Latest / Seen and Heard with Prue Aja / Integrating Parenthood with Corporate & Business Success with Sarah Pirie-Nally
Transcript
- 0:00Prue Aja: I can.
- 0:00Prue Aja: Can you hear me?
- 0:01Prue Aja: Yep, looks like a beautiful evening in Melbourne with your view so nice.
- 0:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: So nice, I've got bad lighting, though, hey.
- 0:12Prue Aja: Yeah, because you kind of want that natural light coming in on your face, feeling the shadow.
- 0:19Sarah Pirie-Nally: Is that okay or no?
- 0:21Prue Aja: What you could do is get a whiteboard in front of you so it bounces back in.
- 0:25Sarah Pirie-Nally: I wish I had that.
- 0:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: See, you're perfect with lighting.
- 0:27Sarah Pirie-Nally: I don't have a whiteboard.
- 0:31Prue Aja: It's all whiteboard.
- 0:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: It's all good.
- 0:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: This is where a podcast also has a video and you're like, oh, I should have given you the heads up today.
- 0:45Prue Aja: So first up, let's just do a little bit of an intro, because you have had an evolution the last year or two as well, do you like?
- 0:55Prue Aja: sharing a story, because this um, the podcast is really about being seen and heard and what it takes someone to find their true calling, like remember what they came here to do and tap into their values and what brings them joy in life, and what it took, or what it takes to actually get to that place.
- 1:17Prue Aja: Like I know, you're in a great place now doing incredible things with your business, so I'd love to know and share a little bit more about that.
- 1:26Prue Aja: I love it.
- 1:28Sarah Pirie-Nally: Well, it's funny because I I feel like I've pushed myself to stay pretty connected to my values and what I kind of love doing my entire career, but that's led me into entirely different places, and so my career is like a wiggly path, and so is my life, because I do follow the nudges and like listen to the changes that kind of are calling me at any given time and and then I kind of lean into whatever that evolution is.
- 1:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, whether that's going into corporate or then coming out and owning my own business and then going in again and coming out, or being married and then getting divorced and then meeting someone and getting married again, like it's, I just follow like where my heart is calling me, but also where my values are leading me, and then I get these amazing opportunities to do some of the coolest stuff on the planet.
- 2:19Prue Aja: Oh, the coolest stuff ever.
- 2:21Prue Aja: Yeah, can I ask what your values are that are your guiding force, your compass.
- 2:29Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, I care deeply about people and inclusion and I'm I've got a really really strong sense of social justice, like I've always really cared about making sure that, like the little people have a voice and that, like we're thinking about including and giving opportunities to people who don't always get them.
- 2:49Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, whether that's through my first career in recruitment or my second career in creating, you know, australia's biggest innovation festival, Wired for Wonder, or women's retreats to create space for women who needed it at the time, or events and experiences that celebrate really unique souls, and we hold space for the diversity that kind of comes with the experiences that we create.
- 3:15Sarah Pirie-Nally: I really value inclusion, I really value diversity, I really value experience, I value in-person interaction and I really value giving people an opportunity to like explore and then actually create their dreams.
- 3:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: And, weirdly, whether it was recruitment or event design or chief design officer or whatever kind of roles I've taken, I get to play within those like spheres really, which is quite cool.
- 3:48Prue Aja: That is so good, and just to know that it doesn't really matter what job you're doing, as long as those values are in place and it's aligned with that and how it can be applied to many different roles and incorporate in business and all of that as well.
- 4:08Prue Aja: So tell me a bit about what you're actually doing now.
- 4:11Prue Aja: What's the big picture?
- 4:14Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah.
- 4:14Sarah Pirie-Nally: So where do I kind of start?
- 4:16Sarah Pirie-Nally: At a global level, I am designing events and experiences that are super transformational, working with insider expeditions with my amazing husband, steve.
- 4:28Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we originally started as a partnership between Wonder and Wanda, which is our kind of innovation and growth agency and insider expeditions, to produce one event and then, before we knew it, we started producing other events and then we stepped into the business as the CEO and COO and we're kind of on a growth partnership experience with them right now, which is just so cool.
- 4:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, you came on one of our amazing experiences down to Antarctica with Diplo and Flume and Oliver Tree and Secular Sawerth and 150 odd wild, amazing souls who said yes to adventure and came on that experience with us.
- 5:05Sarah Pirie-Nally: We just got back from taking another 320 people to Antarctica.
- 5:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: We've got incredible events and experiences designed and I think what I love about it is, you know, we were over this side of the world creating transformational retreats and experiences.
- 5:19Sarah Pirie-Nally: Carl was on the other side of the world with insider expeditions doing the same and we've sort of seen each other and gone.
- 5:25Sarah Pirie-Nally: Well, what does it look like if we come together and we do feel better together.
- 5:28Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we get this amazing opportunity to go to the most beautiful places on the planet with the most extraordinary people you could imagine.
- 5:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: But we create not only transformation.
- 5:36Sarah Pirie-Nally: We give back, like we create awareness or we're thinking about consciousness and we're thinking about the influence that we have and how we can use that for good.
- 5:46Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I absolutely love that.
- 5:48Sarah Pirie-Nally: I've also got the she Evolves community, so I still am the CEO and founder of the she Evolves community and that's, you know, a women exclusive experience, which is just really important to me because there's still a massive gap when it comes to equality for women, and it plays out in really funny or silly ways, but you know, it can be as simple as when you go into an actual bank or an insurance company or you know even Qantas I'm dealing with at the moment and I'm trying to change my name.
- 6:18Sarah Pirie-Nally: And to change my name is one of the most difficult like experiences I've ever had in my whole entire life.
