You have come fresh from the set of Stella. We made you work hard this morning. You have been on set with our fabulous fashion team all morning and then straining the car and over here to me in the Something to Talk About studio.
It's quite all right.
I mean Stella has a well oiled machine of a team. They're great, So we smashed through the shoe and yeah, popped over here for a little chat.
Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About the Stella Podcast. I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and every week I sit down with some of the biggest names in the country because when Australia celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something to talk about. When Meek and Gayle Kick started her modeling career in the early noughs, she never expected she would still be at it as she neared her fiftieth birthday. But as we reach the end.
Of twenty twenty four, that's exactly what.
Has come to pass. On today's episode is Something to Talk About. Meghan opens up about learning the hard way, what happens when a woman dares to speak her mind, and why it's not so easy to quote unquote push her buttons anymore and why fourteen years into what she dubs the longest engagement ever to her fiancee Sean Hampson, she's still in no rush to get married. Megan Gail,
Welcome to the Stellar podcast. Thank you, so tell me how it feels to be on set of a fashion shoot, because for you, at this point in your career, that would be light for a lot of us, like breathing or turning on your computer. It's just automatic. But of course it is quite a production. It's literally a production with lights and camera and crew.
It is it is, and I have to say, look, once upon a time for me, it was it was another day because I did it so much, so frequently. But then I stopped for a while to go and
have my beautiful babies. The first of whiches is now ten, and so it became less frequent and common for me, And so when I do step back on set, it's familiar, but I have to kind of get back into the It takes me a little bit longer to get into that groove again because it isn't something I do as frequently as I once did, so it doesn't quite feel like breathing and brushing the teeth, but there is there is a bit of a what's that saying?
With getting on a bi you never forget how to do.
I was thinking about the bike like, it's really a bit of a confidence game, isn't it, whether it's riding a bike or being on set of a fashion shoe.
One hundred percent.
You recently returned this year as a friend of David Jones. You have obviously worked with them over the years. It was really part of what made you a household name in Australia. It had huge success overseas very early on in your career, particularly in Italy, and then in that great Australian tradition, once.
Someone cheers that.
Everybody and so David Jones really snapped you up there.
Yeah, let me ask you about.
A bit like with the first question about being on set of a shoot. As you and I are talking, it's end of twenty twenty four, so we know how much the industry has disrupted different technology. The notion of celebrity has changed for you when you were working with David Jones in that era, luckily not its and as opposed to today, what's changed in terms of the runway was always a huge part the two times a year when
we would do the autumn, winter, and summer runway. And then of course back then you didn't really have to do anything for social media. Now there's content I'm online. How would you say some of the big differences of being a friend of David Jones have changed in terms of what that says about changes in the industry over that time.
It has changed so much, I think, and trying to kind of wrap your head around those changes and adapt to them is, you know, not tricky, but it's something you have to be very mindful of because a lot of what Yeah, you're right, it was mainly very heavily focused on catwalk and photographic and not really digital at all. You'd go, you'd do the job and you'd leave it.
Whereas now with everything being with all this content based and digital and online and and so you have to be very well versed on how to execute that on your social media page. And it's after the shoot and there's all this timing and scheduling. And I mean the younger generation that's coming through that would be like child's play for them would be it's so easy. But for me, who's not really he sort of tech savvy and digital friendly person. It takes a little while, but I've gotten there.
But it's it's definitely it's definitely different. You know, we don't do TV commercials as we as we as much as we used to because people prefer to put their spend into digital. But particularly as well, I think when you're doing shoots and stuff, everything's a lot more streamlined because technology has come such a long way as well, so in a lot of ways it's changed for the better and it's easier.
Do you have a favorite part of what you do? We talked a little bit there about being on the runway, and then we've talked about being on set, and then obviously the different parts of that that are now required in terms of video and of course opportunities where you are required or you are speaking on a TV show or something like this on the cover of Stella and
sitting in a podcast studio. What parts of it are you most comfortable with and what parts would you find are a little bit taking you out of your comfort zone.
I used to always love catwalk.
