The fast pass of work and long hours in the office can have a huge affect on all aspects of your life. And this is exactly what my guest today, Stacey Clare, discovered after spending years working late and not thinking about the food she was putting into her body or how she was treating herself.

But that all changed after the birth of her first baby.

Having a baby is a joyful moment, a journey where a woman becomes a mother. And as joyful as it was for Stacey to have her first child, it was also full of complications that lead to her baby being born at 32 weeks and only weighing 1.38kgs.

The poor health of her baby meant that Stacey needed to do something that no parent should have to do. A month after bringing her baby home from the hospital, she found him not breathing in his cot. A heart wrenching sight for any parent to see. Stacey had to put her fingers around his little chest and push down, performing CPR on him to bring life back to his little body - Which, thankfully, she did.

But through all this, Stacey knew that she needed to change her ways by focussing on her health and the food she puts into her body, so she could raise her baby boy in a healthy way.

Stacey was so passionate about this change in her life that she dove deeper and studied nutrition, started her company Stacey Clare – A Healthy Mum, and is now a Health and Nutrition coach helping other mothers and families on their health journey.

We also discus something that I really loved - Family Gratitude Journal that Stacey does each evening at the dinner table with her family. It is something that I will be starting at our dinner table too.

The Skype connection is a little robotic in parts, but stay with it as Stacey is a bundle of joy that is teaching happiness through food, one plate at a time.

I hope you enjoy x

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We often want to do things in a particular way, but if that way means that we can’t do that thing until many years into the future, than maybe we need to make concessions with our dream so that it becomes a reality sooner.

And to make this happen my guest today, Tricia Leach, host of the Keep Your Daydream Podcast, proposes a simple question;

What can you do right now?

Through her podcast, Tricia shares inspiring stories of people who have left the so called normal life to pursue their travel dreams and unique lifestyle. When we embarked on our family adventure, to housesit our way through North America for a year, Tricia’s, Keep Your Daydream Podcast made me feel normal – knowing that there were similar people and families that had chosen to travel, to try something new, and to enjoy and learn from the travelling lifestyle.

I initially wanted to reach out to Tricia as, along with her husband Marc, they have decided to pack up their three kids and 16 year-old dog in an RV to hit the open road for six months, travelling around the United States.

I wanted to know how someone with teenage kids could design their life to enable that to happen.

But as I started to dig deeper into her story, I realised there was so much more to tell.

I discovered that there was a journey, of pushing through adversity, brought on by the global financial crisis. That Tricia and her family needed to, as she puts it, stop feeding the shredder.

In this episode we discus prioritising what is important, stepping out of the commercialised dream, transforming from putting value into things, to placing value on experiences, setting a date to make things happen and only having 18 summers with your children.

I thought I was going to talk about travel with Tricia, but she gave so much more. As travelling isn’t about seeing different places, it is about growing from experiences.

Tricia is energetic, warm and a mother who simply wants to rip the curtains open each morning to go exploring with her family, and to see what the world will teach her today.

I hope you enjoy x

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As many of you know, Inga, Andy and I have been attempting to house and pet sit our way through North America for a year. As much as people we meet say that it is such a wonderful idea and way to travel, we had never met another house sitter before in person.

That was until we met my guest today, Julie Preston, at a park in Frisco, Colorado, and we formed a friendship immediately.

There were so many similarities with our journeys. We were both traveling with a child, we love the variety and experiences new towns bring, and more importantly, we all adored animals.

But as our friendship grew over the months it became apparent that Julie and her husband Dean were doing this for different reasons to Inga and I.

Julie has been house and pet sitting, on and off, for over a decade, and it was something that she continued to do when she first met Dean. They paused for a few years until Dean was laid off from his work due to the crash in the economy, a week before their daughter Abby was born.

They started housesitting again, as they needed to reinvent the wheel for their family. Where Inga and I are housesitting so we can afford to travel for a year. Julie and Dean needed to house sit again so they could afford to live.

I admire Julie and Dean on so many levels. They have turned an awful life circumstance into a wonderful blessing, and one that allows them to travel and spend more time with their daughter, Abby.

It is not easy and there are many challenges that they face by choosing this lifestyle, but they understand, that for now, this transit lifestyle, the experiences, the education, outweighs the challenges.

We cover so much in this episode including housesitting due to the economy, life on the road with a seven-year-old daughter, finding stability, the challenges with a non-digital job on the road, finding free activities to do in each community and so much more.

Julie looks for the wonders in life, and she finds most of them in her family, or hiking through the mountains.

I hope you enjoy x

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Sometimes we don’t know we’re looking for something until we find it. And even then, we still need to act upon it.

Tosha Kowalski found a sticker on the ground at the SXSW festival in 2013 that read;

Quit your day job

See the world

Fall in love

Find yourself

Now this sticker was apparently everywhere at the festival and there would have been other people that saw it too - but it somehow resinated with Tosha. And since that day she has been designing her life and acting in a way that aligns with the message of that sticker.

In this episode we discuss taking that leap of faith and how the first step is always the hardest, how Tosha found herself on the Appellation Trail and how the 3,500km hike changed her, adjusting back to normality after being in the woods for four months, and curating a life where she sprinkles adventure with reality.

Tosha is a strong woman that navigates life via acute corners, wrong turns and dead ends.

