Sarah Andrews // From spatial science and stormy seas to settling in Strahan at Captain's Rest

Everyone starts from the same position, and we all start with that self doubt and we probably all still have it. Everybody gets criticized for everything that they do, So if you just quit all of your businesses in the sat in a room, you'd be criticized for that by somebody. I think a lot of people think that if they do what they're told will.

Bring happiness, that they'll be happy. And I just people just.

Follow what's in their heart, even if it's not trendy. I just think there's nothing that can match happiness.

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

Yes, I did promise you some ducks.

I'm so excited. It looks absolutely glorious.

Oh my gosh. We have some really strange weather here.

We're in this really unique part of Tasmania where it could be snowing and storming all other places, but he will have sunshine and people will be swimming. We're in this little micro climate officially in the middle of winter and it's I'm in a T shirt and the sun out, so pretty.

Lucky, glorious. Well, before we get into how you ended up there, because I absolutely love tracing through all the chapters of people's lives. We kick off every episode with a little icebreaker, which is just to ask everyone what the most down to earth thing is about them through often what becomes quite a glossy sort of surface of our digital lives. And you've had some incredible, incredible success,

I nearly failed high school English, and I still can't spell, and my grammar's terrible.

I don't know that it's between a Now I am a published author, So there you go. Anyone, Everything is possible.

There's always hope. Oh my gosh, well, you absolutely can't tell. In the book, it is absolutely perfect, so well done.

I have a lot of help.

So the first section, as you might know, is your wayta where as I mentioned, we sort of trace through all the different chapters of your life right from the very beginning, because I think, particularly when people do walk into your life in a chapter like you're the one you're in now where you're releasing amazing new programs and have hit so many beautiful milestones and sort of have some clear direction, everyone forgets that actually most of us

I was a strange kid.

I guess my earliest memories of being an escape artist. So I spent as soon as I could walk, I started a running away from home.

People would bring me.

Back, but the attempts sort of can like very elaborate from being a very young age, and I didn't actually get to escape, but about five im my parents bought me a pony, so I was able to ride off into the distance as that of continue to run off And it was an amazing childhood I was. I felt so free, you know. I grew up about five hours north of Earth. At the time, there was really nothing there. It was just this tiny little town and the beach and the desert.

And I remember being able to ride my horse in.

Any direction, you know, towards the sea, towards the mountains, bild cubbies and explore and not really having a concept that the world outside of mine was very different.

You know. It was just very simple and beautiful.

I read so much and spent time with atlases and encyclopedias and dreamt about the world. But you know, I had these beautiful encyclopedias, but they were sort of made in the sixties and fifties, So what I thought the world was like is this place that didn't exist anymore. And I think once I left that small town to go to university. I was.

I was so shocked with the shininess.

Of the world and the fast pacedness of it, and everybody seemed so different to me, which is a bit of a shock, as I can imagine.

But what an idealic start to the it is beautiful life. I mean that sounds absolutely glorious and so analogue, which I really loved it was.

We never had a TV, no internet.

I think our town didn't have a McDonald's till long many years after I had left to go to university.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I just kind of figured that's how the whole world was. That it wasn't.

But I think the longer that you can keep that kind of bubble alive for a child, the more magical that is. That you even had a period of your life where you believe that the word was like that.

Yeah, I remember.

Having to read Matilda in primary school, that book the role Dale wrote about the girl who read so many books, and thinking she's.

Just like me, like just difference because I have stacks and stacks of books around me all the time. Oh wow, that was the way you'd experienced the world.

So after school we would go to the library for entertainment and then the beach, Like you know, there wasn't burgers and things.

Like that, iPads.

So yeah, I feel really grateful for it now looking at my nieces and the amount of consumption they need to be entertained constantly.

Yeah. Absolutely, there's so much sort of instant gratuity and yeah, not a lot of slow pace or slow enough to just appreciate the really small things around you. And I can imagine like that would have been a massive culture shock, not having ever seen a McDonald's to then going to union having it all change. I've read that you started off as a spatial scientist, so coming from the background that you've just described, how did you even know that was a job and how did you sort of fall

There's so much pressure.

I don't know if it's still like that when we were in high school to go to university, and that was like the aim if you needed to get good grades to get into a university.

And then you needed to do a class that was highly regarded.

And I really wanted to do fine arts or design or architecture. But everyone in my life, my parents, you know, my teachers at school, said no, you need to go and study something that you're going to get a good, well paying job after Uni.

That's the most important thing. You know. No one who does an arts degree gets a job.

That old dialogue. And so I was.

Always really good at science. I have a science mind.

So I'm distracted because there's this big seal outside and some dolphins.

Oh my gosh, turn the screen.

Can you see them from when you go to see them?

If the pot of dolphins come in, I'll turn the screen so you can see, but I'll keep my eyes on them.

So you've kind of made a full circle back to those idyllic roots. Now just in Strawn, Tazzy watching pods of dolphins swim by.

How it happened.

It's a huge pot of dolphins. When they come closer, I'll turn the screen so you can see.

But it's incredible. There's probably about twenty of them cruising through.

Stop it.

Yeah, I hope they do it. If they come close, I'll turn but to see it.

