Your journey is your journey, and the next step will become clear when it's time to become clear. You can't have growth without the darkness. You can't have resilience without sitting on the depths of that dark floor. Like it for so long, I'd hold onto this one idea of success, and I'd hold onto it so tightly that it was almost like a tunnel vision. But when you do that, you just become so blind to all the opportunities that present themselves along the path. What is meant for us finds.
Us welcome to the seas 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 funentrepreneurs wapped the suits and siels 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. I mean, you know, I'm no stranger to a fangirl moment, but this one is really up there. Having followed her journey for over a decade and poured over her fabulous new book of Gold and Dust, our guest this week is
none other than the wonderful Samantha Wills. You may have had parts of how she grew her multimillion dollar global eponymous jewelry label from her kitchen table and the Bondeau markets at just twenty one years old, to a string of stores from Singapore to New York and the likes of j lo Eva Mendez and Katie Perry clamoring to
wear her jewelry for any aspiring business owners listening. She has so much to share about the twelve years it took her to an overnight success, covering the scale up, brand growth, community building, and taking things one chapter at a time. A brilliant new book also reveals some of the more character building shitter bits, as you know I like to call them, along the way from having eighty thousand dollars of debt, burnout, personal turmoil, and crippling imposter syndrome.
I didn't even realize that Samantha was a TAFE double dropout. But what I found most fascinating about her story is that just when Samantha Whiel's Jewelry had truly solidified itself as an undeniable global success, Samantha closed the business and
walked away from it all. For someone as fascinated as I am, by redefining the metrics by which you measure your life, knowing when your jigsaw puzzle needs a shakeup, and choosing happiness before success, this was such an engaging chat I barely even knew where to start, particularly after reading her fabulous book. I hope it's as enlightening and eye opening for you guys as it was for me. Samantha Wills, Welcome to cz the A. I can't believe this day has arrived.
Oh it's such a trick to be here. Thank you.
Oh my god.
I have followed you for the longest time and you have had such a big influence on my personal journey, and reading your book brought me to tears. I was just telling you, it's like we've been. You took us through every single moment, and I just wish I could hug you right now.
So sweet, thank you. As I said, I think the bits that you cried out are probably the ones that I cried out writing, So I do think there's a connection for sure.
Well, it's an absolute privilege to have you here again. Just saying some maatta wheels, welcome, Dizzia is something I never thought I would be able to say, so.
I'm absolutely thrilled.
And I was saying to you before we started recording that I almost wish I hadn't read the book because now I don't know where to start. I'm like, there's so much stuff to talk about, but I do start every episode with a little icebreaker to ask everyone what the most down to earth thing is about them, to break through the often really glossy surface of our projected identities, and especially with the successes as remarkable as your own.
I love that the intro of the book right up front acknowledges that nothing faces the sun all the time, and there's a whole I think you're referred to it as a parallel experience alongside the outer reality that the news media always focus on and that you know get mentioned in your bio, but there's so much of a human element to that behind the scenes. So what's something really human and normal and daggy about you?
Question I think for me at this point, which I didn't think would be still a thing, but is imposter syndrome. I think it's gotten worse throughout my career in almost two decades into my career. Now, the imposter syndrome, it sits so closely to me. It's sitting, you know, to my left right now, and I'm like, just give me a moment. So it's something that I used to say it haunts me, but I think I've found a way to live alongside it. But yeah, it's really prevalent in my life.
Gosh, it's just extraordinary because people looking at what you've done and what you've achieved, and the things you've you know, experienced, and the people you've met, I think it would be so easy to assume that that never affects your life, that that kind of feeling of self doubt never touches you.
But I think what this.
Arms around me.
Yeah, but I love that you've phrased it as that you've learned to live alongside it because once I thought, you know, when I first sort of moved out of corporate and into it an industry I knew nothing about. I thought that as time went on, like I should be stripped of those feelings, I.
Should outgrow them.
And when I wasn't, I was like, there's something wrong with me, Like do I need a psychology or I definitely need a psychologist, but do I need another psychologist like a self doubt psychologist or But I think what I've learned is that actually it's a good sign that you're not complacent, that you're you still care about what you're doing, and that you're continually stepping outside of the
comfort zone. But rather than ever wishing for it to go away, it's more just learning to acknowledge it and know what to do with it, rather than let it kind of control your life.
And that's a beautiful way to look at it. And I never really looked at it that way. I think for me, I tried so long to get rid of it. I was like, I need this out of my life, and the energy that I was exerting to try and beat imposter syndrome was just exhausting, and I just continually felt like I was failing. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to live along side and then to find
a way to live alongside you. It's like I see you, I get it, give me, and you just need the five minutes or whatever whatever that little starting timeframe is, because what imposter syndrome really is is just a procrastination anchor right once you start. You know when I say that, because I even give imposter syndrome a character in my book is it is that prevalent to me. But what's
to start on the task? Whatever it is, They kind of quietened down a bit, so it's acknowledging and then and moving forward anyway, and then yeah, I find they shush down a bit them.
And I also love that you give quite a few different things a name in your book, because I think that's also actually it's a really good like it's funny, but it's also a really good strategy to put a name on things so that then you could acknowledge them more quickly and then get rid of them. But one of the things I thought was the most relatable along the way of your business journey and that whole like, from the outside, it looks like you've got this massive
organization and killing it every day. But your account's department lady was Renee, who was you with a different voice?
