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Sarah Davidson ~ Finding your YAY ~ Comparison ~ Imposter Syndrome ~ Growth
5.3k Plays3 years ago
Welcome to Pass Around the Smile’s first guest episode with the one and only, Sarah Davidson. You may know her as Spoonful of Sarah, or the woman behind Seize the Yay where through her podcast and book she effortlessly guides and inspires with uplifting, honest and thought provoking content. Sarah is witty, intelligent, and from my eyes, one of the most inspiring business women in Australia who went from the corporate world as a lawyer, to funtrepreneur when she founded Matcha Maiden and Matcha Mylkbar.
I received a very supportive and encouraging email from Sarah at the beginning of my podcasting journey, so I thought what better way to begin this episode than chatting about her quote, ‘success doesn’t halve when you share it, it doubles.’
We dive into Sarah’s leap from what was expected to be her long term career as a lawyer to the unknowns of starting a business - with all the fears, blocks and limiting beliefs which came along the way. Sarah has a really refreshing approach as we discuss comparison and imposter syndrome and how we can combat it, so it doesn’t take away our inner power.
We finish the episode chatting about growth and how we just don’t know when the seeds we are planting will bloom! Your hard work WILL pay off in the way that is right for you and your unique path.
Sarah’s links below:
View Sarah's website here!
Find Sarah on Instagram here!
@seize_the_yay
@spoonful_of_sarah
Cleo's links below:
View my website here! (My very own oracle cards, journals, meditations + more magical stuff available!)
Find me on Instagram here!
@passaroundthesmile
@cleomassey
The Pass Around the Smile podcast is recorded on Bundjalung Country, in South East Queensland, Australia. We acknowledge the Yugambeh people of the Bundjalung Nation, the traditional owners of this land. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
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Transcript
Introduction to Pass Around the Smile
00:00:00
Speaker
Pass Around the Smile is like your go-to friend, the one that lifts you up and backs you to the end. She's there to guide and inspire, challenge and teach, and remind you that your best self isn't out of reach. Self-development, manifestation, self-love and more, it's time to trust the process more than ever before. Welcome to Pass Around the Smile, the podcast. I'm your host, Cleo Massey, and I am so glad you're here. Let the magic begin.
00:00:29
Speaker
I'm so excited to introduce you to the incredible Sarah Davidson, who is a true inspiration to me. You may know her as Spoonful of Sarah or The Woman Behind Sees The Yay, where through her podcast and book, she effortlessly guides and inspires with uplifting, honest, and thought-provoking content.
00:00:47
Speaker
Sarah is witty, intelligent, and from my eyes, one of the most inspiring business women in Australia, who went from the corporate world as a lawyer to Funtrapinua, when she founded Match-A-Maiden and Match-A-Milk Bar. Now, I wouldn't normally mention Instagrams in an intro, however, in a world where we are constantly scrolling, I encourage you to scroll accounts that make you feel good.
00:01:10
Speaker
Sarah's Instagram page sees the yay is just that. Her posts are real, positive, inspiring, and there's heaps of dog content, which is obviously really important. She's a speaker, a best-selling author, a podcasting queen, a presenter on Channel 7. She is Sarah Davidson, and every day she is seizing her yay.
00:01:32
Speaker
Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Pass Around the Smile podcast. You are my first guest and I am just absolutely over the moon to have you. It is such a big honor. I'm so excited for you. So excited for you to enter podcast land and really, really feel very special that you chose me to start off the show. So thank you.
00:01:53
Speaker
Oh, you are amazing. Now, if it's okay with you, I'm really wanting to kind of base this podcast around your book, Seize the Yay, because I've just finished it for a second time and I'm just so excited to elaborate on so many of the things you so beautifully write about. So how do you feel about that? Is that okay?
Exploring 'Seize The Yay' with Sarah Davidson
00:02:15
Speaker
You are just far too kind. I cannot believe that you've read it twice. I'm not even sure.
00:02:22
Speaker
My family have read it combined that many times. So that would be the greatest pleasure. I think, as you know, it came out during stage four lockdown. And because I kind of didn't see it in the wild in the normal way that you normally would when you first publish a book, I don't still believe that it's real. Like so when people have actually read it.
00:02:45
Speaker
It's such a novelty. It still feels so special and strange and weird and surreal. So I would love to talk about it. Oh, I'm so happy and it is real and it's incredible. Um, so yeah, I'm so excited to get into that. But before we get into your book, I want to bring up a quote and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that you wrote this quote and it's the title of one of your podcasts and it's success doesn't have when you share it, it doubles.
00:03:16
Speaker
I do not believe that I found anywhere else that that's been quoted. I think that I invented it, but I'm open to the internet correcting me because usually it will correct you when you claim that something is yours. I think I invented it in my brain and it remains one of my most guiding principles that helps me decide when to collaborate, how to collaborate, how to make decisions. And I think we often,
00:03:46
Speaker
default to a place of competitiveness and especially as women, we fought so hard for equality and equity and sometimes think there's a limited amount of places for us all and can get very, not combative, but just competitive, just by nature. And I think it doesn't really get you very far if we all feel like we're one against each other rather than combining and sharing, and then we all lift each other up and everyone ends up getting further.
00:04:13
Speaker
Oh, I could not agree more. And it's one thing to say what you just said. The reason I wanted to bring up this quote is because you embody it. Like it really does encompass you as a person. And I can say this with confidence. So for my listeners, I reached out to Sarah about a month ago, not only to ask her to come on my podcast as my first guest, and my podcast wasn't even a thing yet.
00:04:38
Speaker
But also to kind of get Sarah's blessing somewhat, because if you've listened to Sarah's podcast, Seize the Year, you'll know that she
00:04:46
Speaker
starts her podcast with a catchy, cute, witty little poem. And I am just obsessed with it and have been for years. And I always thought if I am ever brave enough to start my own podcast, I would love to start it with a poem, but I didn't want to just do it out of respect to you. I wanted to get your blessing as I guess a fellow Australian podcaster now. And Sarah, your reply
00:05:12
Speaker
was just so encouraging and supportive and you really were happy to share your success with me. I was so taken aback that you were so lovely and checked and as if like I own jingles at the start of podcast it was so lovely of you but even just how how carefully you wanted to make sure that no one misinterpreted that that's what you were doing was so lovely so I was just
00:05:39
Speaker
Like at every stage, I think there's nothing more flattering and lovely than when someone approaches you to come on their show, but then they're so attentive to all the things that you actually do or have done. Like one of the things that Cleo mentioned was that as her first guest, I am the Rachel Finch to me. I'm going to mess you up. I am to her how Rachel Finch was to me and the way that she even knows what Rachel Finch was to me at the start of CZA, which is now four years ago, more than four years ago.