Oh well, that would be a podcast in my life. There'd be a pot of dolphins on the pod. Oh my gosh, I can energetically draw them to let's manifest them closer. It's so funny you said that, though, because I think that is something that tends to happen when you go back through these people's stories, is they have as a child before things like expectation and pressure and career concerns about success and you know, progress before that starts to burden you and taint your view of the world.

Yeah, at school, I think as a young person they just create this world where that's all that is possible, you know, to go to university and to get a good job and then work in that job. There's no other models. There might be now, but back then there were no other models that I could follow. But I just picked it because it was a brand new area of science that no one had really ever done.

And I loved science. I've always loved science, so I was like, well, I'll do that to me going to university and getting a job.

It just all sounded so depressing. Didn't really matter what you did. It just was like, oh, well, my life is over now to live in the real world and stop chasing butterflies.

Which it turns out you never did, which is wonderful. Long did that last year. And by spatial science was it the study of space as in outer space or space as in like.

Geographical sce geographical space. And it was a really beautiful science.

Because it's sort of like physics or maths, so you can apply it to anything, which I loved. And after I finished studying, I went to work as a consultant for a couple of major consultancies around the world. So my job was to go into projects and work with like archaeologists or engineers or the geotechnical team and help them but also learn about their own areas of science or engineering or arts. Oh wow, okay, can you see yeah, just on the other side of that jetty. They're screaming

If they come back again, that was amazing. You see that.

You could just see the water change.

I'll see what happens. They're very playful.

I'll see what they Oh my god, that's extraordinary.

A couple science.

Yes, So I loved the science because my brain is a brain, it's so hungry for knowledge and getting to work on projects like this. I could go and learn about what, you know, the archaeologists for doing in their science. And I got to go to these amazing vaults all over the UK and see like skulls and daggers.

And just have warehouses and warehouses.

Off them because obviously their period of human occupation is so much longer than ours, and they had just had you know, a jewel room and like a leg bone room, and just you know, people just find this stuff all the time in Europe because they've had thousands of years of an occupation and they don't know who these bones belonged to, or this crown or this dagger or this sword, so it was an amazing job as for a young person who just wanted to find out about the world.

I think it's really interesting how the way I now describe people's pathway or path yay like pathway to joy is as a jigsaw puzzle. And I love tracing back through all of these earlier chapters of people's lives because you can see you can't make sense of it at the time, but in hindsight you can sort of start

It was so difficult because you know, I was really good at what I did.

I was working for the best one of the best companies in the world.

That people work their whole lives is to get into work for the company on the biggest projects in the world.

Like I was working on the London Olympic Games and you know.

All these really the high profile projects, and I was so depressed, you know, and I was living in London. I was sort of as a young person at the peak of where they told me you should be, and it was I didn't have it. There was no magic there for me. I just found it hard to get up every day and go to work.

And there's such a fine line, I think between worrying that you're not being grateful for all the things that you do have, but then also knowing when to acknowledge that actually it's beyond that. We're not just being millennial. Like I left a law firm, you know, a career in a law And it's not just being a millennial who got bored after a little while because it got hard. It's like, when you're actually having trouble waking up to go to that job, it's probably a sign that it's

So i'd save some money. And you know, I wasn't just depressed. I think I always had like a nervous breakdown. I was seeing like a therapist, and I took a month off work and I just couldn't go back to work. I took I took six weeks off like a mental health leave, and I just I couldn't physically walk back into the office, and.

So I quit. I just didn't know what to do.

I was like, Okay, well, I'll just travel for a while and then it will come to me.

I will figure it out.

So I spent I think maybe two years just sort of traveling all around the world. I started in Europe, went down to Africa, then up through parts of South America into America, and I think I was sitting in San Francisco and I was still so lost and I hadn't found what I was looking for at all. It had a great time and lots of amazing experiences, but I hadn't found what it was I was supposed to do in my life.

And I just thought, oh, oh, what is it that you really want, Sarah?

And I just my internal voice answered, I just want to be around no people, with like nothing, no one can find me, and I don't have to ever go home. And then I thought that's ridiculous, Like where do you how do you have that experience?

Then like a boat sailed past, and I was like, that's it. I've got to be on a boat. I just knew it. I just knew it.

It was like one of those you know, sun being from the sky moment you asked.

For your purpose to kind clear, and it literally sailed past you.

Yeah, luckily, And it was in.

A bad enough of a state to think that that was a great idea and I had nothing to lose, So I hired a guy happened to help me, and I'd never sailed before. We started doing some training on his boat. He helped me buy a boat, and then I moved onto my boat and then spent about a year learning to sail it, you know, service the engines, fix things, live at sea, navigate.

Like everything I needed to know. So I took it really seriously. I you know, fully took this.

Project on full time and decided that's what I was going to do with my life.

And I loved it.

As soon as I bought the boat and stepped onto the boat, I knew that this is what I was I was supposed to be doing. I just felt like, for the first time since I was I guess, you know, eight years old, that I felt happy again in the world.

Wow, so amazing experience.

Gosh, And isn't that so fascinating? I mean, one of the things I love so much about this show is listening to how things that some people would think is their nightmare being alone and at sea on a boat, is someone else's calling and passion and made them feel like they'd come back to themselves for the first time in over a decade. And that makes me so excited.

Yeah, I'm reading this beautiful book at the moment.

