Welcome to the discipline of freedom podcast. This is your host Eilish. Bouschet. Thank you for being here. So today we're going to have a conversation. With Yolanda. The Val, but the fool. I'm so used to, um, people asking me how to say my name. I actually had to text Yolanda and say, oh my God. How do you pronounce your name? Um, so. Yolanda deviled what the Fu. I met Yolanda a few years ago when I was living on the far south coast of new south Wales, it's called the Safar coast. And she was running sustainable fashion events. This was happening during COVID and we were super lucky to be there because we were less affected by COVID than most people. So we reconnected in the last few weeks because Yolanda is now moved back to Adelaide. And she reached out to me too. Comment on sustainable fashion and from a branding a brand storytelling point of view. Because of the integrators way that I do branding. for a film She's putting together to bring to the C-suites and the governments and the councils on sustainable fashion.'cause there's legislations to bring the greenhouse gases down to 1.5. There's a commitment being made. That would be measured from 20 to 25. To 2030 for a fashion brands. At present, it's a voluntary program. But, Tanya Plibersek has said that she will. Mandate it, if people don't volunteer. So, this is a really interesting conversation and I think the conversation we all need to have, what I realized as I. Was thinking about this conversation that I've been living in this way for the last 20 years. I'm certainly not doing it in any pure way and I'm not doing a perfectly. And I don't advocate. That is possible in this moment in time. But what I realized was that. The sustainability conversation. Is in construction. In food. And it needs to be had from a holistic point of view so that we can. See how. We can create sustainability. Across our lives. So this conversation hits the ground running to keeps going. As Yolanda answers, the question that I often ask, what was valued when you were a child? Because I really believe this. Often influences. What we go on to do later on in our lives. Um, I think you'd really enjoy this conversation. You'll learn a lot about fast fashion. You'll learn about how. Um, your purpose and your work finds you rather than you finding it. And Sometimes things that we pursue are things that we study. Our, that we're involved in. Don't make sense until 10 or 20 years down the track. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I enjoyed having us. Thank you for being here. I was born in Sydney and we travelled up the east coast for work for dad, wherever it was. And then we settled in beautiful Myrtleford in the Alpine region. Then moved to Albury. Then I moved to Sydney, and then I moved to Adelaide, and then Bermagui. Yeah. Right. So, okay, let me just set this up while I'm chatting away here, and I'm out there. So, Adelaide. There we go. And how did your fashion week go? Oh, it's next week. It's Friday week. So it's crunch time because we've sent out a whole lot of invites to a whole lot of industry people across various sectors. And, we're just doing follow up now. It's going well. We've got, would you like me to come and talk? Really? Oh my goodness. It would be amazing. And, the organisers would be like, what? And I'm like, she's the person I wasn't able to find in Adelaide. What I'm actually building is a transition towards circularity and decarbonisation of the fashion industry. I want to take it council by council I want councils to fund the rollout of these events, primarily to work within a geographic area In particular, want to map what's going on in your council area. And I've hooked up with a carbon platform that calculates carbon emissions. I want to work brand by brand, retailer, manufacturer supplier, re educating marketing is a big chunk of that and that's where I think we could work together that would be amazing. Mainly have marketing people and brands as well, brands and retailers. So quite specifically talking to them about my action plan, but the whole way we change our language about, influencing consumption, which is driving overproduction and how we do that, how we transition to something that is kinder to planet and people, but really, like you said, focuses on building your own brand differently, being a leader that way. I mean, it's interesting because I read it the weekend. That Bianca Spender. So she's been buying remnants, you know, which would be leftover excess for other companies and using that. So she said that the biggest waste is always fabric. And so she's been buying beautiful fabrics all over the world and using those fabrics and it's made her think about her design differently. I sent you an ad this morning, which was Woolmark. They did this great ad, which was, saying, okay, these are natural fibers. Yes. Is that where all the clothing is hitting that person in the car? Oh my gosh, wasn't that brilliant? Yeah. So it's interesting, isn't it? In terms of the way of thinking, because I don't think we're going to stop people buying clothing, but we can certainly ask people to stop buying as much clothing. And we can also ask people to be much more intentional about what they're buying. Because I know for myself. I've gone through stages of where I see, something that I love and it's on sale and do I think, do I need it? Do I have, two others that are like that? And I do now, obviously. But, but there would have been times in my life when I wouldn't have thought that I would have just thought, you know, I wanted it. But what you're doing, and this comes back to, the core of my work is It's the relentless pursuit of more. And if you're not taking care of, if you're not fulfilling your moon's desires or fulfilling your core desires, then what you're doing is, is you're looking externally for that fulfillment. And, we have been taught over the last 40, 50 years to fulfill it externally, to fulfill it with, a new iPhone or to fulfill it with a new piece of clothing. And we know in terms of brain chemistry, that it's serotonin, it's the dopamine hit. And we know when we look in our wardrobes that we have more clothes than we need. Yes, yeah. And yet we will want change, you know, the fashion industry isn't going to go away. We don't want the fashion industry to go away. One concept is, it's called just transformation. So it's transforming the way we've been doing things to the new way doing business. But how do we transition so that it's responsible so that our businesses don't implode. Well, that will have such a negative impact but there's some significant things that need to happen. Our less reliance on fossil fuels, the way we design, the way we think about design, the longevity, like you said, using what we've already got. I did some research a couple of months