Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about
Speaker 1: your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine,
Speaker 1: but you know that something is off, well, you're not
Speaker 1: imagining it. That's why I created Vitality three sixty to
Speaker 1: help you better understand what's going on inside your body
Speaker 1: so that you can take the targeted action needed. With
Speaker 1: a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the
Speaker 1: guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've
Speaker 1: teamed up with doct Esmina, an incredible integrative GP, and
Speaker 1: together we will help you decode your body's signals and
Speaker 1: answer questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really
Speaker 1: causing my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or
Speaker 1: maybe missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better,
Speaker 1: you can transform your health. Visit v three sixty dot
Speaker 1: health or check out the show notes for more. A
Speaker 1: little while ago, I went to my first ever women's
Speaker 1: only disco.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, it was such a.
Speaker 1: Vibe and I didn't know what to expect. I was
Speaker 1: basically tapped on the shoulder by a friend who said,
Speaker 1: we've got a party bus booked from avalon Beach on
Speaker 1: the northern beaches of Sydney. Come along women's only, It's
Speaker 1: going to be a hoot.
Speaker 2: So I really just went.
Speaker 1: Along with very low expectations and thought, oh, look at
Speaker 1: the worst, I'll burn a few calories and have a
Speaker 1: bit of a boogie with my friends. Well, I cannot
Speaker 1: tell you how unbelievably awesome and what a beautiful, emotional hug.
Speaker 2: The night was.
Speaker 1: It was at the Hawden Pavilion in Sydney, and from
Speaker 1: the moment we bundled out of the party bus, Okay,
Speaker 1: we might have been a few Margi's deep at that point,
Speaker 1: we just had the best time. There were sequence, there
Speaker 1: was energy galore, it was fun, it was silly.
Speaker 2: It's such a different.
Speaker 1: Dynamic to when there's guys the event. But anyway, while
Speaker 1: we were in there, I didn't really know a lot
Speaker 1: about the background of this event. But these two unbelievable
Speaker 1: hosts were up on stage just you know, a'm seeing
Speaker 1: the night, bringing the energy, interacting with the crowd. And
Speaker 1: I said to my girlfriend, who are these ladies. I
Speaker 1: want to know their story. I want to know the
Speaker 1: story of this disco. I want to be like them.
Speaker 2: This is healthy. Her with Amelia Phillips.
Speaker 1: When I come across incredible, vibrant and successful women in
Speaker 1: midlife juggling it all, firstly I think you bloddy legend,
Speaker 1: look at you go? But then I want to know
Speaker 1: how do they do it? What is their winning formula?
Speaker 1: Are they the up at five emas, the super delegators,
Speaker 1: the octopus mums that are able to do eight things
Speaker 1: at once? Or are they the ones that are kind
Speaker 1: of hanging on by a thin thread, holding on with
Speaker 1: white knuckles, holding on for the ride, waiting for it
Speaker 1: to either filling them.
Speaker 2: Off the side or for the ride to end.
Speaker 1: Behind every great woman, there are some incredible stories and
Speaker 1: stories that we can all learn from and be inspired by.
Speaker 1: So when I recently attended this huge all female disco
Speaker 1: and I saw these two glowing ladies owning the stage,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know more. Lees and Sarah are the
Speaker 1: duo behind the wildly successful Lees and Sarah podcast, as
Speaker 1: well as.
Speaker 2: The national phenomenon that is now known.
Speaker 1: As Disco Club and their book forty Favors the Brave.
Speaker 1: They've built a beautiful community of women who are craving connection, laughter, friendship,
Speaker 1: and permission to enjoy this stage of life again, but
Speaker 1: behind the sequence the sold out dance floors, the hilarious
Speaker 1: stories are two women and navigating the same pressures many
Speaker 1: of us are. Midlife, motherhood, work, identity, energy, stress, the
Speaker 1: constant juggle of modern life. So today we're talking about
Speaker 1: what's really happening behind the scenes, what it takes to
Speaker 1: have a full on career like they do, the highs, exhaustion,
Speaker 1: the reinvention, the invisible load that us women carry, and
Speaker 1: what it actually takes to stay healthy, energized, successful and
Speaker 1: sane while trying to hold everything together.