Career Shift: From Law to Matcha Maiden
00:06:10
Speaker
The research you must have done or the attention you must have paid to my journey to know that is just very, very special. So you are already doing wonderful things with your podcast and passing around the smiles because that definitely made me smile. Oh, God. That means so much from you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, for my listeners, I guess, who maybe don't know you, do you want to give us a little introduction into who you are? I mean, especially around that kind of big
00:06:40
Speaker
scary leap from the world of being a lawyer into the unknowns of starting a business. Yeah, for sure. As you well know, I'm not very good at telling a short story, so please interrupt me if I get too long winded. No, we have time. So I started off, as you mentioned, on a very conventional career path as a corporate lawyer and ended up
00:07:04
Speaker
having a kind of big unexpected sliding doors moment that changed my pathway dramatically and for now, anyway, quite permanently in a wonderful, wonderful way. But I guess the best way to start the story is to go all the way back to the beginning. So I was born in South Korea originally and adopted into an orphanage in South Korea and adopted by an incredible Australian family when I was six months old and then have since grown up in Australia. And I think that
00:07:32
Speaker
very early beginning has meant a lifelong, it's meant two things. Firstly, it's meant a lifelong belief in sliding doors moments and the magic of the fact that there could be something around the corner that you have no idea about that will change your life that maybe you didn't even deserve. I was like a blob at the time, so I didn't deserve to be given another life or a better chance, but yeah.
00:07:54
Speaker
But for one small thing or one small action by someone else or by not necessarily a person, just things that happen in life, things could be very different. So I've always been fascinated by how to bring on sliding doors moments. And then the other thing that it's really left me with is this really acute sense of gratitude for growing up in what I think is the luckiest country in the world and all the amazing opportunities that we have here. So that's made me a very eager beaver. I've always loved
00:08:20
Speaker
to do everything and anything. I'm not very good at going slowly. I kind of describe myself as equal parts nerd burger and arty-farty. So I've always loved the academic side of school. I cried on day one of prep when I didn't get homework, but I also was like putting on concerts for my entire street and dressing up and writing songs and being really arty-farty as well. And I now think looking back that being multi-interested and multi-passionate makes for a really amazing life and so much
00:08:49
Speaker
broad experience along the way. But it also makes it really hard to make decisions because you're often not that person who grows up and thinks, I know what I want to be. This is the logical steps to get there. It means you want to be lots of different things. And that can be kind of overwhelming because really all we want to find is our purpose in life and where we're meant to be. And it's really hard when you like lots of different things. So there's not one clear passion. So I went through all of school, all of uni in that kind of headspace of
00:09:18
Speaker
I still don't really know what I want to do, so I'll just do a bit of everything and kind of keep more doors open rather than close them. And my mum always said, if you don't know what you want to do, you might as well do something because the time is going to pass anyway. So why don't you do things that open your mind or open your world and opportunities rather than things that will close them? And that that served me pretty well. Now that I've left law, I often get asked, like,
00:09:41
Speaker
do you regret choosing law and then do you regret choosing to leave it? And in both situations, I actually don't think I chose. I think I ended up there quite by accident. And I think that's kind of now why I'm so fascinated in how people end up where they are, because I think I got to the end of school. I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I happened to get really good marks and I was like, well, you know, I'm not going to waste a mark. What's the maximum thing that I could do? And I,
00:10:09
Speaker
I hate blood, so I couldn't do medicine. And the only, like in my brain at the time, the only logical other choice for me was law. So it was like by accident that I got on this, you know, kind of conveyor belt of like, what's the next logical thing that I should do? And I chose that because it was sensible and cause it was prestigious and cause I got in and cause I should, if I could get in, I should go, you know, so much was dictating should.
00:10:33
Speaker
Which doesn't mean that I had a bad time. I loved studying law. I did law arts. I did lots of languages. I got to travel, but ended up at the end of uni still not really knowing what that meant or what I should do. So again, I was like, well, everyone else who's finished law is applying for law firm. So I should probably do that too. Cause like, what else am I going to do? Um, again, worked really hard not knowing what for, but ended up thinking, well, I might as well try and get into a good law firm to start my career and then figuring out as I go along.
00:11:03
Speaker
I loved it. I actually really was gratified by how much learning opportunity there was. I was surrounded by the smartest people I've ever met. I got to travel. I worked in Hong Kong for a year. I got to pretend like my life looked like suits and wear like fancy cute dresses and like, you know, it was Meghan Markle and the suits dream, even though very, very small amounts would actually look like that. And I was one of those people who,
00:11:28
Speaker
It ticked a lot of boxes. It was financially stable. There was a really clear ladder to climb. That's kind of satisfying when you're an A-type personality. Um, and I still had so much learning to do. So I was never one of those people who left cause I hated it. I actually did find the long hours when the project was really exciting. And now I think I don't worry about people who are actively unhappy. Cause if you're really unhappy, it'll get so bad that you'll make a decision to change it. If you're just fine or you're good, even.
00:11:55
Speaker
often you don't think of anything else. Cause you're like, I'm so, especially if you're grateful, you're like, I'm so grateful. Why would I look for anything else?
Success vs. Happiness: A Personal Reflection
00:12:02
Speaker
Cause I've already got something good and we feel ungrateful to want something else, but you can be grateful and want something else at the same time. Oh, absolutely. I feel that that is, yeah, well said. Which is difficult because then you don't want to be like an ungrateful millennial who's gets bored too easily and wants more, more, more all the time. But you also don't want to settle in something and end up there for 50 years and then think, Oh my God, I've wasted so much time.
00:12:25
Speaker
And I could have been doing something that was better. So I never would have left. I would have been on that productivity conveyor belt, I think, and finding ways to enjoy and learn. But the universe had wonderful other plans as it turned out. And I went, again, I'm so sorry. This is not a short story. No, it's good. So many words of wisdom in between. I love it. My now husband is the opposite of me. He's never had a job. He likes to say he's always been an entrepreneur and his company
00:12:54
Speaker
He's a creative agency and he'd supported an incredible campaign with the YGAP, the Youth Generation Against Poverty. And we went on a sponsor's trip to Rwanda in my first year of law and spent a month in a small rural town in the Mahanga district. And it was as transformative as you can imagine, but not in the ways that I expected. So I thought being born in an orphanage in particular, that I would feel overwhelmingly grateful for everything we have in Australia, which of course is one
00:13:24
Speaker
intellectual response that I had. But the biggest surprise was I saw people and communities that had no markers of success in the way I understood success. So, you know, financial growth, promotions, titles, status, all those things that I'd come to value or come to use as metrics for my life. They didn't have those things. And yet they were maybe happier or at least happier in a less burdened way.
00:13:53
Speaker
then everyone back home. And that was so confusing. Cause I was like, wait, I thought success is happiness. Like what is going on here? So that was the first time I separated success from happiness. They're related, but they're not the same thing. And then the second thing I brought home was a gut parasite, which was really fun when I lost five kilos, but when I lost another 10 and then couldn't get up and then collapsed at work and ended up with adrenal fatigue, it ended up not being a very fun time, but in the process of recovering,
00:14:23
Speaker
I was banned from coffee. I got sent to Hong Kong with the law firm after I went back to work, discovered matcha green tea powder, realized it's an amazing substitute. It's still caffeinated, but a lot gentler on the body. Nick and I couldn't find it when we came home to Australia. We bought some. It was two million serves too many for two of us to drink or be used by date. So we thought as a hobby, we'll sell some and accidentally started a business, which then started off the entire seven years that's happened since then.