ago, and part of my conclusion, it's that whole circularity of how a garment circulates in the economy. So now it's about, if you can't afford to buy a luxury piece of clothing or fashion then buy it as the second generation owner or the third generation owner. But if you can then be, like you said, be intentional and look at the longevity, look at how many decades this is going to be around. And when you don't want it, Consider it as an economic investment because you can actually put it back into the circular economy and get money for it. To then replace it. So that's, that's the new way of thinking it. And, where we're trapped, where we're moving to, is because of innovation and technology, we're actually creating new industry and new jobs. Because that beautiful, you know, Italian wool jacket that will eventually deplete in two to three decades time after you can't repair it anymore, which again is another circular. Fashion cons principle you know, will be broken down and in its most natural form, it'll be, I mean, well, wool is, is, one of the textiles has the longest life, but any, any other fabric, it'll be broken down. The, the synthetics will be pulled, the natural fibers will be pulled and then new fibers will be created. We've already got a company in Queensland block tech. They established themselves four years ago, and that's what they do. There's a guy in Melbourne, I can't remember his business name, but he does that. Salvos are just sending him pallets and pallets of, of disused clothing bound for landfill or, you know exported to some third world country. And and he's breaking them down and making cotton fiber for knitted cotton garments. So he's got a limitation in the capacity of textile delivery, but I think, again, that will probably be developed. That might be his niche area or that's where we're heading. It's all about using what we have less extraction on virgin products. You know, viscose is still, you know, Taking to 200 to 300 trees, you know, globally, and many of them are old growth trees. And, but there's, there's new technology with blended fabrics. But the, the real issue is that the dependence on synthetic, you know, as you know, polyesters, nylons. And now there's so much information that's coming out of how toxic that is for us, not just in our waterways and what's ending up in our oceans every time you know, every time we wash, but how bad for us, it is for us to wear as well, how toxic it is. I mean, my partner, he's a kayaker. And he's got this, beautiful Vicobe kayaking outfit. And he's just getting reactions from the synthetic and I'm like, well, that's your whole skin system's absorbing that. So, yeah, and they're finding that kind of toxicity is leading to all sorts of issues, health issues, gentlemen. Yeah. So anyway, there's a big cleanup process required. Yeah. I think it's super timely that you're doing this. I noticed there's an ethical fashion week in, I think Sydney next week, or maybe it's even nationally. And I think it's super timely from the point of view of the conversation has been, you know, began I'm sure 20 or 30 years ago, but it takes time for the zeitgeist for it to. To become part of the conversation and I think that COVID was part of that, that people realize that they spent most of their time in exercise clothes, or there was very little of the wardrobe they were using because obviously didn't have different outfits for different contexts. Also, you're spending so much more time in your house and you're realizing, oh my God, we've got excess and excess and excess. And where people's money is going, you know? So I think people have become very conscious of that because we're, we're experiencing hyperinflation and it's like, okay, so well, what can we trim and, which comes very much with my thinking of, business and brand visioning, which is centered around how do you build a business that works for your life? So, since you have a business that you love to live in because you're servicing your clients in a beautiful way, because you have the space in yourself and the capacity in yourself, because you're filling up your own cup, so you truly are in service from that space. You're creating a brand that you're proud to grow into. And you're also investing in your future, you're becoming this benefactor of your future self. And that's like my core values, how do you do that rather than, as soon as you earn more money that you spend more money. So you're constantly chasing this wheel. And I feel that people have been educated. To be dead as a normal part of their lives. I mean, and I was brought up that you get into debt for it to buy a house and you know, that, you know, is because it's out of reach. You normally don't have a few hundred thousand dollars around and certainly in Australia, a few million in cash, you know, that's rare. Yeah, that's the one thing, but you never get in debt for it to buy a car. You know, that's the way I was thought, you know, you were never getting debt for to It's certainly not to go on a holiday and certainly not for to buy clothes or like for your normal day to day. And yet we've had this culture that's been training people to think that debt is normal. know, and so then you have credit cards, training people to think that is normal. And I saw this when I lived in the U S because culturally so different to growing up in Ireland, Oh, so different was that everybody thought it was normal to it. And I'm going to be looking at it in terms of astrology, you. You know, in the houses, the love and romance and, you know, sex and the playfulness, it all happens in the fifth house, and then you kind of go, Oh, this is kind of working nicely. And then you go to the sixth house, which is your day to day, does our health routines to what we eat, you know. Does our day to day work? Like, are we kind of in sync or can we make it work? And then the seventh house is where the contract happens, which is the marriage or deciding to get together for, to build a life together or get together for exclusivity or, marriage or business contracts. The eighth house and you discover all the secrets and the secrets can be, Oh my God, they've got a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, are that you realize that their monthly maintenance is, you know, nails, hair, facials, you know, makeup massage, it's beauty products and they spend thousands of dollars a month on clothes or whatever, you know, and just kind of go, Oh my God. So, so combining this, I mean, I've been around astrology since my twenties, and it probably wasn't until the last 10 years that I really began to connect it with branding. And so that's where we're going to go today. We're going to look at your chart and see, in terms of what it is that you do and how your fate is, you know, you could say the blueprint, your natal chart, and then Bye. how you get to choose your adventure. So, you know, we could talk about faith and we talk about free will and the faith can be seen in the charge. Okay. You came here for 10, these particular experiences in this particular lifetime. Now, how are you going to live that out? You know, what are the strengths of this? What are the things that, you know, it does are naturally expansive and you can bring ease and grace to, and then, then what are the things that you're going to go resisting? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's such an interesting thing. And it's also interesting to look at the transits we could look at, you know, fashion industry or look at particular businesses. You can do that. You could do it for your circular village look when you incarnated it and you know, what's its purpose, will it make its money? This is, they'll show you this, what does it want to be known for, how will it set itself up operationally? Yeah. So all this governs it. So you've got the signs, which are personalities. Now, wherever the personalities are hanging out is the 12 houses and their different areas of life. And the reality of it is, is, you know the really outgoing Aries, pioneering Aries is going to be very pioneering in the first house, but you put it in the sixth house, which is the house of day to day. And it will behave differently because it's in a different context and you know, and always context Trump's content and Trump's concept and then planets, you know, and people often ask, say, Oh, I don't have any planets in that house. And it just means no particular work, or there's no particular challenges, or there may not be extra support in that house, it means you may have a particular ease or you haven't chosen to work on that. And the planets have their own stories, their characters, who again will behave differently depending on what sign and what house they're in. So let's get into it, and we'll look at your story. So fascinating, yeah. And it makes total sense. I mean, how we not perform, but how we are and live and our beliefs and our values. And then you move that into running a business. And especially if you're very aligned with a bigger purpose and it all makes total sense of, you know, what's the natural driver and the way you deal with problems and roadblocks and issues. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this. And, and your business, and this is something that I think entrepreneurs very often are certainly solopreneurs are people who are in a service based business. They. I often don't make a distinction between themselves and their business and your business has its own Spanish. It has its own way of being, it has its own way of doing, and it wants to do something different. And the best example I give of this is when I had Studio 51, which was my design and communications agency. And I had that for about 10 or 15 years. And it wanted to grow. I worked for people like Apple and Vodafone, Australian Bureau of Statistics and for universities, like a really stellar clients. They just fell in my lap. And, you know, we had great relationships and went down for years. And it wanted to grow and I was in Australia and feeling I going to get trapped here if I grow this business, and really, if I'd had, you know, a mentor, which is why I'm so passionate about mentoring invited mentor, they would have said, okay, you serve the business right now, and it will serve you. You know, it will liberate you, quadrant that I use, which is the quadrants of needs, which is you have your needs, who's the CEO or the leader of the business, the business has needs. Now, if you serve the business, the business will serve you. And then the next quadrant is your clients. Business serves your clients, whereas very often entrepreneurs or solopreneurs see themselves as serving the clients. It's the business that's serving the clients. That also gives a different portal, a different way of accessing the business. So it means you're not always on. And then the next one, of course, then the final quadrant would be, What's the ecosystem of the business? Nobody operates alone. As I say, you know, how many hundreds of people need to interact to get your coffee in the morning? You've got suppliers, you've got the planet, you know, you've got the products, you've got all of those things are in your ecosystem. You know, everybody who ever says, Oh, you should ring Yolanda is in that ecosystem, you know, everyone you interact with. And so if you see it in terms of that quadrant and then working with the spirit of the business, which is, your business's natal chart, and you can track that to the first time you told somebody it was when you named it, when you launched your website, you know, you can track it back to when you first said the idea. So it's good to put a date on it in a particular time. Because that's the most accurate it is. But today we're going to talk about your chart and we can obviously, do the business chart at some point in time, And for anybody else listening, it's interesting to look at it in this way because, you know, in Indian astrology or in Vedic astrology, I shouldn't say Indian, in Vedic astrology. it's seen as the first, fifth, and ninth hazard to do with purpose. And, you know, you hear this word running around, you know, I want a purpose led business. We always, life, like we all want to live a meaningful life, you know? And, so often in our 20s, we just want work and experience. But, you know, but your purpose will find you you know, it's you going out into the world and by doing stuff your purpose finds you it's, you know, and sometimes it can be just to get a job to pay your rent. But, the second. The sixth and, and the 10th house, they're connected with prosperity, so they're connected with resources. And the bigger the mission or the bigger the purpose, the more resources you need, you know? Mm-Hmm. You're going to do something on a small scale. Well then you don't need a lot of money. Probably are even a lot of resources. But if you're going to do something like, we'll say who comes to mind? Let's Netflix. Netflix. Yeah, you need a lot of resources, you know, you're going to reach a lot of people, you know, yeah, yeah, best example, but whatever. And, and then, so those are the, so that's the second, the sixth and the tenth house, and then the third, the seventh and the eleventh are about pleasure, because the more joy you can bring to the service or whatever you're doing, the more magnetic you are. The more you can attract people into that ecosystem and so that's about the clarity of communicating your message, communicating what it is that you're there to do, what you're in service of. In the contracts, which would be the seventh house. We spoke about it in terms of marriage, but it also rules business contracts. And the 11th is community. It's the fruits of your labor. It's the profit. It's. The people who say, you got to ring Yolanda for that are, and that you would also feed your community. And it's also, you know, the, the profit you have, which you can invest for future good things of your business and future things for your life. And it also allows you to have that sense of security. 