283: How to Align Your Life with What Matters and Live a Life of Greatness with Sarah Grynberg

Most people chase success, thinking it will bring happiness. But what if the job that looks perfect on the outside is actually draining you from the inside?

That’s exactly what happened to Sarah Grynberg. She had a dream job in radio—working with some of Australia’s biggest celebrities, attending glamorous events, and earning more than she ever had. But behind the scenes, she was burnt out, sleep-deprived, and deeply unhappy. Then, a breaking point led her to completely rethink her path.

In this episode, Sarah shares:

• The moment she realized success wasn’t the same as happiness.
• How a career setback turned into her greatest opportunity.
• Why letting go of what isn’t serving you can open the door to your true calling.
• The role of intuition, meditation, and self-awareness in finding fulfillment.
• How she built one of the biggest podcasts in Australia by trusting her inner voice.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in a life that looks good on paper but feels wrong in your heart, this episode will remind you that change is possible—and that sometimes, a breakdown is really a breakthrough in disguise.

Transcript

SG: “I was like, wow, this is amazing. I've got my dream job. I'm producing breakfast radio. I'm dealing with big celebrities. I'm, going to these amazing parties. At the time I was getting paid more money than I ever had. So everything on the outside looked phenomenal. But however, on the inside, I had done absolutely no inner work ever, really, on myself, and I was crumbling at the fact that I had to get up at 3am, 5 mornings a week, and I had a 2 and a 4 year old at the time, and I was in this like, head spin of being absolutely exhausted, overworked, and just very unhappy. It was extremely taxing, but I kept it in. I didn't show people that I was struggling. So one day I got a really bad case of the flu. And I didn't go into work. It's really interesting how the brain takes a snapshot of the worst moments of your life and I remember this moment like it was the other day. I was on the couch feeling extremely sorry for myself and actually feeling so unwell. And I remember just crying and crying. It was that proper dark night of the soul.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Most people dream of finding the work that they love, something that feels purposeful, fulfilling, and aligned with who they truly are. But what happens when the job that looks perfect on the outside is completely draining you on the inside.

That's what happened to today's guest, Sarah Grynberg. She had a coveted job in radio working with some of Australia's biggest celebrities. But behind the scenes, she was burnt out, sleep deprived, exhausted and questioning everything.

In this episode, Sarah shares the moment she realized success wasn't the same as happiness and what she did next. How a career setback turned into her biggest opportunity, and why being forced to pivot was the best thing that ever happened to her, and the role that intuition and meditation can play when it comes to finding your purpose and how to tell the difference between fear and a gut feeling.

If you've ever felt stuck in a job or in a life situation that looks good on paper, but feels so wrong in your heart, this episode is for you. Let's dive in…

[00:02:19] LW: Sarah, welcome to the podcast. It's so great to see you again.

[00:02:23] SG: Light, it is such a pleasure to be with you as always.

[00:02:27] LW: I think we had our original conversation what in 21 or something like that, or maybe 22. It was before. I can't remember which book I've had two books come on the last few years. I can't remember if it was knowing where to look, or if it was my book travel light but on one of those books, we got to speak.

[00:02:44] SG: We did, and you have a lot of Aussie friends that are my friends, and they were talking about how wonderful you were. And I think it was Tom that introduced us, Tom Cronin.

[00:02:56] LW: Is that the Tom, that's not the time you referenced in your book 

mentioned a Tom 

[00:03:00] SG: It isn't. But Yeah, it's such a small world. When you study Vedic meditation, it is a small world. Melbourne.

[00:03:10] LW: still Sydney and Melbourne, they're both like epicenters for Vedic meditation. There's a lot of,

there's a lot of teachers happening in those couple of places. 

[00:03:18] SG: didn't realize that, but there are some amazing, amazing teachers. A lot of amazing ones in Sydney and Byron especially. But there's a lot of interest from people here about quietening their mind. So I suppose that's probably why it's so big here.

[00:03:34] LW: go to any of Manoj's offerings when he was, I think he's there now. He's the guy from Open, the meditation

studio Open. 

[00:03:41] SG: you know what? I didn't, and I think someone sent it to me saying, this guy's amazing and you should check him out. And I'm sure you get the same when you get all these DMs. You think, oh yeah, and then you never get back to it again. 

[00:03:55] LW: There's so much, 

[00:03:56] SG: and I think I completely forgot until you just brought it up then.

So, I'll check it out again. I'll check him out.

[00:04:03] LW: Awesome. Well, the tables have turned now. You're the miss podcaster. I was, as I mentioned, I was on your show, a life of greatness, and now you have a book out. And so you're doing the circuit. You're talking to people about your book. How does that feel?

[00:04:18] SG: It is. Can I tell you, like, it's incredible. And because it's my first book, it's been such a learning experience for me in a good way, because I'm usually, as you just mentioned, the one interviewing people. So, it's funny how life works, right? Where it might take you a while to get to where you want to be or, the job you had imagined for yourself or whatever it is.

Good. I actually remember when I interviewed Matthew McConaughey, he said this, like everything in life gets you to where you need to be even the things that aren't so great and would you change everything? No, in the knowledge that you have gotten to where you are and why I say that is because I, as I said, this is my first book and I realized through this process of publicity and marketing and going on podcasts and magazines and all that, having book launches and stuff.

I have been so great with understanding the process because it's everything that I have seen others do through me being on the other side and all the work and experience I've had has completely led me to this point. So I think it's been extremely enjoyable. I haven't found it stressful because I understand it.

From being at the back end of it. So it's been truly amazing.

[00:05:37] LW: And the cover is right behind you. I have the electric, the e version of the book. Can you just show me,

pull the cover off the shelf. Let's have a look at that.

[00:05:45] SG: That's my photo.

[00:05:47] LW: Yeah. So was that your first, was that the first idea? Was that the

publisher wanted that? You wanted that or? 

[00:05:52] SG: so, it's so interesting. This is actually a really funny story. So, I, um, sometimes and I try to be a bit better at this. When you get a lot of emails, sometimes I skim the emails and I'm not reading the detail of the email. When you And my publisher said, take some photos and stuff of other covers you like and then, put them in a drop box or whatever and then send it to us and our designer can make something.

What I didn't realize that she had written in that is like, usually for personal development books, we don't do photos of the people, we think that they work well when it's, I don't know some other kind of design. I missed that bit because I was skimming her email. And I sent her all this stuff with like images of me going.

This is what I want. And the designer sent it back and it was unbelievable. It was like literally exactly what I wanted. And then for some reason I reread her email and I was like, Oh. She advised against a photo, but they all loved it. And there is that big photo of me on there. And it's when my photographer, I did a shoot with her a couple of years ago.

I said, I'm going to write a book and I reckon this photo would be amazing for it. And it was, and I'm so happy there was no back and forward with the designer, when there's a lot of back and forward, it makes you feel a bit like, Oh, they haven't quite nailed it. This lady nailed it straight away.

So I was so happy.

[00:07:15] LW: in my experience, it's highly unusual for that to happen. Usually they send it back and it looks like somebody, it's like, like, one of your son designed it or something, on his first time using a computer and you're like a full grown person designed this, who gets paid, money to do

this, 

[00:07:30] SG: you're like I could 

[00:07:31] LW: you got to do a 

[00:07:32] SG: and done it better. But they nailed it. And I think what I've learned, because I deal with a lot of the marketing team, my provider for my podcast, I deal a lot with the marketing team for them to, when I did a live tour last year, they were doing kind of big things for the stage and stuff like that.

What I've noticed in any of these kind of creative area is you need to give so Like a lot of examples of exactly what you want. I feel that when you don't, you're just not going to get what you want because you have the idea in your head. And it's just, writing an email, trying to describe that is hard, but if you send images, which I now know to do, even if it's images of other artwork that you've seen, then you're just giving a beautiful guide to the person to be able to follow.

And that usually makes it work out better.

[00:08:20] LW: So you did a Pinterest board or was there a specific cover that you were using as a model for what you wanted?

[00:08:27] SG: What I did is I went, they suggested this, the publisher, go to a bookstore and take photos of covers that you like. And so I had taken photos of covers I liked. They actually did the design of the font for me. I didn't come up with that and I really liked it, but I knew I didn't want it to be hardcore girly and pink because that's not me so much.