I loved it when I started modeling, even before I started at David Jones, I always always loved doing shows, doing fashion shows. I don't know there's just something about the theatrical stage, makeup, you close your costume, it's just something very dramatic about it. That I weed the music that I always loved that I always loved working with
a whole a huge team of people. And I've always loved TV commercials as well, always loved doing that, And again I don't do much of that anymore, and I think I've done a ton of them.
I couldn't even tell you how.
Many, but I think in doing them that aspect has helped me with content a bit. Just with the filming digital side, it's kind of lends itself well to doing content. So fortunately I did a lot of TV commercials because that helps me with this sort of evolution that's happened with how content's created now.
And in terms of out of.
My comfort zone, sometimes I find photo shoots uncomfortable now. They were always an area that I would always be a little bit not uncomfortable in, but certainly not as comfortable as catwalk and TV. And I think because sometimes on photo shoots there's a lot of moving parts and there's a lot of very that need to align, especially when you're working with light and weather, and there's a lot of elements that need to come together and you
feel quite out of control. But on the flip side, that teaches you to let go and to just kind of trust in the process and all of that, which is hard for us as humans to do. But yeah, sometimes I find photo shoots a little bit tricky in terms.
Of being a perfectionist. Have you become less hard on yourself? And this is probably just a general question about your life and the way that a lot of women, especially my own experience. A lot of women that I've spoken to in my own life, friends and family, but certainly here in the podcast have talked about the notion of as we move through life, starting to let a little bit of the stuff go that we used to be our own worst critics.
Have you found that yourself?
Absolutely?
I think as you as you progress through life and you get older, you you don't get as caught up and hung up, or if you start to, you don't ruminate on it for as long, mostly because you're too tired and you haven't got time. You can't be I think that's what there's a lot of.
Yeah.
I remember the other day there was like there was something on Instagram. There was a comment that someone had written on a post that I'd done, and it was it.
Was just button pushing me.
And look back in the day, if I'd seen, you know, a troll or or something, I would really think about it, go, I'm gonna should I say something. I'm going to say something. No, maybe I better think about it. Oh, And then it would just it would it would hurt and it would sit with me. And now I just sort of look at it and go.
I can't even be bothered. Like I can't. I can't be bothered.
And it's just it's things like that where you just there's so many especially when you've got two young kids and your partner works and you work. You you're juggling a thousand things. You don't really have time to sit there and get caught up on things or judge what you're doing too much. I think, you know, you really start to simplify what you devote your time and energy to,
not just your physical energy, but your mental energy. It becomes more precious and important, so you don't want to part with it too often.
It's so make sense, it makes so much sense.
I think it is sometimes that you've just got a lot going on in certain stages of your life.
You just don't have.
The headspace to rent out to random people the criticism of other people. I wanted to ask you how you feel, because I don't think there's obviously there's no right or wrong answer to this, and everyone's got their own take on it. I was speaking to someone a few weeks ago, I think it was in the office, and she said to me, oh, gosh, you know to be twenty three again, And I said, oh god, no, I wouldn't go back
to twenty three for anything. And I was curious what you because obviously we can understand you'll will maybe look back at a time in your life and think it was a bit more uncomplicated, or oh my gosh, I look so young then, or whatever, or like, yeah, didn't like I didn't even know that, you know, knee pain was the thing or whatever it is. But then what we've just talked about made me think about that that perspective and just having to let stuff go. Like I said,
there's no right or wrong here. Do you lean towards one camp of that or not.
I'm a big believer in.
Being content to where you are because every little, every little phase of life and every little step along the way has led you to where you are, and where you are is where you're meant to be. I think
starting to fantasize and wonder about. Look, I'm the first to admit, if you went back to say, let's say your twenties, mid twenties, you've got so much more time on your hands, and you haven't as many responsibilities necessarily, and you feel fitter, you feel healthier, feel stronger, You've got more.
Energy and vitality.
But I think the reason why we think and feel that, and we all have it, it beat fleetingly or it's constant yearning. I think we feel that way because we get to an age where we're so much more appreciative of our health, of our vitality, of free time, and we just sit there. I remember thinking I thought I was busy. Back then, I didn't know what busy was.
So in one sense, it's good because it makes us more appreciative and grateful, because I think we'll get to if we're lucky enough, we'll get to seventy and eighty. I'd love to go back to my forties. So it's a constant looking back. But I think, and that's fine, But I think what we need to do is a look at the appreciation that has triggered that for all of those things.