15, I've always thought, if you're concerned about, you know, paying your rent, you're not in your most creative or expensive space. And the fourth one is, the fourth house, the eighth house and the twelfth house are about liberation. And that's what we're here for is kind of that enlightenment or that, to know whether, you know, we've a huge mission and we're driving a Maserati or whether we're driving, you know, a mini or we're driving a ute or we're on a bicycle, you know, that it doesn't matter. Like it's really, it's just about. What game do you want to play? What sandpit do you want to play in and how do you play that game? So yeah, yeah, yeah. So one question that I always start with is what was valued? Like what was important when you were growing up? And then we'll get to it. Oh, that's interesting. I think probably the first thing that comes to mind was spending time in nature because I, I did grow up in nature and I came from a very turbulent home environment. My father was an alcoholic and I think I just I found I guess, refuge, quietness. just in quiet places. So I guess that was important. Friendships were important. You know, with my little friendships at primary school, my brothers who I grew up with, because we did a lot of, adventuring into nature together and we're very close. We're still very close. Are you all in Adelaide? No, no, my I have a brother, an older brother in Tasmania in Launceston, and I have my two younger brothers in Albury, Albury near South Wales. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. So. Yeah, and I think, you know, the family dynamic was important to me. I very much felt that void of that we didn't have a stable, I was very aware that we didn't have a stable family. And it disturbed me a lot as a young person. And I just, many times I thought when I grow up I'm never going to behave like this. I'm never going to have a family like this. I'm never going to talk to my children like this. And so I grew up with this really strong value system around family. And it's the thing that makes it's one of the things apart from nature that makes me the happiest is when my kids are together and we're just having the most joyous time. Like, yeah, it just fills the soul for me. Great. That's wonderful. Cause I do think that however our childhood was, it either it's fuel for our fire to get away from that or for to create that. And, you know, from working with hundreds of people over, you know, decades is seeing that, What we do in the world is very often driven from something that we saw when we were, children and say it's before you're two, but very often it is kind of before you're seven or, you know, it's those formative years. So yeah, we're teenagers. Yeah. So I'm just going to share the chart and then we shall talk a little through it. Okay. So did I share it? No, I didn't. Here we go. So going with your time and you're not exactly sure on your time, but it would make sense from just what you've said that you, your ascendant is cancer, which is all about, you know, being home and the ascendant is, you know, what you're growing into. It's kind of like what you're,, it's your first point of view of the world. It's your first kind of. As I say, it's your first breath and you kind of look and think, Oh, is that how it works? Is that all they've done? And you have Jupiter right on your ascendant, which would mean it's a very expansive view of that sort of the nurturing cancer is very much about home. And the first house is about identity. So that is, you know, the physical identity it's around ego. It's around how other people experience us and how we're seen in the world. And then, so the ruler of that is the moon, which, you know, and your moon is over here in your sixth house. Which is how you set up your day to day, it's the day to day operations. And that would be the same in terms of business. It rules health, and it rules our day to day being. It rules plans, you know, it's sort of in that space of, okay, so how are we structuring or organizing and allocating our resources? In our second house determine our values. Like it's how we create value in the world. And it's also, it's also what our values are. And yours they're Leo. So Leo knows how to be the performer. It's the ruler energy. It's a creator energy. And it's, so it's very much, it knows how, I always say it knows how to put on a show. You know, it knows the importance. And I mean, you know, that makes absolute sense. If we're in the fashion world, it knows that, Oscar Wilde, I think, said, of course, clothes are important. Who's ever seen, you know, a naked ruler? And, you know, if you even go back to all those tribes, they would have had, crowns or they, you know, there's some form of adornment. And how I described Leo is very much that, you know, before a performance, you know, the, the curtains are closed, the lights go down, you know, that you're leaving one world. And this is the portal to another world. Yeah, yeah. And Leo is very much about self expression, how do I express myself, how do I show up, so, how am I understood. Yeah, how do I express myself, how, in a way that I, you know, I want to be understood, but it's also taking on different roles. And we do have different roles that we play and, and this is so important in our work and is to how do we message? How do we communicate? So we're understood. So, but the ruler of your chart and, you know, the moon. So the big three that people talk about is the ascendant, which is, you know, projection. And then for you, the ruler of your chart is the moon, which is in the sixth house, which is in Sagittarius. And Sagittarius is about meaning making. It can be about international travel. It's about philosophy. It's about religion. It's around, you know, it's the higher mind, it's higher learning. And you're bringing that into the day today. And if our moon isn't fulfilled, we'll always be on that relentless pursuit of more. And I think there's a point where, it's around bringing simplicity back to what is it that I truly desire? What would really fill me up and, and knowing that your children. And, that home really fills you up, you know, then you can begin to take your actions and create your vision and do all, everything can be driven from that space. Because I think that's a question that people rarely ask. They rarely ask, like, what's it I