Really and truly the lies that I still tell, Yeah then, like we even now, I'm like it was it was just you, like stop stop the web of lies. It's such an ingraine. Why And I do a lot of public speaking out I was like, this saw what our website looked like. I'm like, let me rephrase that. This is what my website looked like. And Renee, it was someone that I made up completely because I did not know how to.
I love that so much. What an amazing tactic. It's just so clever. But so I feel like every business owner listening is like, yes, we all have done a Renee, Like that scenario has definitely happened.
Oh I had a Cassie, So it's like I had an Angela accounts receivable people out in the ether.
I had it just a kind regards, like the account's department was in our signature and it didn't have a name. It was just the department and I just write kind regards and then leave it because like I don't know what her name is or his name, although I'll forget the lie. So the first proper section of the podcast is your WEIGHTA and that is going through as you know, as we've touched on all the chapters that don't necessarily get as much airtime as the you and the chapter
you are now. And I think people walk into your life at often encounter you at the highest moments of your life, when you know what your purpose is and you're clear in your direction and you do have a lot of success under your belt, but they can so easily forget that everyone started somewhere. Most of the time, it wasn't with money, or with a foot in the door, or with an idea of where you were going to end up. And I find that tracing through all the all the you know, you talk about gold and dust
in the book. You get a lot of the gold moments, but it's the dust moments that people find really breakthrough. Like I had no idea you were a TAFE double dropout. That's the last thing I think people would imagine from your story.
So take us back all the.
Way too young to man for being raised in Port mcquarie, what school was like, and what you thought your future would look like back then, and then take us through each chapter two.
Yeah, so well, I graduated high school in nineteen ninety nine, which makes me sound like I'm from a whole another century. You know. Growing up, it was again a time really before the internet, Like we had a dial up internet at home. The school I went to, poor high school just had two internet computers which were for the computer class. And so growing up, all I knew is what I saw. You know, I didn't have this digital portal into the rest of the world at that time. It just wasn't
a thing. So what I saw and what I knew was very blue collar, hard working people. And I didn't even know that jewelry design could be a career. I thought that, you know, you got a job, and I thought, really smart people go to university and have careers, So do you know doctors and lawyers? And that was never me. I was always very, very creative, and so I was like, all right, I'm just going to get a job and I'll my creativity, you know, things that I like to
do on the weekend. You know, there was a time that I went through a phase where I was like, no, I'm going to be a a dolphin trainer, and I'm like, I look right now, that's awful. Firstly, it was terrible science, So I'm like, I don't know why I thought that was going to be a career path for me, but it was. It was very insular, you know. I don't say that about in a small town way, even though you know, small town was where I learnt my sense of community and things like that. But all I knew
was what I saw. So finishing high school, I didn't get a UAI, so I was never going to go to university and I just got a job at our good Proud to the jewelers in Port Central shopping Center. I was there for just over a year and it was the biggest education on jewelry I think, you know, unbeknownst to me that that was going to be my
career path. Worn't so much there. And then moved to Sydney when I was twenty and my best girlfriend and I, Melanie, lived together, and as you said, it was a double tape dropout and I retour job and then started making jewelry again in the night times and just as a hobby. And then it started to get interesting. Melanie had bring her friends home from work and they're like, oh, you know, can I buy this would you bring all this jewelry
over to my house. I'll invite my friends over and kind of this organic party plan almost like remember like Avon or Neutraumatics, like your mum. Yeah, it's a bit like that, but with jewelry. And then friends were like, you should sell it down at Onondo Beach Markets, which at the time was a really big watchpad for of Australian designers. And I was like, no one's going to pay money for you know, it's something I've made on
my dining table. And so it took a few weekends down at one Markets and it started going well, and there was all these kind of green lights pointing towards it, but I was still in such a fierce state of like, oh, no, this is just a hobby. This can't be a job. You can't enjoy your job this month thing. So that was my early, early experience with it.
It's really interesting that you said that, because I think so many of us do kind of think if we're having a really good time, we're like, oh, this can't be a job. Someone's going to come and tell me, no, this is too enjoyable, this is too much fun. Work has to have some kind of painful element to it. But it's also even more interesting that, Like, I think it's so impressive to walk away from what's conventional and what career paths, you know, the five careers you think
exist when you're at UNI. But to do it in an age where there isn't the social media proliferation of the unconventional pathway. You were still using fax machines at the time. That's even more impressive because it was so far against the grain then to start forging your own pathway. It's much more trendy now, but back then, I mean, I can imagine that people would forget that you ever had a period of dropping out of Tafan wondering what
you were going to do with your life. But I think that's even more exciting that that is where you came from and you still ended up finding a way from beating classes in primary school. I'm sure you didn't think you'd be a jewelry tycoon later in your life.
Nothing that, no, But I think too, I often think about the comparison if I was starting out now and how that would look. And I think, obviously there's so many buses to you know, how accessible I think entrepreneurialism is even now. I remember my first website I paid someone like six thousand dollars to it was almost like a fantastic homepage in two thousand and four. Now you can jump on to square space and you launch it in twenty four dollars a mile or whatever it is.
So I think, well, and you know, you can build business on Instagram and things, but it can also be like especially on the social media front, like that Compare and Despair where you're like, oh my gosh, am I not doing it right? Like it's instant. So I think there's pros and cons to both eras of it. But I think it's definitely something to be really mindful of. You know, I'm very guilty of the comparents dispairied and to this day and the rabbit holes that social media
can take you down. Is a slippery slope.