Another thing that I think has probably changed over the course of my time in media, and I would imagine for U Megan in the industry, is the fact that we're starting to appreciate some of the value and those gifts that come with women once they are shock over twenty five, because you at forty nine are friend of David Jones and you are fronting campaigns and on the
cover of magazines. Again, not to put words in your mouth, but is that anything that you and your peers would have foreseen when you were starting out as an international model and a supermodel. I mean, that is a word that got overused for a very long time.
I don't have ever been used in the same sentence as me.
Oh well it has, and I definitely have and I would definitely use it. I think that is the point, I think when it is a word that actually is accurate. But yeah, so you and your contemporaries, supermodels or otherwise, would you have foreseen a day where both here in Australia and internationally.
We are seeing obviously a lot.
Of change in the industry in terms of body diversityicity, we're seeing less ableism, I think on the runway, but specifically about age.
I mean forty nine.
As you say, we're going to look back one day and go, God, I was a baby. But when you were starting out, it would have thought, well, I definitely won't be doing mainstream commercial, major campaigns at forty nine.
Definitely because when I started, if you were still modeling after twenty five, that was considered rare. But I think, on one hand, I didn't necessarily expect that I would still be back working in the industry and in a role like I am with Zava Jones at this point in my life. But not because I thought, oh, no one will hire me because I'm old. It was more because I wasn't sure where I would want to be
and what I would be doing. I mean I kind of thought that, I mean, I wanted to get all of my work, bulk of my work done by the time I hit early forties, so that I could just stop be mum and have the luxury to be able to do that.
So it was more about that. But I think for me, I always kind of.
Had a little bit of a habit of breaking the mold anyway I was. I didn't really find my success until my early twenties mid twenties. By then most girls were finishing. I was never stick thin. I was kind of like not your stock standard look as well, having a bit of different ethnicities, and so for me to kind of already go down that path of being non conventional, I suppose it's a nice surprise to kind of be picked up again at this at this point in my
life and be with David Jones. But it's kind of keeping true to what I've always done. But it's I think it's super important now more than ever to be in this position because I know women do often think like, oh, you know, models or that front brands are all young, pretty things that I can't relate to. So to have someone there that has been in the industry for a while, has stepped away, had a family come back, it sends a really good message.
To women, I think.
So hopefully that's that is something that is getting communicated on some level.
I think it definitely is, and I would hope that the more visibility there is, then the less it becomes something that you have to talk about.
It's like when you speak to the first.
Female prime Minister of Australia and you think hopefully in thirty forty years it won't be such a big deal and we don't have to be.
A token thing either. I don't have a bit the token. And that's why I think it's really careful. I want people to be really careful as well, and brands and businesses when they are looking to you know, cast the net wide and include women, men of all ages, body shape and size, ethnicity, gender, whatever it is. It can't be token. It can't be some little thing for some you know, clickbait. Let's get a pat on the back because you know, we used a woman over sixty, aren't
we great. It's got to be less yimmicky than that. I don't like it when it becomes that, and I wanted to be really sure that when I sort of stepped back into this space that it was not going to be you know, with that in mind or for that purpose. It's almost like a nice little side thing as well. So yeah, it's hopefully it's being received as something quite positive.
Another thing I think that has from my observation at least changed a little bit since when you were first working with David Jones is the way that we talk about women in the public eye. And we've spoken about this before with you at Stella, not here, you and me on the podcast, but just calling out some of those tropes where you, working with David Jones were pitted against other high profile women what we called the quote unquote.
Store was which and me, Megan, I know, my goodness, what a time, What a time.
So do you think that would happened now?
I don't think that it would in a lot of the media. I think it never fully goes away, and I think it's still.
There in the little loone.
I was going to say corners of the dark Web, but I think there's that certain light kind of screaming, you know, tabloid headline that really still traffics a lot off policing women and pitting women against other women. But I would like to think that we're certainly living in a time where we're thinking twice about that narrative.
Absolutely, And I tell you what if, And again going back to what we were saying about being younger and feeling like if I had the voice that I have now and the platform, And that's a good thing about social media. You've got your own platform and voice I don't think I would have. I wouldn't if it happened now, and it was different times, I wouldn't have.
