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What I've Learnt - Sarah Andrews · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Sarah Andrews is a scientist, designer, and teacher.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Her unique background brings structured processes and original ideas to interior arts and design, which she's used to educate thousands of students around the world in her online school and in-person masterclasses.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: She's well known for creating and teaching timeless, iconic and authentic interiors across personal styles, with an enormous number of her students having work appear in publications worldwide.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The success of so many of her students has led to her school quickly gaining cult status and international recognition.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: She lives in a remote part of Tasmania on the sea.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: But today we're speaking from California, where she's residing at the moment to work on her next book.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, Sarah, welcome to the What I've Learnt podcast.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me on.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolute pleasure.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm very interested in this story.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is really quite it's a story in itself.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: The actual it's like a book.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like you're watching a film when I hear your story.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: It really is quite extraordinary.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just to give our listeners a little taste of your journey, you began the adventure that led you to your Tasmanian cottage, uh Captain's Rest, in a boat, sailing from Mexico to Australia.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The story goes that the boat crashed in a storm and you were on a mission to rediscover a place to rest and to find home in.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So what got you on that boat in the first place?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what made that home?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what made that home at that point in your life?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, and also it's quite a courageous story.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how old you were, but you can give us a little insight.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was about, I guess about 24.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I studied to be a spatial scientist in Western Australia.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time it was a very kind of rare and unique and exciting area of science that everybody wanted a piece of.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So they ended up working at a really large consultancy in London on projects all over the world, going into other disciplines and helping them understand what they were doing and further their knowledge in areas they couldn't quite figure out yet.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this really beautiful area of science that I got to have all these exciting experiences like going into archaeological museums and looking at old Roman swords and understanding things about hydrodynamics under the city of London.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful and lovely.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: But as a 20-something-year-old woman, I just couldn't get my head around that this was it for the rest of my life.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to work Monday to Friday, you know, in a grey office chained to the hamster wheel.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided that it would be a really good idea to take a couple of years off to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life because I sort of saw it, I sort of saw the writing on the wall.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I saw the years stretching on until my retirement.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden my life would be over.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I hadn't really figured out who I was and done what I wanted to do.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I sort of spent a couple of years traveling around the world, having a great time, living in Africa and living in Europe, in the Americas.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the time frame I gave myself, I found myself sitting on the harbor of San Francisco, looking at the Golden Gate Bridge and feeling really depressed because I still didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't found the thing that I was looking for, that, you know, what my purpose in life was.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And in and really I'd felt more depressed than when I started, because I hadn't really figured out who I was and what would make me happy because I'd had this adventure of a lifetime.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'd had the amazing job in London, living somewhere beautiful, and none of it had made me happy.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And this, you know, beautiful global holiday, and I still wasn't happy.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I asked myself, you know, because I was so um, I think at low at that point, you know, when I tried everything and seen everything, and it still didn't exist.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And my answer to myself was, well, I just, I just want to be alone in the middle of nowhere when no one can get to me.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just sort of thought, oh, how can you do that?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because the world is such a busy place, there's people everywhere.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then a sailboat sailed past.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's it.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I need to buy a boat and I need to learn how to sail it, and I'm I'm going to the I'm going to sea.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm going to do.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I did it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I did it before I could think too much about it.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I hired a guy who was like a captain and told him what I wanted to do.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: He helped me buy the right boat, and I spent almost a year sort of just training full-time to do this, to live on my boat, to sail around the world, to be able to do everything myself, like fix my own engine, rep, you know, repair my own sails, navigate, live at sea and at anchor in, you know, faraway bays.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it worked.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was challenged and terrified and completely out of my depth.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody told me it was crazy.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And but, you know, the year or two I spent living on my boat and sailing around were the happiest in my life I had had so far.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd really found out who I was and what I wanted and what made me happy.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, for the first time, felt a lot of joy about being alive.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty extraordinary because, first of all, you're very intrepid because there's a lot of fear, and you know, I mean, that really requires enormous courage, focus, determination to do what you did.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you were young, and maybe, you know, with the, I suppose, the joy of innocence and youth, that that's sort of something that facilitated and allowed you to do that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: But also you sound like quite an old soul.