Speaker 1: Oh, hello and happy a year. Welcome to Healthy Ish.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on our first episode of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. Of course, this is your podcast from Body
Speaker 1: and Soul. I I'm your host for listening, Halee. Now,
Speaker 1: if you just returned from summer holidays, or perhaps you're
Speaker 1: still in the throes of it, this episode is going
Speaker 1: to inspire you to work less and play more. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, author and business coach Emma Lovell joins
Speaker 1: us to discuss how to balance traveling the world with
Speaker 1: work and living a life you love aka the Art
Speaker 1: of Pleasure. Emma, Welcome to Healthy Happy new Year.
Speaker 2: Happy near tear too exciting.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't believe it's a twenty twenty five. Do
Speaker 1: you have a healthy resolution?
Speaker 3: I don't exactly believe in resolutions, but I do set
Speaker 3: an intention, and I choose a word for the year,
Speaker 3: and my word is calm.
Speaker 1: I think we all need that word. The last few.
Speaker 3: Years haven't been calm, so it's a been a whirlwind
Speaker 3: would probably be.
Speaker 2: The retrospective word.
Speaker 1: With Toddler, I do with Toddler.
Speaker 2: I did release a book.
Speaker 3: There was a few things going on in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: so I just I want if I have calm and
Speaker 3: go into everything with calm as the intention, So having
Speaker 3: a calm mindset, then you know, and the question you
Speaker 3: can ask yourself will will I be calm? Or can
Speaker 3: I be calm doing this? And then that kind of
Speaker 3: will dictate. So calm.
Speaker 1: I like that. I feel like that's a word so
Speaker 1: many of us need.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the word that people tend to choose is balance,
Speaker 3: and I just think balance is a fallacy and I
Speaker 3: don't It's just it's it's you kind of going to
Speaker 3: strive for this unachievable goal because there's never going to
Speaker 3: be balanced. So the word I tend to use is harmony,
Speaker 3: because things go up and down, and so if you
Speaker 3: go in with calm, that kind of gets the balance
Speaker 3: that you're after, but without that pressure to be like
Speaker 3: everything's fifty to fifty or even because it's just never
Speaker 3: going to be.
Speaker 1: Well, good luck, I should say, all the best, get luck.
Speaker 2: Let's chat in twenty twenty six about.
Speaker 1: This word pleasure. I come across this before I saw
Speaker 1: it on the front of your book. Took us through
Speaker 1: the concept of pleasure.
Speaker 3: So pleasure typically, I mean, people don't know the word.
Speaker 3: I didn't create it. I own it, but I didn't
Speaker 3: come up with it. It can live it, I live it.
Speaker 3: So it came up in two thousand and nine. Some
Speaker 3: future forecasters made up the word it's business and leisure.
Speaker 3: So bleasure can get confused with pleasure, which is part
Speaker 3: of it, but bleisure, but I've taken it to another level.
Speaker 3: I guess for me, pleasure means combining business, travel and
Speaker 3: having self care. So it's that harmony of those things
Speaker 3: so that I can live a life that I love.
Speaker 3: And I think it's kind of you know, you go
Speaker 3: on a business trip or you go on our trip
Speaker 3: and at the customs desk they go, are you here
Speaker 3: for work or holiday or family? And I'm kind of
Speaker 3: all of the above, And so bleasure is that fusion
Speaker 3: of that for me. And it's being able to include
Speaker 3: your work, include your home life, include your the things
Speaker 3: that you love that whatever leisure looks like to you.
Speaker 2: For me, that is travel and making it work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when I first read it, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: or read the introduction of your book, I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of like the digital nomad, but it's
Speaker 1: not really how is it different from that?
Speaker 3: So digital nomad and I really say that I'm not
Speaker 3: a digital nomad because over the years I've always looked
Speaker 3: my office is a work, my laptop and my phone.
Speaker 2: That's how I work.
Speaker 3: I've always been remote and flexible. But I think digital
Speaker 3: nomad people think in order to do that, you need
Speaker 3: to pack up your life, go and live somewhere, probably
Speaker 3: Bali or on a tropical island for three months, and
Speaker 3: you have to have a digital online business. But the
Speaker 3: thing about pleasure is it's combining your work and leisure.
