Seize the Yay

If I thought I’d experienced pinch me moments before, recording this episode redefined that concept for me. Not only was I lucky enough to spend a week on Necker Island with the incredible Business Chicks team, a bunch of other amazing women and Sir Richard himself (who you will know threw me a pretty outrageous bachelorette party), I got the chance to hear from and then sit down with the inimitable Laura Brown.

There aren’t really words to describe this woman - Laura is an absolute force to be reckoned with making her way from a NSW dairy farm to Manhattan to take over the reigns of one of America’s biggest and most influential titles as Editor in Chief of InStyle magazine. She is truly one in a million with her vibrance, grandeur (or delusions thereof as she likes to say) and creative vision but also her humility, sense of humour and the inner Sheila that the US is unable to beat out of her.

Despite a network that encouraged even Sir Richard to jest at her name dropping and the ability to rub shoulders with the world’s elite with ease, Laura is also incredibly easy to get along with and more down to earth than you’d expect as are most of our guests – I know I sometimes sound like a broken record but it’s something that stands out so much for me. We jump all over the place in this chat while enjoying the soothing sounds of the Caribbean ocean that we left in for your enjoyment, so there’s lots of random chatter and giggles but her crazy brain is why I love this woman so much – hope you love her too!

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Today’s guest is possibly the only other person who talks as fast as I like to talk so don’t worry about popping this chat on double speed. Priscilla Hajiantoni is the founder of hugely successful business, Bangn Body, known for its hero debut product Yellow Tube of Goodness but with several more exciting launches on the way. It’s one of those lovely full circle situations where I’d been stoked to read interviews with Priscilla where she names Seize the Yay as one of her favourite podcasts and then, months later we sat down to record her episode. In another wonderfully non-linear example of way to yay, Priscilla worked in hair and beauty, high end accounting and then business management before her business idea was even on the horizon but has taken to business like she’s never known anything else. Bangn Body exploded onto the scene closing a gap in the market for skincare for those with acne prone, inflamed or otherwise troubled skin and the results have been outstanding.

This was recorded a few weeks before we got married so excuse the time specific giggles. Hope you enjoy this little ray of sunshine!

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Welcome to November beautiful people, this year has just flown by I can’t believe we’re already thinking about Christmas! Still on a total wedding high and getting used to the new name - we’re actually in Byron Bay this week for our mini moon so it seemed the perfect week to release this episode with Mullumbimby girl, Renée Bargh. I was lucky enough to record this one in Renée’s beautiful home in Venice Beach when I was in LA on the way to Necker Island a few weeks ago and she had literally just come out of the ocean, what an absolute goddess. Despite an incredibly successful career over in the US, she remains a down to earth, Aussie beach baby whose family and friends mean more to her than anything.

Having always lived for the performing arts, presenting was not Renée’s first or even second love. After studying at Brent Street, Renée first set her sights on a career in dancing but then got picked up by Sony as part of a girl band (very originally called Girlband). It was a happy accident that got her into presenting with National Bingo Night on Seven then Surfari on Channel 9, followed by Channel V which then led her to her current position in LA as host on Extra TV alongside co host Mario Lopez and this is her ninth year on the job. Holding her own in Hollywood on the most fancy of red carpets, Renée’s charm and talents have won her TWO Emmy awards that you’ll hear I made her whip out during our chat. She speaks candidly about making it, homesickness and finding balance and I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

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We’ve chatted across a couple of episodes now about therapy and psychologists and I’ve had so many people mention how positive this was for them to have mental health normalised and discussed more openly. You may know I regularly see a psychologist and have for years now, and while I didn’t think it was quite appropriate to have my own therapist on the show, one of our beautiful long time followers and listeners Amy Kate Isaacs very kindly stepped in for a chat AND flew in to Melbourne from Brisbane for the occasion – what an absolute legend (you can clearly tell we're in Melbourne from the background tram noises - soz!)

Amy Kate took the long academic road to psychology practice finishing with her Master’s degree and is now a Developmental psychologist and founder of the Mindful Collective. She uniquely combines the technical science of psychology with the increasingly important notions of mindfulness and lifestyle factors in promoting good mental wellbeing. I loved exploring both the vocational depths of studying the mind with her but also finding out the many different parts of her journey from being a school chaplain to now practising with a THERAPY DOG, Evie. I’m so grateful that she also openly shared her personal experiences with therapy following two sexual assaults to help open up discussions that we haven’t yet covered on the show and to show that finding your yay can sometimes involve the darkest obstacles but that the right help and support can put you back on a path of lightness and joy.

SIDE NOTE: Amy Kate has just announced that she is opening up her very own The Mindful Collective studio in Paddington in November!!!!! HOW EXCITING!!!! Stay tuned!

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Only one sleep to go until we tie the knot!!!

Thank you all so much for submitting your questions and for getting so excited with us, we did our best to answer most of them and had a great giggle along the way.

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This guest is one of my favourite human beings who I’ve known since way back in our school days! You’re in for a solid hour or so of hysterical laughter - I was laughing out loud on the plane editing this, it is FULL of yay. There are many reasons why you might have heard of the beautiful Olympia Valance – her sister Holly, her four years on the iconic Neighbours, her incredible talents on Dancing with the Stars… but today we’re celebrating season two of PLAYING FOR KEEPS that starts TONIGHT (Oct 16th) on Channel 10 at 8:30pm. The first season kept us on the edge of our seats with the drama, affairs, and heartbreak of the wives and girlfriends of the fictional Southern Jets AFL club in Melbourne and, as you’ll hear Olympia spill, the next season is bigger and better than ever.

