Full Transcript for Shift Happens with Richard Sutton | Rachel Kolisi on Self-Worth, Survival and Starting Over

was very violent environment. There was a lot of old call abuse. It was the tension that the fighting, the all life fighting, and there's there's a reason why I didn't succeed at school and you struggled what was going on emotionally in the home during that time that probably culminated in that reality. 00:07:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of you know, it was tricky writing about my childhood and like my home environment as a child, because there's a lot of elements and stories that I've kind of told in the book, but trying to be as respectful and honoring of the people that especially are still alive and around, just because I'm conscious that I think as parents, we can all agree that we do the best we can with what we know and what we have, and we still don't nail it. Like there's no element of parenting that's perfect. And I think being able to touch on some of those moments in my childhood and you're just trying to explain that it was a really I was felt like I was constantly in a fearful environment. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of violence as well. 00:08:29 Speaker 1: It's like a really interesting phenomenon that we take with us, and yes, we can work it out. It's a genetically media and interesting enough, but it takes exactly what you know. This book is about the work, and it takes a lot of work in order to achieve that. Yeah, you know kind of you've been through a lot of people, face a lot of things, and you've been through a lot of things. Where do you think your ability to keep going came from. 00:08:57 Speaker 3: I would love to be able to endpoint like a moment and awakening a realization, But I almost feel like every situation has offered a different reason to go again and a different desire to get up and go again. And you know, there were moments, like I spoke about my suicide attempt, there were also moments where I truly believed like I could not and I shouldn't be on this earth and there is no place for me here. And so it got that serious that I believed there was no value to what I was bringing and. 00:09:43 Speaker 4: Into living. 00:09:45 Speaker 3: And in that situation specifically, and what I've held very close to me since is this idea of perspective. I feel sometimes, especially when you going through something really hard, we really struggle to have a perspective of what this might look like from somebody else's view, and we get so intertwined and so in this rabbit hole of our own situation and how bad it is and why can't it be better? And why am I struggling so much? And you know, it kind of just spirals. And what's been very helpful for me over the years and kind of practicing getting out of that hole is perspective. And so that's where I find my philanthropy work and serving others so helpful, because it allows to acknowledge that I'm going through something really hard and to kind of step out of that into someone else's environment and what's going on in their space and see how they're. 00:10:57 Speaker 4: Dealing with it and how they're managing it. 00:10:59 Speaker 3: And then and then sometimes it helps with perspective on like, actually, my situation is rough, but it definitely could be worse, and I think that that's really important and really helpful. And so in the case of you know, after I commited tried to commit suicide, I spoke about how my aunt encouraged me to go work at an orphanage and I was fifteen years old, and that was the most impactful experiences of my life, and I mean, by some miracle, I landed up becoming quite friendly with a girl who was also fifteen years old, and I shared a bit about her story, how she had watched her mother burned alive and she was gang raped, and she showed up every single morning helping with the other children. She was full of joy, she was happy, she would go to her therapy, and I remember just thinking I wrote a story about her that I actually have somewhere, but I did like a little report of my time there. And I remember when I was interviewing her and chatting to her, I was just thinking, my situation is hard, and it's not it's not overlooking that or you know, undermining what I was dealing with, but it also could be worse. And I think that's where just perspective is super helpful. So I don't think there's a moment to getting up and going again. I think it's it's a part of I think resilience is something it's a gift to every single human being. 00:12:25 Speaker 4: We all have it in us. 00:12:27 Speaker 3: I think it's when and how we choose to tap into it that I think really matters. 00:12:32 Speaker 1: I mean what you've said, I mean, really like echoes the purpose piece, purpose being that we're contributing to the well being of others and the upliftment of others. Yeah, passion is for ourselves. Purpose is for others. Yeah, And if I were to kind of distill it and drill it down, somehow purpose found its way into your life. And it's still and it's really this is you know, it's now magnified. But you know, just asking a question about the attempted suicide, Yeah, did it change the family dynamic from that point onwards? 00:13:07 Speaker 4: It almost did. It almost did. 00:13:10 Speaker 3: So there was a big My parents never really managed to be on any kind of same page at all throughout the process, which is why it was really important for me in my experience to change the way that I experienced it as a child. And so I actually, in a way got more fearful after it had happened, because then there was discussions about she's got to move here, she's got to go to the school, she just got it, And I remember just thinking I was so desperate for stability and structure. 00:13:45 Speaker 4: I did not need more change. 00:13:46 Speaker 3: I did not need big decisions made for me in that season, And so it was just incredibly fearful and I think it all so helped open up a conversation for more for my siblings now where we were all at and how we were kind of dealing with these massive changes going on in our life,

