Speaker 1: One of the most powerful things for me in terms
Speaker 1: of setting my path was understanding how I liked to
Speaker 1: learn and building a learning environment that worked for that.
Speaker 1: So often I think when we talk about concepts like leadership,
Speaker 1: we put it on that's above my pay grade, that's
Speaker 1: only for people to run organizations of excise. Actually, each
Speaker 1: and every one of us is a leader every day,
Speaker 1: and those small moments are as important as the big movements.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 2: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 2: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 2: rarely we play, and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 2: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 2: explore the stories of those who found lives They adore,
Speaker 2: the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day
Speaker 2: will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm
Speaker 2: Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned
Speaker 2: entrepreneur whos wpped the suits and heels to co found
Speaker 2: Matcham and MATCHA milk Bark CZA is a series of
Speaker 2: conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the
Speaker 2: self doubt challenge, joy.
Speaker 3: And fulfillment along the way.
Speaker 2: Skipped yas of our lives this week, lovely people, as
Speaker 2: we've had some fielders at home which don't quite create
Speaker 2: the loveliest background noises for podcasting, but today's garest well
Speaker 2: and truly makes up for the gap. It's probably been
Speaker 2: eight years since I first heard of our wonderful guest
Speaker 2: today and started closely following her journey, but today was
Speaker 2: the very first time I've had the privilege of chatting
Speaker 2: with her directly, and I think you'll be able to
Speaker 2: hear we got on like a house on fire. If
Speaker 2: she'd been inspiring and influencing me from afar with her intellect,
Speaker 2: drive and leadership until now, her impact was tenfold in
Speaker 2: this conversation, and I feel so lucky to be able
Speaker 2: to share that with some of you. Holly Ransom has
Speaker 2: about as much difficulty describing what she does as I do,
Speaker 2: but that's probably why we get along so well. Facing
Speaker 2: a lifelong struggle not to try everything and anything and
Speaker 2: all at once, she is a specialist in disruptive strategy,
Speaker 2: a private company director, an advocate for social and economic inclusion,
Speaker 2: a businesswoman, a globally recognized speaker, podcaster, and just this
Speaker 2: year also an author. Starting with an arts law degree
Speaker 2: for similar reasons as I did, Holly's born flair for
Speaker 2: leadership and insatiable curiosity ultimately led her away from the
Speaker 2: law and into a constantly evolving career path with more
Speaker 2: accolades than I have time to live here just a
Speaker 2: few of them. She was named as one of Australia's
Speaker 2: one hundred most Influential Women by the Australian Financial Review.
Speaker 2: She has delivered a peace charter to the Dalai Lama,
Speaker 2: interviewed Barack Obama on stage, and was Sir Richard Branson's
Speaker 2: nominee for Wide Magazine's Smart List of Future game Changes
Speaker 2: to Watch. In twenty nineteen, she was awarded the US
Speaker 2: embussi's Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Leadership Excellence. She also won
Speaker 2: the Fulbright Scholarship to complete her master's degree at Harvard University,
Speaker 2: from which she graduated just recently, and has now poured
Speaker 2: the culmination of all those experiences into a fabulos book,
Speaker 2: The Leading Edge. I'll let her tell you the rest
Speaker 2: herself in the most articulate and engaging words. I hope
Speaker 2: you all enjoy Holly Ransom, welcome to Seize.
Speaker 1: The Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. It's
Speaker 1: great to be here.
Speaker 2: Ah, it's so lovely to finally connect properly. We were
Speaker 2: just talking off there about how I've been fangirling you
Speaker 2: since around twenty thirteen, I think when we went to
Speaker 2: a conference together.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you're incredibly generous in that, And as
Speaker 1: I was saying right back at you, I've been following
Speaker 1: your entrepreneurial career with the podcast and with your business
Speaker 1: as well, and it's just awesome. I love seeing other
Speaker 1: women in particular, but people winning and people who are
Speaker 1: prepared to back themselves. I get so excited every time
Speaker 1: I see success like that. So just couldn't be happier
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so kind, And I couldn't be happier for
Speaker 2: you and everything you've achieved, culminating in a new book
Speaker 2: that we'll get too shortly. But you also mentioned before
Speaker 2: my corporate refugee pathway and having escaped from law pretty quickly,
Speaker 2: and you escaped even earlier, avoiding the corporate stint altogether,
Speaker 2: which might make some people think that our law arts
Speaker 2: degrees were a bit of a waste. Of time, but
Speaker 2: I like to remind everyone that nothing is a waste
Speaker 2: of time if you learn something, And I think it
Speaker 2: made an amazing launch pad for me with everything that's
Speaker 2: come since. So what did you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's funny. I don't know if it's the
Speaker 1: same for you, but sometimes it's I feel it's taken
Speaker 1: me time after my degree to appreciate what I got
Speaker 1: out of the degree in the sense of just the
Speaker 1: grounding in the law and how helpful that's been and
Speaker 1: running a business, being able to kind of get your
Speaker 1: head around contracts and just understand a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, perhaps more than I would have
Speaker 1: if i'd done the degree. That ability to read an
Speaker 1: extraordinary amount of information and be able to pick out
Speaker 1: the nugget Like that's what I feel like. I've got
Speaker 1: years and years of training in like how to work
Speaker 1: out what's matters and what is peripheral, which I think
Speaker 1: is very helpful in a lot of the work that
Speaker 1: I do, you know, where you're curating a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, I do a lot of work on stage
Speaker 1: where you're pulling together kind of an array of ideas
Speaker 1: and trying to help people make meaning of it, and
Speaker 1: I feel like probably the law degree was incredible grounding
Speaker 1: in that. Yeah, I agree with you, Like I think
Speaker 1: the other thing is everything that happens alongside doing the degree.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm grateful every day for the fact my
Speaker 1: vice chancellor at university on day one at our induction said,
Speaker 1: you know, if you leave with just a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: we've failed you if you don't go and study abroad
Speaker 1: and volunteer and get involved in student organizations and all
Speaker 1: of that. And I was probably the kid that took
Speaker 1: that too far the other direction, and you know, decided
Speaker 1: to go and do everything outside the classroom. You know,
Speaker 1: I spent most of my life at UNI doing everything else,
Speaker 1: you know, volunteering and building businesses and you know, working
Speaker 1: overseas and doing bits and pieces. But for me, those
Speaker 1: years are such an incredible opportunity to explore and to
Speaker 1: play and to learn and to try. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what's amazing about that period of university. Alongside whatever
Speaker 1: you study, it's that freedom that you get. And I
Speaker 1: hope people like really stretch the boundaries.
Speaker 2: Of Yeah, I don't think that freedom to explore has
Speaker 2: to end there either, But it's interesting that you said,
Speaker 2: it was only later that you started to see the
Speaker 2: benefits of that period of your life. And that's something
Speaker 2: I love to emphasize on the show through stories like yours,
Speaker 2: that the dots don't usually connect until much later on,
Speaker 2: and finding your you know, finding your passion. It requires
Speaker 2: a lot of patience and trust that everything will eventually
Speaker 2: make sense, and you know, not to always be seeking
Speaker 2: answers when we're not necessarily meant to know them at
Speaker 2: the time, but to keep asking questions, which is something
Speaker 2: that I read in maybe page three of your brilliant
Speaker 2: new book that made me like, yes, less focus on
Speaker 2: finding the right answers, but totally focus on asking the
Speaker 2: right questions.
Speaker 1: And I love that piece about trust, you know, trusting
Speaker 1: yourself as well, and I think that's one of the biggest,
Speaker 1: most formative pieces of work we each have to do
Speaker 1: for ourselves, and I think for me, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of the story of my twenties is learning to trust myself,
Speaker 1: learning to trust that it is all going to be okay,
Speaker 1: learning to trust that opportunities will come again, learning to
Speaker 1: trust that, you know, I can find myself out of
Speaker 1: a challenging situation. All those things that you've got to learn,
Speaker 1: and really you can only learn through trying and failing
Speaker 1: and having a go and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And I think that's absolutely critical. And I think to
Speaker 1: your point, the other thing is that preparedness to ask questions,
Speaker 1: which is a big flip from the world that we
Speaker 1: got educated in, you know, and the world as it
Speaker 1: was previously, which was a lot about the accumulation of answers,
Speaker 1: and now that we know there's a myriad of information,
Speaker 1: we are saturated. It is such a noisy world. The
Speaker 1: key is actually the ability to be able to ask
Speaker 1: better and different questions and then to go on the
Speaker 1: journey of how do I go about finding new and
Speaker 1: better answers. But I think the quality of our questions
Speaker 1: and the preparedness to focus on that and big question
Speaker 1: askers is one of the most important things all of this.
Speaker 1: As young leaders can be mindful of building our capability
Speaker 1: on it's absolutely future critical skill.
Speaker 2: Oh well, if anyone needed a sneak preview of your
Speaker 2: incredible eloquence, they've had it before we've even reached five
Speaker 2: minutes into this podcast. So I wouldn't blame anyone for
Speaker 2: being a little intimidated by your intelligence and achievements, let
Speaker 2: alone once we start adding things like full Bright Scholar
Speaker 2: and Harvard Graduate nominee on Sir Richard Brandson's Smart List
Speaker 2: of Future Game Changes and the US Embassy's Eleanor Roosevelt
Speaker 2: Award for Leadership Excellence, among many other things. Which is
Speaker 2: just the reason why I start every episode by asking
Speaker 2: our guest what the most down to earth thing is
Speaker 2: about them before we get into the story, to kind
Speaker 2: of break the ice and remind us all that you're human,
Speaker 2: even though I would insist that you're some kind of superhuman.
