Naturally. I think you're going to have self doubt in anything you do in life, and I think we all do it. But it's just backing yourself, and I guess using your mate, or your family or your teammates to help pump you up when you need it. I think, well, maybe I don't have to wait for something really significant
in my life to make a change. Actually I can make that change now and be proactive and go actually find my happiness, and find the happiness for my family in particular, and help myself be a better human.
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 day will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned fu entrepreneur whos wapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcham milk Bark. Seize the Yeah is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Lovely neighborhood if you're getting sick of the Antarctica content,
although who could get sick of penguins? This week we're back to our regular programming with one of the loveliest, most well adjusted and inspiring human beings. You know those people who you speak to and they just have such a good head on their shoulders that you want to
be around them all. This is one of them. And I didn't realize this until after we finished recording, but we have the same birthday, just a year apart, so it was always going to be love at first chat for me, especially having followed this guest from AFAR for so many years. I'm talking, of course, about Alyssa Healey, a superstar Australian cricketer who joined us from Mumbai in India, where she's currently captaining the Australian Women's Tea twenty team.
The things Alissa has achieved in her career to date as far too many to list here. Her Wikipedia is incredible, but right back from the early days when she was the first girl to play among boys in the Private Schools competition. Alissa has continued to change cricket, both women's and men's since then. Just one of the many records
she has set. In April this year, she nabbed the highest ever score in a World Cup final, user being Adam Gilchris's previous record of one hundred and forty nine runs in two thousand and seven and Ricky Ponting's of
one hundred and forty in two thousand and three. But the most amazing part about Alyssa is how humble she is about these achievements and her impact on the sport, her reluctance to even compare men's and women's performances in cricket, and the perspective she has on life and yay beyond cricket itself. I'll let you hear the rest from Melissa herself. But even if you have no interest in cricket whatsoever, I think you'll still love her as much as I do.
Ladies and gentlemen, Alissa heally, Alissa, welcome to CEZA.
Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited.
I'm excited. I can't believe you're in Mumbai.
I am in Mumbai. I am on the opposite side. Oh it's not really the opposite side of.
The world, is it feels that way.
Yeah, we're in Mumbai. It's amazing what we can do.
I know, amazing the technology these days, it's a miracle when it works.
I sound like my mom, but yes, the technology is incredible.
And I'm even more excited because at the time when we lined this up, I think it was pre Calm Games. It was pre a lot of things that have happened for you this year, and you have such a busy schedule coming up, but you are also now captain, and I did not expect that when I first knew that I was going to be chatting to you.
So huge congratulations. That's so exciting.
Thank you. Yeah, I captain over here in India for these five T twenties, which is really exciting for someone who's been around the group for as long as I am. So I'm excited to see how it all unfolds. But I'm also sort of hoping that Men comes back and takes the reins again. So I'm a little bit on both camps there.
You've got like a glory, little tester, to just do the five matches, see how you go, and then you can It's like you know when people have a baby and you're like, I love baby when I get to hold your baby, but then I get to give it back when it starts crying.
Yes, I'm in this little, amazing, little honeymoon period where it's a pretty what is it glossy at the moment, but as soon as we if we drop a couple of games and it's like handbal handble, I'm only kidding. It's a real honor, And yeah, it's something I'm really pumped about doing well.
I definitely want to get into. You know, I feel like self doubt and the imposter syndrome of getting a role like that.
I've read a couple of articles on.
How it did take you a little while to kind of feel okay to take on the role. And also it's interesting you mentioned glossy because the first question I always start with is to ask everyone what the most down to earth thing is about them, particularly with guests like you, where if we watch you from the outside, there's so many records and accolades and so much objective success and gloss.
You're touring the world.
You're doing what you love, what you've loved since you were a kid. But I'm sure there are also some pretty raw, normal, down to earth, messy kind of things behind the scenes. So right up front, what would you say is the most relatable thing about you?
Well, it could be as simple as I absolutely one of my most favorite things to do at home when I'm at home, which is, you know, sort of rare throughout the year, is to play golf with this group of amazing slightly older They don't let me call them the old ladies at long Reef anymore, but the older group of ladies at long Reef that I've got maybe twelve more mums at long Reef, and I absolutely love going to play golf with them on a Thursday and
sitting down having lunch with them after with an alcoholic ginger beer. I don't know, It's just something that I absolutely love doing and it keeps me the most grounded. But other than that, I really love peanut butter. So if no one can relate to that, then I don't know who you are, but I love peanut butter. I've proved on basically everything, so if that helps, I'm just staring at my tub of peanut butter up there right now? Then I had for Brickie.