It's called Courting the Wild Twin. It's kind of like a fairytale where when people are born, their twin is thrown out the window, and their twin is the wild one that runs around in the forest under the moonlight, and it's passionate and tries all these new things out and we spend our life searching for them, and some of us get to find our wild twin and reunite and feel whole again, but some people don't.

So it's a beautiful, tiny book. So if anyone.

Listening wants a short read that will really inspire them, I just have found it so beautiful.

But that's what I felt like.

I felt like I found my wild twin and we were together on this adventure and I was so happy. There's joy and beauty around me and dolphins all the time.

I love that concept of the wild twin. That's kind of what sees the A or seizing your Ya is like to me. It's the idea of coming back to that inner child that you let go of. And I love that it's described as like this parallel universe you who's off doing all the things that you actually want to do but you're too scared to do. That's such a beautiful analogy.

Yeah, we're working at day jobs under fluorescent lights and they're off swimming.

With pods of dolphins. And so how long were you sailing before the big seed that plant was planted for Captains rest in two thousand and eight where you got stranded in a big storm in Mexico, which I can't wait to hear about because that sounds a yeah, terrifying and be like miracle that you survived. But see talk about the universe throwing things at you that lead you to where you're meant to be. How crazy?

Yeah, I mean it's probably two years all up, like training, buying the boat, sailing, and I was sailing up on the coast of Mexico thinking about doing the crossing from Mexico to Australia.

My boat wasn't ready.

I needed to do more to my boat, but it was possible. So I was sort of like, Oh, do I go this season or do I hang around here in Mexico and go next season? So I was just kind of, you know, vagabonding around and having a great time, and.

I decided to go.

And as I was leaving Mexico off like the shores, I was probably about thirty notical miles out at sea.

It was just everything started going wrong.

So I had some engine problems and then there's really unexpected weather came in and it was just the worse weather I've.

Ever been in, and I had some ripped sails, so it was just sort of one thing after another. But I ended up hitting something as well, which is so rare in the middle of the ocean.

It does happen, but it's very very rare, and it's usually either a sleeping whale or a pinnacle rock or a shipping container that's fallen off a boat and they float just underneath the water. You can't see them.

Wow.

So I ended up hitting something like that, and it was awful. It was like one in the morning and no moon, and it's so dark that you can't even describe the darkness, and it's like being in a cave.

And you're just trying to work things out, you know.

So I ended up setting off my EPERB, which is like an emergency positioning beacon. But I'd bought it secondhand, and you're supposed to like flip a little switch and push a button and then it's supposed to the button's supposed to like pulsate a color so you know that it's worked. The button didn't, nothing lit up. I was like, oh my gosh, I've bought this secondhand. I tried to save it a few hundred dollars.

And now I'm going to I ruin my life forever or no.

So I spent yeah, the next six or seven hours trying to get closer to shore and keep the boat afloat and radio for help, but no one came.

That's terrifying.

Yeah, and then I ended up getting the boat close enough to shore. I didn't know it at the time because it was the middle of the night, but I ended up sort of lodging my boat in some other rocks where it could just sort of stay and that we kind of could just stay there.

And then eventually the Mexican Navy got to us.

Because I was with I found a guy the day I left to help me sail this boat to the next spot.

This random guy I didn't know it was like, yeah, I mean I'm a great sailor. I'm happy to help you steer the boat to this spot.

And I took him on board, but within like twenty minutes he was so seasick. I didn't see him again until I hit whatever I hit, and then I was sort of he was freaking out, so I was trying to keep him calm while I was trying to save the boat and myself and a little bit of a disaster, but we ended up getting rescued.

Did you say the Mexican Navy found you?

Mexican Navy, Yes, they all eventually arrived and me out of the water I was and the water at that stage in the water, yeah, it was.

It was like a full ship wreck like.

Wreck.

Okay, but actually, how has no one made a movie about you yet?

Truly?

It's coming. I want to watch it right now.

It was really, really amazing. I thought I was going to die. I really did. And you know, that's a special experience in itself.

Anyway, it was really They didn't know what to do with us because I didn't have anything, no money, no passport, no visa to be in Mexico, no shoes, nothing, no shoes, my god.

No underpants. I just rang.

I remember just wearing I was doing a track suit and a life jacket and that's all we had.

Everything I had.

So at a later point I found out there was many discussions with the Navy and the locals about what they were going to do because they didn't know what to do.

So this little.

Village ended up like adopting me, and they gave me this little house on the beach, and they gave me a pet donkey and a pet cat, and they just thought, well, we'll just keep her it. We'll just keep her and I can figure it out. So I lived on this little beach for about I think nearly six months, maybe it was a bit longer, with no shoes or underpants or toothbrush or food. It was only had three sides in a dirt floor and a fire to cook. And then I had like big bottles of water that locals

That's how I survived.

And you know, every time and then a local woul drop me off a fish or some oysters or some that'vite me over for some dinner, that I just lived like the past away.

But how funny I would love to know now looking back your reflections on happiness, looking at you with nothing, living as a castaway, versus you when you had everything that everyone thinks you should want a few years beforehand.

Yeah, it's a really good question. Because I didn't want to leave because I was really traumatized by what happened.

I didn't want to speak about it, and I knew that as soon as I left and went home, everybody all they wanted to do was talk about what had happened, because it was, you know, it was world news at the time. Everybody knew, even people who.