deeply desire because they're very often so busy looking at, what they're told by society, by peers, by friends, by parents, by their, socialization, what they should want. And of course, advertisers know exactly how to tell you what you want. And that's what, that's what the fast fashion industry is based on. This is what you want. This is what you want now. This is what you need now, you know so, and then if we look and we say, okay, so what is it you want to be known for if we, you know, because the first, the fifth, and the ninth house. Our purpose, sorry, I was leaning in the different direction. So the first house, you know, that creation of home, right? Ruler of chart is, is the moon, so it's around how do I feel? You know, what really makes me feel nurtured and safe in the world? And, you know, we go then to the fifth house, which is how we use our creativity for to create that purpose, right? For you, that's in Scorpio. So it's a dive deep, which would be in that space of transformation of the fashion industry. That would make sense there. That's where your South node is coming from. Your South node is, is It's lineage. South Node is stories that you've brought in from your past. It's family history. It's they say that we bring in seven generations of energetic DNA and seven generations of physical DNA. Hmm. And moving towards that north node, which then is in Taurus, which is, you know, personal values, really. And Taurus is all about being in the material world. Like Taurus is the gardener. It wants to touch, taste, feel. It wants, it's associated with luxury. It wants the best of everything and it wants all the experiences is the sensualist. And that's in your, that's, that's in your house of community. It's in your house of the collective, the house of the profits from labor and it's your North node and North node is the experiences they're new experiences. You know, South Node is, is what you've come in with the gifts and there'll be conditioning and belief systems. And then North Node is new experiences that you've come in for to experience in this incarnation. And what, where we really want to be is in the integration. Some people think it's about leaving the South Node behind, but there's so much richness and so many gifts in What your DNA and, you know, what your lineage has given you. And it's around integrating that and, and that helps you towards creating these new experiences. So you've got the Ascendant and then we did the moon and then the third luminary. I'm slightly jumping as I tend to. It's where my brain works. Is your son over here in the 11th house, which again brings you into the collective. So it will be where you shine like it's the essence. It's that. And your MC is there. So it's, you know, so it really is. And that's where you're most illuminated and where you shine the brightest, you know, so if the most private part of the chart is down here in the Southern part here, and the sun is at its highest up here in the North side here, up at the very top of the chart. What you want to be known for is in the 10th house, which is about pioneering ideas because it's ruled by Ares. And you bring a discipline to that, which is your focus, which I hear you do with all that science based work. You want to bring, okay, here are the facts, here are the figures. I will tell you a story, now let me support it. Yeah, very much. Yes. And you also have the help of mercury there, which is how we use our intelligence. You know, mercury is communication and intelligence and anything mercurial. And you have that in your 10th house. So it will be by using, articulating that story in a way that people resonate. And if people don't see themselves in the story, Then they're not going to buy into your story, if they don't see themselves and feel themselves in the story, they don't say, tell me more, you know, if they see this, oh, that's somebody else's problem, or that somebody else's story, which is what the world has been doing, hasn't it really, in your area. You know, so, so it's interesting, it's really set up here, you can see in your chart like it's set up for you to create for you to do what it is that you're doing, and I think that most people really don't find their purpose until they're in their 50s. Right. That's when my biggest transformation happened. I think when I just prior to my fifties, when I started asking the big questions, you know, as in why do we do what we do, you know, why is life moving so fast? Is this good for us? Is it good for me? And Do I want to be a part of that? Well, what, and you know, you were talking about the which Sam Pit do you want to play in? It became very clear to me which Sam Pit I wanted to be playing in. But then it was that letting go of well, I have to live differently and I have to be different and I have to be less reliant on this idea over here that that's what brings security. And and then, you know, I became convinced that if I open, if I close certain doors in life others would open and I just saw this happening, you know, I saw how the universe was, In control and I would just put things out there and I want to do this. I want to make this happen and it's not about me. It's about a bigger idea, a bigger concept. And yeah, so all that was demonstrated. And I remember, I remember sitting in. In Mr. Hope in Bermagui when it kind of all came to me and I thought, my gosh, I've got a trail of things experiences of, of and experiences that I've created for other people with a bigger purpose. And. It all kind of happened by itself. I want to talk through a little through your journey because it would be interesting for people being able to map that, you know, that fate and how we, and how you came to work in one industry and then move to another one. And, and, and how you dealt with those liminal spaces are those transitional phases, because even in the time that I've known you what, probably about three or four years now, you know, there's been a number of transitions. Yes. Yeah. So So I grew up in the fashion industry. I was 15 when I first when I had my first job and I worked for Walton's, which is a department store. It no longer exists now. It's probably similar to Harris Scarf. Back in the day when you had department stores you had women's makeup and men's and you had a hosiery and a knitwear department and every department had a manager and that was my apprenticeship too. into retail, and everybody was much, much older, you know, they were in their 60s and even 70s and they were highly valued because of their industry experience. And so that was my first job while I was still at high school. I did that for three years. That paid my, for my first kind of trip overseas when I was 16. And that was very exciting. And then I kind of got a bit bored with that. And quit my job with no