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die Foster welcome to my podcast it's bloody good to be here it's um I feel
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like I know you um intimately really yeah r r about 3 months ago um I I'm not
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saying this um yet to be an [ __ ] or anything I but I I had never heard of d foster okay and and I've got the skill
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called Bella that started working for me and uh doing some guest booking and she
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suggested you and G gave me a list of names of people and yours was one of them and then i' since then I've been on
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a die Foster Wormhole and uh like I don't know I don't know how you did not
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come onto my radar soona like I found like a podcast of you with Lisa T going back to like 2018 or something yeah yeah
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I spoke with her at an event that's how I met her yeah oh my goodness yeah that's it's an incredible story and I
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just I can't I I feel like a fool that I I hadn't heard of you soon hey Dom here again apologies for
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the interruption um I just need to let you know there was some technical difficulties during this podcast so
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right at this moment just after the introductions the camera equipment froze meaning a few minutes of the
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conversation went missing so we will pick the podcast back up now where D is 31 years old and had just undergone a
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myectomy operation after a breast cancer diagnosis it was hard you know it was hard to look at myself in the mirror for
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a long time I took mirrors out of my house was that because you didn't like what you saw oh it's pretty rough you
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know being one breasted and so I remember one day looking down at my face feet and thinking there is nothing wrong
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with that big toe that is one beautiful big toe and then the next day I thought there's a toe next to it and it's
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perfect too I really like my feet you know and I went round and I just loved the [ __ ] out of my body and you know
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like my dad had always said that you know girls with our our tree trunk thighs didn't do ballet or didn't do
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this and we were always a bit chunky and I was like you know what they've got me
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to weever I've wanted to go so maybe I'll just love the [ __ ] out of my legs
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even if they're not as perfect as they could have been and I just literally fell in love with myself when I had done
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the hardest thing which was change the way I led and I was like above all else you know I get to live with myself at
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24/7 if I don't love me who is going to like if I'm not so comfortable in myself
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it's hard if you don't like yourself like you you can't escape other people
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can have a break from you you're St yeah wherever you go there you are I think that's a confuscious quite that is
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so true and I think your question was you know what was I like you know in my before I had cancer I was quite intense
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you know I used to say that I sleept for at least eight hours a day to get away from myself I was very very hard on
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myself I was really hard on myself I didn't particularly like myself I was in
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a relationship we um you know I'd gone through life thinking that if I take all
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the boxes one day I'll wake up kep happy and I woke up and I thought I'm more
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miserable now than I've ever been so I left that relationship and I left that
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almost like I left my life the way it was and I just started again and then as soon as I did that um I got alopecia and
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I ended up bolded and then I got breast cancer and then the universe it felt like was trying to teach me something
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I'm not sure I believe that now I think that given those things happened I taught myself stuff yeah [ __ ] that's a
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lot to take on yeah um yeah the next point on your key note um how to shift your perspective
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yeah I'm going to be dead one day that's pretty much how spoiler alert exactly
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what's the only certainty isn't it yeah exactly for all of us and I think that
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through my journey I've been like really got at one with the fact that um one day
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I'm going to be dead and it's like doesn't matter you know so it's like it
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puts everything to perspective so you know even in thinking about coming here today you know it's like you might have
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some apprehension but we just go through the thing you know will it matter in in
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5 years probably not will it matter in a year probably not will it matter in a week you know it's just just put it into
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perspective one day in something like a hundred years none of us are going to be
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here you know like we're all going to be dead so does it really matter yeah that is that is so true and
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everyone ends up being forgotten he like even say Taylor Swift 200 years from now no one's
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going to the relevance level is zero yeah so yeah you got to make the most of what you got um does that TI to the next
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one on your keynote live a good life in pursuit of a good death yeah I for me I realized at some stage that I was quite
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afraid to die and you know like I really thought about that and I talk about my angel of death and I realized that
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actually it's none of my business when I die and hopefully one day I will go with
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her with ease Grace and Flow but I'm obsessed with having a good life like my in in the pursuit of wanting to
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have a good death the only way I can think of doing that is by having a good life so instead of thinking about the
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thing that I'm not in charge of or that I'm not in control of the day I die I
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will double down on the thing that I have absolute control over which is today and how I do today and what I do
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in today and um the next point on your keynote goal definition entertainment is that just goting bit self-explanatory or
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it is and it isn't because I think that quite often people will say what they
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want but then their life satisfaction and the events that have happened in their Liv so their life satisfaction
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will determine how smooth their life goes and then the bit round the outside of the direction that their life goes is
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based on the events that have happened the stories they tell themselves about it their beliefs and values their
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thoughts and then ultimately their actions again which then produce new events and so if on a daily basis your
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actions are going in that direction but you're wanting to go over here you need
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to kind of bring them together and that is generally through the stories that we're telling ourselves and the beliefs
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and the thoughts and that type of work and then um point five on your Keynotes um live
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authentically yeah I kind of love and hate that word but you know it is a 2024 buzz word isn't it
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everyone else is taken there is only one person that I can possibly be and that's myself and I
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think that you know you know it's been a long time for me to absolutely love my life and love
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myself and I think that the more I turn up as myself you know the more the more both I'm appreciate and there's people
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that double down on thinking she is not the vibe for me but you can have both I think that you know I'm I'm I'm happy
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with it do they who who would who would think you're not the vibe for them oh really really I'm a lot you know I'm
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a lot in the best possible way though right but you know you're a lot you are
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not everyone's Vibe I I don't know if you got the memo but you would not be
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everyone's Vibe cuz you're a lot no I know I know that but you you bring
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nothing but good to the world so no we are equally balanced in yeah I bring Challenge and support and
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not everyone wants to be challenged you know you think about it if you've lost