Speaker 3: So work for you could be anything. My husband drives boats, say, like,
Speaker 3: he could drive a boat anywhere people go and ski
Speaker 3: go and work in ski fields, you know, or fruit
Speaker 3: picking or house and pet sitting.
Speaker 2: You know. Work can look like anything.
Speaker 3: And so I don't want people to think that, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I don't have an online business, I can't do pleasure,
Speaker 3: or because I'm not working and traveling at the same time,
Speaker 3: I'm not doing pleasure. There's a confusion between pleasure trip
Speaker 3: and pleasure life. And one of my colleagues made this, like,
Speaker 3: had this profound aha moment because she kept trying to
Speaker 3: think about how she could work and travel at the
Speaker 3: same time, not how she could look at this as
Speaker 3: like the rest of her life, how she could harmonize
Speaker 3: how she worked and brought in travel and leisure and
Speaker 3: things she found fun.
Speaker 1: So how do you make it work? How do you
Speaker 1: bring your business? Perhaps tell us a bit about what
Speaker 1: you actually do traveling the world and having a gorgeous family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, look, I guess that we should probably take
Speaker 3: a back step. I've been running my business for fifteen years.
Speaker 3: My business started because I broke my back in a
Speaker 3: snowboarding accident. I thought I could just run a business.
Speaker 3: I was in UNI, you know, just I'll just start
Speaker 3: a business.
Speaker 1: Anyone could do anything when they're in UNI.
Speaker 3: Yeah, studying PR and marketing. I'll just start mo own company.
Speaker 3: But I was never gonna have time. I was already
Speaker 3: kind of, I guess, racing towards burnout at twenty two,
Speaker 3: and so the universe decided to stop me. And it
Speaker 3: was in that rest forced rest time, lying there not
Speaker 3: able to do much that I was like, Oh, that
Speaker 3: business thing I was thinking about I could do. So
Speaker 3: I got an ABN, I told people I was running
Speaker 3: a business, started getting clients, and off I went.
Speaker 2: I mean, I converted.
Speaker 3: I was working in an office doing some PR and
Speaker 3: marketing for them, so I just got them to pay
Speaker 3: me via invoice, so I had a client. So originally
Speaker 3: I was doing PR, marketing and social media. I mean,
Speaker 3: and that's done from a computer, so wherever my laptop was,
Speaker 3: I was going to be so and it's something I
Speaker 3: established from day one, and it's one of the top
Speaker 3: tips I give is that you don't need to kind
Speaker 3: of have an office or if you tell your clients
Speaker 3: this is how I work, there's no kind of oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, I'm in Hawaii.
Speaker 2: They can't know.
Speaker 1: You're still delivering. You're delivering what they want and doing
Speaker 1: your work.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It's only maybe for the time zones that you needed
Speaker 3: to say, but it shouldn't matter because I've always yes
Speaker 3: delivered my work.
Speaker 2: So over the years it evolved a little bit.
Speaker 3: And I ended up going to coaching, personal brand coaching,
Speaker 3: combining that sort of brand expertise. And then it was
Speaker 3: actually in twenty twenty three that I kind of realized
Speaker 3: I'd been separating this travel side of my life even
Speaker 3: though I'd made an income from travel. I'm a travel
Speaker 3: partner of a company in India. I write articles on travel.
Speaker 3: I had made money from travel, but I still had
Speaker 3: this kind of belief you can't make money from travel,
Speaker 3: and then that the business was separate, even though I
Speaker 3: was running my business and traveling. And it was somebody
Speaker 3: asking me that question, looks seriously, how do you do it?
Speaker 3: You have a kid, you run a business, how do
Speaker 3: you do it? And I said, well, it's a choice,
Speaker 3: and I choose to do it, and I choose to
Speaker 3: make it work. Because if I'm not having fund in
Speaker 3: my business, if I'm not traveling, which is like one
Speaker 3: of my highest priority I just love it and what
Speaker 3: it gives to me, then it's not worth it. And
Speaker 3: so it's a choice. And then I kind of went, oh,
Speaker 3: to people, not is this a thing? People don't know
Speaker 3: how to do this? And I realized I'd been doing
Speaker 3: it all along. I've been doing it for my entire
Speaker 3: business journey. So then the pleasure term was said to me.
