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When we tell ourselves that we don't have time for something, what we're really saying is it's not important and it's not a priority. People with purpose and passion equals profit, and if we put our focus in the first three, the last one comes.
So eighty percent of my life has to be in balance because.
That brings calmness and organization and structure and all those things that I like. But twenty percent needs to be chaotic because that brings risk and innovation and fun and excitement.
Welcome to the sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives.
They adore the good, bad and ugly.
The best and worst days will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or Spoonful of Sarah. I turned punentrepreneurs, wapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bar CZA is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Welcome back, Lovely Yighborhood. I hope you enjoyed our Power
your Inner Runner podcast miniseries. It was such a pleasure to create and I've loved seeing all of your learnings and reflections. I did have this second miniseries of the year, ready four Years of Our Lives this week, but it's been pushed back slightly to align with some official announcements relating to the guests, so it's back to your regular
scheduling for now, but keep your ears peeled. Today's guests is one of those people that I feel so lucky to be able to share with you, because a one on one session with such a trail blazing industry leader is so highly coveted, so we're very lucky to have her on the show. If you haven't heard of Colin Calendar, you've definitely encountered her work through twenty years across iconic brands Suzanne and sports Girl, thirteen of which she was
in the top spot as CEO. You might assume that Colleen was a born leader with her sight set on something like an MBA to work her way to the top, but she is all the more fascinating for not having finished school at all and starting as a retail assistant on the floor at Just Jeans. I also love how she perceives leadership as a lifestyle choice rather than something intrinsic that you have to be born with. You don't have to be an extrovert or even in a senior
position to be a leader. You can work hard and speak through your results, and she certainly has done so. There's also some very useful reflections on burnout leading to three months away from work, altogether touching on all our favorite themes of unraveling our identity from productivity and achievement, and of course then the bold choice to step away from the dream job when it starts to become a comfort zone, to start a new chapter and restart as
a beginner. Colleen is such a delight to learn from, and I hope you guys get as much out of our chat as I did. Colleen, Welcome to Seize the yame.
Hello Sarah, thank you for having me. It's really wonderful to be here with you.
Oh so lovely to see you. We did an amazing.
Kids entrepreneurial pitch recently and I feel like I was absorbing more advice than the picture.
It was so lovely to share that with you.
I don't know about that.
I think we actually were bouncing off each other and learning a lot from each other, which was really nice.
But it was super fun, right, It was such a great thing to do.
It was so much fun.
I was trying really hard not to fan girl you the whole time. I've been such a close follower of your incredible career. So it's a privilege to have you here today and I've just poured through for the second time your amazing book, Leader by Design. So very very excited to pick your brains today and share it with the neighborhood.
Thank you so much. There's such kind words. Thank you.
So we will definitely get into your incredible journey. But I like to start with a little icebreaker way asking what the most down to earth thing is about you, Which is a bit of an odd question, but I think in the digital age, we're often introduced to people through their titles, and you talk about this a bit in the book.
You know, through the.
Glossy title or through the highlights of the story that get captured by the media. But there's so much in between, having kids, you know, trying to run businesses. There's so much just normal stuff. And everyone is more relatable, I think than you would ever imagine. So what's something really normal about you?
Yeah, I would have to agree.
I think people look at your life and you know, they get the one percent on Instagram or you read an article and you know, people think is a life of a CEO is glitzy and lifestyle and travel.
And you know there is a little bit of that in there.
But I've got to tell you, I am the happiest when I am at home with my family, sitting by the fire pit, chatting with my kids, cooking dinner together. You know, they're really the moments that I love. That that's what makes me really happy. You know, going for a walk with my husband. I love gardening. So you know, all of that other stuff is really you know I talk about the hat we wear, you know, the down to earth stuff is what we do every day, the stuff that really fills up that tank.
So for me, I'm a real.
Sort of homebody, I suppose, and my family is everything.
Oh I love that so much, and I think it is. It's when people, you know, hear that you're a mom, or you're a sister, or you're a wife, or you're a whatever, and they can relate to you with that hat on that. I think that's when your messages and learnings cut through more because not everyone can relate to, you know, being an incredible CEO for six years at Suzanne and seven years at sports Girl, but they can relate to being a homebody or liking.
To walk your dog, you know. I think that's where the messages really cut through.
Yeah, absolutely, I agree. I agree.
So let's trace through what I call your path YEA or your way to ya, because again I love to go back to even childhood and sort of remind everyone that you didn't wake up one day knowing this was going to be your journey. That often there are so many twists and turns, and many of them that often feel backwards or you know, it just seems often like people wake up one day with incredible sense of purpose
and they just are successful. But it's never overnight. So take us all the way back to young Colleen, you know at Sacred Heart, what your kind of big dreams were I know you you know your parents were had their own businesses, and I imagine that was a huge influence on your journey. And I loved reading that you worked at the canteen at the local pool and we're on building sites with your dad, Like, tell us about what you were like as a kid.
Look, I think two words that come to mind when I think about me as a child.
I was shy, but I was also really curious.
And you know, I did have this wonderful upbringing, and you know, I grew up in Geelong and willed the beach and I loved hanging out with my brother on his bike. And you know, but one thing that we were surrounded by the whole time through our upbringing was this sort of centered around business. You know, my parents had their own businesses, and so I spent a lot of my childhood listening and learning to my parents and
watching them work both very very hard. And you know, people would turn up at home Sarah for meetings and this I was little, as this tiny little blond thing, and you know I would.