Speaker 2: So what is something really normal about you? Oh?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think all my partner would say in
Speaker 1: answer to this question, because I feel like that's always
Speaker 1: a good indication of sort of what would they say
Speaker 1: if I either they were asked a similar question. Probably
Speaker 1: I love to bake. That probably surprises a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So my big no myst thing is cooking and I
Speaker 1: love baking. And I think one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: love that is because it makes me feel really close
Speaker 1: to my grandma I grew up. She's my favorite person.
Speaker 1: She's ninety strong, and so much of my memories of
Speaker 1: her growing up and where I think our special bond
Speaker 1: started was in her kitchen, cooking and sharing recipes and
Speaker 1: all of that. So I think that's a really big
Speaker 1: one for me. The other one is I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit of a walking jukebox. I can't sing to save myself,
Speaker 1: but I have this ability to pick a word and
Speaker 1: just start singing. If I might have said it on
Speaker 1: the way ed to You just have the most eclectic
Speaker 1: range of songs, Like I'm never quite sure where they
Speaker 1: come from. I don't know that it's a good thing, certainly.
Speaker 3: That's the other one is interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not in tune, but it's enthusiastic, let's put
Speaker 1: it that way.
Speaker 3: I love it. Well, that's very relatable.
Speaker 2: I think all of us have one of those things
Speaker 2: that we do even though we're like I see it place,
Speaker 2: but I just enjoy it.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna do it anyway in.
Speaker 1: My happy place when I'm singing. So you can all
Speaker 1: deal with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing. Well, let's jump into the first proper section
Speaker 2: of the show, Your Way to Ya, where we go
Speaker 2: back to the very beginning of your life and make
Speaker 2: our way through all the chapters that it took to
Speaker 2: get you to where you are now, because I really
Speaker 2: think it can be so easy from the outside to
Speaker 2: assume that you've always known you'd end up here, demystifying
Speaker 2: leadership for others and living your purpose every day for
Speaker 2: those who might be a little earlier on in their journey,
Speaker 2: or who were feeling very distant from their own driving passion,
Speaker 2: or who don't even know what that is yet, I
Speaker 2: think it's always helpful to remember that it was far
Speaker 2: from an overnight success for you to get here. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've been through many periods where you had
Speaker 2: no idea where you would end up or even where
Speaker 2: you wanted to end up. So let's start with your
Speaker 2: childhood and what led you to the law and then
Speaker 2: back out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can do my best. I mean, I grew
Speaker 1: up in Western Australia where we're both in Victoria now,
Speaker 1: but I was born in the wild West. And I
Speaker 1: mentioned Grandma already, but she's pretty formative to all of this,
Speaker 1: because I think so much of my grounding of sort
Speaker 1: of what I admired as a young person, what I
Speaker 1: looked up to, came from her and my Grandpa, who
Speaker 1: are seventy years married this year, and just an incredible
Speaker 1: duo just got unbelievable, and the two of them I
Speaker 1: remember quite vividly, and it's a story I opened my
Speaker 1: book with like kind of I think each of us,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting the first memory we have of ourselves,
Speaker 1: or the first thing that we can kind of recalls
Speaker 1: being formative, because there's something in that. I think there's
Speaker 1: a lesson and a nugget and our truth often embedded
Speaker 1: in that. There's something we meant to take and make
Speaker 1: from those moments. And for me, that was shopping with
Speaker 1: my grandma. I honestly can't remember whether I was four
Speaker 1: or five. I was very little, and we were at
Speaker 1: the supermarket in Scarborough Beach, if anyone knows Perth really well,
Speaker 1: and we were going to the checkout. We were getting
Speaker 1: stuff to buy I think, just food for lunch. It
Speaker 1: was bread and milk from what I can remember, to
Speaker 1: go back and make sandwiches. And there was this man who,
Speaker 1: at that sage of my life, looked like a giant.
Speaker 1: He was like six foot five, just enormous comparative to
Speaker 1: my statue. My grandmother is all of like four foot
Speaker 1: five or something of five foot maybe.
Speaker 3: It was probably a twelve year old boy.
Speaker 1: Your conception of like how things are in head, like
Speaker 1: anyone over the age of ten is so old when
Speaker 1: you're little, and everything like that, So you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: I could have been. But he was tearing into this
Speaker 1: poor young girl that was on the checkout, and I
Speaker 1: remember her face going bright red. Obviously she'd given him
Speaker 1: the wrong change, and he was letting her know about it,
Speaker 1: and it was mean and it was unnecessarily rude. And
Speaker 1: before I could even blink, my grandmother had inserted herself
Speaker 1: between this giant and this poor checkout girl looked like
Speaker 1: she wanted to melt into the floor, and she pointed
Speaker 1: her finger up at this man and she said, how
Speaker 1: dare you talk to that young lady like that? You apologize?
Speaker 1: And I just saw this guy stop in his tracks, sheepishly,
Speaker 1: kind of like he truly stopped for a couple of seconds,
Speaker 1: kind of going I don't think anyone had ever challenged
Speaker 1: him like that before on how he interacted with people.
Speaker 1: And he sort of mumbled sorry, and sheepishly grabbed his
Speaker 1: things and ran out of the store. My grandmother proceeded
Speaker 1: like nothing had happened, right, She just paid for her groceries.
Speaker 1: You checked the young lady was okay and then wanted
Speaker 1: out the door before she realized I was still like
Speaker 1: wetted to the ground, deer in the headlights, going oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, did that just happen? Like what did I
Speaker 1: just see? And I just said, Grandma, that was so brave,
Speaker 1: and she said, Honey, when you walk past it, you
Speaker 1: tell the world it's okay. And I didn't understand a
Speaker 1: lot of the power of the responsibility and the kind
Speaker 1: of significance of what my grandmother said there. But what
Speaker 1: I have loved about her every day of her life
Speaker 1: is how she lives that and that's been an enormous
Speaker 1: source of inspiration for me. And I think when I
Speaker 1: look at you, when you talked about how you made
Speaker 1: your decisions, I think so many times you can explain
Speaker 1: a fork in the road or why I chose to
Speaker 1: get involved in something or participate or say no or
Speaker 1: yes to an opportunity based on coming across something I
Speaker 1: couldn't walk past and going I've got to dig my
Speaker 1: heels in here. I want to do something. Can I
Speaker 1: make a difference? And that ran in parallel with what
Speaker 1: do I need to do to build the skills? So
Speaker 1: when I don't walk past something I can make more
Speaker 1: of a difference. So who do I need to learn from?
Speaker 1: What skills and capabilities do I need to understand in
Speaker 1: order to be able to do that? But I think
Speaker 1: for me anchors back to that moment of that idea
Speaker 1: each and what I love about Grammar is it is
Speaker 1: those little moments too. That is an interaction a lot
Speaker 1: of people would have been silent in. That is an
Speaker 1: interaction where it's really easy to be a bystander. And
Speaker 1: one of the big things I'm passionate about is so
Speaker 1: often I think when we talk about concepts like leadership,
Speaker 1: we put it on someone else's that's above my pay grade,
Speaker 1: that's only for people to run organizations of excise. Actually,
Speaker 1: each and every one of us is a leader every day,
Speaker 1: and those small moments are as important as the big movements,
Speaker 1: and we need to really take responsibility for the way
Speaker 1: that we show up in those whether it's thinking about
Speaker 1: our own carbon footprint, whether it's thinking about you know,
Speaker 1: the values that our household runs with, the way that
Speaker 1: we show up for our friends, let alone our teams
Speaker 1: and our work and our community. So I think for
Speaker 1: me that's a big part of it and you know,
Speaker 1: Grandma's always said I was born in perpetual motion. I
Speaker 1: think I've always had this just level of energy and
Speaker 1: vigor that comes with that. I think the way that
Speaker 1: it's been grounded and anchored has been in that kind
Speaker 1: of formative experience I had with her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fascinating, and it's really interesting that you said
Speaker 2: that we can all be leaders in big things, but
Speaker 2: even in the really small interactions per day, including just
Speaker 2: not like one of the things that if anyone who's
Speaker 2: not a lawyer probably hasn't done this in as much
Speaker 2: depth as we have, but is looking at acts versus omissions.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I think if we feel like if we
Speaker 2: don't act and we're not required to act, that that's fine,
Speaker 2: like we haven't been part of the problem. But actually
Speaker 2: sometimes witnessing evil and not doing anything about it is
Speaker 2: just as bad as perpetrating it. So acually doing little
Speaker 2: small things in your life, you know, that can be
Speaker 2: as big a leadership as someone who, say, the school captain,
Speaker 2: and who becomes president or who is leader of their
Speaker 2: club or you know, whatever it is. I think leadership
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be the being the top or the
Speaker 2: first or the leader you know that having a title,
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the questions I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask you next, because you have been a super
Speaker 2: high achievers throughout your life. You were school captain. I
Speaker 2: was going to ask if you think people are born leaders,
Speaker 2: but it sounds like you feel like leadership can go
Speaker 2: into every part of your life in the day to
Speaker 2: day small things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Completely, I think everyone is a leader, and I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I'm passionate about is helping
Speaker 1: people to realize their sphere of influence and to connecting
Speaker 1: with their purpose and passion because I think really what
Speaker 1: we need each of us to lead is to be
Speaker 1: anchored in what makes us light up, What is it
Speaker 1: that we want to be in the world. Who do
Speaker 1: we want to be for other people? What is the
Speaker 1: change that we want to see? And once we've got
Speaker 1: that purpose and direction, you know, I think our ability
Speaker 1: to then influence, even if that is about who you
Speaker 1: want to be. Like, I know some people who are
Speaker 1: just all about they want to be a source of
Speaker 1: positivity and hope for everyone, and they're focus in every
Speaker 1: interaction they're in with everyone is about how do they
Speaker 1: bring that light, how do they bring that encouragement, how
Speaker 1: do they be that champion for someone else, Just as
Speaker 1: much as I know other people who've got the life
Speaker 1: goal of, you know, being a leader of a country,
Speaker 1: or setting up their own company that's going to change
Speaker 1: the face of the world, or going and doing you know,
Speaker 1: aid work overseas or whatever it might be. So I
Speaker 1: think for me, absolutely each of us is born with
Speaker 1: everything that we need to be able to lead and
Speaker 1: to make the change that we want to see in
Speaker 1: the world. I think one of the challenges is the
Speaker 1: way that our society is structured and the messaging that
Speaker 1: we get and what's rewarded and incentivized and not encourages
Speaker 1: some of us and discourages others, and so some of
Speaker 1: us who don't get that enthusiasm. And I often think that,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly about friends of mine who are really creative,
Speaker 1: we're so gifted in just the out of the box
Speaker 1: way that they can see the world. I'm excited that
Speaker 1: I feel like their skills are finally being acknowledged and
Speaker 1: talked about as being as critical as we know they
Speaker 1: are to the world in future. We keep talking about
Speaker 1: creativity and innovation, but when I think about the messaging
Speaker 1: they must have got in most of schooling environments where
Speaker 1: you know, this is how you do things. It's largely
Speaker 1: a rope learning curriculum. Creativity is not something you can
Speaker 1: make a career out of. I go, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: think about all those creative leaders that we discouraged. We've
Speaker 1: now got to help re encourage and re energize. So
Speaker 1: I think a big part of it is actually that
Speaker 1: for some of us, the kind of default environment of
Speaker 1: society reinforced that you're a leader and that your skills
Speaker 1: and capabilities are well served to go and lead, and
Speaker 1: some of us didn't get that messaging. And I think
Speaker 1: it's time we corrected that recognition and that balance, because
Speaker 1: I don't think that's right.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2: And I think even as someone who happened to probably
Speaker 2: operate and go through a system that favored my particular
Speaker 2: interest and strength, I still was very clearly able to
Speaker 2: see how that disadvantaged so many other people. And it
Speaker 2: just happened that all the subjects I like were you know,
Speaker 2: scaled up, and that all the things that I was
Speaker 2: interested were rewarded all the time. And then yeah, I
Speaker 2: often noticed that.