So the way that I often get people who aren't sure how to answer this to answer is by saying, like, what would only someone who's traveled with you or who lives with you know?
So I feel like the peanut butter one's a really good one, because right it's life.
One of my best friends has a peanut allergy, and I'm like, babe, babe.
How right? I'm like, you're missing out on so much life. Are you crunchy or smooth?
You know what I'm a I'm an either or I don't discriminate, I will either. Yeah, I've got crunchy on the go at the moment, but my smooth bottle is just sitting there waiting to be opened. It's screaming at me to be open. But crunchy is on the run.
Well, you're so open minded. I'm just not that inclusive. It's like crunchy all over it. Smooth wouldn't break for it.
Just no, Yeah, okay, sometimes I just like the ease, the ease of smooth. But I do think you need some crunch in your life.
Yeah. On the specificity, right of these details. It's important.
It's very important. It's important to life.
I love the golfing as well.
I feel like it's so beautiful that you do have time or you do make time when you are at home for things that are I know it's so cliche, but going back to basics, like just spending time with real people hitting a ball around that's not the ball that you're paid to hit around. You know, it's a little bit different. Even though I do read that you have a handicup of seven, which like pretty messed up amazing, so obviously not chillin' while you're playing golf.
Yeah, it's not easy, but that's fine. I love it. I like I genuinely these ladies have become a big part of my life, which is awesome. They come to like all my creat games and it's just like it's an unbelievable story. I think I rave about them all the time, but they just yeah, they're like the normal for me. When I go home, I get to have a round with them, which is cool.
Oh I love that. And they're probably also just not phased by how famous you are.
Are.
They just like, oh, it's just just you know, I live that or Midge.
Yeah, Midge. Well, funnily enough, one of the ladies is actually like touch Football Australia Hall of Famer. She like played forever coach forever and is like one of the biggest dogs I've ever met that no one's ever heard about. So it's like, you can't actually normal would I, but you can't really big note an amazing things around that golf club in particular that you probably wouldn't have heard about. So it's kind of cool for me to learn all that too, which is I find cool.
Oh, I love that so much.
So one of the things that I find the most interesting when I'm lucky enough to sit down with someone like you, is that often people walk into your life at the chapter you're own now, particularly when you are getting accolades like Captain and you've set records, and I think it can look like either you were always going to get there, particularly if you had family in cricket,
or you know, it looks smooth from the outside. But I also think it's so fascinating to get the chance to chat for a little longer to someone because you can go back to when they were a kid, when they had no idea where they were going to end up, what other things you liked, what the pathway actually looked like, and also the shitty bits along the way that you don't really get to talk about as much. So can you take us all the way back to childhood?
You?
You know, sport is a big part of so many of our lives, but not many actually go on to make it their full time job, either because they can't, they talk themselves out of it, they don't have the ability, or for whatever reason. You know, it's it's not often that what you dream you're going to be you actually become.
So how did it all start for you?
Yeah? Well, I think probably like most young Aussies at the time time, I played every single sport under the sun, and I did everything I possibly could to get out of school. It's not that I didn't like school, it's just that, like I could be doing something else outside at the time, so that involved sport for me. And yeah, it wasn't really until we moved. My family's all from Queensland. Obviously, with the last name herely you'd kind of put two
and two together that we're all lived in Queensland. But my dad took a job down in New South Wales when I was seven, and it wasn't until we moved down then that I got into cricket. Always played in the backyard. It was sort of something you did around Christmas time with all the relatives, and I was kind of normal. But I kind of fell into it when we moved down to Sydney. But I quite literally played everything like I played all sports. I loved soccer, but
I also really loved hockey. I sort of got into that when I was in primary school. One of the teachers actually dragged me across. It was part of a big hockey family and I loved playing hockey. I always thought that maybe i'd be a hockey row. I thought that would be the most amazing thing, going to the Olympics and were near gold medal and doing that. But for some reason, I kept playing cricket. It was just like the constant in my life, Like it was there
every summer. I was playing with the boys and that was just all I really knew. So yeah, that was sort of how I was as a kid. I was out in the sunshine, I was playing sport. I was loving life and just a sort of a happy little girl, lucky kid that really enjoyed that stuff, and yeah, cricket just seemed to be a constant for me. And here I am thirty two, still going, So who knows.