Sit there next to my dad.
I would hope I was invisible, and you know, I would just listen in on every detail. I wanted to know about money and turnover and rent and investments and costs of goods and buying and selling. So I was so intrigued all the time. And you know, my father was this workhorse and he still is today.
And you know, he was this.
Quite tough negotiator, and you know he definitely instilled in us, both my brother and myself and my sister, this really strong work ethic. And you know I can remember that from a very very young age. So, yeah, as you said, I just love to work. I worked in the family canteen. My father used to say to me, I'm his canteen manager by day, and I'm his bank manager by night.
I've read that.
Yeah. I would sit there at home at the end of the day.
I was all of nine or ten years of age, by the way, I would bag all the money up and I'd put them in their little bags, you know that you get from the bank and the one and two sting coins will my pay for the day. So you know, I had this high lucrative business going on for myself at you know, nine or ten years of age.
But you know, I do really go back and credit a lot of that upbringing and you know, those foundations of knowledge and discipline and hard work to really the woman and leader I am today.
I loved reading that in the book, in those early chapters, like, I think you get such a beautiful patchwork vision of someone when you understand where it all came from and the mentors and the family kind of you know, just those values that have been instilled in you from a young age. I love connecting all the dots along the way and kind of going, oh.
That's how it all happened. Yeah.
But I also think, you know, particularly because there is such greater access and visibility of now what people do in their life, we can be really impatient. There's a you know, we're always seeking instant gratuity of finding our dream job. And you know, if if you heard that you're parents had had you working from an early age, it kind of makes sense that you ended up being a CEO. But in between, there was so much You started out as a teenager on the shop floor at
just Jeans. Did you ever dream of being a CEO back then?
Like?
What was your first entrance out of family business and into your.
First actual career. How did it go?
What were your aspiration I was one of those teenagers that would come home every week and be something different.
You know, this week, I'm going to be a.
Police for the next week, week I'm a hairdresser, next week, I'm a doctor. And I would have a different career choice every single week. So I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. But at the end of my year eleven school year, I got a summer job at the local Justine store, as you've read in my book, and I was sixteen years of age, and I absolutely loved it. From the minute I walked through the door.
I just loved everything about fashion retail. And at the end of that summer, the area manager came down and said to me, would love you to stay on with the business.
And You've got potential were her words.
And you know what, sixteen year old young girl wouldn't be excited about a big boss saying those words to her. So here I was absolutely excited. But for me, Sarah, I was, as I said, quiet teenager. So I knew that if I wanted to progress in my career and move up the ranks, that I really had to get
noticed through my results, and so I worked hard. I did exactly what I saw my parents do, and I made budget and I won competitions and I sold the most le by jeans, and you know, I just wanted to I just wanted to please, and you know, I'm a natural people pleaser, and that started from again at a very young age. But I just wanted to do everything right and to the best of my ability. And at the age of eighteen, I was promoted to the youngest store manager in the company. At twenty I was
promoted to the youngest area manager. And then at the age of twenty four, I was promoted to the state manager for Victoria, running fifty four stores, and that's where I spent my next four years. But what I realized was that I really loved peace people, and so for me, each promotion and I didn't realize this till much later on in my life, but each promotion for me was the opportunity to inspire and influence and impact people around me and their lives and their careers. And so that
was really my motivation. And then in nineteen ninety nine, I picked up the phone and it was sports Girl at the other end, and I wanted me to come and.
Join their business.
And who could say no to those incredible iconic colored strikes.
And a very famous institution exactly, and so I joined and that's where I then spent the next twenty years of my life up until March last year.
And as you said, thirteen of those as CEO, six at Suzanne and the past seven at sports Girl.
So it's been an incredible, incredible fun.
Journey, Oh my goodness.
And I think that's something so important to remind people of that you can find yourself loving people and not be an extrovert. I thought it was really interesting that you concentrated quite a lot when you were describing leadership, as you started off quite shy, and people don't automatically think if they're shy that a leadership role would necessarily be well suited to them. But I think the phrase I mean you just said it then, was you got
noticed by your results. You don't have to be the loudest person in the room, you don't have to be the most talkative person in the room. You can get in front of people in different ways, and that's not often what you hear. You often hear I just had the conversation and I just cornered this person and this you know, I got on the blower and I cold called these people. But you can also, I think, put your head down and butt up and just work damn hard.
And that was something I really took away that I think people who were shy often siloed themselves and then self select out of things, thinking that they're automatically not suited. But I think that's definitely not the case, because you can breed new skills at any time. But before we do, get into the skills of leadership, because I know you
have so much value to share there. I know that you ended up going full time into the business before you had finished year twelve, that you had to go home and tell your parents that you weren't going to finish school so that you could take up this opportunity. What is your view now on tertiary studies and going to university, because I think that's something that's quite ingrained in a lot of us, either culturally or just in our own minds or from social expectation, But many people
have also made it without that. What advice do you have for people who are feeling like maybe it's not their pathway.
It's a great question, and when you go back to that moment about telling my parents about you know, I'm sixteen and I'm not going back to school.
I'm going to sell jeans on the shop floor.