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're quite reflective for somebody of that age.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's still pretty young, and you clearly had very big dreams and also very clear ideas that you needed to do something outside of the, I suppose, the parameters that often we're raised to accept.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I did it because I wanted to.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think I did it because I had to.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was at such a low point.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: As a young person, I was very, very smart.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then the work I did, I became very privileged.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I could have anything I wanted.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I could work anywhere I wanted to work, and none of it brought me joy.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing, nothing I could buy, nowhere I could go, no experience I could have.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it really was, in a way, my last effort.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was almost like, well, if this doesn't work out, I'll just sail out to sea and be miserable and jump off the side.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I really was at that point at that in my life.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost like I don't know, but it it felt like something I had to do.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like so, so really for you, it was almost like a life-saving exercise to pull yourself out of what was clearly, I suppose one could argue it was a form of depression, a form of which, you know, or melancholia, which is the poetic version, you know, the literary version.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I would say deep depression.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But most people with, you know, most people, and it's not an uncommon experience, who have deep depression, you know, they're at their therapist and they're on their medication, and that, you know, it's very, it's interesting because what I love about your story is that you reached out into the universe quite literally, and you tapped really nature and the things that we're surrounded by that often I think do give us great healing, whether it's, you know, the ocean or the beach or work walking through a forest.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's the ultimate antidote.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you took that to the full extreme because obviously you could, I mean, a year preparing for that is quite a big thing.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you obviously resourced yourself.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I took it really seriously.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I sold the house I'd bought when I got my first job.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: I spent a year full-time sailing, which is the most more than anyone can do over many years of their life doing it part-time, you know, and hired all the right people to help me.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I was being frivolous about it because I did want to make it work.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: But looking back now, you know, even as a kid, I was so uncomfortable in my environment surrounded by people.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I would run away all the time.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then as soon as I could, I'd got my parents to buy me a pony so I could just ride off and be on my own in nature.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't a new thing.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think looking back now, I can connect the dots, but you sort of don't really expand yourself well at the time.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and that comes obviously with growth and maturity.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And but it is interesting that you also so do you think it's nature or nurture that you were this way inclined or a combination?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think definitely nature.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I my mom said I started running away from home as soon as I could walk.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would escape the crib and get out the front door and just start running into the bush.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then she'd call for me and I'd smile and wave and keep running.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've always had this urge to run and swim and be alone in nature.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: She said I've always been exactly the same.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: She said, even as a baby, I didn't want that much to do with her.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: The other two sort of clung on as hard as they could and I'd just be off.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I think definitely maybe I was born this way.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is very um reflective too, because you seem to have a very strong independence streak.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of people that run from the solitary nature that life can bring.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You ran towards it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think um everybody needs a certain balance of solitude and intimacy.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think maybe my balance towards solitude is a little heavier than most others.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they're saying that, you know, I when COVID hit and and lockdowns, I thought, oh, this is great.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be fine.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've been preparing all my life for this, exactly this.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I made sure I jumped online and bought fishing nets and I thought I'd gonna have a great time.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: But even that was difficult for me.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I find it hard to imagine how other people did who needed more of the intimacy of life than I do.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, the um the notion of intimacy and the balance of intimacy and solitude is is really quite a um, well, it's the endless, I suppose, the challenge for all literature, and if you in almost every book, every song is about that, isn't it?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Really often I often say that, and I'm surrounded by musicians and artists in my life, and often that is what we talk about is how do you balance that?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: A daily struggle, I think, with getting your needs met is basically what it's about.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Every day feels different, every day you need something like new.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's just me, but it doesn't get any easier.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think I think you speak for many in in that reflection.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me, so you get on the you get this boat, you train to be able to drive this boat, I'm assuming, is quite a lot of work.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, luckily I didn't really know what I was getting myself into.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I spoke to a couple of guys and that who are older in the 60s and 70s, who were just you know salty old sea dogs, and they just said, there's nothing that you can't learn or can't do, Sarah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone can do this, they just need to want to.