Hi, my boris, and this is straight talk.
I could just hear the fire coming closer and closer. My hands and arms they were on fire. I got this huge rush of elation because I was still standing, still alive. Helicopter came and then I woke up a month later in a hospital in Sydney.
Dory, Welcome to straight talk.
Thank you, Mark, Thank you for having me.
Just talking today, Tory, Like, what I'm getting from you is discipline, structure, self belief.
A good support group is that what you want to leave people with.
A Relationships are the most important thing. So maybe being a bit vulnerable and not being afraid to tell people how much they mean to you, because I know I was never good at that before this accident, and I've gotten so much better at letting people know how much they mean to me. I always struggled to explain how I did it, and I think it was every day I just got up and I just kept going.
Dory bit, Welcome to straight talk.
Thank you, Mark, Thank you for having me.
Where am I? Where are you? Where are we talking to each other? From one riverside at.
The moment, I'm in Aladullah, South Coast. I was going to say, God's caun't you? But then I thought, no, that's going to make me look like a bit of a bogain, So I won't say that, but.
I said it. So I said it, so I looked like one exactly. Well. But by the way, happy birthday, I think for tomorrow. Yeah, that's right.
Birthday, Yes, thirty seven.
Happy birthday?
Thank you? How old? How old are you?
Oh?
My god, don't ask me how old?
I have?
Sixty eight, sixty eight, sixty nine? Next birthday?
Yeah, you've lived a lot of life, and I know you've got lots of lessons of people totally, including melding.
I guess I'm nearly double your age. I'm nearly double your age. How's the world treating you for at thirty seven?
Hey you? Hey, you going?
You know what, It's been pretty good. It's been really good so living. My husband's a helicopter pilot. We've got these two beautiful little boys doing a bit of work. Like I know you do a bit of speaking, Mark, so do I my running program writing. So all of that keeps me really busy, as well as my kids. I think, to summon up, life's pretty good.
So you've just come back from Indo.
Yeah, I went to Indo and you commented on my surfing post, which I.
Was really yeah, I did so, so I just look at my notes.
I didn't realize this, but you're born in Tahiti before.
Yeah, so my mom's tai Haitian, my dad's Australian. I was born in Tahiti and then I think I was I've got another brother, Genji, So I was around six months. They decided to move back to Australia, and I think they made that decision just for I think a better life for us kids. They thought they would have in Australia, Like you know, it's a bigger country, there's more opportunities. So yeah, we moved here when I was really little. But I've still got family all over there. And my
mom has actually moved back to Tahiti. Now. She doesn't actually live in Tahiti. She lives on a different adult called Renguiaa. I went and visited her last year with the boys. She lives in a really remote spot. She's got no electricity, no water, living in a little hut, kind of like I suppose what people did back in the day, and she's so happy. I think it's the happiest I've ever seen her, which I think was a really good lesson for me because after a week there,
I was so Boardmark. I was like, I want to go, Hime and get me out of Here's there's nothing to do.
But I think it was a really good lesson because I think, particularly now in modern world, we're so busy, we're always going, we always want to keep achieving and doing and being productive, and it was a really good insight into you know, whether that stuff, whether all that achieving and all that producing, actually makes us fulfilled and happy, or if whether we get that sense of happiness and purpose by connecting to our land, connecting to our culture,
connecting to our family, looking after others, that type of thing that's interesting.
You should say that.
So maybe you could explain to me, because I'm not that familiar with Tahiti or Tahitian culture, or for that matter, Tahitians as such. I mean, it's, to be honest, a bit of a mystery to me. So Taititian people are I guess are Polynesian. Is that top Polynesian in terms of genetics.
So they're Polynesian, So they're part of the Polynesian Triangle, which is from Hawaii to which is New Zealand, and then Rapuanui, which is Easter Island. So Polynesian people colonize the whole Pacific Ocean. Thousands and thousands of years ago Europeans, you know, discovered Polynesia, and so Tahiti was colonized by the French. So everyone speaks French over there, but they also still speak their traditional language, which is Tahitian. But where my mom lives, it's I don't even know how
to say it right, it's poor motu. Don't know if I've said that right. So it's a slight variant to Tahitian.
So your mom sounds like she's like full full on as a Tahitian. Is she Is she like full blooded Tahitian, No person by genetically.
No, she's not full blooded genetically. And I think as well Mark, you know, with colonization, I'm not sure if many people would say that they're full blooded. And I think for a lot of people that question can come across as being a bit a little bit denigrating. Maybe, So she's not full blooded. Her mom is Tahitian. Well, her mom is from Ranguia and her dad is French. So her dad was a soldier who went to Tahiti, I think in the around in the seventies. But my
mom grew up she never knew her dad. She never knew him.
Because I'm trying to work out, I'm trying to see, look at the influences on yourself. Obviously, her parents are and always big influences on all of us, particularly mums. I'm talking about it in my case at least, because I can only talk about her survey one. That's me
and my I guess my owin kids. But if your mom's influences are her mother and culturally Tahitian, especially given what she's going to done now gone there to live there, and it sounds like like it's living off grid, how much of that is actually influenced you.
I think a lot of it mark and growing up, you know, I would say that she was always so proud to be Tahitian. Her mom was a single mom, she raised four kids. She fought the French government for decades to get her traditional land back. So again in Australia may be a little bit like you know, land rights for our First Nations people. So my grandmother is incredibly strong and determined. My mom just as much. You know, she moved toward different countries, she didn't speak English. She
ended up having four kids here. She wrote a best selling trilogy about life in Tahiti. She learned Tahitian as an adult because when my mom was growing up in Tahiti, no one spoke Tahitian. It was frowned upon, so everyone spoke French. And so as an older person, she's learned Tahiti and started reconnecting to her culture that way. So I think definitely there's a lot of influence on me. And even if you look at my kids' names, you know,
hkaa Rahiti, both of those are Polynesian names. So it's something that I'm very, very proud of to be Polynesian. I don't speak Tahitian. I sound, you know, pretty Australian, my accents pretty strong, so I'm told. But I still think you can be connected to your culture even though you might not. You know, I never even lived in Tahiti. I moved here when I was six months old, but I still feel pretty connected to it.