I hope you enjoy x

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I am always intrigued with what some people can squeeze into each day. Not simply the amount that they can achieve but the way they go about juggling it all.

Lee Sutherland is one of those people that I admire with how she goes about her day and her commitment to delivering. It might not be textbook, but it is the way that works for her. And in my mind, this is one of the key principles of a life lived immediately – To be actioning now in a way that works for you.

Lee turned her obsession of health and fitness, from a side project that she was doing in her spare time, into a thriving community and business. And as that business, Fitness In The City, was expanding, she decided to launch her second business, the organic herbal tea company, Little Wildling Co, and give birth to her first child – Lee is a master juggler.

In this episode we discuss feeding your passion, creating the life you want to live, business and a baby, and growing in your life.

Lee is super fun and energetic, and if you are listening to this while walking, it will be impossible for you to not walk faster.

I hope you enjoy x

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What is your ideal day? What does it look like? What are the key things that you are doing? Who are you spending it with?

More importantly, did you do anything today that resembles your ideal day?

My guest today is Anthony Ongaro, and the essence of an ideal day is one of the topics we dive into, and it is a notion I have been thinking a lot about lately.

Anthony felt that he had a lot of twitches in his life. Little things that he would do, that by themselves aren’t that bad. But done over a long period of time, meant that his actions weren’t aligned with how he wanted to live and experience life.

Anthony broke these twitches and replaced them with healthier, more important daily habits. And similar to his bad twitches, his good habits by themselves aren’t life changing. But done over a long period of time, they have enabled him to live life that is more aligned with his ideal day and life vision.

In this episode we chat about the positive space that minimalism can leave, personal accountability, trying to find the equilibrium between our present self and our future self, and so much more.

I had a lot of fun with Anthony and he took our conversation to a lot of places I wasn’t quite expecting. But as always with Anthony, he invoked a lot of thought, but I left feeling far richer for the experience.

I hope you enjoy x

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You can think about something and put it off. But ultimately you need to just do it.

That is exactly what Matt and Alana did when they finally made the decision to travel the world for two years.

They are both former full-time world travellers, transitioning back into the U.S. way of life, making the most out of their vacation time and getting the best bang for your buck in America and also abroad.

It is the former full-time world travellers that really made me take notice of Matt and Alana, as we often hear about the pre travel excitement and all the new and wonderful things that we experience while travelling. But the coming home story and everything that goes with it, is often untold.

In this episode we dive into finding minimalism on the road, having a generic plan but leaving room for the unknown, putting a pause on the future and living for the now, and being at peace with coming home.

This couple learnt so much while exploring our great big globe.

I hope you enjoy x

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People come across our path every day. Some we notice and some we simply don’t even register. I definitely noticed Sarah Jensen when our paths crossed and I was drawn in by her rawness and honesty.

And in this episode, Sarah gets raw and honest right from the beginning in such a beautiful way, as she talks openly about her earlier struggles in life.

We chat about deserving love, changing the story you tell yourself, learning to love yourself, forgiveness and the best way to order at a restaurant.

Sarah is a passionate advocate for empowering women to get clear, get inspired and live their dreams.  She is a sought after life coach, internationally published writer and creator of the popular Rock Your Goals online course and award winning Rock Your Goals workshops.

And if that is not enough, she is also the host of the Rock Your Goals Podcast.

Sarah is energetic and lovely in all sense of the word.

I hope you enjoy x

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Ben McAlary is the other half of Brooke McAlary, who is the wonderful host (and teacher) of The Slow Home Podcast. 

Both Ben and Brooke have had quite an impact on my life, as it was many of the lessons that I learnt from their podcast and guests, that enabled my family and I to pack, donate or sell most of our belongings in Australia and head off for a year, attempting to house sit our way through North America.

I wanted to chat with Ben as it has been very interesting watching his journey through the podcast, and mainly, because in 2016 he left the security of his job to focus on the podcast and to launch the media company, Jackrabbit.FM.

The audio is a little patchy in some spots, as I recorded this interview from a log cabin in the middle of a national forest in the northwoods of Wisconsin, and Ben was in the mountains of Alberta, Canada - but stay with it as Ben shares his moments and stories, and how he took the leap to steer his life in a direction of meaning and purpose.

Towards the end he touches on the alignment of health, happiness and heart. It is beautiful and something I absolutely agree with.

Ben is a deep thinker with a kind heart.

I hope you enjoy x

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To afford life, the items we desire or the moments we choose to create, we can either make more money, which often leads to working more, increased stress and less time. Or we can reduce our expenses and modify our life. Which does come with its own sacrifices, but it can often lead to working less, reduced stress, more happiness and more available time.

My guest today is Brooke Tebbenhoff, and after spending years, pounding the flesh, at ad agencies in London and Sydney, she opted for the latter, when her partner Benny and her decided to relocate their life to a national park on the mid north coast of New South Wales in Australia.

In this episode we discuss the benefits of a slower life and how even though it is something you might want, it still takes time to be comfortable with the change. Moving at pace with large decisions once you have made them, so you don’t have time to second guess yourself or talk yourself out of it. And how they tackled the employment barrier by opening their own creative agency Heath & Hoff to help local business build successful brands.

I personally find Brooke so inspiring as she went with an idea and makes it work as she learns a long the way.

I hope you enjoy x

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