Speaker 1: And the flip of that. So if I can ask
Speaker 1: you you know, is that when you kind of default,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to choose to off the well worn path, right,
Speaker 1: So to do what you did and go, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: been very successful at university. Everyone's got this idea of
Speaker 1: where I'm going and this path is kind of almost
Speaker 1: trodden ahead of me, and then you're going, Actually, that
Speaker 1: doesn't light me up, that doesn't feel aligned to my purpose.
Speaker 1: I'm going to step off that and do something different.
Speaker 1: That's the flip. I think for people, we've been encouraged
Speaker 1: because they feel this pressure to live out their purpose
Speaker 1: a certain way. And I think being true to yourself
Speaker 1: at acknowledging is it mine or is it a purpose
Speaker 1: someone else has given me or projected onto me is
Speaker 1: so important. I don't know if that was part of
Speaker 1: your story, but I can imagine that being challenging.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, and it was just it was a whole
Speaker 2: I'm exactly like you in terms of that perpetual motion thing.
Speaker 2: If I'm moving forwards, I'm gratified to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: regardless of whether I actually cared about the direction I
Speaker 2: was going in. I was like, I'm going fast, So
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter where I'm going because I'm getting
Speaker 2: rewarded and promotions and like people are patting me on
Speaker 2: the back and telling me I'm successful.
Speaker 1: That feels good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels.
Speaker 2: Good, Like even if you don't really like the day
Speaker 2: to day of it, it still feels good because you
Speaker 2: feel like you're you know, society thinks that you're doing
Speaker 2: something worthy with your time. And so I think, like, now,
Speaker 2: that's why I'm so fascinated in that whole productivity hamster
Speaker 2: where that you can get on because busy and productive
Speaker 2: are really gratifying. And I reckon, you can go decades
Speaker 2: before you even realize whoa, this is someone else's idea
Speaker 2: of what life is about. And it did take a
Speaker 2: whole lot of unlearning, yes, and detaching myself from those metrics,
Speaker 2: those like measurable financial metrics that in the end, it
Speaker 2: turns out, aren't what lighted me up, but that it
Speaker 2: did take, I reckon, like a five year re education
Speaker 2: of myself to allow myself to embrace this totally different pathway.
Speaker 3: And now I think I'm just.
Speaker 2: Getting to that stage where I'm like, oh, okay, I've
Speaker 2: totally let go of that old way of measuring myself,
Speaker 2: but I'm happy every day and I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: doing what I meant to do on this earth. So
Speaker 2: it takes a really long time, which is why I'm
Speaker 2: fascinated for you as well. How you ended up finding
Speaker 2: and forging the pathway to deliver the messages on leadership
Speaker 2: that now you are delivering to exactly where they need
Speaker 2: to be and exactly in the way that they need
Speaker 2: to be done. But back at school, like, how did
Speaker 2: you start to figure out what that pathway was going
Speaker 2: to be for you? How did you even decide on
Speaker 2: law arts? Like in that system, you know, what is
Speaker 2: your decision making process about your future? Did you feel
Speaker 2: that you were getting drawn into the typical successful intellectual pathway,
Speaker 2: Like that's what I felt. I just did it by
Speaker 2: default almost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a combination of both really, So one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I chose so I did a law
Speaker 1: arts degree, but I majored in economics and I did
Speaker 1: a minor in politics, and I think at a very
Speaker 1: ultruistic level, And it's actually one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: picked the UNI that I did and structure the degree
Speaker 1: the way I did, because they let economics be a
Speaker 1: social science and so I could study it under the
Speaker 1: arts faculty. And for me, the reason I wanted to
Speaker 1: do that was at a basic kind of altruistic level.
Speaker 1: If you if you want to change the world, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: you need to understand the existing political, legal, and economic structures.
Speaker 1: Like I've got to have a grounding in this. You
Speaker 1: can't change something until you understand it. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons and history and vested interest in things
Speaker 1: the way that they are, and there's also a lot
Speaker 1: of blind spots. You know, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who just can't see that it's not working, whether it's
Speaker 1: not working for certain groups of people or certain parts
Speaker 1: of our society. And so for me it was a
Speaker 1: want to understand that. But to be honest, I really
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy university. I enjoyed that period of my life
Speaker 1: because of everything else I did. I found the way
Speaker 1: that we learned really traditional. I'm a kinesthetic learner, so
Speaker 1: I learned through doing. I learned a billion times more.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm so grateful for that line. My
Speaker 1: vice chancellor empowered me with by going and starting a
Speaker 1: micro finance project and helping getting involved in small NGOs
Speaker 1: and being involved in my local council on the Youth
Speaker 1: Advisory Council and doing projects there and starting my own
Speaker 1: business and dabbling in that and seeing what I could do,
Speaker 1: and then you know, the corporate opportunities. I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to get working from some incredible leaders, but for me,
Speaker 1: that was my playground. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: most important things if I could go back and empower
Speaker 1: myself with something even earlier and something I hope might
Speaker 1: resonate for listeners. One of the most powerful things for
Speaker 1: me in terms of setting my path was understanding how
Speaker 1: I liked to learn and building a learning environment that
Speaker 1: worked for that. If I had tried to sit in
Speaker 1: the classroom and absorb that way, I would have made
Speaker 1: it out the other side, but I never would have
Speaker 1: understood the things about myself have developed, the clarity of
Speaker 1: the way that I thought I wanted to contribute to
Speaker 1: the world, all that sort of stuff, as I did
Speaker 1: by virtue of going out and dabbling and playing in
Speaker 1: the way that I did. So I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest bits of advice, is the learning outside
Speaker 1: the full walls of the classroom. How can you put
Speaker 1: yourself where lightning might strike, where you might meet a
Speaker 1: mentor where you might discover your purpose, or you might go,
Speaker 1: oh wow, could that person be a co founder of
Speaker 1: a business with me? Or jeez, that's a community issue
Speaker 1: we're not doing enough about. How about I try and
Speaker 1: do something. I think for me that that was the
Speaker 1: pivotal part alongside the kind of learning journey inside the classroom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree with that, And I think one
Speaker 2: of the most interesting things I tend to hear now
Speaker 2: is people sort of feeling like they don't know what
Speaker 2: their purpose is or even what they really enjoy, which
Speaker 2: I can identify with because back when I was starting
Speaker 2: to think maybe law isn't for me, I actually didn't
Speaker 2: know what else I was interested in because I had
Speaker 2: not had any time to continue extra curricular activities or
Speaker 2: hobbies or anything like that. But then when you ask
Speaker 2: them or what are you doing to explore your passions?
Speaker 2: Like what are you dabbling in? Or are you giving
Speaker 2: anything new or red hot crack, often their answer is no,
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, unless you're trying new, weird things
Speaker 2: all the time, how are you actually going to have
Speaker 2: any data points to figure out, you know, what else
Speaker 2: you might like. But I think the flip side of
Speaker 2: that is people like you and I who do tend
Speaker 2: to love exploring everything.
Speaker 3: And I was the same.
Speaker 2: I spent so long overseas doing committees in the Northern Territory,
Speaker 2: like so many doing nexus like at the League, we
Speaker 2: strordinary women like, there was entrepreneurship, politics, international policy, like
Speaker 2: there were so many different things that interested me that
Speaker 2: being multi interested is almost It's never obviously a burden.
