Latest / Age Like a Badass Mother / Ep. 53: Getrude Matshe: Connect to the Flow of Life

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Ep. 53: Getrude Matshe: Connect to the Flow of Life · Age Like a Badass Mother

• 0:00
  Hi, friend.
• 0:01
  Today's guest is Get Trude Maté.
• 0:04
  She was once a thriving entrepreneur until a painful divorce and sudden heart failure left her living in her car in 2015.
• 0:12
  But she didn't stay down for long.
• 0:13
  Today she a living, a powerful, purpose driven life.
• 0:17
  And she's here to share her wisdom on how you can uncover your own life's purpose.
• 0:23
  You can watch this episode on YouTube.
• 0:25
  And even if you're just listening today, be sure to head over to YouTube and subscribe after the show.
• 0:30
  I've been creating short, easy to follow videos to help you embrace a whole food plant based lifestyle with simple and delicious recipes.
• 0:39
  And one last thing if you find this episode valuable, please share it with someone who needs to hear it.
• 0:45
  It helps us grow and reach more badass listeners like you.
• 0:49
  Hi friends, I'm Lauren Bernick and I'm flipping the script about growing older.
• 0:55
  My guests have been influencers since before that was even a thing.
• 0:59
  Welcome to the anti Anti-Aging podcast.
• 1:03
  Welcome to age like a badass mother.
• 1:08
  Get. Trude Maté is an international speaker, author, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, three time TEDx presenter and visionary, founder of her Story Circle, a global movement dedicated to empowering women to use their voices and share their stories.
• 1:27
  Known as a vibrant bundle of African energy, Get You has made it her life's mission to help women over 50.
• 1:35
  Whether widowed, divorced, retired or reinventing themselves, step into their power as speakers, authors, and thought leaders, please welcome.
• 1:47
  Get your maté.
• 1:49
  Hello.
• 1:49
  Thanks for having me on your show.
• 1:53
  Thank you for being here.
• 1:54
  I have to say, So get your lives in Australia.
• 1:59
  She's in Melbourne, Australia, and I was lucky enough to get to squeeze her and meet her in person when I was there recently, which was our friend.
• 2:09
  To get to meet you in person, I have to say.
• 2:11
  Yeah. It was really nice.
• 2:13
  Our friend introduced us and, a mutual friend, Mary Olsen Menzel.
• 2:18
  I had her on the podcast before talking about her book, What Lights You Up?
• 2:23
  And she was like, you know, you need to meet get your if you're going to Australia, to Melbourne.
• 2:31
  And so I reached out and we went to this wonderful place for coffee and pastry and, and, so lucky that I got to meet you.
• 2:40
  So it's so tell us you've had an incredible life.
• 2:45
  I mean, there's so much to cover, but what was your upbringing like?
• 2:50
  And why was it different than most women in your village where you grew up?
• 2:56
  Well, I grew up in a small village on the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, very, very small town where most people are born there.
• 3:06
  They'll die there. They'll never leave.
• 3:09
  But I was blessed to have two parents who received the scholarship.
• 3:14
  My father got a scholarship in 1967, the year that I was born, to go to the UK.
• 3:20
  So he decided to take his young wife with him.
• 3:24
  And my parents shared one scholarship to get their education.
• 3:28
  My dad became a chartered accountant, my mother became a nurse, so I was left at the age of nine months with my grandmother until I was three.
• 3:39
  So my grandmother was really my second mom.
• 3:42
  I was very, very close to her, but my parents struggled with one scholarship and tried to make money for me and my sister to go and join them.
• 3:52
  So I went and lived in the UK from the age of three until I was six, and I think that is what really changed the trajectory of our lives.
• 4:02
  My parents getting that education and instilling the power of education in their children as well.
• 4:08
  How did how did that work that they shared one scholarship?
• 4:12
  It was not easy.
• 4:13
  They tell me some horror stories of going days with no food.
• 4:19
  It was just incredible what they managed to achieve with very little resources and then being able to save money for their two little daughters to come and join them.
• 4:28
  It took them three years, but they did it. Wow.
• 4:33
  That's incredible because your life would have been just completely different otherwise.
• 4:37
  I mean, what would your life have looked like if you just led the life?
• 4:40
  Like most women in your village?
• 4:43
  Well, I would have grown up without going to school.
• 4:46
  I would have been married off very early.
• 4:49
  I would probably have had five, six, seven children.
• 4:53
  It's just incredible what happens when one small thing happens in your family that changes the trajectory of your life?
• 5:03
  And I probably.
• 5:05
  Well, I mean, that's that's just, like, amazing.
• 5:08
  And you're so fortunate to have those parents, but I should have probably started off by saying to you, good afternoon.
• 5:16
  How has been your day?
• 5:18
  And I'm not misspeaking.
• 5:20
  What what am I what is that when I'm saying that to you, the traditional way that we greet, if you meet someone first thing in the morning, you say, mangwana ni vamos say.
• 5:32
  Which means good morning.
• 5:33
  How did you rise?
• 5:35
  And my response would be in I'm. I'm.
• 5:38
  I'm Cowal, which means I woke up.