Didn't even know I was sailing.

And you know, I've only just been able to start talking about it in the last couple of years, and it's been ten or fifteen years.

Now, you know.

So, But I remember just being so happy, and I think it's because I was my wild twin.

I was just she was fully unline by then.

The place I lived in Mexico wasn't anywhere close to it.

It was on the bar house. It's very remote.

Just basically every couple of hundred colimeters is a tiny fishing village, and I would just walk the desert mountains in one direction until like I could feel like the sun was overhead, and then I would turn around and follow my footprints back again. And that's how I spent my time. And one of the locals gave me this one John Grisham novel with English that.

You read over and over again. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. You'll have to write to John Grisham and tell him.

I had some friends who were living in LA and they managed to get me a care parcel down through the chain of backpackers and people I knew in Mexico.

I think it went.

Throughout seven different hands, and it had two disposable cameras, a bottle of whiskey, and some underpants and.

I still have photos.

So I managed to take some disposable photos of like my house and my cat and how I ate and how I lived.

Little candles for light at nighttime and things like that.

So it's so strange when I reflect on like the most unburdened happy times in my life, and they've all been out in very sparse conditions, like with very little and for some reason that almost it's because of that sparsity and like simplicity that you feel joy in a way you don't ever feel it when there's so much noise. It's so interesting.

Yeah, and the locals offered me to stay.

You know, in the village that I was in, you couldn't really buy a house. You were kind of given one nice like you can't just get on real estate dot Com.

I'm like, oh, that's a nice house. You just.

The town has to kind of like, well we want her, we don't And then they're like, you can have this house, or there's an island over there with a house, you could have that house. But I just felt like, oh, it's a bit of a cop out, Like I didn't feel done with my life to grow old in Mexico with you know, I.

Just I was do at like twenty six at that time.

I think, oh my gosh, you were so young.

I felt like I had to at some point go home. So I did.

Wow, And what do you think sparked that? Like, I feel like people chase the feeling that you would have had there and then for you to actually find that kind of liberation and joy, Like I think people often wonder, how do I know when my next chapter is coming, because life is so cyclical and it is so baby steps. But how do you know when it's like it's time to go home? How did you figure that out?

I just felt ready.

A big part of me was probably processing what had happened because it was so traumatic and quick, and I just felt ready to go back and talk about it and then figure out what was next. I knew I couldn't stay there forever, but six.

Months a really long time to live on a Mexican beach. Yeah, it's a really long time actually, So it felt like he is to me. It felt like he is, and I was so brown and healthy.

And I think also the swine flues another pandemic had started, and it felt dangerous to be there. And it worked out that like legal situation to get me out, with different documents and things like that. So it sort of all just came together in the right time for me, like, all right, well it's probably now never to make a break out of here. Wow.

And again, this is why I love this section so much, because it's like most people have heard of you because of Captain's Rest, which we haven't even gotten to yet, and you've already lived a movie worth of life. So you're talking about going on real estate, dot com putity, even finding a house and being like I'm going to

Well, I got back to Australia and you know, I'd lived this amazing life and an adventure for years at that point, and I was staring straight back into Melbourne, into university. So I decided that I would retrain to him a designer. I didn't care whether I got a job afterwards or not. I just thought I didn't care anymore. I just want to be happy and to do what

And I really struggled, like I really struggled.

You know, people would would have coffee or hang out with friends, and then to be talking about I don't know whatever it is that just it just all felt so meaningless to me.

I just got so disconnected from society, and.

I guess it was I was probably suffering from some PTSD, but I was also had found my wild twin and didn't know how to reintegrate into society. So I just kind of muscled my way through.

I just went to UNI, and.

Then I got a job, and then I started my own design studio, and then I hustled for work, and you know, I got a mortgage, and then within a couple of years my life had just tumbled back into this modern western model that we were all taught.

You know, I met, I met someone, I married them.

You know, we had a dog, and I just blinked, and I was just so unhappy, and I just thought, what has happened?

I worked so hard to break free.

And find a life that suited me, and then I gave up on it. Anyway, I was reading a magazine and there was this article about the west coast of Tasmania about how like, you know, these beautiful landscapes that were just like mountains and missed and described it as like almost like a mortal like quality where it doesn't feel like any human had ever lived there and never will, and the remoteness of it, and how no one ever visits there, and it's.

Called the wild West among Tasmanians.

Yeah, and I just thought, you know what, like, I just need to get out of here.

I just need to get out of here.

And they showed my shack and a little insert picture, so there was like the jetty and my shack, and I just thought, God, wouldn't it be nice just to be there and just forget about the world and I could work from here. And that was my answer. And that's why it's called Captain's Rest, because I hadn't had a chance to stop and really process what had happened or designed my life the way I wanted it to. I just needed to survive because I had no money or anything going on back in our modern world.

So I just got on real estate and the shack was for sale.

It'd been for sale for five years, but I think it was eighty eight thousand something like that.

So I rang up the real estate agent and I bought it. I just bought it.

I was like, well, I've just kind of moved to the part time and then live in the modern world part time as well. That was my grand plan about how I was going to make this work. And I'd always been drawn to Tasmania. I'd always wanted a house here, and everyone just was always like, why would.