and that was helpful from that front. And I mean all in hindsight, that was twenty one years ago. I'm able to have conversations with many young people that that's a reality for them, that's the process that they're thinking about, and they're not sure if they belong, if there's a purpose on their life at all. And in a way, as horrific as it was in the moment, it's almost been a gift in hindsight, because yeah, there's genuinely so many children who don't want to be. 00:14:51 Speaker 1: On the stay to impact through the gift, yep, well through the experience. Yeah, you know, there's also kind of something else, like really resonated in what you just said, is you just wanted to be safe. What does any child want? I want to be safe. I want to be held and any instability and any uncertainty and any conflict in any from my experience, I guess in hindsight and just what you said, I've just thought about how I lived and all I wanted to. I just want to be safe. 00:15:24 Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's that's not at all ask for any child. 00:15:29 Speaker 1: And I think it's a base expectation one hundred. 00:15:32 Speaker 3: It's water and air like, it's every child deserves safety, bottom line. 00:15:37 Speaker 1: And I think safety and support go hand in hand. And there's also a really great line in the book where you said your your siblings were your cheerleaders. What's you know, what kind of support did they give you or what kind of love did they give you? 00:15:52 Speaker 4: It's like a what's the word? 00:15:56 Speaker 3: Like an unconditional love, Like there is nothing that I could ever do that. I feel my siblings would be like what one step too far for us? Like they would they would take me with any decision or action and of course hold me accountable. But they I mean, my kids, for example, are constantly at each other. They are fighting left, right and sent and I'm like, okay, it's normal because I know, like we had you know, we had this season and siblings as well. But I'm like, this is your person for the rest of your life, no matter what happens in your life, Like you have that person hopefully, and and so I think for me, I've just felt really blessed in the fact that, you know, my life has taken so many different roads and highs and lows, and it's very interesting doing it. Some of it now like in the public eye and feeling like everybody's watching every decision and every movement, every you know, everything that happens in your personal life. It feels like there's so many eyes on it, and it's a weird thing to happen. But I just feel like when it's almost like going into a cave, like when I'm with my siblings, and it's like it just feels like a protective layer and just like a safety space exactly. 00:17:20 Speaker 1: Hell, you know, it's it's interesting, and there's there's so many great ideas on support and for us to be the best version of itself, we need a combination of two things. We need to be stretched and challenged. Someone's going

to say, can do better, and someone's going to say I've got you, I've got you, and if you fell, I'm there. The safety need is there. And there's this this theory and I find it to be an extraordinary theory on who do we need to be to bring out the best in others? And we need to be five characters. So character number one is we need to be our kids coach. We need to encourage them whatever that that's the best I've never seen better. You're wonderful. I meanwhile, so we need we need it at the times, we need to be their coach, and at times we need to be their mental So that I've been down the stode, this is how it's going to unfold. This is what I think you should be doing. This is how I think you should Approbably, we need to be a mental We can't just be encouraging. Then there are times where we need to be the visionary so that I believe in you. You've got I believe in you, but you've got to raise the bar. Wait, this is not enough. This is not enough for what you can do and what you're delivering. How there's a time where we have to be that person. So this is the future. This is who you are, this is who you can be, This is what you need to do, and I'm going to encourage you and I'm going to share my experiences along the way. And there are times where we also need to be their defender. So when the world's coming at them, we stand in the way, we buffer, We show we never had that. We are owned defenders. So we're standing, we're standing in the way. Whatever comes a way, we're gonna we then it's not past me. Yeah, that's what our child needs. We want to coach, you want a vision, we want to defend, and we want these elements twice to be whole in full. And the last piece in this theory theory, I don't even theory. I think it's a great reality, is we need a disruptor. So within this whole sphere, we need we need to be able to make them laugh, and we need to bring lightness, and we need to bring humor, and we need to change the way they thinking. We need to be quirky and stupid and and if we can bring all of that, and yes, we need to provide the right schooling. If we can bring all of that, imagine what our kids would be. Imagine the life that we never had, what we don't follow. 