- 6:24Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you know, it's just, it's that inequality that exists because, you know what, not many men change their names, so they're just not thought about that process and it goes for, you know, health research or all sorts of things where it's like actually just the bias is there, and it's not necessarily anyone's fault in particular, but we absolutely have work to do, and so I am very passionate, as you can hear my voice about holding a space for what I kind of consider like positive feminism.
- 6:50Sarah Pirie-Nally: I can't talk about, like I get t-shirts made, you know, feminists who love willies.
- 6:54Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like we don't have to like, be feminists and hate men.
- 6:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: We can actually be feminists and best just be thinking about how we are better women and how we can stand for being the types of women that you know we want our daughters to be, that we want our granddaughters to be, and so that's that space, and I'm very passionate about that.
- 7:12Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then I'm, you know, a mum.
- 7:15Sarah Pirie-Nally: I've got, you know, five kids across two countries and they're my absolute world, and so Steve and I kind of travel back and forth and make sure that we're raising them best we can while we're doing all this other cool stuff.
- 7:29Prue Aja: I know you've really made dreams become reality, and not only for you guys, but you do that for other people.
- 7:36Prue Aja: When you created this trip to Antarctica that I went on, I was like, what is this Like?
- 7:43Prue Aja: Who creates an event with some of the world's best DJs, health and wellness experts, where we can dance and do yoga and tea ceremony and explore the most exquisite place on Earth?
- 7:54Prue Aja: Like that's what I was just thought.
- 7:56Prue Aja: Sign me up.
- 7:57Prue Aja: So you are a dream maker.
- 8:00Prue Aja: And from the first moment I met you, which was actually on a brand design- mastermind retreat in DD.
- 8:11Prue Aja: Not even six months ago, and look what has happened in our lives.
- 8:15Prue Aja: Like that's the thing your events are truly transformative, like I was actually thinking about all the amazing things from just going on that retreat to then going to Antarctica, and how my life has completely expanded to a whole new level and helped me grow.
- 8:33Prue Aja: But what really stood out to me from when I first met you in Fiji and also what we're talking about today, is how you really include your kids and empower your daughters in what you do.
- 8:49Prue Aja: You include them, teach them about business.
- 8:52Prue Aja: And yeah, tell me a little bit about how, because what came up for me is when I started my well, it was probably my second business and I had my daughter and I was kind of hiding the fact that I had a child I felt like, oh, I'm not being professional enough because if she's crying in the background or I can't let them know.
- 9:15Prue Aja: And it was so ridiculous because it was a kid's party business, so all of my clients were mums, but this was 14 years ago, so yeah whereas you were saying, two weeks after having a child, you bring them to work.
- 9:32Sarah Pirie-Nally: I brought them to work.
- 9:32Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, I don't know what it was inside of me, but I just remember, when I got pregnant, suddenly being aware that every single person at work that I knew who had children either didn't talk about them very much or just made it completely invisible.
- 9:48Sarah Pirie-Nally: So they would come to work nine to five.
- 9:51Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, they would make it very quiet if they were going to miss a meeting or something, for like something at school, like it just was this really quiet culture and I just couldn't understand it at all.
- 10:05Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I got pregnant with Sienna.
- 10:08Sarah Pirie-Nally: I was working at one of Australia's largest banks and I just felt litter to make sure that I was extremely visible as a mother and as a working mother.
- 10:17Sarah Pirie-Nally: So you know, yes, on maternity leave I made a point of like not just going back for that one visit that every mum kind of does as a ticker box exercise to show off the baby.
- 10:27Sarah Pirie-Nally: I turned up and like breastfed in the in the, like you know, front area, because I was like, oh, this is what I come, a mum, and I'm a working mum.
- 10:38Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then when I returned to work, you know I would bring her in for meetings and you know I would get funny looks and I got lots of conversations with HR and I just kept challenging it because I just thought it was ridiculous that I should have this invisible part of my life.
- 10:55Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you know, for whatever reason, I just had this fire in my belly about it and when I had Stella, I decided to have a reverse maternity leave, which was a term that I made up.
- 11:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: I was like um, I've never heard of it.
- 11:11Sarah Pirie-Nally: I went into like HR and I was like, oh hey, so I want to have a reverse maternity leave and I here's how I propose it works.
- 11:17Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I felt really confident as a mother and I know not every mum feels that way, so I certainly don't.
- 11:23Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, I'm not saying everyone should do this, but I felt really confident as a mother and I also really really love my work and so I asked them if I could work just after having the baby and then work from home and then around kind of eight months when I knew the baby would start to like want me a bit more and like be a bit active.
- 11:43Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, I typically found like that seven to like 12 months the hardest, because they're eating and they're like wandering around and I thought I couldn't think of anything worse than trying to return to work just as that's happening.
- 11:54Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I said my proposal would be to take four months off then and they agreed to it and it was like a big test, right.
- 12:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I took two weeks off and then I was so ready to go back to it I was just like gagging to get back online and Stella became my business baby, so I took her into boardrooms and took her to meetings and flew up to Sydney for stuff and she was became like this epic little business baby who people really loved having around.
- 12:23Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I still did an amazing job which meant that I proved to the company that it was possible and I proved it to myself too, which was pretty epic, and I never had to leave my baby, I had her, I could breastfeed her on demand.
- 12:39Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like just felt like a dream for me to be able to create that sort of experience for me but also for my family.
- 12:47Prue Aja: I just love how you have created your own rules and boundaries in life, especially in that corporate world, and you said that you had some meetings with HR and some challenges Like what were some of these challenges and how did you get through them?
- 13:04Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, so, like an example of a challenge, was being asked to fly out to Sydney for a meeting and the meeting time kept changing and I had to keep expressing extra milk because I was going to be gone for longer or not as long.
- 13:18Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I'm there expressing all this milk and this meeting kept changing and it was a non-negotiable, mandatory meeting that I had to be in the office for, and then I had to change my flights because they kept moving it.