Speaker 2: It's a great thing and it's wonderful to keep your
Speaker 2: options open, but it makes decision making very very different
Speaker 2: does because you are so excited about everything. So did
Speaker 2: you have an idea back then about what you are
Speaker 2: like what you're doing now? Was that the end point
Speaker 2: of I am trying to do all these different things
Speaker 2: to culminate in a leadership position. Did you know then
Speaker 2: or are you still just definitely not throwing things out
Speaker 2: there to see what's stuck?
Speaker 1: And you know what's fascinating? And I really resonated with
Speaker 1: what you were saying earlier about kind of the plan
Speaker 1: And you know that one of the things I was
Speaker 1: fascinated by. And I remember going and having so many
Speaker 1: conversations with mentors about in my early twenties when I
Speaker 1: was studying my degree and trying to work out what
Speaker 1: this degree was going to lead to and what I
Speaker 1: was going to do with it. Was how like, how
Speaker 1: did how did all these people that I admired put
Speaker 1: it together? Like did everyone have this plan that had
Speaker 1: just been perfectly carved and kind of they walked their
Speaker 1: way through it. And I was convinced, you know, when
Speaker 1: you have this hypothesis that you're wedded to. I was
Speaker 1: wedded to this idea that they all had a plan
Speaker 1: and I was just missing the plan, and so I
Speaker 1: had to find a way of working out how to
Speaker 1: craft the plan. And then what was really fascinating to
Speaker 1: me was that everyone I would talk to, they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I never planned for this, Like my plan was to
Speaker 1: go and do X, or I didn't even have a plan.
Speaker 1: I just took opportunities or you know, whatever it was.
Speaker 1: There was this inability in any way for me to
Speaker 1: get validation of that hypothesis, and so eventually I.
Speaker 3: Abandoned that well yet to let it.
Speaker 1: But it's true and I think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: I was reflecting on it the other night because I'd
Speaker 1: hit it was sort of ten years since I've met
Speaker 1: a particular friend and we were talking back over what
Speaker 1: was happening a decade ago, and never in my wild
Speaker 1: as dreams would I eve envisage doing some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that I'm doing now having had some of the
Speaker 1: opportunities that I've had. And I'm kind of convinced now
Speaker 1: I've almost gone one eighty on it, and I'm really
Speaker 1: of the opinion you need to have like a strong
Speaker 1: sense of direction in terms of being angry it to
Speaker 1: a purpose. And I loved what you said before about
Speaker 1: like just being happy every day. That is one of
Speaker 1: the biggest signs for me in terms of the indicators
Speaker 1: of am I living life right? If I wake up
Speaker 1: and I'm excited about the day. I used to have
Speaker 1: this quote written actually on my mirror from Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: that said every day for thirty three years, I got
Speaker 1: up and I looked in the mirror and I asked myself,
Speaker 1: do I love what I'm going to go do today?
Speaker 1: And if the answer is no, for too many days
Speaker 1: in a row, I knew something had to change. And
Speaker 1: so I think that notion of do you love it?
Speaker 1: Are you happy? Is probably one of the biggest indicators.
Speaker 1: So that notion in strong sense of direction, but loose
Speaker 1: hold of the reins, like being open to opportunity. I
Speaker 1: think it's so critical for young leaders like us and
Speaker 1: those listening to this, particularly now because we are talking
Speaker 1: about you know, I think when I graduated from high
Speaker 1: school was we're going to have ten careers over the
Speaker 1: course of our last lifetime. Now we're talking to year
Speaker 1: twelve's about the fact they're going to have eighteen. There
Speaker 1: are careers that don't even exist yet that are going
Speaker 1: to be a part of our lifetime and our experience.
Speaker 1: We've got to be up for that learning, unlearning, relearning
Speaker 1: journey you touched on before, and so the idea of
Speaker 1: having a plan, like things are not going to exist
Speaker 1: as they do right now, and that's exciting. We live
Speaker 1: in such a dynamic time, so I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the skills that people in our parents' generation, our grandparents'
Speaker 1: generation used to kind of guide their careers and things
Speaker 1: like that don't work as well for our generation. I
Speaker 1: hate the question, and I actually think it's a really
Speaker 1: crap question to ask people. And I'm sure you've been
Speaker 1: asked a million times. I know how I have, Like,
Speaker 1: tell me where you see yourself in five years as
Speaker 1: a crap question unless we are genuinely talking about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, a looser definition of impact, because the notion
Speaker 1: that you know you can step through a career ladder
Speaker 1: or things are as static as they might have once been.
Speaker 1: Where in our grandparents' generation often they took a job
Speaker 1: and worked thirty year career for the one organization, or
Speaker 1: they worked in the same industry. We can have so
Speaker 1: many lateral moves and creative ways of applying our skills,
Speaker 1: and so I think we need to be a lot
Speaker 1: more fluid. But that means building different support. We need
Speaker 1: to be really clear on our purpose and our values
Speaker 1: because that's what guides our choices, and we need to
Speaker 1: make sure we've got really great people in our support
Speaker 1: structure who we can use as sounding boards as these
Speaker 1: choices come up, who want the best for us, but
Speaker 1: can be those sounding boards. So mentors and sponsors and
Speaker 1: people that can be those support people to navigate all
Speaker 1: those different decisions. I think that's more important now than
Speaker 1: maybe it might have been before. Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Like anyone who listens to the podcast regularly will
Speaker 2: feel like I've briefed you on what to say, because
Speaker 2: that is pretty much everything I believe about life in
Speaker 2: one paragraph.
Speaker 3: I totally agree.
Speaker 2: And I often say, you know the why, once you
Speaker 2: find your why, that generally stays consistent, and that represents
Speaker 2: purpose and values and beliefs and all of those kinds
Speaker 2: and needs day to day and what you want.
Speaker 3: But the how is going to change.
Speaker 2: And as long as the why is staying the same,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter that the iterations of the how change chapters, chapter,
Speaker 2: and fact. That's the exciting part that you never started.
Speaker 2: And if I was the same.
Speaker 3: In five years, I'd be concerned totally.
Speaker 2: I think I hadn't evolved in five years time, while
Speaker 2: the world's like moving so quickly around you.
Speaker 1: We're such kindred spirits. I say that all the time.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I also think something interesting about the being
Speaker 2: happy every day thing. That is what old me didn't
Speaker 2: understand before I did have this big re education of,
Speaker 2: you know, changing the metrics that I used to measure
Speaker 2: my life. Old me didn't even ask that question what
Speaker 2: was I happy or how was I feeling day to day?
Speaker 2: Because everything was macro. It was what are my titles?
Speaker 2: What is my job? What are the box TICKI things
Speaker 2: at this level that sound fancy but what is the
Speaker 2: point in like earning x amount or having this title,
Speaker 2: or making partner or whatever, if day to day it
Speaker 2: cost you your joy? And I think too many of
Speaker 2: us make at the decision making point of our lives.
Speaker 2: We make the macro decision and don't think on a
Speaker 2: micro level what does that mean day to day? If
Speaker 2: I got to hate that, I'm probably gonna hate that.
Speaker 1: Like I find it so interesting that you talk about
Speaker 1: old me and you made I want to be really
Speaker 1: clear with listeners to I didn't get this right the
Speaker 1: whole way through. I have only kind of honed this
Speaker 1: view of the world by getting it horrifically wrong. You know.
Speaker 1: It was diagnosed with depression in twenty thirteen and had
Speaker 1: to completely go about resetting and recalibrating everything I thought
Speaker 1: I knew about myself and how I showed up in
Speaker 1: the world in the sense of reframing my relationship with
Speaker 1: vulnerability shifting. And this is probably the biggest change in
Speaker 1: my life. Managing energy, not managing time one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful concepts I've gotten my head around changing the
Speaker 1: values I was to your point, around the metrics, like
Speaker 1: what am I measuring myself on? I'm measuring myself on values.
Speaker 1: Now I'm measuring myself on how good our job I'm
Speaker 1: going about, you know, delivering my impact on And I
Speaker 1: think one of the bravest things we can often do
Speaker 1: is being prepared to walk away from people and things
Speaker 1: that no longer service, you know, those toxic environments that
Speaker 1: want us to be a certain way under a certain
Speaker 1: version of us. That we can do and we can
Speaker 1: achieve it, but it's slowly eating us. It is chipping
Speaker 1: away at who we are and our joy to your point,
Speaker 1: and our energy, and nobody, nobody gets that right to
Speaker 1: do that to you. But that's your agency. Only you
Speaker 1: can set those boundaries and work out what that looks like.
Speaker 1: So for me, as much as that is, you know,
Speaker 1: the worst thing I've been through personally, it's also the
Speaker 1: best thing because if I was not living life in
Speaker 1: a sustainable and healthy and holy stic way, and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't for
Speaker 1: the recalibration that I had to go on there. And
Speaker 1: I'm a much better person and leader and partner and everything,
Speaker 1: I think for the fact that I went through that.
Speaker 1: But if you can avoid kind of the burnout when
Speaker 1: I look at it, and I go, there were warning
Speaker 1: signs I should have seen there was a way to
Speaker 1: be making these decisions earlier than having to hit a
Speaker 1: wall first and then work out how to rebuild. So
Speaker 1: I'd really to your point, people can start thinking about
Speaker 1: the filter criteria for their choices now. Don't wait for
Speaker 1: one of these kind of challenging life situations or difficult moments,
Speaker 1: or for it to all just be too much all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, in whatever that might look like for
Speaker 1: you. You can start making those different decisions now.