00:14:52
Speaker
The universe really does work in mysterious ways, doesn't it? Wild. Wild. Oh my gosh. So before we move on to the next seven years, I guess, I want to chat a little bit more about what you were saying, success versus happiness. Talk a little bit more about that and yeah, how you kind of see it.
00:15:16
Speaker
I think I spent a lot of my earlier years really conflating the two and thinking like, if I just get these things that are successful, if I get really good marks, then I get into a really good job or into a good unicourse and then into a good job, that that wouldn't make me happy. Or that it's what happiness looked like. And of course, I mean, having a stable income, having great opportunities to learn, great mentors, that helps with happiness.
00:15:44
Speaker
But the mistake that I think I made and a lot of people make is you think that's all you need to do for happiness. Like that will fill all of your cups and you'll be great and have a great life. But I mean, all you need to do is look at Hollywood where they have more money than they can ever use in a lifetime. And often are tormented and, you know, there's so many drugs that like, you know, it's just it's a clear example that that's not the only part of the equation.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Africa was really the first time of me thinking maybe they are related, but maybe I need to work on like being fulfilled in what I do. Maybe happiness is money helps happiness, but it's not the only part of your identity that can make you happy. Maybe there's like legacy. Maybe there are hobbies. Maybe there's a reason why people have hobbies that aren't money earning that aren't financially measured. Like I just had never really allowed myself to ask.
00:16:36
Speaker
Is this the thing that really lights me up? Am I like so excited about it? And again, I think one of the things that's changed a lot in the last couple of years for me is I don't mean you have to be happy in your job all the time. That's the mistake I think a lot of us make too far in the other direction that we think, oh, if I'm not happy all the time, then I shouldn't be in this job. That's not the case. Work is called work for a reason. And generations before us would laugh at us millennials all being like, I quit my job because I wasn't stimulated. Like it just was a little bit boring.
00:17:06
Speaker
It's a job. You've got bills. There's a part of work that is not always going to be 100% happy and joyful and the best thing that you want to be doing all the time. But that doesn't mean that you're meant to have no joy in it or no stimulation or no fulfillment, or that you can't at least choose among many different pathways. You can choose the one that suits you the best. Maybe you're not suited to a corporate job, or maybe you are really suited to a corporate job, so maybe business isn't the right thing for you. I just think that
00:17:35
Speaker
My relationship between success and happiness has been once upon a time, success and financial driven metrics drove all my decisions and happiness was like a side effect that I kind of measure every now and then and be like, yeah, but I wouldn't really even think about it. I just thought I was happy because I got the promotion like tick, but we're happy enough. Now I'm like, actually, if you make more decisions based on
00:18:01
Speaker
what suits your particular skills, your particular interests, your particular passions. Your pathway isn't meant to look like anyone else's, whether it's considered successful or not. We're all meant to do different things and there are pathways that suit you better and pathways that don't. And if you veer a little bit more towards what lights you up and what you're really good at, you'll usually be better at it because you're more excited about it, but also
00:18:26
Speaker
the success kind of comes naturally when you're choosing things that you're really excited about and that you're good at. And then you're also happy. Like you're also having a really good life. You don't look back in 50 years and have a midlife crisis. Cause you think, yeah, I've got all, all this money, but I never had experiences or I spent every day not wanting to go to work and hating it. Like it doesn't have to be like that. No. Yeah. And then it's a win-win really. When you look at it that way, I think I really liked what you said as well. Um,
00:18:55
Speaker
how you were kind of looking at external things to somewhat complete you. And I think we're all a bit guilty of that, of putting conditions on our happiness. Like I will be happy when I reach this amount of kilograms. I will be confident when I have this much in my bank account, but happiness isn't external, it's internal. And I think I can relate to you as well with being happy
00:19:22
Speaker
enough being happy enough. Like I thought being happy enough was enough, but it's not. And yeah, like we're not saying to people you have to be 1 million percent every day happy and fulfilled. That's not attainable, but happy enough is not enough. Like I was happy enough for so many years in the acting industry because I thought that's what I was meant to do.
00:19:42
Speaker
And I was continually just getting smacked in the face and it was awful. But I was thinking, no, this is what I need to do to get where I need to be. And that wasn't the case at all. Yeah, it's really interesting, though, because I like I won't put words in your mouth, but I also think that.
00:20:01
Speaker
Happiness is, I have always looked at it until recently as like this destination that I'm supposed to arrive at. And then I did that. I left corporate. I did the thing. I took the leap of faith and I jumped towards happiness. But then I thought I was at the destination. So I was like, oh, pat myself on the back. I've left the comfort zone. I'm never going to have to leave the comfort zone again, because I'm at the destination of happiness. You've arrived. I've arrived. But then what happens is
00:20:29
Speaker
you settle and you become comfortable in that new level and you're like, wait, what's wrong with
Growth and Learning from Past Experiences
00:20:33
Speaker
me? I'm at happiness and I still want more. Like what's wrong with me? I'm at happiness. I've reached the peak. Destination. That's the point. If we all had this one static point of happiness and then we arrived at it and we arrived at it early in our life, like what the fuck are you going to do for the rest of your life? Exactly. It is the journey. And the point of it is that I used to see happiness as like,
00:20:55
Speaker
this static image, like this picture, you arrive there, you frame it at that point in time, it stays on your wall forever and you never have to do anything again. That's what I thought I was writing on. I was like, I'm an entrepreneur, like I'm amazing. But then I realized it's not, it's a jigsaw puzzle. It's always evolving. You are adding pieces that you were missing and you're getting rid of pieces that you don't need anymore. And every new chapter and experience
00:21:19
Speaker
you're like adjusting it constantly because what you want and what's happiness at 30 is not the same at 40 or 50. And what you wanted at 20 is definitely not the same as what you want at 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70. And so I also think that that often makes us think that if you did an acting career and then you left that that was a waste of time, but I don't think so at all. It was just a different jigsaw puzzle. It was just a chapter for that time without which you couldn't be where you are now.
00:21:45
Speaker
So no, absolutely. It's, and it is empowering to look at it that way because there were a hundred percent where times where I was like, this was all a waste, but I would not have started passing around the smile if it wasn't for the negativity I faced in the film and television industry. So thank you. It makes you who you are. Like every, nothing is a waste if you learn something from it. And even if what you learn is what you don't want to do, that's a lot more information than some people have. Some people don't know what they do or don't want to do. So.