Speaker 2: Li's and Sarah, thank you so much for joining me
Speaker 2: on Healthy Her.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's excited.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, guys, you have just completed this national
Speaker 1: disco tour. And you didn't just rest when this disco
Speaker 1: tour was done. You then m seed one of the
Speaker 1: most talked about wellness retreats with Meagan Markel. You host
Speaker 1: your uber popular podcast, your mums, your partners.
Speaker 2: How are you both actually staying stable? Sarah? I might
Speaker 2: start with you, are you staying stable?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we are staying stable. I think the wonderful thing
Speaker 5: about being in a duo which I am with Lee's
Speaker 5: and a duo that is in the exact same life
Speaker 5: stage which we are. I'm forty five and Lee's just
Speaker 5: turned forty six.
Speaker 4: I'll be forty six this year as well.
Speaker 5: We have children around the same age, so the demands
Speaker 5: of our personal life is pretty much equal to that
Speaker 5: of our professional life. So there's always very much an
Speaker 5: intrinsic understanding of what the other one needs and wants,
Speaker 5: and we're very we operate very much in symbiosis.
Speaker 4: Is that the right term that I've used their.
Speaker 5: Fancy word for just saying where always we've always got
Speaker 5: each other's back. So when there are incredibly busy times
Speaker 5: for work, which there are when we're touring, when we've
Speaker 5: got lots of podcast action on, then we know exactly
Speaker 5: what we need to do for ourselves and for each other.
Speaker 5: And then when there's quiet times we both make the
Speaker 5: most of that too.
Speaker 1: Lee'z how have you found this, I guess career pivot.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell me where you started and
Speaker 1: how the two of you came to be?
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure, I think our story is very much
Speaker 6: one of the late bloomer Sarah and I only met
Speaker 6: in our early to mid thirties. We both had careers separately,
Speaker 6: of course, in similar fields. Sarah was in media and
Speaker 6: communications PR. I had also done journalism, I was copywriting,
Speaker 6: I've worked in fashion. But when we met, it really
Speaker 6: was sparks flew, you know, in a friendship sort of way.
Speaker 6: But we also very quickly realized that professionally we had
Speaker 6: something pretty special. And at first, I suppose it was
Speaker 6: just sort of very one dimensional. We were like, we
Speaker 6: should just do something together. There wasn't a huge amount
Speaker 6: of thought other than just a knowing that when we
Speaker 6: were together we bounced really well off on another. We
Speaker 6: had similar senses of humor, we had a similar take
Speaker 6: on the world, and definitely similar interests. So we just
Speaker 6: started off as an MC duo and we were doing
Speaker 6: a lot of that around Brisbane. We quickly got sick
Speaker 6: of doing that and started producing our own events, which
Speaker 6: was absolutely taking a big leap of faith because we
Speaker 6: had no actual experience as event producers. We just had
Speaker 6: a really good sensibility of what we liked and what
Speaker 6: we were interested in seeing, and we did really well
Speaker 6: at that just by following our guts and leaning on
Speaker 6: our own sort of professional instincts, and then from there
Speaker 6: we got tapped on the shoulder, and we both started
Speaker 6: in radio together. We got off at a radio show
Speaker 6: on Southern Crosshold stereo, and you know, it's just a
Speaker 6: real story of what happens when you just back yourself
Speaker 6: a little bit and take some really big, hairy, audacious
Speaker 6: steps in a direction that most people would have said,
Speaker 6: you don't belong there, Who the hell do you think
Speaker 6: you are? I think, in fact, we did get a
Speaker 6: few of those comments, who the hell do these two
Speaker 6: think they are? But as Sarah touched on, when you're
Speaker 6: working alongside your best friend, someone you trust implicitly, there's
Speaker 6: a real strength and bravery in that. And we were
Speaker 6: able to successfully block out all the noise and just
Speaker 6: keep driving what we wanted to do.
Speaker 3: And it's been a massive evolution. At every step.
Speaker 6: We've gone, Okay, what if we do radio, what if
Speaker 6: we do podcasting, what if we start and of event
Speaker 6: for women where we just danced together, and it's just
Speaker 6: snowballed just by following our guts and really believing in
Speaker 6: our abilities. So it's a wild ride at this age,
Speaker 6: I'll tell you that much.