Yeah, definitely, I think, yeah, it's such a double edged sort of being able to democratize business in a way that anyone can sort of enter.
There's really low barriers to entry.
But you're right, there are also a lot of spiral areas that we all have to be mindful of. But it's also something I love hearing about these kind of earlier chapters and businesses that did start on a dining table or you know, at the one day markets. Now it sounds a bit cliche, but that's because that's how a lot of businesses do start, not expecting some big grand plan was going to eventuate, and not having any
idea what would come next. But when you're in that chapter, you don't know that the dots are going to connect later on. How did you just keep rolling with the punches? How do you keep yourself like for anyone else who's earlier in their journey, when you are just at the market thinking is this ever going to get better? Am I going to grow? What did keep you going? And one of the people we had on the podcast last
week is Holly Ransom. She's a full Bright scholar and Harvard Grudge is amazing, but her big message is just put yourself where lightning will strike, Like there's no conventional way to get to the top. You just have to be available and hunt down connections like nothing happens for you, You've got to make it happen. So how did you go from the markets to New York Fashion Week?
Yeah? You know, in a similar way, but I would say that it's you can't really see the next step, you kind of going blind, and it is blind faith for a reason. And I talk about often, you know, standing it a crossroads is very significant to my journey, as I shar in the book, but I talk about it in a broader sense where every time we're at a crossroads, be a huge life decision or you know, a small decision we have to make day to day.
We're standing at that crossroads and choosing between essentially fear and faith. So the faith is obviously the leap of faith. We're like, oh, man, I don't know what that next step is, but you know it feel our soul is always trying to push us down our destined paths. So I talk about destiny and fate. I'm like, destiny is what your highest potential, That's where your soul is always nudging you to go. And then the decision of fear is like, well, you know, fear is very much the
rise of familiarity. It's like, well, if you step down the path, you don't know what if X, Y and Z happens, And it's always like the the bad list of things that could happen it's never like, well, imagine the possibilities that could happen. So I think you know, when we are at any crossroads or juncture there, it's you know, the familiar, you already know it's time to step for I don't see that like I mean, it's one of the hardest things we'll ever do in our
life throughout it. But you guess said about the where lightning strikes, it's going to strike on the new path, like you know what the current path holds. So put yourself in positions and you might not ever be able to see more than an inch in front of you, but you've got to take that inch that is, you know, and then it turns into another inch and then it keeps going. But yeah, you're not going to take the path less traveled and know how it ends up. It's just not how it works.
Oh yes, Oh my gosh.
I always come back to that analogy with the staircase, like you don't have to see the whole staircase. In fact, you're never going to see the whole staircase at the bottom. Only when you get to the top, where you look back and see that all those little steps that didn't make sense at the time, you just have to take one step and then trust that what happens at that step is going to show you what the next step is.
And you might have to be on that step for a long time, you know. I think it's releasing that timeline as well, being like, well, you know she got there on this time and she did this, or it's like no, your journey is your journey, and the step will become clear when it's time to become clear.
Oh yes, And I think the probably in some careers, like in my I call it like past me and present me me when I was really risk averse and I was living in a corporate world where everything was like five year, ten year plan.
When I did know.
Exactly what the staircase looked like, it removed the possibility of a better staircase coming because I just made no room for anything else. I was like, this is all that's going to happen, and then you're not open to I love the way you ordered it. I think you said cosmic choreography, like the stars have this big, great plan and something else you said in the book that I wrote down, and I want to like design it into something like you put in a frame because it
was just so beautiful. The universe only has three answers for us, Yes not right now, or I have something better in store for you. So even along the staircase, the shit bits that feel like you're tumbling backwards down the staircase, I know you've been through phases of having eighty thousand dollars debt or you know, having your greatest ideas these beautiful wooden boxes being poo pooed on because no one thought that that would work. But you know
those are the things that propel you forwards again. Yeah, I just love love that analogy.
Thank you. Yeah. And I think you know, as we go through and for so long, I would hold on It's just the same as what you're talking about. I'd hold onto this one idea of success, and I'd hold onto it so tightly that it was almost like a tunnel vision. And that's all well and good in knowing the direction you want to go in, but when you do that, you just become so blind to all the
opportunities that present themselves along the path. And I think, you know, if we can surrender that over being, surrender what it's meant to look like. And I say meant in quotations because like we so you know, it's got this way in this time and you know X y Z where it's like hang on. If we could just you know, set our intention for the direction we want to go and release the group a bit. What is meant for us finds us when we allow it to. We just got to listen that grip a little bit.
Yeah, so true and trust, I think trust the process even when you nothing is clear and moment. And I also love that you always refer back to you know, it took you no less than twelve years to be an overnight success, and not all twelve of those years were enjoyable or clear or forward moving. So in that twelve year chapter, and I know you've embarked on a very exciting new one, which is probably where I want
to spend the most time today. But just closing off that chapter, like what were the moments that stand out to you the most, that got you from the markets to the on sex and the city, you know, seeing the world's most stellar celebrities wearing your product, having this website crash because people couldn't get enough of what you were doing, Like, you know, how how do you reflect now without reading the entire book, because I feel like everyone should go and read it for all the beautiful
nuances and details that we didn't know at the time. You know, what was that twelve years like for you? And how what do you think made you such a great success from those markets to the highest highs.