00:22:14
Speaker
Really, if you're getting more of your jigsaw puzzle figured out, you don't need to see anything as a waste, which I think actually it's a choice of how you see what the stages of your life mean. But I prefer not to have kind of regrets or, or not to think that I've learned from every chapter and to believe that every stepping stone led me to where I am. And that's, it helps you a lot. I think be happy with where you are and understand that if you're not yet where you want to be.
00:22:41
Speaker
That's okay. You're just on the staircase. You're getting there. Like each thing is getting you closer. Oh, it's, I love listening to you speak. You're amazing. It would take start to take us through the next seven years now. Okay. So we started the business by accident very much as a hobby on the side. And this is a bit that gets me so excited because I think you really believe when you're on the outside, like just before we started the business, looking at other businesses from, from the outside.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's so easy to glamorize everything to like believe that, you know, no one else could, how could anyone start a business like this? So scary and overwhelming and big and glossy and amazing. But really we were like packing in our undies, you know, friends, commercial kitchen with shower caps on because we were just so DIY. We bought everything off eBay or Alibaba. Like we Googled everything. It is so DIY. It is so much easier. Like honestly.
00:23:38
Speaker
I now say to everyone, the doing of the hard stuff, whether it's to start a business, whether it's to apply for a promotion, whatever that scary next thing is for you, it's never the doing that topples anybody. The actual doing of the task, someone could just make you a list and you could just do the stuff. You could Google how to start a business, how to register an ABN, how to buy stock, what to put the stock in. Like you can do all that. It's the main game of like, what if I fail? What if I look silly? What if it doesn't work? Oh my God, it's all the mental chatter.
00:24:08
Speaker
looking back at how we actually started, I'm still flabbergasted that that's, that's all we had to do was just start packing the stuff. We already bought the stuff. We were stuck with it. And maybe because we weren't taking it seriously, we didn't have as much self doubt. Cause we were like, no one even knows it's us. Like this kind of fun. It kind of helped that naivety kind of helped us get started. So you like surrendering without even trying. Yeah, it kind of was like the perfect recipe cause we had no really no
00:24:36
Speaker
No risk, like we'd already bought the product. We had to get rid of it somehow. Anything was a bonus. And now I kind of try and replicate that approach. If I can just sell one bag, or if I could just do one episode, or if I could just do one, you know, get one customer, that's all you ever need to deal with. Because before you get a hundred, you need one. Before you, if you can, you need one. So just get the gear to like, to do one, and then you can figure the rest out as you go. So it was very DIY at the start, total Breaking Bad, but green.
00:25:07
Speaker
And that lasted a really long time. The whole DIY set up. I was working full-time and going home and doing like in my lunch breaks and then we'd pack until midnight and it was crazy. But we sold out in a week because it turned out, I often say someone out there is looking for exactly what you have and you just have to trust that there is someone out there looking. They're like thousands of people looking. And people always tell their story with too much attributed to luck, but we were genuinely very lucky that Matcha was known
00:25:37
Speaker
The Kardashians were drinking it, Victoria's Secret Angels were drinking it, but no one had made it a brand. There was no like, it was like sugar. It was really generic. And no one had made it easily buyable online.
00:25:48
Speaker
So we just stepped into this beautiful gap that lasted for maybe 18 months. You also had the brain power, though, to go, I can see a gap in the market here. Yes, okay, luck, of course, but you guys had the ability to go, there is a gap in the market here. We can do this. That is huge. That is actually a hard step.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, in hindsight, I'm like, wow, I don't know if I could do that again. But at the time, it was just kind of like, I want this stuff. I'm selfish. I want the matcha. So I needed to get to it. But it turned out Urban Outfitters in the States off the back of social media, which is why I think the digital age is so exciting because it's democratised good ideas and influence and it was free and amazing. They wanted a custom matcha for their lifestyle section and they
00:26:34
Speaker
emailed us and ordered more bags sold in the last six months. And that was kind of the fork in the road of, I can't pack this order by the date that they need it and do my day job. So I'm really going to have to choose because it got to the point where I wasn't doing either of them properly. But I waited six months until taking the jump and then took the leap
00:26:57
Speaker
I would say another 12 months passed without any competitors in the market, and we were just scrambling to keep up, trying to find a liability, trying to hire. We opened the cafe because we were like, oh my God, we should ride this wave, but we're all online. Maybe we should open a physical venue, and then that started the Matcha Milk Bar, the vegan cafe, and that opened a whole new
00:27:21
Speaker
world up to us and then the Hemsworths came in and that was kind of how that all happened. And we were just in this blur for maybe four years of just, we started this business, we didn't expect it to go well. It's growing so fast that every decision was just made based on need and necessity. And then it got really hard. Then it got like suddenly the T2s, the Twinings, they were bringing out Mattra, they'd figured out what we were on to and Blackmores and these huge players started bringing out
00:27:50
Speaker
Matcha products and we thought it was all over, but then we kind of had to pivot into, okay, well, we're not teaching everyone what Matcha is anymore. We're teaching them why ours is better or why ours is different and why you want to buy from a small family owned business. The people who are shopping, this is the other thing is there's a place for everyone in the market. It's just you finding your right customers and people who are buying from a multinational are not our customers. They were never our customers, people who buy
00:28:17
Speaker
from big global supermarkets are not going to be the same people who want a boutique product that is hand packed, you know? So we kind of re-found our groove, kept going for another few years. And then I thought, maybe I am the millennial that's getting bored. Like, why is this getting really hard? But I realized it was because the bigger the business got, the more corporate it became. And the closer I got back to where I had originally begun. And that was the jigsaw puzzle pieces starting to
00:28:45
Speaker
to churn again and make me think I want to be closer to the people. I want to be closer to the conversations about doubt, about comparison, about imposter syndrome, about having my period. And I can't say on matcha made and you didn't get your mattress because I'm in the fetal position. Like that's not the right one. So I started seize the A and I started talking on my personal page about the behind the scenes stuff. And very quickly that took over as what I was really passionate about and lit up about was
00:29:13
Speaker
talking to people about the shitty bits, not the good bits. I didn't want to talk about the good bits anymore. I wanted to talk about how do we get through the hard bits? How do we get through the overwhelming bits? Cause people don't need necessarily help with scaling at five years. They need help at minus five days where they haven't even started yet.
Navigating Success and Self-worth
00:29:31
Speaker
Um, and that very quickly took on a life of its own. And then I realized again, I came to this new fork or I can't do both. I'm not doing both very well.
00:29:39
Speaker
We are not the best guardians for this business anymore because it's outgrown our skillset. It was like reaching that mass market, big corporate level. And that was no longer really where I wanted to be. And so it was like another big jump of let's try and sell this business to owners who have a better ability and better experience. But also so that I can free up my time to put all my time into CCA, to write a book.