And then when you're this is about you, by the way, but I'm actually can tree about your mom. Now, your mum moved back to.
Tahitian, back to this remote, more and more remote place, and made a decision to sort of live this more natural life is probably better way, probably good way for me to describe it. What was her objective? I'm trying to achieve.
Yeah, you know, and that's what all of us kids were doing, because no shit, when she first moved there, she was living in a tent like she wasn't it wasn't bougie, nothing about it was easier or nice. My mom is what like, maybe's close to sixty. Her mom
is maybe eighty. So my grandma won her traditional land back, and my mom and my grandma went to the land set up tents and we're like, cool, we're here, this is our land, and we're going to turn it into something, you know, a little bit nicer or a little bit easier. So I think that might have been my mom's objective. I think she obviously wanted to reconnect to her culture. She really liked Australia. She always says it's given all of us kids such a great life, and that's that
is true. But I think probably a part of her was always homesick when she was in Australia. So yeah, Mark, my mom is the most fascinating woman you would ever meet. She's so bad us and she's someone that decides she's going to do something and then she just goes and fucking does it. And I've always really admired that about my mom. And if you think about you know, when
I was growing up, I had three brothers. My mom worked full time and every night she would write, she would work on these books that she was writing, and I just think the amount of self belief she had was amazing. I don't know if I've got that same amount of self belief.
In no way, I want to ask more about your mom, because I actually think these things inform us, because these things inform us about ourselves. And I've been a big student of my own family, my own parents, and because everything I do, I have to be honest, like pretty much most things that I initiate in my life have somewhere, somehow found their way into my life as a result of something my.
Parents have done. Which is I.
Feel like sometimes I've never had an original idea, and I think maybe that probably applies to most people who have had a nice, good relationship with their family. Probably people had bad relationships to the family to some extent of formed ideas as a result of the bad relationship too. So if your mum right now she's living sort of on the land that her grandmother, sorry, your grandmother, her mother won back.
How long a does your grandmother?
How long did it take your grandmother to get this land back to her into her family.
It took decades, Mark, it took decades and decades and decades, which is crazy. And I think the thing is, it's wine buggling to me that you have to, you know, you've got to prove that something that always belonged to you and your family was actually yours. So it was decades going through the French court system. Everyone in the family helped out with lawyers, fees. My grandma now says that that's what gave gave her breast cancer. Just this the stress, the stress, and that I guess the length
of that fight. And so like, my grandma's happy, you know, she did it, she got a land back. She feels like she's done something really special for her kids, but also for you know, for for everyone in the family. And I really think, I really think she has and I think for for one person. It's kind of like that David and Goliath battle, right, you know, to go to go up against the court system, which I presume
would be pretty intimidating. But she, yeah, she did. It took her decade though, it took her a really long time.
So are we're talking about like something that's worth a shitload of money or is it not about the money, It's about the thing that defines somebody, you know, like if this is my land sort of thing you should never have taken on the back, or.
Is it sort of something really really valuable?
You know what I think, if I'm to be honest, I feel like if there was some economic benefit to the French for having that land, So for example, if there was you know, minerals underneath the land or all of that type of stuff that we see play out in Australia, I don't think it would have been as as easy for my grandma to to win her land back. But it wasn't you know, it wasn't agricultural land. There's nothing there, just like a few you know, a few palm trees and a few coconut trees and it's it's
a limestone at all, Like nothing grows there. So it's pretty you know Barron in terms of it being not really producing anything. But I think for my grandmother it wasn't really about you know, winning this land back because it was going to be at a certain value that they could then sell and then split between the family. It was she wanted it back because she felt that's how she feels connected to her culture.
And so it's a matter of principle too.
So yeah, so how how does that if I was looking at by the ways, is your first name your maid not your maid name, your Christian name or whatever your first name is, I should say, is that a Polynesian word?
Yeah? It is so Turia and it means goddess of the ocean. Oh wow, but most Assies can't pronounce it, so I just say Terria. That's fine, just to Rea. But yeah, well done.
That's lovely, thank you, thank you very much.
And so therefore principles, because I always say, is about my own kids, and I guess this applies to me too. Is growing up whatever I was told is not something that I really necessarily adopted or did. But generally speaking, what we see is what we end up doing. So what we see in our parents or our grandparents in
your case, your parents and grandparents. And what I saw in my parents and grandparents for that matter, and what my kids have seen in their father, I think largely can represent how we.
Live our lives.
So you saw your your grandmother and to a largely sent to your mother too, never giving up on a principle.
How much of that is parleyed back into your life?
I think I think all of it.
Mark.
You know, you think about the journey that I've been on, and I always hate using that word journey because it feels so woo wo, But you know, the past, you know, the past decade I was so, particularly in those early years were really really fucking hard, and I I always struggled to explain how I did it, and I think it was every day I just got up and I just kept going. And I think that's what my grandmother did.
And if I think about my mom, you know, having full four kids, running a household, putting food on the table every night, I had a dad as well, So I don't want to make out that my mom was sinking. Mom. I had a dad. But this was back in the nineties where you know, topics like the mental lid probably weren't discussed as as regularly. They weren't really part of our conversation. So Dad worked, Mum worked, but their mum also did cooking, the cleaning, the running of the house.
So my mom did all of that, and then at night, when all of us kids were asleep, she would find this time to write on these books were inside of her. So again I saw my mom every day just doing those little steps, making those hard choices, not taking the easy way out, having this really high expectation of herself. And so I think all of those lessons and all of those things I saw growing up formed the person that I am today.
So when you were if I go back to when you were a teenager, when did you sit in the sibling tree, like in terms of I've got Genji the youngest, youngest, oldest, Genji's.
Eldest, then me, then Haimnu and then t Ricky, So.
You're sort of the second eldest.
Second eldest. Yeah, only girl.
So when you were growing up in your teenager period, you were living so you're living down the South coast.
Then living in Alida.
Yeah, oh the whole time.
Okay, So just what we like as a student, like we're into it, or didn't give a shit about school or more interest in what was your deal?
