Standing at the Threshold: A Special 2-part Series
Who we become when a story stops fitting

We are living through a moment in which many of our cultural stories are loosening. The narratives that once felt unquestionable are slowly becoming porous — notrejected outright, but no longer landing in the body with the same certainty or belonging. We are not yet in the new story, but we are no longer fully inside the old one either. We are standing in the threshold: a space where somethingis dissolving and something else is not yet born.

The Melbourne Cup is one of these threshold stories. For more than a century it has functioned less as a sporting event and more as a cultural ritual — woven into workplaces, media, fashion, schooling and national identity. In Melbourne it isa public holiday; throughout Australia many workplaces pause or host events around it. Participation hasn’t just been encouraged — it has long been treated as a signal of belonging.

And like all rituals, it sits atop deeper layers. Beneath the festivities is a cultural script about aspiration, glamour, mateship, celebration and the performance ofunity. Beneath that cultural meaning sit structural forces — power networks, lobbying systems, political interests and industries that reinforce not just the race, but the story of the race.

Eventually every cultural story reaches a point of reckoning. It ceases to be purely symbolic and becomes personal:
What are we being asked to overlook to remain inside this story? And what does it cost us, individually and collectively, to keep doing so?

In this second conversation in this special series, we shift from the cultural story to the inner and organisational story — how we show up, lead and create meaning together in the world of work.

Behaviourist and habits coach Stephen Belenky shares insight into the quiet leadership required to evolve rituals without losing their intent.

Stephen and Jordan explore:

• How cultural and corporate rituals become hollow when format replaces feeling

• Why curiosity and compassion are essential leadership capacities

• The difference between compliance and consciousness at work

• How vulnerability becomes a bridge between authenticity and belonging

Together, they ask what it means to lead from the threshold — that space between the stories we inherited and the ones we now have the courage to write.

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