- 13:29Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I finally get to the airport.
- 13:30Sarah Pirie-Nally: They've changed it again.
- 13:32Sarah Pirie-Nally: I'm at the airport.
- 13:33Sarah Pirie-Nally: I've got to make my flight earlier.
- 13:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like it just was this total nightmare.
- 13:36Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I finally got to Sydney and I walk into the office and I'm already tired because of all this craziness, and they were like, oh, actually, we've moved it, you know, to a couple of weeks time.
- 13:46Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I was just like, oh, you're actually kidding me.
- 13:48Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I'm like my boobs are swollen, I'm, you know, exhausted.
- 13:52Sarah Pirie-Nally: I've made this huge effort.
- 13:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: And it had been this whole like don't bring the baby sort of scenario because it's a mandatory in person, no children meeting.
- 14:00Sarah Pirie-Nally: And it was just one of those moments where I was like, yeah, nah, I'm not going to do this, I'm definitely not going to move away from what I know works, which is bringing my baby with me, because then I've got her and I don't need to like stress or worry.
- 14:15Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know I ended up with mastitis and all sorts of crap and it's you know these people who had invited me to this mandatory, no child meeting didn't give a flying fuck about whether I was like impacted or what the kind of impact was on me or my family.
- 14:30Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you know it's not that they were trying to be mean, it's just that it's just not on people's radar.
- 14:35Sarah Pirie-Nally: So the lesson for me was you absolutely have to advocate for yourself.
- 14:39Sarah Pirie-Nally: You have to have your own boundaries.
- 14:41Sarah Pirie-Nally: No is a full sentence, you know, or that's not going to work for me.
- 14:45Sarah Pirie-Nally: I'm really sorry.
- 14:46Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like it's just.
- 14:47Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know I learned and found my voice and you know I already had a voice, but I learned to that next layer of voice which I think we kind of find our volume, which is part of the journey.
- 14:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: But I certainly found it then and I decided it was time for me to move from intrapreneur to entrepreneur and actually pitched to the, to the company that I was working for, to change my employment agreement from a full time permanent salary to a consultant and they went for it and I started my own business and got to create like all the flexibility in the world, which is really cool.
- 15:23Prue Aja: Bringing another dream to life.
- 15:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, just like going for it.
- 15:27Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then someone says yes to your dreams, right?
- 15:33Prue Aja: And so, from doing this like, what outcome have you seen with your girls, with Sienna and Stella's today and business.
- 15:42Sarah Pirie-Nally: I mean, it's epic.
- 15:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: So Sienna was five when she launched her first business.
- 15:46Sarah Pirie-Nally: No, glitter, glitter.
- 15:49Sarah Pirie-Nally: She raised two and a half thousand dollars on Kickstarter and like, was, you know, in the front of the papers and was all her own, just passion project.
- 15:57Sarah Pirie-Nally: And she'd seen enough of she, she'd been to enough design thinking workshops to be able to follow a thread.
- 16:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we're sitting watching the news one night and the war was on and there were refugees and she was just like, oh, I wanted to say to help those people, mom.
- 16:10Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I was like, oh, how will we help them?
- 16:12Sarah Pirie-Nally: And she was like we could, we could send them some glitter because glitter makes me happy.
- 16:17Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I'm like, oh, but that is not good for the environment.
- 16:20Sarah Pirie-Nally: She's like do you know what?
- 16:20Sarah Pirie-Nally: We need to design some glitter, that's good for the environment.
- 16:24Sarah Pirie-Nally: And so, like that, sent us off on a little adventure together and I was really fortunate with a business that I already had, sienna baby, which is a shoe business to know really amazing people in China, and they put us in touch with some factories and we got some samples made and off she went, she designed her logo and got it done and then, during the pandemic, we wrote a book.
- 16:47Sarah Pirie-Nally: So there was a lot of feelings during the pandemic and I was studying a diploma in child psychology and cognitive behavioral therapy and all these sorts of diplomas and I'm like, how can I support my children?
- 16:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: And unpacking and talking about their feelings seem to be the biggest thing.
- 17:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we started doing that and then the girls and I one night just like jammed together and wrote a book and we actually got an illustrator from Ukraine to do the illustrations.
- 17:11Sarah Pirie-Nally: That was a way of sending money and supporting people in that particular time, which was really cool for them Because they were really heightened and aware of that at the time too.
- 17:20Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, yeah, we published my feelings are not who I am, which is on Amazon and it's really cool, really, really cool.
- 17:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then, little stale, she was like I want to do a business, mum, I want to do something.
- 17:31Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we started playing around at last.
- 17:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: Last school faith, she tested a product and did like a little bath salts with little toys hidden in them, like a kind of surprise for the bath.
- 17:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: Oh, I love that so they're very entrepreneurial and so are my step-to-step kids, so like there's nothing bad there at all and the most lovely thing you know, in designing she Evolves.
- 17:54Sarah Pirie-Nally: And thinking about creating this community and this retreat and these experiences, I wanted to create a space that could allow women who felt, you know, like me, where they wanted to be able to bring their children and they wanted to be able to mix that kind of business and pleasure and family in a different, modern way.
- 18:14Sarah Pirie-Nally: And so the first one you know, my kids were there Stella stood on stage and she opened the first event and it was just like unbelievable.
- 18:22Sarah Pirie-Nally: She was six at the time and she rehearsed it for weeks.
- 18:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: God love her.
- 18:27Sarah Pirie-Nally: It was the cutest thing, like seriously the cutest.
- 18:31Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then the big girls were walking around taking photos of everyone and putting them on the wall and they just love being part of the whole experience.
- 18:38Sarah Pirie-Nally: And the boys too, like they really really enjoy being part of this whole community and this experience.