So I like the darker background of it and yeah, they literally just nailed it. But I did take photos of other covers that obviously didn't look exactly like that, but it gave them an idea of kind of the colors I was looking for and the look of the whole book. So this lady is amazing. Actually, I've never met her, but she did a wonderful job.

[00:09:09] LW: Was she freelance or she's working with the publisher?

[00:09:11] SG: Pretty sure she's working with the publisher, so I can put you in touch if you ever need.

[00:09:16] LW: Oh, no, i'm just curious like i'm always curious about the creative process because people will see that cover and they won't They'll just see it as a cover, but as someone who published books, there's a whole story

behind every aspect of 

[00:09:31] SG: and I, Deepak wrote, he read the book and wrote me a beautiful, like, endorsement for it, so that's on the cover, and they did the only thing for the back of it, it's, I'll just show you, it's like black, and they come to me with rainbow, and I said no, that looks very childish.

We don't want rainbows, so, they made it black and just with, Johan Haring, Marianne Williamson, who also did endorsements, their names in yellow, and I just wanted to look classy and having a zillion books, as you can see on my bookshelf behind me, I had a look at the books that stood out and the spine is obviously something that you want to stand out to.

So having a dark spine with the colors also, I was like, that stands out a lot because like you, I've interviewed a lot of people and I have the luxury of being sent their book. So I have zillions of books here and I was really looking at that and also. Inside the book, you'll see that the first letter of the chapter is like in beautiful big font.

And again, I looked at other books that I really liked and I thought, Oh, I like a bit of that one and a bit of that one. And that gave them the guidance to be able to do it. So I think if you're In this realm, there's, it's very hard to imagine something that you can't see and the idea that the path needs to be illuminated by someone else or other people and that's like anything in life, right?

For books, it's the same. Like, I really had a look at all the books that I have through some amazing authors and I took things that I liked in their design and gave it to my guys. 

[00:11:07] LW: Yeah, love it. So you're like the I don't know the Tim Ferriss of Australia, like you, you are one of the top podcasters down under, and one of the biggest podcasters in the world. But you didn't start that way, that it took a bit of a leap of faith and you open your book telling that story.

So maybe we can open this conversation just doing a little montage of how Sarah Grynberg okay. So how

did you connect with 

[00:11:36] SG: So it's an interesting story and one that people might be able to relate to in the sense of, when I was young, I always wanted to work in entertainment. I watched The Wizard of Oz when I was four and I was like, Oh, that's, the world of entertainment is for me. And I studied drama and really want to be an actress.

And then. I remember going to drama school and a teacher said to me, this is when I was a bit older, Sarah, 99 percent of actresses and actors are unemployed. If you're thinking about doing this, think again. And I was like, ah, damn it. Like, and it's interesting because I really believe you were all born with this huge fire inside of us and all these dreams and ideas of things we want to do.

And then life slowly chips at us, someone might say, you're not good looking enough to do that, or you're not smart enough for that, or you're not good at math, so why could you ever go into that kind of field? And they're not trying to be mean, they just say things. And, it even can be something like, you've got amazing results at school, you can be a lawyer.

Why do you want to be a teacher that pays so much less, but your heart might be wanting to be that teacher. So for me, I really wanted to get into entertainment, but I felt that, okay, maybe I need to do something else. So I did marketing and PR and all these other kinds of things. And I felt that I'd never had it really arrived.

I felt that something was missing and then. One day I decided to put my resume into the biggest radio station in Australia and they were like, yep, we'd love to interview you. I had three interviews and I got the role and I remember like thinking to myself, Oh my God, this is like one of the best moments of my life.

I got a role, I was producing, I was doing all these things that I wanted to. And then a few years on one of the heads of the company said, We want to move your show that you're working on to the breakfast show. And if anything, anyone knows anything about radio, the Breakfast Radio Show is like the creme de la creme of shows.

It's the biggest, highest paying role. It's the one that they promote a lot. And they have this idea that if the breakfast show does well, then all the other shows for the rest of the day will do well. Cause that's what people are tuning into. So there was a lot of pressure on us, but at the same time.

I was like, wow, this is amazing. I've got my dream job. I'm producing breakfast radio. I'm dealing with big celebrities. I'm, going to these amazing parties. At the time I was getting paid more money than I ever had. So everything on the outside looked phenomenal. But however, on the inside, I had done absolutely no inner work ever, really, on myself, and I was crumbling at the fact that I had to get up at 3am, 5 mornings a week, and I had a 2 and a 4 year old at the time, and I was in this like, head spin of being absolutely exhausted, overworked, and just very unhappy.

For these kinds of roles, you don't stop. It's not like you clock in clock out because it's producing and it's breakfast. You have to know what's going on in news, sport and entertainment. The whole day is something breaks at 11 o'clock at night. You need to be covering that for the next day. And it's very stressful.

So it was extremely taxing, but I kept it in. I didn't show people that I was struggling. So one day I got a really bad case of the flu. And I didn't go into work and it's really interesting how the brain takes a snapshot of the worst moments of your life and the best moments of your life and, to be honest, everything in between that I can barely remember, but I remember this moment like it was the other day.

And I was on the couch feeling extremely sorry for myself and actually feeling so unwell. And I remember just crying and crying. It was that proper dark night of the soul. And I thought, how the hell has my life gotten to be like this? From the outside, it looks amazing and I'm ticking all the boxes as far as work and where I wanted, how I wanted to achieve in life, but my soul and my heart is just broken and I am exhausted and I feel like in life we have choices that we can go right or left and we have free choice, we can choose which way we go and something in me knew That I needed to make a change.

I really don't know what that was, maybe divine guidance, who knows. But I thought I need to get myself out of this. I feel like no one else can, but me. And I'd heard a lot about personal development work and I started really just reading a lot of books, but the difference was I wasn't just reading things and listening to them.

I started embodying everything I was reading and I was listening to. So say for example, I started learning about the mind, body, mind, body connection, not only was I researching it. I was actually trying to train my brain to think differently. I started learning about meditation and then I would practice it every single day.

I started learning about the law of attraction and I'd be very careful of the words I was saying and again the thoughts I was thinking. So everything I was doing really well. And after a very short period of time, my life started changing. It didn't take long at all, but it came to be that I could not let go of this job.

Like I was just, I hated it, but I thought, I need the money and I just can't let go of it. And my boss who was in Sydney came to Melbourne because we would, the show was based in Melbourne, but it was we broadcasted into Sydney said that I needed to move to Sydney. And I remember thinking like.

As if I'm going to move to Sydney. And I also thought I've done all this personal development work. How can I like now not have a job? Cause he was saying your job will be made redundant if you don't move to Sydney. And I thought, Oh my goodness. Like how did life get like this? And honestly, two weeks later, I got a call from the head of the company saying, we want to move you into podcasting and podcasting was at its infancy.

And I remember being unsure about it. Like, Oh, podcasting. And, a few weeks later, I moved into that role and I never looked back and six months into it, I was producing other podcasts, but I came up with my idea for a life of greatness because I couldn't believe how my life had changed in such an amazing way that I needed to teach people what I had learned.

And what I learned from that experience as well was if you hold on to something too tight. And it doesn't feel right, the universe will take it away from you. And that's what it did when I got, asked to move to Sydney. And if not, I got made redundant. So I have learned now that if I want to move into another area or something doesn't feel right, that I let go of it before I have it taken away from me in a way that isn't so pleasing.

[00:18:56] LW: We could, probably do the whole podcast just about why you hated this job. But I'm just, I'm wondering did you talk to other people at the job that other people feel similarly? What made the difference in you taking that leap like, how do people cope when they're in that situation? Where are the, what's the crossroads? They go to alcohol and substances. 

[00:19:18] SG: One guy, used to cry the whole time and he was a dear friend of mine. He ended up leaving as well and he started his own thing. One of the other hosts after a year ended up also leaving. It just ended up disintegrating that whole show and it was, One of those environments that were, you'd rock up every day and in Melbourne where I live, come the winter months, it gets very dark.

So you're waking up, it's dark outside, it's freezing, you're going to work, the environment's not great. Everyone's exhausted and it's this horrible energy. So we're all feeding off each other. And the people were lovely. There was nothing bad about any of the people. But it just You know, we're all energy right?