Mark? I was a complete nerd. I loved school. I loved the challenge. I loved applying myself. And I feel like, I, you know, and this is such a this is such a small memory. But you know when you're going for those careers sessions and you tell your careers advice or what subjects are you going to pick in your HSC? And so I said, you know, I'm thinking about doing physics and chemistry and maths. And he looked at me and he said, I just don't think you're smart enough.
And I felt really demoralized in that moment. I went home and I told I told my mom, and I told my dad and I told my brothers, and I said, oh no, no, the teachers don't think I'm smart enough. And I remember my dad being completely outraged and he was like, no, fuck him. He's he doesn't know who you are. Like if you if you want it, if you want to do those subjects, you can do them, but you've you're gonna have to work really really hard. And so I ended up coming first in physics and
chemistry and maths. And maths extension. I won the math medal.
Wow, And it.
Was a real Yeah, it's a strong, it's a it's a formative memory for me because it was it was I guess, it was proof that no one else knows what you're capable of. You know, no one else has your has your wind, has your abilities, has your beliefs, and and and no one can tell you what what is possible or what is not possible. And in that, in that moment, I realized, well, even though people around me told me that I wouldn't be able to do those subjects, I fucking did them and I did really
well in them. So that that you know that that was a little bit of proof for me in myself.
That's this sort of theme of self belief seems to sort of be strong in and again, I don't want to diminish the effect of your father, but it seems to be a strong theme between the women in your family grandmother, mother, and yourself like self belief to the extent that you need to get a little bit of a pick up every now and then, a little bit of a lift.
From your dad.
Like as you said, he reacted strongly to the assertion of the vocational guidance person where we call them careers people telling you that you weren't good enough. But at the end of the day, it had to be your self belief. It had to be Toria's self belief in a self And I guess it probably gets influenced these things that at least get influenced by what you saw
prior to that, everything you saw prior to that. And I presume we're talking about you about seventeen or eighteen at this time, but no, you know, when you had to go into your HC.
Do you talk about the HRC now, aren't you?
Yeah? I don't know what they call it these days, whatever.
Called yeah your final year? Yeah, yeah, your final year though.
And the that self belief thing is something that I think forms in us when we're like from a young age like you, right from you know, ten to twelve right through and it's obviously stuck with you because clearly you know when you had when you went through that tough period that in your life, you still have to have some self belief in yourself. That doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, you got you know, you're responsible for yourself. You've got to get up yourself.
People might help sort of, you know, give you a bit of encouragement stuff like that, but you know it's up to you at the end of the day. It's just like when you did the year twelve or the last two years of school. It's your self belief to do extension masks and do physics and all those other sciences and all those other things that you did and you did well in. But because it's not enough to believe yourself that you've got to do something, You've got to actually drive yourself to do the work.
Yeah. Yeah, you can have all of the self belief in the world that you're going to do extremely well in a math test, but if you don't look at the notes, if you don't do any study, if you don't do anything, and you just loaf around the whole year, I don't know if that self belief is going to
translate into a very good result. So I think you know you need obviously you need self belief, You need that that that desire to do well, right, because if you don't want to do well in what you're doing, or if you you know, whether that's in your work or in your relationship or whatever it is, if you don't want to do well, you won't be able to right. So you need that. I think you need that desire to do well. But I also think you do need
people around you. I think, I really think you need a support system because I could have had all of the self belief in the world, but in hospital, if no one came to visit me, if my mom didn't bring me meals, if my boyfriend at the time, Wiker, wasn't there every day. You know, if you don't have those people in your corner, I think that would be really difficult as well to do well or to exceed expectations.
Because it's interesting, You're right.
Self belief it's an important greeting, it's a necessary ingrediing, but it's not sufficient to succeed at whatever is you're trying to achieve.
And then I even.
If I just look at your year twelve period, it's not enough to be someone who believes in the self and the outcomes that you want to. But you have to have a sort of a structured life. I mean, you have to get up at a certain time. You have to you know, if you're doing extension maths, you have to go to extra classes which probably started at seven in the morning or seven thirty in the morning.
Some people may have tutors, but at least the schools most of them put in an extra class for those extension maths kids and etc. And you have to be the sort of kid who can get up and get dressed and have breakfast and go to do the thing, and you have to do the homework around it.
So where did this structured bit come from?
That let's call it discipline structure in your life, because you know, it's all very well to be motivated, but at the end of the day, it's discipline.
That succeeds, you know.
And you.
We'll just talk a little bit later. I'd like to park the.
Support system that we all need to have to I think, because unfortunately some people do not ever get a support system.
But I want to talk about that in a minute. I'll park that for a moment.
But this structured process, this process of being able to structure yourself and discipline yourself to actually execute on that structure, where that come from?
I don't know, Mark, I don't actually know. I'm a very logical person, you know, I eventually became an engineer, So I think I just I just I just really liked it. I liked having a structure. I liked having I liked being able to show up. I liked being at my class, you know, prepared, being able to put my best foot forward. I liked having the right pencils.
You know, some kids would walk in and they'd have a you know, kaok, they'd have a purple pencil or are I like to have the right pencil for the class that I was in, Because I think if you or all of those little things right, it's just like they're so easy. It's easy to do. Like it's easy to have the right materials for the class. Like, that's not hard. You don't need anything special to be able to do that. You don't need to be smart. You just need to make sure you have the right pencils
for the class, have your notes that are for that class. Again, that's easy to do. You pack them in your bag. And I keep saying it it's easy to do, and maybe it was just easy for me to do. And
I also want to say, you know, I didn't. I was liking that how my brain works, the structure that schools are and my brain work really well together, or at least they did when I went through school, and I know, if you're neurodivergent or you know, even if you're a kid, if you're a kid and you don't have a safe place to sleep at night, and you're waking up in the morning and there's no food for breakfast, it's it's going to be really hard for you to
have all your stuff squared away, isn't it for the maths class that you're doing later that day? Like that's that's not even on your priorities list. So I think just want to call out that I was. I was able to put my best foot forward because I had all of that stuff. I had a safe space to sleep, I had a you know, a relatively straightforward relationship with
my family. There was food on the table, We had electricity, like, we had all of those basic things which made it easier for me to be able to go, yep, I'm going to have the right pencils for this class.
It's very interesting.
