I started training karate when I was 3 years old and have trained in Japan and Oceania. I joined my first band age 8 and dedicated my teenage years to writing songs and playing gigs. I earned a recording contract at age 18. Once I secured that I mistakenly believed the hard part was done. I was wrong. I didn’t turn up with the same work ethic, drive and creativity that I used to secure the deal in the first place. I failed and it was heartbreaking. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it was the greatest gift. I returned to high school to finish my education and begrudged working in the family shipbuilding, charters and repair business. What a fall from grace. While I was working in the business we were the defendants in a court case that went all the way to the High Court of Australia. We won. The law firm I had been working with encouraged me to pursue a career in Law. I moved to the city, joined their firm as a maritime and aviation paralegal and began my formal studies. I spent most of my 20s pursuing a law career, which I grew to love, until I met my husband and had my first son age 26. I began freelance writing and returned to my love of the creative arts, finding myself in fashion as a ghost writer writing brand voices. This segued into marketing, culminating in my dream job as integrated marketing campaign manager for a leading online fashion magazine writing campaigns for the biggest luxury fashion brands in the world. I was living my dream. Until my passion diverged again.

A 2014 trip to South Africa sent the compass needle spinning and I yearned to strip everything back and to return to basics. I became obsessed with the paradox of returning to the purity of existence before our social conditioning, and the becoming and designing of whoever and whatever we choose to be as our truest incarnation of self. I studied this in nature. I furthered it in pursuits of adventure. I discovered the place outside of our comfort zones where the wildflowers grow. I made that garden my home. It drives my decisions as a woman and mother.

I decided to be the first person to solo kayak the 400km Clarence River in northern NSW. I’d never kayaked before but I knew when the time came I would be the person I needed to be. I learned bush survival, navigation, how to hunt and trap, how to forage, and medicinal uses of plants. I spent time in the bush honing my skills and I learnt and taught my sons as I went. I prepared for 2 years and this year in May 2017 it became my realised truth. I embarked on other solo adventures in the lead up and am a sponsored adventurer and ambassador, speaker and mentor, working with several global brands, publications and community groups. Is this finally my ‘thing’? Will my passion diverge again? What is it about my personality that drives me to achieve a high level in one direction, and then to set my sail in another entirely? Am I alone?

I welcome you to these pages, where my goal is to delve into the secrets of passion and high performance, of perseverance and purpose, of parenting and identity, and philosophy and curiosity. Peppered with thoughts of my own, and in-depth conversations and interviews with the most fascinating minds I can find, it is my hope that the distillations of these wisdoms will enable you to find and explore your “thing” too.