You want to live in Tasmania. It's an awful place live there leave. I'd had a girlfriend who was from Tasmania in the previous years and she was just hanging it. What an awful place it was. No, I did a beautiful part of the word. It's known that way now.

But when I bought this place, it was just not a popular place to be, not trying.

I didn't care.

Neither was Mexico, you know, like I didn't really mind. I just wanted to be in the elements.

On my own.

And while I was renovating this place, I ended up getting very sick. But also at the same time I got a bit of a divorce from you know, it just all fell apart. Some secrets were unearthed, I guess on my partner's fort like half, and it all just came such a big shock to me that it was incredible how quickly my life fell apart In about a month.

You know, I was just so sick.

I was didn't ever anyway to live, ended up going through this very nasty financial separation.

It was just all so much.

When it rains, it pourse it does.

Yeah, so my plan about living here, I guess didn't work out.

I had to rent it out as an Airbnb to pay my own way. It was the only income I had at the time, and so I really had to make it work. But I'd had this background in science and in design, but also in this science where I could go into any field and work it out scientifically how it was done. So I really threw myself into the science of hosting, the science of marketing, the science of tourism. And because I needed to make my business work, and because I needed I wanted to survive.

I didn't want to take me down, and I guess fast forward it worked. It was.

I remember the locals here said to me, I'll never forget that, like no one ever comes here, You've never ever rented out. They said, you might get Christmas in New Year rented, but that's it, Like you won't even be able to rent it as a rental, and like now it's I think there's twice weekly flights SI Strong, and we've got this entire industry around Captain's Rest.

It's quite amazing. But yeah, it's interesting what you can do.

Oh my gosh, Sarah, what a story. Yeah, my gosh, this is so fascinating and exciting and heart wrenching and heartwarming. I feel like I need to like have a little lie down to just process it all. Wow, oh my gosh. I mean again, just to reiterate. People who walk into anyone's life right now and see Captain's Rest and see all the highlights and the new master class is coming out, and the published author can so easily underestimate all of

Yeah, I worked so hard, and it wasn't just like I put it on AMBMB and people were like, oh wow, it's amazing. It became really successful, like it was work and it was all by design. And it was because I worked so hard doing the right things that I was able to build my own business, but also build the business so big that people who wanted to come and experience this couldn't even get in. So now I built the whole town around me is so busy because everyone knows.

That Captain Stress and just wants to come for the experience. And it's incredible. Oh my god. You know we're booked out every night of the year.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, like it's that's never Yeah, so it's always probably about six to nine month booked in advance.

Wow. Amazing.

The only reason I'm here right now is because if we had a Sydney booking and I thought, oh buger, I'm going.

For so long, you probably kind of even get yourself in there's.

This is the first time in a year. I've been here a year. Wow. And the reason I was here last year is because of Lockdown. So I spent Lockdown here, which was.

Awesome, Oh my god, with pods of dolphins, I mean, how glorious.

Yeah. Wow.

Well, before we move on to what you've then been able to turn that whole experience into, as well as building pretty much a whole town around this beautiful Airbnb, I want to just touch on the money side as well, because I think sometimes that's another part that we skate over, partly because I was brought up. I don't know if you were the same with the idea that you don't

No, it wasn't like that. So I had I had about ten thousand dollars in savings.

So I paid the deposit of his house, which was eight thousand dollars, so ten percent deposit.

And an eight dollars deposit. My Melbourne brain is like, what.

I don't forget.

This was supposed to be my holiday home, you know, and I was going to renovate it a little bit and spend part of the year down here, you know, working by the fire and watching the dolphins, and you know, pay the I think it was six hundred dollars mortgage a month or something.

Like that. That was my plan. Renovations ended up costing me about forty thousand dollars and I did them all on.

Credit card, so I didn't have to say I do not recommend anyone do this, But when anyone who's renovated a house or no, once you get started off just a lick of pain, then the windows need to change, then the floor needs to be.

Done, and the lights, like it just goes on and on. It's really hard to hold back. So I spent that on credit card, and then when I got this horrible divorce, I essentially had to pay out my partner the worth of this place as well. So wow, I had to pay out it was almost one hundred thousand dollars as well. So all I was left with was this mortgage, a credit card bill, one hundred thousand dollar debt to my ex,

It was not easy.

And I think the ABC did an article about Airbnb's a couple of years ago when they interviewed me and they wanted to know specifics like how much it makes a year and how much I paid for it and animated, and they glossed over those details, and everyone on Facebook was just so nasty, like, you know, who has given her the money to do there? She's obviously had an inheritance and just a little rich white girl.

And the opposite was true.

I was so had nothing, and I just had to work really hard to make this work because I had to.

I had no other choice.

And that's why I think it's so important to cover that, because I think that is probably the assumption that a lot of people make about most people's stories, because we

Yeah, you know, so many of my students now we're in the same position as me.

As I was, and I encourage them all to go.

And find areas of the world that aren't popular and discover them or explore them, because there are so many pockets of the world in Australia that are incredible and beautiful and affordable, not just in Tasmania but all over the place. But we just all have this mindset that we want to live where everyone else is talking about were living, instead of trying something new.

And I think if you're brave enough to try something new, you can bring people to you. You know. I've had so many successful students.

Who have bought little shacks in the middle of nowhere where no one ever goes, and they've all.

Been crazy successful like I was.