- 18:45Sarah Pirie-Nally: And so that is a legacy for me, because it's not easy for women to just go I'm just going to bring my kid everywhere and like start to be bold in the moves that I make as a career woman.
- 18:57Sarah Pirie-Nally: It's like well, it takes a bit of energy, I think it takes a bit of support, I think it takes other beings around, of our like-minded women who are wanting something different and who kind of stand for change.
- 19:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: So that's what's kind of cool in this space that we're creating 100%.
- 19:16Prue Aja: Can you tell me a little bit more about the she Evolves community?
- 19:20Prue Aja: And I know you've got a retreat in Bali and one in Bay at the end of the year.
- 19:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, that's no more Such a cool community, it's such an epic group of women because, specifically, I've looked around and there are look, I'm part of a lot of communities and I pay to be part of a lot of communities because I see the value of being a member or like being a part of these different groups, whether they're online or in person, that give you access to women that you just wouldn't meet otherwise, because that's the goal right.
- 19:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: That's where we met each other.
- 19:55Sarah Pirie-Nally: I got you as a lifelong friend through going to retreat.
- 19:59Sarah Pirie-Nally: I would not have met you if I hadn't posted it, sorry.
- 20:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I'm just like so sold on the value of these sorts of experiences and I, years ago, started a community called Nurture Her.
- 20:13Sarah Pirie-Nally: We sold that for various reasons and then had a bit of a white period, and one of the things that I love about Nurture Her is that it's for business women.
- 20:20Sarah Pirie-Nally: So it's very simple, it's very focused.
- 20:24Sarah Pirie-Nally: I kind of wanted to bring people like my mom and my besties along to these sorts of experiences, and over the years I've had a lot of notes from people saying you know, I've got your, I've got going to what a serious experience is on my vision board.
- 20:39Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, I've produced some pretty outlandish experiences and so it was kind of cool to know that that's on people's vision board.
- 20:46Sarah Pirie-Nally: But when you looked at the women, they were not just business women.
- 20:50Sarah Pirie-Nally: They were either business or corporate, or stay-at-home moms or women have chosen not to have children, or old women who, like, know me through their daughters, you know.
- 21:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: And so I was like, oh okay, how do I create something for all women and be super inclusive and create this beautiful space that's an intergenerational community, so that we create an opportunity for women to come together and to be really honest, like it's also for people who have lost their mom or don't have aunties or don't have sisters.
- 21:23Sarah Pirie-Nally: So you get this woman tribe, you know.
- 21:27Sarah Pirie-Nally: And yes, we gather and we talk about like business and technology and life and science and arts and all and all the cool things that we give lots of inspiration so that we can gear up and think about the future.
- 21:37Sarah Pirie-Nally: But that doesn't just have to be for business people.
- 21:42Prue Aja: And so.
- 21:42Sarah Pirie-Nally: I'm really like passionate about making sure that we get that diversity and that we get women of all stages and from all walks of life, because I believe that's where the magic happens.
- 21:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: And so far, with 144 women who've come to our retreats over the last couple of years, you know, 85% of them have made a new best friend, not just a new friend like a new best friend, and I think it was like 94% of them have actually reported that they've experienced significant transformation or change in their life, whether that was, you know, a new job or making a new retirement plan, or taking up a new hobby, or thinking about their life in a different way, or starting a new relationship or ending an old relationship.
- 22:24Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like there's been significant and measurable change through our community and that's something I can guarantee.
- 22:31Prue Aja: Oh, definitely a couple of things there, Like when you, you know, you mentioned people without mums.
- 22:37Prue Aja: I'm one of those I've never had a mum and I don't really have many older female women in my life so to find to be in that group and also being a single parent with the daughter as well, and she's asked to come on retreats, into workshops in the last couple of years and she's also had her own little business things too, and so I'm super excited to be able to bring her along and be a part of that community.
- 23:03Prue Aja: You know, I didn't start going to retreats and networking events till I was, you know, my late 20s and I've developed lifelong peers and friends from that.
- 23:11Prue Aja: She's doing that at 13.
- 23:12Prue Aja: Can you imagine the opportunities that's going to give her, you know that weren't.
- 23:18Sarah Pirie-Nally: That's not much.
- 23:19Prue Aja: Yeah, like she's really into food and cooking and so there's probably someone that has a restaurant or a chef, but she is working in an amazing restaurant here.
- 23:28Prue Aja: But it just opens your world up.
- 23:31Prue Aja: And when I was at the Fiji retreat, I'm now very closely connected to three other women from that retreat and we actually meet every week for a zoom.
- 23:40Prue Aja: We've got an accountability thing and we keep in touch and we've got each other's back and we're very open and honest and vulnerable and that is just so important to have people like that, because your partner or your best friend or someone that isn't in that world with you, you can't really share those things.
- 23:59Prue Aja: So finding people that are really aligned and where you're at and developing relationships that you otherwise might not meet them through your school or gym and that kind of thing, true.
- 24:12Sarah Pirie-Nally: It's really incredible.
- 24:13Sarah Pirie-Nally: So much of that that can kind of like happen.
- 24:16Sarah Pirie-Nally: Right, you've got destiny obviously that's steering the pot and making sure that you kind of meet people.
- 24:20Sarah Pirie-Nally: But I do think you have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone to truly meet the people you're destined to meet.
- 24:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like I think some people are a little bit like oh, just sit back, I'll meet the people I'm meant to meet, whereas I disagree with that.
- 24:33Sarah Pirie-Nally: Every time I push myself outside of my comfort zone, I meet someone who I'm like oh my God, you're my soul, family, and I feel like I'm on this adventure to meet them all and you're one of them.
- 24:43Sarah Pirie-Nally: Through, like I got you and I was like come on, tantan, you go with me and we're off together.
- 24:47Sarah Pirie-Nally: And it's like I wouldn't have met you if I didn't kind of do that.
