Latest / She Said It Out Loud with Emma Young / Sunroom Pilates instructor, Miss Cable Beach x 2 and HOT AF single Mum Hope!

Transcript

Sunroom Pilates instructor, Miss Cable Beach x 2 and HOT AF single Mum Hope! · She Said It Out Loud with Emma Young

0:00
SPEAKER_01: You're listening to She Said It Out Loud, where real women share real stories without sugarcoating a theme.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Emma Young, and I'll bring you on filtered conversations with ambitious women who faced challenges, made bold moves, and learned a lot along the way.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: You'll get real takeaways, honest lessons, and stories that you're gonna relate to.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Righto, let's get started.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Hey there and welcome to the podcast.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Emma Young, and this is She Said It Out Loud.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: I wanna say thank you so much for downloading the episode today because it always means so much to me when I get people downloading the episodes and have them sending me DMs afterwards.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for doing that.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is brought to you by Fourfold Cafe in Broom.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've been listening to the last couple of weeks, you would have heard me have the same message at the start, sponsored by Fourfold Cafe.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: And that's because they're legends.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: This cafe has just opened up.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's been opened maybe about two months.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't been there yet and you live in Broome, no excuses.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: You need to get yourself down there, check them out.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: They've got delicious cold brew, that's been my thing.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: They've got grab and go options, they also have their little general store, they also have mini golf.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Today's guest is none other than Hope Christensen.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: She is a Pilates instructor here in Broom at Sunroom, and she works part-time for Commonwealth Bank.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: She's also a single mum to the sweetest little boy Sage.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: And she recently entered into the Miss Cable Beach Bikini Comp.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Yes, 16 years after she won it back in 2010.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: We talk about that along with many other things.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: So enough of me waffling.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Here is our conversation.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the podcast Hope.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm incredibly pumped to have you on the episode today because but besides this being actually our first time, probably having a good chat and meeting in person a couple of days last year when I was doing relief teaching at Bruin Primary, and you know it was like a high and by and kind of like a bit of a chat.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: But your name has been dropped several times as a person for me to interview, and and also obviously for a number of reasons.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: And look, I just reached out to Hope.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: Senator DM was like, Do you want to be on the podcast?
2:19
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Yeah, let's do this.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the podcast Hope.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Em.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Yay.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Before we even get started, not everybody knows who Hope is.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: And just a little secret, I've just forever keep calling you Hope Sage, which I think is funny.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: It's just I'm like, here I'm gonna be interviewing Hope Sage.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, because that's your name on Instagram.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: She's not Hope Sage, everyone.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: Her name is actually just Hope, and Sage is her son.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: But can you explain to me a little bit about yourself today?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess I'm a Broom local, you could call it, um, few generations back in Broom.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: So um it's a nice small town.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: I've come back after being away for 10 years.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Been back a couple of years now.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm a single mum in my mid-30s.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I work part-time, um banking and I teach Pilates on the side.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I have a pretty cruisy life, especially in Broome.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I spent a lot of time at the beach and yeah, going camping and yeah, doing lots of outdoor stuff.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: I have a seven-year-old boy.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: So high energy and yeah, lots of fun times.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Now I want to dive more into, you know, before I hit record, you'd spoken about the history of your parents and your grandparents that have lived in Broom.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: But can you tell me more about that?
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, broom primary, um, which is where I would have originally met you in passing when Sage went there for Kindi.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, my both my parents met in Broom Primary as children.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, they're not together anymore, but both of their families are from here.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: My great-grandmother, so my mum's grandmother raised her really.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: My nan's still living in town, her mom as well.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: They had a poultry farm out of town.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know that there was a poultry farm.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a poultry farm.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: They had race horses.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: My pop worked at the meatworks.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: My great-grandmother um founded PCYC and a couple of emergency services in town, had a dress shop um in town called the Golden Shower.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: That's so funny.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I know funny now.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: But so obviously it was this off the tree, like the golden shower tree.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, where'd she get golden shower from?