They've all been able to build their own audience and showcase the beauty that's around them too, and draw people out of the cities to go an adventure to find them.

I always say, someone out there is looking for exactly what you have, so if you try and be someone else, you're actually depriving those people of the thing they're looking for. And if you just trust, like there's obviously a huge, huge portion of the population like yourself, who don't want to go where's trendy and where everyone else is going.

Yeah, so I started them about three or four years ago now, and that's my main jobs. I don't run Captain's Rest anymore. I have a team of people who work for me with my masterclass and my business and they run Captains Rest now for me.

But when Captains Rest hit the success, it did the whole Australia took notice. They were just so, how did she do this?

Like our industry then, it wasn't like it was now where there was lots of different airbnbs. It was just sort of like three or four really famous ones and some really well known hotels. And I just came out of nowhere and just you know, became this overnight success. And I had so many people get in touch. You know, how did you do that? Can you give us some advice? Can you come and work on my place?

You know? Can you do my marketing for me? And I did a couple of odd jobs. What I realized I was doing is just teaching them my method in all the different areas.

So overhosting there's really ten different areas like you know what to buy, who your audience is, pricing, styling, all the way through to like management, marketing, or the business side of things. So I'd really cracked the coat on all of these specific areas. So I realized I was actually just teaching my clients for a lot of money, one on one, this formula that I had and applying it to them and their property in their audience.

So it got to the point.

Where I was probably getting about five emails or dms a day of just desperate people like I bought this beautiful house, We're losing money.

I'm I'm going to lose this house, and we don't make it successful.

And they weren't just people who were well off who wanted a beautiful place.

They were real people who were struggling.

They had these homes that they loved, and they loved more more than just what they were to other people. They'd had there were their grandma's houses, or they were their dreams. I've always had a holiday house. And could I help them? But they didn't have any money to pay me. So I decided I'd put on three workshops they could come, I wou teach my methods and then that would be I would go back to Captain's Rest

So it just grew from there.

It became huge, and now I teach people all over the world.

Wow. Yeah, and.

It's well known as like I'm the expert in hosting in the world. It's incredible, and so I spend most of my time on Zoom teaching or writing. I've just got to the point where I found that all of our students were so successful. We started having people come

So it's just grown and grown and grown.

Oh, Mid And like I always think, you know, talking to twenty six year old you on Avshi in Mexico. Like, no, you could not probably have convinced you that you would be the world's foremost expert on something that you had never probably ever had a finger in any pie related to hosting or airbnbus or design or anything like how crazy.

No, I never thought i'd end up here, but I didn't really have an idea and where I would end up. You know, I was always searching or I just didn't have a clear understanding of what it was I was supposed to be doing.

But I know every day when I teach my students that this is what it.

All was for, and this is why I was here, This is what I'm here to do because honestly, like we still do our face to face classes, maybe like once or twice a year, because I just love doing them because I'm with everybody.

But you know, people leave the class crying and You've changed my life.

And then I go out and I see them on the covers of magazines and they write to me and like, this is everything I've ever wanted. You know, I've read this magazine since I was nineteen years old, and now I'm on the cover, and you know, I was before the pandemic hit I was traveling in Europe and there wasn't one magazine I could pick up without seeing a student in it. Anywhere that I went. I'd always went

Oh it's a crowd congratulations. I mean that gives me goosebumps. It's just such a beautiful, beautiful story. And he's only really just beginning. I mean, you've just published a book, Like I feel like there are so any ways that this is just the launch pad for more wonderful things that are going to come from you and your students. But it's funny that you said like it all came

Quite a lot to say on this subject, because I see it in everybody I teach, and I see it

The shelves around the world, and.

Like, why would anyone be interested in what I have to say about design? And you know, I admire so many incredible designers around the world, and my book is going to be sitting along next.

To their there are, and we'll work in their voice, you know, for a long time.

And I feel exactly the same as whoever is out there listening to this, thinking, oh I'm not I don't know if I'm good enough to do whatever it is. So when I first started in the hosting industry but also teaching it, you know, I wasn't going out to host and I wasn't even going out to teach, like both of these things that I ended up doing, which just I guess fate, they were fated for me, but

I was bullied. Lots of really awful things happen, which I wouldn't go into. It's just sort of school yard stuff, but it.

Really cut me down and it made me feel I guess the intention was to put me in my place, and like, you know, who are you to teach people and you know, be so successful if you haven't really earned it. And I really was quite upset about this for years.

I couldn't find the answer.

I just kind of muscled through and I was like, well, you know, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing because I love it, and you know, it kept being successful and everyone was happy, and all my class students are really successful. But I found this meditation teacher that I interviewed in London the last time I was there, and I said to her, how do.

You deal with criticism? Because it's just eating me up inside? This feeling I have.

Of not being good enough and people tell you that, you know, it really hurts me, and how do I feel okay about it? And she said to me, She's like Sarah, everybody gets criticized for everything that they do. So if you just quit all of your businesses into sat in a room, you'd be criticized for that by somebody or out there listening who isn't starting their business

You haven't got the.

Guts to do it, you know. So I think, as soon as I realize it, no matter what it is I was out there doing, if I was working at Wallace, someone would criticize me for that because I'm too old to be doing a job like that, or I've got a degree I should be aiming higher. So it clicked for me that it didn't matter because I'm going to get it that regardless.