Speaker 1: How have you managed to block out the noise and
Speaker 1: the negative self talk? And you know, the naysayers because
Speaker 1: for so many women, we don't know how to back
Speaker 1: ourselves properly, or we have a lot of self doubt.
Speaker 1: What has it been with you two that's enabled you
Speaker 1: to go, you know what, We are going to take
Speaker 1: those big, hairy, audacious risks and step into those big roles.
Speaker 4: Look, I think it's the courage of two.
Speaker 5: And I really say that for people who are also
Speaker 5: operating as solo women in their business, it's you need
Speaker 5: to find somebody who is a mentor or someone who you.
Speaker 4: Can bounce things off.
Speaker 5: For me, I've always been incredibly lucky to have Lee's
Speaker 5: and there I say she's been lucky to have me too,
Speaker 5: because we do have each other's backs. I mean, I don't, really,
Speaker 5: if I'm honest, have that negative naysaying mentality about anything
Speaker 5: that Lee's and I have ever done. I feel very
Speaker 5: confident in our abilities because they're always based on following
Speaker 5: our gut instincts, and we have lived by that rule
Speaker 5: for the last twelve years that we've been in business.
Speaker 4: Three second rule.
Speaker 5: Ask yourself a question, your immediate gut reaction in three seconds, yes.
Speaker 4: Or no, and follow that.
Speaker 5: So I don't really buy in to the negativity or
Speaker 5: the naysayers, because I mean, I feel like that's just
Speaker 5: trying to take you down a peg or two, and
Speaker 5: you've got to try things. I think we've always had
Speaker 5: that mentality that what's the worst thing that can happen?
Speaker 4: You try something and you end up back where you are.
Speaker 5: Well, if where you are, where your starting point is,
Speaker 5: isn't too bad, then what.
Speaker 4: Have you got to lose? And if it does fail,
Speaker 4: then it's a bloody good story to tell.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking about your disco because that was
Speaker 1: my first thought when I walked into this sold out
Speaker 1: Harden pavilion and I saw thousands of women. And let's
Speaker 1: face it, you also made it hard for yourself because
Speaker 1: you have the market. If men aren't invited, you've got
Speaker 1: a smaller market to sell tickets too. But my thought was,
Speaker 1: where did this idea come from? And how did it originate?
Speaker 1: So do you want to tell us what the story
Speaker 1: is for the disco? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Sure, And I mean I would say that we actually
Speaker 5: not inviting men was the reason disco club was successful
Speaker 5: because we are looking at an area that didn't currently exist,
Speaker 5: and we do always say disco club is absolutely not
Speaker 5: anti men.
Speaker 4: We have wonderful men in our lives.
Speaker 5: What it is is pro giving women and people who
Speaker 5: identify as women a space to just be themselves. Men
Speaker 5: can go out and dance with women in nightclubs around
Speaker 5: the country and they can do that anytime anywhere. Have
Speaker 5: been able to do that for years, but disco club
Speaker 5: hasn't existed, and that's why it's been popular, And.
Speaker 4: It came from a very honest place.
Speaker 5: Les and I in our early forties were simply missing
Speaker 5: nights out dancing with our girlfriends, and in fact, we'd
Speaker 5: never really had that right, Like, if you cast your
Speaker 5: mind back to when we were in our twenties and
Speaker 5: late teens going out nightclubbing, that was a very different experience.
Speaker 4: And even though you might.
Speaker 5: Have been with your girlfriends, you were often clubbing for
Speaker 5: different reasons as well. It's just going out to let
Speaker 5: your hair down and dance and sing to all the
Speaker 5: songs that you know. That really started to wane in
Speaker 5: our life, you know, the wedding dance floors had dried up,
Speaker 5: we'd gone through the fortieth We didn't want to wait
Speaker 5: for other big birthday milestones just to be able to
Speaker 5: have a dance. So Lee's and I again with sort
Speaker 5: of saying about following our gut instincts.
Speaker 4: We figured, if we're feeling this way.
Speaker 5: I think we were forty two at the time, then
Speaker 5: there's going to be a whole lot of other women
Speaker 5: who are feeling that way too, who want to go out,
Speaker 5: who but want to do it differently. They want an
Speaker 5: early start time and early finish time. They're not interested
Speaker 5: in flirting or hooking up, so we don't need blokes there.
Speaker 4: For the heterosexual gals.