Did you ever consider anything else?
Because I also feel like sport is quite similar to the arts as well, where there are young kids who were so passionate and so good at what they do, but in their brain it's like, well, but what's a career. You know, what's going to be the sensible thing to do? You often don't indulge the idea that you could make it professionally. Did you ever think of a backup plan or a plan B, or did you just go, like, balls out, I'm going to be a sports person.
Yeah, well, I guess for me at that time, it wasn't really an option to be a sports person full time, so I guess naturally I would have had a backup plan. You know, I worked ATKC when I finished school, so I mean New Beauty, I love that. Yeah, I had high hopes of managing you know the Collonbood KFC store.
But store manager, babe store manager.
Yeah, I was actually doing my manager's course when I first got picked for Australia to go over to the World Cup and I was almost finished it, and I asked them, like, you know, I'm gonna have to quit because I've just been picked for Australia and it's a pretty big deal. And they literally said, oh no, well we'll keep you on the books just in case you feel like you want to have shifts when you come back. Never went back, so sorry.
But I love that that was the backup plan, Like I can always go back to managing the store and eating my popcorn chicken like amazing.
Yeah. Well, funnily enough, my dad, when I was finishing school, Yeah, he's been in corporate life his whole life, sort of financial stuff, and he really wanted me to go into sort of a corporate role, and I think he saw me as a bit of a future in HR for some reason. And now that I know what HR is, I don't know why he thought. I was sort of like, yeah, ok, Dad, like brush it off. Anyway. I was scrolling through my UAE guide when you finish school and you're like, Okay,
what am I going to do at UNI? And I chose marine biology just to just to really rub it into Dad that I didn't want to go, so I guess I would have loved to have been a marine biologist, but fortunately enough, my sister in LAWA is doing that right now and traveling the world doing that, which is pretty amazing. So I just live vicariously through her and play sports. I'm pretty lucky.
Oh amazing.
I literally the episode that just came out before you as a marine biologist. I just came back from Antarctica. I was there from marmuzing. She's just so random.
But I was like, oh my god.
People, everyone I know wanted to be a marine bilogist when we were younger, without knowing what it was.
And I'm like, they exist in real life.
I do exist, Yeah, and some of them have the best jobs in the world, and some of them literally fish out, like fish pooh out of the aquarium. So I mean, I feel like you've got to just go make your own part in it.
Yeah.
So it's interesting that you mentioned that when you were younger, the dreams that you might have had to be a full time sports person, ticular sportswoman and particularly in cricket, that full time sports careers were not necessarily an option then. And I think that's one of the hardest things about dreaming, is that if there's no visibility. You don't actually know you can become something because you've never seen someone do it.
And what's been incredible about your career is that you've been that person who has done a lot of first as a female cricketer that is now helping really change the entire sport, which is something that you know, being the first to do these things is incredible. But I can imagine also really hard and really scary. And we all have self doubt anyway, let alone when we have other people doubting us at the same time.
So it started for you.
I mean I was reading even back at school you were the first girl to play among boys in the private schools competition in New South Wales.
What was that like?
Were there boys who wanted you to get off the field? Were you nervous? Did you feel like what am I doing here? Or were you just kind of like I'm just.
Going to do it.
Yeah, I mean it wasn't any different for me. I played with the boys since under nine, so like I started playing cricket in a boys competition with boys, I was the only girl at last. Perry was in the age group below me, I think, in the same competition, so there was girls around, but there was no all girls team in those younger age groups at the time. So for me, when I got to Barker and got approached they obviously they'd stopped playing women's cricket at Barker
just for lack of numbers. But I got approached when I was in year eleven by the head of cricket at the Times say would you be interested in trialing for the boys team? And I've thought I said no, like why, Like what do you want before? Like I
was sort of in the New South Wales squad. I was sort of kind of creating my own path in the women's game externally, and he encouraged me to do it, and I said, okay, sure, but you know, just pick me where I fit, Like you don't need to pick me in the first eleven if I'm not good enough, like just because I don't know you feel bad or whatever it might be. Like I'm okay, if you pick me in the first I'll play seconds, I'll play thirds wherever you see me. And yeah, that was a really
cool experience for me. I mean, it wasn't any different for me. It was a bit unusual for the boys, like having a girl around. But I think at the same time I was so well supported by the school and my teammates in that it made it a really
cool and enjoyable experience. I got to, you know, we traveled over to Perth to play this amazing little School's Cup sort of thing, and I had a whole wing to myself in the boarding house, like just because it was all boys, and you know, I got to play against some amazing young cricketers up and coming in Australian cricket, and yeah, I just I've genuinely felt like it helped me develop my cricket at the time, and I think the fact that I felt so supported throughout, you know,
made it easy to do that. And at the end of the day, yes, there was a negative email being written by a past schoolboy alumni sort of saying how disappointing it was that there was a girl and the team. But at the end of the day, we won the competition and I actually had a half decent year. So he can suck it. That's what I always say. I'm like,
he can suck it. I genuinely always hope that I get to meet the guy that wrote that one day and sort of see if he's changed his opinion of me and also of cricket and knowing how sort of accepting it is nowadays in what's that twelve years later? Thirteen years later? So yeah, look, it wasn't any different for me. I can't say that it was because it's all I'd ever known. So it was just a fun experience for me.