So that really helped me a lot.

That's such a good point. You can't please everyone. There will always be someone who's got something to say about what you're doing It's always about them and not about you anyway. But oh yeah, it's like, if I'm going to get hate for doing something I don't like, I might as well get hate for something that I do like. It's going to come out of the way. I might as well just do what I want to do.

Yeah, I think now I'm older, I have perspective on it.

You can, I can see that that I understand why I was criticized.

Because of other people's insecurities about them selves and their own choices. And now I don't ever think about it.

Makes me laugh that I was so concerned with it. Yeah, it's you need to have different perspectives sometimes.

I think that's so true. I think it's definitely one of those things that just comes with age. Like there's so much angst earlier on in the journey, and then you just get to that point where you're like, eh, you know, or the only person whose opinion that does other people you actually care about who are around you.

Yeah, and that's right.

I think all my students and all of my guests are just you know, thriving, and why would why other people would.

Think about that totally. So the last section is called Playta, which is the section where we kind of strip back everything we've spoken about and finding your purpose and your passion and particularly when you do love your job and when it does allow you a bit of a non conventional like work life structure. I think it's really hard for people to have any kind of boundaries for downtime or the captain getting rest in this case. But I

I'm a really boring person. I love to go for a walk.

You think you're boring, But that's the most interesting story I've heard in a long time.

I love walking.

I don't live here at Captain Stress, obviously, I live in another part of Tasmi, but it's equally as beautiful. I live in a beautiful house on the water, and I wake up every morning and I walk on all the.

Farm and the coastline around me.

So I walk for about an hour too every day, and the bush.

I pick up, you know, starfish and seaweed. And so I.

Spend every morning like that, and then after work I spend every evening reading in front of the fire, just with everything shut off, and listen to records and play classical music.

And John, is it still crime books?

No, but I've read all of Joe Grisham's novels now to give you a commission. Honestly, it was The Pelican Breathe, and I've read it was such a good book.

Oh my gosh. So what kind of books?

I spend about seven hours a night reading every night, all sorts.

I love books so much. At the moment, I go through phases, but at the moment I love.

A story, like a really good, juicy story. And I've just finished reading Name of the Wind, which is so beautiful. If anyone want a beautiful, beautiful book. That's an amazing story. Read Name of the Wind. But before that was going through a true crime binge phase, So I was reading a lot of true crime.

My favorites. I'm all about crime, and I think because my job is so joy focused and uplifting, like people find it so weird. They're like, what do you mean. I'm like, yeah, serial killers really helped me go to sleep at night. Yeah, But I think because it is so different, it like pulls my brain away because I can't relate it to like fulfillment and purpose and life and joy and kindness. It's just so separate. But yeah, so tell me your favorites. I would like to write them down.

The best way I've read is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I can't remember who wrote it it was I think it was written in the eighties.

But it's so good. It's so good.

I've never heard of it.

Yes, please read it.

It's like, no, it's a very old book, but it's about it's murder that's happened it was actually it's true.

It's true crime from like you know, the eighties or the seventies.

I'm probably really messing this up. There's old classics that everyone should read. It's so beautiful. It's written about this murder that happened in the Deep South and this reporter goes down there to investigate this and it's his account of his time and he goes to all these wild parties and everyone's like on LSD and.

It's just incredible.

And the other one I really liked was The Killer Beside Me, which is about.

I think I have that somewhere.

It's really good.

There's a couple of other really good ones that I read. I really want to read The Trauma Cleaner.

I haven't read it yet.

I haven't heard of that.

That's opposed to be incredible.

It's written by an Australian woman who was a trauma cleaner, could go and clean up crime scenes. And my god, I heard a podcast with hair and I really want to read that. But I've just added my true crime face at the moment.

But I'll have to get back into it.

I never get out of that pace. I live in that phase. So I'm totally going to spend the rest of the week reading those books.

You know. In the Garden of Good and Evil is one of those beautiful books.

That your gift to people because it's so beautifully written as well, so it's got the true crime, but it's also like reading this beautiful book that's you know, it's beautiful, flowery language, and I just take you away to another place.

Sometimes I feel so bad because like I always have recommendations on the show, and I'm like, this is really uplifting, it's meant to be really beautiful. You walk away feeling really happy, But there's all these murder recommendations.

Calling The Wild Twin would be the one people should go and get. It's so small, so it's something you could.

Read in a night, you know, then just be so inspired by that beautiful book.

I'm always going to remember that The Wild Twin, And if I ever start to feel a bit like I've gone back into the productivity hamster will, I'm going to think of evoking my Wild Twin. That's such a good one.

It's beautiful.

Second last question three are interesting things about you that don't normally come up in conversation? And because you have such a cool and random story, you've probably said more already than most people do in it each episode. But what are some random things about you that like only someone who lived with you would know.

I think people think that I'm this like wild vagabond, and I I am in some ways, like you know, I live on my.

Own and I just wander the bush and read.

But I don't drink really, I don't drink coffee. I don't eat glute or dairy like. I only eat very basic things. I can't handle lighting or crowds or noise, so I've got like a sensory sensitivity that kind of I start freaking out and melting down. So even physically I can't handle the modern world. I can't even eat the food.

Or you know, it's really difficult for me.