00:19:43 Speaker 3: That's why I just think like there's almost a generation that is standing in the way of like what has been. And I really do believe that like maybe one or two generations where we're sitting now like there throwing a land in the sand and saying like not beyond me, like that's not going to be my kid's reality. And that was the case for me, Like there was so much that I experienced it I was like, no, this is not going to be my kid's reality. It's going to be different. And that required me doing a lot of work and not saying like, okay, you need to do that, like this person needs to be better, We're going to get this one that it's a lot of like introspective work that I think is very important because it's quick and it's easy to say, like I've spoke about this recently, but I feel there's so many adults walking around making excuses either for themselves, their partners, or somebody else and saying, well, you know, their upbringing was really hard, and their upbringing was X, Y and Z. Sure, sure, and that should be acknowledged, and there's an opportunity to do better, and there's resources available to do better. So I just think there's too many people that it's almost becoming I don't want to say, because I don't you. Of course, there's like a traumatic element to it, but I think there's a responsibility that we have as adults and especially as parents, to know that we could be doing better and then do it better, and then there's a lot that's really exciting to look forward to for the generations that are coming up. 00:21:23 Speaker 1: I really love this, and it was how you defined love people? You define love as people who want you to do well, want you to be happy, and have nothing to gain from it. How did you come to understand love that way? 00:21:41 Speaker 3: I think so much of what I've experienced as love throughout the years as being conditional, and like if you act in a certain way, then I'm able to love you, and if you're able to show up in a certain way, or you know, it was always conditional. And I think probably in about the last eighteen months where I have felt I've had minus zero to offer, people have loved and shown up for me and just been incredibly supportive, and I was like, this is actually what love is, and this is what it feels like. An example of that I spoke about it as well in the book. But when I went to Botswana, I did this, yeah, the horse riding safari, but you know, I obviously was on my own. It was terrified, and I was like, stupid, stupid, stupid girl, like go home, why did you do this? But I remember leaving that trip because there was no Wi Fi there, so you couldn't connect with anybody like online or whatever, and so we all had no idea. The one night, I was thinking, I'm going to tell them I'm a dentist and see how that goes. Just see how far that conversation good. But I literally could have told him anything. And I remember leaving that trip and I had twenty new friends who knew absolutely nothing about me aside from what I told them and offered them on that trip, and I was like, it was so beautiful because it had felt like it had been so long since that had ever been the case. And they're now friends for life, Like we're constantly touching base and planning, you know, how we're going to see each other again. But I think that as a human value is so underestimated and undermined, and that is love, Like that's love when someone just takes you for what you've got, not anything else that you might have to offer, but just you as a human being in the conversation you're having right now. 00:23:54 Speaker 4: I think for long on this. 00:23:56 Speaker 3: Topic of love, Like I just believe love was this idea year between two people. But it's unlike the amount of times,

like now, when I was driving to this Nippers competition with my kids, I just the sky was beautiful and there was a great song playing and the kids were laughing, and I was. 00:24:13 Speaker 4: Like, oh, like, it's. 00:24:14 Speaker 3: This is love, Like it's it's these beautiful moments that you constantly have to you have to be prison to be able to capture them. But I'm like, love doesn't belong in a place or a person. It's literally surrounds us all the time. And I think the sooner we realize that, the more we're just like, cool, this is awesome. 00:24:34 Speaker 1: So we kind of go back to kind of the trauma and self and the experiences you faced, and there were there were there were different I mean the best accident must have been significant. I mean crashing in a bus, one or two people died, broken on just kindish all of our member. 00:24:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really good. 00:25:00 Speaker 1: What did it teach you about yourself when things really got hard? 00:25:04 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it wasn't even it wasn't even weeks after the bus accident. So I was nine years old and I was in a school bus accident and a friend of mine passed away, and I almost it's now thinking about it in this moment, I almost want to say it was a similar process to when my son. My son was born very premature, and you kind of I went into, like I go into robot mode of just okay, what needs to happen in order to for me and everybody around me to continue functioning. And at nine years old, like I remember feeling that as well, just go to the sessions. They say you need to go to go to school, Karen writing, go to your physio, go to your doctor's checkups. But there was no space really to process. And so what I have found about myself in a solid eighteen months of therapy work is that I I'm a people pleaser, and I was a people pleaser, and I would always make sure everyone around me was okay, even at my expense, and even at nine years old. I think it was very traumatic for my family and everyone that was around. They were on a trip six hours away and got a phone call that there'd been a bus accident and there's debts, but they don't know who's died, and so I think for them it was just a very. 00:26:36 Speaker 4: It was an awful situation. 00:26:39 Speaker 3: And what happens for me is I gather everybody else's emotions, feelings, processes, and I hold it and I don't have a space to process those things, and then all bubbles out somewhere and for me at panic attacks. And at nine years old, I had my very first panic attack and it was triggered by homework, funnily enough, but trying to spell. 00:27:05 Speaker 4: Like to this day, I cannot spell. 00:27:07 Speaker 3: I sat on a book launch stage recently and I was like, if you asked me to spell, spell beautiful, I'm still better eat uncles or because you see that might even be because but it's amore no, but I'm also best selling author house. 00:27:24 Speaker 4: You can do it without spelling. 00:27:27 Speaker 3:

