Seize the Yay

Our first co-hosted Yays of our Lives episode with two absolute legends Abbey Gelmi (ep 81) and Gemma Watts (ep 85) squeezed in during a girls night catch up that was filled with yay (so how could we NOT record all our musings?) Even in the time that has passed since their respective episodes of the show, many subsequent seeds have come to fruition in their lives so these two made the perfect guests to join us for a chat on patience, hard work and trusting the process.

I initially thought this new segment would fall into quite a consistent routine like our regular interview scheduling, but I've actually really enjoyed how different each week has been and LOVED the pace and laughter of having co-hosts on board. As always, however, this is a yayborhood production so I'd LOVE to know if you enjoyed having a few different voices in your ear with some tangential banter (and, if so, I'll start lining up some more co-hosts for the coming weeks). Please never hesitate to flick me your thoughts by DM or email any time, you know I ADORE connecting with you all.

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Welcome back lovely yayborhood and thank you for always bearing with me when I take a little break leaving a longer than usually gap between episodes. We had a glorious few days in the countryside over Easter with family switching off completely and I can’t say how good it was for the soul. I think one of the most clarifying things for me over the past year has been to re-evaluate urgency and realise how many false deadlines I imposed on myself - I think I did 70 weeks in a row when we first started the show! I hope you enjoyed the re-release of legend Wim Hof's episode from last year to give you something in your ears, what an absolute hoot he is!

I'm so glad I waited that extra week though as I got to record this week’s episode in person which feels a bit like a luxury these days having done so many on Zoom. After voraciously consuming Lucy Glade-Wright’s beautiful content last year to help get us through COVID particularly following her home reno very closely as we started our own, it was a thrill to actually see the results in person and record this in her lounge room. For any fellow homewares and home design lovers out there like myself, Lucy’s amazing business Hunting for George will need no introduction having made waves in the industry since 2010 but in case you haven’t already discovered its wonders, it’s my absolute go-to source for home, design and lifestyle with a growing number of facets including house tours, travel guides and even a renovation TV show.

This is only the second time however that Lucy has jumped on a podcast to share the full story of how it has evolved through several earlier chapters from a retail store (which it was when we first met a random local government business dinner) to a product design business and now to a bustling platform for storytelling and it was an absolute delight. She’s another fabulous example of the many unexpected but amazing ways your why will evolve through many different hows if you just trust the process and give things a go. She’s such a good egg and we had some fabulous chuckles on her lounge room floor. I hope you enjoy!

WATCH THE A + M HOUSE TOUR HERE

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NOTE: Released May 2020, re-released in April 2021.

I’m so excited to have something a little different for you this week – a JOINT podcast episode with Stef and Jess Dadon, the fashion entrepreneurs behind How Two Live, Founders of Twoobs and hosts of their own fabulous, How Two Live podcast. I’ve mentioned that one of the silver linings to come out of isolation this year is the new ways we’ve been finding to connect with each other and I was so stoked when these spectacular sisters reached out with the idea of hosting an episode together.

As a solo host (for which there are so many perks which mostly include not making anyone else deal with my last minute antics for editing), I do miss out on the joys of banter with a co-host, so this was an absolute delight not least because the girls are total pros having hosted the likes of Meg Ryan, Erin Brockovich, Dita von Teese and so many more. Add to that the pleasure of a totally invigorating, energetic and overwhelmingly passionate guest like Wim Hof and you’ve got one of my most enjoyable chats to date.

I’m so grateful to the girls for sharing this opportunity with me – you might have heard this quote in my episode with Harlan Coben a few weeks ago, nobody has to fail so I can succeed to which I added that success doesn’t halve when you share it, it doubles. I’m a big believer in collaboration and I hope you enjoy the result as much as we did. If you haven’t heard of Wim Hof and his eponymous breathing method that has taken the world by storm, Stef and Jess will give you a run down before we kick off – he is totally quirky but so much fun and an embodiment of seizing his yay. Like all people blazing a new and different trail, there are controversies around some areas of his work, but we focused on the practical, day to day takeaways of his method and on his incredible passion for controlling your happiness and health.

He’s so excited about what he does that he shouts most of it the whole way through, which I ADORED! Hope you find him as fascinating as we did.

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How crazy but wonderful that we’ve made it to Easter already, I hope you’re all looking forward to a long weekend and have some play to yay scheduled in. This week I’ve got the second guest who was originally scheduled in for International Women’s Day who is an incredibly inspiring and powerful woman and who you’ll very soon hear is well worth the wait.

If you’ve been listening long enough to know a bit about how my brain works, you’ll probably notice as quickly as I did how similarly Rey Vakili and I think, with many parallels earlier on in our story like starting studies in law to gratify our inner nerd. Rey, however, went off on an equally non-linear but completely different pathway that in a parallel universe would be my absolute dream life. I’ll let her tell you most of it herself particularly because it’s her VERY FIRST PODCAST, so It’s my privilege to bring you her fascinating story for the first time. But let’s just say, she’s an Ivy League Graduate from Yale University, worked in the International Criminal Court for Sierra Leone, has an MBA from Stanford, worked as ANNA WINTOUR'S ASSISTANT (the Editor in Chief of Vogue) living The Devil Wears Prada in real life, moved from NYC into start ups in London and has now moved back home but she’s just getting started.

Buckle in for a serious dose of inspiration!

Note: Rey's headphone batteries die at about 13 minutes in so the sound changes (but actually improves) for the rest of the episode.