• 5:41
  Well, if you woke up.
• 5:42
  Well, and this is tied into the Oban to philosophy, it's a way of life for most people from southern Africa, where we believe that if one person in the home is not okay, we're all not okay.
• 5:58
  So it's.
• 5:59
  And our language and our culture as well.
• 6:02
  Okay.
• 6:03
  So this is, this is what formed you I think.
• 6:06
  And so I know I'm going to not say this correctly but I mean to try you just said it but it was ubuntu.
• 6:14
  Did I say it even closely.
• 6:17
  And that is spelled u b u n t u so that people can picture that between my mangling it and and, and the philosophy is what a person is only a person because of other people, correct?
• 6:33
  Correct. That's the literal translation.
• 6:35
  It's okay.
• 6:36
  Foundation of most African societies where we believe that as human beings, we are cells of one organism, that there's no separation between you and me.
• 6:49
  And so it turns into a way of living.
• 6:54
  When I lived there, I didn't even think about it until I left.
• 6:58
  And I lived in a society where, you know, people don't look you in the eye when they bump into you in the street.
• 7:04
  They don't talk to you.
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  They can look through you like you don't exist in our culture.
• 7:09
  That doesn't happen.
• 7:13
  And I know that you've you've done so many philanthropic things.
• 7:20
  Do you have is it based on that.
• 7:22
  Just because it was just such a part of your DNA or do you think?
• 7:25
  I think so, I think it's kind of hard wired in me.
• 7:29
  My grandmother was not a wealthy woman, but if somebody walked past our hat and they were carrying a load looking like they were traveling and going somewhere, she would invite them in the house and give them the food she had cooked for us, and we would sleep with no food.
• 7:48
  They would say that they're travelers.
• 7:49
  They need the energy more than we do.
• 7:52
  And so we would sleep on cornmeal and salt water on some days.
• 7:58
  But that sense of giving is just hardwired in people.
• 8:01
  From my, my village, my community.
• 8:06
  And so tell us, share with us some of the the projects that you've you've worked on, some of the things my biggest passion has been around women and children.
• 8:18
  I started when I would go back and forth between New Zealand and Zimbabwe, where to visit my parents, and it was really because of the aftermath of the Aids pandemic.
• 8:31
  So I grew up in the 80s to put things into contexts.
• 8:35
  My grandmother was one of 11 children.
• 8:39
  She was the youngest of 11.
• 8:41
  She came from a very big Catholic family and and she had 34 grandchildren.
• 8:48
  Oh my God.
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  By the time I left Zimbabwe in 2001, I had buried 19 of my first cousins.
• 8:58
  So the Aids pandemic wiped out people of my generation.
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  I was 31 at the time.
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  The life expectancy of a Zimbabwean female in 2001 was 21 years old.
• 9:12
  Oh, so I am 58 years old.
• 9:15
  I have lived way past my die by date, and I am grateful to have survived that pandemic.
• 9:23
  So it was about the orphaned children in my immediate family.
• 9:30
  When I did a hit count on my mother's side, we counted 49 children, another 40 on my ex-husband side.
• 9:40
  So my philanthropic work was just a response to support the children from my immediate family to make sure that they got an education, they got something to eat, and they got access to the antiretroviral drugs, which were very difficult to get at.
• 9:57
  That time.
• 9:59
  And it then extended to the mothers because a lot of women lost their husbands during the pandemic.
• 10:06
  So we have a lot of widows in Zimbabwe as well, and looking after small kids with no income.
• 10:13
  And a lot of those widows were my cousins.
• 10:16
  So that's really where my my work started.
• 10:20
  Wow. I mean, we're we're roughly the same age.
• 10:23
  And I remember the Aids epidemic as well, but not firsthand like that.
• 10:30
  It didn't affect me in such a way.
• 10:32
  I mean, I knew people who died and so forth, but not all, so many members of my immediate family.
• 10:39
  That's just heartbreaking.
• 10:41
  But I love that you stepped up for them.
• 10:43
  And so how are some of the ways that you provided for these children?
• 10:48
  I started off by writing my first book.
• 10:51
  Actually.
• 10:53
  My first book is called born on the continent.
• 10:55
  The subtitle is The World We're born to and I learned how to self published.
• 11:00
  I was very blessed to get two mentors from the US who helped me, showed me how to self-publish, and to sell my book through speaking, and I would sell 100 copies of my book a month, send the money to Zimbabwe to educate a child from the age of 0 to 12.
• 11:20
  In Zimbabwe is only five U.S.
• 11:22
  dollars a term, so 15 U.S.
• 11:25
  dollars.
• 11:26
  But the average person in my community exists on the equivalent of 30 US cents a month.
• 11:33
  So we have children who didn't get access to education because of the economic situation that we were in.
• 11:41
  So that's really how I started.
• 11:43
  And after going back and forth, I realized that our schools in rural Zimbabwe are dilapidated.
• 11:51
  The Zimbabwean government has not touched the rural schools in 35 years.
• 11:57
  So rebuilding the infrastructure, providing tables and chairs, pencils, pens, stationery, installing a borehole, putting electricity, just the basic things that every school needs was not there.