But I yeah, I just remember I was triggered by spelling homework and it just became this massive She died and it became this whole thing, but full blown panic attack. And to this day, the exact same thing happens when I'm taking on and gathering and it's everybody else's stuff I don't have. When I don't have boundaries in place with people and emotions and all the things, it all bubbles out somewhere, and bubbling. 00:27:57 Speaker 1: Out like your system goes into overdrive. 00:27:59 Speaker 4: And this this is where I knew. 00:28:02 Speaker 3: Some of the biggest decisions I've had to make have been because my body has told me, not because it was a heart or a mind decision, but I would put myself in such a dangerous position that health physically, my health would be like, we cannot do this, and yeah. This one of the panic attacks was I was cooking dinner in Paris in my kitchen and just blue at the But now I've got kids around, so I don't want them to see. But I couldn't breathe. I literally couldn't breathe. So I sat outside and tried to calm myself. But then then I know, if my body's starting to tell me something, then I know something needs to change here. 00:28:47 Speaker 4: I breathed slowl, I breathed environment. 00:28:52 Speaker 3: I literally sat next to a tree because trees are any kind of nature is always just healing, and said to link for me. And we had one tree in the garden, and I walked outside and I held on to the tree and then kind of slid down the tree because I just wasn't breathing. 00:29:09 Speaker 4: I was like just as deep. 00:29:11 Speaker 3: As I could and just trying to just breathe because I literally felt like I was going to pass out. But but I think that in itself is such an important lesson. When you've gone too far, taken yourself too far, your body will eventually start telling you. And that shows up not just in panic attacks, but in different ways and forms headaches, cramps, shoulders. Yeah, I think I think it's something we need to be conscious of as well. 00:29:41 Speaker 1: Serving to eighty percent of health issues are stress. 00:29:44 Speaker 4: And I've one remember reading that. 00:29:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, so kind of you at this point and you've you've had the acknowledging the physical signs. You read gabble Matter's book. No, it's a very very long book, very hard to read, but it's all about how trauma and codes itself physically. 00:30:05 Speaker 3: I feel like I'm going to read your third book because I feel like it's going to have a lot of that in there. 00:30:09 Speaker 1: Actually, it's a very very good book. That's a good thing. But you know, you said you have to have hope in those moments. Yeah, and there was a quote, beautiful quote. It's just a very good student. I love that hope is what carries you when certainty is gone. What did hope look like at that moment you slid down the tree? What did hope looked like a moment later a day later for me. 00:30:36 Speaker 3: In that moment when I could breathe again, I I just closed my eyes and I literally prayed, and I was just like, what is happening? 00:30:48 Speaker 4: What am I doing? And sometimes. 00:30:54 Speaker 3: I think we believe a massive decision needs to be made in that moment of what's going to change, how this is going to be made better? But sometimes hope looks like literally getting to your feet again and taking a step and back to the kitchen to cook the food. And I think, hope there's an idea around hope that it needs to be this massive, grand thing, but it doesn't always. I think it's sometimes small. I prayed and I felt like God was whispering things to me in that moment, and it brought like such a level of peace and comfort for me. And you know, now kind of fast forwarding to let's say a year after that first panic attack, I had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women specifically mostly reaching out, just completely hopeless and sitting for lack of better visual like sitting at the tree and just not being able to get away from that, and what is the next step, Like where do we go from here? And that really is what falling forward in this whole. 00:32:18 Speaker 4: Process has been. It's been a reminder. 00:32:21 Speaker 3: That hope exists for all of us and is available to us, but sometimes we've got to open our eyes and take a step somewhere in order to see where it exists. And I felt very cold. I felt very cold that there's just there's too many people suffering, Like there's too many people scraping through, and too many people sitting at the bottom of the tree and not able to move from there. And that's why, you know, falling forward and kind of bringing everything together has been so important because it's it does create hope. 00:33:01 Speaker 4: It's created so much hope. 00:33:03 Speaker 3: And I think anyone who's brave enough to share some of the hardest moments and seasons in their life, it creates hope. 00:33:11 Speaker 1: For casm yes, I mean Harker thought it was this journey. Yeah, wild, that's crazy. I mean I share in my third book, I start opening up about where I came from, and I found that there was no therapeutic intervention that paralleled that experience or just just put it down, this is where I came from, and I own it. 00:33:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, And like, in hindsight to that the amount of people that I think in a way, you save because of that, because so many people are just journeying through life, believing that they're alone and their situation, their storm, is exclusive to them. But there's so many of us who have actually journeyed through similar not the same, of course, but similar seasons and similar things and drawings. Yeah, and just practicality. And I mean, that's what you're so brilliant, are doing very practically. Let's just bring it down to some steps, and this is what the steps look like. And I think the fact that that you've been brave enough and and open enough and courageous enough to share some of the hardest moments has