That is so cool, and it's so cool now that women's cricket has also had time to show that. Like I was reading through some of your records and they're like, you know, new record for most dismissals as a wicket keeper male or female in twenty twenty international cricket. Like it's the records aren't females records and male records. It's like cricketers records and women hold them, and that is
so cool. I don't think there are other sports really where you know, women's cricket, the pace and speed of it, you can hold records that are genderlest which is absolutely incredible. And that you held a Guinness World record for a little while for the highest catch of a cricket ball ever, Like, what the hell, that's amazing?
What the hell is right? Because I'm horrendous under a high ball. So yeah, that was good fun. But yeah, I think that's kind of the beauty of cricket. I mean I always often like to say, there's no real need to compare us and the men's game. I don't think it's right for either side to sort of make comparisons,
So I don't necessarily think that that's fair. But at the same time, it is a sport where you can compare those sorts of things dismissals, wickets, you know, runs made purely by the amount of games that you've played. So I think that's a really cool part about our sport. But yeah, when you make general comparisons about you know, the style of play or the boundary, how far they're hitting the ball or bowling, how fast they're bowling, I think that's a bit unfair on us in particular. But yeah,
that sort of stuff's really cool. So cool.
So for you.
Now have, like looking at a schedule, you're according from Mumbai, you're playing five twenty twenty matches, then you've got a home series against Pakistan, the World Cup in fab in South Africa. I usually ask like a day in the life of an elite cricketer, because for most people you know who don't know an elite cricketer, they don't know what your life actually looks like and what it involves, but also your year, like how do you structure your seasons?
And I think one of the coolest things about cricket is that there's like test matches, there's the BBL, there's twenty twenty, Like there's so many different formats as well that you can never get bored of one thing because there's always something else. But then how do you manage your energy? So what does your year look like? And then behind the scenes, what does your prep for all of those things also look like?
Yeah, well, funnily enough, you ask that question because it's actually become super relevant in the women's game as we sort of grow in our professionalism and there's all these new little opportunities of domestic tournaments around the world coming up. We've actually lost the ability to not that we don't have downtime, but we've lost the ability to rest and
have a preseason. We've been so used to getting time off around April every year and then you sort of come back into the sport in sort of June, and then you do a pre season block and then you go away for domestic cricket or you go and play international creet Now that with the schedule being so jam packed with international cricket and domestic leagues, there's actually no
opportunity to do that preseason anymore. So it's actually a real shift in mindset at the moment about how we're maintaining ourselves as we go and how we keep sort of growing physically and also giving ourselves mental rest throughout
all this time and playing so much cricket. So yeah, the year at the moment is fairly hectic, and there's a great opportunity with the Women's IPLs starting in March this year for the first time, which is a huge opportunity for sport over here in India and women's sport in particular to get that off the ground, and I'm sure that there's a lot of ouzzy girls that will want to be a part of that and go and
take up that opportunity. So we get April off sort of every year, it's a bit of a down period for us with a heavy back end of the year within away ashes as well. That's yeah, it's going to be pretty ectic, but it's good fun.
Oh my gosh, how do you like time wise?
And with your body as well. It's really interesting.
I think so many people's jobs don't necessarily depend on their physicality, like they need to be healthy, of course, but the job itself isn't physically doing stuff. So are you like in the gym and doing cricket training? Like do you cross train? How many days a week are you actually doing physical stuff? How many days you have downtime? Is there any admin that you have to do? Like how is your actual work life divided?