- 24:50Sarah Pirie-Nally: And if I'm just sitting at home and I'm clicking in the same clicks and I'm doing the same thing, you're not going to get those little bonus friends that you're meant to find out in the real world.
- 25:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, like little Easter eggs, go out and find them.
- 25:04Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like.
- 25:04Prue Aja: Definitely.
- 25:06Prue Aja: And what I'm hearing from people you know since COVID times is that people are really wanting human connection.
- 25:15Prue Aja: They don't want to just zoom meetings anymore.
- 25:17Prue Aja: But there's also this thing going oh, I don't really want to join the local tennis club or that and also I must admit, I you know I go to yoga and Pilates but there's, there's not really a community around you.
- 25:28Prue Aja: You go in, you go on your yoga mat and then you go and no one's coming together.
- 25:33Prue Aja: And I think that's what these retreats and experiences do it actually brings people together properly, like human touch.
- 25:43Sarah Pirie-Nally: We've got.
- 25:43Sarah Pirie-Nally: We've got to be the science that we kind of use to help accelerate that Right.
- 25:48Sarah Pirie-Nally: And, and we we know a couple of recipes but that help and, and you know, travel and adventure certainly helps.
- 25:54Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, how many people do we know that went on a kintiki tour and stayed friends with the people?
- 25:59Sarah Pirie-Nally: Or, you know, went off on some like adventure and met someone new.
- 26:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like you, you do meet friends when you're traveling, which is why I think I love taking people to new, new destinations and then creating that funness and connection and friendship within a new environment, because it's a shared experience, it's outside of your norm and you've got an opportunity to like just have a really lovely time while you're doing your networking and meeting new people.
- 26:28Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I think the safety of you know what, if you come along and have a fairly good time but don't necessarily click with that many people, you're not stuck in some tennis club up the road where you like feeling awkward that you have to keep going back.
- 26:41Sarah Pirie-Nally: So like, personally I'm, I'm a seven on the Enneagram.
- 26:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: I am like the ultimate commitment fove.
- 26:47Sarah Pirie-Nally: I'm, if you like, if I am your friend.
- 26:50Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know that I'm your friend because I could quite easily just meet a thousand people and be so happy to meet them, but like I don't necessarily need to go and call them all every single day.
- 27:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, that's just not my kind of personality.
- 27:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I do design experiences that work for me in that I'm like, oh yeah, we get to meet all these people and like get to know each other and love each other and there's no pressure, so it's not all it's all like you know, like we're not all now having to like talk to everyone every single day, like it's just this we take the intensity out of it and it's like it's just this free love not free loving, but like there's an energy there that's just like okay, I've got freedom to make choices around the people that I continue to engage with beyond this experience that makes sense for me and that I've resonated with, rather than you're all put in a class and you have to stay friends for the next five years.
- 27:42Prue Aja: Yeah, it organically and naturally evolves as it goes.
- 27:45Prue Aja: So I just want to ask you a couple of questions to wrap up.
- 27:49Prue Aja: What advice would you have for a parent business owner to really balance running their business and having kids?
- 28:00Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, that's great, right, okay, and I've done lots of experimentation over the last 12 years so I can definitely come at this with some stuff that's worked and stuff that hasn't.
- 28:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: It doesn't work when you try and blend everything so it doesn't work.
- 28:14Sarah Pirie-Nally: When you're just like, oh yeah, I'll just make it, that doesn't work, it ends up burning you out.
- 28:19Sarah Pirie-Nally: It works when you get really clearly defined around what you can do by who and by when.
- 28:25Sarah Pirie-Nally: And when I say by who, like having a team of, whether it's a couple of virtual people that you kind of connect with or a cleaner that comes in once a month or once a week that kind of gives you a hand.
- 28:38Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like identifying all the jobs to be done in your life and then making sure that you're not trying to do them all, I think is like the number one, because you can get caught in a trap of trying to be all things to all people and that's when the burnout happens.
- 28:50Sarah Pirie-Nally: And do you know what?
- 28:51Sarah Pirie-Nally: This is big advice to when I solo-parented too, because the only way I got through solo-parenting was going what right, what are all the jobs to be done, and which ones can I actually handle versus which ones do I need a hand with, and I used to text my dad and be like, oh, I just did a blue job, you know like took the things out, or like cooked food on a barbecue or whatever, like the blue jobs used to be, and I'd like celebrate those along the way.
- 29:17Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I don't know, get the jobs to be done, get really clear, get some help.
- 29:22Sarah Pirie-Nally: The next one is like radical compassion and forgiveness, because you know, when you're a business owner who's also a parent, like there will be balls that get dropped and that will happen on both sides.
- 29:33Sarah Pirie-Nally: It'll happen when you accidentally miss a triathlon or a school meeting or something.
- 29:39Sarah Pirie-Nally: And it will also happen if you accidentally meet a miss a meeting or like forget to do something.
- 29:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: But here's the reality.
- 29:46Sarah Pirie-Nally: You would do those things if you were a full-time parent or a full-time worker, and so the fact that you're actually doing both is like everyone's going to drop balls, like a stay-at-home mum occasionally drops a ball, a full-time worker occasionally drops a ball.
- 30:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: So just like, no, that you're just a human.
- 30:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: You're just a human who happens to have responsibilities and I think bringing compassion around that helps just like normalize it, and then you kind of go okay, I'm just a human, I don't necessarily have to be perfect all of the time.
- 30:17Sarah Pirie-Nally: Things are going to happen.
- 30:18Sarah Pirie-Nally: I think that's super important and I think, finally, like we have our non-negotiables and that helps us make sure that even if you get to a point where we've had four kids who've had a vomit bug or like works intense and all this stuff's happening, as long as those non-negotiables are happening, it's like everything's, like the world's not going to come to an end.