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somebody to cancer and then old bubbly D turns up and she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and now she's here and
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she's happy and she's skipping through life some people I imagine will want to
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punch my lights out because that is just challenging in itself that seems really
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unfair to them and I get it well as an as an oh good for you you beat it you this is your experience but this isn't
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my experience exactly you know even to the extent that every now and then someone will talk about fighting you
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know like the battle and I'll be like you know have you thought about this and
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honestly they just they they don't want a bar of it because that's their story
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that they're telling themselves that's their experience and you know I'm over
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here on my experience and the story that I'm telling myself yeah okay well let's get into the cancer
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stuff so um so you you so you grow up with um health some blood blood issue and yeah I've got an IGA I've got no IG
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right and I've got too much IG yeah and then and then um at 31 you you get diagnosed with breast cancer which
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you've touched upon and you have a myectomy y and then um and by all all accounts that's brutal like the
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treatment's brutal and you you promise yourself that if you get cancer again
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you're not going to have chemo now just I just want to if you have that thought
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then go back and stop being attached to the fact that you might get cancer again
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if I could have my time again I would have stopped and said die why would you ever think you were going to get cancer
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again and what can you do to prevent that happening because lo and behold seven years later I end up with cancer
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again well oh do do you sort of think you sort of like manifested it in a way or well I think you know someone I've
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done a bit of NLP and someone said to me once you men neural linguistic programming so the basis of Tony Robin
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stuff and so the point is is that he said to me you know You' manifested did
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everything and I thought well maybe that's true but it's not flopping helpful so I don't know do we manifest
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everything I'm not sure I don't think that things happen for a reason I think
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we can find reason and things that happen otherwise it just when the big stuff happens it's too much or it's just
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too weird you know if you lose somebody or you know it's just it's too confusing
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so I have a tendency to just think you know get on with it and you know and then so 38 um it comes back in the worst
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way imaginable are are you feeling sick or what yeah yeah so I had just met um the love of my life Steve and i' just
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moved to Christ church and we'd gone up to stay at his dad's place and I said
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I'll stay there as long as I don't have any cats inside and they had a cat and
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we stayed there and I ended up getting a hell of a chest infection and I then had
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just moved to Christ Church to be with him and I just for that Year got repetitive chest infections and couldn't
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get on top of them and the problem with the medical system is that because I didn't have my people there because I
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just moved up from denan I sort of said to them look don't worry about how to
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get rid of the chest infection we need to have a look at why I keep getting them because that's not usual I I'd been
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really good at monitoring my own health and so they just couldn't get their head
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around it so I went away for the Christmas holidays came back and thought right I'm going to get really healthy
00:11:00
this year my second year in Christ church I'm going to get really healthy and I went to karate and I got a really
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rough punch to the chest and I just remember thinking what w that is there's
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something not right and within about six weeks I had a fully collapsed lung and I
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remember ringing um our head instructor saying I've got a problem and and I don't know what's wrong and I can't get
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anyone to listen to me and luckily he put me on to um a quite a famous sports doctor and um he got me the diagnosis
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which was fantastic cuz that's what I needed I needed someone to take me seriously and go and get the test done
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and unfortunately I was diagnosed with terminal cancer so breast cancer metastasized in my lungs and I had a
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fully collapsed lung I had a very large mass on the top of my lung and I had activity in about 75% of my lungs and so
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um my prognosis was that there was a Zer perent chance of lasting sort of longer
00:12:02
than 12 months and absolutely no chance you know if I did get just on that it would be no chance I'd be there in 18
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months yeah it's quite fible I mean it's crazy that you're here and it's
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perspective do you know what I mean but I mean um I so is that is that was that in person that you got that news or was
00:12:25
that on the inter I read someone was on the inter island of Fury no uh the first
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time I was diagnosed with breast cancer I was on the fury and the doctor rang me
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cuz I was moving from napia back to denen so that one was on the FY but this one was in person so we'd been to
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respiratory with my sister I'd been to respiratory and they said look we can't
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do anything for you you've got cancer and then um Steve and I went to oncology
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and that's when they gave me the diagnosis and the prognosis what happens at that moment is
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it like the room starts spinning like you like or are you you quite post about it or do your ears start ringing what
00:13:01
happens you I already knew that I had secondary cancer like a hunch well no cuz I'd been to respiratory and they'd
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done all these lung tests and they said you've got cancer and they'd done a
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biopsy so you know you've got cancer you're going to oncology for the how bad
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version and I was probably a bit woo woo you know like I'd been you know like I
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um I had known that there were other ways of doing things and and so I believed that you know words have energy
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and energy has power so I could tell when they were about to get to the prognosis part and I asked my partner to
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leave the room because I didn't want him to hear it I didn't want him to know
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that I only had a year to leave live I wanted him not to feel sorry for me I wanted him to just I wanted him to take
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every day as it came with me so I asked him to leave the room and before the prognosis was mentioned what just like a
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hunt oh you can tell it's coming they say this is what we found and this is what's
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happening and then there's sort of a bit of a space and I knew that I wanted to
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say just give me an idea of how long and I just quietly said to my partner can you just leave the room for two seconds
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and he goes yeah sure and he left the room and I just said to them how long oh I want you to and they said well there
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there is no way you'll be here in 18 months more likely 12 it's not leaving
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any hope is there no there was there was zero chance there was no you know and they offered me pallative care chemo but
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because I'd already done surgery chemo and radiotherapy I was just like Pala of
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care does not give you any longevity they were hoping to reduce my symptoms and if there was ever an a moment that I
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was arrogant it was in that moment where I thought H I'm pretty sure that I can
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reduce my symptoms through a whole lot of natural therapies and do that rather than literally feeling sick for the next
00:15:01
year where did that Cockiness come from like they literally gave you no no chance zero chance well you know if I'm
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if the big guy upstairs wants me to listen then sending the message in a funny little long colleges that has
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1970s Roman sandals forn walking socks beige shorts and a matching big polyester top is not going to be the bit