00:30:06
Speaker
to source better guests to turn these conversations into what I do next. And so that way, two years ago now, I would say, at the time of writing the book, we were also selling Match-A-Maiden. And I think we sold just before I published it. And then I quickly had to change one of the paragraphs at the start to say we'd exit. I can't remember how it all went down, but
00:30:29
Speaker
I remember. That's how it went down. Let me check with my official book checker. Thank you, Cleo. Oh, wow. I love your story. And I love what it reminds me is that it's okay to pivot. It's okay to change. And just because something that is maybe presenting as a block doesn't mean that it's a block.
00:30:51
Speaker
like, see it as redirection, you change your outlook so many times. Like when the Twinings and the Blackmores popped up, you could have got so stuck in comparison. But instead you chose to, I guess, change your outlook and redirect. I definitely did wallow in that for a really long time. Like I was ready. I would say
00:31:13
Speaker
I would say maybe 2018 when suddenly there was Matcha everywhere and it was so much cheaper than we were able to do it because there were economies of scale and that people were finding different places to buy it. There was Chinese Matcha that came out, which is not the authentic Japanese Matcha product that we wanted to sell, but it's much, much cheaper.
00:31:33
Speaker
And then there was a whole education piece and I just was like, I can't do this. Like this is not, I don't know how to do this. I literally came, I would say maybe 10 times within a day of just closing down because that mental conversation of how can I compete with, how can you compete with Blackmores? How can this Melbourne couple in their garage compete? And then you realize coming back to the quote you started with, like we're not competing. Like we're not actually, the fact that they are stocking it means the market is growing, which is a good sign.
00:32:03
Speaker
But you just target towards the people who do want what you've got. Honestly, the people who shop in boutique health food groceries or pharmacies are not the same people who are going to get their super foods at the supermarket. They're just not people. And Australia is a much smaller market than the States, obviously, but it's still a lot of people. There's still enough room for all of us. Yes, there is. There is an infinite abundance of everything available to everyone.
00:32:30
Speaker
Let's talk about comparison then while we're kind of on the topic. When I got to your chapter in the book of comparison, I was like, great, I'm definitely going to be so inspired by this. But I must admit, I thought I knew everything there was about comparison. But your outlook on it was so new to me and refreshing. And I mean, personally,
00:32:53
Speaker
being in the acting industry, I have faced comparison like no other, you know, walking into auditions every week with 15 girls that look exactly the same as me, never hearing after auditions or getting a role and then getting it taken away from me and then watching what that girl has and what I don't. So I faced it a lot. But what does comparison mean to you and how do you kind of combat it in a healthy way? I think it's just,
00:33:20
Speaker
one of the hardest areas to manage. Self-doubt is often based on your skills more than what I don't know how you guys do it in your industry. Honestly, it is so brutal for everything to be judged, not necessarily on your skills and purely what you look like. But I think the self-doubt conversation is often driven around your skills and your abilities.
00:33:40
Speaker
But comparison is not, it's like so irrational. I mean, self-doubt is irrational too, but I feel like comparison is just, we get silly. Like we literally spiral, we get so silly, we start comparing the stupidest things that are so not relevant. We compare people who aren't even in the same market as us, like it's trust.
00:33:58
Speaker
It's such a, it's like an itch that you, you're not supposed to scratch, but we scratch the scab right off and then just let it bleed everywhere. And then they're like, Oh my God, like, why do I feel so shit? And it's like, cause you've been comparing yourself all day. It's such a human reaction. It is so normal.
00:34:14
Speaker
In some ways, it's healthy because it keeps you on your toes. It's really good to know what your competitors are doing so you understand the landscape. So there are parts of comparison in terms of when it's used for inspiration or when it's used for keeping you motivated to keep on your toes and keep bettering yourself. That's a healthy level of comparison.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah. And you will always, always compare yourself up and compare yourself down. Like that's just a natural way of measuring kind of where we are and situating ourselves in society. But I think the really dangerous part is when you are only comparing yourself upwards to people who are at different levels in different circumstances and you let yourself feel like crap. Literally that quote about comparison being the thief of joy.
00:35:01
Speaker
is the main way I summarize comparison. Most of the time makes you feel crap about yourself. Most of the time robs you of celebrating and appreciating how far you have actually come. We very rarely flip it the other way around and compare downwards. Not that that's nice to do either, but we will only allow ourselves. We'll never go, look how well I'm doing compared to that person. We'll only go, look how shit I'm doing compared to the person above us. And I think that's so counterproductive, not only because it robs you of joy,
00:35:31
Speaker
But also because half the time, another quote that I love is, if we all put our shit on the table, suddenly you'd want to take yours back. You'd look at everyone else's and you'd be like, whoa. If that success comes with that stuff, like I prefer my situation because you, you never know what you're comparing to. It's fruitless because you literally are comparing to what you see on the internet, what they choose to let you see, which is the highlights only. You never know what's going on behind the scenes, but also it's irrelevant because what does it achieve?
00:35:59
Speaker
looking at someone else who's more successful doesn't make you more successful. It doesn't get you any closer. It literally is an exercise that only makes you feel bad. And so I feel like
00:36:10
Speaker
you know when you're starting to spiral, you can feel it, and we just don't get strict enough with ourselves to stop it. And the main way that I have learned to cope with it is to, like you remember from the chapter, the whole chapter is focused on blinkering yourself. Like horses at a horse race, they have blinkers on so they can only run their own race. If they happen to be faster than the horse next to them, amazing. But they can't be distracted by looking to the sides because then they're not running their own race.
00:36:38
Speaker
So I have to, we can't physically put blinkers on, but I will like put on metaphorical blinkers. And that's, if I'm feeling really triggered, I just won't, like sometimes you have a day where things aren't going well in the business and you know, that's not a good day to go doing research on your competitors. Those are the days when it's like metaphorical blinkers don't look mute certain pages. Like there are whole periods of your life where you know, certain things are going to make you feel a certain way. And.
00:37:07
Speaker
yet we don't put up barriers to avoid that. And so I found even when I was getting married, when I got so close to the day that I was not going to change my dress, I had already booked everything. Why would I keep looking at Vogue brides? Like why? Cause all I want to do is want to change my dress. So I just means you had every bridal page. Like, yeah, that's the only way is to create blinkers that stop the triggers because you're probably not going to be able to stop the comparison. That's just a natural thing.
00:37:34
Speaker
But stop the trigger that starts the comparison. And if you do feel yourself starting to spiral, like nip it in the bud and just return to like, I am living my own life. I am running my own race. Whatever else anyone is doing is really irrelevant. And if I spent all this energy on actually improving what I'm doing,
00:37:54
Speaker
That would be a much more productive exercise. Like not only are you, every time you scroll on your competitor's page, you're literally giving them minutes. You're pushing them up on the discovery. You are a good way to think of it. Like scroll your own page.