been life saving for other people. And I'm like, what else, why what else are we on the earth for? 00:34:24 Speaker 1: If not that you made it through everything you got through? 00:34:28 Speaker 4: Who knows? Who knows? 00:34:31 Speaker 1: But what was it like? Were there moments you just thought, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can get through it. 00:34:38 Speaker 4: I can. I used to cut myself for years. 00:34:42 Speaker 3: I used to cut myself and for a long time I did not want to live. And one like I, there were moments and and even even in more recent processes, like it's depression is a very interesting dynamic to learn to live with, and it's it's not something that you flip on and off and it's okay, today, we're good, Like everything's good, we're happy, ready to roll, and then tomorrow you just wake up and it's just everything is impossible. 00:35:18 Speaker 4: Literally getting out of bed, it's impossible. And so. 00:35:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that in its own has been a very interesting journey. But I feel like there's a lot of power that comes with acknowledging some of these hard things and a lot of freedom that comes with that as well. 00:35:39 Speaker 1: And so. 00:35:41 Speaker 3: You know, I spoke about how depression is just something that I've learned to live with and manage really well. But it took a long time to get here. And one hundred percent there are moments and seasons where I just like what am I doing? 00:35:59 Speaker 4: Like why am I here? 00:36:00 Speaker 1: You said in your book just going on to the healing pot. Healing doesn't require denying the good. It asks us to hold the full truth. And so often we think to get over this, I've got to that's the enemy and that's the villain, and that's we think that the only way we can move forward is by saying that that era or that period was bad, and I found that particularly powerful. I'm found of many things powerful, But what did that actually demand of you? Like, yeah, I think, like what did that demanded? 00:36:36 Speaker 3: It's been a massive demand. And I think throughout my life, you know a lot of people that I A lot of people that I referenced about like what had happened in the pages of this book. I still chose to honor parts of them that taught me really beautiful lessons about myself and have given me gifts that I get to carry with me through the rest of my life. And it's not to say that you know any of those people. It's all been sunshine and roses throughout. Like, there's been really hard seasons and things that have been done to me that I never deserved or you know, should have ever happened. And I've got no control over the decisions that they've made. All I've got control over is aware and how I moved to from there. And again, it's it's a process. And I remember watching an interview with Angelina Jolie and someone was asking her about like when she's going through a hard season, what's the best advice she could give and she said, go through it. Go through it as hard and as rough and as awful as it is. Go through every single step of that so that you'd never have to go back to review it again. And I kind of looked at you know, I had this massive life change, and then it brought up all these different elements and pieces of my story that I never really dealt with and worked through. And so I spent eighteen solid months and I'm still like, I haven't arrived anyway. I'm still very much in a process, but going through those things, revisiting those things as much as possible. And I think one of the most beautiful learnings out of all of this has been that two completely different things can live at the same time and can be true at the same time. 00:38:33 Speaker 4: And so there's days that I literally. 00:38:38 Speaker 3: Have dreams coming true and I cannot believe, like the most incredible news decisions things have happened, and alongside that, some of the most devastating, heartbreaking things that I never thought possible for me happened on exactly the same day. For me, it's just been understanding that the two exist at the same time. And you know, loving someone and wanting to punch them in their face are two very real realities at the exact same time. If you don't give me a call, because I'd love to hear about it, you know, so. 00:39:15 Speaker 1: You know A question I think that is so relevant is healing is hard and the harder parts than others. What in your experience, what part of the healing has been the hardest that a lot of people don't acknowledge, we don't talk about. 00:39:35 Speaker 3: I think it's similar to kind of what I've just referenced about, Like I think this is there's this idea that you heal, and you healed, and that's done. Like that thing that you were working through, that that's never going to trigger, that's never going to be brought up. 00:39:53 Speaker 4: Again, that's that's done. 00:39:55 Speaker 3: And I think what's been hard about the journey is realizing that that's not the case. And I think that sometimes it's hard to acknowledge. You feel like you put so much effort, so much work, so much time into healing and then just understanding and making peace with the fact that you actually don't arrive at healed you're constantly working through. 00:40:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, like mom guilt. 00:40:19 Speaker 3: I did a whole chapter on mom guilt, but that was something that was kind of along the same lines, just believing that, you know, I'll arrive at never being a guilty mom and being able to work and not feeling like, oh my gosh, I should be involved in every single element of every single child's life. But that's it's just not possible. It just it doesn't work that way. But with that being said, like I remember when I was twenty one, twenty or twenty one years old and I was bartending. I was working several jobs in Somerset, West, But I remember some friends invited me out to like a party and you know, drinking and smoking, all sorts of things