Speaker 2: Although interestingly, with you mentioning before about your big hypothesis
Speaker 2: on successful happy people who are thrilled with their lives now, yeah,
Speaker 2: looking back for me my theory now, particularly from doing
Speaker 2: what two hundred episodes of this podcast, the one consistent theme,
Speaker 2: which is like Unbreakable as a hypothesis, is that it's
Speaker 2: the shit bits that get people there. It's not the
Speaker 2: good bits where things work out and they make good
Speaker 2: decisions and they just wake up going, oh, yes, this
Speaker 2: is where I'm meant to be. It's actually those breakdown moments,
Speaker 2: and maybe not a full breakdown, even though of course
Speaker 2: as atypes we have to even high achieve at breakdown,
Speaker 2: so of course we go like a full A plus burnout.
Speaker 2: But almost everyone has found that those formative moments are
Speaker 2: the tougher ones where you do get it wrong, but
Speaker 2: that's what guides you back to wear like, onto the
Speaker 2: right track again. And you can't know those limits unless
Speaker 2: you push yourself to them. And I think that that's
Speaker 2: part of the thing that you need to embrace about
Speaker 2: the journey is it's not going to be rosy and great,
Speaker 2: and it is going to involve bits where you like,
Speaker 2: I don't this is.
Speaker 3: Not what I want.
Speaker 2: But that's just as valuable as data for where you
Speaker 2: do want to end up as figuring out what you like.
Speaker 2: What you don't like is valuable to know because some
Speaker 2: people have no idea of either thing, and they're just
Speaker 2: coasting along doing what they're doing, just because that's where
Speaker 2: you get on autopilot, because you're not trying lots of
Speaker 2: different things and getting feedback and going, okay, what less
Speaker 2: of this, more of that. It's just do more of
Speaker 2: what feels good and less of what feels bad, and
Speaker 2: keep trying until you kind of get closer and closer.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's just constantly tweaking until you get
Speaker 2: more and more on an even pathway, but it takes
Speaker 2: lots of distractions and fearing off paths to get there.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing too, what you're talking about
Speaker 1: is that it's also a journey. It's not a destination
Speaker 1: that idea of you don't ever fully arrive. Life is
Speaker 1: not static. It's dynamic, and so circumstances and situations and
Speaker 1: opportunities are always changing. And so it's also getting comfortable
Speaker 1: with the idea that this is a constant ebb and
Speaker 1: flow that you're just rebalancing and recalibrating. And one of
Speaker 1: the most important things you can do is learn how
Speaker 1: to check in with yourself, whatever that looks like. You know.
Speaker 1: For some people that is, you know, mindfulness and kind
Speaker 1: of deep breaths or yoga or meditation. For others it's
Speaker 1: a lot more kind of journaling and they have a
Speaker 1: framework for how they kind of reflect on things and
Speaker 1: make sure they're calibrating in the right way. But whatever
Speaker 1: it is, I think having some way of cutting the
Speaker 1: noise out for yourself and really making sure that you're
Speaker 1: making a decision that's right for you and not one
Speaker 1: that's right to your point. The pressures, the noise, what
Speaker 1: other people are saying, the distractions. I think that's really
Speaker 1: important because the only things that like those distraction pulls
Speaker 1: from our white and the more that we can try
Speaker 1: and find tools and anchors that can keep us coming
Speaker 1: back to it and have that accountability, we'll all make
Speaker 1: choices at times that stray us away from them. That
Speaker 1: goes without saying, but yeah, I think just having those
Speaker 1: strategies is really really powerful.
Speaker 2: And so from that sort of big recalibration and aha moment,
Speaker 2: it looks like the five or six years since then,
Speaker 2: since the you know, twenty fifteen ish, has been enormous
Speaker 2: for you, So founding Emergent, then co founding Energy Disruptors,
Speaker 2: going back to UNI, to Harvard of all places, as
Speaker 2: a full Bright scholar. Nonetheless, if you haven't heard of
Speaker 2: the full Bright scholarship, it's the pinnacle of the academic world.
Speaker 2: You're actually our first Harvard graduate on the show. So
Speaker 2: I'd love to know what that actually is like versus
Speaker 2: what we think is like from like Leli Blonde. You've
Speaker 2: interviewed some incredible people, you have a podcast, you've just
Speaker 2: published a book, Like I feel like once you do
Speaker 2: change your energy towards your purpose and the things that
Speaker 2: make you feel good. I think when I look back,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have even aimed for some of the things
Speaker 2: I do now because I just couldn't have conceived of
Speaker 2: the fact that they'd be possible. So how has that
Speaker 2: snowboard for you? What would you describe as what you
Speaker 2: do now and what you want to do next, and
Speaker 2: how all of that has come about, and how you're
Speaker 2: seizing your ya now.
Speaker 1: Oh, big question, that's a huge question. I know.
Speaker 3: Sorry, there's like eighty five times.
Speaker 1: And I completely agree with the whole notion of not
Speaker 1: even being able to conceive of certain goals. It's sort
Speaker 1: of extraordinary sometimes when you look back and yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the most important things I could
Speaker 1: say as an a type. And I know this will resonate,
Speaker 1: Like we're very good at setting goals. The thing we've
Speaker 1: got to be so mindful of is that we don't
Speaker 1: become so fixated to those goals that we miss the
Speaker 1: opportunity that looks slightly different or that's a little bit
Speaker 1: you know, colorful or creative, or doesn't quite have the
Speaker 1: packaging the way that we thought it might be, because
Speaker 1: that might be exactly what we were meant to say
Speaker 1: yes to and golf and do. So I think that's
Speaker 1: become a really important one for me, just leaning into
Speaker 1: kind of saying yes to working out. One of the
Speaker 1: things I love about what I do now and it
Speaker 1: sounds like it's exactly the same for you, is I
Speaker 1: love everyone I get to work with. I really enjoy
Speaker 1: the work that I do and the diversity of it,
Speaker 1: and that brings me so much joy, getting to work
Speaker 1: with great people on projects I'm passionate about every single day.
Speaker 1: And that's not something I could have said about life
Speaker 1: at different points of my journey so far. And it's
Speaker 1: also the really and I don't know if you have
Speaker 1: this the same way, but one of the things i'd
Speaker 1: stress to listeners too is it doesn't stop people from
Speaker 1: coming and still trying to tell me that I should
Speaker 1: be doing something different. I hear that multiple times a week.
Speaker 1: A lot of people still want to project their wants
Speaker 1: for me or their belief in what success looks like.
Speaker 1: You really should go off and run this sort of company,
Speaker 1: You really should be running for office, you really should
Speaker 1: be doing those sorts of things. And so I just
Speaker 1: remind people too that You've got to really be mindful
Speaker 1: of the energy that you let into your orbit and
Speaker 1: just understand that that's kind of safeguarding your truth, particularly
Speaker 1: when you're choosing to march to an unconventional beat, which
Speaker 1: is definitely I think the story of my career so far.
Speaker 1: I'm not really boxable, which is something I find as
Speaker 1: a strength, but it's also a challenge when you're interacting
Speaker 1: with a lot of people who like to be able
Speaker 1: to go, oh, so you do X, because really I
Speaker 1: do a whole myriad of things. I'm lucky enough to
Speaker 1: be a host and a moderator and a curator of
Speaker 1: content for incredible programs and organizations across the world, and
Speaker 1: I'm fortunate enough to get to do a lot of
Speaker 1: leadership development work, and weirdly enough, and I'm now a writer,
Speaker 1: which is something I never thought I would be saying
Speaker 1: about myself. Yeah, that one's very weird. I'm trying that
Speaker 1: on the size at the moment. That doesn't quite sit
Speaker 1: right yet. So a whole multitude of things, and I
Speaker 1: love that because I think the heartbeat of when you
Speaker 1: think about things that you love, they've often got common
Speaker 1: threads to them, and one of them for me is
Speaker 1: I'm insatiably curious, and so having diversity of the things
Speaker 1: that I do, so I'm always interacting with different sectors
Speaker 1: and problems and minds is something that just means I'm
Speaker 1: constantly stimulated. And when I think, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: something you were talking about before, when when you know
Speaker 1: what's happening next, it's almost when I worry, I'm exactly
Speaker 1: the same. That's why I was saying, oh, my, such
Speaker 1: kindred spirits when you said that, because I think for me,
Speaker 1: the dynamism and the diversity and the pace and the
Speaker 1: change is what keeps me at my best. It's not
Speaker 1: everyone's choice. Some people I deeply admire because they are
Speaker 1: such technical experts and they're obsessively brilliant or focused on
Speaker 1: a particular part of the puzzle, and that's awesome too.
Speaker 1: But for me, I think being able to know what
Speaker 1: lights me up, not just in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: what my purpose is and kind of who I enjoy
Speaker 1: working with, but also the dimensions that I need in
Speaker 1: my day and in my week to be at my best.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite things. And so at the moment,
Speaker 1: you know, I just only graduated last month because of COVID.
Speaker 1: I started over at campus at Harvard, then finished online
Speaker 1: because we were obviously cut short the pandemic, I had
Speaker 1: to leave the US when they closed campus. We just
Speaker 1: spread the coronavirus. So I finished the last year of
Speaker 1: the degree online. But one of the things I'm passionate
Speaker 1: about is this whole leadership development leadership movement that I'm
Speaker 1: launching with the book and with a whole series of
Speaker 1: things that will come out in the next little while.
Speaker 1: And I just want to invite more people to come
Speaker 1: on this journey of evolution and growth and building these
Speaker 1: skills and seeing what we can do together because we
Speaker 1: need it. We desperately need it.
Speaker 2: Oh how exciting. I can't believe you're a harve A graduate.
Speaker 2: What does that feel like?
Speaker 1: Do you know what's weird is it doesn't feel real yet.