Speaker 5: We want music that we know the words too, and
Speaker 5: we want to be comfortable and have good flowing bar
Speaker 5: lines and clean toilets. And we just had all these
Speaker 5: kind of ideas floating around and so we thought, right, well,
Speaker 5: nobody else is doing it, let's give it a birl.
Speaker 4: And we hired a function room.
Speaker 5: In a bowls club in Brisbane and it was so
Speaker 5: beautifully cringe when we look back on it, it was
Speaker 5: so wonderful.
Speaker 4: Just eighty women showed up and there was a baby.
Speaker 5: They put the baby in the middle of the dance
Speaker 5: floor and we were dancing around it. There were handbags,
Speaker 5: there was just this kind of reckless abandon in jeans
Speaker 5: and T shirts and a wonky Spotify playlist on a
Speaker 5: skipping bluetooth speaker.
Speaker 4: But we knew then.
Speaker 5: We were like, yeah, we were not alone in feeling
Speaker 5: this way.
Speaker 4: And then disco club just kept steamrolling.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: The first year it was just in bowls clubs and
Speaker 5: RSL clubs in Brisbane. The next year it was nightclubs,
Speaker 5: and then women around the country saying hey, we want
Speaker 5: this too, And then that was the big leap, that
Speaker 5: was our most nervous leap was to go to Sydney
Speaker 5: and take it out of Queensland. And we've never looked back.
Speaker 5: It's been a hell of a learning curve going from
Speaker 5: a bowls club to partnering with Mushroom Group in three years.
Speaker 5: But I mean, we think we've been old and we've
Speaker 5: been excited along the way too. Everything about it has
Speaker 5: excited us.
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about
Speaker 1: your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine,
Speaker 1: but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it.
Speaker 1: That's why I created Vitality three point sixty to help
Speaker 1: you better understand what's going on in side your body
Speaker 1: so that you can take the targeted action needed with
Speaker 1: a functional health approach, plus testing. We go beyond the
Speaker 1: guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've
Speaker 1: teamed up with Dottyasmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together
Speaker 1: we will help you decode your body's signals and answer
Speaker 1: questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing
Speaker 1: my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe
Speaker 1: missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better,
Speaker 1: you can transform your health. Visit V three sixty dot
Speaker 1: health or check out the show notes for more. How
Speaker 1: does it feel to be doing something? And I'm not
Speaker 1: just talking about disco club, but I'm talking about your podcast,
Speaker 1: your books, everything that you do. How does it feel
Speaker 1: to have shaped your career in a way that is
Speaker 1: so aligned with your values and also just authentically who
Speaker 1: you are as people?
Speaker 6: I think really early on in our time together as
Speaker 6: business partners, we set a business intention. It wasn't an
Speaker 6: idea that occurred to us to set an intention.
Speaker 3: We were actually.
Speaker 6: Given that advice by one of our mentors, and we
Speaker 6: were like, oh, what's all this woo woo stuff about?
Speaker 6: But very rapidly it came to us, very very clearly
Speaker 6: and to this day. We still use it to anchor
Speaker 6: pretty much everything we do. So in a nutshell, it's
Speaker 6: to earn a living by being ourselves and connecting people
Speaker 6: through laughter something like that, right, Sarah, It's something along
Speaker 6: those lines.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 5: To earn a living connecting people through laughter while being ourselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3: Love.
Speaker 6: The really important part of that is the by being
Speaker 6: ourselves component for us. If we can't do that twenty
Speaker 6: four hours a day, that's not a life well lived.
Speaker 6: Like that was a really important signpost in how we
Speaker 6: wanted to move forward, not just in business but also
Speaker 6: in personal life, because the two really bleed into one another.
Speaker 6: In the early years of our business and probably only
Speaker 6: till about last year, we have been flogging ourselves. I mean,
Speaker 6: if anyone is listening to this thinking they've had it easy,
Speaker 6: it's an overnight success.
Speaker 3: They've got it cruizy. They just work whenever they want.