job to go to. And then after some very desperate time, I ended up working for A1 Crestnit, which produced manufactured clothing in Albury. So I trained as a machinist and I worked in a factory and I, and I remember thinking how much of a loser I was that I had actually ended up working as a machinist in a factory. But I actually consider that now as, a golden experience of, my working career because we no longer have a manufacturing clothing thriving industry in Australia. And I often talk about, oh, do you remember A1 Cresnit? Well, I worked for them and they used to, they used to make clothing for Target, for Cresnit, A1 themselves. And it was high quality, it was high quality manufacturing. So that was that. And then, So, you know, and then in and out of retail and then I went into the renewable energy sector because my former husband well, we ended up in the same job together, that's where we met. And then he went off to start his own company and I became the marketing person there. So, that was really great to be in the renewable energy solar industry, especially for large commercial construction. Because that, that's a huge driver of decarbonization now, energy and transport. And so that was really great experience. But while I was there, I was still thinking about, I had this yearning to still be back in fashion, but. I had a significant shift and it was about fair trade. It was about paying people for what they were worth for their craft. And I, I very much wanted to have a side business. So I developed this, this side business where I purchased bits and pieces of fashion, clothing and handbags that were made from women predominantly from India. And I was really pushing that whole idea of fair trade. And it, it wasn't very successful. And then I kind of dropped that What year, what year was that? That was back in 2004. Yeah. So and I'd just come from, I'd been working prior to that, a couple of years prior to that, I'd been working corporate and I kind of got, I was done over a little bit. You know, I was just part of a bigger machine in sales and I kind of got a bit burnt out and decided I'm never going to work for corporate again. And so I started looking at jobs in sustainability and I ended up working for an environmental newspaper in Adelaide. So I was, I had various portfolios to generate advertising, but what I was interested in is storytelling. So I often found that the people I was connecting with I wanted to tell their story. So I started story writing and, and some of these stories were published or they were handed on to the editor who made them. you know, sound even better. So that was that. And then eventually, Can I just interrupt you there. So just to show how, you know, the value of astrology in 2004, when you made that shift, you know, in the renewables and, and, and seeing you wanted something different, you were in a nodal return, they happen every 18. 6 years. Right. Change will always come with them. Yeah. So it's sort of pushing you towards, well, are we actually aligned? Are we doing what we should be doing? Hmm. Yes. So I, I was making some very conscious decisions around that. And in fact, my next relationship with my former husband, he was very much like that as well. And so then I developed years later, still working in renewables on the side, I developed another business and it was really about supporting Australia made, locally made designers fashion designers. And I wanted an online business. And I did it through Facebook. And I was very successful for my kitchen table. I was turning around quite a few thousand dollars worth of fashion because I acquired other people to help, consultants to help me do this. And it was very, very exciting time. So that was that. And I was really pushing that, come on, let's support our homegrown designers. Let's pay more for quality. And I kept coming up against the fact that no, people just wanted to buy on budget. And people didn't really care. And so there was a lot of education around what I was doing. But I was constantly faced with the fact it's not what people want. So that was that period jumping forward we decided to move to Bermagui. And part of that was my, my significant need. It was almost like it was yelling at me, not yelling, but it was very, a very loud voice. You need to get back to nature. You need to get out of the city and your Children need to grow up in, in country. And so I, I, I came across Bermagury, it just, you know, you've been there, you know what it's like. It's beautiful. I think it's one of the most beautiful places that Sapphire coast I mean, it's the far south of New South Wales. I think it's one of the most beautiful places in Australia. Oh my goodness. The whole experience, such a nurturing environment. That's where my marriage broke up and I often thought, well, if you're gonna break up a marriage and it's gonna be awful, this is the place to do it, Because not only are we surrounded by the most amazing, strong women I have ever met, but you've got the mountain, mother mountain, you've got. All of the environment, the water, the sea, the beautiful rivers, it's all nurturing. It's all, and, you know, I definitely went through a significant growth within myself. And that's COVID came, that train wreck, that we were on. I used to talk about what happened, the planet is traveling so fast, to what end we can't cope with this, what is our children you there's going to be consequences for the way we live and behave. As just one, like you said, wanting more technology is getting faster, the information that we see every day, there's more and more, and I was very concerned for us as people on just humanity, really. And then COVID hit, and I was so glad the planet had a chance to breathe, but we, we did as well. And so, over COVID, I decided to get into copywriting. And then I decided to niche into fashion and sustainable fashion and to write about sustainable fashion and one of my first contracts, I just couldn't believe my first contract was a platform. an Australian fashion platform and they wanted to be kind of like a good on you platform where they represent Australian brands, they then gauge them on sustainability metrics and they didn't come from fashion And they were relying on expertise. So they took me on and they wanted me to develop a transparency index, which, and they wanted me just to copy what. Others were doing and I said, no, I'm not going to copy this if you know, if you want to be authentic and you want to create credibility, you have to build your own. So for the next month I delved into UNSDGs transparency indexes that were already out there. Thank you. And I developed this transparency index with the concept of the circular economy on five metrics. And it was people, planet, climate. All living creatures economics and