Speaker 1: And I think because it was all online, there was
Speaker 1: never really a sense of closure. Like theragination was sort
Speaker 1: of like watching a YouTube video and because God bless them,
Speaker 1: they don't think of us in Australia and the time
Speaker 1: zone here, so it was like at three am Australian time,
Speaker 1: So I just like prop the laptop open on the
Speaker 1: bed and that was about it, but I.
Speaker 3: Think not a pretty so I think in that way.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure so many of your listeners can resonate
Speaker 1: with this, right Like, it feels like such an extraordinary,
Speaker 1: privileged and first world problem to be talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: a graduation not going the way that you might have
Speaker 1: envisaged originally. But I think for each of us, milestones
Speaker 1: and achievements and challenges all took on a different form
Speaker 1: to what we might have been used to in the
Speaker 1: last twelve eighteen months, and that's a recon Like, I'm
Speaker 1: one of those people that quite likes to bookend things.
Speaker 1: So you know, you start something, you do it, well,
Speaker 1: you finish it, Okay, cool? What meaning am I making
Speaker 1: of that? What amuff to do next? So the only
Speaker 1: reason I say that is because in not that it
Speaker 1: didn't happen over there. I care less about that, But
Speaker 1: in my mind mentally, I don't feel like I have
Speaker 1: closure on that chapter as such.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally my.
Speaker 1: Partner through year surprise graduation last weekend, which was really
Speaker 1: wonderful and I think in many ways that helped achieve
Speaker 1: that moment because it was bringing together so many of
Speaker 1: my favorite people here. But yeah, it sort of doesn't
Speaker 1: quite have the level, Like I wasn't living over there
Speaker 1: for two years because that got cut short, and I've
Speaker 1: kind of been in a hybrid world of studying, doing
Speaker 1: night shift and working and what have you, So it
Speaker 1: probably feels a little bit different, which I'm sure everyone
Speaker 1: who's graduated at university or year twelve or achieved anything
Speaker 1: in their lives in the last twelve eighteen months and
Speaker 1: sort of hasn't been able to celebrate or hasn't even
Speaker 1: been able to gather with people and have that acknowledgment
Speaker 1: can resonate.
Speaker 2: With Yeah, yeah, totally, And I think it is hard,
Speaker 2: particularly when you are insatiably curious. Acknowledging milestones is very
Speaker 2: difficult because then suddenly your brain's like a new one,
Speaker 2: like yeah, okay, tick, I've done Harvard, but like what's next?
Speaker 2: And so it's even harder because without those big sort
Speaker 2: of momentous events or acknowledgments, it's like you couldn't close
Speaker 2: the chapter before, but let alone without these events, it's
Speaker 2: even harder to do that. And I found with my
Speaker 2: book coming out, it came out well when we're in
Speaker 2: stage four, so there were no bookshops open, so I
Speaker 2: still feel like it's not really out there. So when
Speaker 2: I see mine, I'm like, oh my printed that.
Speaker 3: At office works.
Speaker 1: That's nice.
Speaker 3: It still doesn't feel like a real thing.
Speaker 2: But how would you say, because of that whole like
Speaker 2: changing your metrics of measuring your life and also being
Speaker 2: someone who might fall into the trap of like going
Speaker 2: to the next goal very quickly and not sort of
Speaker 2: celebrating and acknowledging that, how would you now describe your
Speaker 2: relationship to success versus happiness versus progress and dreams.
Speaker 1: It's such a good question, and I think it's something
Speaker 1: that there's been a lot of people who've helped me reframe,
Speaker 1: Like I've found Carol Dwex work on growth mindset around
Speaker 1: celebrating effort versus outcome to be one important reframe in
Speaker 1: terms of just I'm always proud as be Like the book.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's due out this month. I have no
Speaker 1: idea how it will go in the world, but I'm
Speaker 1: so proud of the product I'm putting up. And that's
Speaker 1: the part I choose to be proud of because all
Speaker 1: I can do. I can't control how people are going
Speaker 1: to re to it, but I know how many hours
Speaker 1: went into that in terms of the interviews, the writing,
Speaker 1: the finessing it, and I believe it's got great value
Speaker 1: for a lot of people in it and so I'm
Speaker 1: proud of that. And I think one of the other
Speaker 1: things really good mentor of mine Lane Beashley, who many
Speaker 1: of you know from her surfing prowess. She used to
Speaker 1: tell me a story that she's won seven world titles
Speaker 1: and there's one that she doesn't remember because she didn't
Speaker 1: stop and celebrate it. And so her lesson to me,
Speaker 1: and this is probably some wisdom she passed to me.
Speaker 1: And I think it was twenty fourteen when we'd had
Speaker 1: sort of a big success with the G twenty and
Speaker 1: I sort of wasn't coming up for her and keeping going.
Speaker 1: This is sort of all in that period where I
Speaker 1: was still recalibrating, is making sure in whatever way it
Speaker 1: looks like for you, because everyone's different on how they
Speaker 1: like to celebrate, how you make a marker of something.
Speaker 1: And she used to say to me all the time, like,
Speaker 1: how long do you think your head and body are
Speaker 1: going to keep up with operating at the intensity, with
Speaker 1: having the energy. If when all that energy achieves something
Speaker 1: that you're really excited about, you don't stop and celebrate
Speaker 1: and go, ah, that was awesome. You know that self reward,
Speaker 1: not for anyone else's purpose, but your own right to say, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm really proud that all those hours produced that or
Speaker 1: did that. Isn't that great? So I think that's really
Speaker 1: helped me to kind of reset in that regard. And
Speaker 1: so for me, like last weekend was so beautiful because
Speaker 1: it was time with all my favorite people, just this
Speaker 1: wonderful energy in the room. That was all I could
Speaker 1: have ever asked for for a celebration. And so for me,
Speaker 1: it was never about collecting a piece of paper. It
Speaker 1: was just about having some sense of closure, and I
Speaker 1: think that went a long way to helping me achieve it.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, I'm a type stuff is hardwired,
Speaker 1: Like I will always be someone that has goals. I
Speaker 1: will always be someone who wants to do the best
Speaker 1: of everything I set my mind to, right, Like I've
Speaker 1: always got to want to do things well. I think
Speaker 1: the thing that you get a healthier relationship with is
Speaker 1: just having a more holistic definition of success. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people, I think, kind of go the one
Speaker 1: dimension of success is career, it's title, it's pay packet,
Speaker 1: it's whatever. It's not the incredible relationships I've got with
Speaker 1: the people that I love and care about. It's not
Speaker 1: how healthy my body is, it's not what we talked
Speaker 1: about before and how happy I am every day. And
Speaker 1: I think when you start bringing those things into your
Speaker 1: definition of success, life just gets so much more colorful
Speaker 1: and wonderful. And it doesn't mean that being the best
Speaker 1: at what you do and however you choose to ply
Speaker 1: your talents and your craft doesn't matter. It always will,
Speaker 1: but it matters in context. And I think when it
Speaker 1: becomes anchored in purpose versus the notion of kind of
Speaker 1: maybe more superficial metrics where they're more about I don't know,
Speaker 1: something you're trying to prove to the world or wanting
Speaker 1: validation off others, then that changes that success factor as well.
Speaker 1: So I think mind's evolved quite a lot. I used
Speaker 1: to be someone previously who just want to to I
Speaker 1: think it was a volume game almost it was ticking
Speaker 1: the stuff off, and I don't know that it was
Speaker 1: ever focused too much on other than wanting to test
Speaker 1: how much I could do and whether I could do it.
Speaker 1: But I think now I'm much more about quality I'm
Speaker 1: much more holistic, and I'm much more about focusing on
Speaker 1: what's in my sphere of influence. I can control my effort,
Speaker 1: I control the way I show up, I can control
Speaker 1: the way I treat people. And that's what I'm going
Speaker 1: to choose to value in terms of what I deem
Speaker 1: success to look like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I actually had Gary Vaynerchuk on the show
Speaker 2: the year before, and one of the things that I
Speaker 2: love about him is he is using his platform to
Speaker 2: really push this idea of a happiness metric, Like why
Speaker 2: would we measure our lives by anything else? It just
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. It doesn't mean that financial metrics aren't important,
Speaker 2: Like we all have a livelihood, we all show a
Speaker 2: hierarchy of needs, and there's a reason why career is
Speaker 2: a factor in our lives. Doesn't mean throwing all those
Speaker 2: things out. But if you put happiness as a measure
Speaker 2: before you put everything else, like everything else falls into
Speaker 2: place when you have all those needs of joy and
Speaker 2: family and connection, Like all those things come first, and
Speaker 2: then all the success metrics fall into place after that.
Speaker 2: It's like just flipping the triangle on its head, which
Speaker 2: I think is really really valuable. I love that, which
Speaker 2: is why very nice segue into the last section, which
Speaker 2: is your playta, and that's the part where I love
Speaker 2: in your book. One of the chapters is go back
Speaker 2: to being four or something about remember who you were
Speaker 2: when you were faced, And.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what this is about.
Speaker 2: Czda is called Czda because YA is juvenile, and it
Speaker 2: reminds me of not taking life too seriously and going
Speaker 2: back to that inner child that I think there's something
Speaker 2: in the prologue or the intro that you said about
Speaker 2: how tragic it is that we lose that in social
Speaker 2: curiosity that we have with children. We also lose that
Speaker 2: unfiltered ability to find joy and to find joy regardless
Speaker 2: of what other kids are doing to find joy. Some
Speaker 2: kids love the sampit, some kids fucking hate us pit.
Speaker 2: But you don't get filtered by social expectations about the sandpit.