Speaker 6: No, we have been categorically flogging ourselves for the better
Speaker 6: part of a decade. There's been a lot of highs,
Speaker 6: a lot of lows, but throughout it all, if on
Speaker 6: top of the workload, we had to fake being who
Speaker 6: we are publicly, whether it's on our podcast the topics
Speaker 6: we talk about, whether it's on staf Age at disco club,
Speaker 6: whether it's doing media, or if we can't be ourselves,
Speaker 6: we would just perish. We just would not be able
Speaker 6: to maintain the integrity and the energy. So I think
Speaker 6: for us, one of the main threads of the work
Speaker 6: we do is is this who.
Speaker 3: We are as people.
Speaker 6: I mean, of course, you've got days when you're firing
Speaker 6: on all cylinders and you're ready to take on the world.
Speaker 6: And there's other times in life, and you know, we
Speaker 6: are traversing times where our parents are aging, and there
Speaker 6: are times where one of us, both of us, may
Speaker 6: be pulled to other more personal parts of life. But
Speaker 6: my god, if we if we had to pretend to
Speaker 6: be these characters when we're on the mic or on
Speaker 6: the stage, we'd be screwed.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't we wouldn't be able to do it.
Speaker 6: So the authenticity piece is one hundred percent part of
Speaker 6: our success. And I say that in inverted commas, because
Speaker 6: who are we to say what makes a successful life
Speaker 6: or any of us right? It's whatever feels right and personal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting you raise such an important point about
Speaker 1: being authentically yourself. But something that I see a lot
Speaker 1: of women in midlife struggling with is losing their energy
Speaker 1: to step out and to be their authentic selves. Whether
Speaker 1: it's perimenopause, whether it's just the weight of the invisible
Speaker 1: load of life. I would love to know your winning
Speaker 1: formulas for how you have been able to continue to
Speaker 1: show up authentically with their energy that is needed to
Speaker 1: do the work that you guys do so publicly. What
Speaker 1: are you winning formulas? Are you guys like you know
Speaker 1: very much into My body is my temple, and I
Speaker 1: look after my body so well. I'd love to know
Speaker 1: what you do to keep that energy so high and
Speaker 1: thriving so well.
Speaker 5: Personally, I think that the times when we're not feeling
Speaker 5: ourselves happens more at home, more at home in family life.
Speaker 5: And for me, that was going to a doctor and saying,
Speaker 5: I think I'm in perimenopause.
Speaker 4: I'm not feeling great. My sleep is shot.
Speaker 5: And if I know one thing with the wisdom of age,
Speaker 5: it's that sleep is everything. And why it took me
Speaker 5: so long to remember that because Lees and I did
Speaker 5: a national early breakfast radio show for four or five
Speaker 5: years with Southern crossover stereo and we were getting up
Speaker 5: at you know, two or three o'clock in the morning
Speaker 5: because it was a live shot from five to six am.
Speaker 5: And I really struggled at the end of that term
Speaker 5: because of sleep deprivation. And I knew as soon as
Speaker 5: I my sleep started going wonky, going haywire around forty four,
Speaker 5: that was my kind of.
Speaker 4: Tip to go to the doctor.
Speaker 5: So I would say for me, like being on some
Speaker 5: estrogen and progesterone support is what helps me personally.
Speaker 1: You really notice a difference when you went on the HRT.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5: I mean if I don't sleep, I am an absolute cow.
Speaker 5: I'm snappy, I'm sure I have no motivation, my energy
Speaker 5: is low, and relationships around me suffer. So I think
Speaker 5: it's kind of being aware that you know, you might
Speaker 5: have to look a little bit deeper into yourself, And
Speaker 5: for me, I think that's what's helped me. I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't think you know the word authentically and authenticity,
Speaker 5: I mean it's used a lot these days. I honestly
Speaker 5: can't think of a time when Lee's and I haven't
Speaker 5: just been ourselves in whatever we're doing. Like, even if
Speaker 5: I'm sleep deprived, I'm still myself just sleep deprived.
Speaker 4: Like, I don't think I'm faking anything, would you agree?
Speaker 3: Lees totally.
Speaker 6: I think we've both hidden age, and obviously we're two individuals,
Speaker 6: so we're going through things differently and on a different timeline.
Speaker 6: But I think for the most part, what I would
Speaker 6: say is in our mid four what is approaching our
Speaker 6: late later forties, there's a real weeding of the garden
Speaker 6: that started to happen, and I think that does contribute
Speaker 6: to being the healthiest. And I say that, you know, emotionally, spiritually, physically,
Speaker 6: if you can weed the garden and start getting a
Speaker 6: little bit introspective about what is this life?