circularity. And then within those, I developed 25 different metrics. And, and that was very pivoting for me. So that was back in 2020, 2021. Because this is really exciting. it goes back to that. Science based thing, nerdy thing that I have and And where does the science based nerdy thing, is that what you studied in university? Is it just where, you know, from school, where, like, has that always just been with you? I think, I think it's developed over time. Is it the neurodiversity? Yeah, I was at university back in 2004. I was studying international politics. I didn't get to finish that degree because my third daughter was born with a disability with Down syndrome, and she had a lot of issues. She came early and I never got back to uni to finish that degree, but I'm back at university now and I'm doing a grad cert in sustainable leadership with the University of Technology in Sydney. And. It's directly, about industry leadership and sustainability. And so you get to work in your own industry with a course outline. And it's just been so instrumental to what I'm currently doing right now. So the whole dependence on data proof, good sources, metrics has slowly developed and because the industry is like a complex jigsaw puzzle that's been tipped upside down and is being carefully put back together. And because it's so pioneering and there's so much innovation and technology which is driving us forward it is very much based on metrics and data. So and very often change for, for laggards, Leonard Schlein wrote a book and he said, you know, art will herald what science will later prove, and I sincerely believe that, you know, it's like we live in this world of material science where we overly rely on logic. And that linear brain and, overly rely on, the strategic mind and yet there's things we can't explain. So scientists first must be inspired before they can prove something, and yet they, they will only believe, in what they can prove. You know the blind test all of that and and when we're trying to create change and make a case for change. We must. And this is very important in terms of business and branding. We must connect with them emotionally, so they're open to the conversation. But then we've got to come in hard and fast with the facts and figures. So it supports my joke of, you know, the, Beautiful BMW is always on the front of the brochure because you are making an emotional decision. All decisions are emotional. And you get the specs at the back so you can support your emotional decision and justify it. Hmm. Hmm. Yes. Yes, so and I think that's where I'm lucky, I guess, and because I do have my left and my right side of the brain are very closely linked, I have a highly creative mind, a very visual mind. You know, an example of that is I can put on an event and I can actually literally walk through the whole event. In my mind and check everything that everything is going to be just fine. And then there's the other side of my brain, which is very strategic works very sequentially and loves information, loves really good information and does get off. You know, I call it my nerdy, my nerdy self. And, and even, you know, in terms of marketing, I really love marketing and I love And, and I, I've referred to myself as a marketing nerd many, many times. But once we moved to, to Bermagui, I wanted to run a business. I wanted to run a bricks and mortar store. And so I opened up a business called Campaign Code, which is an acronym for Consumers Against Mass Production. And come back just to that the nerds and the intelligence and all of that, because you've Uranus, which is the disruptor and the great awakener in your third house, which is the house of communication, the house of ideas, the house of, Oh, I think this, I think that, and that's conjunct Pluto there and Pluto is about transformation. So you've got the, you know, the transformer and the disruptor right back on each other. And yes. So, when you We're talking about making that move when you're around, you know, 42, 43, you're in a, you're in this opposition. And like, and that's often when the midlife crisis of, okay, what's going to happen, and another, another big moment is, is 49, which is the current return is, which is when we realize, okay, whatever wounded is we came in with, we can then become the healer because we've reconciled with our wound. And so you wanted to open a bricks and mortar store in a time that everybody was going online. Well, yes, but I'd already had that online and no, no one, I shouldn't say no one, but, but that the online world hadn't really hit Bermagui. So you know, I, It was kind of like a double edged sword, but I had already had that online experience of a business. And so I planned to double that up at a bricks and mortar store with an online store and to be quite strategic with the vehicle of social media as well. And so and what I did there is I was I carried the Australian brands and local designers, including artists, and I held art exhibitions every three months and I was very deliberate about the kind of conversations I had. And you know, the area, well, we have a lot of visitors coming in and I found myself often getting into some very profound discussion with local visitors, especially when they came from Sydney or Melbourne. And I remember having many, many conversations with professionals, you know, lawyers and doctors and, and they'd come to Burma. they would have their time out and they would regroup with themselves, be refreshed and not want to go back to the city. And I remember thinking you know, you talk about liberation. I had a lot of, a lot of liberating discussions with these people who were obviously mature but big thinkers themselves. And we would often have these discussions of, why do we have to work so hard? Why do we have to push life so, so much? Why is it that you have to remove yourself and come to a place like this to realize that you actually deserve more of this? It was interesting. I was having many of those conversations. So, I guess my, my own transformation just kept, kept on that trajectory. I had to. You're enforcing your decision. Yes. Yeah. Because you're, because what's happening and you know, this is what happens in, in your chart as well. You know, like if you scratch a Pisces, Caroline Casey talks about this in her astrology book. Pisces and, you know, Virgo operate on the two opposites. So, you know, Virgo is about allocation of resources and it's the sage, it's the healer, you know, it, it wants to connect with nature. I always say it's Hammy, the hamster, you know, wants to make sure that everybody's taken care of Pisces is, I want to realize a dream. It's got one foot in the mystical magical world in the ether and it's got another foot in the material world. But, but Pisces needs Virgo for it to help us