I think, oh, that it comes straight back to me because I was petrified in the time, you know. And as I did say that to them, I could see with both of them this disappointment on their faces, because
you know, they had these incredible aspirations for me. You know, they wanted me to be a doctor and a lawyer and all of these sort of things that would have served the family super well, right, you know, But in that moment, my parents both said to me, love what you do, work hard, give up, and so that's exactly what I did. But you know, that question around the university study is a really interesting one and one that I do get asked given my path has not been that.
My path has not even been to finish school. So you know, I don't think, Sarah, there is a right or wrong path, is what I would say. I really think it's different for everyone, depending on what it is you want to do. You know, I think about my three children now, and they're all so different. Jake, my oldest, has just finished a five year double degree and My youngest son, Train who's twenty three, he dropped out of unit. It just wasn't for him. He just didn't enjoy it,
so he went to night or instead. So you know, I think if you need a university degree to follow your passion, then that's absolutely fantastic. Go at it and work hard and give it everything you've got. But you know, I always say it's different horses for different courses, so it's entirely up to the individual.
I think that's such great advice.
And I mean, obviously there are some areas like medicine or you kind of want or you have to have gone to university, and I would like my doctors to.
Have studied for a very long time.
But equally there are areas where it's not, you know, the pathway doesn't necessitate that you do that.
And did you find that you've.
Ever had to prove yourself because you didn't have that title, or that it's ever disadvantaged you. And I also particularly because it wasn't necessarily the age of entrepreneurship as it is now, where you know, people are forging pathways in all kinds of directions, But back then, was it more conventional? Did you have to sort of sell it to people or were you just working so hard that you proved yourself anyway.
Yeah, I just think it was part of the journey.
To be honest, I think I was just you know, I was working hard and I got great results, and again that was through people, and I always credited my people for everything that happened. You know, if we won an award, I would stand up and say, this is not mine, this is my team. You know, this is ours collectively. So it was really just my pathway. But you know, as I said, I did that through empowering and inspiring people around me.
It sounds like something you've always been very good at and you need to do throughout your career. So share some of that you're now, you know, kind of looking back, I think often we don't crystallize those lessons until much later. But looking back, you've compiled into this beautiful book such a comprehensive guide on leadership and what it is and what qualities stand out. And I love that you call it a lifestyle choice. You're not necessarily born again talking
about siloing yourself. You're not necessarily born a leader or born not a leader, and that's the end. You know, it's a choice that we can practice and you can grow into those roles. So how do you feel that you grew into a leader? And what things do you look for or think now you mentor other people as well? How do you kind of train new leaders?
As I was saying, you know, I was a very curious sort of young teenager and even a young girl, and I was always really intrigued why people behave the way they did, both good and bad. And I always wondered why did some people treat others with kindness? And why do some people step over others for self gain? Or you know, why were some people caring and others cruel? And why did some people create these incredible environments of collaboration and others' environments of fear? And you know, without
knowing it, I was becoming this leader by design. And you know, we all have the ability to become leaders by design, both in our lives and in our leadership lives. And you know, I always say so, I don't believe anyone's born a leader. I think we all have the ability to design that leadership life we want to live in. And you know, there are so many incredible qualities of a great leader. I could list one hundred of them. You know, it's about knowing yourself.
And you know, great.
Leaders show courage in the way they lead, and they're incredible listeners, and they encourage collaboration, and they share their vision with not just the top level of the company, but you know, right through the organization, and they lead by example. And I think the biggest thing is that great leaders know that they're in service to others. And I think that's really where so many leaders wrong. Is a lot of leaders think it is all about them,
and it's actually not. Being a great leader is about being in service to other people.
Oh wow, I got so many fascinating perspectives out of the chapters on leadership in the book that I just never thought about. I'd never thought about that element of service or you know, how that would change someone's approach to leading. And I think often as you progress upper corporate letter within an organization, or even as you progress in your career as a business person, I don't think anyone realizes in the early days that leadership is a
necessarily element that's separate to just doing your job. There's doing your job, and then there's leading the people underneath you to also do their job. And it's not an automatic skill either. You're not automatically good at it. It's a practice. And it's also something else you said that I really liked was you used to look up to leaders based on their titles, which is of course the most obvious form of leadership, but often it's people who
just lead within their small sphere of influence. You don't have to be a CEO to be a leader. Can apply it to your friendship groups, or your tennis club
or whatever it may be. I think that's really really fascinating, and I think one of the big things that I'd love to ask you about as well is the fact that, particularly at CEO level, only seventeen percent or maybe even I don't know if that starts changed since you published the book, which was I mean only last year, but only seventeen percent of CEO as a women, How as a female leader have you found striving to progress up
a letder? Has there been anything in particular that has hindered you, has helped you, any particular advice that you would pass on to younger women who were trying to kind of make themselves seen in an organization.
It's a fantastic question, and it's a statistic that I'm super proud of being a part of, and one that makes me extremely sad as well, because we just do not have enough female leadership in this country, and in fact, we don't have enough great leadership in this country, and very passionate about helping women move along that continuum because we need a much more balanced approach to leadership to get the right outcomes. So for me, I was really
really fortunate. I know a lot of people around me that haven't been as fortunate and have been in situations that haven't been as accommodating and as nice as the one I've been able to sort of work in, I suppose, but I worked in a privately owned business In both scenarios my whole thirty years in retail. Both the businesses I worked in were privately owned and they were very female centric, so it was very much about women supporting women. And I was very fortunate to be at the Helm
for thirteen years. So I created the environment that I wanted to get up to every day.