Speaker 3: What am I doing here? What are my relationships?
Speaker 6: Like, I mean, I've personally found in the last six
Speaker 6: to nine months, I've.
Speaker 3: Had a real wake up call around.
Speaker 6: Behaviors that I've had for years and years and years
Speaker 6: and years that I've never really interrogated until now. I
Speaker 6: don't know where it's come from. I think it is
Speaker 6: turning forty six. Something's shifted. I'm getting I'm a little
Speaker 6: bit antsy.
Speaker 2: You mean your own behaviors, Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do.
Speaker 6: Mean my own behavior is my own relationships with my parents,
Speaker 6: with my cis, with my friendships, with my husband. I'm
Speaker 6: all of a sudden becoming hyper aware of this is
Speaker 6: the crunch time.
Speaker 3: This is for me.
Speaker 6: It feels very real at this age that I'm on
Speaker 6: a tipping point of how do I want to live
Speaker 6: the next five to ten years of my life in
Speaker 6: this new I feel like it's a new season and
Speaker 6: in order to enter a new season. And I don't
Speaker 6: think I'm actually in perimenopause. I think Sarah's picked me,
Speaker 6: He's pipped me at the post, but I might just
Speaker 6: be experiencing it differently. For now at the moment, mine
Speaker 6: sort of is very much in the emotional brain and
Speaker 6: really analyzing how do I want this next chapter to feel.
Speaker 6: And I think it's when I say weeding the garden,
Speaker 6: I don't necessarily mean people in that garden. I mean
Speaker 6: how I spend my time, how my energy is sometimes
Speaker 6: co opted by absolute bullshit, like my phone. Last night,
Speaker 6: for the first time in so long, I put my
Speaker 6: phone on charge and put it on airplane mode at
Speaker 6: six thirty PM, and I can't remember the last time.
Speaker 3: I did that, and I felt so good.
Speaker 6: So now I'm like, oh, everything that people say about
Speaker 6: wellness and how.
Speaker 3: You need to be more intentional. It's so true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a lot of non negotiables now that are
Speaker 6: starting to creep in.
Speaker 5: I would echo that so much. Le's like, yesterday was
Speaker 5: the first day too. This is what I meet Amelia
Speaker 5: when I say, we're just like inflow.
Speaker 4: So I didn't know Lee's had done that yesterday today.
Speaker 5: Yesterday I went and sat in a park with my
Speaker 5: book and I read outdoors with a book.
Speaker 4: I don't think I've done it in I don't know
Speaker 4: since I was a kid.
Speaker 5: But the desire to put my phone down and not
Speaker 5: be at its beck and call that is something that
Speaker 5: I too, am feeling just so strongly about at the moment.
Speaker 5: And whether it is because we're in this phase of
Speaker 5: life where you know, Lies and I both have teenagers.
Speaker 5: Her boys are sixteen and twelve and a half and
Speaker 5: my daughter is fifteen and twelve and a half, and
Speaker 5: so we can see that we are approaching the end
Speaker 5: of our most significant contribution to parenting. Perhaps you know,
Speaker 5: they're another few short years, and they are short, they're eighteen,
Speaker 5: they're living adult lives, and so I think that's then
Speaker 5: what suddenly kind of makes you have these epiphanies even
Speaker 5: if you don't realize their epiphanies, or you're working through
Speaker 5: the motions of going, oh god, hang on, am I
Speaker 5: actually living my day to day life the way I
Speaker 5: should be or I want to be?
Speaker 4: And if not, what are the changes that I can make?
Speaker 5: So little things like yeah, putting your phone on aeroplane
Speaker 5: mode from six thirty and just being unavailable to ny
Speaker 5: body except your immediate people who are vitally important to you.
Speaker 5: I think they're the little things that actually make all
Speaker 5: the difference.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to hear you say that, because don't
Speaker 1: you find that those parenting years when the kids are
Speaker 1: younger and you're just you're so all consumed with their
Speaker 1: world and making sure that you know you're being the
Speaker 1: best parent you can be. So many of us can
Speaker 1: lose sight of hang on a minute, like, I'm not
Speaker 1: even halfway. I'm living to one hundred, so I'm not
Speaker 1: even fifty yet. I've got a lot of living to
Speaker 1: do after those kids grow up and fly the coop.