- 30:42Sarah Pirie-Nally: So that's making sure that we tuck the kids in a bed of a night and make sure that we read them the stories during the week and make sure that we're cooking meals as often as we can, even if there's kind of chaos, even if it's like as crap as a spaghetti or whatever, like it's just a simple thing, and when you're kind of doing those little things, everything else just seems to sort of feel calm.
- 31:07Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, yeah, they're probably the things that I think I've got so much more.
- 31:11Sarah Pirie-Nally: We've run so many wild experiments and Steve and I have also run a lot of different experiments in terms of who takes the responsibility for what role and played, with me being the breadwinner versus him being the breadwinner, him being a full-time stay-at-home dad, me being a bit of stay-at-home mum, then both sharing, and now we're both in the full hybrid mode again and it's been fascinating to kind of go through those different role changes and really both have to level up during the experience.
- 31:43Prue Aja: Yeah, actually, would you mind sharing how you guys do things right now, because you both live in different countries and you both love each other's children as much as your own, and the kids love each other and they were all together for a few years, so they're already in the three years, yeah, so we've been now apart for two months.
- 32:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: So at the beginning of the year we set up our Melbourne apartment and we've got shared pasta with the on both sides of the ditch and so we've got the most phenomenal burger calendar you've ever seen.
- 32:13Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I spend seven days a month over in New Zealand.
- 32:17Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I get time with his kids and he spends two weeks across in Melbourne and we figure out the final week which is no kids.
- 32:25Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we figure that one out.
- 32:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: It has been super challenging, but there are a couple of paradigms that we sort of leaned in and started to challenge last year which was like what is a family?
- 32:38Sarah Pirie-Nally: How much time do you have to spend together for you to be okay as a family?
- 32:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: What are the sorts of conversations that you need to be holding regularly to ensure everyone's emotional health is okay?
- 32:52Sarah Pirie-Nally: How do we show up for each other when we're not there?
- 32:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: So what are the active service or things that we can do to support one another from a far?
- 33:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: Again, what are our non-negotiables?
- 33:07Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we got to that whole seven days in New Zealand, two weeks in Melbourne, kind of thing, because our non-negotiable was we want to be spending at least three weeks together as husband and wife while we're parenting in that kind of month, and then we've had work and travel and that sort of stuff.
- 33:23Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, like this particular week, we're both solo parenting in different countries and we did things like did the shopping together and like thought about what meals we're going to cook together and so like, even though you're in different countries, you're still helping each other make choices around, like what to feed the kids and what to do on the weekend, and like we just today planned a really cool surprise for the kids in New Zealand because they're really missing us right now.
- 33:49Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we've, like created this cool opportunity for them.
- 33:51Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, yeah, it just takes a lot of communication and a lot of, I think, kind of a human-centered design.
- 33:57Sarah Pirie-Nally: To me, it's just like who are all the people affected?
- 34:00Sarah Pirie-Nally: How do we make sure that we're checking in on them and understanding, like, what their needs are, and then really designing experiences around, how we sort of support each of them within their unique experiences, which we're doing.
- 34:11Sarah Pirie-Nally: So it's pretty incredible.
- 34:14Prue Aja: It's incredible that what you were mentioning before like I'd love to write that down you could almost create a course for parents to do that yeah.
- 34:23Prue Aja: Parents that are even together.
- 34:25Sarah Pirie-Nally: Just like you know, one needs to be met for kids.
- 34:30Prue Aja: I remember when Mila was a baby.
- 34:31Prue Aja: You don't need to be like there the whole time, it's actually about making sure you're giving them solid play time and really feeling that bucket for them, because then they feel seen and heard.
- 34:42Prue Aja: So then they then can go and play with themselves.
- 34:46Prue Aja: They play their own games and entertain themselves.
- 34:48Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, instead of I love that scene and heard I think that that's super important.
- 34:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: The other day I was really missing the Kiwi kids and I wrote them all a love letter and I FaceTimed them and I read them the love letters and like every single one of them teared up and like was like I love you so much, thank you so much, and I was like oh my God, that's such a simple thing that you just don't think to do for children.
- 35:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: But we know that those little practices are the things that actually really hit home and they absolutely love.
- 35:15Sarah Pirie-Nally: They love when we do love letters, they love when we do challenges.
- 35:19Sarah Pirie-Nally: So for Christmas I designed a 12 month Wonder and Wanda Family Challenge and so each month they open an envelope and it's got a voucher in there and it's got a challenge, and so they're all in sync around that particular challenge and the present that they get.
- 35:33Sarah Pirie-Nally: So it did two things it minimized the crap that happens at Christmas, which drives me absolutely nuts.
- 35:39Sarah Pirie-Nally: And it also kept us connected as a family.
- 35:41Sarah Pirie-Nally: Like their challenge this month is a creativity challenge.
- 35:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: They've got $40 each to spend on craft supplies to think about designing something and they've already started talking about it and like trying to figure out what they do and it's like common thing to focus on each month, which has just been awesome.
- 35:59Sarah Pirie-Nally: And it seems to be working, which is great.
- 36:01Prue Aja: And keeps them connected?
- 36:02Prue Aja: Can you please write a book and create a course about this unbelievable knowledge and experience and the way that you are raising your kids?
- 36:13Prue Aja: I'm very inspired by it.
- 36:16Sarah Pirie-Nally: Thank you.
- 36:16Sarah Pirie-Nally: I'm so lucky to be a mama.
- 36:21Prue Aja: One other thing I wanted to ask you was maybe it's a bit too much of a big question, but I'll just try it Like how do you teach your kids about business and money?
- 36:33Sarah Pirie-Nally: Oh no, this is a great question because it's something we think about a lot.
- 36:36Sarah Pirie-Nally: I love it.
- 36:37Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I'm a human-centered design expert.