Speaker 3: And typically pleasure was like going to a conference and
Speaker 3: staying on, like going from flying into Melbourne for a
Speaker 3: meeting and then staying on for a few days. But
Speaker 3: I just have taken it, yeah that way step further.
Speaker 1: How do you make it work? Like perhaps getting a
Speaker 1: bit more granular, like, how where's your house? How is
Speaker 1: you Charlie? You're not having a child in school yet,
Speaker 1: you know, how how do you perhaps how do you
Speaker 1: make it work before your son versus after sun?
Speaker 3: Yeah, before I could kind of just pack up and go.
Speaker 3: I mean even since I've been with my partner now
Speaker 3: my husband for ten years, so even.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, yeah, you know your permanent job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he works at SeaWorld, so the sharks can't
Speaker 3: so't go with us, they have to stay there.
Speaker 1: Way to have a dad work like amazing to have
Speaker 1: a dad working at SeaWorld. Yeah, he's very cool.
Speaker 2: I think that's normal.
Speaker 3: And when I, like six year old me is like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm married the dream guy, living the dream. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so his job is very fixed, but we do get
Speaker 3: flexibility in terms of he can take longer periods off.
Speaker 3: So that's how we made it work. So I've had
Speaker 3: to learn how to make it work with him. A
Speaker 3: lot of it's communications, So when we would travel together,
Speaker 3: it's just it's communicating to my clients, it's communicating to him, Hey,
Speaker 3: these are the times I'm working. So say, one of
Speaker 3: the best trips we did, we went to Europe. I'd
Speaker 3: wake up at six or seven in the morning, do
Speaker 3: three or four hours of work. I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't care what you do, but do something I'm working,
Speaker 3: and I really enjoyed that focus. Then we went out
Speaker 3: and explored Rome for the rest of the day, you know,
Speaker 3: and if I needed to catch up on a few things,
Speaker 3: check in at night, that's fine. But having that dedicated
Speaker 3: block and communication that this is when I'm available when
Speaker 3: I'm not And so then I think when then I
Speaker 3: had my son, you just get really clear with your
Speaker 3: boundaries and you get really clear with your time. And
Speaker 3: I probably worked a lot more than I do now,
Speaker 3: but funnily enough, my income stayed the same, my hours
Speaker 3: went down, and then I've managed to increase my income
Speaker 3: at the same hours because you just like, I don't
Speaker 3: have the time. And I think that was with travel too.
Speaker 3: It's like I want to enjoy the city, so I've
Speaker 3: got four hours get it done. And the same with
Speaker 3: you know, he's in childcare, or he's with somebody, or
Speaker 3: he's napping. You got four hours work and so you know,
Speaker 3: my priority now is spending time with him, is spending
Speaker 3: time with my husband. If you cross that line, oh
Speaker 3: mama bear comes out, and so I think it's just
Speaker 3: it's priority. And it's like, I don't want my travel
Speaker 3: time interrupted, I don't want my family time interrupted. So
Speaker 3: if I have work time, then do the work. And
Speaker 3: there's occasions where, say this year creating the book, or
Speaker 3: in the past year creating the book, that there were
Speaker 3: things that were on deadline and I needed to make
Speaker 3: it work. But again it's just communication. Hey, they need this, now,
Speaker 3: I need an hour off. You go go and do
Speaker 3: your thing. We do have childcare, we do have family support,
Speaker 3: even though they live in a separate state. And I
Speaker 3: just think, I just keep coming back to communication. It's
Speaker 3: this is what I need in order to do this,
Speaker 3: and I'm asking for your help, and you can't do
Speaker 3: it without the village. And whether that village is family, friends,
Speaker 3: or paid very happy to pay.
Speaker 2: In order to live this life.