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Off the tree.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: The beautiful flowering golden showers.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Like they're beautiful.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh god, yeah.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Um still remember, like, as a as a young girl, this I didn't know them when they lived in Broom, but she always had her back sewing room and she'd always be out there, even when her eyesight was so bad, she'd like sew us like dresses and all these amazing things.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: So she, yeah, she was a whiz on the sewing machine.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cool.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: So that's a lot of history there.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of family history.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a lot.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't really appreciate it when I was younger.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: I was kind of like small town, you know.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: I I appreciate you telling me about that because yeah, I was surprised when you mentioned that there was even a poultry farm.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: There's so many things I'd, you know, I've been in Broom 10 years, and there's still lots of things that I'm finding out, even to this day.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: So thanks for sharing that.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Look, let's talk more about flowing with hope.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: It sounds so incredible.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: Flowing with hope.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: But that you're a qualified Pilates instructor and you work at the sunroom in Broom, and yes, Ebony will be listening to this, and she knows that I've hassled her out to come on here.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: But she is so incredibly busy.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: But I think you know, somebody will get her and we'll we'll get her here.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: She'll listen to this episode and be pumped.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: I want to know how you even eventually.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Huge inspiration for me.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: How did you how did you even become a part of the sunroom and even becoming a Pilates instructor?
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, it actually was through Instagram, like an Instagram giveaway, your classic, like tag.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: You see, all these notifications pop up, all your girlfriends in town are tagging you.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: I'd seen the sunroom around, I'd never done Pilates myself.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't quite kind of joined any type of fitness since being back in town.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: And I ended up like waking up one morning and I'd had a few messages.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, you won the sunroom, like sunroom sleigh.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it was the Christmas sleigh challenge.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: So it was it ran for December in 2024.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Basically, the prize was a month membership to join in the Christmas sleigh challenge.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: And that's what got me started.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And I remember after my first class, Peking Duck performed like not much after that at the Rowie.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I yeah, it was like, I think it was like three, two or three days after, I still could not walk up the back steps of the Rowie from the sports bar because I was so sore from my first session at Sunroom on the Reformers.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: But I just fell in love with it on a different level, like not just, I don't know, not just for my moving my body, but my mind and uh the community I really fell in love with really quickly.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And once the you know, the month ran out, I was like, I can't not keep going.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: And then I did.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the rest is history.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: The opportunity came up to do a face-to-face instructor course with Ebony.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: She was the trainer through a third party that accredited Pilates uh Matt and Reformer instructor.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: You could pick one, the other, or both.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: And I went for the both, and that was it, really.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: I just was like, oh, why not?
7:11
SPEAKER_00: kind of thing.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: It was a real last-minute decision.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: There was like two spots left.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: She messaged me, she's like, hey, there's two spots on the thing.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you want to sign up?
7:18
SPEAKER_00: And then me and my girlfriend Sam, who I also grew up with and um had got her to join Sunroom 2 because I just was like, You're gonna love the community of it.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: She's a dancer as well, so yeah, and we we ended up doing it together, and that was almost a year ago last year.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: So people can obviously go to the sunroom, and then you've got your own specific classes that you run.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: It we kind of share them a lot.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: There's ones that like consistently I can commit to taking.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: So I usually take a Tuesday afternoon alternator between reformer and hot mat, and I do a Friday morning circuit on the reformers, and that's kid friendly.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, correct me because I am not up with Pilates.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: I really need to be because of my driving, the level of driving I do, I'm just not flexible.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't stretch, I don't do any exercise.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Um useless.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Let's just say that.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: No, that sounds terrible.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: But but I need to need to move my body, and a lot of people have suggested it.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: It's just, I mean, Coach Carly will be listening to this, shaking her head, going, You promise to come to run club.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: I still need to do that.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: What is hot mat?
8:19
SPEAKER_01: What is hot mat?
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Is this something that's like a sauna thing?