Look, and I do have to save my business partner, Jeff Bainbridge, who was very much the commercial element of the business and allowed me to be the best creative that I could be. So, you know, our partnership was very much the foundation of it. I think I think what we did as a brand, and I say we as in real people, not Renee and I, a real team. Everyone that worked on that brand over the fifteen years that it was in market, people just literally poured heart
and soul into it. So it was so much more than just a product we shared. You know, in this case, it was my story. But you know, the founder's journey, I think to any business is if you're telling that correctly, and you're telling that with authenticity, that's the one thing people can't replicate. They can replicate your product and your packaging, but if you know the human element of it. And
I think that my book that I've written. The original working title of that was Public Brand, Private Life, and it was originally slated as a hardcore business memoir. And the more that I wrote, I was like, you know, obviously I was always going to share the highlights and the milestones and the hurdles and things like that, but I'm like, it's a middle element. It's the human it's
humans doing business. It's humans that when heart broken or when we're in grief, or when the world doesn't seem to be going our way for months and months at a time, we're the ones still showing up and been running these businesses. So I think, you know, sorry, that got completely off topic of your question.
No, it's still fascinating.
I think what set us apart was, you know, anyone can I'm adamant anyone can design jewelry. But I think we were really good storytellers, and I think every touch point of our brand, we were wanting to enchant our consumer. We spoke with our consumer, not to her, and then every single person in that business had that same ethos and that's how we treated people.
Yeah, I think that's something that came through really strongly in the book, is that you have Obviously there's so much practical advice on a scale up perspective that you can give to a perspective or you know, business owners earlier in their journey, and that's obviously really important, and things like delegating the skills that aren't your strong points, knowing what you strengths and weaknesses are, and like hiring accordingly.
But the bigger message was the storytelling. And I feel like that does make or break a business more than the actual nuts and bolts of it. It was interesting how much emphasis there was on that.
Yeah, I think that's the human connection and that's how we see ourselves in others, how others see themselves in our experience, and that's not just relative to people. That's the job of a brand is to tell that. And so I think with branding, you know, we kind of go out and I think so many people are like, oh, I need to please everyone, or I need to get the biggest audience possible. I'm like, no, you need a small,
engaged audience. Like if you're pleasing everyone, you're probably not living your brand values and you're not living your brand even trying to, you know, So I think it's about talking to this talking with sorry. I really like minded group of people, and I think that's all really well.
And something a business partner said that I laughed at so much. Well, firstly, he said, for fox sake, dial it down with the turquoise, which I thought was hilarious. Turquoise is the essence. No, never dial it down.
But also that I.
Think someone asked him, you know, what trends do you see in joy or something, and he was like, oh, she just says fuck it to trends, like she just designs what she thinks is the brand.
One of the owners of has Haileey Perl. I was like, oh my god, you can't say fuck in the No.
I forgot that detail.
Yeah, And he was just so raisen about that. True, and you know, it was something that I couldn't admit that, you know, he was brazen enough.
To to say it that way. But if you were speaking to young Samantha at like maybe twenty one, twenty two or even twenty five, in those earlier years of the business, if there were three things that you could say to someone that you think would you know, go well for them or help their journey in the net, you know, taking it through that next scalep chapter.
What would it be harness your intuition? I think, you know, we've known what the word intuition means through our whole life. But I think we've been raised in a culture that celebrates the logical explanation and celebrates the you know, the tangible traditional five sensors, where that kind of is quashed
down our internal knowing. So I think a lot of the times through my earlier journey, you know, I really didn't back myself on things that I trusted, you know, not big maybe is big things, but just like day to day things and hearing the intuity voice is not the hard bit, it's trusting it. So I think ultimating that and really investing in learning the fluency of intuiting nature.
And I think the others would be, you know, stop and smell the roses along the way, and that was that relates as it relates also to like, don't hold on so tightly to one outcome. The most beautiful things are going to cross your path. Don't be so focused on is something that you know, you miss those things that that would probably be my my two big ones, to be honest, intuit nature is something that is all of us you know, it's not spared just for the
elite few. We all have it, and I think we really need to get back to that.
I love that you said as what you because the book is so much about gold and dust, and alchemy, particularly as a jewelry maker, has always been something that fascinates you. I love that you described alchemy as being not about the end of the cycle, but about the full spectrum of that cycle, and that life is the same.
I often say, yeah's a journey, not a destination, because you'll inevitably get to that destination, and then what does it mean if you haven't sort of enjoyed the journey to get there, then you're just living moment to moment without any kind of joy along the way. So I love that reminder because it's so easy to get so bogged down and well, what's my next achievement that I need to get to, and never enjoying yourself.
You know, probably the second part of that jewelry journey for me was like probably not stop not I know, I didn't stop long enough and celebrate the winds along the way. But it just becomes this vicious cycle of like, I think, great, we achieve that now, what's next, And it's like, you're right, get to the top of the mountain, You're like, Hey, what's next. You're like, like, it's it's
I'm not gonna say it's unfulfilling, because it was. It was what I wanted and it was incredibly fulfilling along the way. But yeah, you got it immerse in those moments because it sounds so cliche. It's I enjoy the journey along the way, but the entire point and I think as it relates to the alchemy of the human spirit, like you can't have growth without the darkness, you can't have resilience without sitting on the depths of that dark floor. Like they go hand in hand, and the beauty is
on the other side of it. But it is the whole spectrum of it. You're right.
I always talk about as I get older, I feel like all the cliches make sense. I'm like, well, they cliches because they're they're real, Like they're true.