Speaker 2: You just go in or you don't go in, dependent
Speaker 2: on what you like. And that's something I think we
Speaker 2: lose as well. Once we start to get expectations of
Speaker 2: norms of success and career, we stop making decisions based
Speaker 2: on what am I good at and what do I like,
Speaker 2: and we make decisions based on what other people think
Speaker 2: I should do, and then often people's big aha moment
Speaker 2: is just circling back to what you could have guessed
Speaker 2: if you look at them as a kid. And I
Speaker 2: feel like that's this beautiful circle of life, which is
Speaker 2: why plata for me is remembering never to let go
Speaker 2: of that so I never have to come back to
Speaker 2: it again. It's just keeping close to that joy and
Speaker 2: not getting to the end of my life and thinking,
Speaker 2: even if I love my job, I don't want to
Speaker 2: get to the end of my life and think I
Speaker 2: just worked and died. Like there's a place for pleasure
Speaker 2: and activities that art maybe not productive at all, but
Speaker 2: that make you happy.
Speaker 3: So what's your plata? What do you do that's just
Speaker 3: for joy?
Speaker 1: Great question. I love that, and I love the focus
Speaker 1: that you have on It's one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: resonated with everything you're doing with the pods, because I
Speaker 1: think that absolutely is a heartbeat of the book and
Speaker 1: it's something I'm very passionate about. Both the curiosity and
Speaker 1: you see it if you're around a small kid, you know,
Speaker 1: if you haven't been for a little while, borrow one
Speaker 1: of your friends kids, go take them to the past.
Speaker 3: Plenty of them around right now.
Speaker 1: Listen to the why why? Why? Why does that happen?
Speaker 1: Why does this happen? You know, the need to understand
Speaker 1: and make sense of the world, and the unfiltered nature
Speaker 1: with which they ask questions, and the volume, Like it
Speaker 1: is sad what happens to us by the time we've
Speaker 1: become teenagers with how few questions we're asking. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing, to your point, is is just that playfulness,
Speaker 1: like it is amazing trying to get a lot of
Speaker 1: adults to play it is just it's so embarrassing. I
Speaker 1: feel ashamed, you know, I'm not. I've got a certain
Speaker 1: way I need to show up in the world, and
Speaker 1: the inability to kind of be silly and be free
Speaker 1: is something that I think is unfortunate, a limitation for us. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, I love running. I think I'm
Speaker 1: one of my freest is when I'm just out in
Speaker 1: nature kind of not even with the sense of direction.
Speaker 1: One of the things I actually like doing is running
Speaker 1: and just seeing where my gut wants me to go.
Speaker 1: When we get to a fork in the road, are
Speaker 1: we going left from that? And just kind of going
Speaker 1: where I feel drawn on any particular day. I think
Speaker 1: one of the other things, like other side from loving cooking,
Speaker 1: one of the other big things for me is I
Speaker 1: love the theater, and one of the best things I've
Speaker 1: done and done. I mean, I love being I love
Speaker 1: watching theater. But I also for a while during my
Speaker 1: Year of Fear I write about in the book, I
Speaker 1: did three hundred and sixty five days of doing things
Speaker 1: I was afraid of with my best friend, and I
Speaker 1: started taking acting and singing lessons, and ah, that was joyous.
Speaker 1: I had the most amazing teacher, and I think that
Speaker 1: makes a big difference. But the playfulness of singing and
Speaker 1: not being good at it, you know, but fully embracing
Speaker 1: that and going with it. The idea of being thrown
Speaker 1: into a scene and taking on a character, I find
Speaker 1: that well fascinating. It's definitely one I don't have any
Speaker 1: form of professional skill set in and I resonate with
Speaker 1: that idea of doing something not for an outcome. But
Speaker 1: that was never the goal with any of that. I
Speaker 1: was never wanting to be an actress. I was never
Speaker 1: wanting to be a singer. It was just that freedom
Speaker 1: to play and explore, but under the guidance of someone
Speaker 1: who could play with you or help you play, because
Speaker 1: often when we're stepping into something that is not familiar,
Speaker 1: it can feel really uncomfortable, so we need a little
Speaker 1: bit of guidance. So I regularly go to improv classes
Speaker 1: just because I love that. Oh my god, it's live,
Speaker 1: it's energetic, and it keeps me on my toes and
Speaker 1: I learn and I discover things about myself. So they're
Speaker 1: probably some of the things I do just for just
Speaker 1: for the sake of it.
Speaker 2: And I think that's so important because I find personally
Speaker 2: and now I imagine even more so that you're the same.
Speaker 1: Is it.
Speaker 3: Like it's very very hard to try.
Speaker 2: Something new and not try and be good at it
Speaker 2: and not try and master it, because it's in our
Speaker 2: nature to want to do a good job at whatever
Speaker 2: we do. So I found it incredibly liberating to find
Speaker 2: platya's or plays to ya. I still haven't decided what
Speaker 2: the plural is of platia that I'm never going to
Speaker 2: care about being good at that I will let myself
Speaker 2: just do because they're fun and not care that I
Speaker 2: look stupid. But that's really difficult, Like it's actually a
Speaker 2: mental exercise to be like, do not make an a
Speaker 2: type exercise out of this, Do not try and be
Speaker 2: an Olympic gymnast, like, do not set that expectation for yourself,
Speaker 2: because that kills the play.
Speaker 1: Then. Yeah, and one of the things my partner and
Speaker 1: I are doing now is we've embraced this idea of
Speaker 1: doing a creative date once a month and we alternate
Speaker 1: who picture. But the idea is that it takes us
Speaker 1: into a world. You know, we've gone to cooking classes, dancing,
Speaker 1: we've done that kind of class where you go and
Speaker 1: you learn how to paint. So all that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff is we got to interact your theater. Like. The
Speaker 1: goal is it's kind of choose your own adventure, and
Speaker 1: each person takes us somewhere that's very unfamiliar and it
Speaker 1: is it's stuff that neither of us are good at,
Speaker 1: but we do it for the sake of the experience,
Speaker 1: the shared learning and adventure together. But also because you
Speaker 1: realize quite quickly how easy it is to get in
Speaker 1: rhythm with life, and it's really hard sometimes to just go,
Speaker 1: I need to be more creative when we're such creatures
Speaker 1: of habit and there's so many demands on our time
Speaker 1: and our bandwidth is so stretched. So one of the
Speaker 1: things we've found is that discipline of just doing it
Speaker 1: once a month, creating that night, that day, that couple
Speaker 1: of hours, whatever it is, to just have that time
Speaker 1: out and to have intentionally created space to go and
Speaker 1: do something out out of your world. That I really
Speaker 1: encourage people, whether you're doing with a friend or a housemaid,
Speaker 1: or doing it for yourself like I used to go
Speaker 1: on solo creative dates, or I just take myself to
Speaker 1: a gallery or I take myself somewhere that I might
Speaker 1: be inspired. Well, I'm finding it incredibly beneficial this trying
Speaker 1: this idea on. I don't know where it originated from.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I should be giving credit to someone for it,
Speaker 1: but it's it's been a really great addition to my life.
Speaker 1: So have a go, have a play everyone.
Speaker 2: It obviously came from this podcast. I love the idea
Speaker 2: of a year of fear too, because I think that
Speaker 2: is what holds us back so much, is our fear.
Speaker 2: But when you actually try or confront your fear head on,
Speaker 2: you realize most of the time you've just let it
Speaker 2: snowball in your brain, like you're not actually that scared.
Speaker 2: It's not nowhere near as bad as you think it is.
Speaker 2: And I find the same with self doubt, like whatever
Speaker 2: scenarios are playing through in your head, once you actually
Speaker 2: do the thing, you're like, that was nowhere near as
Speaker 2: bad as my brain was letting me think, Like your
Speaker 2: brain will just take you out at all kinds of
Speaker 2: weird scenarios. But if you just confront your fear, you realize, actually,
Speaker 2: you're so much more capable than you think you are.
Speaker 1: Oh completely, we have this like apocalyptic version of what
Speaker 1: will happen if we do the thing we're afraid of.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I always say to people
Speaker 1: when you have that fear, and this is a habit
Speaker 1: I sort of built through that year of conquering them
Speaker 1: day after day and working out how to make it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier for myself to do that, because
Speaker 1: some days are really intimidating, depending on the nature of
Speaker 1: the fear, is to ZiT down and actually write out,
Speaker 1: like your worst case scenario of what's going to happen
Speaker 1: if you do the thing you're afraid of. Because one
Speaker 1: of the things you work out really quickly is you
Speaker 1: could be a soap opera writer in your free time
Speaker 1: if you wanted to oh we are so it's snowballs
Speaker 1: so quickly. We are so absurd. And you look at
Speaker 1: it and you read it and putting it down and
Speaker 1: writing there's something about anchoring our unconscious thought to our
Speaker 1: conscious thought. You read it and you go, I'm being ridiculous,
Speaker 1: And then you have to give yourself a likelihood score
Speaker 1: between one and ten, like ten being likely, one being
Speaker 1: really low. And I found that whole year, I never
Speaker 1: got above a seven, and that was doing a whole
Speaker 1: myriad of things. And at the same time, when I
Speaker 1: write this stuff down, I'd be like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: The fact I can laugh at myself, or I can
Speaker 1: make fun of or I can see how ridiculous I'm
Speaker 1: being about what might go wrong just made it so easy.
Speaker 1: It's so much easy to push through it.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I cannot believe you just said that,
Speaker 2: because there is actually a chapter in the CZA book
Speaker 2: called Workshop Your Worst Case Scenario, which is right out
Speaker 2: like workshop the worst possible scenario. Write it down and
Speaker 2: just look at it and see how stupid it is.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe you just said that.
Speaker 3: That's insane. I love that.