And if we don't have someone there that's conducting in a beautiful way to prop us up a bit and we don't have the tools that we haven't learned to ourselves, then it goes into this kind of dark hole, which I felt like we were in. Ironically, at the time where we were recording actually felt like e a dark hole. We were in the studios at the back and it was just dark and gloomy in there. It was a representation of how we all felt. And I just knew that this environment wasn't good for me, but I found it too hard to let go. And I know now, as I said, never to do that again, because it really hits you when something's taken away from you.

and you're not expecting it. So as I said, I know now if something's not working for me and that can also be in a relationship, then there's no point in just holding on for the sake of it. And it's better to let go. I believe it allows a new energy to come in as well.

[00:21:03] LW: Was there something in your job that inadvertently prepared you for this next phase, the podcasting phase? Like, why did they choose you to lead that podcasting producing position out of anyone else?

[00:21:16] SG: Yeah, that's a, that is a great question. I think they realized I was a very good producer. And I think, as I said, podcasting was in its infancy. So not many people knew about podcasting producing. Now I know when they get people to produce, they've got a lot of experience in podcasting. It's been around for a long time, but then no one had experience in podcasting producing. So to just get a producer who generally has those skills is all they needed. But I'll tell you this, the biggest celebrities in Australia, these two guys, they're comedians, they had a radio show and they, the heads of the company said. We're telling you this, that they're about to finish their radio show.

No one knows yet, and they're going to start a podcast and we would love for you to produce that. And I thought, Oh, I cannot believe this is happening. Like these guys, not only the biggest names in the world, as I said, they're comedians, so they're the funniest people you've ever met. And I get the opportunity to be able to produce their podcast, which is the number one podcast in all of Australia.

And it was so fun. It was like four years I was their executive producer, which is the highest producer that you can have, and they're the kindest, nicest people. And I thought, isn't it interesting how I went from like doom and gloom to actually probably having one of the best jobs in the country if you like producing.

But there was a time where I realized, because I told you I was doing my own podcast at the same time. Where I felt I needed to stop producing. I didn't want to produce anymore. And having the experience of having that other role taken away, I thought, you know what, this is so hard, but I want to let go of working for the boys on my terms.

And I remember going in and saying to them, this has been one of the best. Jobs of my life, but I want to be able to help people more and the way I Need to do that is to go off and really focus on my own thing I knew I wanted to write a book and I did and then my life flourished even more But I did it on my own terms and I left when everything was amazing Because I had learned my lesson from the time before.

[00:23:26] LW: Yeah, you mentioned in your book many times having a feeling about something and then allowing that to inform you. Can you describe what that feeling actually feels like in case other people are having a similar feeling, but they're not quite sure what that is?

[00:23:42] SG: Yeah, you know I have a whole chapter which is called the knowing and It's this feeling, and it can be intuition as well, where you just know that either it's time to move in a different direction, maybe the relationship that you're in, be it with friends or a partner, doesn't feel right, and you either need to make a change or you need to let go.

What is that feeling for me? I think it could be different for everyone, but I really feel it in my chest and in my heart. When I know that it's just time to move on or make some sort of change in my life. And for me, like, similar to you, I spent a lot of time in meditation and I feel like when I'm in that space and my mind is clear, meditation can be, as such a dynamic space, like everyone thinks, oh, It's just quietening the mind, which it obviously is.

But because the mind is quiet, I've had some of the most craziest ideas that have been life changing for me in the meditation space. And I feel that I have the feeling, and then I'll go into meditation and almost the answers will come to me. So the idea for my podcast came when I was in meditation. It's just, it allows the mind to quiet.

And I think if we really look within. Be it within meditation or some sort of quiet space. We're able to really get into that knowing and that feeling more. And then we can make our decision. But it's very hard to do that when we're, in our conscious mind and everything's going at a hundred miles an hour and we have work and we have a partner or kids or whatever it is where we think we have a feeling, but we're not sure.

So if someone does have a feeling, but they're unsure about how to read it, I would suggest going into meditation where you have time by yourself and you're able to quieten the mind. And then really get into what is coming up for you.

[00:25:49] LW: is also why I've talked a lot about. refraining from alcohol because alcohol can diminish that feeling you're describing, in my experience, and not drinking it can be a little uncomfortable at first, but it actually turns the volume up on that feeling because there are also feelings. Associated with just things being hard, like, you know, yeah you, have a podcast as me has been, it's been easy every single day that you've done this podcast. And a lot of us are having experiences where we're taking that leap of faith, but then it gets hard, which means usually that we're having to grow into that role.

Right. And I don't want people confusing that moment of getting hard and mistaking it with being, Oh, that's my, Yeah. Intuition telling me this is not for me and versus having you continue moving forward and leaning into the challenge of creation, because it can be challenging from time to

time.

Was that been your experience as well.

[00:26:50] SG: Absolutely. And it's really beautiful that you bring that up because otherwise it's people thinks it's like this Pollyanna kind of thing where everything is amazing and you do personal development work and you don't have any bumps in the road and everything is just, beautiful. And that's not true because that's not life.

And as you said, Just because there might be a bump in the road and things get hard doesn't mean you're not on the right path. I truly believe that if you work on yourself and you really put the effort into whatever it is that you want to achieve, it will happen, but it can take time and you know, when you're chipping away at it.

If you feel that, okay, I'm getting a bit of traction here and sometimes you can go forward and sometimes you go back, but then when you can see those like breadcrumbs from the universe, the synchronicities start to happen, you realize that's a guide for you, that you're stepping into the right direction, everyone has dreams that are different and, I truly believe that anyone is able to follow their dreams, they just need to put the work in to be able to get there and just don't give up, really, and as I said, things can be hard and it's not a straight road and it took me, U turns to sometimes get there and I was in marketing and I was in PR, but circling back to the start of our conversation, everything has led me to this point.

I have the skills to be able to do a better job. And if I'd gone from A to B in just a straight direction and not learnt how to market things and not learnt the background in PR and not learnt from being a producer how the world of podcasting works and then having my own podcast, everything has led me to this point.

So I feel like to people listening, don't give up. It might not be a straight road. Things, to your point, do get hard, but just if you have that dream, keep on going. And you know, I heard this beautiful quote a while ago. And it always stays with me, and it's like, don't diminish anyone else's hope. It might be all that they have.

And I feel that's so true. And sometimes we're so quick, as I mentioned earlier, to tell people that they can't do things. Who are we to tell someone else that, and I'm happy that I had supportive parents and friends along this journey, that when things did get hard, and even with the podcast, sometimes my friends would say to me, are you joking?

Like, look how far you've come. Because we're always looking at others, oh, they've got this, they've done this, and it can be hard when we compare. But I think that we need to reflect and realize how far that we've come.

[00:29:36] LW: What about this meeting with this mysterious stranger, Tom, in the cafe and in the weekly meetings, what did you learn from that experience?

[00:29:43] SG: Yeah, that was amazing. So, they say, When the student's ready, the teacher will come. And this is exactly what happened to me. As I mentioned earlier on, I got into personal development work in the sense of reading a lot of books. And I had studied Kabbalah with a rabbi here in Melbourne, a big Kabbalah teacher.

He's amazing. And then I was in a cafe one day getting a coffee and there was a man and he was holding the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. And we started talking. And he was telling me all about his life. And I remember thinking, this guy is so fascinating. He had been to yeah, India and studied at ashrams and knew a lot about Buddhism and psychology and all these things.

And we were talking for literally over an hour and he had this beautiful energy about him. And then we discussed, like, I said, I'm getting into this work. Would there be the possibility that I could learn from you? You are so wise. And he said, absolutely. Here are my details. And we organized to meet once a week.

And it was literally like, a mentor to me to help me in the personal development area and really understand all the different topics of what kind of makes us tick. And I feel that meeting came at the most perfect time for me. He was such a, or is such a beautiful soul. And I was able to really speak to someone who was on the same wavelength as me.

And I got to learn so, so much. So it was a synchronistic moment for sure. And something that I will always feel so grateful for.

[00:31:21] LW: And what were some of the learnings from those meetings that kind of shaped the next

stage of your path? 

[00:31:27] SG: Well, he actually introduced me a lot to the law of attraction. I had heard about that and I had read some books. but I really, you know, I feel like when you have a teacher, you get to ask questions, right? And again, podcasting was at its infancy, so there wasn't many podcasts where I. Like yours here now, or mine, where I could sit and really listen to people having a conversation.