00:38:10
Speaker
You put your energy into you. Like we do, we waste so much energy worrying about what other people are doing. What about what you're doing? What about what you want? I just, I love how you talk about it. It's so refreshing because you talk about it in a way that's like, you don't have to completely resist it. You don't have to fear it. And you talk about imposter syndrome in the book in a similar way where
00:38:36
Speaker
you don't, like I personally until reading your book always resisted imposter syndrome and tried to put it away but speak to us a little bit about this chapter and maybe also I was practicing, I was practicing with my husband Luke and he was like, you should probably say what imposter syndrome is because like a lot of people don't actually know what it is. I didn't until about a year ago even though I had felt the effects of imposter syndrome for my whole life. So give us your take on it.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those things that I think most people have experienced in some form or another, and I know we over label everything, but I also think that sometimes giving a label to something helps you cope with it, because then you're able to identify when you're doing it, what it's resulting in for you, and how
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Building Confidence
00:39:23
Speaker
to stop it. Until you know that you're doing it, you can't help yourself, because you haven't actually identified what you're doing. So I think of imposter syndrome as literally when you feel like you're an imposter, when you feel like you don't belong
00:39:36
Speaker
And it's usually a worth or a value question. It's like, I don't deserve this position. I am not good enough to be here. It's when it's, it's a fancier and more specific way of describing self doubt. I don't belong here. I don't believe that I deserve this position or this success. Um, I think it's very, it's, everyone experiences it, but I think it's particularly widespread in women because we, we doubt ourselves, we have this natural,
00:40:03
Speaker
doubt and fear and then we have this extra layer of likability like I want to be successful and assertive but what if no one likes me and like we just have so much chatter in our brains that I think you do talk yourself often out of situations because you don't think you deserve them. You're too much of an imposter that you don't belong.
00:40:23
Speaker
And didn't you put like a, sorry to interrupt, but you put a research in your book that was, tell that. You know what I'm talking about. This is my favorite statistic in the history of ever. And again, I think it's because once you kind of can measure something and identify what it is and how it manifests, it's so much more powerful for you to resist it. So I found a really helpful statistic because when I was a lawyer, I had
00:40:49
Speaker
automatically learned how to pretend that I was more confident than I was feeling without really realizing it. But I still found certain conversations way too hard and I was losing out because I wouldn't ask for a pay rise or I wouldn't ask for an opportunity because I was just like, and I realized it wasn't until like someone gave me a stat. I was like, Oh, that's how, how impactful it is. So Hewlett Packard did a study on women and men and a mass generalization, but
00:41:18
Speaker
These are the statistics. There are, of course, outliers, but on women and men applying for promotions in the workplace. And men will apply when they have something like 60% of the criteria, because absolutely logically, they know they can learn the other 40% on the go. And if they already knew 100%, then they would already be in that job. Like, you're not meant to start a whole new role with 100% of the criteria, because otherwise, where is the learning? Where is the growth opportunity? There's a reason why it's above where you are now so that you can grow into it.
00:41:49
Speaker
women will wait until they have at least a hundred percent of the criteria because we don't think that we're worth applying or we might not get it. Or even if we got it, like we don't deserve it, it's a fluke until we're a hundred percent qualified, if not more, which leaves no room for growth and trusting in your ability to learn on the go. But it also means that even if there was no institutional inequality, which we know is not the case, but even in a totally equal workplace,
00:42:15
Speaker
women would lose out on timing because men have applied earlier. So even if there was an equal opportunity there, it's like we've already disadvantaged ourselves because we waited too long. So all the roles are taken. And I think it, it reminds me that gender aside, but particularly as a woman being aware that that's my default, that every time you let imposter syndrome control your decisions that much, you are, you're losing out.
00:42:46
Speaker
based on everyone else who's figured out how to get through it. And not that they don't feel it, of course men also feel self-doubt sometimes. Of course they also think, ah, shit, this is really hard. What if I am not qualified? What if it doesn't go well? But if they learn to then just do it anyway, they don't lose the opportunity to prove to themselves that they can, which
00:43:06
Speaker
I think everyone has proven in their life that as you do more stuff, that's hard and that you once thought was scary, you realize you can do it. And then you're like, Oh, okay. I've just grown. Like that's part of being a human. You can do more as you, as you advance. So.
00:43:19
Speaker
What I've learned, and it's similar to what you said, is that I used to really think any imposter syndrome was then the worst because, oh, obviously I'm not confident enough and I haven't done the work enough and I'm still failing on that front because I still feel nervous before I speak or whatever. And now I realized, actually in all of these areas, self-doubt imposter syndrome comparison
00:43:42
Speaker
A small amount of them is healthy. A small amount of those feelings keeps you on your toes. If I didn't feel any of those feelings, I'd be too confident and would think I'm complacent and I'm obviously comfortable, which means I'm not learning.
00:43:55
Speaker
I'm not doing things anymore that scare me. I'm not growing to the next level. There are absolutely chapters of your life where you don't need to be growing. You don't need to be growing all the time. And that's also a mistake we make and why we get burnt out. Because we don't accept that there are chapters where you just chill the fuck out. Like you're going through some personal stuff. Like work growth is not your priority. You just need to survive. But in most cases,
00:44:17
Speaker
I don't want to get so comfortable that I'm not nervous or I'm not invested in doing a good job. So a small amount of self-doubt, a small amount of humility and concern to doing your best job and bringing your best self is healthy.
00:44:33
Speaker
But the rest of it, you can feel it, you can acknowledge it, but push through it. You've got to do the thing anyway and give yourself a chance. And it's the same with another quote I love is, if you don't ask, it's a no. It's already a no. You've given yourself a no.
00:44:50
Speaker
But if you ask, even if you're scared, even if there's a 50% chance it will go badly and you'll get a no, there's a 50% chance that it will go well. Exactly. Exactly. I love how you talk about it. It's so refreshing. I'm so brawler today. I'm sorry. Are you kidding? I love it. This is like the book that I love just coming to life in front of me. I'm just eloquent in the book. Today, I'm like, I don't know what's wrong with my brain.
00:45:19
Speaker
No, are you kidding? This is perfect. And I just, yeah, you've given me a different outlook to all of those things, comparison imposter syndrome, to not fear it. Like the minute it comes up, I'm actually, I am beginning to like embrace it a little bit and allow it to give me some power, I guess. And so thank you. It's really empowering. And speaking of power in the book, you talk about the power pose. So when we are
00:45:48
Speaker
feeling like we are losing our power and that we're a bit powerless because of imposter syndrome or comparison, what do we do? A fun one. Julie Stavarnia from Star Runner, the original co-founder who became a very good friend, was one of the first podcast guests ever, told me, I think it was my first
00:46:12
Speaker
My first big speaking gig ever, whether imposter syndrome and self-doubt were in overdrive. I was speaking with people I never thought I'd even meet. Someone took a huge risk and gave me a microphone and we were side stage and she said,
00:46:27
Speaker
There's an amazing Ted talk by Amy Cuddy that talks about the power pose and the fact that when we're feeling nervous, we often shrink our shoulders. We like our posture is really bad. We shrink to try and not take up space because we're feeling nervous and we diminish ourselves. And then that psychologically reaffirms that you're not taking up space and you're small and like, you don't have, you can't even project your voice when your posture is like that, like everything becomes small. Whereas psychologically, if you put your shoulders back like Wonder Woman,
00:46:57
Speaker
If you have your feet, like don't put them together or cross them, stand with your feet sort of hip width or shoulder width apart and take up space and like put your arms up like this and take up more or put your hands on your hips. You're physically taking up more space that psychologically that will give you more confidence because you are taking up space.