Speaker 1: And I suppose also, you and your husband sound like
Speaker 1: you're on the same page.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we all Yes, I'm not gonna I'm not going
Speaker 2: to sugarcate that.
Speaker 1: But from the outlook, you know, from looking forward to
Speaker 1: the future, to the future, yeah, you obviously have the
Speaker 1: same sort of values when it comes to traveling or
Speaker 1: living this pleasure life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he sometimes he's a little bit more. He
Speaker 3: likes it when we're doing it. I think he doesn't
Speaker 3: like the thought of it, or the planning of potentially
Speaker 3: the money spending. But once we're there and sometimes I
Speaker 3: think I was just saying to my friend yesterday, sometimes
Speaker 3: it's really hard to have a big conversation at home
Speaker 3: when we're traveling. Like, we do talk about the future.
Speaker 3: We do talk about it dreams, we do talk about opportunities.
Speaker 3: We were in Mongolia camping and there were beautiful animals
Speaker 3: out in the nomadic wilderness, and we both realize that
Speaker 3: we want to have animals, and we kind of want
Speaker 3: to have a bit of land. And so now our
Speaker 3: future home that we want to have is going to
Speaker 3: have a bit of land.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We came to that vision because we were there and
Speaker 3: we saw it together. And so sometimes if you need
Speaker 3: to have a tough conversation, Yes you can't go to
Speaker 3: Mongolia every day, but we go out for a walk,
Speaker 3: or we go and have a coffee date, we try
Speaker 3: a new restaurant, so that we can have those dreaming, planning,
Speaker 3: future discussions. Because when you're in the house, you just
Speaker 3: you get stuck in the data.
Speaker 1: That's a really valuable point because when you're in the
Speaker 1: weeds of daily life, you don't have those deep conversations.
Speaker 1: But when you're sitting on a plane in Mongolia, yeah,
Speaker 1: like a plane.
Speaker 2: As in an ol plane.
Speaker 1: And plane not a plane, then you can have these
Speaker 1: and be more vulnerable. There's a sense of vulnerability I
Speaker 1: think that comes with traveling as well that doesn't surface
Speaker 1: when you're in at home.
Speaker 3: It's the way you're so I host retreats and I
Speaker 3: feel like the locations do the heavy lifting because when
Speaker 3: you're homing, you're trying to think about your goals and
Speaker 3: what you want for your.
Speaker 2: Life and what you need.
Speaker 3: It's really oh, they need this, and they need that,
Speaker 3: and the house needs this. It's really hard to get
Speaker 3: outside of it. When you go to a place like
Speaker 3: India or Sri Lanka and everything is new and it's
Speaker 3: like sensory overload.
Speaker 2: You're stripped of all that, all.
Speaker 3: Those anchors back to day to day life and you
Speaker 3: are forced into kind of going, well, what actually do
Speaker 3: I want? And you get to remember, oh, actually, I
Speaker 3: had a plan, I had a goal, I had a dream,
Speaker 3: I had something that I wanted to do, and like
Speaker 3: the main thing that comes from the book and my
Speaker 3: mission is to live a life you love. And that's
Speaker 3: a question you can ask yourself every day. Am I
Speaker 3: living a life I love? And you know, the answer
Speaker 3: sometimes for me is no. But then that's like a
Speaker 3: compass point, right, and I just go, Okay, Well, then
Speaker 3: what am I not loving? And how can I what
Speaker 3: can I change about that? It doesn't mean that that's Fixeday,
Speaker 3: I feel amazing. It's like, well, if I'm not happy
Speaker 3: with the way my work is, how can I change
Speaker 3: my business? If I'm not happy with how my health is, well,
Speaker 3: I need to get some more exercise, I need to
Speaker 3: eat better. I'm not happy with the time I'm spending
Speaker 3: with my son. Great, put the phone down, let's go
Speaker 3: do something together.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's just what does living a life I look love
Speaker 3: look like? Every day I can ask myself and then
Speaker 3: realign to that.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask you how do we
Speaker 1: live a pleasure life? But perhaps you've answered the first
Speaker 1: part of it in that answer that you just gave
Speaker 1: is asking yourself, am I living the life that I love?