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it's a heated room.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so around 38 degrees Celsius inside the room.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's a 45-minute class.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: There's two options.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: We kind of do a basic hot mat, which is more flowing, and then we also have one called hot strength, so that's more strength-focused and on the mat.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: So no reformers, you wouldn't want to do it on a reformer, you'd be slipping and sliding, it'd be the serious OHS issue.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's super fun.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: There's something about it nearing death during the 45 minutes, but then the euphoric feeling you get afterwards is something I can't describe.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: You'd have to do it.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: So with the hot strength, are you doing weights?
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Usually, yes.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, that's hardcore.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Holy crazy.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: So much fun though.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: I was almost like, nah, I would never do that.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: And now I love teaching it.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: I love doing it.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jiz, you can hear it in your voice.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Like how passionate you are.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I feel like it becomes like, I think it's quite popular across a lot of different Pilates studios.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you see it online as well.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: And they incorporate infrared into it.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of some people say it's amazing.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I love it.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for sharing that.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Now look, I know that you mentioned at the start when I asked who you were, and you mentioned, you know, you're a single mum to Lil Sage, who's such a sweet little boy.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: What is it like being a single mum?
9:34
SPEAKER_01: But in regards to how do you manage your time where you know it's just the two of you, but then also time for just yourself.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm super lucky.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I guess any single mum, and you've had a period of time where you've been a single mum as well.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Your village is so important, and yeah, that extends to really close friends of mine that I've got in town.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Really lucky that we've got kids around the same age.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: My parents also back in town as well.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: They help me out so much, but I just really find little pockets of time where I can, you know, get my downtime.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Pilates is one of them.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I do that every morning after I take Sage to school.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Fridays, I don't work my normal job and I teach Pilates in the morning, but the rest of the day I have to myself.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And I usually call that my beach rot day.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, and open to any appointments that I might want to do uninterrupted and not having to take a child with me.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I kind of just yeah, take it day by day.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this sounds like you're living a train.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Like just a like a Friday off.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Do whatever you want, have time to yourself.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when there's no sports carnivals or dentist appointments have to happen on a Friday.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, damn it, that's my day.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: But um, I really look forward to those days.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: It's like my recoup, we can get back through the weekend.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: I find the season though, like the dry season, just social events, and yeah, you know, we've both got our birthdays during this time, Shinju races, just guests coming up.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I'm always logistically shuffling him around for sleepovers or whatever that looks like.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: But that's cool.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: That's good that you've got a good village that's that's you know, surrounds you.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Now you packed up and drove around Australia with Sage.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about this story because you said that you've had so many people reach out and contact you when they've heard about this amazing story.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I forget sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago now that I've been back here, because I planned to come back just for six months once I'd finished traveling.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I spent just over 12 months going around and I took that as just unpaid leave.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Some of it was paid with the bank.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I bought a vintage caravan, not with a plan to live in it and travel in it with my son at that time in my life.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: I definitely didn't feel like self-confident in doing being able to do that.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I bought a vintage little Vical, cost me three grand.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: I renovated it with my mum while I was on maternity leave still.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I just bit the bullet one day.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: I just went through this like stage in my life where I felt like, oh, as you see, you know, I had gone back to work.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I was, you know, juggling being a single parent to a toddler, which is completely different to being to a seven-year-old or a school-aged child.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: It felt very monotonous for me.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And I've spent a lot of my time and my childhood growing up.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: My mum took me and my three, my two younger sisters around Australia for years in our caravan.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: And we were homeschooled.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't like completely out of out of the norm for me to do it.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I just decided to pack up one day.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: I applied for the leave like the year before, set a date, so I commit to it.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Holy cow.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: So you came up from Perth, you got to Broome.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, decided that I was leaving in winter.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: I left in May in Perth and the weather was horrible.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: I had a few setbacks, as you always do.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And I thought the best thing would probably be to go, knowing that the destination that I was landing in were was a safe space, whereas people that I knew it was home for me.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't been back to Broom or lived in Broome since 2014 when I'd left.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And I came back here.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: I spent five, six weeks parked up in a girlfriend's driveway.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, Sage was three, turning four, and that was it, really.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Once we'd finished doing that, it was hard to leave Broom as it is in the dry season.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: It was just so easy and fun and being around my girlfriends with kids the same age, it was really healing and soothing and all the nice things.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And then yeah, we just ripped the band-aid off and headed off on our adventure.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: We went back south, past Perth.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: We had a couple of hiccups along the way where I needed some insurance repairs anyway.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of worked out perfectly, and we just followed the coast around.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: We only had a commitment to make it to Melbourne by Christmas, and we went to Tasmania on the ferry boxing day for eight weeks back and then continued around.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: So did you obviously then go all the way up to Darwin and then back up?