00:47:18
Speaker
physically deserving the room that you're in. And I think there's a little bit of controversy about the actual science and psychology behind the power pose. And there's been like,
00:47:28
Speaker
TED talks that have come out against Amy Cuddy's original TED talk and back and forth about it. Oh, guys. Let a girl dream. Let a girl dream. Also, I think even if there is not necessarily actual science in that the neurons in your body think, oh, I'm in a Wonder Woman pose, I'm obviously feeling more confident. It's just the trigger. It's just the reminder of stand up tall, project your voice,
00:47:51
Speaker
look confident even if you don't feel confident like how can those behaviors not at least help you fake it a little bit more into exactly yes it like starts tricking your mind into believing that you are good enough and that you are powerful yeah and even if you don't feel it you'll look at which means everyone will behave towards you as if you are which will then reaffirm to you that maybe I am and I think that
00:48:14
Speaker
Everything in life is just hacking your own behaviors and brain to increase the likelihood of doing what you want to do and decrease the likelihood of doing things you don't want your brain to do. And that's all that matters. Whereas we spend so much time researching the best diet, researching the best exercise, researching the best techniques and blah, blah, blah, and not paying attention to any data.
00:48:39
Speaker
that we have real time, proper data about what works for you. Like some people, the power pose is like the biggest shit ever that will never work because they hate standing that way. They're uncomfortable. Like for some people that's just not going to work. They don't take physical cues. They take visual or audio cues. Like some people need to whisper things to themselves. Some people like Lisa messenger listens to house music before she goes on stage. That would distract me. I love house music, but that would make me party Sarah. I would forget all of the things I wanted to say.
00:49:09
Speaker
And I think we just need to figure out what hacks work for your brain and your defaults and your strengths and your weaknesses. Where are the things that your brain goes? What stops your brain doing that?
00:49:22
Speaker
that means it's going to be different for all of us. Like there's some weird shit that I do that helps me that I'm like, I'm not even going to tell anyone else about that because I don't know how little time people spend on researching themselves and then working out what works. They just copy. I will she did that diet. So that's going to work for me. Why? Your bodies are completely different. Yeah. Take time to figure out you and on kind of the other end of what we've been talking about. So,
00:49:52
Speaker
we have been talking about kind of feeling powerless. But what about when we do the power pose and we are feeling really powerful and we are moving ahead without blinkers on in our own lane, we're feeling incredible. And then we kind of get that feeling of dimming ourselves down to make others comfortable. And I want to read out a little passage from C's The Yay. I don't mean to be dramatic, but I think it's one of the best things I've ever read.
00:50:23
Speaker
But just, okay, everyone listen.
Nurturing Supportive Relationships and Self-care
00:50:25
Speaker
I bet all my listeners right now, you're gonna agree with me. Okay, so it says, even if someone isn't necessarily a hater, but simply isn't supportive of what you are doing, you should never let this dull your sparkle simply because it's shining in their eyes. Often, people withhold support because you are defying the limits of what they believe is possible, but it's not on you to drop back to their level to bring them comfort.
00:50:54
Speaker
I just recorded you doing that because it was so beautiful. That, honestly, I could not relate to that quote more. I've really found that in the last couple of years when I have finally found my happiness and I have been feeling really fulfilled, that I'm really careful with who I share that with. But that makes me sad in itself because I should want to share it with all the people that I know. Talk us through this beautiful passage.
00:51:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's, it is really hard when you've had a big revelation and a big life change and a way to change the way that you approach scary hard things in life. And then that starts to reap a lot of benefits for you because people who are not in that place, even if they, like I said, like don't want to detract from your happiness, even if they're not, not happy for you, I think sometimes
00:51:48
Speaker
when it's still foreign to them or you move into a world that they don't understand anymore. And not everyone can come along with you on that journey. And that means your friendship groups change a lot. Like obviously there will always be a very small minority of people who are actively not agreeing with what you're doing and you're not going to be for everyone. But then there's just a whole bunch of people who you grow out of or grow sideways from. And that's really, really hard because you do want everyone who loves you to be happy for you.
00:52:16
Speaker
You've also got to remember everyone has their own self-doubt, their own comparison, their own stuff going on in their own brain. And our lives are so busy and overflowing that it can be really hard to adjust to the fact that not everyone is kind of coming along with you. But I think the quote that I think I use in that or somewhere around that chapter about the people piece is, people will be in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. And you will have friends that are there for you the whole way through for every version and chapter of who you are.
00:52:46
Speaker
Then you'll have people who are in your life for a reason that's time specific or in your life for a season when your lives match and when your lives are compatible. And sometimes when you take away the common ground, like a lot of my corporate friends, I.
00:53:01
Speaker
I'm not not friends with them anymore, but our lives just fit together. We're on such different schedules. Our priorities are so different. We literally don't have minutes where we're free at the same time. Our common ground was sharing a career and a day to day. And without that, the common ground is sort of not as strong. And I think you often lament that like, everyone's not supporting me. Everyone's not like happy for me. It's not often the case. It's just that you're in a different world now and that
00:53:30
Speaker
in a different chapter, you can honor the friendship you had and then be sad that it doesn't necessarily continue as strongly into the next chapter. But that's sort of the price of changing who you are as well, that the people around you will change. And I think it's felt at times sometimes not cold, but it's felt weird to let go of relationships that don't fit your new life.
00:53:54
Speaker
And it has, it's hard sometimes because then you don't want to feel like you're the person who's like, Oh, I'm all good and happy. I'm in this happy place. And like, you just don't pretend that literally you have minutes in your day. And like, if people can't be happy for you and kind of enjoy it, there's also like a huge amount of resentment that sometimes people have when you are really happy, if they're not really happy and they haven't gotten there yet, and it's really confronting for them. Like that's.
00:54:18
Speaker
also very natural in human behavior. There's a lot going on around any kind of big change in your life. And I think patience and compassion for yourself and for everyone else is really important. Yeah, I think, yeah, compassion, definitely. And like, what is your advice, say, if someone is feeling really good and really amazing, and they do start to quiet themselves down?