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that gets my attention and so I think what I reckon I can get 5 years on my terms I just had
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this I was like I don't know I'm a bit competitive like a challenge yeah 100%
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he said 12 months I'm going for 5 years that's and I did I left going I'm going
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to live my way for 5 years and I think that's where the if not now then when
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comes from because in that moment I thought I have not been living exactly the way I want to I'm not waiting any
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longer now's my time yeah it's like the um there's a line from um do you know sha Shank Redemption yes
00:16:02
like get busy living or get busy dying yeah um yeah sounds a bit like that but you um you you um you you did do some
00:16:10
sort of bucket list stuff like uh Jessica Benjamin and sha your yeah your niece and nephews you you made a point
00:16:17
of like connecting with them and taking each of them on a trip which to me feels
00:16:20
like okay even though you thought or hoped you'd live longer than the diagnosis um you were obviously like
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that was when I first got breast cancer oh the first time around okay so the first time I got breast cancer I thought
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I really want to get my black belt and I want to see those kids in their 20s I want to know who they are and that was
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my reason for living that was back when I was 30 and then this time it was it was just around living each day the best
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I could so got really granular like the one thing that's really hard to understand about this is you asked what
00:16:59
happens you know I was feeling the the world didn't spin nothing happened except that the world
00:17:07
got really really bright like the green got Greener you know the ear got crisper I could just
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feel everything on a really micro granular level and it was just like everything slowed
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down and I just thought if I can live each day more present then I will live an entire lifetime in this one
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year yeah and does the calendar take on more significance like the days and the months no no the opposite so what I went
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home with is I woke up the next day and I didn't say I've got 364 days I thought
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I've got one more year so six months down the track I have one more year it never changed I always think I've got
00:17:55
one more year I [ __ ] like more than that but yeah yeah yeah you're not going
00:17:59
anywhere um read um you thought you thought 5 years after the diagnosis and then um 96 uh 96 years old that was uh
00:18:08
like the plan Plan B I guess um yeah when you get to 95 you are you going to reevaluate or you think you'll be ready
00:18:17
ready to go by 96 I reckon I'll still be one more day I'll still be living day by day and oh
00:18:25
so um yes so you get that news as the um is the is the delivery it was quite was it quite gentle or
00:18:31
quite cold look I think the really interesting thing is we get really obsessed with how
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it was delivered and what what they said I'm not in control of that so I don't
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know and I don't care all I know that I'm in control of is how I receive it so
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if it was cold then I warmed it up if it was warm then I called it down you know
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like it's my responsibility what I do with that information you know they're
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just doctors and when did you tell Steve so you kicked Steve out of the room so he knew that I wasn't well you know he
00:19:04
knew that things he knew that it was terminal he didn't know how long that that bit was so he comes back in the
00:19:12
room and credit to the man you know like full credit to the man never once did he
00:19:17
ask what was said when he wasn't in the room wow he trusts he is so comfortable
00:19:23
in his own skin and he's so comfortable with how he does things and he just trusts me like this is my life and he
00:19:31
trusts me to live it it's interesting because I'm try just trying to probably projecting here and
00:19:38
imagining if I was in his shows and I think the the the responsible thing for me to do would be like to try and get it
00:19:44
out of you what the what the news was but then I suppose he knows you well enough to respect your your wishes you
00:19:49
didn't want him in the room so you know it's up to you what information you
00:19:53
share with them it's incredibly respectful I think it is and but that is what you are not you and I would not do
00:19:59
that we would be like we want you got to tell me I need to know like so I can help you yeah but he and that level of
00:20:07
trust was like gold you know like I remember saying to him once I said do you realize that I'm the love of your
00:20:14
life and he said yeah I do and I said well you know like when I'm gone there's
00:20:18
no point you dating anybody I been a bit naughty you know I ha you and he said to me um if
00:20:27
you want to say and who I you have to be here in other words you just worry about
00:20:33
living and you be here and I'll be here with you and I remember I laughed and
00:20:38
laughed and thought you [ __ ] [ __ ] I love that answer like the man is interesting you know when we first
00:20:46
started dating he said you know checked in it a couple of months and said are we
00:20:50
are we happy you know are you good and I said I haven't figured out if you're
00:20:53
cool enough for me and I was dead pen serious like you know I'm not cool but
00:20:58
I'm way cooler than my husband like I mean you know like you know there's no
00:21:03
doubt about it you know and he quietly said I guess you'll figure it out and
00:21:07
what I did figure out is that he is one of the coolest people I know because he is so comfortable in his own skin so the
00:21:15
thing that you and I have probably struggled with in our life and being comfortable in ourself my husband is
00:21:21
just and now my son you know I live with two men that are so incredibly comfortable with themselves
00:21:29
well you you attract those people into your life though don't you yeah yeah and
00:21:34
like I'm I'm just one I'm a little bit more you know like I'm always trying to
00:21:38
improve myself and do this and do that and you know but it is a little bit contagious the fact that they're just so
00:21:45
incredibly comfortable in their own skin and they're very obliging with me like
00:21:49
they'll go along with what I say for 99% of the time but man on that 1% you can't budge them there's no
00:21:58
movement yeah so so you've talked about this um the story and this um 0% chance
00:22:03
of surviving prognosis and podcasts and on keynote speeches and stuff so Steve must have heard about it by
00:22:08
now first time he he heard it four years four years and after right yeah four years after I went and said to um well
00:22:17
Le's run back a bit so I've gone off and I've doing natural therapies I didn't
00:22:23
turn my life into a wellness taskas I created this huge amount of space and I withdrew myself from the medical system
00:22:31
because I felt that I didn't want my life to be taken over with appointments
00:22:36
so I said look thanks for your help I'm looking for fruit and veg and you're
00:22:39
offering me candy I'm in the wrong store so I just wanted to take some control
00:22:44
back in my life and I wanted to study Wellness so I studied people that either had had miraculous healings or that were
00:22:51
just beautifully naturally well people so instead of studying cancer and disease which is what the doctors do I
00:22:58
studied how to be well and how to make the most out of each and every day that I did have and so that's what I did I
00:23:05
just really focused on that and about 14 months after I was diagnosed uh the lovely Steve said to me um you are
00:23:13
seriously a pain in the ass again he said I think you're well and I said yeah
00:23:18
I think I am too he said cuz God you're you're seriously a pain in the ass and I
00:23:23
said I think I am too and he said what do you want to do with the rest of your life you know with the rest of our lives
00:23:27
and I said well I've done the math I want I'm not having children after I'm 40 just no chance I'm just
00:23:35
once I'm 40 that's it I'm not trying and he said you know we've been through 5
00:23:40
and a half thousand earthquakes we've relocated two of our businesses we will
00:23:45
relocate one of them again we're living at your sisters we don't know if their
00:23:48
house is still standing do you think it's a good idea to have a child the timing's not quite right yeah the timing
00:23:54
is not right and I said well I've worked it out and you've got six weeks and then
00:23:58
you know our first wedding anniversary will come up and if I'm not pregnant by
00:24:02
then I can't have a child by the time I'm 40 you know at 39 and he said well
00:24:06
there's no action happening at your sister's house what what are we going to
00:24:09
do and I said well I've booked a weekend away at araroa you've now got three
00:24:13
nights do your thing let's just say that Port dark chocolate and taking care of business
00:24:20
was the only thing that happened that weekend and then order do matter my business not of my
00:24:26
business if it works it doesn't matter how I mean this seriously this is a man
00:24:29
that you check for a pulse you know happy face sad face there is no different poker face poker face yeah and
00:24:38
um you know but I learned something about him that weekend you know he does perform exceptionally well under
00:24:44
pressure give him a task time frame three weeks before my 40th birthday I gave birth to our one and only child
00:24:51
Jackson James Foster yeah who's 13 now 14 13 in December yeah so so cool 14 and
00:24:57
a half years ago was when I was diagnosed yeah um yeah it's so incredible the story it's remarkable the
00:25:07
um yeah that that year was when you get told that diagnosis even though you're
00:25:11
confident you're going to flip the middle finger to the oncologist um why why don't you do some bucketless stuff
00:25:17
like just in case you know what I mean yeah I do things that you always wanted to do why why didn't
00:25:25
you your world gets real small you know like I can't I couldn't have walked up those
00:25:32
stairs you would have had to have held my hand and I'd take three steps and i'
00:25:37