Speaker 1: And then actioning it? Because often we can ask ourselves
Speaker 1: but actually actioning it is another hurdle often, so how
Speaker 1: do we go from you know, having a whiteboard at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, going right, this is the
Speaker 1: life I love? How am I not living this? Where
Speaker 1: can I you know, what can I change? How do
Speaker 1: you actually go from that whiteboard to living it?
Speaker 3: Well? One of the you know, it's something I included
Speaker 3: in the book was like that reflection piece at the
Speaker 3: end of each chapter. It's like, go and ask yourself
Speaker 3: these questions. Journaling is such a powerful thing because you're
Speaker 3: writing it down, seeing it black and white, you go, oh, like,
Speaker 3: the answer comes pretty clearly. You sort of see a
Speaker 3: pattern of what's not good, And that was such a
Speaker 3: great point. Sometimes it's hard to say. What do you
Speaker 3: want is a big question? What does living a life
Speaker 3: you love look like? I mean, travel for me is
Speaker 3: pretty you know, it comes to mind, but not everyone
Speaker 3: has that, and so you go, Okay, what do I
Speaker 3: not want? And I don't want that? Which then can
Speaker 3: kind of determine what you do want. And then it's
Speaker 3: got to be small steps. Like I said, it's not
Speaker 3: just going to magically change overnight, but you can kind
Speaker 3: of gravitate towards it. And I think the misconception to
Speaker 3: people see my life and they're like, oh, it's all
Speaker 3: the jet setting, and it's all the big trips. Sometimes
Speaker 3: like a two nights or three nights away is so
Speaker 3: much more refreshing and rejuvenating than a ten day holiday.
Speaker 3: And I just don't want to subscribe to this whole work, work, work,
Speaker 3: And then we get four weeks away, and then we
Speaker 3: come back and you do it all again, and you
Speaker 3: get to yourself to that point of exhaustion to have
Speaker 3: this fabulous holiday, only to get anxious towards the end
Speaker 3: because you've got to come back and do it all again.
Speaker 3: Like I just think the land of the long weekend
Speaker 3: is such a place to hang finding ways to bring
Speaker 3: in self care or things that you love every day
Speaker 3: and it's just remembering. And for some people the look
Speaker 3: of my life is like horrendous. And so I'm not
Speaker 3: saying yeah, to go get on the market.
Speaker 1: I want to travel the world and live out of suitcases.
Speaker 3: And some you know, to be honest, over this summer break,
Speaker 3: I haven't wanted to either. I've wanted some time at home.
Speaker 3: So then it's like, well, what does that look like?
Speaker 3: It's it's being able to go to the pool whenever
Speaker 3: I want. It's being able to go for a walk.
Speaker 3: It's being able to sit in color with my son.
Speaker 3: It's being able to try that new restaurant that we
Speaker 3: haven't been to. It's being able to have a quality
Speaker 3: conversation with my husband, not being ships in the night.
Speaker 3: You know, it is actually this always the simpler things,
Speaker 3: and when you're getting those things right and you're feeling good.
Speaker 3: I think for a lot of people, especially women, choosing
Speaker 3: to do those things for yourself. If you can't even
Speaker 3: do that, how are you going to go and do
Speaker 3: a ten day trip overseas gallivanting and working from your laptop.
Speaker 3: You're not, so you've got to do Maybe taking a
Speaker 3: night away for you is a huge deal. One of
Speaker 3: my clients, one of the biggest things for her was
Speaker 3: leaving her laptop behind. She was running business for ten years.
Speaker 3: She never not had her laptop. She came on a
Speaker 3: retreat and that sounds awful, but that's where she was
Speaker 3: at right And for her, the win was she brought
Speaker 3: the laptop, but she didn't open it for five days.
Speaker 1: Good for her.
Speaker 3: And you know, so it's a small thing. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think it's and for her. Then that then kind of
Speaker 3: meant she could do it more. She got that more time.
Speaker 2: With their kids. She said the priority was family.
Speaker 3: So now she's doing more stuff with the family, she's
Speaker 3: able to finish at.
Speaker 2: Work at that time.