• 12:13
  So you had to supply water to your community, correct?
• 12:18
  Oh, wow.
• 12:19
  To walk ten kilometers to get water every day.
• 12:22
  So there was no water. Oh, that's life changing.
• 12:27
  Just that.
• 12:28
  Yeah.
• 12:29
  I mean, I get ten kilometers to get water and then carry it back, bury it back on their heads and it's mostly the women who do all of this heavy lifting as well.
• 12:41
  Yeah.
• 12:42
  Oh, wow.
• 12:43
  All things, things that we need on a day by day basis really.
• 12:48
  I mean, it's a small thing, but it's life changing when you give somebody water and that I mean, I know you are not here for the accolades or anything like that, but I always love to hear stories from people who really make changes in the world because, you know, we all think, oh, I should do more or well, I don't know if we all think that, but I'm sure a lot of people think I should do more or what can I do?
• 13:18
  What what can one person do?
• 13:21
  And here you are doing it.
• 13:23
  What what do you say to that?
• 13:24
  What can one person do?
• 13:26
  You just take one step in the direction where you feel you can be the change you want to see in the world, and it doesn't have to be big things, just one little step.
• 13:37
  When I look back at my work 25 years later, I'm blown away at what I have achieved because it didn't happen overnight.
• 13:47
  You know, it was just one small step at a time, and my work inspired other people to come on board to support me as well.
• 13:55
  So you start, you get started, but other people get inspired to support you so you don't have to do it alone.
• 14:03
  So everything I've done has not been through my own efforts.
• 14:07
  I've had thousands of people around the world who have helped.
• 14:11
  That's beautiful.
• 14:13
  So let's change gears a little and talk about her story circle.
• 14:18
  Why do you feel like you need to give women over 50 a voice and just tell me about her story circle little.
• 14:26
  Her story circle started off with me sharing my own personal story.
• 14:32
  I had gone through a very traumatic separation that led to divorce after 27 years of marriage, a 31 year relationship, and I lost everything I worked for for 25 years.
• 14:44
  I was living in my car in 2015, and then I ended up collapsing with congestive heart failure from the stress, and I put a post that went viral on Facebook where I posed a very simple question, and I said, how many women find themselves broken emotionally, spiritually, and financially and having to start life all over again?
• 15:09
  This is my story and I just bit my soul and told women in my community where I was at.
• 15:17
  And what surprised me was that in 48 hours, 2500 women responded in 15 countries, sharing very similar stories.
• 15:28
  One woman had breast cancer, another one had heart failure like me.
• 15:32
  It was just incredible to realize I wasn't alone.
• 15:38
  So I decided to create a speaking platform where we could share our stories to heal.
• 15:47
  So in Africa, we believe that the minute you share your story with another human being, it's no longer your burden to carry alone.
• 15:59
  The listener carries it with you, and your healing starts when you talk about it.
• 16:07
  So I internalized everything that had happened to me.
• 16:09
  I hadn't talked to anybody about it.
• 16:12
  I didn't go for counseling.
• 16:14
  I had no psychological support.
• 16:18
  I just kept going until it caught up with me and I collapsed with heart failure.
• 16:23
  So a lot of women internalize a lot of their struggle, and it has to manifest in some way those trapped emotions manifest in all kinds of diseases.
• 16:36
  Breast cancer, cervical cancer, heart failure.
• 16:41
  And it's just been incredible what has happened since 2019 when we launched as a community, we're now almost 180,000 women in 45 countries, and they have stepped forward to come to the event.
• 16:54
  That IQ rates way.
• 16:56
  We have speakers, we've got the Herstory Podcast, we've published over 3000 books of all of these stories from women from all over the world.
• 17:07
  Wow. That's incredible. And this is like an age of reinvention.
• 17:14
  I think it really is, because so much of our lives is centered around other people taking care of other people, raising children, working, whatever.
• 17:25
  This might be the first time in our lives that we actually have time to think about ourselves.
• 17:30
  Or maybe enough means to think about ourselves.
• 17:34
  And it's incredible what can happen when when we come together.
• 17:39
  But, why wait?
• 17:43
  So why is it important for women?
• 17:46
  You specifically focus on women over 50.
• 17:49
  Why is it important to focus on that group?
• 17:53
  Find that women over 50 find themselves at a crossroads sometimes in life where they need that psychological support from others of their age group?
• 18:04
  A lot of women lose their self-confidence.
• 18:08
  They, trying to reinvent themselves.
• 18:10
  They about to retire and don't know what else to do with their lives.
• 18:14
  And when I found myself in that position, I realized I had a good 50 years to go before I even say damn straight, get food.
• 18:27
  And it was just the beginning.
• 18:28
  Because I was now alone.
• 18:31
  I didn't have little children to worry about.
• 18:33
  I just had myself to to take care of.
• 18:36
  But needing that psychological support in the community of women who could prop me up and keep me going.
• 18:44
  Okay.
• 18:45
  I mean, so we're saying the same thing.
• 18:45
  That's kind of what I figured.
• 18:48
  But I just wanted to hear your take on it.