They cliche for a reason. Davit differently, Well, before.
We do move on to that sort of second half of the business, because that's the bit I'm really really fascinated about, because that's where it seemed like you had seized your yeah, and you did have everything you'd ever dreamed of, and so interesting that what looks like walking away from everything good has actually been a great liberation and total redefinition of the world around you, which I think is the next thing people struggle with is when
they have hit the goals they thought they wanted and then don't know what to do next. But quickly before that, speaking of the darkness, and I think the midnight chapter or something as you call it, but also the lightners looking back now, what were your midnight moments? But what were your highest moments? The ones where it did hit home of like j lo is fucking wearing my jewelry, Like what does that feel like?
Did that happen? Like? I mean, Pink played such a big part in my journey in my share in there where she bought our entire collection and we're like, like, I was like wow, definitely having product on sex and the city was surreal being on cubilaty all of it's still even and to have the gift to return to it through writing and be able to sit with each of those moments felt so special to be able to relive them again. The opt sad alongside Mark Warburn. That was that was why.
It's so hard, Like I can imagine it being just difficult to describe what that's actually like, and it sounds bad. But sometimes the things that I have never thought, like the rooms I've never thought i'd be in, or the situations I've never thought I would be in. It's I'm almost numb at the time because it's so much sensory overload that, like, you know, you come straight out of it and.
Someone will be like, how wasn't You're like, it was amazing, but I.
Can't feel anything yet, Like I'm just so my sense is just switch off because I'm like otherwise I'll explode. And it's only like years later that you look back and you're like, what was that?
It's so true, I don't know it was every moment of it was was surreal, and you know, it's often easy to romanticize things. But obviously, as I said, there was a lot of mid nights in there as well. But it all makes up the spectrum.
And then what I get really fascinated about is people knowing when the next you know, when that next step in the staircase, when it's time for that it's a lot easier, I think when you take a new step because of dissatisfaction, because you're like, this has gotten too far, I'm too unhappy. I'll do something about this. But when it's almost too much of a good thing, it's really hard to walk away from what everyone else in society
thinks should be the dream. But as you mentioned, like if your intuition is telling you, actually, I've grown out
of this chapter. It's not serving me anymore. Something I found really interesting that you said was that you had become less and less creative as the business grew, and rather than a jewelry company, it almost becomes a logistics company, and that that's not what you started out for, which is resonated with me because we sold our first business match I made and at the end of last year, because I was in a factory with a high aussest,
not with the customers and not doing the storytelling. But it's a real like, excuse my language, but it's a head fuck to sort of pull away from the dreams that you've You know, you've seized your ya and fulfilled your dreams, but then even the foundation, how did you know that you needed something else to what you were doing. How do you know that that's what's you know.
I think we haven't been afforded the information that it's okay to close something like it's okay to be like, okay, I did that and walk it rather than running it into the depth. I use friends the TV shows example, like they closed on a high, they honored that legacy. And then you see programs that have tried to reboot, like Sex and the City. I'm like, man, they should not have come back. And even though we had product in the movie, don't get me rod.
It was okay on one level.
I always sound like that movie was so Sex and the City two was such a shit awful movie. It was so bad.
Except for your Jewelry obviously, But I'm.
Just like, wow, what a way to really destroy it's probably too harsh a word, but to destroy a really incredible franchise. So I think, you know, for us to close to the mount the World's Jewelry, I think, you know, it might have looked like a quick decision because it kind of shocked a lot of people, but it was a two year journey for me to get to that point. So, you know, after a relationship breakdown, which really threw me into the depths of a personal darkness in two thousand
and fifteen. I then launched the Samantha Worlds Foundation twenty sixteen and kind of, you know, that was my alchemy to kind of move through that. And then my curiosity was starting to be sparked from my writing on the Samantha the World's Foundation. And at the same time, I probably designed, you know, eleven thousand pieces of jewelry. I knew at that point I was designing with my hands and not my heart. We were doing, you know, twenty
two collections a year. At that point, I think, you know, eleven thousand pieces of jewelry in I was like, Oh, it's just a creative block, you know, that little flicker inciety that as all creative people know, it's your lifeblood, it's what gets you up in the morning, runs through your veins, and mine was really starting to do. And I was like, oh, it's just a creative block. Like I know this feeling, you know, six months in another six months, another six months, I'm like, okay, share, maybe
this is this is how I feel forever now. Like it was a very scary place to reside.
And because you know, I ever so modestly named the brand the Wheel. You know, we're branding growth, and we were, you know, there was no reason to even question stepping away from it.
I just didn't even think that was an avenue for me. So my thought was like, I need to get this creativity back, and that's what I tried to set about doing. And obviously the time had come and once I finally realized what was happening, that was time to close that chapter. I could have sold it. I could have got another designer in and just stepped away from it completely. But I was like, that's not what the brand was built on.
The brand was built on soul, it was built on heart, it was built on this you know truth around that. And for me, designing with my hands and not my heart felt fraudular in a way to me. So I wanted to honor the legacy of that journey. I wanted to honor the people that worked on that brand, and
wanted to honor our incredible brand community. And I think that it was just a knowing inside and I talk about like a feeling filter and you know, in your soloplexaria and then the thinking filter, and when you run things through your feeling filter. You cannot fake a feeling. You can talk yourself in and out of anything, but you cannot truly fake a true feeling. And at that time, when you know, when I made that decision, I was like, it just feels entirely like the right thing to do.
