a game of snakes and ladders. Three steps forward, two steps back…There is a part of you that just buckles.”

“I had this gut feeling that she was going to turn the light up in my life, not down. She turned the light up and started bringing people across my path, that I was supposed to meet. Because of her death, I formed one of the greatest friendships of my life. It’s made me a better writer. It’s made me a better mother. It’s changed my relationship with my husband – we’re stronger. We came through it together. I’m definitely not the same person.”

“These women have been through things they’d never wish on anyone, yet in all cases the stories they tell are hopeful,” explains organiser Audrey Thomas. “They’ve fallen over. They’ve scraped their knees – but life goes on, and it goes on with greater strength and grace and an enormous sense that our time is precious.”

But it’s not all tragedy. Canberra’s Anthea Cahill of RealChai was an unhappy public servant when she had her life-changing 15 minutes. “It was an amazing twist of fate, or serendipity,” she explained. “I had this moment on the other side of the world, where my life changed, inexplicably… I went on a backpacking holiday that led me to return home, quit my job and start my own business. I’d never had any intention of starting a business. The thing that I fell in love with overseas and have dedicated my life to since – I’d never even heard of it…”

And then there’s me. My podcast is still to come, but it tells the story of how the premature birth of my daughter, Sophia, utterly changed the landscape of my life…and indirectly led to the creation of a certain website. Stay tuned…

The 24 podcasts are available through the website www.my15minutespresents.com with interviewees including champion surfer Layne Beachley, MasterChef Julie Goodwin, singer Melinda Schneider and many more. Listening to them has already become part of my daily routine – these women are inspirational and open, and their stories will resonate with you. Sign up today…it’s free!

What’s YOUR 15 minutes?

 Sliding train doors image from shutterstock.com