going on, and I remember thinking in that moment, like I actually have an option here, Like I could choose to go and have a great night and do X, Y and Z. 00:41:08 Speaker 4: Or I could choose to really start making very. 00:41:11 Speaker 3: Conscious changes in my life and decisions that will land me up in a better place. But I think there's two paths that we all have the opportunity to take, and where they land us up are completely different. And so for me, I made a conscious decision to go down the harder, longer, more confronting path of healing and becoming the best possible version of myself, and in that journey I would have there were one hundred times that I'm like, yeah, heck no, this is not what I want to be doing, this is not what I signed up for. 00:41:44 Speaker 4: This is too hard, I can't do this. 00:41:45 Speaker 3: It's but where I am now, I feel like I'm rarely reaping the rewards of those fruits sown, and like really just really living in kind of like the season, all the work, all the work, and like all the work that I put in, Like I'm living in the moments of like driving my kids to nippets and just being so grateful for the sky and the laughter and so yeah, and that that all comes out because of the horrible days that you don't want to wake up, you don't want to do it, you don't want to get up and go, and as you read the rewards, eventually you do. 00:42:25 Speaker 1: In the book again, there was something that really made me very happy, and that was your your identifying with Taylor Swift. And she was a big segment and shift happens. So what I wanted to ask you is, like, what about her resonates with you? What what about her? I? 00:42:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that you raise that and honestly, I was so privileged to be gifted tickets to her show in Paris when she was doing the errors tour, and and I took my daughter and my son, and it was on Mother's Day actually, And I've never been a massive Tailor Swift fan at all. I don't necessarily love the music, and I've just don't know anything about her. And then we watched the three hour eras tour on that was on like a streaming show, and then we went to the show, and then I was much more of a Tailor Swift fan after that, but still couldn't get into the music. And then when I read your piece on her in Shift Happens, it gave so much insight into how deeply she thought about her process and worked at it. And you know, it's been interesting because I think sometimes like even in my process was falling forward. I think from the outside it looks like massive and there's all these amazing things happen, but I've left so much room for flexibility and for growth and just for it to develop and evolve into what it's supposed to be to serve others, not necessarily like my vision, like initially it was my vision, my dream, but like it's kind of developing and evolving. It's got this flexibility. But I think what I really grasped from the piece that you did on Taylor Swift in the book is her

work ethic and her desire to make sure whatever she does it's excellent. 00:44:20 Speaker 4: It's not half fast. 00:44:22 Speaker 3: It's not just to get it out or just to have another album out or just to do something. She is so intentional about every decision and every move and every piece of work that she does. And that has been massively inspiring for me because somehow I believed I could be an executive producer of a documentary and It's my story, and a most. 00:44:51 Speaker 4: Event planner. 00:44:52 Speaker 3: I was inspired by her one hundred and forty nine one hundred and forty seven shows and I was like, great, I'm just going to do a mini version of that in South Africa. I booked some of the biggest venues that I could, and I was like, somehow I'm going to manage doing it. So an events manager, I believed I could be an author in this thing as well. And all these different pieces of me that have just kind of come out like and actually I didn't even know like existed. We're there and it's come into this beautiful project and this beautiful thing. And I was so grateful for that piece on her because I also have held that time just like it needs to be excellent. And of course, like I think along with that, she's also got graceful the fact that like her heel's going to break or you know, there's going to be a mix up and someone's going to fall, or you know, something will go wrong, and she she doesn't Yeah, like she doesn't handle that in a way that's like abrasive or she's just like it's that happens. So I also just like, you know, the screen glitches and I'm like, well, you know, it happens. 00:45:57 Speaker 4: But yeah, exactly what really. 