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh we didn't we didn't go to Darwin, we went all the way up to Cairns, and then we couldn't go any further just because of the unseasonal rain on the East Coast was so depressing.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, as you can imagine.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: But I've got lots of like friends just from work and travel over the years that have plotted all around the place.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of nice.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: We did a little tour around, caught up with people that we hadn't seen for a while, parked up in the driveways.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it was good.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: And then we kind of cut back through from Townsville across the middle.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: I decided not to go to Darwin because I needed to get back to Perth to finish my like to finish out the year off.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'd been to Darwin before, and I had never been to Uluru, and it was a little bit more remote to get to.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: So I decided to take the route via Uluru.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: So we did Uluru and then we went further south, Cooper Petey, which was such a cool, funky place.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know what to expect.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: I really liked it.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: I ended up like booking an extra two nights there, and then we fanged it back across another bore.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: This is still so cool though.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Like you just say it's so nonchalant.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: Like when I think about it, I'm like, how the hell did I do that?
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, for sure.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: How did Sage do that?
14:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like just for such a significant time too.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Plus also, I mean, I've driven the Perth to Broom and Perth up to Cunanaro Road that many times.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Like I know it like the back of my hand.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: Always in I don't want to say I'm always in such a hurry, but I kind of am.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's like, how quick can I get this drive done?
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Every now and then, you know, I might stop into a place, but I've never done the Nalibur, I've never done any of the East Coast actually driving around, you know.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: I've flown into a couple of cities.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: The fact that you've taken the time to stop in all these places, and I love what you said then about you've got friends that are plotted around the place.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: That's cool, that's smart.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: I like lived and worked in Melbourne when I left Broome in 2014.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: I went to Perth intermediately, and then I was just looking for a role over there and I transferred with the bank.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: So I've got friends that I'd met in Melbourne and they've become really close friends and now don't live in Melbourne anymore.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Some of them live in Queensland and New South Wales.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: And I guess the mor the moral of this story is even as a single mum, if you're thinking of doing anything like this, you can actually do it.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: And we like I again, like I'm a single mum, right?
15:40
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not I don't have a massive income stream.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: I lived on like supplemented savings, a single parent family tax benefit, and a little bit of pay from the bank after my tenure with them as well.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't staying in caravan parks a lot.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was raised like that though when we travelled in our caravan, was always free camping, you know, pulling up in driveways of like long lost distance cousins.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm just like, how do we relate it to this person again?
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking to my mum, like thinking, what?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: But it just, yeah, I don't know, it's way more easily accessible with social media as well and staying in contact with people these days.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, back in the 90s and the early 2000s when we did it, there was no like internet reception.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Literally homeschooling for us was learning how to read a map and going to the museum in the next town, you know.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that's cool.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: If my mum could do it then, three kids.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Then you can I was the eldest, all in primary school.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I definitely had no qualms.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: FaceTime, our family was a FaceTime call away, so yeah.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing that, you know, that whole epic story.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about this though.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: You recently competed in Miss Cable Beach.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: Now it's funny because in my notes I did write beauty pageant.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: This isn't 1950s, okay?