• 18:49
  I mean that's why I started this podcast because really for the same reasons, you know I, I, I also feel like, women our age sometimes don't feel like they have a voice because maybe they're getting overlooked a little bit for younger people who they may feel have more important things to say.
• 19:10
  But, I feel like we have the knowledge and the wisdom and had some important life lessons to not only teach other people, but like you said to each other up, you know that we need each other.
• 19:24
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• 19:30
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• 19:38
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• 19:54
  You can find this information in the show notes.
• 19:59
  Tell me a little bit more about, like, her circle.
• 20:01
  So you said that you have, meetings or annual events or.
• 20:07
  Tell me a little bit about that.
• 20:09
  So we meet every quarter, and we normally have 100 speakers at each event.
• 20:15
  It's a five day event, and it's almost like a Ted talk style event where every woman gets 15 minutes to share her story.
• 20:26
  We then transition in the next month, and our speakers who have something to teach, something to share, run workshops and masterclasses online.
• 20:39
  So even if the women haven't managed to go to the in-person events, they still get access to the speakers through online events as well.
• 20:48
  And for me, it's really that transfer of knowledge from woman to woman.
• 20:53
  We have seven broad categories of content business and entrepreneurship, health and wellness, family and relationships, creativity, social justice, spirituality and diversity and inclusion.
• 21:09
  So we try and encompass all aspects of a woman's life.
• 21:13
  We've had women who are musicians will come and play the violin.
• 21:17
  We've had women who are dancers who will come and dance.
• 21:20
  So we express our stories in whatever way we want.
• 21:26
  Oh that's incredible.
• 21:26
  And so it's in person and online, the event.
• 21:31
  Okay, that's so cool.
• 21:33
  And then, what what's the website, her story.com or her story circle dot net.
• 21:40
  Her story circle dot net.
• 21:45
  Okay. I'll put that in the show notes.
• 21:47
  Okay.
• 21:49
  So I want to talk a little bit about passion because you are just such a passionate person and you've had so many businesses and so many crazy encounters.
• 22:02
  I remember when we were having coffee, you were just telling me about, you know, can you.
• 22:08
  This was a long story, but can you just briefly tell that story?
• 22:11
  What I said, get your during the flow of life because I think, like you left home, you had no plan, you had no where to go.
• 22:18
  And then just like briefly tell that story, I, I say that I had a spirit led life.
• 22:25
  I've had a series of unusual coincidences that have placed me in places where when I look back at my life, I don't know how I got there, but what I do know is I am a visionary.
• 22:40
  I have very, very big dreams.
• 22:41
  So when I left Zimbabwe, I was 19 years old.
• 22:45
  I went to the UK to get my first degree.
• 22:48
  Unfortunately, three months after I got there, I, my boyfriend came to visit and I got pregnant and I couldn't continue my studies.
• 22:58
  And I ended up finding myself in Norway because I had met a woman from Norway who had come to Zimbabwe when I was 17, and she had watched me acting in a play that I wrote, and she offered me a scholarship then.
• 23:14
  But because I was the breadwinner for my family, I couldn't take up that scholarship.
• 23:20
  But she gave me a business card that I found two years later at the bottom of my purse, when I ran out of money and I was pregnant.
• 23:26
  I didn't know what to do, and I reached out to a random stranger in Norway, and her brother was a director for a theater company, and he was on his way to Zimbabwe to recruit actors to take part in a musical production about Nelson Mandela.
• 23:43
  So I ended up living in Norway, dancing and singing in a musical production about one of my heroes and it was just one of the most magical times of my life.
• 23:54
  So life has caught me at times when I'm at my lowest, miraculous things have happened and my life just plays out like a series of little miracles.
• 24:08
  When I ended up moving to New Zealand 30 years later, I got back into acting again.
• 24:15
  When I met Peter Jackson when he was filming Lord of the rings.
• 24:21
  Well, that's somebody to know.
• 24:25
  Yeah.
• 24:27
  So yeah, I think what you did the casting for for Lord of the rings or for King Kong, so I went in to audition to act in the movie King Kong and discovered that they were looking for 350 extras for one scene in the movie.
• 24:45
  And because I was volunteering for the refugee service and helping African immigrants find work and settle in, I knew a lot of people from the African community and I saw an opportunity to turn it into a business and create a casting agency.
• 24:59
  I was in film school at the time, and so, yeah, my life took a detour and I went off and became a filmmaker and had my own casting agency that supplied all the ethnic extras working on an avatar, which were filmed in New Zealand.
• 25:16
  Oh, wow.
• 25:17
  Okay. That's crazy.
• 25:19
  I started asking you, I think I started asking you about passion, and then we went off in this.
• 25:25
  So you.
• 25:27
  It just seems like your life has been one series of like, I, you know, like, jump in the net will appear kind of thing, like, you've just had a lot of leaps of faith and things have always worked out.
• 25:38
  And, I just, I think that more people need to live like that and need to live with passion, but it's scary.
• 25:46
  Like what? How do you get over that?
• 25:49
  I think because I've never had a safety net.