00:54:43
Speaker
whether it is with family or colleagues or even strangers. What's your advice when we have that feeling of I need to be like I used to get it even in social situations like I remember I'd come home and I think
00:54:54
Speaker
I was too loud. Like I laughed too much. I was too much. My energy's too much. And like, I think back and I'm like, oh, little Cleo, you're fine. But, you know, so what's your advice when people are feeling like that? It's such a hard one because it is so common for you to, when you know that someone is not having a good time, you don't want to like shove it in their face that you're so happy and you're having the best one. So I think there's a, I think there is definitely a reasonable amount of curating
00:55:23
Speaker
what you talk about and how you talk about it to match the situation that people are in in your life around you. But if you are constantly finding that you are dulling your sparkle and really curtailing or restricting the parts of you that are the most special and that are who you are, that's probably not a relationship that is conducive to where you want to be. Because it's hard. We're wearing a lot of masks all the time, but to be constantly shrinking
00:55:51
Speaker
to make other people comfortable, maybe they're not your people. And that's again, really, really hard to confront. It's really, really difficult, particularly if you didn't expect it from that person or you still have a little love for them and there's not anything overt. It's just this constant feeling of having to be someone else. Like we spend so much time working on ourselves. It's too hard to also be wearing different masks and being a different person for other people else around you. So. Yeah. And I guess I should mention too, that there might be some listeners going, yeah,
00:56:20
Speaker
I can't get away from these people who are making me, you know, feel a certain way. Like they might be colleagues that they work with every single day or parents or, you know, I don't know, siblings. So when you can't kind of love and leave that relationship, any advice around that, and then we're going to get to our last section of Paul and Rod.
00:56:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really, really difficult situation. And that is one of those times where giving people advice like, never let anyone dull your sparkle. It's like, it's my mum. Like, I can't help you. So that's not helpful. And there are really times in life where that kind of advice is not useful and is not practical. And I think the best advice in situations like that is
00:57:02
Speaker
you know, there have been a lot of people I know who have moved into business and have not even told their family until it's successful because they can't do it because there's enormous family pressures. There's a lot of, you know, parents or family members who grew up in very different times who have very different values. Our generation is in a weird time. The world is changing very quickly. Things are very different and no other generation is used to that and what that means. And I think it's, it's,
00:57:31
Speaker
It's superficial to say, never be smaller or never curtail parts of yourself to hide from other people because there are situations where you do sometimes have to take a risk and you do sometimes have to hide what you're doing. Like I didn't tell anyone at my law firm for like at least a year because I couldn't, I was still working there. Like, and I didn't want the worlds to collide. I liked they were separate. So that wasn't really dulling my sparkle. That was just making a judgment based on how I felt. And I think.
00:58:01
Speaker
There are many people who have had to pitch their life change to their parents or family after there are some positive data and stats to pitch with. And I think that's okay. I think we all have different lives and we all have different situations. And I think the more dangerous situation is when you're in a voluntary friendship that you can control and you are still constantly making compromises to be someone who is making themselves or their successes smaller because you don't feel celebrated.
00:58:28
Speaker
If you're in a situation, like I often say, you know, you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. That does not include your secretary or your train driver because you're with them. You can't choose that. Like that's not what we mean. We don't mean those people. We mean the voluntary time that you spend when you're actively choosing and controlling that. That's the five people that we're talking about. So I think within reason.
00:58:50
Speaker
Yes, I love that. But I think that's what your like the little passage I read out, it embodies all of that. Like it is just it's just the perfect little passage. I just love it. Okay, so with my guest episodes, I am either going to start or end or whenever.
00:59:08
Speaker
pull a card from my deck. Today we're using the guided affirmation cards and I'm just going to trust that the card is either going to come out for you or for me or even the collective message. And we're just going to spend the last few minutes kind of chatting about what that message might mean to us. All right. Let's see what comes out. We've got to trust the process here. All right.
Reflecting on Growth and Future Success
00:59:35
Speaker
This is so, I knew a card was going to come out that like just aligned to our episode perfectly. So we got the growth card. It says, each day brings new opportunities to grow into the person I want to be. I am planting seeds for my future. So maybe this is like a message for those listeners who don't feel like the seeds that they are planting are blooming yet, but like,
01:00:02
Speaker
Your story, Sarah, is so inspiring to see that the accidental landing in law also led to you accidentally finding Matcha. What do you feel? What do you feel around this topic of growth?
01:00:17
Speaker
That's the card. That's the card. I'm never surprised anymore. There's magic in these decks, I swear. So much. So much. And I love that seed reference there because I think there's a quote in, you know, the little flip books that I have. Yes. Love them. Yay ones. There's also one that I can't even remember it, but it's something about like the the seed you plant today
01:00:42
Speaker
is the fruit you eat tomorrow or something like that. But it's something about the idea that like you don't know often what you're planting at the time. Like I spent, I would say 15 years of the journey that I can remember as a autonomous decision-making adult planting seeds in all different places and not knowing where they were going to be relevant. Like you just go and keep planting. Like you don't know where they're going to be relevant. I started going to,
01:01:11
Speaker
um, business chicks, league of extraordinary women, all of those things. When I was at uni, like I wasn't even a lawyer yet. I hadn't even entered the workforce. And I still was like, maybe one day I want to be in business or I, at least I want to be around people who are in business, or maybe I want to be the lawyer for those people. I don't even know, but like, I just, I would voluntarily go and spend money on buying tickets and time and go into these things. Cause I was like, that's a seed. Don't know where it's going to end up years later.
01:01:40
Speaker
When I'm like emceeing for business chicks or something, I get to tell the story of the fact that this weed was planted like a bajillion years ago before I even knew what fruit would come out. But that's the point. Like growth is a question mark.
01:01:54
Speaker
It isn't at the same time. This conversation is making me so excited. I guess too, when you were first going to these business chicks events, for example, yeah, sure it would have been a fun day, whatever, but it wasn't necessarily that pivotal moment that changed everything. For me, when I had the idea for Pass Around a Smile,
01:02:17
Speaker
Sure, it was a cool idea. I wasn't necessarily overly excited about it. It wasn't what I wanted at the time, but now I have arrived. You know, well, we've talked about how you think you arrive at happiness. Arriving always, it's about the journey, the process. But yeah, well, I think we can, we can definitely end on that. That was such a beautiful card to round off our conversation. It is crazy how much card decks never surprised me.
01:02:47
Speaker
Oh my God, literally, I will pull the same cards over and over and over again until I listen or until I do that thing or learn that lesson. No matter how hard I shuffle. It's crazy. Also, Sarah, tell us where we can find you, where we can buy your book more importantly, because I really talked it up. You are so lovely. It's all linked from Spoonful of Sarah on Instagram.
01:03:15
Speaker
I feel like I live in a lot of different places, but that's probably the easiest place to go because everything else is linked from there. But the book and the podcast are called Seize the A, so you can also look at those. But I live on the internet, so you'll probably find me some.
01:03:30
Speaker
Amazing. And I'll put all of that in the show notes as well. And guys, just because we talked a lot about the book today, we hardly scratched the surface. So get the book. You'll love it. Thank you so much for coming on as my first guest today, Sarah. It was so amazing having you. Oh, thank you so much for having me. And you did the most amazing job. I can't wait to see how this show grows. It's been amazing. It's been a joy. Thank you, Sarah.