So you mentioned earlier on right at the very beginning, you said you were a new I'm always curious when someone says that, because I was a bit of a nerd at school too. But being a nerd doesn't mean I didn't get up to mischief because I did. But at the same time, when it comes to my school work, I was nerdy, and what I mean by nerdy and I'd like to know what you mean by nerdy?
It just doesn't matter what I mean by nerdy. I don't you know what you mean by nerdy?
Do you mean that you were actually very curious about the topics that you were studying and actually loved it, loved maths, loved physics, or you were nerdy in the extent that you just did anything you had to do, no curiosity.
And I genuinely loved it. I genuinely loved it. So again, I think that's part of that, that desire to learn about the subject, Right, I was invested in it. I wanted to learn about it. I was curious about it. I probably drive some of my teachers up the wall with my incessant questioning about things. So I genuinely loved it, even like I found an afternoon doing calculus, I found it relaxing. I found it so I found it a great a great way to spend my time. So that
I think that obviously helps. Right, if you're if you're liking what you're doing, or you're interested in it, or you're curious about it, it's going to be easier to develop that discipline to do it right. Whereas if it's something that you're knowledgested about, couldn't give a shit about, I don't want to know about. To strap yourself to your desk for a couple of hours and learn about it. I think that's going to be really really hard for you to do.
You're a bright person of me, and so I don't want to look like I'm getting too deep into the weeds here. But if I might just put this to you, because you're making me think about my own school journey as well.
Was it the chemical do you think it was in hindsight? Do you think it was the.
Reward of or was the brain rewarding with a release
of chemicals for you getting things right? That actually was a thing that makes you become really let's call it like addicted in a good way, addicted to hard work and curiosity, because for me it was always like I used to get an adrenaline rush or a rush when I calculated something correctly, and particularly if it was difficult, and particularly if other kids my peers might have been having some difficulty with it, just getting the outcome correct
or doing well in an exam, et cetera. I used to get a bit of a bit of a hit, a bit of a rush from that, and then over time I didn't realize it any time, but yeah, it was good. Yeah, I am dopamin and serotonin hits, Like it's just hormonal releases that your brain is giving you as a reward for achieving an outcome. So achievement was a driver for me, and I didn't positively think about that. So was that something for you?
Was that or was.
It is just your academic nerdness? If there's such a word that was driving you?
What was really driving you? Deep down? What do you think it really was?
What was driving me? I wanted to I wanted to prove to people that I was, that I was smart. I wanted I obviously my brain obviously liked those little hits of dopamine and serotonin. So I liked that. You know, when you work out a difficult maths problem, that that that smug sense of satisfaction you get, like that's pretty
fucking good. Not there's not many things that that. Well, Probably much I've done, really big, you've done lots of big deals, so you're probably thinking, yeah, there's heaps of stuff that beats out, but you know that that is an amazing feeling when you work out something that's really difficult, and probably that you know that that academic nerdness, as you so eloquently put it before. I think maybe all of the above.
How about because one of the big drivers for me too was I used to like to please my parents. I used to like coming home with, you know, a good report card. That was a big deal for me.
I don't know why.
I wasn't a goodie two shoes by no stretch of imagination, especially when I went to school. Yeah, I mean, was that sense of people big?
Probably Mark, And I think maybe it was a bit, a little bit to my detriment because my brother was a really, really good surfer growing up, so he had lots of my parents' time and attention, which I didn't articulate at the time, but resented him because you know, all of our spare money would go into his his his surfing career. And I realized that through achievements in academia, I also got some time and attention from my parents.
And when I say my parents I'm mainly meeting my dad, but also my dad had really high expectations of me. So I remember once I got, you know, ninety seven percent on a math's extension exam, and my dad, instead of being happy, he said, well, he said, well, why wasn't it. Why wasn't it a hundred? You know? And I think the next time I did get one hundred percent. So it's kind of hard for me to talk about.
And you know, I'm not trying not to denigrate my dad, because of course I love him, but it was, you know, he had really high expectations for me. I don't know if that was just what, you know, the style of parenting that he learned from his parents as well.
But do you think that to some extent was maybe a good thing in any event, because it gave you a high barble chief, I mean, may perhaps if it wasn't there, you might not have actually pushed that hard.
Yeah, And that's what I don't That's what I get confused about myself. But I don't know if it made If I reflect on that last year of school, all of that achievement, all of that hustling, all of that grinding, all of those late nights. I can't say I was very happy. You know, it wasn't a fulfilling year for me. But I also think when you're working really hard on a goal, you're not going to be happy all of the time, right, You're going to be stressed, annoyed, tired, cranky,
pissed off because stuff's not going your way sometimes. So I don't I don't. I don't know if happiness is the end goal. And I don't know if you can, at least for me, I don't know if you can be you know, happy with what you've got, grateful for your life, in that sort of reflective mode, and simultaneously really working hard towards something. I don't know that.
It's very insightful. That's very insightful.
Like it's funny, you should say, because and i'd like to know what you think about this. But I have a concept in my life which you know, take me sixty eight years to develop it, but it's called It's not happiness as such. It's about peacefulness is probably the most important thing. But on that happy, on that, on on the h level, it's about happy enough. And I think that you need to just need to be in
like to know what you think about it. So, I just like to be happy enough in the in the pursuit of what I'm doing at any one particular time, knowing well that quite well that there's going to during that pursuit there's going to be periods where I'm not going to be feeling great. I mean, you know, then the world of an entrepreneur, the world of a startup, et cetera. That's that's your world. It's it's a shitty world. But you have moments of highs, and you have lots more,
many more moments of lows. But if you can manage to have an attitude of I'm happy enough, then you can get through it. Now, what do you think about that as a concept, Because you've obviously been challenged a lot in your life.
So is happy enough probably where you need to be?
Yeah? I think so. And I think there's so much focus on being happy all of the time. And I think that's part of our you know, I think our culture these days, it's it's a bit of a culture of this fake positivity, right this, you know, like everything's all rainbows and butterflies or you're almost it's almost like you're not allowed to articulate that you're stressed, are you sad,
or you're going through something tough, are feeling anxious? And I think most of us we want to feel all those good positive emotions, right like being happy, excited, enthusiastic. But I don't think that's reflective of normal life. And I think just as we feel, you know, happy and excited and energetic and motivated, it's going to swing the other way at some points and we're going to wake up irritated, stressed, annoyed at our partner, you know, cranky.