• 25:53
  You know, when you come from a very poor country and a place where there's very few opportunities, you always look forward.
• 26:03
  Going back to Zimbabwe was never an option for me, so I took some very calculated and very, very bold risks.
• 26:12
  When I moved to New Zealand, I had one small baby on my back.
• 26:15
  My youngest son was two.
• 26:17
  I had a 12 year old and a ten year old and $500 and I moved to the other side of the world because I wanted my kids to have a better life than I had.
• 26:29
  So you step out on faith, and it's almost like driving on a road at night and it's dark and you've only got your head light, and you could only see one meter ahead of you and you keep going.
• 26:44
  You know the road is there.
• 26:47
  So that's how I live.
• 26:48
  I don't try and go too far ahead.
• 26:52
  And the universe has caught me every single time.
• 26:55
  That safety net has always been there.
• 26:58
  So the more you do it, the stronger your intuition gets in terms of making those choices and those decisions.
• 27:06
  And the more you make those choices and decisions, your intuition grows stronger.
• 27:10
  So it's like a muscle.
• 27:12
  Yeah, that's absolutely right.
• 27:15
  And what what would you say your passion is because you've done so many things?
• 27:22
  I think you've kind of alluded to this before, but what would you say your passion in life is?
• 27:26
  My passion in life.
• 27:28
  They say that your life purpose lies in your passion.
• 27:32
  It lies in the things that you are passionate about.
• 27:36
  So I was one of those little girls who was always punished for speaking.
• 27:41
  I was at the back of the classroom talking time and now I get paid to do it.
• 27:48
  This was a strength and like I said, I was blessed to have two very, very amazing parents.
• 27:56
  My parents channeled me to go into public speaking and debate and theater, and I excelled in the spoken language and the offs.
• 28:09
  And so if you don't know what your life purpose is or what your passion is, go back to your childhood and try and remember the things that you did intuitively without being told or taught how to do it.
• 28:27
  Yeah.
• 28:27
  So people who play soccer or American football, nobody taught them how to kick that ball.
• 28:34
  They just know.
• 28:35
  They just know how to do it.
• 28:38
  So I was just saying this. Yes.
• 28:43
  To go back to your childhood and what did you love. Yes.
• 28:49
  And then it's not work anymore.
• 28:51
  I mean I, I can I talk every single day I'm on a podcast or I'm at a speaking event and like I said, it gets fun because you can get paid to do the things that you love.
• 29:05
  What advice do you have for somebody who wants to get paid for speaking about the things they love?
• 29:11
  Where do you start?
• 29:13
  I would say that everybody has a story.
• 29:17
  We all have a story to share.
• 29:19
  And if it starts off with your personal story, you are the authority on that story.
• 29:25
  You know your story well. You've lived it.
• 29:28
  You've experienced it.
• 29:30
  You just have to find something in your story that you feel is worth sharing and giving back to the world.
• 29:37
  What could be a source of inspiration for someone else?
• 29:42
  That is a good starting point.
• 29:44
  Does it have to be something that you've overcome?
• 29:48
  Not necessarily.
• 29:49
  You know, it could be stories of triumph, stories of starting a business and excelling, stories of being a mother, just motherhood.
• 29:57
  You know, the things we take for granted.
• 30:03
  And then how do you find speaking gigs?
• 30:06
  All speaking opportunities are there everywhere.
• 30:09
  If you look, you know, if you go on to Google right now and go into Google Alerts and just type in call for female speakers every single day, you will get alerts through Google of organizations, companies that are looking for female speakers.
• 30:28
  It's as simple as that.
• 30:29
  And you know, right now with social media getting having access to the internet, there's so many opportunities out there.
• 30:39
  And speaking doesn't have to be something that you get paid for.
• 30:44
  My speaking career started because I was just trying to sell my book, and I would get free speaking opportunities through Rotary International.
• 30:53
  So Rotary International is a humanitarian organization.
• 30:57
  They have clubs all over the world.
• 30:59
  They meet in the mornings, afternoons and evenings.
• 31:02
  And if you go onto Rotary international.org right now and put in your zip code, you will find 5 to 6 rotary clubs in your hometown.
• 31:12
  Go and offer to speak.
• 31:13
  They look for speakers every single week.
• 31:15
  You get 20 minutes and so you practice your craft.
• 31:20
  So speaking is like singing.
• 31:22
  It's like anything that you do, you get good at it by doing it.
• 31:29
  That's that's good advice.
• 31:32
  And I mean I think you're right.
• 31:34
  Everybody has a story to share.
• 31:36
  Whether it's small or big.
• 31:39
  And I mean that's the whole point of her, her story circle is that we all have something to share.
• 31:45
  We all have something worthwhile.
• 31:47
  It's good to just write it down to crafted.
• 31:50
  It just helps you, even if you speak it to nobody.
• 31:52
  Just speak it to yourself, right?
• 31:55
  Just writing your story down. Just what?
• 31:58
  What you've learned, what you have to offer, what lessons you.
• 32:02
  I mean, just learning the lessons that you've learned, just going over it in your own mind is powerful.