Yeah? I have life admin every day that I have to do, and I put that to the side, paying bills and mortgages and move that on. But yeah, look, it is a fairly physical spot. I mean you've got to have some level of I guess fitness and endurance to play it, and also strength as well to get your body in the right position a lot of the time. So there's obviously a heavy skill focus in the game, and that takes a lot of training. That's most days a week, and you sort of take the downtime when
you get it. Like where we're on too, are we train basically every day but a lot of those sessions are optional. So if you feel like you've got enough of what you need, or you need a day off, you could take that. But yeah, a lot of the time we actually spend in the gym or sort of running at training just to make sure that we're physically
you in tip top shape to go. But a lot of the stuff we do in the gym, for me personally, it's a lot of power based stuff with the position that I play in the side, and a lot of rehab or prehab as well to make sure that my body can last. And it's done an amazing job to last this long at thirty two without being the exact temple that are probably a lot of athletes treat their body like. So I've been really lucky. But I think it comes down to honestly switching off and giving yourself downtime.
I feel like I'm quite good at that, and I've really worked really hard at sort of having a work life balance and really enjoying my time away from the game, and I think that really helps you stay mentally fresh, and for some reason, I feel like if you're mentally fresh, your body will play along as well. So I feel like that sort of helped me throughout my career and it seems to do wonders. So when you get the downtime, you just use it to the best of your ability.
Yeah, totally.
Oh my god, that sounds so balanced. I'm like, I need to talk to you more about this because I'm not great at it. But speaking of that mental game and having your sort of head in the right spot, particularly with like one of the things we talk about the most on CZA in the pathway, like forging your pathway in life, particularly when you're aiming for something that's competitive as well, is the self doubt piece around you know,
am I good enough? And when everything you do is measured as well, and measured publicly like a lot of people are measuring themselves, but behind closed doors you're kind of like on international television doing those things. And then there's injury and it's a winning game.
You know you're winning or losing. So it's very binary.
Like even reading about taking up this position, how I think it was, Christine McLaughlin from Corporate ran you and was like, why are you putting.
Yourself forward for this position? You're like, I don't know if I could do it, Like, how do.
You keep your head on about putting yourself forward for things, not doubting yourself if you do lose or get injured, pulling your sort of identity apart from that, and in some way that's really competitive in a team, but you're also competing against each other as well. How do you sort of keep a good head on your shoulders in that environment.
It's a good question, and I think it's a hard one for me to answer. I just feel like I've been really lucky throughout my life. I've always had a great perspective on life, and you know, I think it's been well well written or well publicized. My sister actually
passed away when I was twelve. She was fifteen, so she was a little bit older than me, and I felt like that moment, as sort of sad and as grieving as it was, it sort of enabled me this sort of amazing perspective on life that cricket's not the be all and end all. And I've always sort of had this perspective that, you know, I feel like I'm destined to do something else, It's not just cricket, and here I am still in cricket, which is quite weird.
But I think in that regard, like you know, the first sort of eight years of my international career was just me playing. I don't think I really had an impact on world cricket or an impact on the team. I was just sort of there. I was a part
of it. I was floating along, and it wasn't until sort of back into twenty seventeen, twenty and eighteen where I sort of found my feet and I found the confidence in myself and my ability to actually go and play the game properly and contribute to the side, you know,
with the way that I could. So yeah, I guess perspective helps, but you also need a real level of resilience to play this game and to play it well, because you know, you can be on top of the world one day and get out for a first ball duck the very next and that's the beauty of the game. It could be something that you haven't done wrong, it's just you get a good ball or whatever it might be. So I feel really lucky in that regard. It's not really something that I've had to put a lot of
thought or time or effort into. And I'm sure there's people listening to this that say, oh, that's crap, that's
not true, but it is. And I'm really grateful for that every day that you know, I've got an amazing life outside of the game of cricket that you know, I can fall back on if you know, my cricketing life's not going that great, But the beauty of it is I still really enjoy the game of cricket and I love playing the game, and I love my teammates and I love competing, and I think that's what helps me every day that you know, if it's not my day out on the cricket pitch, you know, it might
be Megan shoots day, it might be at least Perry's day, and I'm absolutely pumped for them to do well because it means that the team's going to win. So having that outlook as well, that it's not just about you, it's about your teammates and sort of what you're giving to the game in that regard, I think helps you
sort of overcome a bit of that. But naturally, I think you're going to have self doubt in anything you do in life, and I think we all do it, but it's just I don't know, backing yourself, and I guess using your mates or your family or your teammates to help pump you up when you need it.