So we learnt a lot about that. He told me, taught me a lot about the ideas of Buddhism. We learnt a lot about psychology and the way the mind worked. And, One thing that he did teach me that I went on, to do my own study and then obviously as a mindset coach teach a lot of my clients now was about the mind body connection and the way that we're not everything that we think and how You know, the fact that we have a lot of negative thoughts and the way that we're able to change our thoughts to be able to think in a way that will allow us to flourish because for me I would worry a lot and I came from a family of worriers and so I was wired to worry.

So, To be able to know that there was a path out of worrying and a way that I was able to rewire my mind was really life changing for me. Like it, it made me look at the world in a completely different way. And so that was an area that I then obviously went into and really studied and have written a lot about.

And as I said, teach people in, because I think if we can't control our minds. then it's very hard to move forward in life because the mind is the thing that can sometimes trap us. Rumi has that beautiful quote that says, why stay in jail when the door is wide open? And for me, that was my life. I would put myself in jail through my own thoughts, not through anything that was happening in my external world.

[00:33:28] LW: Yeah, you said you had prayed one night for something for meaningful work that felt more aligned. Who did you pray to? And how did you, what are the mechanisms of the prayer that you

used, 

[00:33:40] SG: This was quite quite profound, and I still can't even believe it happened. But, on my podcast years ago, I interviewed a lovely intuitive healer called Caroline Mace. I'm sure you might know her work and I, she writes a lot about prayer and I told her this story and she wrote it down.

She's like, that is the funniest story I've ever heard. So in my mind, and I, no one had ever taught me this. I had just thought that. I didn't ever want to be the boy that cried wolf, so I needed to hold on to my prayers, and if I was to say them, it was only about something that was very serious. I can't just be asking for everything, right?

So, and I don't know why I thought that, I just did. So, anyway. I, don't know. Now I would say it was God. That is my belief system, but it wasn't anyone in particular. I was praying to, but I remember the night that I was told that I didn't have a job anymore in radio and feeling like, Oh my goodness, I don't know how this has happened.

And I lay there and I started praying in my head. I was staring at the ceiling whilst I was in bed and I said, look, I was quite, I was giving like quite direction to my prayer. I said, I love the job, the company that I'm in. I don't like the job, please are you, will you allow me to work with people who are kind and nice?

I want a job where I can give back to people and be of service and I can't work these crazy hours. You know, I have kids. So please put me in a role that doesn't need me to work waking up at the crack of dawn. And as I mentioned earlier. Two weeks later, I got a call from the head of the company and he said we want to move you into podcasting.

Those big celebrities are going to be starting a podcast. They are the kindest, nicest people you've ever met. And then I was able to work normal hours. So, I asked for nine to four because I had kids. They said that's absolutely fine. Six months later, I come up with the idea of my podcast, A Life of Greatness, where I'm able to serve people in the most magical way, and literally light every single thing I prayed for came true.

And I could not believe it, and as Caroline May says, all our prayers are heard and answered, and a no answer is still an answer. So, I've always remembered that. And it's made me believe that there is more to life than just us in our physical bodies.

[00:36:12] LW: Wow. There's so much there to go into. So when you did the executive producing for the comedian couple and you got this idea for your own podcast, can we just double click on that? Did it come through meditation?

Did it come through? 

[00:36:30] SG: So 

[00:36:30] LW: How did you know to take it seriously? 

[00:36:32] SG: So I started meditation and I disliked it. And I think for people as well, they have to find a meditation they like. That's what I always tell people. I'm sure you're the same. Don't give up if you just do it once and it's something You don't like, like, I remember someone had sent me this guy and it was guided.

And I think he was a psychologist or something, and he was doing like a body scan and he just maybe didn't have the right voice for meditation. I remember thinking, this is just so boring. And I just, my mind is out of control, which was the monkey mind. Anyway, I still. Kept going and I found meditations that worked for me, music that I liked.

This is my days before Vedic. And I really started to get into it and I was in meditation one day and I had this idea why wouldn't I start a podcast and then teach people everything I have learned because I couldn't believe how my life started changing so fast. And I thought, well, if I've been able to do it, I can tell, teach everyone else how to do it.

And so this was, this is very funny. I then went to a retreat of Joe Dispenza cause he was in Australia. This is years ago. And then I bumped into him and I said, do you want to come on my podcast? And he said, yeah, sure. And so I was like, wow, great first guest. He's like, I'm coming to Melbourne. Cause the retreat was in Queensland.

And so then he comes to Melbourne and he's literally the first interview I had ever done was with Joe Dispenza face to face at this, in Melbourne. And I knew. I had gotten some other good names and I thought, I know this podcast is going to be a success. I can just feel it in my bones. And honestly, from day dot it took off and it has just been phenomenal ever since.

But it was in meditation when I quietened my mind that I came up for the idea of it. Which just shows you that meditation can be this space where you get the most amazing ideas that are life changing.

[00:38:41] LW: Was there anything? That you were not expecting to be challenging about starting your podcast, whether it's like you doing it. I don't know if you're doing it all on your own, if you had help or any aspects to it like that.

[00:38:53] SG: Well, I did actually self produce it for the first few years, and then Maybe two years ago, three years ago, I can't remember. I got a producer and when I say self-produced, I had two audio producers, a video producer. Like it was more so I just produced it myself. But all the tech stuff was done by other people and now it's all done by other people.

I, because my background is producing, I knew the ropes already, which allowed me to already be quite good. And know. I still, every single episode that goes out, my producer edits it, then it's re edited by an audio producer. I will listen to every single episode before it goes out in case I have changes, and I know a lot of people wouldn't do that.

So there are still parts of me where it's that real producing, where I'm like still holding on, making sure everything's perfect. I watch all the videos before they go out. I'll give feedback if I don't think they're right, so they'll re edit them. They're like, I'm a big part of the podcast still because I love it.

And it's my background. There are things that are, it was a lot more work than I think I might've realized and I've coached, like some people reach out to me and say, can you, can I have a few sessions with you about podcasting? And what I say to people is it is a lot of work. And if you don't have a team around you, that's editing, doing video and all the other bits and pieces.

Unless it's your full time job, you're going to struggle to do it because there is just so much to podcasting and really in this day and age, if you're not videoing your podcast, that also is like getting you out of the loop of so many people, like being able to be seen by so many people. So you really do need that element as well from a social perspective so people can share it and see it.

The easiest thing for me, which is funny because it's like a lot of people find it challenging, is actually getting the guests. I find that so easy and I think when your podcast gets to a certain level, everyone just wants to come on it. So, it's very rare that someone will say no. And so that has actually been a really great part.

It's more so, I suppose, getting more people to see it and expanding it. That for any podcaster that's what they want. So more people are able to learn from it. But I think the hardest thing would just be the amount of work. But I feel now, I have such a wonderful team around me. That's, that's what's enabled me to be able to write a book and do all the other things that I'm in a really good place.

But there was a time where I was working, no joke, seven days a week, producing other people's podcasts as well as my own. I actually reflect on that and I can't believe I did it. I'm like, wow, that was a lot of work, but it gave me the skills to be where I am now.

[00:41:42] LW: Yeah, I would, I'm in that category of people where people aren't saying yes to every invitation for my podcast just yet, a lot of I've oftentimes described getting guests for podcasts, like dating, like everyone wants to date up. So you want to reach out to people who are maybe a little bit like they could say no, like, but if they come on, that's awesome.

And then you can obviously use their name. And the next invitation to the next person, Hey, I had Joe Dispenza on, I had Tara Brock on, Mark Manson. And then when people see those names that they recognize, it's such an easier,

yes. so.

Do you have. Do you have a strategy for getting guests to say yes?

Do you send out an email? Do you hit him up on Instagram? Like how does it work for you?

[00:42:30] SG: For me People ask me this often, I think they think I'm coming out with this like special thing, but I really don't. Obviously my producer does a lot of it, but now because it's been so long, like I've got the relationships. So for example, I have a very good reputation in America for my podcast, which has been so beautiful.

And the idea for my podcast was all I wanted was the. People that I felt were able to explain, be it, the idea of happiness, the mind body connection, the best. So I'd get the biggest thought leaders or, the authors that I thought were amazing or the people that could talk on meditation.

So always was going for the creme de la creme. So over the six years I've done my podcast, I now know a lot of the reps that. We'll be bringing out a lot of the big names. They know me too. So if they're looking at a podcast to go into for Australia, they'll go, Oh, no, we want a life of greatness for sure.