You know, if in your case market you're working with startups and things like that, there's going to be shit that happens which really really annoys you, really gets to you. So I do really like your how you look at it as being happy enough.
I guess post your year twelve, the next the next stage of life is as a university student, you did engineering?
Which which engineering you do? Which? Which facet of engineering did you do?
Did mining engineering?
Why? Mining engineering? Why did you choose that?
Why did I choose mining? I looked up some mining blasts on the internet on YouTube, and I thought, wow, that looks really that looks really cool. That looks that looks that looks awesome.
As in like you just went on YouTube and you looked up.
Like so when they're like when they're mining coal, for example, they'll blast that top layer they call it the overburden. They blast that so they can remove it away with with diggers and trucks and what's left behind is like the scene of coals.
To do mining engineering, I just thought it was cool.
I was also like, it's been a little bit flexible right those first couple of years. I thought I could do mining, but if it doesn't work out, I could do something else.
So you graduated as a mining engineer.
Yeah, so engineering is a very male dominated industry. So I think when I graduated as a mining engineer, there was like five girls in my class and about you know, fifty boys.
And did you manage to get a job in mining?
Yeah? I got a really really great you know, when you finish Uni, there's all of these graduate positions that go out and I got a really one one that was held in high regard because I was, you know, I was still a nerd at university as well. So I got this job in Karanara, in the Kimberly region of Australia at the Agile Diamond Wine, which was I don't know if it still is, but it was operated by Rio Tinto.
Yeah that's where the pink diamonds.
The pink diamonds. Yeah, that's right.
And how long did you work in mining for?
You know, I only got to work in mining for nine months. Then I entered that Ultra marathon, which you know, drastically changed the course of my life.
Can you tell me about the ultramarathon. Why you've decided to enter my ultra marathon? What?
What was the deal?
I think it's just I like, you know, maybe it's evident from my life so far, but I like challenges. You know. I did winning engineering, which was quite maldominated. I loved running. When I was in Kananara, I was away from the surf, so I just, you know, kept
kept running and kept running a little bit more. There was like a local half marathon which I won, and then I did this Ultra Ultra marathon and I emailed them about it, and then they came back with the registration fee and I thought, no, that's a rip off, that's too expensive. You know, I'll look at something later. And they emailed me, you know, I think maybe twelve twelve days before the race, and they said, oh, we've got a couple of free entry spots, would you like one?
So I thought, yeah, cool, that sounds good. No worries. Entered the ultra marathon really excited at the start of the race, you know, feeling excited, feeling nervous, feeling a little bit anxious. And I only got a So this ultra marathon was one hundred kilometers. I got about twenty five kilometers into the race and I just passed another checkpoint.
So when you do an ultra marathon, they have things called checkpoints at you know, maybe ten or fifteen k's through the race for everyone to check in and make sure everyone's going okay. So we'd all passed the second checkpoint, and I say we because there was there was five I think five other people who were with me on that day. We were at the bottom of a gorge
and we could see fire fastly approaching. Now we had two choices marked, so we could go back the way that we'd come, but there was really dry spin effects up to about my shoulder, so you know, perfect fuel for the fire. Our other choice was to run up the side of the gorge, which had less vegetation, so less feel for the fire, but fire goes faster going uphill,
So those were our options in that moment. At that time, we all decided to run up the side of the hill, tried to cover ourselves, you know, in amongst the rocks. I could just hear the fire coming closer and closer and closer. It was, of course extremely hot for me, and I just remember like looking down at my hands and arms and they were aflame, they were on fire. And in that moment I thought about one person. I thought about my boyfriend, my boyfriend at the time, Michael.
I think we'd only been together for like a year and a half at that stage, and I thought about, you know, when you're a young person and you fall in love, you have all of these hopes and dreams with this person that you've fallen in love with. I just remember thinking how how unfair it was that Michael and I wouldn't be able to, you know, lived this life, live this life of adventure that we that we talked about and that we'd planned. Now the fire passed side.
I don't actually know how long it was around for how long I was burning for might have been five seconds, might have been a minute, I don't know, but it moved through us, and I remember I got this huge rush of elation because I was still standing, still alive, and I thought, fuck, I've done it, Like I've survived. This is amazing. Now. He ended up having to wait four hours on that hillside, on that side of the gorge for help, yeah to arrive. I wasn't very lucid
at the time, didn't know what was going on. Helicopter came and picked us up, took us to the local hospital and kind of I I remember saying to the nurses, can someone just please call my boyfriend because he's going to be worried about me? And then I woke up a month later in a hospital in Sydney, and I always get asked, like, you know it was it was the fire? Painful? Was it scary? And like, yes, it
was painful, Yes it was scary. But at the same time, I think your your body's protective mechanisms kick into play. So I had all of this, you know, adrenaline surging, and for me, I had no concept of time on that day, didn't really know what was going on, and so I always say like yes, it was painful, Yes it was scary. But for me, the real work the biggest challenge of my life so far, and I really hope it is it is the biggest challenge of my
life because it was it was really bloody. Big was when I woke up in hospital and I had to go through that process of rehabilitating my life, rehabilitating myself and my body.
That's pretty crazy sort of.
The rehabilitation process, which we'll talk to you about it.
But is it because you're in a coma for that period or is it in duced come or did your body just go and or coma?
So they put you into an induced coma so they you know, they're doing operations on you while you're asleep, doing skin grafts and all types. I was burnt to sixty five percent of my body, so that's a pretty
large surface area. So they put you in an induced coma, I think, so you're not in an excruciating amount of pain, I suppose, and so that they can carry on and do the work that they that they the doctors and the surgeons and all of you know, the medical stuff, do all of the work that they need to do
to be able to save say, of your life. And then I think when everything's looking a little bit, the outcome is looking a little bit better, and that you know, you're alive, and they think they've saved your life, and you're you're good, you're good to go for one of a better phrase. They pull you out of the induced.