16:49
SPEAKER_01: It's not a beauty pageant.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't think you're allowed to say that anymore.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't I don't reckon you're either, you know, yet that you're allowed to say that as well.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Rudy didn't win if it wasn't if it was based on beauty.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, and then and then the thing I then wrote in brackets female empowerment competition.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's it would came, you know, divers would ever even know anything that rhymes with female empowerment competition.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: It's a bikini competition.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Let's call it what it is.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: But look, most people wouldn't know that you actually entered this 16 years ago.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: And you won.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: I won.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Sixteen years ago, you smashed it out of the park, you won.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: This time you got up on stage, absolutely owned it.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: Anybody that will, after this episode, will be stalking your page, and trust me, go on there and have a look at the photos of hope in action because to me that I love confidence.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: I get that not everybody is confident in their body, but the fact that you did this 16 years ago, and then now you just got up and then you're like, Yep, cool, who cares?
17:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm nailing it.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Who convinced you to do it?
17:49
SPEAKER_01: What made what possessed you to do it again?
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And tell me about the whole the whole thing.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: Did you love every minute of it?
17:56
SPEAKER_01: Or you were like, Why the fuck have I done this?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look, literally, like the day of the heat that I entered, um, I was like, why?
18:03
SPEAKER_00: I was feeling nervous.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why am I why did I commit to this?
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Why did I tell any of my friends that I was gonna do it?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Because then I felt like once I'd told them, I'd sent like a little group message out, like, hey guys, single mama here needed a new roof.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I just bought a little unit in December.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: It was my first purchase, I guess, of a home that's not on wheels and desperately needed a new roof before the wet season.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, God, the cash prize is a lot bigger than it was in 2011.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: 2010, sorry, I should say.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it was like a 10 grand cash prize for a winner.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And I know that these days it wasn't the competition itself isn't what it used to be.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, it used to be like a really cool Sunday sesh, you know, a Sunday, you can imagine, used to end with a the party boat karma after a day at the races on the Saturday.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: They'd literally have shuttle buses from the Karma party boat into divers on the Sunday Avo.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: The heats ran over like eight weeks.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: They'd kind of play up alongside the race season.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's multiple heats, you know, there was enough girls to fill a whole calendar.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: So all the finalists would go into like a calendar.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: These days it's two heats, one and done, kind of thing.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And they kind of like are, you know, getting staff to enter is kind of the vibe of it now.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: So I was like thinking if I zoo, I think maybe I don't know.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really sure.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the maybe it's the generation and it's a change in the perspective of what like a bikini comp looks like this day and age compared to what it was back then.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: It was super common.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh yes.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: I had had entered like Zoo bikini comp that came to broom, Miss Awine Tropic won the heats here, went to Queensland to compete.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And that was like a pretty common thing back then.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Um I remember going to several of the heats at Divers in the very in the very first year that I moved here.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was matched.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Which was 2016.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't seem like that long ago, but yeah, it's 10 years ago.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And I remember it was like everybody went to it.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've never been on the Karma Party uh boat, but going to Divers.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just for context, painting a picture of it.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: It's just like Yeah, it was a Sunday sesh thing that everyone did.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: It felt like that anyway.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: So when you've rocked up this time, were you a little bit disappointed then?
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I did the application.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And they like added me to a Facebook page and they confirmed all the finalists.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, I've got their names, I can stalk with my competition kind of thing.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm also like aware I'll probably be a lot older than some of the girls that might be entering the competition.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of them are probably backpackers that have amazing figures, probably haven't got any kids.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Not saying that means anything, but I was that also obviously was on my mind around like that confidence.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, cool, I'm like, if I'm the only local, that might be my, you know, my way in here.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm gonna just let all the locals know, all my friends in town to come down.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them were here for when I won it in 2010 too.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And they were super supportive.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Everyone's like, yeah, wow.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Actually, the only thing that made me think about it at first, I was like, no way, like lol, that's a joke.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Was a girlfriend of mine, Adele, tagged me in the advert on Facebook from the Divers Beam.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And to the Heats, here's the link to the applications kind of thing.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And she's, you know, it said like 10K cash prize.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Lol, you need money, tags me like for my roof.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, right.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't catch me dead, you know?