So another thing that has allowed me to move further in that way of guess is we just email the same way as everyone else does go to a website, fill in a form. If we have a connection to them, obviously we'll go through the connection. But I think it's this, I have always thought to myself. Any guest I have on, I'm going to treat them with integrity and respect.

And I say that so sincerely because there's a world of podcasting where people just want a headline. They just want to get into the press. They just want to, the guest to say a certain thing so they can send it to news. com or daily mail or whatever it is. I will never do that. I will never do that. I know that it would probably make my podcast even bigger than what it is now, but that is not kind.

And. I know for a fact that people don't want to be in a space that is sacred, which I believe my podcast is. They come into my home when they're on my podcast. I will treat them with the utmost respect, especially if they're telling stories about their lives that, are very personal or whatever it is.

And that has led me to have a good reputation. And it was interesting I won't say who, but there was a very big name in America that was, had written a book a couple of years ago. And they were choosing one media organization in Australia to have her on. And the person in America called me and said, we have gotten so many requests for this girl and we chose you because of your reputation and the stuff that she talks about could go all over the press and we know you'll treat her with respect and kindness and like that was such a moment for me where I thought that had always been my intention and the fact that people in the U.

S. can see it. Just made my heart swell because I had, I had done the slow steps. I hadn't done that wild, like, okay, this big name came on and now we've got all these press. I never wanted to do that. And then that slow game and that walk to the top allowed me to get there in the end.

And I think that's. Really beautiful for anyone to know because it's more important to keep your integrity than to get a quick win.

[00:45:49] LW: Speaking of which, let's talk about podcasting gone wrong. So you mentioned in your book about some guests who was eating a sandwich when you signed on to zoom with him or with them, I don't know if it's a him or her, but did you ever end up putting that podcast

out? And you also mentioned that you wish you had stopped it earlier. Is that still the case?

[00:46:08] SG: It's interesting. I am very careful about the people that I get on, I make sure that it's someone I really want, I know their work, or their work really interests me and I want to know more about it. We get so many requests every week. It's so beautiful, but it would be 99 percent no to most of the requests, right?

Anyway, there was a lady that I got asked if I wanted to interview. It was a bit pushed on me. And I said yes, and I had a funny feeling about it initially anyway. And then, this is many years ago, and then the Zoom comes on, her screen comes on, and she's eating. And I thought, this is weird, like, surely if you knew this was booked in, which you did, you'd finish your food before you got onto the call.

You know, I understand some people in a rush and this and that, but it wasn't even like she was just eating, it became rude. And then she said, oh, how, she said, how long is this interview? And I said, 60 minutes. And she goes, oh, well, you've got 55 minutes now. And I'm thinking. Who the hell says that? And I was actually inside just like, this is not a life of greatness.

You are not living up to what a life of greatness guest is. And we did the interview and it was all right. It wasn't, amazing or anything. And I just thought, you know what? There's a certain value. That I place on the amazing guests that come on, they have values that I like, and I want my get my listeners to also enjoy and you're, you do not live up to that.

So I don't want to platform you and I just never use the episode and she never reached out to ask me where it was.

[00:47:43] LW: find the wellness guests are usually the ones that are not that's going to happen is going to happen with the wellness guests over some other, guest in my experience. I don't know. But what's your preparation like when you interview someone would take us through like, okay, you find out they're going to be on your show, then what

[00:47:59] SG: Yeah, so if they've written a book, I'll read the book which a lot of them have. So 

[00:48:04] LW: you're reading cover to cover. Yeah,

[00:48:07] SG: I, if it's like someone I get where it's. He, yes, you have to interview them in two days. Clearly, you're not able to read a book that fast, but I will like look through it and maybe go through chapters that I find really interesting and get an idea of what they have written about and really hone in on something I think will be great for my audience.

If they haven't written a book. I will research online very heavily, and I'll try and find things in their life that either they haven't spoken about before, or things that I find really interesting. If they're more of a thought leader, and they're talking about a particular topic, if I have a lot of knowledge in that already, then I'll be able to write questions that I again think that I want to hear as well as my audience.

Otherwise, I will just go into a lot of research about them. So, you know, if it's a book that takes obviously a while to read, otherwise, maybe I'll do, half a day of research on the person and I'm very good at it now. I find that I'm very good at being able to write down questions and I enjoy it a lot.

And like any skill, the more that you're doing it, the more you become better at it. And I know also that just because you've got questions there, It doesn't mean that you need to ask every single question, I might say something or the guest might say something and then we start talking about that because of the story that they've told, which is not a question I initially had, but it makes for a conversation rather than question, answer, question, answer.

So I look at the podcast as a conversation rather than an interview as such. And I think that's why we're able to get really deep and I feel that my guests, move away from the conversation and love it because that's the format that it's in. And I'm also, you know, I try not to like hardcore talk about myself the whole time in the interview, but at the same time, people are tuning in for me too.

So if there's a topic that we're talking about. I will tell a story from my life as well. I actually got given this advice just when I started the podcast by one of the comedians I was producing for. He listened to a few episodes, bless him for doing that. I actually forgot about this story till we're talking about it now.

And he said to me, you're not really putting any of you in the interview. You're, you're trying to grow a brand, and I'm sure that your listeners will really want to get to know you. If you have something to say, you should say it too. And I was like, oh, you know what? He's got a point.

And I think there is a really fine line between like, taking over the interview, and not allowing your guest to speak. But also, putting in your own wisdom too. So I think I do that dance really well now.

[00:50:46] LW: I was the same way when I first started my podcast, I would just let the guest talk because I personally wanted to hear.

[00:50:53] SG: Yeah.

[00:50:59] LW: Like I said, I don't really want to hear from you. But I started to do that more and more as well as evidenced by what I'm doing right now. I never would have done this before, but, yeah, you talked about that in the Matthew McConaughey podcast part of your book where you describe the moment where you got his attempt to trust you or open up. Talk a little bit about that. 

[00:51:18] SG: When we listen properly and we don't listen to just think about what we're going to say next, that's when the real gold comes out. And I learned this all just through being a good listener. I was a good listener when I was young, people would always open up to me because. Like you, Light, I'm curious.

I'm very interested in people's stories. I'm not just interested in telling my story to people the whole time. I love talking to people. You know, if I catch a and the taxi driver starts telling me his story, I find that so interesting. We can always learn through stories, and that's the way that people are able to relate, is through hearing someone else's story.

So when I was interviewing Matthew McConaughey, He was talking and, he was, it was the Green Lights promo that he was doing for his amazing book. And I had read that cover to cover and, we were going through the different chapters and things that he had spoken about before.

And then it was really bizarre, but there was this point in the book that I had read about him talking about when he got his first role in a time to kill. And John Grisham had called him and they had told him he got that role. And I had heard him speak and I suddenly bring this up and he talks, I said to him, tell me more about this.

And he said, and then I was so excited. And I think he had a forest behind where he lived and he's like, I was running and I was just so excited. And I fell to my knees and I said, thank you. And I said to him, there was this big pause and I said, who did you say thank you to? And he's like, God, the higher power.

And it just changed the whole conversation. Then we start getting into this deep and meaningful, really connection that we both had about. our experiences with the divine or with God and his belief system and it just completely changed the interview and by the end it was like such a fabulous interview and when he got off the call he emailed his publicist and said that was like extraordinary I had the best time with Sarah and she was so beautiful and she had then you know sent me an email to tell me that and I think It just shows that when we actually give people the space to tell a story properly, but also we listen intently, then we're able to pick up things.

And through that, it allows the conversation to take a different path. And we don't need to be an interviewer to do that. We can do that in our day to day, right? How many times does a friend come to us? And They're telling us a story and we cut them off. And next minute we're talking about ourself.

We don't listen properly, but if we give the space to listen and we allow ourselves also to not be worried about silence, because sometimes within the silence, people say a bit more, but when we're worried about being in silence, we're just talking for the sake of feeling the space. And I think when we stop and are very conscious of the way that we're listening, we really open up a whole new realm.