So often people will see me in a city and traveling somewhere and try and talk to me, but I'm always like I guess I'd probably come across quite rude because I'm just not coping.

Like it's just something I'm not good at.

That's so interesting. It's like you were born of another.

Time, yes, I think so. Well, it wasn't socialized as a child properly or something.

Those encyclopedias you were like decades before your time.

One.

I still, even though I can navigate around the ocean, I still can't tell my left from my right.

I still have to hold my hans up to do.

The L.

Sailed the world alone, but that's fine. You don't know left and right? Great?

Oh I don't know.

And yeah, I still can't spell, even though my book is I think it's been spell checked, so I think I'm pretty good.

Yeah.

Nice.

I have not improved my spelling through that exercise.

Oh, they're great. You're also like a really wonderful ambassador for solitude in a time where we really try and fill gaps and silences and even our incessant need to pull out our phone to pass the time when we're waiting two minutes for an uber or something like, you notice that you need to fill those spaces. And I think you're a really, really wonderful reminder that actually being in your own company is such a skill, but it's actually also very good for you.

It is, and I have friends and a partner.

But I've had to recently start going to the local cafe at least three times a week and just sit there for at least an hour around people, and I've been practicing.

Oh my god, that's so cute. I have to practice not being alone.

My owners don't know this been sure they'll listening to this fact. That's why she comes in here and just sits there on her own. I'm trying to desensitize myself too, Like.

Taking you to puppy school, you know you have to socialize puppies with other puppies.

I'm so embarrassed. That's how it is.

No, But I also think that's another good reminder that like you know what suits you right, like your body gives you data and feedback on what environments suit you best. And I think what a lot of anxiety or chronic illness or just unhappiness is from is people forcing their personality type into situations constantly that are not suited to that personality type.

Yeah, I think a lot of people think that if they do what they.

Told will bring happiness, that they'll be happy.

So currently, I think what's trendy is moving to Tasmania, you know, having a shack or whatever.

And I just people.

Just follow what's in their heart, even if it's not trendy. I just think there's nothing that can match happiness.

It really isn't. It's just what we're here to be. We're here to be happy.

And you know, my mum always would say to when I was younger, and I never forgot it is that you don't take anything with you.

You know, we all work so hard.

For houses and cars and money in the bank, but none of it is coming with us, you know. I try and remember this that I don't really own this house. Someone else will own this one day. Just enjoy it.

But I say that one all the time. I love it because we do get so focused on attachments to things that really, in this game of life don't matter. But like memories and joy and friendships, those things are like eternal and they're the things that matter, you know.

I agree.

Ah well, very last question to finish off, what is your favorite quote?

I have so many. My current favorite is water off a duck's back.

Oh I love that, especially since us you're rounded by lots of ducks.

Yeah, they're just all here sitting around my house. Because as I've.

Gotten older, things have gotten easier, you know, like things that would have melted me down five years ago, I just think, oh, that's.

Really funny that happened. I agree, I really, I really get it now.

And when I was younger, my mum and my grandparents would say, when you get older, you know, you'll understand or things are easier, and I never really understood that.

But as you do get older, things just do tend to get easier and nothing really matters at the end of the day.

I've realized that everything just comes and goes, and we all worry too much.

I think, yeah, absolutely, what a beautiful way to finish. Thank you so so much for sharing your incredible story. I am one hundred percent hoping that there's some kind of movie producer or like epic storytelling person who can come and pick this up and turn it into a Hollywood oscar lining movie, because what an amazing journey and

Twenty two from February, will have we have availability?

Oh amazing. I'm actually literally going to go and put my name down right now.

If you are someone who can plan, I just find that there's two types of people, people who.

Plan their holidays for the next year and people who just can't. And I'm a just just can't type of person. So when I get bookings for twenty twenty two.

I think, who are these amazing people who know what they're doing in twenty twenty two.

No, it's just that they're willing to do whatever it takes to get an experience of Captain's rest. That's what You've created, something good enough that people will plan more than they ever would.

I hope when you come, you see dolphins.

See a whole lot of dolphins when you come, and you let me know if you do, because they do actually do a lat once a day.

So you just have to be like flop out of the window and see them. They come in and they come in close and amazing.

Oh well, thank you so much. This has brought me so much. Yeah, and I'll include a link to the book which is out. What date is it officially out?

Early September?

It's that in Australia and then in other countries in the months rolling months after that.

That would be amazing. My book is for everybody.

It's about styling your own home in your own way and simple rules that you can use to do that that I teach my students and it's a really beautiful book and in fact a lot of my students are in it, so their spaces are so beautiful. I've used them in my book to demonstrate as examples of what I'm trying to teach, which is beautiful.

Oh my gosh, the imagery in it is insane.

I was just flicking.

Through it like this is going to be really bad for my renovation budget. I was so excited.

I just wanting out, Well, my next class comes out in September with the book. It'll be an online class anyone can do around the world, and it's beautiful.

We're shooting in the same space as we shot the book.

Oh amazing, in the same style, So don't renolate too much until we come and study.

And then.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, my pleasure.

Well that was a first of many for this podcast. First Spatial Scientist shipwrecked Sailor and Global Airbnb Authority, and what a fascinating ride it was. You know, I'm a sucker for a niche community or a world I know nothing about, and I could feel my brain just expanding