Coma, and what was the first thing you remember when you I mean, I don't know how this works, but do you actually just wake up in the hospital somewhere in Sydney or something, and then you look around and is there someone there in front of you?
And what was the first thing you saw?
Yeah? You know what. The first memory I have is of my my boyfriend Michael. You know, he's looking at me in my eyes and he's like, terree, my darling, you're alive. Like so, you know, I could see in his face he was overjoyed that I was still on this planet, you know he was he was so so happy that I was still there. And I was in so much pain. I was in so much like physical physical pain that I was like, no, I'm actually not
happy to be you know. I couldn't talk at the time, but that's what I was thinking, like, I'm not actually happy to be alive. I don't want to be here, and I didn't realize the extent of my injuries at the time. It was just because you know, if you talk to any burns patient, pain and you know, maybe this isn't just reserved for people in the burns unit, but for a burns patient, pain is an essential element of your day to day for you know, if you've got a big burn like me for months.
So it's very hard for me to understand for obvious reasons because I haven't experienced it. But I'm just going what you're saying, but I'm trying to imagine it, which is virtually impossible to do. I think I might can empathize with it, but that's sort.
Of not real.
When you say the pain for the that you were feeling when you first woke up and you're saying to yourself like, I'm not really.
Happy to not that happy to be here.
Is that as a result of you thinking yourself, I'd rather not put up with this pain, therefore not exist anymore.
Is that actually a full process?
I don't know, and I don't know, like, have you ever been so sick, mark or like so physically unwell that that sounds of bit grim, but like you almost wish you were dead, Like if you're like violently ill, has that ever happened to you? Or you know, it doesn't happen to people.
Like Mark thankfully no, thankfully no, Or if it has happened, maybe my brain is eliminated out of my.
Head over the years.
I mean, I've had some terrible accidents in my life, but you know, I don't think I've ever thought that, so therefore I haven't been at that chronic point.
Yeah. So is even just like even even breathing with the ventilator, you know, my ribs expanding and contracting, that was painful, like the process of just breathing. So it was just I was in my whole my whole world was just blinding pain.
How long did you experience this extraordinary painful Yeah?
Yeah, because it was there a point in which it started going I should have feel a bit better.
Yeah, so it does. It does go like that, you do start to feel you know. So that was obviously in the earlier days, and as the months progressed, I started to feel less pain and then they you know, they they wean you off the pain meds. So there's that kind of balance to consider as well. But the you know, because I've got such a big burn, one of the you know, but one of the things I have to do every day is I have to change
ad bandages. Right So, because I had such a big burn sixty five percent of my body, this process of changing my bandages would go like no ship for hours and hours and hours, and I would get so anxious. I'd been such turmoil thinking about this excruciating bandage change that I would have to have the next morning. I would lie awake at night, I'd be I would be, I would be, you know, sweating thinking about this this pain that I was going to have to endure the
next day. And I got really lucky in hospital that you know, I had an amazing medical team and one of the nurses, you know, I came into my room one day she said, look, we've got to watch a Ted talk. I waited to watch this Ted talk by this guy called Dan Ariali. He's a I think he's a psychologist, but he's also a burned survivor. So we watched this Ted talk. I learn a little bit about
his you know, he did some studies on pain. Basically, what I got out of it is that if you start with the most painful area first, and you progress through the dressing to the areas that are less painful, it's going to make your experience, or your perception of that dressing change, of that bandage change feel less painful. So what I decided to do was I volunteered to be the first burns patient to get their bandages changed.
And it was I think that was part of, you know, developing That was a start of me developing that little bit of discipline, you know, doing eating the frog, doing the worst first. So I asked ask the nurses to start, you'd be the first patient to get their dressings changed.
And then I also asked the nurses to start with the most painful areas of my body first as well, because then for me, like like I learned that Ted talk, and probably like I'd learned throughout my life, you know, when the worst is done, it when you've got the hardest stuff of the way, the rest of your day, in comparison, feels a little bit easier or a little bit lighter.
It's interesting you even started structuring your thinking process at that point. You know, you're actually not too dissimilar to what you do in the year twelve. It's about structured thinking,
which is very much an engineer an engineer's process. But you know, like perhaps all that period of study and work and also you developing your own brain allows you to sort of build better understanding of perception, because pains about perception, and you know, it's your brain telling you something that you perceive it perceives, and it sounds like that you were sort of not manipulating but sort of train your own brain around what you wanted it to do.
Yeah, well, if you think about your perception of pain and anticipating the pain, that makes it so much worse. Right, so far, was lying bed the night before the bandage change was going to be done, and I was already stressed about it. And then in the morning, when I could hear the nurses in the hallway pull it, you know, pushing their little trolleys, that would make me even more
anxious about it. And then when I would hear, you know, a burns patient next door screaming about their bandage change, I would, you know, my heart would my heart would already be racing. And there was no one in the room. There was no nurses in the room, no one was trying to change my bandages, but I was already in this state of being worked up and anxious and stressed and worrying about all of this pain that I was
about to endure. So I don't know if at the time I could have said, you know, I'm doing this because I want to be more discipplined and I want to have some structure to my day. I just watched that Ted talk. I chatted about it with the nurse, and you know, we decided, or maybe she even suggested to me that going first might be a really good way for me to manage my pain. But it was really a really good lesson for me at that time
because it reminded me that I still had agency. See, when you're a patient in a hospital in you're a patient in a hospital for months, and every day you've got people coming into your room, you know they want to they want to poke you and prod you, and totally get that they're that they're just doing their job, and they do a really bloody good job as well. But you I think I became a little bit passive in that I didn't and then I didn't realize or I didn't I didn't recognize that it was still in
my body. I still had agency, I still had control over it. So I think it was a good lesson and reminded me of that. But it also reminded me that how I thought about things, or how I how I executed things had a big impact onto how I to how I felt about them, if that makes sense, said, I think that was the start of me realize.
It's very interesting.
It's funny because today, I mean, we hear it on social media light about people getting triggered by something or other, and off the back of that, I mean, especially younger people talking about it, and off the back of that, we have you know, a lot of people will say how they experience some anxiety off the back of the trigger. In your case, it might have been hearing the trolley coming along, or without actually them actually removing the bandages,
you actually experience anxiety. To me, you're actually someone who probably a black belt in anxiety in terms of experience, in terms of you know, like a tenth damn black belt in terms of experiencing anxiety.