So sorry, a long way around to answer your question, it's going inside and only you can make that decision as a founder. It doesn't it doesn't matter if you're making bajillions. It's as a creative founder. Your lifeblood is on creative integrity and if you don't have that, it's it's going to be a pretty hollow existence.
And that's such an amazing example of how along the way I think people's relationship to success and wealth and material things like obviously to have a business and for it to survive, the numbers are important to an extent, but that you know, you had the chance to sell and walk away with an extraordinarily you know, huge amount of wealth and with still keeping a big legacy. And I think it was at the time unheard of really for someone to close something that had everything going for it,
like preempting any kind of problems. There was no indication that it wouldn't go on for twenty years or thirty years longer. And it was so brave because people at the time, I think, still had like that dominant view of success was financial and so for you to walk away from that, everyone was like, what is happening, Like there's no financial reasons, so they couldn't understand that.
It goes back to the logic right where it's like there's like I remember speaking at an event not long after we announced it, and these gentleman stood up, and he was an older gentleman. It's like, I just don't understand your logic around this, and I was like that there is there is no logic I can't argue with that, you know, And I think to your point, like success changes over time, Like what I deemed a success at twenty one is different to twenty five, to twenty eight
to thirty two. Like so success at the end of that journey, to me was a personal calmness and a creative flame. Like creativity to me is a form of success. And I feel like I had done all I could do with that brand, so it was time to seek that out in a new chapter.
Oh my gosh, just so so extraordinarily brave, and I'd love to sort of weave in the next section, which is Nata and that's all the big barriers to your joy along the way, and you cover them so beautifully in the book. I mean, seriously, look, there's like so many tabs it's actually ridiculous. But you know, we've talked touched on imposter syndrome, self doubt, and comparison, which is
some of the biggest themes that emerge. I imagine around that time that they probably fled more than they ever had because the decision was so questioned and so looking at other people selling or other people and the way that they'd done it, Like how did you hope with the doubt about it being the right decision, doubt about the implications for other people, and comparing to what other founders do.
I think it was actually a really calm for some reason. I might be a psychopath. I'm not sure. It was
just such a calm noise. It was like two years of turmoil and fear and self questioning and like this really unease within myself to get to that decision, and then even to the day we closed, it was just a calmness of like it is time and I also acknowledged that it was a shock to a lot of people, and I really I think I conveyed this in the book, where you know, in my mind in the lead up to the announcement of closing, I was like, the world doesn't need any more jewelry, like we you know, kind
of like this almost like a high and mighty like payer, doesn't you know this, that and the other. It doesn't matter about the jewelry. And then when we announced it, the amount of love and sharing that people within our brand community and how much the brand touched people, and like one of our community members and she's said that I am able to share this publicly, and I shared
it in the book. But you know, she shares the story of where she was a somouth the Worl's jewelry collector, and she was in a domestic violent relationship and one was on Christmas Eve and she had barricaded herself into her bedroom and her partner was, you know, trying to hack through the door to get into her and it was about four o'clock in the morning and he finally got in and smashed her entire Somautha the World's Jewelry collection to complete ducts. She didn't head away, and he
found it and destroyed it. And she wrote all this in a letter. I'm kind of reading it with my hand on my heart, and she said, and you know, I finally worked up the courage after years to leave this relationship and to take an AVO out on him. And she goes, my brother took me to the police station and we filed the AVO and she goes, I'm
straight from the police station. I went and I bought a Samoanthul's Bohemian bato ring and I was what And she goes, because that me signified it was my shield and my sword, and it signified my next step forward, and it was the rebuilding of what he had destroyed. And I was like, I take it back the jewelry. I was wrong, And you know, in my haste to start a new chapter, I think I was too hasty
in that assumption. And just it was many stories that just came in that just wrapped around my heart about what the brand meant to them, and that almost as sad as it was, and people didn't want us to close. I'm like, that's why we're honoring this legacy. That's why we're not handing this over to a department store giant to see what they do with it. So it was pretty.
Oh my gosh, that ring has just made a full impact on the world. Like some of the photos in the book, of all its different iterations, and like there's one way. You've got a whole war of them.
Oh weved one million of them through our business, sixty colorways. In the end, it had a life of its own. It was yeah, oh my god.
And look this is you know, turquoise turkoise see Jeff the signature. Oh my gosh. Definitely not dialing that down. So how has it been now that you're Like another thing that really fascinates me is the concept of identity and then how much we wrap ourselves up in titles, and then how sometimes you do Like one of the most liberating things can be walking away from something that isn't what you started it for, or that has become so consuming you don't remember who you were before it.
What has it been like rebuilding that outside of as a designer as Samantha Will's, founder of Samantha Will's Jewel you know, like, how has it been to sort of recreate yourself?
I think it's still in progress, I think, you know, as I share towards the end of the book, I'm like, all, I know, my entire adult life was Smath the Will's jewelry designer. And you know, I even lost the name Samantha Will's role because it was the brand's name and I just got called sw I was like, can I even have that name back after it's been so commercial? So it definitely was a transition process. I think now I feel really calm and at home in my next
body of work, which obviously is a book. I'm just in the final days of our masterclass year to kind of I think it's still tied to that identity because it will always be my origin story of this jewelry brand, but you know, handing that over it and paying it forward in a way to other entrepreneurs that are charting their path. So it feels right, is I guess the most honest answer and give?