I created the.
Environment that I would have been happy for my children to get up to and go every day. So I was very fortunate in that circumstance, But I know that there are many women out there that have had a much tougher time than that and really struggle to move up that corporate ladder. We need to be the game changers for change. We need to be circuit breakers in the way we view female leadership in this country.
And in terms of upskilling, to be able to fly that flag and have the conversations, particularly if you do find yourself in a workplace that isn't perhaps automatically as female centric, or whether culture doesn't quite embrace gender equality yet in the way that it should. How do you mentor in your mentor meat program young leaders to progress up the ladder. What are the things that you think
they could do to even put themselves forward. Like one of the stats I talk about all the time, which I saw in the book and I highlighted it all over again, is that even institutional inequalities aside because of timing, women will often wait much longer than their male colleagues to apply for promotions. So it's not even about who's good or not, it's the positions often taken. What are some of the things that you counsel young women to do on their journey sort of upwards.
Yeah, it's a fantastic question and one I love sharing with women because my job is to help change happen. And I think there's a number of things that I talk about and share in my Mental Meat program and work with women on and you know, we need to know ourselves and our value and our purpose. I always say leadership starts with self, and we work on leadership skills. But the number one or one of the biggest focuses
is building confidence. And I think that is really what is holding women back again on putting their hand up for that promotion, or asking for that pay rise, or asking for a seat at that table, or sitting in a boardroom and having an opinion because of this lack of confidence that's holding us back.
So I work with.
Women around the myths around confidence, what holds us back, and how to build real confidence and it can be the real game changer.
Yeah.
The second section of the podcast is called an ata, and I usually cover them separately. That's all the barriers to your joy, but I think it works here to weave them in together because self doubt is often the biggest challenge that most people identify. It's not the physical logistics of doing their job. It's the mindset of getting ready to do the doing that's like that can overwhelm you.
And I love again that you combat that silo mentality in that confidence is also not you're not born with it, that's something that's built as well.
So what are some of.
The strategies that you've used if you're having a moment if I'm not worthy or I you know, don't deserve this CEO role, or I shouldn't be in this boardroom?
You know?
Is it mentors that you turn to? Is it a particular you know, pep talk you give yourself. How do you kind of arm yourself against that doubt?
Yeah, it's a fantastic question. I think the number one thing we have to do is change our story, you know. And what I do say to women is that we all experience self doubt and self sabotage and imposter syndrome, even the most seemingly confident women and people. You know, we all have this inner critic that creates stories that hold us back and really allow us to compare ourselves
to other people's success in their lives. And you know, whether we tell ourselves I'm too young or I'm too old, or I'm not good enough, or she's better than me, or I don't fit in, or I don't have all the skills. You know, we create these stories, and we really need to interrupt those stories of self sabotage and start taking control and really create more empowering stories that
really allow us to feel confident to take action. You know, we really need to be changing that narrative for ourselves. We need to know when that inner critic is sitting on our shoulder telling us all of these negative thoughts. And there's a whole lot of strategies, as you know in my book, you know, self talk and changing your story, and you know, building boundaries to protect yourself who is
the asset. And you know, confidence is contagious. Surround yourself with confident people, talk to yourself like you're best friends. You know, there are so many things that we can do to build confidence. And I really do believe that all roads lead back to that confidence.
Yeah, isn't it funny how powerful doubt can be. I mean, we don't even give ourselves a chance to see if you could physically do the job or not. It's can I mentally put myself forward for the job like it's so many steps before. That mindset is the most important thing, and the more you remember that, I think, the less scary it is to think, Oh, I don't have to worry about doing the job. I just have to get my head right and then everything else kind of follows.
This episode is brought to you by Woolworth's Delivery Unlimited. Before we continue, you all know I like to jam pack my schedule and overdo it sometimes, so anything that saves time, energy or adds convenience to our daily life is a huge ya in my books.
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A month, you can enjoy unlimited deliveries and then ata of draining grocery troops will be knocked over forever. I'll pop the link in show notes. Now, what would you say are some of the things you're most proud of? Like, with thirteen years a CEO, but also in upper management before that and in a smaller family held business, you can have a really evident legacy in what you have
changed about the culture or initiatives that you've started. Is there anything you look back on and go in my role as CEO, I use the power that I had to do X and I'm so proud of that.
Yeah, there's so many moments in people expect I think when you ask those questions about tell me about your success, and you know, they expect you to say, I was on stage.
And I received the CEO ward and did this, and you know that's.
Just so not what really floats my boat at the end of the day for me, it was as I said, it was always about people and watching people rise, watching people do things they didn't think they could do, watching
people believe in themselves. You know, as I said, I created this culture that people wanted to come to, and you know, it still talked about today with people that have worked at Sports Guild during you know, me being there saying what an amazing culture that that business had, and you know that took a lot of time and effort. Culture is not something that just you know, pops up overnight. Culture is something you have to dedicate every single day
of your leadership life too. So I think culture is probably one of the things I'm most proud of, you know, for me. But you know, Sarah, people also talk about success. You know what is what is that success? And I always talk about and you know, some people it's power and status and money and all of those things.
You know, I've never looked at it like that either.