- 36:40Sarah Pirie-Nally: I've been doing it and teaching it for the last 12 years.
- 36:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: I wrote an MBA in design thinking for RMIT University.
- 36:47Sarah Pirie-Nally: I've helped contribute to the postgrading human potential for a digital economy with Academy EX.
- 36:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: It's something that I'm very, very passionate about.
- 36:57Sarah Pirie-Nally: So my approach to teaching them about business is both through the exposure of having them around and having them part of things.
- 37:04Sarah Pirie-Nally: We ask them to help us make decisions.
- 37:06Sarah Pirie-Nally: We give them, like, different scenarios and get them to kind of play with that.
- 37:10Sarah Pirie-Nally: But I've taught all of our kids design thinking so they all know how to go through a design thinking process, because I think that's one of the most phenomenal tools that we can give our children is how to solve an epic problem, like, how do you solve a wicked problem?
- 37:23Sarah Pirie-Nally: Well, you use a framework for solving wicked problems.
- 37:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: So that's number one With money.
- 37:28Sarah Pirie-Nally: This year we've set it's pretty cool actually so we use an app called Family Wall and again, this is like an epic, epic tool for families, like whether this is a family who's together or living in different places.
- 37:41Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we have set up a family budget and the family budget we've got like a kid's budget and we basically track what they have spent for the year.
- 37:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: So they got given a certain budget for clothes, a certain budget for toys and a certain budget for what we called like their connection flight.
- 38:06Sarah Pirie-Nally: So they each got a flight to make sure that they can stay connected to the family, so they can execute that at any point in the year.
- 38:12Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you should have seen the relief on their little faces when they knew that they could do that.
- 38:16Sarah Pirie-Nally: It's like the cutest thing you've ever seen, and the greatest thing about that is we have with this budget and sitting them down and explaining how that all works, we've empowered them to have a different conversation.
- 38:25Sarah Pirie-Nally: So now when we go shopping, they look at something and they'll be like I really like this, I really want it, I think I need it.
- 38:32Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we talked about wants and needs, but you've also got to have the budget for it.
- 38:37Sarah Pirie-Nally: So that final part is a part that I think if every family started so yeah, you need them once a great, but do you have the budget for it?
- 38:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: Set your kids the budget, give them a budget and give them an annual budget that they have to manage with it.
- 38:49Sarah Pirie-Nally: So our kids have got, you know, super fortunate and also trying to keep them like clever and thrifty, so they get a certain amount.
- 38:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: Each Lola's already spent half of hers.
- 39:00Sarah Pirie-Nally: Sienna's spent a quarter of hers.
- 39:02Sarah Pirie-Nally: Stella's spent 30%.
- 39:04Sarah Pirie-Nally: Luke has only spent 6% of his clothing budget.
- 39:07Sarah Pirie-Nally: Sienna's spent 10%.
- 39:08Sarah Pirie-Nally: But we check in on a regular basis and let them know like, right, this is what you spent of this night, this is what's left.
- 39:14Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we're there on the weekend and they'll be like, oh, that I really, I really want that.
- 39:18Sarah Pirie-Nally: I really like that.
- 39:19Sarah Pirie-Nally: Actually, I've got the budget for that so I can make a choice, my own choice, with this money that I've got access to to get that.
- 39:26Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I've just watched them over the last few months and that empowerment around I actually know what I can and can't do within my budget is definitely empowering them to think differently about their money and about what they buy and who they buy it for, and I really I love that.
- 39:43Sarah Pirie-Nally: I absolutely love that.
- 39:46Prue Aja: I think it's not just kids that need that.
- 39:49Prue Aja: I need that, yeah, and that is totally a program that could be implemented into schools, because I feel like that's one of the biggest fault in the schooling system is we're not taught these basic things like tax and money and how to manage our money.
- 40:04Sarah Pirie-Nally: Probably Absolutely, and you know, I've got the fortune of, you know, 12 years in banking and seeing all of the research and seeing all the programs being built, and I have sort of taken all of those lessons and applied what I think, from a human-centered design perspective, would actually work with my family, and so it's been cool to actually run the experiment and watch it work.
- 40:23Sarah Pirie-Nally: I'm like, oh my goodness, I feel so good knowing that I actually feel like I'm spoiling my kids more than ever, but they're all on budget, and so it's this lovely feeling of like we've set a family budget, we've all signed up for it, but we're all managing within it.
- 40:38Sarah Pirie-Nally: So, again, that's a really cool thing to be able to do across the two countries with all the kids, everyone kind of coming together.
- 40:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: It's a good vibe.
- 40:47Prue Aja: Incredible.
- 40:48Prue Aja: Can you be my, like my coach for being a good mom.
- 40:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: Oh, that's so sweet.
- 40:54Sarah Pirie-Nally: You're an amazing mother.
- 40:56Sarah Pirie-Nally: I loved all our chats about mothering together when we're in Antarctica, because it's a role that, like everyone, just expects you to know how to naturally do, like it's just built into your genes and your DNA.
- 41:07Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I think that's partially true.
- 41:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: But I also think we of course, want the best for our children, but we don't always know what the best like is, and I had the most fascinating conversation with the kids yesterday You're going to laugh so much.
- 41:21Sarah Pirie-Nally: So they were out for coffee before school and they were like, do you remember that time that Luca ran out the road and like you were really mad?
- 41:31Sarah Pirie-Nally: Because you were like please don't run out the road without telling me, you know, telling me and you gave him a behavioral consequence of like no device time for an hour.
- 41:39Sarah Pirie-Nally: They were like that was too soft, like that needed at least three days, and I was like, oh, ok, tell me, where else have I been too soft?
- 41:47Sarah Pirie-Nally: And they were like, oh, do you remember when, like, the kids chased the chickens down the driveway?