What would you say?
You obviously talk about these things on your talks. I mean, you do a lot of talk and a lot of circuits around, around your experience, et cetera. What would you say to people today, particularly younger people, who are troubled by things that they hear or their sensory perception of what's going on around them that might be actually trigger triggering or creating a lot of anxiety in them about something that could be about to happen. What do you
say to these people? I mean, and obviously that's part of your job these days, but what do you say to them?
I don't actually speak to that many young people these days, not because I don't want it, but just because life with the kids and the family is a bit busy. I do wonder if we're if we are maybe coddling
younger people. And so, for example, if you go on social media, if you jump on Instagram and you find yourself triggered by what you see, For sure, that might be because of the algorithm, but I think also you do have some agency, right You could remove Instagram from your phone, you could follow different people, you could you know, you could leave your phone at home, so you can take all of those actions to to make that that you know, that triggering or that anxiety that you feel
about what you're seeing a little less. That's not to say that everyone who says that they feel triggered by saying something on social media is just, you know, it's all in their head, because you know, we don't know what's what's gone on in someone else's life, how they've been brought up, what their family life is like. We don't know any of that. But I do think that
there's a little bit of a balance. I think we there may be a bit of danger that where that we might be cuddling people as opposed to encouraging them to take some responsibility.
That's a very good point, and especially coming from someone like you, as opposed to say, someone like myself, et cetera. Coming from someone like you who's actually really experienced deep, deep trauma, physical trauma and probably the mental trauma as well that went with it.
You know, that's a to me. I find that to be a deeply.
Not any insightful, but deeply interesting to me, deeply interesting commentary from you.
Could you do you think.
In an advisory way that for any of us, probably not so much more.
It could happen to me. It doesn't matter how old I.
Am, but for any of us should make sure that we do not undervalue the importance of.
Support structures around us. And I said I was going to park that earlier.
On I'm now unparking or driving this into the driveway. Do you think that making sure that we build good support around us family friends, in your case, your family friends, but also your boyfriend to become your husband? How important is that as a a prospective process that we should get undertake, whether or not we whether or not we end up experiencing the source of trauma that you experienced.
Anyway, but how important is that? And how important was it for you?
Because obviously you pre you pre did all this, Touria, you did this earlier without knowing that what was going to happen to you.
How important was it?
But I think I think the most it is the most important thing. Relationships that are the most important thing. And I think that's your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with your family, your relationship with your friends, your relationship if you know, if you're lucky enough to have a mentor whatever it is. I think it is the
most important thing. And it's not you know, it's not surrounding yourself with people who blow smoke up your ass and tell you how amazing you are and how good you are. And cheerleaders, yeah, and I like cheerleaders are great as well, because sometimes you feel fragile. You just want someone to say you're doing a good job. Right, you do need cheerleaders. But if I think about, you know, the constructive feedback, I've got. The person who will always
give it to me straight is my husband, Michael. He'll always tell me if something is shit, if something's not good, if I haven't done a good enough job. My dad will tell me as well. I remember the first the first time I did a motivational speech, my dad came with me and afterwards, I said, oh, Dad, how do you think I went? And he said, Terria, that was shitouse. You should be embarrassed. You should be embarrassed that you are charging people money for that, because he said that
was terrible. And he said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to tell you. I'm sorry to be so blunt. But he said basically like, if it's something that you want to pursue, you're gonna have to get better at it. You're gonna have to go see other people how they do it. You're gonna have to get some training because that performance was like terrible, absolutely terrible, absolutely shit out. But I think I think you need and I think that's the
other thing too. We've you know, and maybe even myself, you become your ego become so fragile that you don't like it if someone says, well, that wasn't good or that wasn't a good enough job, or you need to do better, or have you thought about doing it this way? And I know, you know, if Michael, my husband, says stuff that like that to me, it really hurts my ego because I'll be like, well, no, everyone everyone else
likes it, so why don't you? Why don't you? But I think as well, sometimes you need that that close relationship with someone, that trust with someone for them to be able to tell it straight to you. And you're not always going to like what they have to say. But I think it's no, I'm not good at this either, but I think it's really good to try and be open winded, try and take what they've told you on board.
So cheerleaders are great, but I think you also need people who are gonna who are going to be able to give you that be able to tell you the stuff that you don't want to.
Hear, well, that's a I mean I often get criticized. I have been often criticized in my life.
For being a bit direct, especially I'm probably more direct to those people and close to.
Is there a way that someone like me, who probably a bit like your dad's I just say it as it is?
I mean, I don't really have many filters in my system. Is there a better way to do it? Or is it just just say it as it is? And I know you might I might crush someone's ego similar to what your dad did with you on your first motivational talk.
Is that okay?
Or is it maybe you know Dad and I we need to change the way. Is there a midway point where we maybe need to change our way of talking to people?
Are you?
Because you know, at the same time, we don't want to crush you. You know, I wouldn't want to crush my kids or my partner or whatever. I don't want to crush people. Is advisory advise me?
I think? I think And this might not be right either, Mark, but maybe giving them some a bit of direction. So if you just say that was shit, you're awful, get out, that's probably going to crush someone. But if you say I didn't like that because of X, Y and Z, here's where I or you know, you could say what, you know, what do you think you could have done to do it a little bit better? You could put it on them to ask, because I think as well,
sometimes sometimes we might lie to ourselves. We might like to think something's good, but I think deep down, you know, you do always know if you haven't done a good job or if it's not up to scratch as well. But you know, just giving people some directions mark of what they could try differently or where they could go to. Like my dad did after my speech, right, he said, go see some other speakers in action, go and get
some training. You know you've got it. This has got to be a lot more polished.
And I guess to some extent too in your case, especially substance over form would be really important because you're know, you don't really want to play the pity card, so to speak. You know, people clap because you know, we
feel sorry for career, like you'd rather. You're an intelligent person and a trained person, and not only that, persons, you've actually you have experienced the trauma, so you actually went through the trauma yourself, So you would rather be applauded for your substance and content over and above the form. And that's a pretty important thing. That would be an important message to give to somebody.