00:46:00 Speaker 1: Kind of came through in the book and the parallels that would kind of draw between you and her, I think you're really on the right, and I mean that sincerely is that there's an authenticity to it and you have the same authenticity. Yeah, there's a realness and you see it in the documentary. There's also this this ability to manage herself through expressive writing, is to always go to words and just journal and just try and find yourself in those words. And she made a brilliant career out of it. 00:46:31 Speaker 3: I think last year, because I was going through so much that was so hard, and everybody knew that I was going through this really hard thing. I was very conscious about the fact that I didn't want people to see me, like to know this really hard thing was happening, and then see me at the point where I am now able to show up on podcasts and show up on stage and do the documentary and the book and maybe like considered a more successful version of Rachel. And there was this in between absolute mess and chaos that I didn't want to skip over that I didn't want people to think, like, oh, that part didn't happen, Like she just went from like really hard to successful and that's how life goes. 00:47:15 Speaker 4: That's not how life goes. 00:47:17 Speaker 3: There's actually this in between the two gardens that is incredibly hard and incredibly trench worthy and messy and complicated. And I tried to share some of that on social media. So I tried to look at like what I was sharing on social media almost as like a form of art, almost, you know, like musicians get to make songs, and poets get to write poems, and writers get to write books and I try to use like my social media almost as a space of like an expression of the honesty of what I was like going through and processing and dealing with, but not sharing too much that it was like the details of like my every day whatever. So I would add a song, and I would add like a video of kind of what this thing looks like, and man, it's. 00:48:14 Speaker 4: Some of the feedback was rough as heck. 00:48:17 Speaker 3: But I also believe that falling Forward is becoming so successful because that's also part of the feedback of thank you. Thank you for representing the hurt and the pain and the struggle that we sometimes have had to deal with in life, whether it was like a loss of a family member or anything else, like, thank you for representing that. And so yeah, again I've got a decision to listen to, you know, the really awful things that people say or really keep continue sewing into, like the people that are grateful and feel seen and represented. 00:48:50 Speaker 1: You know, in hindsight, everything makes sense. And in the book you mentioned that you could you wanted to be an are pair, but because you had depression and because of it the self harm, well attempted suicide. You certainly when it's harm, the candidacy. Yeah, Now you look at your life now where you know kids are going through these experiences. You've been there, you've been in the trenches, you've risen above the trenches. Now who's more you know, who's more capable. 00:49:19 Speaker 3: Who's And imagine I did, imagine I did go on the or pet trip, like, imagine imagine where I would have landed up like, And that's that's I think, like the beauty in believing in some kind of faith or something bigger than ourselves brings a lot of peace. Is also just believing that, like you're not always in full control of your life, like there's something else that's that's a part of like our life and our journey. And so thank goodness there's been a plan because so far, so good, but cheap as there's been touched in. 00:49:49 Speaker 1: God, I mean talking about you stepped into the role of CEO of the Polisi Foundation. Yeah, and you built something that was really real and at scale, huge impact, and then you had to navigate losing it in the immediate aftermath. Who were you without it? How did you feel without it? 00:50:12 Speaker 3: There's so many elements of my journey that I think my identity as a person and as a human has been tied to so many different parts of my journey and my life. Whether that was like in childhood as a really what I believe, stupid student that could never pass, or it was as a very insecure,

lost, kind of like all over the place teenager, and then moving into like an adulthood of just what am I going to do for work? And I've got these two options of like do I make healthy decisions? 00:50:55 Speaker 4: Do I make bad decisions? Where do they land me up? 00:51:00 Speaker 3: My identity has been tied to so many different parts of my life, and I think being CEO and running the organization and being a part of the organization was just some of the most beautiful memories and moments that I will hang on to for my entire life. Like the work that I was able to do through that organization is life changing. I almost every day that I got up and got to the office, I was like, I cannot believe I get to do this as a living I cannot believe that I get to do this work. And I think what was really important to realize on you know, as hard and devastating as that process was, is to realize that that work and the desire to serve and love others, and you know, and give. 00:51:55 Speaker 4: That doesn't belong to an organization or. 00:51:59 Speaker 3: Turn individual or anywhere else like that is ingrained in who I am as a human being. And so I think that's been really beautiful because I get to keep that. I get to keep that purpose and that desire to serve. And so I'm going to continue on and it just just spill. It will be different going forward, but it still belongs to me. 00:52:22 Speaker 1: And you know, just the section of the book that I love the most that the statement you made was I intend to move forward and become a new creation, constantly learning, constantly changing, always becoming. And what you just said there kind of really really emboldens this. It's really powerful. 