• 32:07
  I think very, very, so, okay, going back to ubuntu, if we only exist because of each other, then why?
• 32:21
  Why do you think we're so lonely these days?
• 32:25
  It's because we have forgotten that we are very, very interconnected.
• 32:32
  The loneliness and the isolation that people are feeling right now is because that sense of community is gone.
• 32:40
  I remember during Covid, I lived in a street where I only knew my neighbors, to the left and to the right of my house, nobody else on my street.
• 32:50
  However, I grew up in Zimbabwe in a street with 50 families.
• 32:56
  I knew everybody in each of those households by name, including the grandmothers, the uncles and aunts who came to visit.
• 33:04
  That's the kind of communal living that I grew up in, and one of the neighbors in my street came and puts a letter in everybody's letterboxes during Covid, and his name was Dave.
• 33:16
  He said, hi, everybody.
• 33:17
  My name is Dave. My wife's name is Mary.
• 33:20
  In case you need any help, this is our phone number.
• 33:26
  And then we created a Facebook group to connect everybody in the street.
• 33:31
  And for the first time, after 20 years of living in New Zealand, I got to know my neighbors and it was just an incredible experience.
• 33:40
  I remember there was a woman who lived three houses away from us who was disabled.
• 33:46
  She was in a wheelchair.
• 33:47
  She had two little children, and because you couldn't bring in any help, she was stuck at home with her two little toddlers, and I would sit with her little son every single day at 3:00, and I would entertain him by reading him African stories on zoom, and she could just relax for an hour and a half with a baby while I entertained her little one on zoom.
• 34:14
  Something as simple as that.
• 34:16
  So we are very disconnected at the moment.
• 34:20
  We don't even know how neighbors are doing in the houses we live in.
• 34:25
  And I think, yeah, community is everything.
• 34:29
  I, I agree with that.
• 34:31
  And I think that brings us back to kindness, because the isolation and the loneliness is the, the, the an antidote to that is kindness, right?
• 34:45
  Because if you extend yourself to somebody, then you forget about your own problems and you build community.
• 34:54
  And the thing is that I think sometimes it's a little bit scary for some people to extend themselves, maybe fear of rejection, like, okay, let me, let me reach out to this neighbor.
• 35:06
  And, you know, maybe they're going to be like, mind your own business, lady.
• 35:09
  But so what most, you know, the other 99% of the people will be like, wow, it's so nice to know you and and to build that community, don't you think that I think so, I think you will be surprised that more people are yearning, connection and the other way around.
• 35:30
  Do you have a best piece of advice for aging?
• 35:33
  Well, you have to be childlike till the day you die.
• 35:40
  Live with curiosity.
• 35:43
  Curiosity to meet new people, to learn new things, be a constant student of life is is how I live my life.
• 35:53
  So I make a point that I learn a new language every year.
• 35:58
  I am now learning a new dawn.
• 36:01
  So I've just started learning.
• 36:01
  But cha cha?
• 36:04
  Yeah.
• 36:06
  Just be childlike.
• 36:09
  Oh my gosh, how many languages do you know?
• 36:11
  So so far I know for I know three African languages and English and a little bit of Polish.
• 36:19
  My ex-husband was Polish, but this year I'm learning Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese because my book is being translated into Portuguese.
• 36:29
  And I'm going to Brazil in November to launch it.
• 36:32
  There.
• 36:33
  So I've decided that every single year I want to learn a new language.
• 36:39
  That's such a good goal.
• 36:40
  That's incredible.
• 36:41
  What's the name of your what's the name of your book that's coming out?
• 36:45
  So it's the same book born on the continent, but it's just being translated into, oh, okay.
• 36:51
  Yeah. Okay. Oh. That's incredible.
• 36:54
  You're something.
• 36:55
  How how are you learning this language?
• 36:57
  What, are you using an app?
• 36:59
  Are you taking a class? I'm using an app.
• 37:02
  And I happen to share an apartment with a Brazilian couple.
• 37:08
  My flatmates are from Brazil.
• 37:10
  It was just by a weird coincidence that, I've met this lovely young couple who are here in Australia, and so they've been fantastic in helping me with that.
• 37:21
  That's incredible.
• 37:23
  That's great. Oh my gosh.
• 37:25
  Okay.
• 37:25
  Do you have a best piece of advice that you've ever received?
• 37:28
  Doesn't have to be age related.
• 37:31
  Oh yes.
• 37:33
  My grandmother used to say that this universe is like a giant bank, and you have to keep depositing good deeds.
• 37:44
  She said.
• 37:45
  It comes back tenfold.
• 37:47
  Not from the people you help, but from very unexpected sources.
• 37:54
  So when I talk about my life being a series of little miraculous coincidences, I know that what goes out comes back.
• 38:06
  All the help that I've received in my life has not been from the children that I've supported throughout my travels, but I just find myself in the right place, meeting the right people.
• 38:18
  And, it's a principle that really works.
• 38:22
  It's worked for me.
• 38:25
  Wow. I mean, that that is incredible.
• 38:28
  Because you you you just told one story.
• 38:30
  But when we were talking, you told me story after story where you just landed on your feet like you were like, well, I was destitute.