I think you are the most well adjusted person ever. Such an amazing chat.
It sounds like it. I don't know. I'm not sure. We couldn't get this podcast started for fifteen minutes, so it's not all going that great.
But they're resilience. I mean, you deal with adversity so well. But I think it's really interesting that you did have something much younger in life than most adults. If ever, I think that jolts your relationship to things like success and identity a little bit into perspective in a way that a lot of people don't have or experience much
later in their life. And I think that's where people tend to fall into a bit of dissatisfaction or unhappiness when they've pinned everything they have to one identity or one type of success, and then when they don't get it, or when they get there and it's not enough, it's
sort of like, oh, what do I do next? But the fact you've even turned your mind to a life outside of cricket makes I think what will eventually be a transition into a new career easier because you're already seeing that life is in chapters and I love this so much because I think people think they need to find a forever happiness, and they get there and then
they stick with that forever. But the way the world moves so quickly in this day and age, you're meant to have lots of different chapters, and you probably not meant to know what they're going to be until just before.
The next one.
So I love that you're so open minded that you know Cricket is not your only chapter and that there's a time when there'll be something else, but that you don't need to know what it is now.
I kind of love that, yeah, And I mean also like you could spend your whole life training for something and not get the desired rewards that you want. You know, I could have floated right through my career and probably not had the impact that not necessarily that I wanted, but not that sort of like I've been able to have now, and I would have been okay with that, and it just would have been a different story, like you said, a different chapter, and it would have shaped
me differently. But yeah, it's kind of sad to reflect on what you just said and say that sometimes it takes something fairly dramatic to happen for people to realize that, and I think sometimes it's like a wake up call to people that go, Okay, well, maybe I don't have to wait for you know, something really significant in my life to make a change. Actually I can make that change now and be proactive and go actually find my happiness and find the happiness for my family in particular,
and help you know, myself be better human. Yeah.
Absolutely, so.
Then the burning question for me is having a life outside of cricket when you're traveling so much.
I feel like a.
Lot of people who travel a lot for their work, it's so exciting. It's such a privilege.
I get to travel a lot for work and it's like the best thing in the entire world. But you are also away routine is really difficult controlling like your food and the climate, like there are parts of it that are you know, difficult or challenging. And the other third married couple to play test cricket, like your careers often are pulling you in different directions like that kind of stuff is also really difficult to manage. So how do you manage the traveling side of things, and even
down to like different food or different temperatures and jet lag. Like, I'm sure you have to get it downpat better than most of us do. Are there any things you do to kind of manage it better?
Oh? Well, first and foremost, there's a thousand apps that you can download down on the app Store that can help you with all of those various questions. I mean time Shifter app, which I PuO poed for a long period of time and I finally discovered it going over to the UK and traveling. It's amazing. It literally, man, it tells you when to sleep, when to have coffee, when to get sunshine, when to get light, to need your jet lag so that when you get home, Yeah,
when you get home you feel a bit better. So Time Shift though, it's amazing, So get on board that if you're traveling a lot, I'd highly recommend that. But yeah, from a food point of view, I think, I think nutritionally, you know what you're going to need, and you know what you're going to need to perform well and to get your body in the right condition to play really well.
But in saying that, you've got to be willing to open your mind to different cultures and different opportunities when you're traveling and coming to India is one of the coolest experiences that you get to have. It's completely different culturally than what we have in Australia. You've got to deal with a lot of different stuff when you come over here, just the way that they operate, and I love that. I mean, it opens your mind's a whole
other way of doing things. And the simplicity in which a bulk of this population live in when we're driving past it each day is quite remarkable. So yeah, from a food point of view, it's great to open your mind to different sort of cultures in that regard. But yeah, the travel sided thing, I mean, we're really lucky and really fortunately what we do. We get to stay at some really nice places and we get pretty well looked after. Not everyone is afforded that luxury, so I'm fully aware
of that. But yeah, we're given every opportunity to succeed, So we just got to make sure that we're making the right decisions personally.
Do you get to do like I know sometimes when people are traveling, they literally go for what they're doing. You stay in the hotel, you go to training, you see the inside of the stadium and the hotel in the airport. Do you tack on a bit of time effort to kind of hang out or do you just not get that in the schedule.