And I have a bit of a weird brain. It looks at things through a different lens. I suppose to some other people maybe, but you know, for me, success is about leaving this planet better than the way I found it. And when I talk about that, that is the way I can impact women and help you get more women at the helm and give women the confidence to step up and do all of those things.
For me, that's going to be success.
If I can be a game changer, if I can change the narrative, if I can change those numbers, that's going to be success for me.
And that's something we really focus on a lot on the show, and it's actually the crux of the whole, you know, flipping seas the day to be Cca is that idea of your metrics for success changing as you progress through your career. They often start very not superficial, but just one dimensional, very financial, very tightal orientated. But sooner or later you come to the realization that it's your life experience, it's fulfillment, it's joy, it's all the
moments in between. I can only imagine, and how many highlight moments once you started to reevaluate you know what matters to you and how you bring that to your work. I can imagine there were so many highlights, But I also know there were a lot of tougher times that maybe even propelled you faster towards those big realizations than their easy moments. Can you tell us before we move on about what happened in two thousand and seven and why you perceived yourself as a Formula one race card.
Yes, yes, well it was a very big year two thousand and seven. I've got to say I was thirty six years of age. I had three young children at this time. Macy was just a little baby at two, and Trent was nine and Jake was ten, and I'd been at Sports Girl for eight years, and I was acting general manager.
And I do I describe myself.
As a red Ferrari, And I read Ferraari that had just kept going and going and going, and it got faster and faster and faster until it couldn't.
And the problem with.
That red Ferrari was that I'd never put petrol in the tank, I'd never put air in the ties, I'd never put it in for a service. I was absolutely exhausted. I was burnt out, and I hit a wall. And it had nothing to do with whether I loved my job or not. Because I loved my job. I loved every minute of it. I just had nothing left in my tank. And I remember it so vividly. I walked in the door this night and I was a mess. And I said to my husband, I'm done, and I'm
quite black and white in that respect. And anyway, we had lots of discussion and it was very emotional, and I went in the next day to resign and I felt like I was going to take these big samd bags off my shoulders, and I did for a moment when I said those words, But lucky for me, I got talked out of that idea and instead I took three and a half million, four months off, which was very fortunate, and I put that Red Ferrari in for a well overdue service and a big dose of self care.
And self care was something I didn't even those words didn't even spill out of my mouth, you know, I didn't even know what self care was. So it was the best lesson I've got to say in my entire life, because it forced me to find balance. It forced me to stop being a workaholic and own that badge. I had this badge of being a workaholic, and I was so proud of it, and so it really taught me to do things differently and I had to pretty much change the way I lived my life.
Yeah, it's really interesting how many people who do make it to the really upper echelons of the most successful businesses have had some kind of big health event. Like I would love to say that people can have that big realization preemptively, but often it takes that for you to actually accept I have limits. Unfortunately, I do have to, you know, manage my pace, and especially when you love
your job. It's easier if you don't love your job, because you want to stop working when you love it, there's no incentive, particularly when you are, you know, in the aiming to be in that twenty percent female CEO area. Like your identity is wrapped up in productivity. So how did you change your mindset to not see it as oh, I'm not doing enough, or I might become irrelevant, or
I might drop out of the race. If I taking three months off is quite significant, how did you kind of get your head around that identity change.
Yeah, it's a great question.
Well, I kind of didn't have a choice because if I didn't take that time off, I probably wouldn't have had my fiftieth birthday this year, and I probably wouldn't be in the great shape that I am today. So I actually had no choice. I was on that train to burn out. Town, and I didn't know how to get off it. So for me, it was about putting boundaries in place. It was learning to say no. It was to stop being a people pleaser all the time.
I still struggle with that today because I am a natural people pleaser.
You know.
I got myself a coach, and as I said, I started to embrace this self care, which I had always thought was so selfish.
As I said, I've watched my mum and.
Dad work so hard, and so for me, being a workhorse like my father was the only path. So, you know, it was really, as I said, it was one of the best lessons I have ever had. And what it did, Sarah, was allow me to be the best version of myself. And I didn't realize how good I could be. I thought I was being awesome back then. You know, when you're good to yourself, what you're doing is filling up your tank, and you have so much more to give to other people. And once I started to realize that
that was probably the big game changer. It didn't seem selfish to be filling my tank up. It was actually serving others so much better because I was such a better person. I was a fun mum, I was a happy wife. I wasn't this cranky bitch that just wanted to you know, that was just angry all the time and tied and exhausted and had nothing left, you know. So it really is a game changer because I could see the transformation.
I think the burnout conversation.
Like sometimes you just think, oh my god, this is so cliche, but then when you actually hear from people like this whole podcast is a series of real life stories. It's so recurring because it's an actual, widespread rife problem that costs billions of dollars every year. Because you know, I don't know whether it's the online world that's allowed us to be connected more intensely and longer per day than we ever have been. Our boundaries are just so blurry,
and then in the pandemic it was even harder. So I think that it's that idea of balance has become more and more elusive. But I know that you don't even really like using the word work life balance tell us about how you like, what kind of value you instill. Instead, you call it life in balance, and there's an eighty twenty rule. How do you interpret it instead? In a way that works for you.
Yeah.
This again, this is another gift out of burnout.
So you know, I had no balance of any description, and I would do that this is my work and this is my life, and you know, my work took up most of my time. And so I came up with life imbalance. And for me, we just shouldn't put life into one box and work into another. They need to be best friends, they need to coexist, they need to love each other and live life together.