need a break like I sounded like Darth Vader like I was real sick on like your world just shrinks down to
00:25:46
you know it's a good day if I can get dressed feed myself and go to work for
00:25:51
two hours and so the most impactful things on ourselves are usually the the little
00:25:58
list of things you know I said to you before you said what changed what changed was the grass underneath my feet
00:26:05
felt like the biggest privilege in the world each day just felt like a privilege I didn't need to go and prove
00:26:11
anything to anyone else I was just trying to get up and just make the best of every day I had and so instead of
00:26:18
trying to push myself to do things that I physically did not feel capable of I just wanted to appreciate and be
00:26:27
present in every day I had because you know like what there is nothing better than the gift that I have given
00:26:35
myself and yet quite often we are consistently going out there to get external validation and you know think
00:26:45
that doing something big and audacious that that everyone else can see is more important than the fact that I'd sit and
00:26:52
have a green tea and feel like I was the luckiest girl in the world a thank you so much much for that
00:26:59
explanation it makes so much sense I suppose I'm thinking of like yeah the movies where someone gets a diagnosis
00:27:05
and suddenly they're going to have all this energy and cram as much as what they can but yeah Instagram versus
00:27:10
reality right yeah and like the the the best thing well the best thing I could give myself is like just time with
00:27:18
myself like that is ultimately what I wanted was just to you know the you know having a great life is
00:27:25
the antidote to to death you know but it's also just being present in in yourself and in your life but you know
00:27:34
like my 20s I just rushed it I was always trying to be further ahead than what I was you know and I wasn't
00:27:41
particularly happy and when my life got so incredibly small and I figured out I liked my big toe and then I fell in love
00:27:49
with myself it's like what what other what bucket list item could be better than
00:27:56
that m yeah the thing about your 20ns is that saying youth has wasted on the young
00:28:01
totally so true so true yeah so true so when um yeah I know you you you weren't
00:28:09
focusing on the calendar or the days but when it must have been in the back of your mind like when D-Day came around
00:28:15
like the 18 month Mark or whatever um yeah do you remember that or no got no significance it's got no significance I
00:28:22
knew that it was around the beginning of the year but I had to go back 5 years later and find my notes to find out what
00:28:29
day I was diagnosed unreal I do not hold on to anything that I don't need to and
00:28:34
you don't need to hold on well I didn't need to hold on to that it was irrelevant because I was so happy loving
00:28:39
in each day it's like why why would I hold on to We Hold On To The Past like
00:28:44
it means something and if I held on to that date then I'd be holding on to what
00:28:48
he said as if it was going to be true I didn't I let that [ __ ] go yeah and I let
00:28:53
the diagnosis go with them well that probably answers the next thing I was going to um touch upon like have you
00:29:00
gone back and spoken to the like oncology team or the person that delivered that news and asked them how
00:29:05
they could get it so [ __ ] wrong like that's um they basically gave you an incorrect death sentence no they
00:29:12
didn't they did they did not I gave myself my life they gave me their best educated
00:29:20
guess and that's all they can ever do but my life was not his to give me it's
00:29:26
mine so he never took anything away from me he just said given what we can see this
00:29:34
is what we would predict and I turned that round as a little bit of a challenge he didn't get it wrong he just
00:29:42
said in his educated opinion what he thought was right and I decided that my gut feeling was worth way more than that
00:29:51
why are you defending him I'm on your team here no no you've got a great way of
00:29:56
framing it like exactly it's uh and it is I know and I know that's the point
00:30:01
you want people to take from this it's all about the framing of it it is because I see people so angry with the
00:30:06
medical profession I'm like take some [ __ ] responsibility for yourself I think that everything is my fault it's
00:30:14
my fault I got cancer it's my body you know I take High how how do sorry how do you mean it's your fault
00:30:21
well my body created it it's not not your fault though well it is my resp responsibility though okay
00:30:30
I don't you know but but if I think it's my fault then I take greater responsibility for it I don't actually
00:30:36
think it's my fault but then maybe maybe I do think it is a little bit my fault I
00:30:41
knew that I had low I knew that I didn't have IGA I knew that I'd had too many
00:30:46
antibiotics as a kid I knew that I had alopecia and my immune system wasn't great but I was still driven to you know
00:30:53
like in my 20s I was very driven in my career you know so I still drove over things I never quite looked after myself
00:30:59
the way I probably should have that's my responsibility yeah okay the fact that
00:31:05
everyone else beside me can get away with it is not the point the point this is my body my responsibility yeah um
00:31:15
I've heard you say in interview can cancer is the least interesting thing about me it is so the least interesting
00:31:20
thing yeah what does that mean look it's the reason I'm sitting here with you and if the only thing you
00:31:26
took away from our conversation is that this chick beat cancer which I would never say I would say I journeyed with
00:31:34
it um that is you know you would you would be missing a great opportunity to see how somebody
00:31:43
can can reframe the [ __ ] out of everything in their life to be sitting here I mean you said to me when we first
00:31:49
arrived how are you is life good and I'm like hell yes you know and you see what
00:31:54
does that mean means that I get up every day and I'm so grateful to be alive it
00:31:59
means that I get up every day and I get to do work that I'm really really good
00:32:04
at and that did not happen by accident I have been working away in the background
00:32:09
trying to figure out the [ __ ] for a long time and just the fact that you know you
00:32:16
like what feels like the rest of New Zealand has only just heard about me now doesn't mean that I haven't been like
00:32:23
I've known This Moment's coming I just didn't know what it was going to look
00:32:27
like or how I was going to get here but I knew it was coming it's a story that deserves to be
00:32:32
told and you you said just before um you're only here because of the cancer I
00:32:37
I don't know if that yeah there probably is an element of Truth to that but I
00:32:41
think like you're from the research I've done you're like you're a remarkable
00:32:44
woman and you do some incredible stuff but I think the the the cancer and the diagnosis that you were given and the
00:32:49
fact that you're still here and you're thriving um it just gives you like an
00:32:52
extra level of credibility in a way I think yeah I mean I just think you can walk the walk and talk the talk 100% see
00:32:58
cuz here's the thing I got asked recently is if there was a button here that would take both of my diagnosises
00:33:04
away you know and I would never have had cancer would I push it and straight away I said absolutely
00:33:11
not I would never push that button cuz I love who I am I can't think of anybody
00:33:19
else I'd spend want to spend the rest of my life with 24/7 than me that's how
00:33:23
much I like who I am now I am only this person because I've had two cancer diagnosises
00:33:32
like I'm only this person because I have an incredible family like I'm only this
00:33:38
person because of my wonderful husband and you know my first husband even though it didn't work out I'm still only
00:33:45
here and in this space loving exactly who I am because of all of those things that have made up my life and have
00:33:52
turned me into this person that I am so you know it's like I know that I wouldn't be here without the cancer
00:33:59
story but it's also and and I think that everything in life is a dichotomy yeah
00:34:04
you know it's like you know even you know you said oh it's a bit embarrassing
00:34:08
it's taken me 51 years to start working on myself you know it's like well yeah
00:34:13
but you know if you've had some [ __ ] happen we try and avoid that [ __ ] as
00:34:17
much as we can because it [ __ ] hurts you know but then on the flip side I don't know that you'd be doing this if
00:34:24
you hadn't have been through some of the things that you've been through I know
00:34:27
that you wouldn't be doing this if you hadn't have had the life that you've had
00:34:30
yeah I'm not suggesting it's it's easy but it's it's simple you are the sum of these
00:34:38
things yeah that's true and it yeah there's probably parallels with you and me and like the same in my 20s I
00:34:45
was trying to like bang down doors now I understand like the right door you you know you want to work hard and keep
00:34:51
putting one step in front of the other but the right door will open when it's
00:34:53
supposed to yeah we probably knocked on about 10 best drive straight through them you yeah and you know we just
00:35:03
needed to quietly put the right one and slop thr it yeah or just except knocking
00:35:08
it's supposed to open it'll open yeah notely yeah yeah there's got to be a way in exactly
00:35:17
I'm the slowest learner ever you know it's oh same here and I'm I'm um this is
00:35:23
a real weakness weakness of of mine I I have to learn through my own mistakes like you could say to me don't touch the
00:35:30
fire really I'm just can't find why shouldn't I touch the fire yeah um tell
00:35:35
me I just got a question for you um you said it's a real weakness of yours tell
00:35:39
me what your greatest strength is I don't know if I could tell you yeah but if you could what would someone else
00:35:47
say about you I don't probably that I'm um P persistent and stubborn maybe
00:35:55
and I think I'm maybe more more resilient than what I give myself credit for sometimes yeah and so what if I told
00:36:01
you our greatest strength is our greatest weakness so how has your what does that mean well my greatest strength
00:36:09
I can I've got so many of them what am I to begin I don't know but that also
00:36:15
means You' got lots of weaknesses as well yeah 100% so if I pick on I haven't
00:36:19
got that many just tasing right if I pick on something like one of my greatest strengths is my ability to
00:36:26
question my curiosity it is also my greatest weakness cuz I'm really freaking
00:36:33
annoying and if you live in the vicinity of me I will not let you away with anything is this is this the the work
00:36:41
you is this with your work head on or is this just die you know people say to me you know I
00:36:46