- 41:50Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you were like you shouldn't chase the chickens down the driveway, because what if they were on the road?
- 41:55Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you were like, come on, guys, you got to be able to listen.
- 41:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: And they didn't listen and they did this again and then you said to them again it was like no sewing for a day.
- 42:02Sarah Pirie-Nally: It was like they love sewing.
- 42:04Sarah Pirie-Nally: So I was still being really harsh and they were like again, man, too soft.
- 42:09Sarah Pirie-Nally: And I just think like we're all afraid of upsetting our children and we never want to hurt them, but they want us to give them structure and routines and guidelines and boundaries.
- 42:19Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you know, the budget is one example of like that's what you've got to spend, that's all you've got to spend.
- 42:24Sarah Pirie-Nally: And it's like the behaviors is the other one.
- 42:27Sarah Pirie-Nally: So Steve and I introduced this whole behavioral consequence and it's like you've got choices, you make choices, but if you make a poor choice then there's a behavioral consequence.
- 42:36Sarah Pirie-Nally: So you know that might be an hour without device time or a day without sewing or something like that.
- 42:43Sarah Pirie-Nally: Apparently that's too soft, we need to kind of ramp it up.
- 42:45Sarah Pirie-Nally: But we just noticed, especially with five kids under one roof, they responded exceptionally well to that really clear guidance around.
- 42:55Sarah Pirie-Nally: Well, there's a behavioral consequence.
- 42:56Sarah Pirie-Nally: And they get to a point where they're like, oh, there's going to be a behavioral consequence for that choice.
- 43:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then you're like, yeah, sorry.
- 43:04Sarah Pirie-Nally: And you're like, fair enough.
- 43:06Prue Aja: I'm curious, if you would ask them to create, what the consequence would be.
- 43:12Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, we did that recently and we also asked them to last holidays set the guidelines.
- 43:18Sarah Pirie-Nally: So we just said to them you let us know how you want to manage this holidays.
- 43:22Sarah Pirie-Nally: They went downstairs, all five of them sat down on the floor, created a whole chart and it was all the things that they needed to do to unlock points.
- 43:30Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then they created a points chart and it was all gamified.
- 43:33Sarah Pirie-Nally: It was like you get 10 points, then you get this, then you get this, then you get this, and it ladded all the way up to like 80 points, and 80 points was 80 bucks to spend on a new outfit.
- 43:41Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, like it was pretty detailed and it was things like you have to make your bed every day, you can't leave toothpaste on the sink, you can't pee on the toilet seat, you've got to have stuck the dishwasher, you've got to cook a meal Like it was pretty detailed.
- 43:54Sarah Pirie-Nally: They came up with this entire thing, wow.
- 43:57Sarah Pirie-Nally: And then they governed it Like it was extraordinary.
- 44:01Sarah Pirie-Nally: We were just like every single day.
- 44:03Sarah Pirie-Nally: Their bedroom was pristine, like military pristine, five kids in one kind of den area with bunk beds and stuff and they kept it like meters of pin and they just all unlocked so many points and we were, like you know, often parents if they needed all the designing.
- 44:18Prue Aja: But kids are capable of designing really great systems 100%, and you know, imagine this going into government and our country's been run like this.
- 44:29Sarah Pirie-Nally: I know that's like maybe people are actually capable of making better choices for themselves.
- 44:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, I mean and that's my firmest belief as a human-centered designer like ask the people, what do the people want, what do they need?
- 44:44Sarah Pirie-Nally: You know, like, and of course you watch their behavior and actually have to do the observing as well.
- 44:49Sarah Pirie-Nally: But like, yeah, of course you can start with what's going to actually work for you.
- 44:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: It's an interesting way to kind of parent and leave 100%.
- 44:58Prue Aja: Well, you have just totally inspired and motivated me.
- 45:03Prue Aja: I haven't got kids, but I've got two dogs now that have come in and gone.
- 45:06Prue Aja: Can you feed me?
- 45:06Prue Aja: I'm going to wrap it up, then I'm going to share info about the she Evolves community.
- 45:13Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, amazing.
- 45:15Prue Aja: Is there anything else that you'd like to mention or talk about as well?
- 45:21Sarah Pirie-Nally: Oh, we've got actually a really amazing experience that's coming up with the solar eclipse in Mazatlan in Mexico and there'll be a charter flight out of LAX, return flights, an amazing eclipse experience.
- 45:34Sarah Pirie-Nally: I don't know if you, listening, have ever witnessed a solar eclipse, but every four minutes and 20 seconds of totality and I am thinking about going.
- 45:43Sarah Pirie-Nally: But regardless, the team have put together the most extraordinary experience and it's well worth checking out.
- 45:48Sarah Pirie-Nally: But yeah, insider expeditions, we've got some really extraordinary experiences.
- 45:53Sarah Pirie-Nally: Our next retreat for she Evolves is in Bahrain Bay in August for the 22nd to the 24th.
- 45:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: We've got an add on day that people can add on if they feel like having an extra day, but it's going to be so much fun and my girls will be there too, so it's going to be a lot of fun.
- 46:09Prue Aja: And I'll be there with Myla too.
- 46:11Prue Aja: I'm just going to quickly check, because I did ask my community, our community if they had any questions about what we were chatting about.
- 46:21Prue Aja: I'll quickly see if there were no questions.
- 46:30Prue Aja: Probably not the best time I asked it five minutes before we started, so we're not the best timing.
- 46:35Prue Aja: But it's so lovely to chat with you and I really hope that people will get something out of listening to this and I'm sure they're going to want to know a lot more about how much of an incredible parent you are and what you do as well, and you're really just creating a beautiful next generation.
- 46:53Prue Aja: And yeah, so you were very lucky aren't we?
- 46:58Sarah Pirie-Nally: Yeah, no-transcript.