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And then I kind of was like, actually planted a seed.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Definitely planted a seed.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: 10k wouldn't be too bad.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And that was it, really.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I um did they have a runner-up prize or so I won the heat.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: So I did the second heat of the two heats that they had.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: And there was like a winner and a runner-up on each heat.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: So I won my heat, and I was like super confident that the crowd was epic.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: So many people came down to support me.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: It was just that just really boosted my confidence on stage when seeing all these familiar faces that were just going nuts.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And it was great.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: The girls were lovely backstage.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: They were all backpackers, like all foreign, and just super beautiful girls too.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: But I I went first as well in my heat.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't see anyone else really.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: I just got up there, did my thing.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Didn't have any time to think about like What's someone else's stage presence?
22:01
SPEAKER_00: How can I match that?
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Or like overthinking it?
22:04
SPEAKER_00: I just got up there and I just stratd my stuff.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like that makes it even more impressive.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: And I just didn't worry about it.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, back in 2010, I was like, you know, you've spent a long time getting hair and makeup or putting fake eyelashes on, fake tanning.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do any of that.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I wore some bronzer and some mascara.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you kicked us on that stage.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Damn, your body was hot.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, what makes you attractive, and and and this sounds terrible, but for me, I feel like it's just you oozing confidence.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Like your confidence, I feel like that not that you should get marked on your confidence because not everybody has confidence, but to be in a bikini on stage with a whole bunch of people, yes, you do know some, but some you wouldn't even know.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: Probably it'd be easier not knowing.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get what you're saying too about the age thing.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: Part of me is like, there would be plenty of people that wouldn't even think about your age.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: But I'm thinking now to myself, thinking, oh god, I mean I'm a lot older than you, but I I can see what you're saying, where you'd be like, shit.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: There's probably like 18, 19 year olds that are rocking up here, that are toned as, that don't have any stretch marks, they haven't dropped a joey out.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, I get what you're saying.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, like, what am I thinking?
23:14
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Forget it.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: The 10k would have been incredible.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: It would have been.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Whoever the judges are, hopefully I don't know.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Rude because they clearly did not have the their glasses on.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Um and yet, rude out of 10.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: I apparently was super close, the win.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think that hurts more.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Nah, it's fine.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, like everyone's been super supportive.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Like, everyone was, I can't believe it, which is super nice at the end of the day, you know, it was a fun experience.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: And you got up there and you owned it.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: So good on you.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna go straight into, you know, what is the best life advice, or if anybody's ever giving you anything in regards to pearls of wisdom or just owning yourself, being yourself.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've just talked about you doing this incredible thing where you've gotten up, and not everybody can do that.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: But is there something along the way that you've learned, you know, even over the last 15 years about female empowerment?
24:03
SPEAKER_00: I'd probably say say yes to it, but even like to yourself.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: You have these ideas like I wish I could do that, or you know, or you look at someone else and they inspire you to be like, oh, I wish I had the confidence to do that, or the guts, or the balls, or whatever, or I couldn't do that.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Just do it.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Just say that you're gonna do it, commit to it.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: No, that's it.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: It's like just saying yes to something.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: I feel like lots of things that have happened throughout my life, and especially in the last 15 years, and even more so in the last seven years since I've been a mum to Sage, that being confident in just you don't necessarily need to be ready to do the thing.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just gotta do it.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: And you just work it out along the way.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And it ends up opening so many different open doors and paths and things that you couldn't have anticipated when you might have originally thought about doing something.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Because you get to live once, you know, it is short in the grand scheme of things.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: So that's great advice.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: You know what do you got to lose?
24:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's it.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a lot of the time people go, Oh, well, that's easier said than done, but it's actually not because a lot of the time I think, especially as women, you overthink things.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Don't get me wrong.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: I've done, especially in the last 12 months, I've just gone, I'm just gonna do it.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm just gonna do this, I'm just gonna do that.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'd thought about doing a podcast for two years and forever and a day I let tech skills be my excuse as to why I wasn't gonna do it.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Because I was like, I don't know how to do that, I don't know how to edit a podcast, I don't know how to download things and change them into different file formats.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, what the fuck?