[00:54:34] LW: Yeah, I think the best podcasters definitely listen to. think it's really important to understand as opposed to listening to respond or listening to sound smart, which I think a lot of people, I would argue, maybe even most people do, and that distinction you made in the book, I thought was very helpful for people who want to become better conversationalists, it's just, just start listening. Without even though in your mind is probably going to want you to respond and want you to say the specific thing when you first start to hear them talking and they use certain keywords and you're going to jump right to the response that sort of the knee jerk response. But what if you just linger and just let it all out and just. Just let go of the need to reply in a specific way and just let them talk and maybe something else comes up later on that Inspires you feel inspired to say that is not what you initially was You were planning to say when you first started to go down that whatever the conversation

path was 

[00:55:35] SG: it's so true, Light. I've been doing this book tour at the moment, the book only came out a week ago and we had this huge launch in Melbourne, a private launch, and then I had a public one last night, and I have done a few keynote speeches for International Women's Day, and I've gotten to meet some incredible people that listen to the podcast, or are seeing me for the first time, and doing book signings and stuff, inevitably in every Keynote I do or book signing, someone will ask a beautiful question and this has happened a few times and they will start to cry. And I realized that not a lot of people are being heard and they're so busy taking care of others, a lot of women especially, their family, their husbands. That they feel so empty and they, don't have any fuel in the tank and they'll come to me and they'll ask a question and they'll sob and they'll sob and I just give them the space to be able to do that.

And then they'll open up and honestly, this can be the other day it was in front of a room of 850 people, this lady. She asked such a beautiful question, sobbing. And I thought, no one has listened to her. No one has given her the space to be able to just let it out. And sometimes we don't even need to say much back.

They just want to be heard in life. People want to be seen and heard because when we're not. It makes us feel irrelevant or that no one cares. And when you have the time to show up for someone and just listen to them, as I said, you don't even need to say much back, but just be present with them. And if that's just over the phone, then that's okay too. But just give people that respect. It's honestly life changing.

[00:57:26] LW: asking, like, how would you like for me to hold this space with you? Do you want me to just listen or would you like for me to offer any response? Cause it's, even if you don't, if you don't know what they want, you can always ask

[00:57:38] SG: Yeah, absolutely. I just being there for people is such a big thing. A lot of people, they're giving and they're giving and they're giving, but they're not able to fill their own cup. And so if we can look out for those people and be a light for them and hold space for them, it, helps so many other people on their journey.

And I think it's just important to take that time and listen to people properly. You know, I've learned on the journey, I can tell if someone's lying straight away. I just, I can tell, I don't even know what it is. It's just the way that they'll say things and not lying in a mean way, but they're lying because they don't want to.

admit something, or their ego's a bit bruised, and they'll pretend they don't care about something, but they'll non stop talk about it. And I think, if you don't care, why have we talked about it for an hour? And allow them to have the space, or maybe say like, I, you probably do care, and it's all right to care about this, and I'm here to be able to talk about it with you.

So sometimes when we listen properly, we can work out that people might not be saying the truth, because They're too embarrassed or their ego's a bit bruised, but when we go into listening with no judgment, then people really start to open up.

[00:58:51] LW: So I think a part of that gets Enhanced when you start your meditation practice because you when you start listening to what's beneath the noise inside. And, you start getting those internal cues, it allows you to become a better even better listener. externally when you're listening to other people?

Cause like you said that Caroline Mays talked about a lot of times. There's a lot in there when nothing is said back when

there's just silence. And I,

saw this this James Lipton and um, Gene Hackman clip that's been making this round's on social media since he passed away, where he talks about the moment where his dad, left the house when he was like 13 years old or something like that, or 11 years old, and passed away.

So when you know that? Dan's known enough to do it, he's done it. He's done it. He's done it before. I've done it before. I've done it before. He's done it. So he's doing it. silence that people felt. And even just watching the clip of it, you feel the magnitude of that moment for him, this grown man in his 70s or 80s at the time, just reliving that moment. Anyway, I wanted to ask you about meditation and at what point did you get serious about your own practice. I think it's important to have that conversation.

[01:00:20] SG: Meditation is just one of my most favorite things. I mean, I meditated like four times the other day. I was feeling off and I was like, I'm just going to go into meditation. And yes. Like I have my own business. I have the luxury of having the time when I need it to be able to do that. But for me, as I mentioned earlier, I started meditation.

I did not like it. My mind was going out of control. I remember thinking, Oh my God, one thought and then the next and then the next, but I could not even catching the thoughts. Like I literally thought I was going insane. Like that were weird thoughts as well, but you would forget them as soon as they'd come.

And I was like, Oh my God, my mind. Anyway. I persisted. I remember a friend said to me, no, you should get back into meditation. And I found some guided ones I liked, and I started doing a lot of them. There was a visualization practice that I started as well that I absolutely love. And I do it at the end of my meditation.

And I was really good at it. And I'd really start to visualize what I wanted to create in my future. And I would feel like I was there and it just, I felt that I had a lot of agency over life when I started my visualization practice and then I. I met Gary Goro, who's a Vedic meditation teacher, who you know as well, and I learned Vedic meditation.

I actually learned it before I met Gary, but then I went to his retreat and did some work there with Vedic. And I loved Vedic meditation. I loved going into this quiet space and having obviously a mantra to be able to say. And I just started studying and studying meditation even more. I'm by no means a meditation teacher, but I like learning about the practice and understanding it because I feel that anything we do in life, we do it better when we have the knowledge of what it's actually about.

So with meditation, the great thing about it is obviously quieting the mind, but also knowing what it does to your mind allows you when you go into it to, do it in a way that is better. So I started really getting into meditation and I noticed like the difference in my eyes, open life.

So for example, I, When I would have something that upset me, I wouldn't react as fast. I would have that space between the event happening and how I felt. And then I'd give a more, reserved answer. I'd have time to think about how I wanted to show up to whatever it was that triggered me, rather than just reacting straight away.

That was one of the big things that I noticed. And I noticed that My mind wasn't as out of control as what it used to be and then the spiritual bit really started to kick in for me, which is something I love. And it's not why people do meditation, but it's something that I felt really added to me and the idea that, when we pray, we're speaking to God.

But when we're in meditation, God is speaking to us and I just had some beautiful experiences in meditation Especially when I was really going into the heart math meditations I do and centering my heart to love I would have like some really profound beautiful moments and I knew That they were able to be achieved in my eyes open life too.

And I had felt them in the eyes closed life. And I was able to take that feeling with me and use it in my day to day. Meditation is just the number one thing that I love so much. And that I, like I said, do every day. I'll do it twice a day if I can. I'll do it four times a day if I feel like I need to.

But. Nearly not a day goes by where I do not do it because it centers me. And I, my life has changed in the most dramatic way because of meditation. And I never thought I would ever be the person saying that, but I am. And I love it. I don't go into meditation as a chore either. I genuinely go, yes, it's meditation time or I want to meditate.

It's never a chore. I love it so much.

[01:04:31] LW: Um, Um, Or Or if not, why not? Or if so do you recommend for other moms out there who, who would like to do the same, share the practice with their family? What are some of the best ways to do that?

[01:04:46] SG: So my husband meditates as well, not as much as me, but he does meditate. My kids, I have meditated with them before and I meditated with my daughter. She was a little bit young, so I think she was a bit all over the shop, but now they're a little bit older. I've done meditation with them. I probably don't do it as regularly as I should with them.

And they're busy. So, it's. It's harder to get them to sit still, but honestly, I wish I had learned meditation from a young age. So this is a good reminder for me that I need to get them into it. But I think as someone who is like a busy working mum, people say they don't have enough time. I'll tell you this, everyone has enough time.

If you need to wake up really early and it's half an hour or 20 minutes before your kids wake up, then make that time for yourself. Because I was waking up At some crazy hours especially when my kids were young just to fit in my meditation because I knew it was a priority for me and I knew that when I was doing meditation, I was then able to show up for my family better.

So even if you feel selfish doing it, which you shouldn't, you know that the effect it has on you is going to be seen by the people you love the most in your life. That should be a reason for you to do it. So. I feel like a lot of people always say to me, I don't have time.

I don't have time. Everyone has time. Everyone has time to scroll on their phone these days or to watch a Netflix movie. You have time to go into meditation and the more you do it, the better you'll become at it. And you'll probably could speak to this being the amazing meditation teacher you are. You can't do meditation once a fortnight and really feel that it's going to have any effect either.

It's a habit. And the more that we do it, the more that it becomes our normal. And like anything, you wouldn't go to the gym once a fortnight and think that's really going to do much for you. You need to work at it. Right. And that's the same with meditation. And the more you work at it, the easier it becomes.