Speaker 2: Well. I've got two booken questions for the end of
Speaker 2: the episode to wrap things up. But there's one that
Speaker 2: I forgot to ask, which is just a guilty pleasure question,
Speaker 2: and that is what was it like to interview Obama?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like that's an incredibly important question that
Speaker 2: there aren't many people you could ask who would actually
Speaker 2: be able to answer because they have interviewed him.
Speaker 3: What was it like?
Speaker 2: And speaking of fear, were you like shitting your pants?
Speaker 2: Were you decided like I would just be like what,
Speaker 2: I'm not even at words? Aren't going to come out
Speaker 2: like I might melt on the floor.
Speaker 1: It was funny, It was definitely. The preparation of the
Speaker 1: questions was probably the most stressful part because I was
Speaker 1: just thinking, I really don't want to waste this opportunity.
Speaker 1: You've got this incredible So I think it was actually
Speaker 1: less in the moment. I felt really calm, and he's
Speaker 1: very calming. He has a really calm energy to him.
Speaker 1: So the experience itself was unbelievable, and there is so
Speaker 1: much I can say about that. But I think two
Speaker 1: things really strike me about Obama. One was I think
Speaker 1: because he's so he's such an incredible orator and we've
Speaker 1: all seen him like late night shows and be very cool,
Speaker 1: and he had an ability, unlike a few politicians, to
Speaker 1: kind of transcend demographics that we actually forget how extraordinarily
Speaker 1: academic he is. And sitting there as he'd unpack his
Speaker 1: decision making and his thinking and how his layered approach,
Speaker 1: you could just see how deeply he had considered the
Speaker 1: world and his positions on things. And not that I
Speaker 1: should have ever not thought that to be the case,
Speaker 1: but it was really striking just how the depth of
Speaker 1: his intellect and how considered a thinker he was. And
Speaker 1: I think the second thing goes to one of the
Speaker 1: things I touched on there, which is he had a
Speaker 1: really calm energy, which is not true of a lot
Speaker 1: of the politicians that you meet, where there's either a
Speaker 1: need to assert their presence or almost a need you
Speaker 1: feel for kind of some gratification back, like they want
Speaker 1: to impress you or they want validation. He is just
Speaker 1: so secure in himself and there's a really calm energy
Speaker 1: that comes with that, And that was another thing that
Speaker 1: was quite striking about being in his presence, is it
Speaker 1: it was a very calm and centered energy, felt very grounded.
Speaker 1: Someone had clearly done the work to understand everything that
Speaker 1: they were about before they decided to do all the
Speaker 1: work around what they were about in the leadership role
Speaker 1: that they had.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, how fascinating.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's all people say about you too, So
Speaker 2: one eighty flip back to the dumb stuff. Second last
Speaker 2: question is more guilty pleasure things that just make people yay.
Speaker 3: Does it get to know you better as a person?
Speaker 2: What are the three interesting things about you that don't
Speaker 2: normally come up in the interviews? And because you do
Speaker 2: have a very intellectual presence in the world, sparking meaningful political,
Speaker 2: social conversations on podcasts, in your book and everywhere else
Speaker 2: on the interwebs, what are some of the dumber things
Speaker 2: do you do? Dumb stuff like binge on Netflix?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you'll binge on Netflix, don't we My god?
Speaker 2: Okay, good now, But some people don't. Some people are
Speaker 2: so intellectual they're just like, I don't own it television.
Speaker 2: Oh no, Like okay, I can't relate, Okay, I.
Speaker 1: Need to zone out mentally. I'll quite often YouTube like
Speaker 1: sn L highlights and stand up Yes, love all that world.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing that doesn't really ever come up.
Speaker 2: I do the Graham Notton show highlights so much fun.
Speaker 2: It puts together groups of celebrities that you're just like,
Speaker 2: they're so randomly unconnected, like from totally different worlds, and
Speaker 2: they'll just be three of them on the couch together
Speaker 2: and each other.
Speaker 1: They pull out the most random facts about people and
Speaker 1: just flop them in, and the conversation heads in all
Speaker 1: these directions that you are you'd never otherwise expect. So
Speaker 1: that's definitely one, okay flip side though I have practically
Speaker 1: never seen any movies. I'm terrible. I do not have an.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: It's just like so whenever anyone mentions a movie, I
Speaker 1: might haven't seen it, haven't seen. I'm terrible. You don't
Speaker 1: want me on the pop culture section of a pop quiz.
Speaker 3: Because I forget good to know.
Speaker 2: I'll put you on like the geopolitical, like public policy.
Speaker 2: You gonna be on that team.
Speaker 1: That's probably two of them. And then I'm trying to think.
Speaker 3: That's a great one.
Speaker 2: What's something a partner would say about, like your sleep
Speaker 2: habits or is there anything weird you do around food?
Speaker 1: Or what would be the verdicts there? There could and
Speaker 1: probably be a couple. Oh, I think probably that I
Speaker 1: am pretty good at not sleeping, so.
Speaker 3: Well, that's not a surprise at all.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I've been doing nightshift, so I was
Speaker 1: going to say it's probably a little bit tweaked at
Speaker 1: the moment because I've been doing nightshift with classes for
Speaker 1: the better part of the last year, so getting up
Speaker 1: at eleven and PM and having to go through to
Speaker 1: about four am, just for the last times with Boston.
Speaker 1: The time difference is not great for this part of
Speaker 1: the world, so that's been challenging. So I think quite
Speaker 1: often I'll be up at random parts of the night
Speaker 1: and just so I'll do some of my best thinking.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes in the very wee hours of the morning.
Speaker 1: But I'm a bit all over the place, and I
Speaker 1: actually think, what's weird is I know I'm at my
Speaker 1: best when I'm like that. So I actually know that
Speaker 1: something's not right when I'm sleeping for a long period
Speaker 1: of time. When I'm short of sleeping, I know that
Speaker 1: I'm healthy, which sounds really weird and counterintuitive, and it's
Speaker 1: not something I would say about everyone. It's just something
Speaker 1: I've definitely discovered in myself. If I need a lot
Speaker 1: of sleep, I'm running, I'm burning myself too hard, and
Speaker 1: I need to recalibrate my long nights would be a
Speaker 1: lower amount of sleep. So like probably a good amount
Speaker 1: for me is like five to six. So if I'm
Speaker 1: in like the eight to nine territory, I know that
Speaker 1: I'm maybe not maybe mo working myself a little bit
Speaker 1: too hard and need to change the balance.
Speaker 2: That sounds very davinciesque, like I only need five hours
Speaker 2: and I operate perfectly. My brain just needs five hours,
Speaker 2: Like that's amazing, perfectly.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's I know I'm rolling.
Speaker 2: So my big breakdown was chronic fatigue. So if I
Speaker 2: don't get eight or nine hours, I am not a
Speaker 2: functional human being. Like I can literally close my eyes
Speaker 2: now and sleep. I can sleep anywhere anytime.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Love that specialty. It's pretty great.
Speaker 3: It's pretty great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And final question, what's your favorite quote?
Speaker 3: The one that I know it's a hard one.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I could pick a lot because I
Speaker 1: love quotes. I'm a words person, so quotes are sort
Speaker 1: of all over my life and all over my wall.
Speaker 1: But I think in asking that question, I've got to
Speaker 1: honor the one that's on the background of my laptop
Speaker 1: and has been there for probably fifteen years. Wow, And
Speaker 1: that is never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
Speaker 1: committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only
Speaker 1: thing that ever has.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: One the saddest parts of the whole writing of the
Speaker 1: book Journey was actually discovering that that quote is probably
Speaker 1: not from Margaret Meade, which is what it's attributed to.
Speaker 1: You have to go take me so much backbinding, and
Speaker 1: one of the things that came back is she probably
Speaker 1: never said that, but I'm choosing to believe that it's
Speaker 1: Margaret's words. But irrespective of who said it, I love
Speaker 1: love that quote. So that would be my thing.
Speaker 2: Oh that's such a good one and a beautiful way
Speaker 2: to finish. Thank you so much, Holly. You have so
Speaker 2: much wisdom and knowledge. And I think I think everyone
Speaker 2: should go and buy the book. When is it out?
Speaker 2: What date is it?
Speaker 3: Officially?
Speaker 1: It's out on July twenty, so very soon now, and
Speaker 1: then all good bookstores are online where if you choose
Speaker 1: to buy your books, it's called the Leading Edge. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I would love to hear what people think about it
Speaker 1: and to start a new conversation about leadership and getting
Speaker 1: the best out of here.
Speaker 2: Well, I have just finished it and it is full
Speaker 2: of incredible knowledge and takeaways and very practical as well,
Speaker 2: lots of really interesting case studies and absolutely fascinating. So
Speaker 2: I'll make sure to put links to presale for now
Speaker 2: and then from July twenty to actual sale.
Speaker 3: Huge congratulations and thank you for joining.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I've been such
Speaker 1: a pleasure against talk with you Era.
Speaker 2: What a woman. Just being around Holly makes me want
Speaker 2: to soak up the most out of life and create
Speaker 2: impact in my sphere of influence, as she puts it.
Speaker 2: I hope you found her as energizing as I did,
Speaker 2: and cannot recommend a read of her new book, The
Speaker 2: Leading Edge more highly. Link to presale is in the
Speaker 2: show notes now. As always, please do share any takeaways
Speaker 2: or AHA moments with the episode. Take at Holly, Underscore,
Speaker 2: Ransom and myself so we can show our gratitude for
Speaker 2: Holly sharing her wisdom and continue to grow the neighborhood
Speaker 2: as far and wide as possible. I hope you're all
Speaker 2: having a wonderful week and are seizing your ya