It's tough. It's been tough the last few days. I've been on podcasts and meeting or more.
But thank you, I just kicked up all that time you would have had.
I had a really great opportunity this morning to go get a coffee.
But that's all right, I'm sorry.
It's more than okay. Yeah, we do. And I think COVID kind of threw that out of whack a little bit. We weren't allowed to go out of the whole, weren't allowed to experience. We weren't really allowed to travel either, mind you, So that made it hard. But I think since being here in particular, the girls have really embraced it, the opportunity to get out and about and go and explore. So yes, that is a big part of it, going and just having a look and being a tourist, because yeah,
you're right, we're working most of the time. But if you could afford that opportunity to just go and be a tourist and take photos, it's cool.
Well, before we move on to the last section, which is who you are outside of cricket, which is amazing because I can tell already there's an actual person who's outside of cricket. The last one is just really the impact that you have had. We've touched on it a few times on women's cricket as a whole, and that there are so many young girls in school now who don't have to look ahead and think it's impossible to be a female cricketer because people like you are actually
out there doing it, which is just so incredible. How do you feel about the state of women's cricket and that legacy, and also if there were any young girls listening who are aspiring to a career like yours, is there anything you would say or any feelings that you have about it reflecting because I imagine you don't get to reflect on it that often.
Yeah, you're right, I probably don't, and I probably don't appreciate at times sort of how significant that shift has been as well. But yeah, I feel really lucky I've sort of seen all the big shift. I mean, when I first came into the Aussie squad and you know, my first contract I think was like five thousand dollars and I thought I was rich because you know, I was like eighteen, I was fresh out of school, and I was like, yes, Like what am I going to
do with money? Like how good is this? I'm going to buy a house one day, and like, you know you're thinking about that. But yeah, to say how quickly it's changed over that twelve year period, when the fact that you know now full time cricketer and can earn a living out of it is pretty scary to think about how quickly it's been a shift. But I've been really lucky in that. You know, when I was coming through, you had to work out, to go to school, you
had to go to UNI. You had balance. And I feel like that's a real concern I think of mine and a lot of a lot of other peoples around that as our sport grows and shift and into that professionalism, these young kids coming into our game, in particular the women's game, are so young that they might lose that balance, and that's a real concern. But I think the state
of the game at the moment is amazing. It's evolving every single year that I'm playing a part of it, and that's been really exciting to be a part of and I think with appropriate investment and time and care taken into that next generation, I think you know, they're going to be ten times better than what we ever were,
which is super exciting. So that's cool. And yeah, for all the young sort of girls and boys out there that are sort of looking at cricket and wondering if it's a cool thing to do or a good job to do, I would one hundred percent say go for it. I mean, look at me sitting here in Mumbai, Like I get into trouble in the world playing cricket with and against some of the most amazing cricketers that you have played the game. And I'm lucky every day to
be able to do that. So if you've got a potential or if you've got a drive to go and do it, I mean do it, train hard, work hard, and get the results that you want, but just enjoy it. At the same time.
Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
And I love that you finished with enjoy it because I think, yeah, you can get so distracted by achieving stuff that suddenly end up somewhere and you're like, I don't even care about this, Like I've spent my whole life dedicated to this one thing and it's not making me happy at all. I feel like Hollywood's the prime example of having all the stuff and does an equal happiness. It can help, but it doesn't lead automatically to a happy.
Fulfilled life.
So speaking of the last section is your playta, which is the idea that even if you love your job, but especially if anyone listening who doesn't, it is so important to have something outside of productivity, outside of what you do, Like it's so easy to just do your job and go to sleep and then go back to your job and not have any hobbies or anything that's like just for fun that you don't care that you've wasted time or you go into the zone you don't
even know what time it is. What are the things that you do? And also with you and Mitchell, like two people who are sports people and professional sports people, And I've read that one of the things you love doing is playing golf together, which is also another sport that also has numbers. Are there any things that you do that are not sport related that are just like do you binge Netflix? Do you do like puzzles? Do you have pets? Do you do marine biology? On the side, like, what do you do well.