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of a stacking and a domino effect,
Speaker 3: but it comes with a choice, and it comes with
Speaker 3: you have to do it from a place of what
Speaker 3: do I want.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I love the time with my husband's son, but I
Speaker 3: don't do it for them. You do it for me
Speaker 3: so I can be there with them and then be
Speaker 3: there for them.
Speaker 1: It sounds to me that you're very clear on what
Speaker 1: brings you joy and what and the importance of play
Speaker 1: and being very clear about that and then intentional in actually,
Speaker 1: as I said, before actioning it and doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because otherwise we get resentful, we get burnt out,
Speaker 3: We can't live for others that way, and it just
Speaker 3: I have gone so I broke my back going too hard.
Speaker 3: That was a little sign. Okay, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I climbed mountain. Since I snowboarded nine months after, I
Speaker 3: still love snowboarding. I'm totally fine. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 3: Australian healthcare is amazing, no permanent damage. But then a
Speaker 3: year later, I mean essentially had a breakdown or my
Speaker 3: mind burnt out because I didn't learn the lesson and
Speaker 3: I went hard again. And one of the things I
Speaker 3: talk about the book is like you can kind of
Speaker 3: bleasure too hard. And I've done that. I've tried to
Speaker 3: combine too many things in a trip. I've work, work, worked,
Speaker 3: and then earn all this money and then had weeks away.
Speaker 3: I've done that, and I'm saying you don't do that,
Speaker 3: you know, and self care was the biggest piece that
Speaker 3: was missing in my younger years, and it's the thing
Speaker 3: that now my body just won't allow it, you know,
Speaker 3: just it just tells me.
Speaker 2: It's it's like you've got to rest. And that happened
Speaker 2: for me in November when away my retreat.
Speaker 3: Thought i'd come back inspired and rejuvenated, and I came
Speaker 3: back depleted and exhausted, and it I was forced into rest.
Speaker 3: And so I just I think I read the signs
Speaker 3: a lot earlier now. But that also can come from resentment,
Speaker 3: doing things you don't want to do and living life
Speaker 3: on somebody else's agenda or terms.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after this short break with more from Emma.
Speaker 1: How do you say no when you are away like
Speaker 1: to work, I mean and even home, you know, to
Speaker 1: manage the business and the leisure. How do you implement
Speaker 1: your boundaries.
Speaker 3: I think it's got easier over the years. Like I said,
Speaker 3: having you know, if it's going to impact my time,
Speaker 3: it's going to take time away from me, away from
Speaker 3: my family, away from the thing that I love, then
Speaker 3: it's a no. When before I did have all the
Speaker 3: time in the world, so I could say those yes is.
Speaker 3: But one of the things I say is say no
Speaker 3: to their needs so you can say yes to yours.
Speaker 3: And you know, as a soul trader in freelancer, early
Speaker 3: in my business, you did feel like that was if
Speaker 3: I don't take this opportunity, especially media, if you don't
Speaker 3: take this opportunity, it's never going to come again. It's
Speaker 3: not true. You know, there are other things and everything's
Speaker 3: a choice. You know, I've gone on to troop and
Speaker 3: I've missed a wedding. I've come back early from a
Speaker 3: troop and then missed out on seeing a new location.
Speaker 3: We have to make choices. It's always a choice.
Speaker 1: So how are you okay with dealing with the missing
Speaker 1: the wedding or missing the location. How do you? Oh,
Speaker 1: I just mentally deal with that.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I mean, originally I had a chapter in the book
Speaker 3: called sacrifices, but we changed it to choices because it's
Speaker 3: a choice, and it's like which one. You know, one year,
Speaker 3: I did choose not to go to a friend's wedding,
Speaker 3: and I do have a still that was twelve years ago,
Speaker 3: and I still sort of pine for that dear friend.
Speaker 3: But I would have depleted my income. I would have
Speaker 3: depleted my energy, and at that time I ended up
Speaker 3: getting a really great client and kind of growing my business.
Speaker 3: So I can see it's like that sliding doors moment.