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Some birthday reflections on why ageing should be celebrated, not lamented as well as a celebration of the 90th year of the Good Friday Appeal. As we approach Easter, I thought it would be the perfect time to share some deeper insights into how it started, how it's grown over the past 90 years and the incredible impact it has had on children and their families visiting the Royal Children's Hospital.

The Good Friday Appeal has raised close to $400 million since it began funding research projects like the Children's Cancer Centre Tissue Bank and Brain Tumour Clinical Trials, equipment like the Neurosurgery microscope and infant warmers for critical care and patient and family centred care focusing not only on physical but also mental health. The Royal Children's Hospital remains one of the top paediatric hospitals in the world.

>> CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE AND DONATE <<

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I’m so excited to share one of the women whose praises I could sing over and over who was originally lined up for International Women's Day for the incredible impact she has had on my journey through many different chapters. Dr Alexandra Phelan was a few years ahead of me at Monash University and, as you’ll hear, has a very similar personality combination of "nerdburger vs arty farty" with a splash of languages and also started her career at the same law firm as I did which was one of the reasons I wanted to work there in the first place.

While we both ultimately left corporate law. Alex is a glowing example of how you can stay within the law and find a niche that suits your strengths and interests and she has gone on to become a seriously impressive Member of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University School of Medicine, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Her Honours AND Doctoral theses both focused on International Law and the prevention of infectious diseases (including the possibility of measures like quarantine and border closures before they became as relevant as we know them to be), which has made her a leading global authority on health security and INCREDIBLY relevant to the world’s response to COVID-19.

Alex is infinitely impressive, painfully humble and continues to inspire me every day - I’m so honoured she made time to join the show from Washington DC. She shares some fascinating insights on the more technical side to the challenge of a global pandemic like COVID-19 with her intellect and empathy shining through.

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I'm SO excited about this week's instalment of Yays of our Lives because I finally got on the road and headed to West Gippsland to record Yayborhood Watch IN PERSON. It's been so delightful heading back out into the real world to discover new yayborhoods, stories and unsung heroes and this trip was such an amazing place to start.

I could have sat down with every single person we met, they were all so interesting and wise in different ways - hence this week's quote of the yay, as you'll hear. Probably lucky I didn't though as we already reached an hour just with the four LEGENDS I was able to record with and we barely touched the surface. These four amazing Gippslandians inspired me in such different and profound ways. To find out more about them:

• Find Joy here
• Find Brodie here
• Find Etch Sparkling here
• Find Gippsland Jersey here

>> WATCH THE VIDEO OF OUR TRIP <<

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Back with another wonderful guest today – I’ve pushed this week’s Yays of our Lives episode back a little bit until the Gippsland video is ready to help you put faces to names, so that’ll be out next week. Content warning: this episode covers family violence.

This week, I was lucky enough to sit down with Rosie Batty, 2015 Australian of the Year and passionate campaigner against domestic violence during a week where the alarming statistics surrounding violence against women have been brought back to the forefront of our attention. Rosie has turned the unfathomable personal tragedy of losing her son Luke who was murdered by his father in 2014 into a relentless fight to raise awareness of family violence and address the systemic and many other obstacles to positive change. The topic is a little heavier than usual, but I believe it’s such an important conversation to continue in order to amplify the fact that one woman a week is still killed by her partner or former partner. Rosie also has such powerful insights on rediscovering joy through the paralysis of grief, unravelling her identity from trauma which is not the totality of who she is and I loved also having the chance to get to know about the parts of her story that I hadn’t heard about in the media.

Rosie is also an ambassador for L'Oréal Paris' new Women of Worth campaign and we also chat about some of L'Oréal's amazing Self-Worth Commissioned Research about the pervasive and destructive nature of self doubt and low self esteem among women. If anyone will inspire us all to combat the self doubt and continue to raise each other up, it’s Rosie. I hope you are as moved by her as I was.

If you need any support or resources, please don't hesitate to contact the WHITE RIBBON HOTLINE on 1800RESPECT.

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Re-releasing this beauty to celebrate the launch of Embrace on Netflix on March 5th!!! Three women who represent IWD to me had to postpone their recordings, but Taryn also inspires me everyday to embrace my womanhood so if you missed this back in 2019, what a perfect week to catch up

Today’s guest is one of the people I admire most in this world who is the fiercely passionate thought leader behind The Body Image Movement and whose first film, the documentary Embrace, has reached over 100 million people with her message about learning to love your body. Taryn Brumfitt broke the internet in 2013 with an unconventional before and after photo where the after shot was heavier and HAPPIER than the leaner before shot taken during a body building competition when she was more restrictive, less balanced and less happy.

After going viral all over the world and receiving over 7000 messages from women struggling with body confidence, she wrote a book and crowdfunded an incredible documentary, Embrace, that is set to become Australia’s highest grossing documentary ever. She is now in the process of raising money for the second film, Embrace Kids, and I couldn’t be more excited for the positive impact and contribution it will make to a comparative, competitive and sometimes overwhelming world that our children will grow up in. Not only is she making serious waves in the world, she also loves to play and doesn’t take life too seriously which I LOVE about her and the cackles are next level – hope you smile as much as I did during our chat!!!

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Our fifth instalment of Yays of our Lives reflecting on collaboration over competition in honour of International Women's Day.

As mentioned in Yayborhood Watch:

• Find Tobi Tobi here
• Find Lost In Love Photography here
• Find Moon and Back Co here

>> COMPLETE THE SURV-YAY IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY <<

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