Seize the Yay

YOOL IS BACK!!!! Enjoy the chaos kids x

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We are back from our little break with an absolute bang and a guest I’ve wanted to chat with for such a long time. Thank you so much for your patience while we adventured around the world, by the way – I hope you enjoyed our re-releases and I know you’ll enjoy this week’s guest even more.

I’m talking of course about the woman, the legend, Toni Lodge, who you have probably heard from on her own amazing show, The Toni and Ryan Podcast, one of Australia’s top performing shows and for very good reason. Toni has also just released her first book, I Don’t Need Therapy (and other lies I've told myself), for which I was so honoured to give a cover quote after absolutely eating up my advance copy – I can’t recommend it highly enough and the link to buy is below for you all.

I won’t reveal too much because we cover SO much in this chat and I adored getting to know this amazing woman better. Toni is one of those amazing examples of someone who you could easily think was born into the position she’s in now (because she is just so perfectly suited to it), but for whom this definitely wasn’t the case and I loved exploring all the juicy stuff in between.

You’ll be able to tell immediately how much fun we had during this one, I haven’t laughed so hard in such a long time – I hope it’s as much of a joy to your ears as it was to mine the first time around!

BUY TONI'S BOOK HERE - I DON'T NEED THERAPY

Follow Toni here!

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*RE-RELEASE*

We are taking a few weeks off recording while we're in Morocco, Ang is in Amsterdam and our wonderful editor Sam gets married. So to keep your ears busy, we're re-releasing some of our favourites and Emma Watkins was a pure delight!

Excuse the time references, but if you missed this the first time around, it's a joy.

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There aren’t many things that evoke more YAY than the Wiggles, especially a sunshine-coloured one!!! While she has now officially hung up her yellow Wiggle shoes, Emma Watkins still radiates like a sunbeam and we are so lucky to have her here today. 

As always, it was such a delight to trace back to a younger Emma who never could have dreamed of where she’d end up and with whom I have an earlier very intense dancer’s life in common. You might have guessed that her love for the arts has been lifelong, but you might NOT know she’s also a skilled filmmaker, has been in Bollywood films, won Miss Granny Smith Apples AND learnt Auslan all before becoming the first ever female Wiggle.

Now, she is doing some incredible work with artistic integrations of sign language through her PhD which you will hear all about in the episode. PLUS Emma's also stepping into some beautiful frocks this month as an ambassador for the OCRF's incredible Frocktober Campaign – I’ve popped links below to this incredible initiative.

OCRF'S FROCKTOBER 2022

Follow Emma here!

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Our annual birthday reflections episode chaotically answering your questions - thank you so much for the submissions!

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Welcome to our first FOUR WAY EPISODE on the show! At this point, my memory is so bad that it’s entirely possible we’ve done one before, so ignore me if I’m incorrect – I actually love it when you guys remember things better than I do!

Anyway, I am so excited about our guests today – I was lucky enough to jump on their brand-new podcast recently and enjoyed it so much I had to turn the tables a week later. Of course, I’m talking about Tass aka Natassia - the founder of trailblazing beauty brand Conserving Beauty - and Sage, her Community and Partnerships Manager as well as right-hand woman. And since I was originally introduced to Tass by Ang, I thought she could join for the party and it was SO much fun.

You’ll hear all about the pathYAYs that led the girls both together and into Conserving Beauty in the episode, but just in case you need an introduction to the brand, it’s the game changing water(less) beauty brand that I’ve been shouting about on socials for a while now. The one with the zero-waste make up wipes that not only so effectively remove make up from the face but also DISSOLVE COMPLETELY IN WATER with patented Insta Melt fabric technology leaving no waste or micro plastics behind? Yeah, that one.

That’s just a taste of the incredible ways Conserving Beauty is focusing on their water, carbon and waste footprints with clear traceability through the supply chain without compromising on high quality products. And of course we all want to know how you actually bring an idea like that to life, let alone straight into the coveted shelves of Mecca before they’d even lauched… so listen in to find out!! I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT CONSERVING BEAUTY

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+ Announcements on Insta at @spoonful_of_sarah

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Welcome back lovely yayborhood and happy International Women’s Day! I couldn’t think of a better guest to celebrate all that is wonderful and womanly than the incredible Sophie Walker from Australian Birth Stories. I suspect that many of you listeners are also among the literal millions in the Australian Birth Stories community but, in case you aren’t just yet, it is one of Australia’s most successful shows sharing honest stories of women navigating the journey to motherhood – a space where conversations, education and a safe place to share had long been missing.