After earning her stripes as girl-next-door Paige on Neighbours, Olympia absolutely nails her new role as the fiercely powerful, incredibly bitchy but, as time goes on, vulnerable Thalia – wife of the Captain of the team. I won’t bang on too much because this episode is longer than usual, but it was one of the most enjoyable hours I’ve spent finding out more about creating roles, her life outside of acting, the woes of having hobbit feet and everything in between.

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Hello beautiful people. You’ve probably noticed that this year has involved a big conversion from non-runner to running lover and I’ve had a lot of questions from fellow curious but reluctant runners about getting started and building up to finding the joy in running. So, I figured I’d turn to one of the experts to help out who also has a super interesting way to yay and is our first Kiwi on the show!

I met the lovely Lydia O’Donnell through the Nike family just after she had WON the Surf Coast marathon. As well as being an elite marathon runner, she’s also a running coach AND qualified geologist of all things! As you’ll hear, one of the things I love about her is that while her elite level might seem very serious and intimidating (and she might have treated it that way at times), she ultimately came back to running purely for joy and for her mental health and she’s even founded her own running community, One Step is All It Takes, to raise awareness of the benefits of running and movement for anxiety and depression. We had such a fun chat in the Joyride lab at Nike HQ in Melbourne and she also shared some of her practical coaching wisdom to help us all get out and pound that pavement – hope you enjoy!

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We’ve had a truly amazing 2019 so far and I didn’t think things could really ramp up much more, but the past few weeks have been a blur of excitement and I can’t quite believe where this episode is being published from. For the coming week, I’ll be on Necker Island in the Caribbean with Sir Richard Branson and twenty other amazing business women facilitated by the incredible team at Business Chicks. I won’t start gushing or I’ll take up the whole intro, but I don’t think you could seize more yay than that so I’m sure I’ll be bombarding you in no time.

If you haven’t heard the Business Chicks story you can head back to founder Emma Isaacs’ episode to catch up and we’ve had several other wonderful members of the Business Chicks community on the show. Today’s is another one of those who I’ve been so excited about, as it’s our first medical professional to join for a chat. Yep, the wonderful Dr Nikki Stamp is our guest for this episode, one of Australia’s 11 cardiothoracic surgeons. Originally from Perth with dreams of being a performer, her father encouraged her to first complete a degree during which she fell in love with medicine and never looked back. Having completed the gruelling years of training to become a surgeon she is now not only saving lives on the daily but has also just released her second book the day we recorded a few weeks ago, Pretty Unhealthy, is a public speaker, mentor and passionate supporter of women in medicine. I’m a bit squeamish so couldn’t have hacked it in medicine but still have SO much curiosity about it as you’ll hear very clearly, and I hope you find it as fascinating as I did to hear about life as a surgeon.

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I know it’s a little late this week, so please excuse my travel brain - I released the wrong episode then didn’t have this one ready but it’s here and you’ll probably get another very shortly. I pinch myself during most Seize the Yay chats, but this one in particular felt like a beautiful full circle I never thought was possible. I’ve been a customer of Endota Spa for so many years now (since as far back as uni) but especially during my legal career when it was my absolute saviour and could never have dreamed I’d be sitting down with founder Melanie Gleeson at Endota HQ for a gasbag.

Self-care didn’t come as naturally to me back then but an hour at Endota Spa would bring me back to life and my monthly Endota visit has endured to this day. It’s such a beautiful haven that started on the Mornington Peninsula when Melanie was just 26 and has now grown to a multimillion dollar network with over 100 locations and 1000 staff. It was a such a pleasure to hear about Mel’s way to yay from an exchange to Scotland, a career in theatrical hair and make-up before founding what was one of the very first day spas in Melbourne well before it was trendy. It’s also probably one of my favourite play to yay chats too where we discover some mutual quirky interests and spend the rest of the episode in hysterics. Hope you enjoy!

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I’ve been so excited to put this episode out into the world since we recorded it a few weeks ago. If there wasn't already enough yay going on up until this point, we were lucky enough to head to Adelaide to record this one on location at Adelaide Zoo!!! Nic and I are both absolutely obsessed with animals and one of the jobs I’ve been super keen to showcase on the show is zoo-keeping, so I’m delighted to have Senior Zookeeper Michelle Birkett on the show to confirm that it is in fact the best job ever. And we didn’t just to get to record our chat, we spent a full day exploring and meeting the beautiful animals at the zoo beforehand.

I loved meeting Michelle not only because she adores what she does, but also because it’s been something she’s wanted to do since she was younger and kept at it despite everyone telling her she’d “eventually grow out of it”. She’s also one of the first people we’ve had on who doesn’t struggle as much with the productivity pressure and relentless achievement conveyer belt that we’ve talked about a lot in prior episodes. It’s so refreshing to hear her perspective on ambition and how that doesn’t always have to go upwards. I also loved that she still squeezed in some time overseas and lots of different jobs along the way but nothing swayed her away from life at the zoo. Hope she lights you up as much as she did us!

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