just the work version it's like oh no sweetheart there's just one version so
00:36:51
this is this is you at home with Steve and Jackson oh my God yeah so you know I'm really easy to love with like really
00:36:58
easy to live with until I'm not and then I'm just like you know so they love me and then
00:37:06
my son will be like yeah Mom jog on you know you know so so my point is is that I just won't leave things alone you know
00:37:14
like I'll just be like you know a bit fixated on it you know you said your tenacity and you know the fact that you
00:37:20
know you'll just keep going and it's like yeah it's our greater strength and
00:37:24
by God we're painful but how is that a weakness well how can your greatest strength be
00:37:29
your greatest weakness well it always is so you know when people are really really good at detail it's their greater
00:37:35
strength and they get stuck in the detail and they don't pull out to look at the big picture people that are
00:37:42
really really good at Big Picture stuff forget all the detail and it's a nightmare for them at times so it's not
00:37:49
about the fact that it's right or wrong it's just self-awareness yeah you know
00:37:53
the work that we talk about doing is just about knowing Who We Are and not you know not having to pretend
00:38:00
that we're any different so you know I'm really happy to tell you all of my
00:38:04
weaknesses cuz I'll also tell you all of my strengths and I'll [ __ ] own
00:38:09
them how good that's so good we yeah was was cancer sort of like the reset you needed to become the person
00:38:19
you are today I reckon the reset that I got was when I left my first husband that was the hardest thing I've ever
00:38:26
done in my life and my only time in my life where I've really regretted my behavior and how I handled that
00:38:34
situation how' we how long were you married for I was only married for 3 years but we had been together 10 years
00:38:39
okay when was this late late 20s early late 20s okay 28 yeah so the the Whole Health Journey started after that yeah
00:38:46
what what why how how did how would you act differently what did you do wrong I did not act towards my own gold standard
00:38:53
Behavior okay in order to leave I needed leverage because I would have the easy thing would have just been to go back
00:39:00
and in my heart I knew that I needed to leave and so you know sometimes we create situations where we've shifted
00:39:08
ourselves and done things that are not quite right um in order to just move on so we don't go back and you know I could
00:39:15
justify that I could say well you know technically we were separated and you know but it wasn't my gold standard
00:39:21
Behavior you know I started a relationship before I had tidily finished that one and that's it's not
00:39:27
okay for me that's not my own God standard Behavior yeah well it's good if you to
00:39:33
admit that it's a hard thing to admit I mean it's very easy to in a any relationship breakdown like there's um
00:39:39
yeah a therapist said to me once um with any situation you should look at you know what your role in the situation was
00:39:47
I feel like this is kind of what you're saying with everything you do as well
00:39:50
yeah but it be very easy to pass I mean obviously shame on you for the overlap um but it's also very easy you could
00:39:56
easy say oh he was an [ __ ] or he didn't do this or he and Shine the torch on his role and the demise yeah exactly
00:40:03
and you know like we have had those conversations and his part you know of what what what had happened and things
00:40:09
but I think ultimately when I look at that situation I in my 20s I didn't have
00:40:16
the voice that I have today I didn't have my own voice I was saying I wasn't
00:40:21
happy and he just was brushing over it but now I would be like yo back here not happy leaving you know
00:40:31
take you know it's like there's no you know there's no you sometimes my boys say to me at
00:40:37
home um are you sure when have I said anything you know like like why would you ask me then you
00:40:49
know yeah so you know I just think now I don't you know it's not that I go around
00:40:54
and I think I have to tell everyone what I think but my point is is that if if we're going to leave the room and I
00:41:01
think you should know how I feel then you will know exactly how I feel not in a horrible way just in a really you know
00:41:07
I just believe that we can do great things with we can do hard things and still do it with love yeah you know I
00:41:13
just I look back there you know in my twin as 28 and think oh Bliss I just wanted to be loved I did I just wanted
00:41:20
to be loved and I ended up with somebody that you know just wanted me to be so independent and to be so strong he
00:41:27
thought that not loving me exactly the way I was was going to do that yeah you know and that was never going to work so
00:41:34
so you look back now on reflection of that first marriage um was that your gold star standard at the time or is you
00:41:40
just look back now with embarrassment from the perspective of the person you are now oh I knew at the time yeah I did
00:41:47
I was disappointed with myself and I think the hardest thing is that you know for me leaving that marriage was not
00:41:54
about like I never missed the person leaving my husband was not difficult admitting to society that I'd failed in
00:42:02
marriage was devastating to me like I really really struggled there to the extent that I thought maybe I'd just
00:42:09
stay so I never had to tell tell anyone that I'd failed because I had quite a
00:42:14
quite a harsh Persona in the fact that I was right everything was black and white
00:42:19
and I think after that everything just got this gorgeous shade of gray I was just very forgiving of other people and
00:42:25
of myself you know that we always get it right and in some ways that was probably
00:42:31
um even though you didn't know it at the time it was probably like you know one
00:42:34
of the steps to prepare you for the battle that was about to about to come in the next decade of your life 100%
00:42:40
yeah yeah um I've heard you say like you you talked to your cancer rationally
00:42:44
like uh you know a lot of people have like a you know a [ __ ] cancer [ __ ] cancer t-shirts and stuff but you were
00:42:49
like um you sort of made made friends with it in a way I guess well it's my body yeah you know like imagine hating
00:42:56
your body imagine been going through life hating your body and I and I had hated my body at times and I was just
00:43:02
like actually if we're going to live together let's just have a chat and I
00:43:06
explained to my cancer that if it kept growing at the rate it was it was going to kill me and I'm the host and
00:43:12
therefore it was going to die so I was kind of having this negotiation with you could have killed both of us you could
00:43:17
have killed both of us it's like it's not a good plan you know through think
00:43:21
it through exactly I was like think it through because I think that there's an
00:43:25
energy to anger and to hate into Fu cancer that I wasn't interested in I was
00:43:31
a little bit more of holy [ __ ] you know you haven't always loved yourself so
00:43:35
let's just give yourself a bit of a hug now I know this is not ideal but actually let's find a way and move
00:43:41
forward with it CU I'm just don't I'm I'm exhausted and I don't have the
00:43:45
energy to hate myself anymore well and it worked for you um obviously like genetics and DNA and stuff play a part
00:43:51
in it but um I have really high inflammatory markers so I've had my DNA tested and I have really really really
00:44:01
high inflammatory markers which means that I'm quite sensitive to foods and things like that not allergic but just
00:44:08
you know sort of high inflammatory markers yeah yeah I mean anyone that's got a terminal diagnosis I suppose like
00:44:14
you're doing what you know following your blueprint it can't do you any harm
00:44:18
right well it absolutely there's a book that's been written called radical
00:44:23
remission and it talks about the key factors that are involved D in healing so she studied uh Dr Kelly Turner she
00:44:31
studied a thousand people and um it just so happens that I had intuitively done all of them some of them weren't
00:44:38
important to me like and others I did very very well like one of them that I think I doubled down on was reducing all
00:44:46
negative emotions so you know I reduced like I went right through my life and I just went um you know do I who do I need
00:44:56
to forgive do I need I need to forgive myself do I need to forgive somebody else how do I look at the situation and
00:45:01
make it and and reconcile it in my own head that it was okay you know that that I don't need to drag all my baggage
00:45:08
through life I decided that if I was going to die I wanted to die with this little baggage as possible and in doing
00:45:14
that I think that I got to really really focus on you know like I say the Grass Grows Where you grow where you water it
00:45:21
and then so I really doubled down on all the good things in my life so the baggage thing you're talking about I've
00:45:27
heard you say you you want to have a really good death Y is that sort of what what does that tie in with that yeah
00:45:32
100% cuz I just want to be able to on the day I meant to go just 96 years old that's the one I think he knows more
00:45:40
about me than I know about myself yeah um what advice would you have for anyone listening that's got a
00:45:45
terminal illness or that knows someone that that has and they might pass this you know link on to
00:45:51
them I think it's the same advice that I would give anybody I wouldn't you know
00:45:57
the same advice or the advice that I'd give anybody is you know you know what's right for you you
00:46:05
know that if it's your time to do your work you know if you know you're living
00:46:09
your best life and now it's time to double down you know the areas of your life that you've been avoiding and
00:46:16
you've been trying not to think about and for anybody that's supporting somebody else um the greatest gift my
00:46:22
sister gave me Joe was um when I had my first diagnos and I was just about to go
00:46:28
and get my right breast lobbed off um and I S I sat down with her at lunch and I said this is
00:46:34
rough and she said yes it is and I said this is really unfair she said yeah it is I was 30 years old I hadn't had
00:46:44
children and I was lo you know and I just sat there for 20 minutes and I complained about everything and she said
00:46:50
yep and never once did she say come on die you know she just pull your pull your socks up y she just let me wallow
00:46:58
in my own self-pity and then by the 20 minutes I was so bored with myself I said okay let's go she goes good girl
00:47:04
off for you oh so you just needed to vent was it quite cathartic oh somebody that can hold space for you and let you
00:47:12
when you've actually got a serious situation where you just want to tell them everything that you feel and
00:47:18