And so I started, you know, in my mind.
And I share this with a lot of women today and help them implement life imbalance. I came up with the eighty twenty rule for me, So eighty percent of my life has to be in balance because that brings calmness and organization and structure and all those things that I like. But twenty percent needs to be chaotic because that brings risk and innovation and fun and excitement. But what happens is when that twenty percent starts to go to thirty and forty and fifty, I know that I'm
not doing things so smartly. So I have to start to get that balance back. So I have to add, change or delete something. They're the three big shifts, add, change, delete, and when I do that, I get those scales back in an eighty twenty. And that's what works for me. You know, it doesn't work for everyone that way. You might be Sarah fifty to fifty. Let's say you might want fifty percent of your life in balance and fifty
percent to be chaos. That's absolutely fine if that works for you, as long as you know when the balance shifts that you need to add, change, or delete something. So pick your balance, it doesn't matter what it is, but just know those triggers, because when we have that life in balance, that's when we are absolutely awesome and at our absolute best.
I think it's a great reminder as well that your numbers might not look like someone else's because I have friends who can survive on ten ninety and the chaos is absolutely fine.
It's not disruptive to them.
They thrive in that environment, whereas if I'm, like, you know, anywhere near fifty to fifty, it's a total disaster. I'm
so unproductive. So as long as you're trying to identify whatever your balance is and sticking to that, it can be really easy to look at your friends who have different stamina and in you know, comparison even slides into energy management these days, but I think, yeah, just listening to what really works for you and what doesn't, and it's so much trial and error, Like it takes so long to figure these things out.
Absolutely does, Yes, it does.
So after you know, an incredible couple of decades with the group and making it to that CEO role and having that extent, you know, past a decade, it's so fascinating that you then decided it was time for a new chapter. And I think often on the outside, those kind of shifts just look like leave in your dream job. Why would you walk away from it all when it's
all going so well? But I also think people know internally when they're agitating for change, Like you can feel that it's time, And it's so hard to explain, but people hold on to things for a lot longer, I think than they need to because of the fear of rebuilding your identity as someone else without the title, without that safe structure of I'm the CEO of sports girl, Like that's such a clear way to orientate who you
are in the world. How did you know it was time and what was that big shift in identity like to rebuild after one chapter ends at a new one starts.
Yes, yeah, look, it's an amazing question.
And I kind of look at my life in decades, so my twenties, my thirties, my forties, and now what do my fifties look like? And it is absolutely crazy how quickly a decade goes, and in fact, it's crazy how quickly twenty years were with Sports Girl, And you know, at one minute you're at ten years, then you're at fifteen, and then you're at twenty before you know it. And when I resigned from my role, I actually wanted to
take a year off. I actually had my twenty year milestone, so I was hitting all of these big milestones, and you know that's often triggers for people to say, I'm writing my next chapter, I'm doing something different. So I had my twenty year anniversary with the group in November, and I finished March. The following year, I was also turning fifty, so for me, it was about time to write my next chapter. And I'd actually planned to, as
I said, do my book, do some passion projects. I'm on a couple of charity boards, so I was going to take this year off, do some travel COVID not and then go back into potentially another CEO role. I just needed a change of scenery and a change of you know, doing sort of the same thing, I suppose. So I resigned and I started to take some time off, and COVID hit and it changed for everyone, and again for me, there were so many gifts in COVID because me, I tall, me women was born. I wrote my book,
which I had always planned to do. I started coaching leaders and business. I joined asx board. You know, so a lot of things sort of went on my plate and I actually didn't have time to then think about being a CEO again, you know, not to say that I won't go back there one day.
Who knows.
You know, I've got plenty of great years ahead of me in this industry, but who knows. But at the moment, I just love what I'm doing. And you know, that identity piece is a really interesting one because I actually think about my identity not so much as who I am and some of those attributes, but I think about it as my purpose.
And my purpose as a CEO was to.
Inspire and empower and allow people to bring their best selves to work every day, which then allowed an organization to flourish, and in this next chapter in my life, Sarah, my purpose is exactly the same. So my purpose is to inspire women, whether that be through these incredible podcasts like yours, whether it be through my book, whether it be through on stage, it doesn't actually matter where it is. I'm still living out my purpose, and my identity actually
doesn't come back to being CEO. And I think that's where we can sometimes get a little bit lost. You know, when I ask in my mental meat programs or when I'm coaching someone, you know, I'll say who are you? And most people go straight to their titles. I'm a CEO, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a hairdresser, I'm and they give me all the titles and I say, no, but who are you? Because they're the hats we wear, they're the jobs we do. That is not actually who we are.
So I've never really had an identity crisis, I suppose because for me, I'm just living out my purpose every day.
Oh my gosh, that's so well adjusted and balanced, because most of us would have a total breakdown because I think we do associate, you know, what we do is who we are, rather than the fact that they're totally different things. And something Lisa Messenger.
Always says that I love is that your.
Why stays the same, but your how is supposed to change because you can have too much of a good thing. And if you start to sort of not plateau but get comfortable in that role, then it doesn't matter how good it looks to everyone else, Like you need fresh challenges and different delivery modes all the time. So how has it been sort of transitioning into mental me and writing the book? I mean, particularly with the last eighteen
months to two years being how they are? Is the book that you started writing different to the one you ended up writing?