Speaker 2: And it is a bit of a reckoning.
Speaker 1: Where you start to question, well, what do I want
Speaker 1: this next season of life to look like? And I
Speaker 1: love this concept of weeding the garden, which when you
Speaker 1: first said that, Liez, I was thinking of also just
Speaker 1: habits that don't serve you anymore. Like for me, for example,
Speaker 1: unless it's like alcohol is something that I've pulled right back,
Speaker 1: and unless it's.
Speaker 2: A night out with the girls.
Speaker 1: Like your Wonderful Disco, I've weeded that out because it's
Speaker 1: not serving me the way it used to. And I
Speaker 1: think that we underestimate when you know, we have got
Speaker 1: all these extra elements in our life that don't serve us,
Speaker 1: that's when we start to feel that pressure. And so
Speaker 1: I love this idea and this it's such a message
Speaker 1: of hope that there is a life out in front
Speaker 1: of us that we can shape, and hopefully that gives
Speaker 1: us that energy and that impetus to shape it in
Speaker 1: whatever way it is that we want to. And I
Speaker 1: guess that's what I find so inspiring as well.
Speaker 6: I also think like in terms of weeding the garden
Speaker 6: and looking at habits, absolutely true.
Speaker 3: And you know, Sarah and I are.
Speaker 6: Both pretty committed to exercising three four days a week.
Speaker 3: It depends, you know, what we can muster.
Speaker 6: But I'd also say there's this thing that happens when
Speaker 6: you're in that build phase of life, whether it's you're
Speaker 6: building your family, you're in that loud build phase. And
Speaker 6: that's for kids, marriages, relationships, also business, and I think
Speaker 6: for Sarah and I the loudness of life was dialed
Speaker 6: right up for a decade. Everything was high intensity and
Speaker 6: we loved it.
Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong. We thrive on that. It's energy
Speaker 3: on energy, on energy on energy.
Speaker 6: I think now there's also something of just you know,
Speaker 6: giving ourselves a little bit of permission to dial down
Speaker 6: here and there, Like it doesn't have to be go,
Speaker 6: go go as much because we're not doing the heavy
Speaker 6: lifting of young parenthood anymore. We can have a bit
Speaker 6: of space. We you know, once upon a time we'd
Speaker 6: be flogging ourselves on emails and pictures and connecting with
Speaker 6: people and networking here, and all of a sudden, I
Speaker 6: think we're both like we've done enough, we're good, Like
Speaker 6: we could always do more, and we always want to
Speaker 6: keep innovating. But it's also okay to just be like,
Speaker 6: it's cool now you can take a breath, you can
Speaker 6: read a book in the park.
Speaker 3: You've earned the time to do that.
Speaker 6: And I think the culture tells us to push and
Speaker 6: push and push.
Speaker 3: And I think we've both at various points been on
Speaker 3: that brink.
Speaker 6: We've been on the knife's edge of this doesn't feel
Speaker 6: great anymore and something's got to give. And you know,
Speaker 6: for Sarah it was her sleep and her overall wellness there,
Speaker 6: and I think for everyone it comes up in different ways.
Speaker 6: So I just think the permission to just slow right down,
Speaker 6: that nothing's gonna break, nothing's gonna break if we just
Speaker 6: take a breath here, And there's in a real awakening
Speaker 6: for me in particular earlier this year, to go, huh uh.
Speaker 3: We can do this.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love this idea of giving permission to rest
Speaker 1: and to just take your foot off the pedal for
Speaker 1: a moment.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to wrap.
Speaker 1: Up with you, ladies, because I get so many women
Speaker 1: in my circle who feel so overwhelmed at the moment.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to get a parting piece of advice
Speaker 1: from each of you. For one of my beautiful listeners
Speaker 1: who is overwhelmed. She's trying to hold everything together, you know,
Speaker 1: while feeling that sense of increasing exhaustion, stretched and often invisible.
Speaker 1: For one of my beautiful listeners who is sitting here thinking, yes,
Speaker 1: that's me. I'd love to get a piece of parting
Speaker 1: advice from each of you for her.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, I'll start, And I have advice that was
Speaker 5: given to me by my own mother, who said, don't
Speaker 5: be too capable.