complain about your life and just go this is [ __ ] you know this is unfair why is this happening to me you know blah
00:47:26
blah blah and they just hold the space for you to just let that all out it was like this enormous weight had been
00:47:33
lifted off me and that is that is a very difficult thing to do for somebody and I'm forever grateful that she allows me
00:47:41
to do that and allows that space for me to do that yeah just all this I know the
00:47:48
cancer is the least interesting thing about you and we've been talking talking
00:47:51
about it for half an hour but it's um move on there there's just so many good
00:47:56
um like takeway way and and insights and I I genuinely believe you when you know
00:48:00
you when you wake up every day and you appreciate it I I believe it but it' be
00:48:04
very easy to you know to survive that grazing you grazing bullet or whatever you want to call it and and then yeah 5
00:48:11
years down the track go go back into how you were before and take life for granted and and I have in some respects
00:48:17
I think there's two things that come out of that you know I went on and head
00:48:21
Jackson and man your life gets real small in another way and you know and then I found myself you know being a mom
00:48:30
and trying to work and doing all this and then going through Pur menopause and for a while that was quite hard you know
00:48:37
like I thought cancer was hard and I thought leaving my first husband was hard but holy [ __ ] men P menopause and
00:48:43
menopause is like next level freaking bat [ __ ] crazy hard um warning um so I did find myself in that
00:48:51
place you know where I was just like there's a lot to I I needed to find my balance again and that was hard but the
00:49:00
one thing that I'd say just when you say you know like I you know like you know
00:49:05
wake up every day and I'm happy and everything's great if you're listening
00:49:09
to this and thinking how does she do that Dom's right I do wake up every day
00:49:15
and I'm grateful but that doesn't mean that it's quite as rosy as I make out it
00:49:20
to be but what I do do is I go back and I retell myself a story because if I told you the really really
00:49:29
hard bits of what I went through if I told you the bits of you know like when I had chemo and a mate came over and was
00:49:36
weeding the garden and he was telling me about all the wonderful things that were
00:49:40
happening in his life and when he took two steps out I was in the toilet and the entire neighborhood would have heard
00:49:47
me like from the depths of my soul vomiting out everything in my body and then of course he took off and never
00:49:54
came back and weeded the garden [ __ ] hell Terry what were you thinking you know like but that is such a great
00:50:01
example of that was a really really rough time but then I'll tell you [ __ ] hell Terry what were you
00:50:08
thinking because I just retell my story to myself so that it's palatable for me
00:50:14
to live with you know it was not easy it was it was really tough at times but again instead of focusing on
00:50:24
that so if I had a day and there were five things that happened and four of them were tough I would only tell you
00:50:29
about the one thing that was amazing cuz that's in my control even the retelling of my story is in my
00:50:40
control [ __ ] you've done the work hey I've done the work sunshine sunshine I have done the work
00:50:48
you you've earned the right to call a 51y old man sunshine I you have you call
00:50:52
me whatever the [ __ ] you want I will call you whatever the [ __ ] I want so so
00:50:57
let's Okay um we'll talk about Young D for a bit so yeah it seems like you got
00:51:01
an incredible relationship with your dad is both your parents still alive yeah yeah yeah that's still together or yeah
00:51:06
yeah yeah yeah definitely yeah so what what are you like are you would you say you're 50% your dad 50% your mom or is
00:51:12
there more in terms of character traits uh when I'm authentically myself I'm 75%
00:51:21
dead and CAU a mom when I'm playing when I when I was living to society's
00:51:28
expectations I was 50/50 cuz I was trying to be a 1950s housewife and then bloody work and bloody build assets and
00:51:36
do all that [ __ ] at the same time now I'm just like and actually the more I
00:51:40
lean into the life that I've got now then I'm probably 95% my dad because um
00:51:47
you know like recently when I was in Europe with my family um yeah we were we were in Paris at the same time this is
00:51:55
April we were seen each other it was very funny um when I was in Europe I said to the boys I said um I said
00:52:03
Jackson have I been a good mom you know like do you know who I am and you know like you know who I am and you know who
00:52:10
you are have I been a good mom and he's just like Mom you're like the best and I
00:52:14
said cool and I milked it for a bit I said Steve you know have I been a good partner and he goes oh my God you're
00:52:21
amazing I was like milky keep going guys yeah keep going come on just look at for
00:52:26
the love here and um then I said you know I said I'm so pleased cuz you know
00:52:31
like you know I've put my career on hold and I've done these things and I've
00:52:35
purposely not really ranked things up and and that and I said look I'm so pleased that you know that that you feel
00:52:42
this way because in two weeks when we get home that [ __ ] [ __ ] is over I am done I am done putting my life on hold
00:52:52
because I'm petrified that my little child's not going to know who I am and
00:52:56
at the same time he was asking me about achieving a goal he had and he was like how do I do this and how do I do that
00:53:01
and my son's a little bit resistant at times but then he does listen and I said
00:53:05
to him sweetheart I could tell you all of this information till I'm blowing in
00:53:08
the face I'm just going to show you so when I stepped off that plane from Europe I was like I'm going now let
00:53:16
Jackson let me tell you what my goals are and I'm going to show you how I'm
00:53:19
going to achieve them and you can ask me any question on the way and I'm just
00:53:23
going to show you I'm going to explain to you what I'm doing where I'm doing it
00:53:27
and why I'm doing it but I'm going to show you how to How I Live this next
00:53:31
phase of my life what were those goals what are they I would like I am going to be I am going
00:53:39
to be an international speaker I'm going to share my story but also share my life
00:53:45
philosophies on International stages and I am going to be an author and I will continue coaching
00:53:53
because cuz I'm really good at it and cuz I love it yeah actually you've got
00:53:59
the the same sort of um same sort of tone of voice on your website it's like um you know hi I'm D
00:54:05
and I'm really good at what I do sort of thing which is um it's so un unwi um but
00:54:12
it's I think it's something that as new zealanders it's not a not a good thing
00:54:15
that it's un kiwi you know what I mean I think um I think it's a powerful thing
00:54:19
and it's one thing you know like I could probably speak in New Zealand for the
00:54:23
rest of my life but I think that um markets abroad will be far more receptive to to the way that I think
00:54:31
yeah if kiwi are listening to this which I imagine there might be a couple um you
00:54:36
know and they think oh good lord she's so up herself it's like you are absolutely right and by God I've done
00:54:44
the work to get here cuz I did not always love myself you know I've been really hard on myself so yeah also
00:54:51
anyone that says that that like that's kind of that's kind of it's that tall
00:54:55
poppy thing like crabs a bucket whatever you want to call it it's yeah it's like
00:54:59
that's cool yeah yeah yeah if that's going to make your day better by bringing someone else down go ahead cuz
00:55:05
you know me loving myself just makes my life easier it actually doesn't affect
00:55:10
you you know like seriously like the fact that I'm really comfortable living
00:55:16
my life and living in my own body it's like what business is it of anybody else's you know like literally what
00:55:24
business is it of anybody else's whether you know it's just weird but I reckon
00:55:29
there's that um I don't know I'm making up this percentage but say there's 25%
00:55:33
of people at at that want to bring you down and think oh this this this checks up herself but then there's the top end
00:55:39
that'll go yeah [ __ ] yeah good for you yeah I'm rooting for your die do you
00:55:43
know Lisa O'Neal she's a good speaker around New Zealand she's bloody funny
00:55:48
she's um she said and she wrote a book about it and it's called lickable third
00:55:54
and she says that if you walk into any room and there's like 90 people there 30
00:55:59
of them are going to love you like love you you know a third of them are going to just it will not matter what you do
00:56:08
you are not their people and a third of them are going to take or Leave You Now interestingly I reckon that my husband
00:56:16
is like 10% of people love him 10% of people hate him cuz he's not polarizing
00:56:21
I reckon you and I are probably way closer just splitting the room I quite yeah I quite like it though and yeah a
00:56:30
Slither of um indifferent people in the middle yeah that are just oh know I can see that with me because I've I've been
00:56:36
on Commercial radio for many years but you who would yeah I don't know I can't
00:56:41
imagine anyone would would feel that negative towards you when you only bring good into the world really do you want
00:56:47
me to give you their names there's quite a few yeah it is what it is you know and what I've
00:56:54
noticed especially in the last last year is that um me just living my best life is annoying the B Jesus out of a few
00:57:03
people I'm not I'm not you know like literally um me just living my best life
00:57:09
is annoying the [ __ ] out of people because they've known me for a long time
00:57:13
and they have their own opinions about me and you know like people prob possibly think they know me if they've
00:57:19
known me for 30 years well I would say that the last you know 12 years have been a mom I'm quite a different person
00:57:27
than I was when I was 14 you know like 14 years ago yes mainly because I've I
00:57:33
wouldn't say I'm Different I'd say I'm unapologetically myself now oh good for you just sort of
00:57:40
Reaching Your Potential and and you know that just I the we bit of sick just came up in my
00:57:46
mouth when you said that it's like you know I don't know what the [ __ ] is
00:57:50
potential it's like you know just living a good life no just just being you being
00:57:55
everything that you know you can be yeah and I just think I'm I would I would
00:57:59
phrase it as I'm just leaning into it I'm just leaning into the opportunities
00:58:04
that I have and I'm just loving it yeah and as I said to you before I have always known that I would end up in this
00:58:11
position yeah you know like if I look at my some DMS this week I'm just like I I
00:58:17