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about the details right now, learn them as you go.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad I got that advice because I think if I knew how much I had to learn and do, I probably wouldn't have started.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: But just because I didn't know too much, and just taking those first steps, once the ball was rolling, I think what's the uh expression, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had this boat and I knew I wanted to do it, and my visa to be in America was running out.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that was I just had to get it done and be on my way.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, first day that you get on the boat and you're off on your journey, what were your thoughts and how did you feel?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I remember you know, it was two parts that when I first got my boat.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when I bought my boat, there was a sort of a process of paperwork and international transactions, and you know, when I when I got the keys, I moved onto the boat because I was living at a friend's house at the time in America.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And this wave of anxiety just hit me.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: What have I done?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was the boat was disgusting, it was so dirty, there was water in the boat, it was moldy, it was just dark, it wasn't touched to power, and I just thought, oh my god, what have I done?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And just I just remember having almost a migraine.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: I felt so sick.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: But then I woke up the next day and just got to work and just started cleaning things and taking off rubbish and then making lists of things I needed, then making lists of things I needed to learn and just attacking the list every day.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I eventually got to the point where I left on my own.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I was doing lots of sailing with um instructors and other people on their boats and them on mine, and taking little trips around and overnight trips and sailing out to the Pacific and then turning around and sailing back again until I felt confident enough to do it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I invited my best friend who wasn't a sailor.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Do you want to come with me?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're sailing to Mexico on New Year's Day.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, All right, and we did it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: We just everyone on the dock who'd gotten to know me over the months and I was living there, waved me off and had a big party, and it was New Year's Day or New Year's Eve, I think.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And off we sailed onto the horizon at sunset to Mexico, and it was amazing.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: We um didn't have any winds, so we motored down, which was a little, it's a little easier to do be on a boat that way, and we had drinks and Christmas hams and let off firecrackers off the back of the boat.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And sounds fun, it sounds beautiful.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was amazing.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: We got to Mexico the next day, and we had no idea what to do.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: We kept flipping through manuals, trying to figure out how to radio in.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you say?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: What do you say when you roll into a boat to another country?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know, I had to figure it out very quickly, and yeah, it was just a grand adventure.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was really just a grand adventure.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And two things.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: So getting out of your comfort zone was actually the key to unlock the depression in a way.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You had to push yourself right.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're talking right out of our comfort zone, and that seemed to, from what you're describing, release whatever the not, using a shipping term.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: The not what yeah.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I sometimes think that maybe it was I was so surrounded from being a little kid to early 20s with everyone telling me what I had to do and be.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that messaging on what you should do to be a successful person, what you should wear, where you should work, how much you should earn, that we were constantly bombarded with.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And finally I had the chance to not have any of that around me and just think about who I was, what made me happy, the things I like to do, the places I like to be, how I like to live.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this really golden opportunity to not have any noise, and I could finally listen to my own inner voice.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: But there was an element of for the first time understanding what I was really capable of.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And as I got going on my trip, everybody knew about me because boats that I'd met sailing up and down the coast would tell their friends that I mean, like, there's this girl sailing down on her own.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it was such a rare and special thing at the time.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now there's lots of yachty influences, and it's kind of a thing to do.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: But this was almost 15 years ago.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'd had no idea that was something people just didn't do.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know at the time.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: But then, you know, I the more I sailed, the more I realized, oh, maybe I'm maybe I am doing something kind of interesting to other people.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so at any point did you, was safety an issue for you in terms of your concerns, or did you just put your anxieties, which must have been great at certain times, the solitary nature of it, the the you know, the intrepid nature of it.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting, you obviously navigated literally your way through that anxiety.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think someone told me sailing is like 99%, you know, jumping dolphins and rainbows and everyone having a great time, and 1% sheer terror, and there's no in between.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like it goes from that to that within 10 minutes, and it's very true.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is, I think when you're sailing on your own and something happens, um, you know, the weather changes, or there's a problem on the boat, or you're navigating and you're not where you thought you would be, there's not no one to help you.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: You have to figure it out, otherwise you're going to die.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And being able to challenge myself to troubleshoot such terrifying, you know, experiences.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had a lot of really lot of things go wrong and had to get myself out of sticky situations really gave me the confidence in myself that I was capable of amazing things.