There might be days like at the moment on this book tour, my mind's going a hundred miles an hour, not in a bad way, just cause there's so much on. So I find in my meditations, my mind's rushing a lot, but that's okay. I don't mind. That's okay. I still show up for meditation. Cause even if it's the meditation isn't as great as the day before, it's still amazing then not doing it at all.

So I'm very knowledgeable in that. And I feel that everyone, and especially working moms or just moms in general, just carve out the time for yourself. Cause it'll actually just make you a better person.

[01:07:25] LW: Yeah, I grew up in the seventies and eighties back when people got spanked and it wasn't considered child abuse. And it's funny because we started this tradition in my family of doing these birthday zooms, cause we're all over the place and we'll share stories about whoever the birthday person is and I remember when I was my mom's birthday and my three brothers we all went around sharing stories and it's crazy how the most prominent stories were these. PTSD stories of being spanked or beaten or yelled at or, there was some sort of punishment that was inflicted. And I honestly thought my mom was crazy back when we were growing up. But now that I'm older and I look back, I just realized she had all this unmanaged stress that she didn't have any outlet for.

And to your earlier point, if she had just had a practice like meditation, she would have been able to release that stress and probably shown up a lot more compassionately for her family.

Let's talk about the book. So this is your first or second book.

[01:08:28] SG: This is my first book.

[01:08:30] LW: Okay. Cause I thought you mentioned in book earlier, but I wasn't sure if you were talking about the same book or if there was another

[01:08:35] SG: No yeah, this is my first book.

[01:08:37] LW: So how do you know when it's time to publish a book? Because, a lot of people have book ideas and. Writing a book is like it's like doing a Iron Man or something like that. It's not a passive endeavor. You can't just wing it. You can't just casually do it and end up with a book in your hands at some point. You have to be really intentional, especially as a mom, especially, with all the things you have going on, you have to set aside time.

You may even get an advance, but that advance is going to be split up usually into three or four different parts. So you can't live off of it. You still have to it. So how did you know now was the time and what was your what was your process like in creating this,

[01:09:22] SG: So I knew that, well, it actually started podcast listeners, you should write a book, you should write a book. And when enough people say, you get the idea, maybe I should write a book, you know, you have to have a story to tell. And I thought to myself with the podcast, I do hold a lot of myself back.

There is a certain amount that I give, but there are things that I haven't shared before and their personal things. And I thought, you know what, when I write this book, I really want to share stories that I have never spoken about before. And obviously I wanted to go on the idea of my podcast is A Life of Greatness, the book is Living A Life of Greatness, and what are the key pillars involved to living a great life.

And I thought, the way I want to explain them is through my life and things that I have learned. So, I get really personal about writing these stories, and I also spoke to a lot of my friends who had stories that I thought would be really great for the book, and I changed their identity because a lot of the stories are really personal, and I, it was so beautiful writing it, like, I didn't find it difficult at all, to be honest with you, because I already had in my mind So, yeah.

This is how I want to structure it. These are the interviews I want to do. I know that I want to make it very different to the podcast, which I have. And I'm going to really, write about the things that I have struggled with in life, the things that have brought me joy and how I've gotten to the place that I'm at.

And I think like anything, because I've always been very, I'm a, my background is producing and I'm very structured in the way that I do things and very organized. I was able to show up every day. I'd spoken to enough people that talk about, going into those states where you're putting everything away and not being distracted and you can go into flow.

And so I knew the techniques that I needed to use. So I really would carve out the time every morning and just write and write. And I love writing. So that also came quite easily to me. And it was funny, because. In the process of writing the book, I got approached by a publisher, would I be interested in writing a book?

And it was just such great timing. And so they were the publisher I ended up going with in the end. And again, you get just signs from the universe that end up coming to you. I actually even got reached out to after I'd already had this deal by a huge publisher in the UK about like, would you write a book?

So I think it just showed me I was, on the right path and what I had. imagine this book to be, I was able to then get it down and bring it to life. So I found the process to be not as challenging as what some others have felt because I already had an idea in my mind of what I was going to write and the stories are all mine.

So it was really just about putting them onto paper.

[01:12:14] LW: I'm not surprised actually, because being successful in your podcast requires, or in any endeavor requires a significant amount of follow through. In fact, I would say it's to the point where you can't even really see it as. I'm having to follow through. You just see it as this is a part of the process and this is how things happen in the world. And I think that's one of the biggest obstacles for people who haven't created something that is considered to be successful is they have all the inspiration, they have all the motivation to start. But then they inevitably flame out when they see that, oh, this is harder than I thought it was going to be. And they somehow convince themselves that it's harder for them than it is for anybody else.

[01:13:00] SG: Mm. 

[01:13:01] LW: reality is that it's actually just as hard for everybody, except the people who, whose brands you've heard of are the ones that have just continued to do whatever mental gymnastics they have to do in order to keep following through and following through and facing whatever, degree of difficulty that there happens to be.

[01:13:21] SG: That's such a good point. I really believe that to be true, and it's funny you mentioned that, because my girlfriend and I were talking about this the other day about, even those people that just flake the whole time, like, she was saying, like, you organize an arrangement, and they're the same people that are always pulling out, but then the ones that aren't really doing that much, like they don't work, and their kids are all at school, and they don't have that much on, when you look at other people who are so busy, Yet you organize something with them and bang, it's in the diary dah, it's there.

They'll never miss it. And we were having this conversation and I said to her, it's interesting when I was young, I remember my parents and they're not at all strict, but if I had signed up to doing a sport or just even just going to school, unless I was literally on my deathbed, I was going.

There was no pulling out. There was no, Oh, I just don't feel like it today. So when I was young, I learned that. I learned that if you sign up to do something, then you're just going to do it. And you might not like it initially, but we signed up for a term. So you're there doing it the whole term. And that's what I knew.

That's what I came from. And in hindsight, I think it's those kind of like, okay, those habits Ended up leading me into a workforce going, okay, this is what I got to do. I just got to do the job till it's done. Might take hours, but it's my job. So I've learned to just keep on going and keep on going.

And I think maybe a lot of people don't learn those skills. So you see them half heartedly doing things, or as you mentioned, when it gets challenging, they just flake out or they stop doing it. And that's also, you know, maybe with arrangements or catching up. If something little comes up, or they might, I don't know what it is.

They just easily say, they flake out and say no, and I think that we need to really think about that when we say that we're going to do something, or we're wanting to pursue an avenue of work. As you said, it might be hard, doesn't mean that we should stop. And that's like the way that I live life.

Most things are challenging at first when it's new to you.

[01:15:37] LW: Yeah, even like working out, it's very challenging when you've been sitting on

the couch, but what helped me a lot with my first book took me like three, three and a half, four years to finish it. Not because that's how long it takes to write a book. It's just because I kept flaking out on myself, telling myself I was going to wake up at certain times and work on it.

And I just wouldn't do it. I would go away from it for it. I'm going to be talking about a book called The War of Art, which is a book that I've been reading for months and then come back to it and I would tell myself stories about how I needed to do that in order to get a fresh look at it and, then a friend of mine recommended reading Steven Pressfield's book, The War of Art, and he talks about resistance, he talks about the differences in an amateur and a professional and approaching the creative work like a professional, which means you show up every day, whether you want to or not, whether you feel like it or not, whether you're being paid for it or not. And that's how. You are able to stay connected to that internal muse that makes it a little bit easier to create because it's like you're being, you shift from thinking that, Oh, I have to come up with all this stuff to being the transcript, the person who's just dictating what you're sensing from a deeper level.

[01:16:44] SG: I love that. I, and I feel that's true and I talk in the book about conscious awareness and we've chatted about this within our discussion a few times, but going back to like the idea of showing up, it's also not just showing up for other people, but it's showing up for ourselves because, if we're constantly giving up or it's too hard.

start to look at ourselves and think like, what have I achieved or what have I done? I'm half my foot's half in and then it's out. And it doesn't make us feel good. And I think when we're really consciously aware of what we're saying, and I always talk to people about being a person of their word, if you're going to say that you are going to do something, then do it, don't flake on people or say, yeah, I'd love for you.

I'd love to help you with something, and then they reach out again, and you just don't answer their message, like, it's not a kind thing to do, and it's, disrespectful, and I think once we're consciously aware of what we're saying and our actions, and we're combining the two, and again, even if it's just to our own self, the way that we're talking to ourselves, then let's follow through and saying no is also okay, like, if you set a boundary and say, like, no, I can't do That's fine.