Stagsip about it.
And I think I'm also I was very conscious of like I'd speak up once about it, and it came back to bite me on the butt because I was doing something for I can't remember if it was a current affair or something, and it wasn't to do with David Jones, and it was to do with another brand, and the interview had finished, and someone and that I thought the cameras were off again, just naive and green, and someone had asked me something about, you know, Jen
and Meyra, and I said, I think it's really unfair to do that to us. I think we're both achieving so much in our own right. And also I had I had been around for quite a while and earned my stripes and to have it all reduced down to this who's better and let's I remember seeing polls online about and picking us apart, and I hated it. I loved Jen and I respected her enough as a peer to go, I love what you're doing. I don't want
to be picked apart next to you. It's not good for anyone, but and it had been going on for a while, and I said, you know, I've been around for ten years, I've been doing this, We've been doing that, and or even longer, I think it was. And I said, and you know, why is this happening? Kind of thin and then it got sort of turned into this Megan s lambs Jen and then I was like.
Oh my god, because I said that was it. I said it was insulting.
I said I am insulted that this, and they turned it more into that I was insulted by her or being compared to her, and then that really and at that point I was like, I'm just not speaking up again. I'm not speaking up again because it's not worth it because no matter what I say, it will be taken and twisted around to fuel that.
And so I just you know.
And luckily though, we both got cast together to work together and as straight as Next Top Model, and that was brilliant because we could finally have an opportunity to come together side by side. We did a beautiful Murray clayre covered together, and it was just a really nice way to show everyone, like, see, we don't each other, We're totally fine. What we hate is people trying to because she's divine and you would have met her over
the years. She's the most non confrontational person and every time we'd see each other, we'd be like, why is this happening? So yeah, it resolved itself, but I really don't think it would happen now.
I think it would just be true. There would be an uproar.
I think women especially would be like, what are you doing to these girls? You know there was it would be challenged a lot more.
In coming up, Meghan gets honest about approaching her fiftieth birthday. You're a mum of beautiful young boy and beautiful young girl, the two of them along with your partner Shaw all on the cover of Stella late last year, so picture perfect family, but two more important values and your role as a mother.
Would you hope for a little bit of what.
We've talked about, especially with your daughter Rosie, that the world that they are growing up in is a little kinder and allows a bit more space for both young men and young women to not be pitted against each other, to not necessarily be held back by those gender stereotypes, and to feel a little bit like what you have found this hard one place where you can, as you were saying earlier, speak up, but in a kind way, which you hope the world they're inheriting might be an easier path for them.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And I think we focus a lot on building resilience as well, like emotional resilience.
And fortunately at schools now they are starting to do that too.
They realize the importance of it and you know, encouraging because you know, back in the day, if you had an issue, you didn't really go and sort of talk it out with the teacher.
But they do that now.
It's I think the way that the schools are going as sort of really supporting children a lot more. And that's the I guess the beauty of having experience these things for yourself that you can then help try and guide them as well and hope that they always feel like that they can communicate their thoughts and feelings.
I do with my kids.
We have we call them private chats, and so one of them, like for example, River might say, hey, Mum, I want to have a private chat, and we go into you know, our bed, and we sit there and it's like a safe space and you know, we can talk about anything. And so I really want want to encourage, and interestingly, rivers more. He'll communicate more verbally with me
than Rosie will. Sometimes I've got to really pull things out of her, which is unusual because usually it's boys that sort of clam up and women kind of want to talk talk talk talk talk, but Rosie sort of like holds back a bit more. So I'm probably more concerned about her, but I'm mindful that she needs to learn how to communicate a bit more, especially in regards to her emotions and how she feels about things, because she'll just kind of brush things off, and I don't
want that to lead to suppression. But with River, he just, yeah, he shares a lot more, which is wonderful, wonderful.
That's so great. Is I love that idea of the private chat.
Private chat, and it's just yeah, safe space, open space, no judgment.
It's yeah, yeah, they love it.
As you said, you have stepped back a little bit and wanted to really slow down following the birth of the two of.
Them, and they are now ten.
As he was saying with River and about I think seven, he was just take seven.
Yeah.