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: On that note, and and obviously there is a somewhat allegorical sort of feel to what you're talking about, because obviously it sounds like life itself, you know, everything that you've outlined reflects, I suppose, what we all do, you know, navigating that, knowing that you've got to sort it, fix it, address it yourself somehow.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that the more you do that, the more you get that strength, is what you're describing.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me, you actually did hit a pretty big bump from what I've understood.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe give us a little, little a very big bump, but that also was quite cathartic in its own way.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about that.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd been, I'd had my vote for about two years, and I'd been sailing on my own for about a year, and I was making an overnight passage.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was I was going from one place to another um on my own.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know I was going around.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'd picked up a guy on a beach who said that he'd sailed before and wanted to give me a hand.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, that sounds great.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, he got on the boat when we left.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was instantly seasick and went downstairs and I never saw him again.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I was doing this open passage.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And by that point, I was just so I was like a different person.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'd finally found myself, I think, who I was meant to be or who I always was, and just the noise of the world put a bit of a dampener on it, and everything was going so well.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I was going to go to this next port and get a bit of equipment and then start sailing across the Pacific to Australia.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And everything went wrong on the trip.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this guy, you know, who told me he was this amazing sailor, just wasn't, had no idea what to do, was so seasick.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I could hear him vomiting, you know, down in my boat while I was trying to manage everything else that was going on, making sure he was okay, had engine problems, weather instantly changed.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this was 15 years ago in very remote parts of Mexico.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you couldn't just, you know, connect your phone and get instant weather.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of all done by radio transmission at a certain time of the day from you know, some fisherman's boat.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, had I had a really big problem with some of my sails, getting stuff up the mast.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a really big boat for one person to handle.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was 39 foot.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So most people sailing on their own do something around like 30 foot.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it was another, quite a big bit big more of a boat to handle.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then about one in the morning, I ended up, you know, it was crazy weather.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was sort of surfing down waves almost, these giant, giant waves in the middle of the ocean, and I hit something in the middle of the ocean, and I don't know what it was.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, I thought that maybe it was a shifting container.
• 19:20
  unknown: Right.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: A sleeping whale or an uncharted pinnacle rock.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was just something in the ocean which shouldn't have been there.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And but it, you know, I really beat myself up about it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe it's something I didn't see on a map, or um, but a year later, almost the day another boat happened happened in the same area, and they saw they saw it, they saw it was a whale, and they're quite Oh, it was a whale.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think they did, and two of them died, and only one survived.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel, you know, when it happened to me, the sailing community really tore me apart.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: They said I shouldn't have been out there on my own, I should have been with the man.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was too young, like all of those horrible things that people say, but you know, which made me feel really awful.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I had this awful mid-sea issue with basically the bottom of my boat cracked open, taking on more water than I could stop, and being very, very, very remote.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I called for help with my EPERB, which is sort of like an emergency button you just push and then hope someone comes.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And spend the next sort of five or six hours trying to keep this guy on boat calm, you know, who was freaking out, trying to keep as much boat water out of the boat as possible while giant waves are just crashing onto the boat and the boat sinking slowly in the middle of the night.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So terrifying.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't so it sounds like it really does sound like a piece of literature, to be honest with you.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So extraordinary.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's lots of things you do when your boat's sinking.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing you do is try and save the boat, like stop water coming in.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because when water is in a boat, you can genuinely get it out.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing you do is try and stop water coming into your boat.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: But then there's a point where it turns from trying to save the boat to trying to save you, and there's lots of things that you do.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's always a plan A, B, and C.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things you do is put together what they call a ditch bag, which is a bag with things like, you know, um your passport and some money and the log of the boat, you know, the boat log that you've kept and things that are important to you.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: I remember putting that together.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of already had it together because you usually sort of have one ready to go just in case.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: But um, at some point I'm I just left it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is the situation is too bad for bad for even the ditch bag.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that if we get out of this situation alive, we'll be very lucky.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: But at the very final hour when the boat was just about to break apart and sink, the Mexican Navy turned up and plucked us out of the ocean.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly Extraordinary.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Mexican Navy.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So do would they have heard the emergency button call out?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think that was just a coincidence?