Speaker 2: I love that, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Because I think in those moments when I've been incredibly
Speaker 5: overwhelmed as well, it's when you are trying to do
Speaker 5: everything and you are You've got all the loads, the visible,
Speaker 5: the invisible, the mental, the physical, all the loads, but
Speaker 5: you need to offload some of that and let people know, hey,
Speaker 5: I actually don't have capacity to do that. Or if
Speaker 5: you can afford to outsource whatever you can professionally, and
Speaker 5: if you can't afford to ask for help, you can't
Speaker 5: sell a secret. And if you raise your hand and
Speaker 5: say this is all a bit too much for me
Speaker 5: at the moment, great, then people will know that they
Speaker 5: can't just keep lumping you with stuff and that you'll
Speaker 5: get it done.
Speaker 4: Don't be too capable.
Speaker 2: Don't be too capable. I love that, Lise.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you two.
Speaker 6: The first one is one that both Sarah and I use,
Speaker 6: which is when you're feeling overwhelmed and you're looking at
Speaker 6: your calendar and someone asks you something.
Speaker 3: Do you want to come to this? Can you do this?
Speaker 3: Can you show up at this thing?
Speaker 6: We often say to one another, We'll say, if it's
Speaker 6: not a hell yes, it's a hell no. So unless
Speaker 6: you are immediately Sarah spoke of the three second rule earlier.
Speaker 6: If it's not a hell yes, of course I'll be there,
Speaker 6: then just say let me get back to you on that.
Speaker 6: Do not commit to anything until you give yourself a
Speaker 6: little bit of time to check in and go. Is
Speaker 6: Futurely's going to want to punch herself in the neck
Speaker 6: when that date rolls up, and you've got to do
Speaker 6: that thing right, because that's what's happening at the moment
Speaker 6: for both of us. We have in the past said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 6: yes yes, and then things come up and you're like, oh,
Speaker 6: why did we do that right? So, being a little
Speaker 6: bit more thoughtful about future lies and Sarah, how are
Speaker 6: they going to do that? The other piece of advice
Speaker 6: is just something I've been stuck to do in the
Speaker 6: last fortnight, So will I stick with it? A good
Speaker 6: friend of mine gave me the advice at this age,
Speaker 6: mid forties or whenever to really start tapping into your senses,
Speaker 6: so when you feel overwhelmed, just go back to the
Speaker 6: five senses. At the moment, I can only concentrate on
Speaker 6: two senses, so I've gone with smell and sound. So
Speaker 6: two things that I'm trying to do of an evening
Speaker 6: is turn all the big lights down and have just
Speaker 6: low lighting and candles. That really calms me right down.
Speaker 6: And instead of listening to a podcast. I'm sorry, Amelia
Speaker 6: because we love podcasts too, but often I will just listen, listen, listen, consume, consume, consume, consume,
Speaker 6: And I've tried to just at the end of the
Speaker 6: day just turn the chatter down and put on music
Speaker 6: that I enjoy listening to. Like at the moment I'm
Speaker 6: back into a Dell, I'm like, what do I want.
Speaker 3: To listen to?
Speaker 6: And I'm just putting that on in the house, And honestly,
Speaker 6: it sounds so basic, but it has made a massive
Speaker 6: difference to my nervous system just doing two little things
Speaker 6: that Lees likes to do. She likes looking at candlelight
Speaker 6: and she likes listening to to Poignan to Dell songs.
Speaker 1: Oh I am feeling zen just picturing you doing that
Speaker 1: and are you belting out a few of those amazing
Speaker 1: high notes as well?
Speaker 6: And my sons are just looking at me going mum,
Speaker 6: what have you read on Instagram?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, let me live my life.
Speaker 6: I live my life by candlelight now, so sorry, get
Speaker 6: with the program.
Speaker 1: I'm in my adele era Okay whatever. Oh I love it, ladies.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And look, I absolutely love your podcast.
Speaker 1: So I really encourage all my listeners to go over
Speaker 1: and check out the Lees and Sarah podcast. You'll love,
Speaker 1: you'll cry, and you'll fall in love with these two
Speaker 1: like I have.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, ladies, Thank you.
Speaker 4: For having us. It was a joy.
Speaker 3: Thanks Samilia.
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