tell my sisters I'm like gu who DM me the we it's like you know cuz we all
00:58:22
think I'm hilarious like you know if you want to be grounded here two sister like
00:58:26
mine um you know and it's do you know what I mean it's just like and they they
00:58:30
just absolutely cheer me cheerlead me and also tell me you know when if I sort of pull a Swifty on Mom and try and get
00:58:38
some sympathy for something they'll be like yeah that cancer card's done die
00:58:42
your history you know you just it's old news that was like day two you know it's
00:58:47
like yeah no you can't do that [ __ ] so you know it's just I don't know I could
00:58:50
you so yeah your go before International speaker and you said you want to um be an author um you're you're in the middle
00:58:57
of writing a book at the moment I've got it sitting on my desk really yeah what's
00:59:01
what's it called or what's the theme of it one more year it's just my life it's
00:59:05
it's what we've talked about and interesting one of the things we've
00:59:08
talked about today around my ending of my first marriage is actually in there and it's the first time I've talked
00:59:14
about it today I've never talked about it before Oh thanks for talking about
00:59:18
that yeah it's it's um it's funny every single person has flaws and vulnerabilities and we don't we don't
00:59:24
like to talk about them you know but it's um yeah it's just human and I'd
00:59:29
love to think that uh you know for me the only mistake I'd make is not learning from them and not taking those
00:59:36
not knowing myself would be my you know would be a real sad thing for me as if I
00:59:41
didn't take the opportunities to lean and to get to know myself and you know
00:59:44
double down on that yeah absolutely and um oh a big part of the work you do on your website you you work with um I
00:59:52
found this line really strange accidental business owners yeah what what what does that mean exactly well
00:59:58
what's an accidental business owner do you own your own business well I suppose kind of yeah
01:00:04
yeah and did you wake up at 15 and go I'm going to own businesses or did you
01:00:10
hone your craft and then find yourself in a position where you're like oh I have to do these busy things now yeah
01:00:18
the the letter yeah that's an accidental business owner so people that are so
01:00:22
good at their craft quite often they do it as a side hassle but sometimes it's
01:00:26
just I would say accidental Business Leaders which is you know people that work for somebody else but people that
01:00:31
work for themselves they've they've honed their craft that much and they've
01:00:36
accidentally fallen into business so you know at the age of 12 I was talking about business with my dad so the
01:00:43
language of business everything around business we were talking about right through my teenage years so I always
01:00:48
knew that I was going to be in business you you must a weird K where did that come from weird I mean in the best
01:00:56
possible way so the Tony Robbins thing reading awaken the giant within as a teenage girl when do you know why though
01:01:02
I read that because my dad had aspects of his upbringing that were particularly difficult yeah I heard about this so um
01:01:11
you you never got to meet your nana on your dead side she she took her own life this this was a generation a long time
01:01:18
before mental health was even a knowing yeah sort of thing yeah so you know that
01:01:23
and there's a lot around that in terms of the way she did it and the fact that
01:01:27
my dad actually found her and so you know there is the that was really difficult for him and that was holding
01:01:36
him back and dad and I had started this conversation about how do you move past something like that and I was a weird
01:01:43
kid in the fact that when I get a gut feeling that's when the the bum glue do you know what I mean and I'm
01:01:52
like that's going to happen and so you know Dad and I would talk about it and
01:01:56
I'd go I'm going to find an answer to that yeah but as a teenage girl where
01:02:02
did that sort of emotional intelligence come from well I've always been no but you know what I mean that's
01:02:10
a lot all your friends at the time would have been reading [ __ ] I don't know Enid
01:02:13
bighton or the babysitter's club or whatever and you're reading Tony Robbins
01:02:17
yeah and weirdly I'm dyslexic and that's probably the second book I read and it's
01:02:22
like this thick yeah it's massive it's massive but give me something I'm
01:02:26
interested in and I'll read it you know um look I don't know I don't know I just
01:02:32
was who I was awkwardly so but you know I had a desperate desire to be loved as a teenage girl you know like I really
01:02:41
struggled with it I think that um I I I did struggle with it and I think that's probably why you know I got
01:02:51
married and you know thought that I'd just be happy and then it was like I think when I I left my first husband I
01:02:56
was like oh [ __ ] I took the problem with me the problem is me yeah I need to love
01:03:03
myself and I think that's where that whole journey came from yeah God I think
01:03:07
I still have elements of that now that desperate need to be loved yeah you know that people pleasing tendency but if but
01:03:13
if you can be aware of it I figure that's uh one step closer to and and I with clients and stuff I've always
01:03:18
talked about this it's like that thing that you want and expect you know how we
01:03:22
talked before about high standards low expectations I don't expect anything from other people I I would say that I
01:03:29
have one of the best marriages cuz my there was no expectations on my husband high standards highest of Standards but
01:03:36
low expectations I don't expect him to make me happy I don't expect him to ever
01:03:40
notice I've had a haircut cuz in 16 years he never has yet um I came home with a pink once and he still didn't
01:03:48
notice you know but it's like you know people go well I got married and I expect that they'll do this and I expect
01:03:53
that they'll be this way anything that I want life I expect of it of myself I
01:03:59
will go and get it myself now not always that way but it's like you know I fill
01:04:05
my own cup you know I make sure that I love the [ __ ] out of myself it's like am
01:04:10
I happy with my life and my situation and where I'm at before I'm looking at
01:04:15
anyone else to say you know I didn't expect that from you you should have done it differently
01:04:21
[ __ ] that's such a high level of accountability it's really powerful yep
01:04:26
it is that's what I mean imagine loving with that that's what I mean no it's good but
01:04:32
it's good like I suppose um you know there's that saying that all boats go up
01:04:37
in a rising title you like it's you're not you're not yeah you're putting the
01:04:41
pressure on yourself and I suppose by that like Steve and Jackson their standards immediately raised to try and
01:04:48
you know not not compete yeah keep up keep up yeah yeah yeah yeah you know but again if that's one of my greater
01:04:55
strengths one of the downsides to that rather than calling it a weakness but one of the downsides to that is purely
01:05:02
um it's exhausting no it's not exhausting um but you know like I do lose friendships you know like you know
01:05:09
because I'm moving in a certain direction so if you're not moving with me then you know you'll go and do your
01:05:16
own thing so I don't have you know like if I look back over time I've kept a
01:05:22
number of friends like I but I I'm quite select in who is around me I'm very very
01:05:28
select in who who's allowed to get in my ears and speak to me and have an influence on my life yeah but as you get
01:05:35
older you understand the sort of cycle of friendship so there's that saying about yeah people coming to your life
01:05:39
for a reason a season or a lifetime and it's it's very true like so true some
01:05:43
people are there for a just just a reason and you get what you need from each other and then you part your
01:05:47
separate ways y 100% yeah like if I look at um your photos from you know when I got married to my wife um my ex-wife 20
01:05:55
years ago it's like there's so many people there that I'm I'd still call
01:05:59
them friends but I haven't seen them in years and you just sort of drift apart
01:06:01
cuz you're not working together anymore or you move cities it just happens and I
01:06:05
also think that because I do enjoy my own company a lot more you know if I'm
01:06:11
not working and if I'm not with my family then I'm very happy to be on my
01:06:14
own you know and I I was not like that in my 20s yeah that's awesome and so the um
01:06:21
you the business coaching you do what are some of the biggest um success stories is there anything that anything
01:06:27
that stands out I think there's there's a whole range of things that I'm incredibly proud of and
01:06:38
I think some of them are the smallest of things you know some of them are just about people that generally my clients
01:06:45
will come to me and the first thing they say is I don't really have a problem um
01:06:50
I'm not really sure why I'm here um I just know that I don't want to be in
01:06:54
this situation in a Year's time and and it's not necessarily that they're doing
01:06:57
badly or anything like that it's just that they they they've become aware that
01:07:02
life is short and they just want to go to the next level so it's everything some of the ones that I'm really proud
01:07:09
of is just reframing their life so that they can step forward and then of course
01:07:14
there's more public people that I coach that have been very vocal about that and
01:07:18
you know Dave wood would come to mind you know he is over in pea and he is oh um yeah has team three sh me I'm doing a
01:07:26
podcast with him in I think next month oh classic yeah so Dave um you know stress medication or stress breath work
01:07:34
coach with um Israel aandra you know like real interesting guy and you know our relationship is quite unique and
01:07:42
quite special you know and I'm super proud of the work that I've done with
01:07:45
them you know and that's probably been a little bit more from a real business
01:07:49
point of view but also um I guess the thing that I'm proudest is I don't
01:07:55
separate the business and the people you know people come to me and it's like you
01:08:00
know if we talk about the business well the problem with the business is generally the person like they're
01:08:05
generally always the problem so to separate them you know there are business coaches that really do the nuts
01:08:10
and bolts of business and that's awesome that's just not what I do because I just
01:08:14
can't leave the person behind I just want to you know I love people and I just
01:08:19
want I'm just one of those people that I get more joy out of somebody else doing
01:08:24
exceptionally well than being driven to you know you know I like a mom on the sidelines 100% which is so weird because
01:08:32