You know? What's that whole process been?
Like? Yeah, well, my book.
I actually my book actually came out only in March this year, and I wrote my book over I started sort of playing with it while I was still sort of in my COO role, just you know, on holidays, writing notes and I listened to lots of podcasts and you know, all of that kind of thing.
But I actually wrote my book. I went down to.
Sorrento to my holiday house, and I literally locked myself away for three weeks and I wrote my book and when I say locked myself away, I turned into the Red Ferrari.
I didn't sleep, I.
Know, and wrote and wrote and it's okay if you drive the Red Ferrari like that every now and then, you just can't do it all the time, right. So I wrote my book this year and it got the last year and got published this year, and it's just been phenomenal. Like I just I love it because, as I said, my purpose is my purpose. I'm just doing it a different way. So my book now, instead of me as a leader reaching an organization, I'm now being able to go broader and deeper and wider than I've
ever been before with my message. So you know, that's been so wonderful. And you know, my book is sort of part autobiography, so I share my life journey, which is you know, sixteen to CEO again.
You know the woman and leader I am today.
But most importantly it's about inspiring and empowering women to step up and have a voice and live with purpose and really believe in themselves and find that confidence that helps them live that life of fulfillment and happiness and love and success and all of those kind of things.
So that's really important to me.
And then the second part is to inspire and empower leaders, both men and women, because we actually need men to come on this journey with us as well. So as I'm working with women, I'm also working with men, which is great. But you know, we need to change this era of leadership, and we need to create one where we live with kindness and compassion and trust and collaboration, and one where we put people at the heart of everything we do. And that's what I've been doing for
a very long time. And so you know, my book is, as you know, all about giving tips and advice, and there's places where you can write, and you know, I say, regardless where you are in that journey, I really want to inspire and empower you to really live this life and start leading in your own life.
It's really important.
I love how interactive it is for all the little places to scribble down, because you're kind of bubbling as you're reading, like having all these revelations and then it's so valuable to have somewhere where you can put them all but then also remember where you wrote it down and testing, and I think it builds really towards the
end to that idea. Of really changing any metrics that you had for measuring your life, how successful you feel, and putting even things like you would think a CEO would be so focused on the numbers and on you know, financial performance of the business, but also in their own life because that's you know, the logical kind of way that people have measured their life for so long and
measured success. But I love that You're like, no profit is it's a byproduct of prioritizing people, passion and other things, and that I think that's quite revolutionary, you know, like people wouldn't expect that from a CEO for the numbers to not be the first thing you think about.
Yeah, I mean, the numbers are so important, right, I had great people who could do numbers for me. I didn't need to do numbers. I needed to inspire people to do great things. So that's again where a lot of CEOs and leaders go wrong is they think they need to be down on every single detail. Of course I knew the numbers, but my job was to inspire people to get to those numbers.
You know.
So I talked about profits essential. It is absolutely essential. It's what innovates, it's what reinvests in business. It's what does all of those fantastic things. But all of those things that we talk about are driven through people. So I flip the equation and I talk about people with purpose and passion equals profit. And if we put our focus in the first three, the last one comes.
Absolutely, the last one comes. It is just a no brainer.
But when we flip it the other way, that's when we start to get some really interesting dynamics in the way we run organizations, and they become a profit first, people's second. And again, I never want to mislead anyone that profit is essential in every part of our life, you know, whether it be in our personal life or in our work life. It makes the world go around. But we have to focus on the people. They are
the ones who deliver strategy. They are the ones who deliver innovation, they are the ones who deliver great marketing concepts. They deliver everything. So let's focus on the people and the profits will come.
Yeah.
I'd love that kind of flip on its head. I think that's something that a lot of people can take into their own leaderships. What about forty five to thrive as a concept in the book, what does that mean?
Yeah?
Again, this came out of burnout, and I used to tell myself, Sarah, that I didn't have time for me, and I actually think I was probably even a bit of a victim.
I don't have time for me, It's about everyone else.
You know. I've got an organization to run, I've got three children, so I had no self care.
And here's the thing.
When we tell ourselves that we don't have time for something, what we're really saying is it's not important and it's not a priority.
That's what we're saying. That's what we're telling ourselves.
And the truth is that if it is important, you will make time. You know, I say to the women I work with, if exercising is important, you'll make time. If creating a side hustle is important.
You'll make time.
If going to your kid's concert's important, you'll make time. But we just don't think about it like that. And I didn't think about it like that either.
So you know, I.
Would go for a walk and I'd get halfway and turn back around because I feel so guilty. I think I need to be doing the washing, ironing. I've got emails, I've got children, I've got so I implemented forty five to thrive, and it sounds really simple, but it works. You have to find forty five minutes in your day for you, and that doesn't.
Matter what it is.
It can be having a bath, it can be reading a book, It can be doing yoga, it can be doing some meditation.
It can be just starting your day without any interruptions, without plugging in, just enjoying your first cup of coffee.
It doesn't matter. But forty five minutes fills your tank. It will change your life, and it will, I promise you, help you thrive.
I love that concept so much, which leads beautifully to the last section, which is plata, and that is exactly that idea of forty five to thrive, that there has to be an area of your life that is for pure joy that has no productive outcomes.
I mean, it can have a productive outcome, but.