• 38:37
  I had nothing.
• 38:38
  And then I met this person, and I, like every story was like that.
• 38:41
  And then, you know, just built on that.
• 38:44
  And then you became, you know, quite a successful entrepreneur.
• 38:47
  And it it it was just, you know, one miraculous story after another.
• 38:51
  And I, I guess it's, you know, what other some people might call karma or good karma.
• 38:58
  Right.
• 38:59
  What we put out there comes back.
• 38:59
  Definitely.
• 39:02
  That's right.
• 39:02
  I do believe that, grandma knew I know that I remember hearing in one of your Ted talks about losing your father.
• 39:14
  You can you can you talk about the lessons you learned about growing older from watching your parents age, what they went through.
• 39:23
  My dad was a visionary.
• 39:27
  He was a man who saw no limitations to his circumstances.
• 39:32
  I remember when I was six years old, I became an entrepreneur because of my dad.
• 39:37
  So he would put money in his jacket pockets.
• 39:42
  And my job during the weekend was to go into his wardrobe and fold up everything nice and neatly in my pocket.
• 39:48
  Money would be in the jacket pocket, but I couldn't get the money until I finished the job.
• 39:53
  And one day he came into the bedroom and I was about to throw away an old pair of shoes of his, and they were worn and tatty, and they had no soles.
• 40:05
  And my father walked into the bedroom and he says, what are you doing with my shoes?
• 40:08
  I said, I'm throwing them away.
• 40:08
  They oh, they're horrible.
• 40:11
  And he said, don't throw away those shoes.
• 40:13
  Those shoes are magic, he said.
• 40:15
  And he put me on his lap and he turned the shoes over and they were completely soulless.
• 40:22
  They were newspapers at the bottom of these shoes.
• 40:25
  And he pulled out the newspaper and opened it up.
• 40:28
  And it was data to 1967, the year that I was born.
• 40:35
  And he said, when I got my scholarship to go to the UK to study, it was through the Catholic Church.
• 40:43
  So they flew him from Zimbabwe to Italy, then Italy to London, and he got an opportunity to go to the Colosseum, and he had this old photograph in his wallet of himself standing on the steps of the Colosseum in Rome in 1967.
• 41:04
  And he said, do you see the shoes in this photograph?
• 41:06
  I said, yes, he said, these are the same shoes.
• 41:10
  You have to put newspapers at the bottom of his shoes to get on an airplane and go to Europe for the first time.
• 41:20
  And so my dad said, all you have to do is dream.
• 41:23
  If you can dream yourself in a different place, you can do it so long as you can see it in your mind's eye.
• 41:31
  So I have dreamt myself out of many realities and created new ones that way.
• 41:38
  So being taught how to dream at a very early age is what really formed my life.
• 41:45
  And watching how my parents lived.
• 41:48
  My mother, on the other hand, was the doer.
• 41:51
  She was the person who had the practical how to steps to get us there.
• 41:57
  My mum used to make things, so she taught me how to knit, how to crochet, how to sew.
• 42:05
  By the time I was six, I was making things that we would sell to pay for our own school fees.
• 42:12
  So we were taught to be very entrepreneurial.
• 42:14
  We went to private school my whole life I learned English at a very early age.
• 42:20
  I went to very expensive schools, not because my parents were rich financially, but they were rich in the way they thought.
• 42:28
  And they knew that if their kids got a very good education, we would get out of poverty. And we did so that they were the basis of my worldview, if you like.
• 42:39
  They really framed the way I am and the way that I think.
• 42:44
  That's like I said, it's so beautiful that you got to have parents like that that showed you such, such a good way of living.
• 42:51
  And then how, how did they live when they were older.
• 42:54
  Did they live a healthy life.
• 42:56
  Did they stay young at heart?
• 43:00
  My father definitely.
• 43:03
  I remember when he was 75, he came to New Zealand and he said to me, it's time you told me this thing called a computer and I want to learn how to use a computer.
• 43:12
  And I was frustrated, but he was so determined to learn.
• 43:17
  He was with me for about two months, and by the time he went back to Africa, he knew his way in and out of the computer.
• 43:24
  The next thing I know, my dad's on Facebook.
• 43:27
  He's on YouTube.
• 43:28
  He was all over the internet, but he was that kind of person who would learn anything new.
• 43:36
  Mum. Unfortunately.
• 43:40
  Her demise came when my brother died.
• 43:43
  So my mother died very early.
• 43:45
  She died at the age of 76.
• 43:47
  And when my youngest brother died, it affected her psychologically.
• 43:52
  She ended up with early Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, and it was heartbreaking to see her in that state, because in her formative years, she was a very vibrant and active person.
• 44:06
  But I guess watching your youngest child dying and dying at home the way my brother did.
• 44:16
  It affected him psychologically.
• 44:19
  Yeah. I mean, how could it not?
• 44:21
  It's that's the most horrible that's everybody's nightmare, right?
• 44:25
  That's so sorry.
• 44:28
  How old was your brother when he passed away?
• 44:31
  He was 29.
• 44:33
  Oh, gosh. What was his name?