Speaker 3: I could have kept that pattern up of work, work, work,
Speaker 3: spend all my money, come back start again. Instead, I
Speaker 3: chose to like kind of build a bit more foundation,
Speaker 3: and you know, twelve years later, I'm still doing it.
Speaker 1: So now I have a question for you. It's well
Speaker 1: from me. Yeah, personally, I mean, bleasure sounds amazing and definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, as you've explained it, I feel like I
Speaker 1: kind of live some of it. But I'm also I
Speaker 1: love travel, and often I go away and you know,
Speaker 1: write stories. But it takes a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: to actually get away, a lot of stress, a lot
Speaker 1: of planning, and then when I'm fine, and then also
Speaker 1: the guilt of leaving, you go, oh, you know, I
Speaker 1: hope they're going to be okay for the week that
Speaker 1: I might. I went to Vietnam earlier this year, when
Speaker 1: I'm away and nothing's going to happen, and dealing with
Speaker 1: all that, and then when I'm actually on the plane,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I am wrecked. Yeah, how can one manage
Speaker 1: all that?
Speaker 3: You got to trust and empower those around you. I
Speaker 3: mean I talk about the village as well, getting that support.
Speaker 3: Asking for help. Sometimes people say no or they're not
Speaker 3: a capacity, but don't stop asking. Keep reaching out. People
Speaker 3: actually do want to support you and help you. And
Speaker 3: early on I think I felt like my husband moved,
Speaker 3: wasn't capable and I had to do a lot of
Speaker 3: that stuff and it would be stressful in the early days.
Speaker 3: And then one time he turned around to me and
Speaker 3: I was like, I got to get my mum up here.
Speaker 3: I've got to figure out your parents or someone's got
Speaker 3: to come and support. He's like, hey, like, you know,
Speaker 3: I can actually do that, And I went, all right,
Speaker 3: if you're saying that, and now it's like, if you
Speaker 3: continue to make all the meals and do all the plans, well,
Speaker 3: they're just going to keep accepting that. And again with
Speaker 3: that client who left our laptop, that was also a
Speaker 3: big thing going away from the family and the business.
Speaker 3: But what happened was they stepped up. My husband steps up,
Speaker 3: my in law step up. You know, the childcare helps out,
Speaker 3: the friends step up, the community steps up. But if
Speaker 3: you keep doing it, then they won't. And again, you know,
Speaker 3: it's all the choice. And I will miss my son
Speaker 3: when I go away. That's never going to.
Speaker 1: Stop the guilt. So I think the other thing that
Speaker 1: flies into this for me when I go away is
Speaker 1: just the guilt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's an emment, Like it's a feeling in
Speaker 3: its emotion. How people say you choose it, I still
Speaker 3: get it, Like I'm not going to say that I don't.
Speaker 3: But then I know I'm going to be a better person.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be more fulfilled. And unfortunately it's like
Speaker 3: the anti hero of the martyrs, right, you know, I
Speaker 3: had come from a long line of martyrs. They're my
Speaker 3: anti heroes in that. I'm like, I've seen how that
Speaker 3: plays out. I don't want to live that. I don't
Speaker 3: want that for my family, I don't want for the
Speaker 3: people around me. So yes, I feel a bit guilty sometimes. Yes,
Speaker 3: the initial going away might be feel like there's a
Speaker 3: lot to organize, but I know ultimately I went just
Speaker 3: to it to host an event in Manly, and I thought,
Speaker 3: why am I doing this? Why am I going to
Speaker 3: the hotel? Why didn't I just stay with my son
Speaker 3: and my in laws and just run it for the day.
Speaker 3: But I walked in through those doors at that hotel
Speaker 3: and I did the sigh of relief, and I just thought, Oh,
Speaker 3: because this is for me, and this is so that
Speaker 3: I can be the best for my clients Tomorrow. He's
Speaker 3: having the best time with his grandparents, and what a
Speaker 3: great thing gift for them. Right My husband gets the
Speaker 3: time with my son, my in laws get the time,
Speaker 3: quality time, whereas if I'm around. And it keeps coming
Speaker 3: to me that you're helping them build relationships, You're helping
Speaker 3: them build resilience, You're empowering them to choose things for themselves.