25:28
SPEAKER_01: That shit is nut.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: And then I mean, I obviously spent the money to get somebody to teach me how to do it because I was like, if I don't do that, then I'll never get it.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: I'll never do it.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: It'll just be one of those times where I might remember them of that one time where I thought about doing something.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: And it was like me with like, you know, deciding to go traveling and stuff at the end of the day, like it's just towing a caravan, yeah, hitching it up.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, what's the worst that could happen?
25:51
SPEAKER_00: I hate it or I don't enjoy it, I'll just turn around and come back.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Like at the end of the day, like money comes and goes, the experience, like those times in my life that changed me forever.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Changed sage, it helps.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Like just that whole trajectory that that put us on for the rest of our lives.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a pivotal moment, you know?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: And then even like the Pilates thing, there was a lot of money for me to invest in something in myself, like that, that wasn't necessarily going to make me like a lot of money or have something that's fundamentally something I can hold in my hand, but it's something that has is so important and special to me.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm like, who cares?
26:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna do it if I don't just say yes and do it and look where it's gotten me.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Like I've just grown as a person.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: I just, yeah, honestly, it's changed my life.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: No, I love that.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: That's so good.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: Anybody out there that's listening, that's hesitating on things in life, just get it done.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Somehow make the time, the effort, the energy to get that thing done.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: All right, we're coming up to rapid fire questions here.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: So my first one for you is what's something that you're proud of?
26:45
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm proud of the life I've built so far.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I hate sometimes I hate using the tag or like falling back on the tag as a single mum because I think, I don't know, there's lots of single mums that are doing amazing things, which is also really cool.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: But I just think I didn't anticipate to be where I am now seven years ago.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: I definitely was like, what the fuck is what the hell's gonna happen with my life?
27:06
SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, this is the end of it, you know?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: And now I've created such a beautiful space, I feel like home for Sage and I, a future.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I just, you know, as he grows and becomes his own person as well, that is something I'm really proud of.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: If I'm proud of anything, proud of myself.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Good on you.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: You should be.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay, next question.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: What is one thing that you would want to change for women, if possible, anything at all?
27:30
SPEAKER_00: I would definitely think about, like if I reflect upon myself growing up, not even just like really young, but starting pretty young, is the idea of who you have to be or who you need to grow to be, and that it's a destination you need to get to, and that removing that expectation, whether it become it's a society one that becomes your own or your parents one or a best friend or someone else that's doing something, just removing that expectation and knowing that like you can keep changing and transforming who you are throughout your life, and there doesn't necess necessarily need to be a destination at the end of it, but that you just keep being who you are at that time.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, removing that expectation, I think, on yourself.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: Because we, you know, yeah, the more I'm thinking about it, I'm even doing squinty ice because I'm concentrating.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: But yes, the more I think about it, you do sometimes.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I think women do feel like they've got this expectation to be at a certain point and especially at a certain age.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Cool, that's awesome.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing that because nobody's given that answer before.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: Hey, listen, lastly, you would know this because I know that you've listened to some of the episodes, but I l I always ask my guests to give a shout out to a woman or to a couple women who've inspired you or led you to where you are today.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would go without saying, I think you become your mother in some s way, shape, or form.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Although I never admit it or I don't often admit it.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: I definitely, she's definitely inspired me subconsciously, the way that I live as a single parent.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: And also just being super brave and stepping out of my comfort zone, doing things that, you know, not a lot of people have the guts to do in their lifetime.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: My auntie, she's an interior stylist.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: She is in Melbourne.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Her name's Jessica, eclectic creative.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I'll give her a shout out.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, awesome.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, she's an amazing woman, also, built her business from the ground with Instagram kind of as a platform.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so many other women I could name.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Apart from my sisters and my mum and her.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: Two great women that have inspired you and made you who you are today.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I've had so much fun.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: We could talk all day.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you coming onto the podcast.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: This has been so good.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see each other all the time now.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: And all for sure.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to She Said It Out Loud.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: If you took something away from today's episode, I would love to hear from you.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Come find me on Instagram at officially EmmaYoung.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: And hit follows the new episode planned straight in your feed.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: See you next time for more real and honest stories from legendary women.