So when we talk about your work, you say, friend of David Jones are the projects. What's the rhythm of your life at the moment day to day. Do you find is starting to let the work and the projects creep up a little bit? Or do you think no, I never really plan to go back above say a certain ratio of you know, home family time, and then yeah, a bit that's in the career column.
May shall we say, yeah, it's a lot to try and balance out.
I hadn't.
I'd always been open to opportunities and step it back into this space. But I only really wanted to make if something's going to pull me away from kids at home, and often this work involves travel, then it has to be work that I'm excited about and that I want to do. And so when David Jones, for example, came up, I knew that it would be there'd be a lot of work and there'd be a bit of travel involved,
but it was very exciting for me to do. But I still want to be there and be present enough with the kids to be involved in their lives, especially while they're so young and while they don't mind me being around, because they'll get to that age and they'll be like, we don't need you and actually.
Can you not come up to the schoolcause it's embarrassing. Yeah, so that'll happen, but it's not happening right now.
And you know, I had great memories of my mum helping out at the canteen and the library, and so I like to try and help out and just be around and be present so they'll have that memory of me being around. So I try and balance everything to enable that to happen. Alongside with Sean, who's quite busy. He's coaching the AFLW the women's football now, which is really exciting, So we try and juggle it and I just sort of take it, you know, I try and
measure it so I can still do everything. Because I'm a huge believer in trying to create balance. Even though it seems like the impossible task, I try and create it as best I can. So I take on that workload so it still enables me to do the other things too.
I was going to ask you a little bit, well, balance but at home and the workload, because this again is a hot topic in many households between partners, for instance, and you talk about Sean there, because it's something that I still find that I have to check myself. I might ask you about that a lot as a working mum, but then it's important that we're asking the same.
Of working dads.
So it sounds like that's something that you and Sean are obviously quite conscious of as well, that you've both got work and career, but you're both also in this you know, parenthood, yes, put together as well.
Yeah, and I think it's I mean, he's so he has really big days and they're sort of physical sometimes, but he's still as involved as hands on and you know, both as a dad but also around the house. And I think now it's really important that gone are the times where the house was the woman's domain and the kids were the woman's domain and the man went out and worked and then that was it. It's like I've always been very much of a we're not in the fifties,
and we both chose to have the kids. We both wear the clothes, we eat, the food we do, so like, let's all sort of muck in together.
So yep, here, Yeah, the Wild Wars, let's put it all in the big bag.
We're just going to chuck everything in.
But there's definitely things that we all play. We've also played to our strengths. So there's things that he definitely, there's his things and my things, and then there's stuff we just sort of get done together. And yeah, especially now, the kids are so busy, they've got so much activity and things on, so's there's a lot of moving parts there, and we have to constantly check schedules and okay, what are you doing today?
What am I doing? Okay? Cool, and then we sort of crosscheck.
And and it's a bit, it's a bit of a grind and a bit it's boring, it's not sexy, and we know that, but it's also you know what, we are also finding that we can sometimes just everything about work and the kids and you know, finding that work life balance. But then we've got to remember we were a couple once we were individuals. Once we need to devote. You need to do your thing, I need to do
my thing. We also need to go out and have dates and we need to it's a lot, it's a lot to think about, but it's super important, you know, as you move through life together to sort of be aware of all those things too.
It's so true.
And you mentioned that the kids have got their activities and that's right. You and Sean, like a lot of parents around Australia will become full time Uber drivers already.
Oh goodness, scary, isn't it a ten and seven?
You're already on call well speaking then of a bit of romance and things being sexy or otherwise. I did just want to ask, you know, get my nosey journo had on here.
Again, no right or wrong answer here.
I don't want to sound like that, you know, aunt at the family Christmas dinner going.
When are you two going to make it official?
Oh?
But you have actually been engaged since twenty seventeen.
I do sound like that judgmental, aren't it? Do you know?
I mean a hypothetical Unfortunately not asked me if I'm going to have Yeah, that was to navigate that one that I know that one stops again I do have to clop my hypocrisy then when I do us. But again, I mean, like I said, this is not a leading question because the answer might be no, like we're just happy being engaged forever.
So but I did want to ask the question.