Speaker 3: And I just think that the better you are in yourself,
Speaker 3: the better you can be, you know, give from the
Speaker 3: overflow more full. I used to be like top up
Speaker 3: your cup. Now it's like no, it's like completely fill
Speaker 3: the cup. And then all that overflow and love gets
Speaker 3: to go to everybody else. And you can just see
Speaker 3: it in my photo, like when I'm traveling, my face
Speaker 3: lights up, my shoulders drop, my joy comes, my inspiration,
Speaker 3: my creativity.
Speaker 2: That's the person I want to be.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite pleasure trip you've been on?
Speaker 3: I think look most recently, yeah, most recently. And my
Speaker 3: publicists do you think it's very funny? I booked a cruise,
Speaker 3: European cruise and we were going to be like pitching
Speaker 3: public city for the book one on the cruise.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fun. So where was the cruise to.
Speaker 3: Italy, Greece and Turkey? And yeah, it was just awesome
Speaker 3: because you've got the kids club, You've got all your
Speaker 3: food taken care of, the cleaning's done, you got the gym.
Speaker 3: My husband went to the gym. So a great morning.
Speaker 3: My husband went to drop our son at the kids club,
Speaker 3: he went to the gym. I sat on the balcony
Speaker 3: in my swimming costume and did three hours of work
Speaker 3: looking out at the ocean. And that was a beautiful day.
Speaker 3: And so it was like, okay, cruise ships, the perfect office.
Speaker 3: I just had to pay for the Wi Fi plan
Speaker 3: and awhere we went.
Speaker 1: And have you got any good trips planned for this year?
Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, so many.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of trying to look at doing a couple
Speaker 3: of months away. I want to go over to the US.
Speaker 3: I kind of want to do a bit more work
Speaker 3: in the US, but I also have a relative there.
Speaker 3: I want to spend time with base ourselves in Mexico,
Speaker 3: which is where we got married, and take our son
Speaker 3: there and kind of lived there for a little bit.
Speaker 3: And then I want to get to all the countries
Speaker 3: in Central America because I have a all to visit
Speaker 3: every country in the world, So sort of like.
Speaker 1: Batch, are you far? How's your list going? Are you
Speaker 1: ticking it off?
Speaker 3: Seventy six of seventy six countries I've been to and
Speaker 3: sixty four out of one hundred and ninety five un recognized,
Speaker 3: so a few to go.
Speaker 1: But I mean, but that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 2: It's a good bite at the cherry.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'd like to try and see if we
Speaker 3: can experiment with that. It's my son's last year before
Speaker 3: he goes to school. I'm excited to see how we
Speaker 3: make it work then, but I kind of want to
Speaker 3: take the opportunity when we don't have those timeline restrictions
Speaker 3: to do a few months and to spend time, and
Speaker 3: it's more cost effective to go over spend a solid
Speaker 3: chunk of time there, and yeah, kind of see how
Speaker 3: we make it work.
Speaker 1: And live a life of calm.
Speaker 3: A calm life on the beaches of Tulhim in Mexico.
Speaker 2: It sounds cherry.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I love that place anyway, Emma, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining.
Speaker 2: Us on healthy Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Old friends. I hope this inspired you to perhaps well
Speaker 1: set some goals around how you are going to work
Speaker 1: less and play more this year. If you do want
Speaker 1: some more advice around pleasure, Emma's new book is called
Speaker 1: The Art of Pleasure and it is out now. And
Speaker 1: by the way, just a reminder that Healthy Ish now
Speaker 1: drops on a Monday and Thursday. And we've wrapped up
Speaker 1: our big sister podcast, Extra healthy Ish. If you did
Speaker 1: like this one, tell us you can rate and review
Speaker 1: this episode. Subscribe to this podcast. For anything else, head
Speaker 1: to body andsoul dot com dot Are you follow us
Speaker 1: on socials? You can DM me at Felicity Harley if
Speaker 1: you have any ideas for guests, or grab our print
Speaker 1: edition which is out in your local Sunday paper. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening and stay healthy is