I think, I think so. But I think I think if I was, you know, if I was just relying on pity, that that probably would have all dried up years and years and years ago. Yes, right, because there's only short term pity someone for a short term. But I think you've got to be able to go beyond that. So I think, yes, substance is good. I can't remember the other word you used, Mark, You said substances.
Content, content and substance over form. You know, it's not it's not about you know, you know what I feel.
What it's about?
What do you leave me with? What do I get out of what you just told me, the story you told me? What am I getting from it? Like I'm like just talking today to get what I'm getting from you? Is you know, discipline, structure, beliefs of belief good. You know, I'm getting a lot important stuff like a good a good support group, but probably beyond that, having people who
talk to me straight. And I think that that's probably all of those things are quite motivational in that they sort of give me a direction.
I mean, and I'm not me.
I'm talking about me the listener, and I'm one of your listeners right now, but me the listener to you. I mean, you know, I go, I can't sit around feeling sorry for myself. I'm going to do something about it. And that's what I'm getting from the conversation. And that's what i mean by content and substance. Is that what you is that what you want to leave people with.
I hope. So I hope if after you know, listening to this chat, Mark, people feel, you know, they feel like maybe they can take on that extra project, or maybe they can go back to UNI and do extra study.
I think that's great. I also think if someone listens to this conversation and thinks, you know what, there's some one in my life that I really love and I haven't told them enough, and they pick up their phone and they call that person and they let them know because I think, you know, I said it a little bit earlier, but it's our it's our relationships, our relationships with each other, with our spouse, with our friends, with
our family. I really think that's that is that is the most important thing in our life, because if you if you take away all of those personal relationships that you've got with people, or that you know, that that that network of people that you've got, if you take all of that away, you're not really left with a
whole bunch, are you. So I think, you know, maybe being a bit vulnerable and not being afraid to tell people how much they mean to you or how much they love them, because I know, for me, I was never good at that before this accident, and I've gotten you know, I've gotten so much, so much better at letting people know how much they mean to me.
It's funny like if I sometimes I'd like to sort of this sounds like I'm putting things into categories, but if I was to the words come to my mind when I'm doing interviews like this one, or just generally words. The very first word that came into my mind when we're first talking about your early years was curiosity and structure. But curiosity was a big thing in terms of you know,
the nerd, the nerd part of all the discussion. But what I'm getting out of it now in terms of one word is gratefulness versus bitterness, and gratefulness seems like to be an overarching thing that's coming out of the discussion, even though you haven't used that word yet, But I'm getting a sense of gratefulness from you.
You know what, Mark, if I had had these injuries in a developing country, I'd be dead, no question about it. And I think I've got all of these, you know, all of these great things in my corner. I've got this amazing spunking man. I've got these two beautiful children. I get to do work every day that I enjoy doing, that I find meaningful, that gives my life structure and purpose. I can go surfing when I want, you know, I
can spend time with my friends and family. I am genuinely grateful for this life that I live, and I think you know I feel I even I feel really grateful to the Australian public right because you know, that's why you've asked me to be on this interview today, Mark, Because people know about me, people know about my story. People in Australia have supported me and my journey from even though all of those years ago doing my first
sixty minute segment. You know, I've had nothing but love and support from the Australian people, and so I don't want to be better because I think, well, what have I got to be bitter about? Because you've got all of these amazing things, all of these amazing things, but all of these things that are working for you and not against you.
Well, what you're doing is you're giving me, as part of your audience right now, a great deal of perspective. I mean, and I find that every now and then we all need a good uppercut. And I can wake up this morning feeling like a bit shit because I might have something bothering me, and then you're just giving me perspective, which is basically me giving myself an uppercut. And I think that's important. I think we all need
to have that. I mean, I really do. I just think we just need to get a copper sort of a clip every now and then and just think it's just sit back for a second, mark. And I think our audens needs to do the same thing. So what's the future, Toria? What's ahead of you?
Now? What's ahead of it from being a mom and all that other stuff.
I am on deadline for my next book, which is a little bit about the mental lie, a little bit of about motherhood. So it's going to be really interesting to see how that all turns out. That's due in a couple of months, so that's pretty much what I'm working on at the moment. And then I've got my
running program. I've got a group of runners who are taking on Queenstown Marathon at the end of the year, so i really want to make sure that I'm giving them the you know, the support, the being a cheerleader for them, but also giving them a bit of a stern talking to when I think they need it.
And your your book. It'll be by sounds of it's going to be ready for Christmas? Is that about right?
No to do this year? Won't It won't come out till next year, won't come out till next year.
It won't come out to next year. So maybe a good Mother's Day present or a good present. It's sort of in twenty twenty five.
I think it's an excellent present in twenty twenty five for the women, but also for the men if they want to, if they want to read my take on it as well, I'll send you a copy. Mark I'm to worry about it.
I was going to ask you if you wouldn't and please sign it. Will you say something on the inside of the book, because that makes it really valuable if it comes from you personally.
I'd love to I'd love to have something like that Tooria.
Like I, I've never met you before, I obviously know about your story. Not obviously, but I know about your story, and I pay attention to these things.
But I think as an.
Australian to me, you epitomize in a lot of ways anyway, what lots of a sort of dream about a strong woman, a strong mother, a great partner, but a person who actually sort of doesn't mind openly talking about the virtues that sort of keep her going. And as I said earlier, things like gratefulness, et cetera. They're things, and most of those virtues they're old fashioned, but when we rarely ever talk.
About them, I really talk about them.
And I want to thank you for reminding me, and I guess probably the balance of our institute and all those people who know to reappear reminding us of those important things in life outside of Instagram, outside of social media, outside of you know, all our anxieties and worries and concerns, but reminding us of those important virtues that basically drive us in our life. And I've had this whole discussion
has been motivational and inspirationial to me. I'm so appreciative of being able to do podcasts to meet people like yourself, like it's a big deal for me, and even at sixty eight years of age, it's just the start of my life.
And I thanks for being part of it.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me Mark, I really appreciate it.
So cool, great, a great chat. I loved it.
Yeah, it was good. I enjoyed it. Took