Winning or learning or developing can't be why you're doing that activity. I think the more separate as well that it is from your vocation or your profession, the better, because your brain is like totally disengaged. And for people who haven't found them and who don't know what their passion is, I explained it as like what are the activities that make you forget the time, because we never
forget where we are in the schedule. But occasionally you'll find yourself in total flow where you've lost touch with time and space. And they're the things that like fill the Ferrari's fuel tank, you know there, that's the play. So what do you do in your forty five to thrive? Do you read or you're a TV watcher? Puzzles, board games? Like what kind of things do you do for play?
Yeah?
I love to walk. That's my that's my fiel the tank. So I walk every single day. It can be rain, hail, or shine generally unless I have something early on in the morning, and my husband and I walk pretty much every day, or I walk with a friend and we're pretty much do ten k morning walks pretty much most days, five to six days a week, and that's what feels
my tank. And people go really but that does. It gives me time to re energize, It gives me time to think, It gives me time to listen to podcasts, It gives me time to chat with my husband. So I love that. Walking is absolutely my thing. I love Netflix. I love watching you know a series with my daughter or my sons or you know.
I love that.
I love gardening. I find gardening really therapeutic. And we do all well, we love my husband and I love gardening. And people say, why don't you get a gardener? And we're like, because we love doing it ourselves. It's just like what we enjoy doing, you know. And I'm down there breaking my back and can't get it.
I get it.
I get it, like I'm one hundred and five years of age, but that won't sort of goes straight says why don't we.
Get a garden? I'm like, because I like this.
It's great, you know, but it's what fills my tank. So again, family, that's my that's my real happy place.
Oh beautiful.
I love gardening. I'm so bad at it. Like I've actually gotten really good at indoor plants. Our outdoor garden's doing okay, it's pretty good, but it's just for joy. Like I usually have to win or like excel at things, but I'm like, I just do this because it's fun. I mean, the weeds aren't getting all their roots out, but that's fine. I had a great time.
It was great for me. So so it is so.
Much fun and it does it just takes your way to another place. You just you're not actually thinking about anything. It's it's really quite amazing.
How it is that.
And you can't have your phone with you, like I think that's also really helpful for me that it takes up both my hands and they're dirty, so you can't be trying a multitask, which is again like something I think we all fall into the habit of multitasking a lot. What are three interesting things about you that don't normally come up in interviews or conversations, or that maybe aren't in the book?
Oh, okay, three things I would say. The first one is I'm Italian and I don't eat tomatoes.
So that's yes, I.
Don't don't eat tomatoes, which most people think that's a bit weird given you're Italian and everything has tomatoes.
I know it's you're in your jeans. What does your dad say about that?
I know, I don't mind tomato sauce. I just can't eat. I cannot eat a raw tomato. I just can't do it. Wow, which is like bizarre. What else would be three? I don't know if that's interesting, but I have toes like et the least flattering feature of my whole body. Every time I take my shoes off, my children laugh me. Go, you've got the weirdest toes, Like my second toe is bigger than my first toes. So then I'm never going to be a foot model ever, not in this lifetime. Good.
I love that people have probably been wondering, you know, for ten years, why sports shoes or cleansed.
I mean they are literally you would laugh if you saw them. Hilarious. What would be I am?
Well, both my brother and sister are over one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, and I got the short gene, so I'm about one hundred and sixty four centimeters.
So we laugh.
About that, I ioway said, and but I got the brains and I got the good looks.
And they're like, no, we got the whole three. We got the trifecta. We got two of them.
So they probably three things that you know no one and know about me.
They're awesome.
Oh again, one hundred and sixty four isn't short either, So to be the short one in your family at that height, that's the same.
Yeah, that must be really tall, yeah, very tall.
And since I love quote so much, the last question is what is your favorite quote.
I'm going to use one of mine because I talk about leadership and I do this with the women I work with. I get them to come up with what is their leadership statement? And so my leadership statement is one life impacting another in a positive way. So that's my favorite quote, and it is in my book. And I think that, as I said, we all have the ability. We can all impact people's lives in so many different ways. We don't need a title, we don't need to be
a leader. So my quote is one life impacting another in a positive Oh.
I love that so much.
And if anyone is listening and had decided that they weren't a leader or they didn't have it in them, this is so empowering that we can all have, you know, take leadership over our sphere of influence in our lives. And really, yeah, it's just so motivating. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your knowledge. I am constantly just impressed and inspired by your Thank.
You so much.
Thank you for having me and doing all the wonderful things that you do.
I mean, you are you know.
I talk about women inspiring each other and women lifting each other up. And you know there is enough room in this world for every woman to have success. And you know all of the things that you're doing via your podcast and sharing women's stories is all about lifting women up. So keep doing the awesome that you're doing and just doing such a fabulous job.
So thank you for having me.
Oh, thank you so much. That is so kind. It's been a pleasure.
Oh. I've walked away with so much to implement in life, life in balance, the eighty twenty rule, and so much more. Colin's book actually goes into even more depth, and we've got five digital copies to give away, which I'll pick from the best episode shares for this week, So take a screenshot of the episode if you're listening now, do it now and share any thoughts or takeaways you've had during this chat, tagging at colin Underscore Calendar and myself
for your chance to win. We should have the next miniseries ready to go next week, so hopefully be back with the first segment for you then. In the meantime, I hope you're having an amazing week and are seizing your yay