• 44:35
  His name was tap.
• 44:36
  Former. Tap for me.
• 44:40
  That's.
• 44:41
  That's crushing.
• 44:43
  I'm so sorry.
• 44:45
  And I, you know, I just feel like our parents.
• 44:51
  They they form us in good and bad, you know, you you watch how they deal with something, and then you take you either take it as your own or you say, you know, I don't want to be like that.
• 45:02
  And but, you know, I mean, losing a child, that's the worst of the worst.
• 45:06
  And so there's there's no judgment in how anybody handles that.
• 45:12
  That's awful.
• 45:13
  Yeah.
• 45:16
  Did you, do you have a favorite memory of your brother that you want to share with us?
• 45:25
  My brother was a very funny person.
• 45:28
  He was the comic of the family.
• 45:31
  Always cracking jokes, making people laugh.
• 45:35
  He was born when I was 11 years old, so he was my baby.
• 45:45
  I remember caring for him.
• 45:48
  Mom could go and get on with her work, and she would literally leave me to look after the baby.
• 45:54
  And yeah, I had three little brothers, and he was the youngest of the three.
• 46:01
  And I remember by the time I got married, he came and lived with me for a while.
• 46:06
  When he was in high school, he lived with me as well, and he was just the most amazing uncle because my son, when he was born, would follow him around.
• 46:18
  He grew a tail. We used to laugh and say, he grew a tail.
• 46:22
  My, yeah, my son, my oldest in hockey.
• 46:24
  Everything he did, and he used to buy them t shirts that were the same color.
• 46:30
  And so I have a series of photographs of the two of them walking around the yard in the same clothes and, Oh, he was a wonderful uncle.
• 46:40
  That's that's lovely.
• 46:42
  I'm sure you do.
• 46:44
  Do you have a favorite person that you admire for their approach to aging?
• 46:52
  Oh, who would that be?
• 46:56
  That's a very good question.
• 46:59
  I think when I look at Nelson Mandela and his life, he is a man who aged with grace.
• 47:11
  You know, he was a very tall man and he was upright right until the end.
• 47:18
  It was the way that he held himself.
• 47:21
  It was more than a physical thing then, a spiritual thing.
• 47:27
  I don't know how to.
• 47:29
  Yes, I particularly that.
• 47:31
  Yes. His composure, composure.
• 47:34
  Nina. Yeah. Demeanor. Everything.
• 47:37
  Yes I can you could feel it was just in every single cell in his body.
• 47:42
  And if I could age like that, I think that would be a beautiful thing to watch.
• 47:49
  Yeah, he's.
• 47:50
  I've never heard that answer before, but I can't think of a better one.
• 47:54
  That's a pretty good one.
• 47:57
  He was he was just a beautiful soul.
• 48:02
  Just kind of, kind of all the things you've been talking about, he embodies all of that.
• 48:09
  And then do you have a favorite concert you've ever been to? Yes.
• 48:14
  I wanted to watch Tina Turner.
• 48:19
  She came to South Africa and I was eight months pregnant with our youngest son.
• 48:24
  And were you dancing with that big belly?
• 48:28
  Oh, my goodness, I, I, I went and I had gone into preterm labor two weeks before she came, and everybody said, you shouldn't go.
• 48:37
  I was supposed to be on bed rest.
• 48:39
  There was no way I was going to miss a Tina Turner concert in Cape Town.
• 48:44
  Yeah.
• 48:45
  Watched, you know, Turner live in South Africa.
• 48:48
  And that was just an electric experience.
• 48:51
  Absolutely amazing musician.
• 48:53
  And I my pick for me. Oh, my gosh, that's so funny.
• 48:59
  Oh, God.
• 49:00
  I could just picture you just dancing to Tina Turner with your big baby belly.
• 49:04
  That's so cute.
• 49:06
  Oh. Oh, man.
• 49:09
  Well, I mean, you've shared everything.
• 49:10
  Do you have any other last parting wisdom for us, or do we cover it all?
• 49:16
  I say you live your life to the full and live life in awe and wonder that you are here.
• 49:31
  There are many who have not made us up until this point, and I'm pleased you're talking about women over 15 and looking back and being grateful that you've made it this far.
• 49:45
  We are blessed to be here and to impart the knowledge that we've learned up until this point to the next generation, and to be the example of the possibility of what being old can look like.
• 50:01
  And as beautiful it can be, depending on how you carry yourself and how you live your life.
• 50:09
  And just intense learning to keep learning. Yes, yes, a new language, a new dance just like you.
• 50:19
  You are.
• 50:21
  You are just, the embodiment of of aging like a badass mother.
• 50:26
  You're doing it, and you're a beautiful soul.
• 50:28
  And I'm so glad to to be able to call you my friend.
• 50:31
  So thank you for sharing with us.
• 50:33
  Get, dude, absolute honor to have been here with your community and honor and thank you for the opportunity.
• 50:37
  Thank you.
• 50:39
  Take care. Bye bye.
• 50:42
  Thanks for listening, friend.
• 50:44
  From my heart to yours.
• 50:46
  Be well. Until we meet again.