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: They would have.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when you hit an EPEV anywhere in the world, it will go to the closest um rescue party.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: That could be a navy, it could be the police, it could be sort of marine or harbor patrols.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: It gets rerouted to whoever is closest.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the Mexican Navy were closest to me at the time.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they got the distress signal.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the funny thing was, it was my mum's birthday, which is April Fool's Day.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And for years I'd been calling her around the world, pranking her, like getting someone else on the phone saying, you know, Sarah's in jail in Cape Town, or you know.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so when they rang, it was like nighttime her night.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: She'd had some wines and a family barbecue, and she got this call from, you know, Sergeant Juan Gonzalez, the fifth of the Mexican Navy, and she hung the phone up because she thought that it was a prank from me.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so 10 minutes later, someone else higher up rang and said, you know, we've got a distress call.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know where she is, we don't know where the boat is.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: She hung up the phone again.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then they called back a third time and she thought, oh shit, maybe, maybe, maybe this is for real.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: But um that's that is really well, that'll teach you to prank your mum.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've never pranked her since.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: That was the last time it's yeah, she hasn't had any calls like that for a long time.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, you were saved, but really by the grace of the universe or God, if you believe in that.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did that change your trajectory?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So lots, lots happened at the time didn't know about.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: From my understanding, the Navy that picked me up kind of had a meeting with like the local police of the area.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what I think happened was they realized that I didn't have a passport, I had nothing.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I had a pair of pants and a t-shirt, and we didn't have any underwear.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Everything was gone.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't have any identification, I didn't have a passport, I didn't have a visa to be in the country, and I didn't have any money because I had all my money on the boat in cash because I was planning to sail across the Pacific to Australia.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they kind of realized that I was probably going to go to immigration prison.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably what was going to happen to me until the diplomats could sort it out.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the local police said, let me talk to the local people.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the little village that I was closest to sort of adopted me and decided to that they would take care of me until maybe I could sort it out and get a passport organized.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was sort of, in a way, their town charity project.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And they found me this little, I guess it was like a three-sided tin shed on a on a beach that wasn't in the village, I was on my own.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they gave me a little cat to keep me company.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Every now and then someone would drop off some fresh fish, but I would mainly forage for food on the ocean that I'd lived in front of.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd walk around the town, and people would invite me in for tacos or you know, but you know, I didn't speak any Spanish either.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was it was an interesting experience.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the experience I'd been through was so big, I just didn't know what to do because I didn't want to go back to the real world.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd found what I was on this earth to do, I thought.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to go back and talk about what had happened to me because it was so traumatic and it's you know, I thought I was gonna die.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I made peace you know with life and death.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I just didn't want to talk about it.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And where I was in Mesca was no phones, no emails, I didn't have anything to connect me.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just pretty happy just to stay there for a while until I could kind of work out what I was gonna do.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it was sort of part of the healing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was sort of part of a healing process in a way.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't have to deal with the the real world, so-called.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just I was paralyzed and everything I had had up to that point in life, which I think felt was quite privileged because of my own hard work and managing to land in sort of a good area of work was gone.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: I had nothing.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Vote was gone, it wasn't insured, my money was gone.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I didn't even have photos from you know my life or a birth certificate, nothing.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a lot to think about.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Quite nihilistic, really, isn't it?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: The sort of existential being put into an existential sort of free fall.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's what I'm envisaging it, must have felt like.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, lots of emotions.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember at times feeling the happiest I've ever felt just because of the pure freedom and the possibility for what I could do next, or the sh and the sheer terror of going back to society in the real world after being so long living in the world on my own terms, in my own space.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd kind of oscillate between those two feelings about it.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so from there, what was what were the next steps?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like how did you get off the island?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: I eventually got out.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was long and complicated because, you know, obviously I couldn't even be wired money because you need ID to pick money out or, you know, passport.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was really tricky and it did take a long, long time to get to Australia.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: It took nearly a year.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had to go via Canada, England, and then South Africa to sort of gather enough documentation to be let back into Australia.