We love golf. That is our hobby. That is our fad that we do together. I love that. Yeah. Apart from that, we're pretty good at lounging on the couch, I mean, which is a bit of a green thumb at home, so I'll often be lounging on the couch and he'll be out in the garden, which I have no interest in doing. So, I mean, that's not what we do together. But at least we're in the same place, you know, like a life five him when he comes in, because he's made the law and he's pretty happy about life,
but stoked. I will say though, that we don't binge Netflix together because this was I laugh at this is my worst nightmare. But we started watching Billions together. This is a long time ago.
I love Billions.
Yeah a great show, right, Yeah, Well, you know, anyway, we're watching it together and we're not together a lot throughout the year, so I guess it's hard for someone to hold off on it. But I came home from training. I guess he was watching Billions by himself on the couch and I was like, not happy, so non happy. So we can't watch Netflix together anymore because I just don't trust the band fair enough.
Fair enough, he's not set the right to keep that trust and ruined it.
Yeah, but without also ousting my inner nerdy behavior. We actually play PlayStation quite a lot with some mates, and that's something that we kind of do like an evening if we're a bit bored. So that's kind of fun. I love that. A bit of a tech nerd. Yeah, grew up with a Nintendo, so transform to PlayStation.
So I love that. So these are the like weird, quirky, fun things that people wouldn't know. That's your joy.
But I feel like the more that you hear that stuff, the more I'm like, she's normal, she's a person, she got her own like Nintendo things going on.
That's great.
Just doesn't quite understand how good he has it. I mean, his wife's the one that taps him on the shoulder to say, let's go play golf or do you want to shoot some people on a call of jouty, Like, he doesn't quite understand how good he's quite got it. So if you could just remind him, that'd be great.
One hundred.
I'll just record this sound by it like dream wife, like dude, you appreciate.
The shit out of that.
Lucky he can cook, yeah, and keep the garden looking beautiful. I mean amazing. I call that a dream team. You know, it's all about balance.
It's the olive theory, right coming together.
Oh well, this was absolutely amazing just to finish out, because I love quotes so much. Do you have a favorite quote or a quote that brings you yay?
I don't really. I think I read one one day and it was like, a positive thought in the morning can go a long way as to how your day progresses. So for me, I tag that in with a smile is infectious. So for me, it's like, well, if you can put a smile on your face in the morning and get one back from someone, you've changed their life and you wonder how chain reaction goes. So that's kind of me. It's not a quote as such, but it's a bit of a mantra.
I love that so much, and you'd forget that just smiling at a stranger can actually change the whole tone of their day. You know, they're always on their phones and stuff. It's like if you just looked up and smart at people, one of the coolest things in Antarctica was for twelve days. We didn't have signal at all, so I just talked to Randoms.
I found out so much cool stuff.
I'm like, I'm missund on this from strangers all the time.
What a shame.
That's what I think. It's not the Prime Minister as the most important job in the country. I think it's baristas. Because every morning, when you're going to get your coffee, the brewster dictates how good a day you're going to have. If that brewster is happy and welcoming of you to get coffee that morning, that's going to change your morning. Right. So I'm a firm believer. If the bruister's grumpy, then you're gonna have a bad day.
So true.
And if they're kind of cute and they wink at you, it's like I'm married, but I'll still feel great about that.
I'll be like, you know what, I feel great, Thanks.
Mate, I'm happy, I am happy.
Well, thank you so much for your time.
I hope you can go and find an amazing borister and more buy somewhere to get you a coffee and we'll be following along. I've got the dates. I think tomorrow's your first your first game, the tenth and seventeenth something something. I'll put it in the show notes anyway to make sure everyone follows along.
All the very best. Same with the World Cup and everything else you've got going on. Like I cutlet the IPL.
I can't believe how many things you've got going on. But congratulations on everything.
Thank you very much, and thank you for having me. It's been great.
Okay, But how is she so level headed and amazing and talented and successful. What an incredible human being doing incredible things for sport, and I don't doubt that Alisa will do the same for whatever industry she may choose to enter in future. As always, I would love to show our gratitude for her time and effort, so please do share the episode and any takeaways or feelings about it, tagging a underscore heely tagging Alyssa so of course she can see, and also us so we can keep growing
the neighborhood as far and wide as possible. We've got one final episode left for the year, and so much exciting stuff on the cards for twenty twenty three. Oh my gosh, as you guys, No And has gone full time creative and is back permanently with CZDA, so so much more capacity to bring the neighborhood some joy, so many exciting things planned, so stay tuned.
I hope all your festive preparations are going well and we will see you next week.
In the meantime, hope you're seizing your ya