Well? The book is just so magical, and so I just feel like it really talks to something inside you that if you didn't know you had it, you will after you read the book, because it's it's unusual for a business person's book to be so emphatic on cosmic
and on intuition. But I think that's probably what we need to do a bit more because we do focus so much on numbers and outcomes success blah blah blah, and that is like a very sure fire way to not necessarily be happy and to miss all the moments because you're burning out and you're never stopping to celebrate the successes. How have you found like physically managing everything
until now? Really like being pulled in all different directions being a founder and an entrepreneurh's also a speaker, and then even in this next chapter being a writer, like I'm sure the interview requests and energy pulling you in all different directions, Like how do you manage burnout?
You know, I say, to avoid burnout, you first have to burn out. I don't think it's something we seek out, but I think you can never truly understand the importance of self care. And self care is such an overused not I've used but used in so many contexts that really it is about self care of the soul, Like how are you protecting your spirit from exhaustion and energetic exhaustion?
I think so for me now, I'm definitely listening to my body a lot more thinking when I share my endometrios journey in the book, where I just completely not only ignored when my body was screaming at me every month, but like always despised her for it. So now I'm definitely, you know, much more kinder, I think to myself and listening to that a lot quicker. Still still got a ways to come, but definitely listen to it a lot quicker. And really, you know, I'm at a point now where
it's got to feel right to me. And you know, I hope that doesn't sound disposable because I keep going back to it, but I'm like, what I used to think I should be doing, And now I'm like, does it feel right what you're doing? And that's my barometer now. Yeah.
So in terms of like what your plans are, I'm sure it was actually quite freeing to let go of like next season, next season planning and meetings and quarters and stuff to sort of just I don't know what's coming next, Like how are you planning for what comes next? And like with the book, what are the bits you're most proud of, what are the bits that were the hardest, and what do you hope for it to do.
I think, you know, as it relates to fashion, you're always working, you know, four seasons, so it was nice to come back to the present for a while. Trually, everything is still forward planning. The process of writing a book is very forward planning. You know, you're kind of submitting it six months before it actually goes to Prins. But I enjoyed the process. I say it was part cathartic,
part church confessional, part the merge all those together. But you know, I said to you before, I think with the teleportation, like going back and sitting with twenty one year old me and you know, going back and seeing with heartbroken me and kind of revisiting it, that those stages was really nice. In a way. I'm really proud of the body of work that it is. She's out in the world now, which I'm thrilled by, and I would love to see her adapted off the page in
some respects that would be amazing. I don't know, it's been great done. You know, had a great book tour. So if the book is kind of the handing over of the story, then yeah, the master class is the tactile. So it's like, here's our marketing calendar. Here's the structure of the P and L. Here is all these hangible elements for entrepreneurs that they can apply to their own businesses, so hopefully they go hand in hand.
I also heard that this incredible picture, which I think fits the entire concept of the book and the messaging and tone behind it, but that this was actually a selfie that you took that wasn't for the cover.
I know history I was on a job that day and I had my hair and maypups on it, and then I was like, mom, like check out my nice hair and maypup and we're selfie. And that's what they ended up choosing is the book.
And you did like a full cover shoot, and then intuition was like, this is the one from my phone.
We actually and that was the selfie. Was what the publisher was like, Hey, we want to recreate this in the photo shoot, and obviously you know it's quite hard to recreate a selfie. So yeah, when they went back to that one, which I which I really love.
And something else that you're I think surprisingly honest about is also in your personal life, not just the self doubt of the comparison in your or just your relationship with yourself, but also how the role of your relationships with other people business partners, mentors, people who you've worked with and who have given you intros to other people, but also your partners, which I think as a successful woman who is out in the world doing amazing things,
it's actually quite difficult to fall into partnerships where you're not competing, where they give you enough space to go out and you know, to maybe earn more than them, or to be in the spotlight more. Just talk to us about the relationship side of things and how that's sort of unraveled for you in any advice you would have for other young female entrepreneurs who I think are moving into an age where gender roles are different, expectations are different, but it's still murky, you know.
Yeah, no, definitely, I think, you know, we're still very much in a time where the ideal of shedding that traditional framework we can see it, but I don't think it's entirely on our generation just yet. I think it will be on the next gen, but I don't know. I think it's about it comes down to that internal self esteem and you know, I talk about you know, a story in the book where I found out my partner was cheating on me, and it really put me
into a deep darkness. But it was going to apply to him when I found out that he was cheating, where I said, you know, please don't leave me. And the basis of that came down to that my own self worth was really struggling. So I think first and foremost that comes down to you within and making sure that your framework of self is no one else's framework.
It's got to be your own instead. It's go steadfast in that and being really clear on that, because I think that's when you start to attract what is meant for you. I think when we're trying to bend ourselves into pretzels and accommodate things that grow, you know, outside of our own values and boundaries, that's when we start to attract things that just aren't meant for us at the end of the day. So I think, yeah, my first news advice is don't take on other people's framework.
You know, I share very honestly, I'm not even sure I want children. Yeah, thats went through egg freezing to give myself, you know, further options, and like you know, the traditional framework is as well, you meet someone at this age, you have kids at this age, you do X, Y and Z, and you tick ticktick all these boxes and I'm like, whose boxes are they? Like, maybe what's
right for one is not right for the other. So getting really clear what your framework is and then solidifying who you are and I think that's the basis of that.
Yeah, that's such good advice.