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was no way for the Australian government to help you at that point, like no, because I didn't have a hundred points of ID, which oh my gosh, that was insane.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because how many times we've all done that, gone a hundred points of ID, right?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can't have a Medicare, but you can't get a Medicare unless you're sick.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a Medicare car?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, do you have a birth certificate?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have a driver's license.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've been living overseas for so long, you know, it just really was difficult.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up having to go to England because I'm a dual citizen, getting enough documentation to be English to then become sort of repatriated back into Australia.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it was tough, you know.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I lived with my parents.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: I um went back to school.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: I decided to study design because I felt a little bit lost, and that was the only thing I felt interested in.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'd always been creative and and really tried to integrate back into society, but it was so difficult.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was so difficult being around people who shopped and talked about what they did on Friday night and who was sleeping with who when all I wanted to do is be back on my boat alone, you know, cross-stitching and reading novels and listening to music.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think an experience like that separates you from most other people.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd found this pocket of happiness, but then I was thrown back into this pocket of extreme unhappiness because I couldn't get back to what it is I wanted.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: I got married, I tried to find happiness in other people and other things, like building a home and getting a dog and having a partner, and nothing really filled that gap for me.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was very hard.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, lessons learnt through that experience.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I do think there's something universal about what you can learn, even scientific about what you're learning, because we are so saturated.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the mental health issues universally are clearly overwhelming and are getting bigger and worse.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, obviously the COVID thing has exacerbated that, but separate to that.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if there's some lessons that you've learned through that process about what have we done to our humanity?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And have we lost touch with the poetry of life, which is what I think you could experience in a pure way in the in the ocean, or in for you, it was on that boat.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: But is there something that you, you know, can I suppose share in that sense?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was really difficult, and you know, I had to rebuild my life.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, money is a is a hard thing.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: It gives you freedom, it gives you choice of what you want to do.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't afford to go and buy another boat.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't afford to move to a cabin in the woods full-time because I had to work, you know.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I wonder if COVID and working from home could be a good culture shift for all of us to be able to be more independent, to work for ourselves, you know, find entrepreneurship so you can, you know, at least work at the time of day and the place where you want to be, you know, those sorts of things.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was tough.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I I really searched in those years for what I wanted, which led me to finding the cabin.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's this that's how I ended up there.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was Tasmania wasn't at the time a place anyone wanted to go or move to or bought property in.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was still known as like a place that was a bit, you like if you were from there, you wouldn't say you were from there, that kind of vibe.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd always been so enamored with Tasmania.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: As a little girl, I would talk about moving there.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: My parents who are sun lovers would say, you know, you're crazy.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the cabin I bought, which was incredibly cheap at the time because it wasn't hot property, was kind of my way to deal with things where I could go down there and rest and work with some good Wi-Fi, be outside of the world and then go back when I had to and kind of suffer through the normal things that most people have to do in their day-to-day life.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's clever though, very clever that you actually found a way to still have your escape hatch, knowing that you had to deal with some elements of reality, which obviously meant you had to work to pay to live, which is obviously where we all get, you know, we get caught in that.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: But that but work is also part of that healthy growth.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so you obviously realized you had to find that balance somehow.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that sounded like a great it's the best I could come up with.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: My wife at the time was not supportive because she was also a son lover and was not hot on the idea of Tasmania.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone in my life just said it was, you know, wasted money in terms of investment.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: The m the like having to be on the market for almost five years at that point, no one wanted to buy it, just kept dropping and dropping in value.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the amount of people I meet now who said I saw that and thought, oh, who'd want to live there or go there?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's pretty amazing.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it just was the best I could come up with that I could manage with the funds I'd scraped together, was just a small deposit on a very small, very remote, very cheap shack.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so Captain's Rest, did you name it Captain's Rest or was it named Captain Rest?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it was I named it because it was never going to be a rental.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was always supposed to be somewhere I was for as long as I needed to be, you know, so I could felt like I could breathe and be happy.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so it always was called Captain's Rest because it was the first time I felt like since I'd been thrown back into society and had to work to live and had to put on a brave face and pretend I wasn't sad and depressed, or that I felt like I didn't belong.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was the first time I got to just stop and stop somewhere I wanted to be and create the world that I wanted around me and had some of my power back.