You wanted to touch on it, and it's fair enough because it has been the longest engagement ever and in fact we were I was pregnant with Rosie, so that gives you an idea because she's she's seven. Oh, I was pregnant with Rosie. When when he proposed, oh well he and River actually proposed.
It was very very cute, it was it was it was a dual effort.
But yeah, look, it was always something I think that we were in no rush to do. I know, traditionally everyone's like, get engaged, plan the wedding, have the kids. I've never been a really big marriage, wedding, e girl, the whole lot seems like a lot of work for me, and just exhausted thinking about it. But it was more important for me to start a family and for Sean too, and so then when we did that, but then there was like a little thing where I was like everyone
else is getting it. Is he actually gonna ask? Like I thought, he hasn't even asked. And I remember be getting a little bit funny about that, which is really silly now to think about. And I think it was more because we had River and we had Rosy incoming, and I just wanted to feel I felt like that they were the Hampson's and I was like miss Gail over here and I kind of wanted to unite more, and then he asked me, and then I was over Jordan.
And then I was like, oh, I can't be bothered playing the wedding. Can't be bothered.
And then it got to a point where it was like, I'm so silly. I don't need that to feel united. I feel it when's Rosie along. It was just completeness.
It was just it was all. It all made sense.
And then and then we thought, well, the kids are here, let's wait till they're old enough to be involved and remember it. And then COVID hit and every time we go to planet as well, we're just like, it's just I don't know when, where, how, who's there? Couldn't It just became too hard And then and then we renovated and then.
Here we are and I'm still just like, I don't know.
The thing is again, there is there no right or wrong?
Is there?
There's only we want it. It sounds as though, put.
It this way, there's no rush.
We've been together for fourteen years, we've got two kids. I think it would be a nice thing to do one day with the kids and whoever else and yeah, watch the space does.
River ever query about it, since.
He was a co proposer.
No, the kids don't. The kids don't either. They don't, Yeah, they really. I think they just see their mum and dad together in a house filled with love and happiness, and that's enough for them. I think, you know, to officiate, it is sort of not really where kids are. You know, their heads are at so they're not really fast, clearly as we are not fast.
I did.
If you don't mind, I would love to go back a little bit though, to your thoughts on those years where you were dealing with questions about are you going
to have children? Because I think it is seeing women like you being asked that, and let's be honest, being asked at by journalists such as myself over the years, it certainly gave me pause to think about it, because I would like to think that we collectively have come to understand that there's a variety of reasons that that question can be inappropriate, really hurtful, whatever your situation, whether you may never want to have children, for instance, and
then there's an implied judgment in or all you have to defend yourself. I mean, yeah, happily child free people that have to say, oh, but I mean, I love them, and I'm a god parent and I've got three nieces and nephews.
Why do people feel that they.
Have to justify their their decisions or that you might be recovering from a miscarriage, or that you are, you know, dealing with infertility issues. But it's also just a very presumptuous question, which is obviously why we put the policy in place.
I think it's a wildly inappropriate question for various reasons. I mean, it's up there with how much money do you make? It's just like full on flows my mind that people just so freely ask it, mainly because I mean when you when you break it down, it is a question that pertains to a woman, a woman's reproductive zone, which is sacred and should never really be discussed casually, like where you're going on Friday?
Are you having kids? And I would get as soon as mid.
Twenties onwards, I would just be asked constantly, and I think for a while there I was just like, oh, yeah, you know, one day, I'm not sure when. But I think particularly as well, once once we had River, I thought it would stop, but it started. You're having the when you're having the next one and where it really hit home for me, where I sort of I never really loved the question, but where I thought, this has
got to stop. Women have got to stop being asked this, not just women like me in the public eye in an interview, all women everywhere, at family functions.
At wherever. It is because I was getting.
Asked about it when I was pregnant with a baby before Rosie and I miscarried, and so to be asked about, you know, when are you going to be pregnant, when are you're having another one, when you're trying, and then when you've just lost it and you're coming to terms with that whole experience, it's just it's very triggering. It's very triggering, and I think it's important we don't get too scared to ask people questions about things. But by the same token, this is.
A really.