I always find it so alarming how little women often understand about their bodies and Sophie herself was originally inspired to create her community by her second birth experience during which she felt unable to make informed decisions and left with significant physical and emotional trauma. She has since shared over 350 diverse stories of pregnancy, birth and postpartum covering every scenario you could think of helping so many people feel more informed and empowered to have a positive birth experience.

Once you dive into the wide world of childbirth, there is SO much to uncover and learn but of course there are 350 episodes and counting that you can tune into for those juicy details as well as Sophie’s brand new BOOK – the Complete Australian Guide to Pregnancy and Birth – which you’ll also hear about in this episode. Here, I wanted to find out who Sophie is and what led her from a Masters in Public Health with no background in media to one of Australia’s most successful podcasts. I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

GET SOPHIE'S BOOK HERE

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Welcome back lovely people, what a week it’s been for the yayborhood!!! Nic aka Mr YAYvidson’s return to the show last week for a hilarious Valentine’s episode – thank you all so much for listening and for the cute littlee love notes… But even more excitingly, our first in real life event in over three years and it was EVEN MORE AMAZING THAN WE COULD HAVE IMAGINED.

I won’t spend much time on it this week because we recorded some audio on the night and are putting it together for a proper debrief episode with Ang about the event next week, but I just wanted to quickly reiterate just how incredibly special it was and how grateful we are to everyone who came. There was so much laughter, beautiful tears, wonderful new friendships and memories for a lifetime. And we’re doing it all again this week in Sydney for another sold out event, which still blows my mind! So we’ll have the full reflection yays of our lives episode next week for you but for now we’ve got a fascinating guest who I can’t wait to share.

I first heard of Ben Mcintosh when we joined my amazing management team at Day Management – should out to the Day family, we love you so much – and, along with nearly a million other people and counting, I very quickly wanted to know pretty much every detail about his life. He, like many others, has grown a loyal and engaged community and uses his platform to educate and positively impact others but unlike many others, it wasn’t born out of business, reality TV or nepotism – it’s through sharing his day-to-day life as a disability support worker.

In very Seize the Yay fashion, Ben spent most of his life unsure of what he wanted to do dabbling in AFL and even going to college in the US for American Football but not really knowing what his passion was. Turns out, he had been building the perfect skills for a career in disability support work as a big brother to Grace, who was born with Down’s Syndrome.

Today you’ll hear the story of how he stumbled into doing it for work and found that feeling of purpose we always talk about when you forget what time it is or don’t feel like what you’re doing is a job. His content is so endearing, empowering and educational helping demystify so much about disability – I mean I’m really only friends with him for Grace, but let’s not tell him that. I found this one so fascinating and different, and hope you guys enjoy it too! I think it night have been his very first if not second podcast ever so make sure to tag him and share to encourage him to do it more!!!

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Due to popular demand, Nic aka Mr YAYvidson is back on the show for a special Valentines Day anonymous Q&A. Hosted, of course, by Ang, this was an absolute CRACKER! Hope you enjoy as much has we did!

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Hello lovely yayborhood and welcome to our second guest episode of the year. Continuing on our musical theme to kick off 2023, we’re chasing our classical singer, Josh Piterman, with a classical pianist, Van-Anh Nguyen, and one of the country’s very best at that!

You might remember a few weeks ago, Ang and I were lucky enough to attend a Candlelight Concert where we cried our way through an hour of Van-Anh’s spine tingling renditions of Disney’s best and brightest accompanied by cellist, Aly Partridge. Well earlier that day, we actually recorded an episode too on how one actually goes from a musical childhood (which is not especially uncommon) to an internationally successful career, a deal with Universal Music, 11 albums, ARIA nominations and a dream life between LA and Australia (which is definitely less common!)

You’ll hear quickly how much I loved getting into the nitty gritty details of life as a professional pianist – how do you train your fingers? Do you insure your hands? Can you play any song you hear? I could have sat with this incredible woman for hours and watched her play for many more. I’ll include some snippets of her playing on socials so you can experience her exceptional talent and unique ability to fuse Beethoven with Britney. I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

>>>> Follow Van-Anh here!! <<<<<

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