00:52:48 Speaker 4: Thank you. 00:52:48 Speaker 1: The final question I have for today is if you could sit with a version of you who felt the most broken, what did she need to hear from you, not from anyone else. 00:53:05 Speaker 3: I like, just thinking about it right now, I don't know that she needed to hear anything. I think she just needed someone to be there and literally just to sit on the floor with her and just be there. And I think sometimes presence can be so underestimated and so undervalued, and I think yon kind of like my journey of rediscovering friendships and community and you know who, I let's sit at my table. Now. It's been a beautiful thing of just people being there and like knowing that they're there when I when and whatever reason I need them for. But I remember feeling so frustrated hearing from people like God is his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers, or you know this, this is all going to pass, and it's all going to be for a purpose and for a reason, and get up, like you can do this again. There isn't any one of those things that in that moment I needed to or nor wanted to hear. I just maybe could have just used someone on the floor with me. 00:54:25 Speaker 1: You're going to have to read my third book. 00:54:27 Speaker 4: Because what's a con thank you? 00:54:30 Speaker 1: Okay, So, and I'll tell you why. It's because I describe something called social buffering, okay. And social buffering is when we're going through crisis and someone walks in the room and it's some more we trust, totally trust. The younger version trusts that the woman you become and you sit down in a chair, you don't say a single word, you don't stroke her back. You don't. You don't, there's no kind You just sit in the room and you can't. What happens in our brain is that the emotional centers that were so heightened and so active started quiet and down the cognitive centers starts to light up. I'm starting to think about this more clearly mo rationally, just the presence of someone you trust. Then what happens is your stress woman start to drop, your heart rate starts to drop. There's this recalibration biologically, and it takes place in minutes. And then if they have a little bit of eye contact and it's warm and it's inviting, or they have a little bit of a warm touch and just put their hand on your shoulder, then all of a sudden, what happens is there's a surge of oxytocin. An Oxytocin is the molecule that brings arts our humanness. It takes the fear and transforms it into courage. It takes the insular thought process and makes us more connected to the world. It takes a self doubt and brings about self worth and esteem. It's the molecule of I would say, human potential. And that is just the presence. The answer that you gave now is profound, and I found the whole book was very wise. It's a tremendous wisdom that exists between the pages. I'm in a sinceritive, but I'm going to change the pace. I'm going to got a rapid fire. So yeah, five questions. Okay, first thing comes to mind, one thing, one thing you do to protect the peace. 00:56:31 Speaker 4: Nature. 00:56:33 Speaker 1: What still challenges you even now? 00:56:36 Speaker 3: I don't want to say balanced, but this deep desire to be present in both my personal life, mothering, friendships. 00:56:45 Speaker 4: And work. 00:56:47 Speaker 1: What gives you strength when you feel empty? 00:56:51 Speaker 4: Exercise? 00:56:53 Speaker 1: What still scares you? Success interesting? What keeps you going? 00:57:03 Speaker 4: My kids? My kids are my purpose? 00:57:06 Speaker 1: And the final question is what does Shift Happens mean to you? 00:57:11 Speaker 3: I think it's it's the it's the simpleness of it. And I'm a simple girl. Like the book, everything I do is simple. I don't like to overcomplicate, over extravagate anything. And I think even just like processing and thinking about Shift Happens, you don't think. It's not movement, It's not this massive step. It's just just make a little change and just move this thing ever so slightly, And that has an impact to and in the long run, more than you could possibly actually imagine. 00:57:51 Speaker 1: You say simple, You know how difficult it is to make something simple. How smart you have to be your strength. 00:58:03 Speaker 3: I thought it was just my my childhood academics, and was like, I've got nothing else to offer. 00:58:08 Speaker 1: The simplicity is, I would say, is genius. And it's been phenomenal to have you. I'm so grateful. Thank you for a time, and I believe this is going to be extraordinary successful. 00:58:21 Speaker 3: Thank you, appreciate you, Thank you. 00:58:29 Speaker 5: There are three major standouts from this conversation. 00:58:33 Speaker 1: Courage. Rachel's story is ultimately one of extraordinary courage, the ability to face your fears and rise above them, and how we become more courageous is shaping and changing our relationship to stress itself, instead of seeing stress as something that defeats us, seeing it as the opportunity. The second standout was purpose. We know, we understand that contribution is one of the greatest sources of healing, resilience, and meaning, and in her darkest moments, Rachel threw herself into contribution. The third standout was reinvention, not a single moment of inspiration, but rather the ongoing practice of growth and adaptation. Who do I want to be? Who do I want to be? 00:59:36 Speaker 5: My call to action for this conversation is to change our relationship to stress. Stress is not the enemy. Unregulated stress is. Stress can be a vehicle, a vehicle for growth, adaptation, change, and even success. So the next time you're facing a challenge or adversity, or change or setback, those signs that you feel sweaty palms, tye chest, tension in the shoulders, remind yourself that this is your body's way of telling you You've got this. 01:00:14 Speaker 1: You will overcome this. I've got you. Join me for the next podcast and keep shifting. 01:00:23 Speaker 2: Shift Happens as the first Light in Prime Media collaboration. This episode was produced by Grand Jansen and Kaylee Cruiser and filmed by Stephen Phillipson