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's certainly a beautiful place and all, I mean, the the photos and I would love to come and visit you.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: It looks amazing and stunning.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the but you have to, in a sense, I can see from what you've created there, it is a real sanctuary.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there's an it's got a sense that you can relinquish a little bit there.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm seeing for even just from what I'm reading and talking to you.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like that when I bought it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was a it was literally a shed with a um aluminium sliding window.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it was horrible.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it was mine, and I had a very small budget to make it basically the perfect world that I wanted, that I needed.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, those giant windows I found on Gumtree, like the whole cavern was designed to be.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: I basically was building a world for myself that I wanted to be in, which was probably half my boat and half my shack in Mexico put together.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a hybrid hot water and refrigeration and heating and all the things I wished I had.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: But that's exactly what I did.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I wanted to do is create my own world where I could just be happy.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it looks like you certainly have done that, and it's quite beautifully decorated.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: I and and it's very looks very calming, the environment there.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you would have utilized some of your design skills that you you'd learnt in the course that you embarked on.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about where design's taken you too, because that's obviously a big part of your story.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you know, I went back to RMIT in Melbourne and studied design and loved it and ended up working in the design world and eventually opening my own design studio.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So working big businesses all over Australia.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I loved it, but then I found myself being back where I started in an office dealing with clients, you know, it just wasn't any different.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I started on the side becoming interested in property and renovating and and decorating.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'd always sort of had a bit of an itch to be in that regard.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I was putting Captain's Rest together, and something I've always done is it's I used my science skills, you know, this the type of scientist I was is a spatial scientist.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a space of scientist of space and location.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: So understanding how the world works over distances, and that could be big distances, small distances.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I started, I always have looked at the world around me and tried to understand the formula for it.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a spatial scientist, which means I was the scientist of space and location, and I'd use those skills to go into other areas and understand what they did and help them create new formulas essentially, where they knew something existed but couldn't quite describe it in scientific or mathematical terms.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: So as a designer, I married my science skills with that and started creating rules for aesthetics, like the science of aesthetics, the science of what makes things beautiful, the science of how things make us feel in terms of materials and heights of things and light and heat, and really disseminating every single aspect of how we feel in a space visually and emotionally with science.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd always done it for myself because that's just the way my brain has always worked.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then with Captain's Rest, because it's very quick and immediate success as a rantor, which it had to become, you know, my life had changed from my original plan.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to teach, I guess, all those people who are reaching out wanting to know how I did what I did in a way that worked for them too.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think when a lot of interior designers or stylists teach, they teach how they make a shelf look like this or how they style a couch.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: But what I could teach was the rules of what works and what makes things feel beautiful for people to input themselves into.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the students I was teaching also became enormously successful.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then people would take note of, like, wow, what did you do?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Well, you know, I went to study with Sarah, and then they would come and then they would become enormously successful.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then it just that got so big so quick.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: I remember a couple of years ago, I was traveling around France and the UK, and I would play a game where I'd go into a news agency and see if I could find a design magazine I didn't have a student in, and there was one year I couldn't find, like every single magazine had an some kind of article or reference to somebody I'd taught in the previous couple of years.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think connecting the dots back, perhaps I was always supposed to become a teacher because of the skills that I'd had.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: But everything like without the boat crash and without captain's rest, and without those feelings of such low depression where I couldn't really do anything out sail out to sea or move to Tasmania when it was not a cool thing to do.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, would none of this would have happened, I guess.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, clearly it led you to this space, but also, you know, some of some of the spatial references you make to, you know, the spatial signs, it's quite esoteric.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think teaching that would be quite challenging.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd have you'd have to work with people who were very receptive to some of those somewhat esoteric elements because I suppose it's a bit like, you know, like they talk about, you know, for example, green as a colour that creates a certain mood.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's that sort of genre, is it?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: In trying to not really.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'll give you an example.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: The process we take all of our students through is like first we do a lot of work on them understanding who they are.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: So shaking off the shackles of what they are expected to do and thinking about themselves and what pleases them and who they are and their life and their homes and the spaces around them.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: And once we've finished them thinking about that, then I start to teach them a framework for thinking about how they could put that out into the basically how they can put their inside selves into their outside world.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, starting with really simple principles.