And it can be so easy to lose yourself, like you're out, you know, projecting to the outside world. You're your own woman and you're doing all these things. But we do have an emotional side, we do have a personal side behind the scenes. You can get lost in someone else's framework and ideals if you're not creating any boundaries or even putting time into that side of yourself.
And I think that's something that also happens with our careers, is that, particularly when you do love what you do and it is unconventional and you do have a lot of freedom over your movement and your time and it doesn't feel like work. You don't bother creating any boundaries for play, because like, why would you. Your work's a
fun thing. You don't need a break from that. But that's why the last section is your playta, which is making time to craft an identity for yourself that isn't productive, that isn't achieving all the time, and that allows yourself to waste time just because you enjoy a particular activity. And I think as children, we have such a curiosity for the world and we don't let expectations creep in. If we like something that's weird, we just do it anyway.
But as adults we're like, oh no, if I find something quirky really fun, I'm just going to suppress that because what if I'm judged or what if no one wants to do it with me? But what has your relationship been to play? Do you have anything that you do that just helps you switch off? That's silly, and I.
Think it's such an important thing. I remember someone asked me what when I had the jury business, and they're like, it's probably six years in. They're like, oh, what's your hobby? And I was like, designing jewelry and that was my hobby. But then I never replaced the hobby when I made
it my career. And so my bigginess of buss and how I was like, even if you start, you turn your hobby into a career replace the hobby, Like you've got to have something that is non commercial to me, and I got onto this last lockdown, but paint find I love like I got these like which I have one here to show, but like the really intricate paint by numbers and I'm talking like thousands of thousands of little bits. You got a color in my and I truly find that. I then create space for new ideas
to reach me. So it's almost like meditative but creative, and there's no commercial requirement at all. So paint by Numbers is my jam at the moment.
Oh my gosh, I love that. It's so true.
I feel like because so many of us do, like our businesses start from a hobby. I just think like, oh, well, that's what I'm passionate about. But even if you don't need a break energetically, I think just from leaving the business and coming back to it, you have better ideas, Like your creativity is refreshed, and my best ideas have happened when I'm away.
Yeah yeah, like I say, I get my best is when I'm either in the shower or driving on the freeway. So now to keep my numbers because your mind's active, but you're not like, oh my gosh, I have to solve that problem. It's just it allows what is meant for you to find you. So, yeah, get a hobby. One needs a hobby.
And I feel like giving yourself permission to waste time, like to do something that would otherwise seem like a waste of time because it's not woman because you're not like, it's not a waste because you enjoy it. You've had like a full hour of fun that's just pure pleasure.
But that's also the traditional framework of well it's a waste, Like why do we think it's a waste of time? So I think always questioning our our long held beliefs to see if they really do service is really important.
Yeah.
Absolutely, Oh gosh, so many nuggets of wisdom.
Just to finish up.
Second last question is the three interesting things about you that don't normally come up in conversation, which is hard since you've just written a book and shared very openly about lots of parts of your life.
One that I loved was at one.
Of your first jobs was at the hogs Breath Cafe, which I think is hilarious, But also playing Cinderella, which makes me think that you'd be a great actress and you could play yourself in the movie interpretation off of Gold and Dust.
You know. I was Cinderella in a nurse theme park. That's a loose term for what it was. It's fantasy Glades in pot mcquarie, and it was like built say on four acres of enchanted green forest, but it was like four acres of sport plan So that was my job. I had lots of jobs that wouldn't even fit in the book, Like I was like worked in a galley on a boat. I like every type of different job that you can imagine. Before I got it together. When I was little, I learned taught myself sign language, like
really basic sign language because I'm an only child. This sounds sad, but it's not really.
So you could talk to yourself in the mirror.
Because it used to be in the we the yellow pages in the phone book, and I remember Mum and Dad were doing something and I was like, I'm just going to sit here and read the phone book because I didn't have brothers or sisters, and told myself my God in sign language, Oh.
My god, that's so cute.
Didn't you also do like flute concerts outside your parents.
Diss or something done at all.
For that.
If there's a message to take from that, it's you've got to try everything to figure out you. Yay, just try things. Emphasize right, flute and basketball. You're a basketballer, basketballer, yeah, yeah, an ice cream server and an ice cream server. Multi talented. This woman, your Linkeodin is just like wa. And since I love quote so much, the last question is what is your favorite quote?
I think it has to be the one that you said before, which is the universe only has three answers for us, yes, not right now, or have something in store for you. I think it's no matter whether you have a spiritual belief or if your have religious beliefs. I think it's it's just so during that over to be like what is meant for you is making its way to you right.
Oh my gosh, absolutely beautiful way to finish. Thank you so so much for your time. I could have talked to you for like five hours. I'm going to go and read this book all over again.
It is so beautiful.
Thank you for providing this platform. I think the conversations that you facilitate are so important and I'm so grateful to be a guest on your show.
Well she is well and truly one of Australia's Golden Girls. I took so much out of this amazing chat and Samantha's incredible new book of Gold and Dust. It's such a beautiful read that feels like she's speaking directly to you with so much warmth and wisdom. And Samantha has generously given the neighborhood a twenty dollar voucher. If you want to have a read yourself, you seize the A twenty at the checkout before December thirty one to get your little dose of Golden Yay. The link is in
the show notes. I can't recommend it more highly. As always, it means so much when you share these episodes, tagging our guests to show them what you thought or any aha moments in your lives that they may have sparked. I've had such lovely feedback about you guys showering people with love. It means so much for them to know where the episode and what their words did for you
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