You're being a person of your word by saying no as well. But don't say yes and then do the opposite. That's when you get into this kind of mismatch energy. And it's really just it's not a nice thing to do.

[01:18:13] LW: Yeah, I agree. I have a question about someone who may think they want to write a book or maybe launch a podcast. Do you identify your purpose first and then you do the thing? Or do you do the thing first and then you realize, Oh, that's a part of my purpose. Talk to me a little

bit 

about your understanding of 

[01:18:30] SG: For me, it was more the purpose first. So I was, as I mentioned to you, I had this idea of, Oh my God, I have been so helped by doing this work. By watching my thoughts, by meditating, all of the things we've spoken about. How do I teach this to other people? And that's when the idea of my podcast came and it was like, this is my purpose.

I have felt touched by this. I want to share it with others. And the book was the same thing. This has been my journey. I feel that others could benefit by hearing about it. I'm going to write a book. Based on what I feel my purpose is, which is to give back to other people and be a subject matter expert in what I feel is living a great life.

And that's the way that I'll show up and give to the world. So look, I mean, I personally feel like your purpose directs you in the right way. And, but some people can fall into doing a job and then go, Hey, this is amazing. And I feel that now my purpose is this, like we learn along the way. But for me, I had the idea that was tied to my purpose and then I executed it.

[01:19:44] LW: How do you know when it's, when a part of your purpose would be benefit benefited by you facing one of your fears, kind of like you and your ice bath?

[01:19:54] SG: Yeah.

[01:19:55] LW: Story that you told.

[01:19:57] SG: So it's funny and you might be like this as well, cause I've been doing the podcast for so long and I suppose people in radio are a bit like this too. You end up. Having all these stories and you bank them in your mind, thinking like, I can share this with people. Oh, that's a good one to share. I had this moment.

I can share that. That will help people. So I feel like I've learned to do that along my journey. With the ice bath thing, I was, I talk about this in the book. I was always so fearful of the cold and I never liked going into the cold. Like just generally, I'm a little frame. I was always freezing. I'd always have the electric blanket on a hundred, jackets.

I live in Melbourne. It gets freezing in winter. And then my, I had Wim Hof on the podcast a few years ago and my friend says, let's go to his retreat. And I'm like, are you crazy? Like me going in an ice bath, that's never going to happen. I have actually no interest in going in an ice bath. Anyway. The more she asked, the more I thought, Oh, why not?

Okay. And I was interested in the breathing part as well. And I went and I had this. Crazy, amazing experience. And I was able to face my fear of going into the ice bath. And I can tell you before I entered that ice bath, it was a freezing Melbourne. It was actually raining and we're standing. I'm in a bikini in the rain.

I'm already shaking and the hairs are standing on end on my arm. I remember this, like it was the other day and everyone around me, I'm like analyzing them, going. Everyone's bigger than me. I'm like the smallest person. I'm going to have a heart attack. Like, I'm sure I've read about people having a heart attack when they get too cold or I get hypothermia or something.

And I thought I was like, I was internally holding it all in light. So I was like having these thoughts and just standing there. I think the expression on my face must've said it all because people started like, Oh, are you okay? This beautiful guy who I had never met had come up to me and he's.

He said, I have never done this either, my wife has brought me here, because a few people went at a time, not in the same ice bath, but they were little ice baths all next to each other, I'll come in with you, like, we'll go at the same time, I'm a novice at this, and something about him saying that just made me feel so much better, and then I did the ice bath, and in the ice bath, I, really realized that I had mental strength that I didn't know, like the years of doing the meditation, the years of watching my thoughts, when I faced my biggest fear, which was going into the cold, I was actually okay because I had learned how to control all those other things.

And so when I, was in the ice bath and we had done breathing that day, we'd been taught how to breathe properly. I just really centered myself and went into this kind of meditative space. I did the breathing and I was fine. And it made me feel like anytime we're able to achieve something we're scared of.

Like I remember stepping out of that ice bath, just feeling like I was on cloud nine. And I think we can all do that. Like even When we get into the public speaking space, like I've done keynote speaking for years, like most people, I was so afraid of doing public speaking. Yeah, I'd done acting and stuff, but still, when it come, came to public speaking and actually speaking my truth, or being a subject matter expert, it was scary and having all lies on you.

But again, the more I did it. The more I got better at it. And now it feels amazing to go and do something like that. And the first few times I did it, I was shit, like I was reading from notes and, but we all start off like that. No one's amazing the first time they do something, but it circles back to what we were talking about, that things are hard when you first do them, but if you keep on keeping at it and your heart's in there and you want to get better.

The more you do it, the more you get better at it, and then it becomes easy for you.

[01:24:04] LW: Yeah. That's what I love about your book is that it's like gentle, I call it gentle wisdom. It's broken down and I think 15 or so vignettes stories from your life stories from your podcast guests that you've had on and. They're not too long. They're not too short. There's not, it's not heavy handed in terms of like, Oh, this is the lesson that, you need to take away from this chapter.

It's just it almost sneaks up on you a little bit. You're just reading and reading. And then, because like you, I don't really read every word of every book for every guest. I'll kind of skim and I'll look for stories that apply to the kinds of interviews or conversations that I'd like to have.

Yeah. And so I was fully expecting to do that with your book and I found myself like getting caught up in the story of your neighbor's daughter and then caught up in these other stories and it's like, wow, this is really, I wasn't expecting this. I wasn't expecting to be for my attention to be captured on these, even your ice bath story, just reading it from beginning to end because you describe it so well.

Did you write this book by yourself?

[01:25:07] SG: It's so funny you say that because I did but I 

[01:25:10] LW: too good for a 

[01:25:11] SG: Yeah, exactly. I knew that the stories is what would capture people. And, again, we learn through stories, and because I think it's my experience in reading so many books, because, again, six years of the podcast, most people that have come on have written a book of some sort, so I'm reading books constantly, so I knew what grabs my attention, it's the stories.

If I just wrote a book and was giving wisdom and tips, I find, to me, I find that a little bit dry. So I thought, what can we all relate to a story, but I don't want to give a story that seems so far away from what anyone else can achieve. Right? So, I want to make the stories easy and palatable for people to be able to understand rather than give them some far out story where I'm saying, you know what, where I found stillness was when I was on the top of, Mount yeah.

And how many people are going to do that? Not many. And it's not relatable, right? So to tell stories that. We're relatable and of my own experience, I felt was a way that people was, were able to then learn better. So, I'm so happy that you said that because that was an important part for me is to be able to share the stories.

And like I said to you, there's a lot of stories of my friends journeys in there. And even the story where I talk about forgiveness and I tell about one of my really good friends who was stalked. By her next door neighbor and I've changed all her details and stuff, but, I felt so honored that she had shared that story with me and I was able to write about it in the book because it was a great way for people to learn about different situations and where forgiveness played a big, part in that.

[01:26:57] LW: Well, well done. Great job, first book. You've now contributed to the body of knowledge in written form that will exist for the rest of time. So, congratulations on that, and I want to thank you again for coming on to my podcast and sharing your story so openly and so vulnerably. And it was just great to reconnect with you

[01:27:19] SG: Light, thank you so, so much. It's been an absolute pleasure talking with you today. Thank you so much for your beautiful questions as well. It's been so lovely. So thank you.

[01:27:29] LW: You're welcome. 

[END]

Thank you for tuning into today's episode with Sarah Grynberg. If you'd like to follow Sarah's work on personal transformation and living a meaningful life, you can find her on the socials at Sarah Grynberg that Sarah with an H and then G R Y N B E R G.

And of course her book Living A Life of Greatness is available everywhere. Books are sold. And if you enjoyed this conversation, you might also enjoy episode two 56 with Isra and Nasir, where we discuss breaking free from toxic productivity and redefining success beyond burnout. Or give episode 68 a listen with Christine Platt, where we explore how letting go of physical clutter, limiting beliefs and expectations can lead to a more intentional and fulfilling life.

And if you know of someone who's out there making the world a better place, please send me your guest suggestions to light@lightwatkins.com. And if you got something of value out of this episode, please take a few seconds to rate and review the show. It helps more people discover these conversations. And in the meantime, I'll see you next week for another inspiring story of an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. Until then, keep trusting your intuition. Keep following your heart. Keep taking those leaps of faith and remember if no one's told you lately that they believe in you, I believe in you. Thank you and have a fantastic day.