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: So the first time we teach is about using rounded objects, and we show pictures of a room with lots of straight edges and a picture of a room with more rounded things in it.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: And visually they can see, wow, this feels really uptight, and this feels like a space I'd want to be in, even though they're the same space with just a few things.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then we go through the process of those first principles, then we start going into advanced principles.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we're really taking them on a journey where they're first thinking about themselves and then they're putting themselves through a way of thinking where they can design their world around them in a way that works.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they can come to uh Captain's Rest and have that experience directly with you and spend time, or is it mainly online?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I teach face-to-face and online, and we have various schools and things.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: Captain's Rest has become an iconic cabin in the world.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's fully booked with people all the time who have nothing to do with who I teach.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's sort of um more people who have come to me through the Airbnb world, and now that's become such a big cult thing that we started a new school for people who just want to learn about their own spaces and their own businesses.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, Captain's Rest, I think, has just always been a place where people come and relax and I leave them completely alone.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't think they go there for a teaching experience.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think they go there for their own.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: And do you get to still go?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is there is there still a few days available for you?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, there is.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: I live in Tasmania.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: So last year, you know, with COVID, I did lockdown, the first lockdown at Captain's Rest.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to spend a couple of months there, which was so wonderful to go back to where I started and to have the place to myself and think about the journey I'd been on as the world ground to a halt.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Really good thinking time.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then whenever I'm there, as soon as something pops up like a cancellation, I'm always in the car on my way up there with a couple of bottles of wine and a few blocks of cheese.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: So when I when I can, I go.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it sort of does feel to me like the last chapter of my life.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: So when I go there, I feel like I'm visiting a chapter that it has ended.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not always it's a different experience for me to go than I think guests, which is always interesting to me.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when you say it's the last chapter of your life, you mean there's another one to be built?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or you mean that's where you're comfortable and you're you're settled?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I built Captain's Rest and made it what it was, I was in that very painful part of my life where I had figured out who I was, then lost everything.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was so uncomfortable in society, and I was just trying to build this world where I could be myself and let magic come in.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that person anymore.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I found happiness.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: I found Captain's Rest gave me the freedom to not work in a job nine to five, to travel the world wherever I wanted to live, to buy a house and live on my own and not have to pay, you know, have a lodger in to help pay the mortgage.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm back in that life that I I wanted.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it gave me that opportunity.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: So when I go back, I'm taken back to that chapter where I was in so much pain and I was searching for more and I needed this.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: But and but now, you know, that page has turned.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm on to the next thing.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I can't wait to see what you have coming up next.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you're you're talking to us from sunny California, although I don't know how sunny it is right now.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but California is certainly, and you know, being being in that world is also quite expansive and very removed.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what you've certainly highlighted in our chat today is it's the internal space that you take with you, that you adapt to where you are, and that you accommodate and grow in that space.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if it reflects on the outer world, then that's great.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you can always find that sanctuary because it's with you.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: At the moment I'm in um Southern California, so south of LA, and it's just all freeways and suburbs.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but this morning I took a little walk and saw a hummingbird and just sat and watched this hummingbird.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And being an Australian, I don't I've never seen a hummingbird before.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: So finding those little moments and and feeling okay.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember being in California before I bought my boat and that feeling of distress and and now being back here again, it's so wonderful to know how much I've grown as a human, how much more happiness I've gathered.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I remember blowing out my birthday candles when I was like 12 and wishing to just know what it felt like to be happy all the time.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: That would be what I'd wish for every year.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: And now, whenever I have a birthday, I just am very grateful that I feel happy.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I always wanted.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, somehow I've managed to grow that internal world.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd like to thank you so much for sharing your extraordinary story, um, one that's very inspirational, and I think we can all learn a lot from.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I just wish you well on your next chapter and your book, which I know you're working on.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope one day to come and visit you at this wonderful sanctuary.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: We'll certainly have to look it up on Airbnb.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds stunning.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to thank you so much for joining us on the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: The What I've Learned Podcast will now be coming to you weekly, with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Love Death.