do you want to know who my like my clients are generally between 35 and 45 males it is so weird to me when I first
01:08:42
started coaching I was like surely there'll be women of my age and I do have about 25% of you know wom but 75%
01:08:51
honestly staggers me and I think it's like it's like the Auntie you know it's
01:08:55
like oh she's she's done quite a bit on life she you know oh you we've got to
01:09:00
zoom with d we better do the homework us that's exactly what happens be like I
01:09:05
did that this morning oh god um and have you um this might be an outright no but
01:09:10
like if you were to like fire or part ways with any of your clients like this just oh really yeah like this just isn't
01:09:17
working um oh look I don't believe that I have to be that blunt I you know I am
01:09:23
blunt but I just I don't know you can just naturally let things shift you know
01:09:29
yeah I wouldn't even say You're Fired No actually that's not true actually Dave
01:09:33
Wood I said to him if you don't do that by Monday I'm not coaching you anymore
01:09:37
you can go jog on and he was like oh Jesus she was serious was very funny it was you know we have an amazing
01:09:44
relationship what was it what was the thing I have no idea I don't hold on to anything I don't
01:09:49
need well um what would be three words to describe you or say your funeral the rip old age
01:09:56
of 97 one year more than what three words would you like um like people in the room to like commonly agree are three
01:10:04
words to describe you I would love it if they said that I was as challenging as [ __ ] I challenging as [ __ ] yeah that's a
01:10:11
good bumper sticker as well challenging yeah yeah yeah 100% because I think I believe in equally challenging somebody
01:10:19
in supporting them so nobody is going to come to me for coaching if they don't
01:10:23
want to be challenged they would would not walk nobody would even pick up write an email to me unless they wanted some
01:10:30
sort of reflection back at them yeah you know like I yeah and so I would love them to say that I was
01:10:37
challenging um I would love them to say I would just want there's a feeling that
01:10:50
um you know when you meet people like say we never ever ever saw each other other again and someone said to you my
01:10:57
name and you just had this feeling like of how you felt when you were here with me that's what I would want people to
01:11:04
remember is I just don't believe people will either remember what I say or what
01:11:09
I do but I firmly one of the most common things people say to me is I remember how I felt when I first met you or when
01:11:17
I've you know like they remember that and I I would want them to remember that
01:11:22
and the only other thing that I would want them to remember as that I loved my son with all my
01:11:30
[Music] heart it's so cool and I you know like I that get that gets me more emotional these days when
01:11:40
I've reflected on the fact that I put my career on hold for 12 years not like I
01:11:46
kept it under a tight handbrake until I felt that we were ready as a family for things to
01:11:53
change yeah oh good on you it's inspiring to watch J you're um have you always been quite emotional or you find
01:12:00
you got more emotional like post cancer or is it just like a middle-aged thing I
01:12:04
find I'm getting more emotional as I get older I have always allowed my emotions
01:12:08
to suit this you know you asked before about being emotionally intelligent I would say that I you know I can remember
01:12:14
in my 20s um when there was a situation that happened at work and my uncle said to me you know you just you just cry at
01:12:21
the drop of a hat and then the situation happened and he it was like really painful for him because he couldn't get
01:12:28
the emotion out and he said to me I think you were right all along he said you just process it cuz I I can go from
01:12:35
feeling that to then letting it go like I don't have to hold on to it you know
01:12:40
and so I I allow myself to move through emotions because I don't think we're
01:12:45
meant to just be happy or all the time I think we're meant to feel all the things
01:12:51
you know like I want to feel that my son means a lot to me and it brings tears to
01:12:55
my eyes and I just you know like I just want to love the [ __ ] out of life I think that would be the thing is you
01:13:01
know I want to be remembered for living just simply loving I think it's a good place to end
01:13:12
it I can't think of like anything more powerful than that [ __ ] yeah um as I
01:13:17
said before like yeah you know you walk the walk and you talk the talk and um you've got the scars to [ __ ] back it
01:13:23
up as well yeah I have do I fost we've been going backwards and forwards for
01:13:27
yeah a long time now and it's it's wonderful that this finally um has happened I'm yeah I'm humbled it's been
01:13:35
great to be in your presence it's been a pleasure to meet you I was apprehensive
01:13:39
about today really why so um because I'm a lot and when I see when I see things in people sometimes I I
01:13:49
find it hard not to say something and so I have a couple of questions for you oh
01:13:54
God Jackson stop recording no no no yeah yeah go ahead you can C I have only watched one of your
01:14:05
interviews and it was Israel Sandra's therapist oh Janet Redmond yeah thank you did you do her course oh no no I
01:14:14
haven't done it why not I um I so she came to Oakland it was going it was a group course um and I had like
01:14:26
sort of like a bit of anxiety about it I I feel I feel bad about this but I'm
01:14:30
going to be completely honest with you I I I sent her a text saying um I was down
01:14:34
with the flu I wasn't feeling 100% but I was definitely well enough to go so it
01:14:37
was a [ __ ] excuse um yeah you could work with her privately though yeah yeah I must do that I need
01:14:48
to do that but it was um it was it was a great chat it was yeah it was it was very um cathartic but yeah you realize
01:14:55
how how close to the surface those emotions are like we're only a few minutes in before I started like boiling
01:15:01
my eyes out like really ugly crying um yeah she's no she was a great guest sometimes I have a really strong sense
01:15:09
about things I think we've touched on that today and I watched that interview
01:15:14
and I only had one question for you is have you done it why not and when are you going to because um that emotion
01:15:22
that's just sitting there you will not know your once you move through that and
01:15:27
it is going to stay there until you address it yeah and I want to meet that Dom so I'm only asking you to do it for
01:15:37
me but I want to meet him [ __ ] you're not even my business coach and you're
01:15:41
giving me tasks yeah no I will I found you know so I sent you this text saying I'm under
01:15:49
the weather I'm not going to be to make it and then she replied something like
01:15:51
oh oh okay blast maybe next time I felt like piece of [ __ ] cuz I I knew I was you know kind of lying to her and kind
01:15:59
of lying to myself don't worry about lying to her yeah it's only lying to
01:16:03
yourself that's a problem cuz you have to go to bed at night and sleep with yourself that sounds weird but you know
01:16:10
what I mean yeah yeah yeah I love myself so that's no no actually I don't I don't
01:16:15
love myself but I'm working on getting there I know yeah and and that's what I
01:16:19
mean like I just think I think it's closer than you realize and I think your
01:16:24
resistance and doing the work is what what there's a a a saying that's the
01:16:29
magic you were looking for is in the work that you're avoiding I like that and I knew with
01:16:35
100% that you hadn't gone and done that I did think for a split second about lying to you no and I would have
01:16:44
gone [ __ ] there's no [ __ ] way that you've done that I knew when you said it
01:16:50
I thought oh yeah he's he knows he needs to go but he hasn't gone yet yeah yeah
01:16:55
it's it's it's ter like it's the worst sort of procrastination like doing work
01:16:59
on yourself isn't it should be yeah but we do it cuz it's hard and do you know how many people
01:17:07
never do the work you know like let's not be too I'm not trying to be hard on
01:17:12
you I'm just trying to invite you into a space that I think that you're going to
01:17:17
love yeah I I know and I'm aware there's a lot of people that never do the work
01:17:21
like I'm thinking like you my parents generation and beyond that that it was
01:17:25
just even even a thing but we know that um there's resources and tools now and
01:17:31
it's up to us to use them if you want to be the best version of yourself that you
01:17:34
can be yeah anyway get your own [ __ ] podcast you you're a guest on mine well
01:17:41
it just so happens that I have actually we released it yesterday uh on Wednesday business in between oh
01:17:50
oh with between two beers yes Stephen chers yeah you've been on their podcast
01:17:54
you do a bit of work with them yes so I have but lovely guys they are they do a great job but we've actually um got a a
01:18:01
new channel called business in between and that is some serious live coaching stuff going on so they are very generous
01:18:10
in the fact that they open up and we have some pretty interesting chats and you know if you want a better
01:18:15
explanation of what accidental business owners are we talk about there's a whole
01:18:19
series that we're doing on accidental business owners you know because it's
01:18:23
just it is such a big thing and you because we are really good at doing side hustles and all of that sort of stuff
01:18:28
and people quite often um just literally find themselves in that situation so yeah I did I went and got myself a
01:18:36
podcast fantastic good for you good for you what's it called business in between
01:18:40
business in between between okay all right I'll be sure to check it out yeah
01:18:43
those those guys are great I've um we've connected a few times yeah that's one
01:18:47
thing um if being from a radio background radio's got a real um scarcity mentality I don't know if it's
01:18:52
if it's changed now but for my 30 years and radio it was it was like that it was
01:18:56
like if someone's listening to a station that you're not working on then they
01:18:59
they're the enemy basically but the found the the whole podcasting sphere very very very open and accepting and
01:19:06
welcoming community in terms of exchanging ideas and things yeah cuz you you had Luke on the other day didn't you
01:19:11
yes yeah came from keep the change yeah yeah yeah yeah so we were having a we chat and he said something oh he must
01:19:17
have said something about um time and I said what's the time debate you know and
01:19:21
he was like like I was like 2 hours yeah I was like damn it I'm just far more efficient with my
01:19:29
words L that's why also also the quality over quantity yeah exactly loving that
01:19:35
Dom all right hey d foster so wonderful to connect pleas um it's been the first
01:19:39
time it definitely won't be the last I look forward to it cheers