Private, personal intimate area that is often just riddled with issues, reproductive issues, miscarriage. People like you say, maybe not really
wanting to, people really wanting to, but they can't. You just don't know what someone's going through, and so I think it's really important to have more sensitivity and be more mindful of what you're asking and what it might sort of set off and trigger off as someone because I've been there, and it's it's and especially when you're in the public eye and you've got cameras on you and or whatever, and you might even be on live TV, and you've got to compose yourself because you don't want
the world to know that you've just miscarried or whatever and just sort of sit there and go, I don't know. And that requires an enormous amount of in a strength, and you know, it's it's it's it's tricky, it's it's tricky.
It's such a tricky area.
But I love, I commend you, and I love that you've got that policy in place.
I think it's an amazing step forward.
You're just so right, Megan.
And when you said you never know what someone's going through when we announced it, that was actually exactly the line that I use, because you are right, it's impossible for most of us to imagine what it must be like with a literal spotlight upon you being asked something like that in front of everybody by people you don't know.
But as you say, it's also really about those conversations happening around for every kitchen tables because these conversations are important because they happen in the culture, and then that's where we take some of our cues, whether we like.
To admit it or not.
If we are seeing people like yourself being quizzed about that, then we think it's okay just to rock up to a total stranger. And I'm sure you and I both acknowledge a lot of those questions are well meaning, but they can.
Be yeah, hurtful.
Absolutely.
I don't think anyone's doing it with any you know, ill intent. I think it's just, yeah, just not having that awareness, and we need to be more aware of especially when asking that question.
I think finally, I just wanted to ask you next year you will turn fifty. I know, just a a's you a little question about your plans for the next decade ahead before we wrap up. I mean nothing you know major in that little question there. But I've already asked you a little bit about I suppose this season of your life is you leaning into a work a little bit and we've talked about the work life balance
for you and Shorn and your two children. But yes, what any big picture or little picture hopes as you go into another decade.
Oh, probably not the best answer. But I don't ever look too far ahead. I really don't. I think I've learnt that. You know, life is going to throw so many things at you. I think you can have a few little things ear marked, but I think, you know, the next ten years. The first thing I think about is my kids, and that's them navigating through teen years ha ha, which I've got to like strap in and
you know, buckle up for that. Although I think they'll both be hopefully both be really good kids throughout that phase. But it's, yeah, I look to more what it's going to look like for them and how I can best support that, And yeah, it's I think when I look towards sort of moving through life as well, that getting older doesn't really concern me or worry me as much. But what I do probably ruminate over a bit.
Is the loss of time is one of our most important commodities.
I think time and health, and there's that sense as you move through life that there's less time. It's not like an assumption, I mate, there is less time you're going to have on the planet.
Your health will decline, some of us more than others.
So for me, I just start to you get to a point, and I think getting to this point is more Okay, how can I best spend my time and my days and how can I best look after myself to prepare myself as I move through life so I'm as robust and have as much vitality and energy as possible, which you would never have thought about ten years or thirty. You're just like ticking along, But when you get to this point, you do start to think about, Okay, I need to I need to plan. I need to plan
this out of it. So that kind of stuff I look ahead for, rather than oh, what are my work career goals or what do I have as a personal goal.
It's more just.
Let's make the most of our time that we have, and yeah, look after ourselves better.
That's a great answer.
What are you talking about?
I don't know, No, but you're so right, because as you're saying that, it's almost like we all understand when something focuses the mind. You know you've got six hours to do something and you're thinking about it, and then you realize, oh, half an hour, I better really like start thinking about what's important.
That's really what you're talking about.
Yeah, and I.
Think it puts it into perspective. And as you said, a huge part of it is children. Anyone listening that has children's probably doing their own maths in their own mind. And for you, that would mean that River will be twenty and Rosie will be seventeen. You know.
That's yeah.
Crazy is that we could have an afl W player on our hands.
Maybe. Oh, if anyone's going to play afl it's Rosie. Yeah, yeah, that's.
Great, that's great.
You know, it could be a house with a supermodel afl W player. People could be running companies, you don't know, running countries.
Who knows. Anything's possible.
Megan, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you now.
As mentioned in this episode, this year saw Meghan Gaale return as a friend of David Jones, and you can find out more about that from the link in our show notes.
Thank you for your company.
If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you're following us because we'll be back with another exclusive guest on Stellas something to talk about next week.