realize that dream. So it needs organization, it needs the allocation of resources, it needs some systems, it needs some structures, it needs to plan so we can actually, you know, make its dream happen. And I think this is one of the things that we realize is that, a wow, that contrast of city life, which is, where people have so little functional capacity, you know, it's head down, arse up, get the children in the car, Get them to the childcare, get them to get to work, you know, do the work, be so in it. And then, Oh my God, the children have to be picked up. Okay. Hey, we've got to get to the car. We got to do this. We got to do that. I mean, I lived in Bondi for, you know, 20 or 30 years and you see people and the children are getting into the car with breakfast in their hands and the whole nine yards. And, you know, as I say, if you've got two people in a partnership doing that, nobody's having any fun. Like if the children aren't having any fun because there's no real creative playtime, you know, the parents aren't having any fun. They're not certainly not having a lot of sex, you know, there's probably, you know, after they've washed feds and put the children to bed, you know, they're cracking open a bottle of wine, you know, to sort of kind of go like, Yes. Yeah. And everything is driven. Even their exercise regime is allocated. You know, you know, the children are doing violin, they're doing piano, they're doing gymnastics. It's like, what'll stick, you know, and it's all go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so tiring. exhausting. And what we need is the simplification because. To be able to sit down at the end of the day and read to your children and to have that, beautiful time with them. Even that discipline is lost. I talk to parents who they're sending their children off to school who don't know how to read. And unfortunately, because this is life that mothers and fathers are both having to work to, pay the mortgage. Because that's the governmental economic model. You know, not even particularly their choice. It's, yes, often people don't see that they have a choice. That's right. That's right. And now, you know, you see, you see that the government's doing a very big push on children learning how to read from an early age and, and, you know, in South Australia, I think it's not, yeah, it's nationally now that we're banning social media for, for children up to the age of 14. And I think, well, I remember jumping up and down about that several years ago when we had a certain guideline in our home, and I talked to the parent groups around me, and asking them, where are you sitting with this? Oh, well, yeah, whatever. And we wanted to create kind of like a benchmark of this is how much you should have. And this is how much is healthy. But when you've got your children's friends, Who are on there and that's their new socialization that's really difficult. And so how do you manage that on a macro level? So I'm not surprised that the government's brought in this new rule because we are seeing more and more young Children, depending on the screen for entertainment, for child minding who then become teenagers and all the other social issues. But going back to Bermagui when I ran the Bricks and Mortar Store, Camp and Co. I was very much feeling like I was, A soft disruptor and and I came across Fashion Revolution. And Fashion Revolution is a big global event it came out of the Bangladesh Lana Plaza building collapsing in 2012 and, I'm sure you remember over 1, 100 people lost their lives and the building was unsafe, it was deemed to be unsafe, other companies had evacuated the building, but it was clothing manufacturers that forced people to come back to work and that's when the world, the fashion world stopped and said we've got to, we've ignoring the people who make our clothes and they have to be visible to us and their livelihoods. And so that's where fashion revolution was first established out of the UK. I found out about it. It was a very positive message. It was what can we do? It was the message that they were giving was if you're in fashion, if you're in the fashion industry, just do something to create awareness around the people who make our clothes, the environment and our whole industry being more ethical and kinder to people and planet. It was what I was waiting for, I guess in the industry. And so I jumped on that bandwagon. I got in touch with the UK office. They gave me the blessing, their blessing to establish fashion revolution, Bermagui. I had the first event in 2019 and it's been going every year. And the first year we had 400 people rock up to, a very small event, but we had 18 local designers, makers, upcyclers, recyclers, and the feedback was just phenomenal. And that's one of those events that I talk about how the universe just made that. come together. You know, I ended up on radio, the ABC came, there was really good publicity around it, and it's gained traction year after year. And then I started getting messages. Can you come to Wollongong to do this? Can you come down south? Can you come to Marimbula? Can you come to Jim Dubai? Can you come to Sydney to do this? And I just knew that I couldn't replicate myself that much. But I thought, you know what, this is demand and I need to do something. So I hooked up with a local person. Well, it's Opportunity Measing Preparation. Yes, yeah, that's right. And, so I branded it as Sustain Me. And I wanted to be very deliberate about the message and the brand. And Sustain Me is all about our relationship with the planet. Our relationship with fashion, our relationship with our fashion makers, with ourselves, and with each other. And it was really, it, it, and branding it that way gave me a license to talk about us. You know, what's going on with us? Why do, why do we need to consume so much? Why do we have enough clothing on the planet to clothe six generations of people ahead of us? What is this need for more? What's driving this need? And so where I really wanted to support local makers and designers in particular actually what emerged was this great love and want and need of recycled clothing. So what, what do you think is, what hole is that excessive consumption filling for people? Yes. So that's a great question. I think it's definitely a need for I think it's that whole consumerism where if there's an emptiness inside of us that we can just buy something to make us feel better. And, I think it's that training, that psycholic, like you said, this is what you need now. You need to have this now. And it is, it's, it's that constant feeding of I need to have more instead of, I can be quite happy with a simple life or an I, I can be asking what do I actually, truly desire, allowing the feeling to emerge and, and getting, getting up close and personal and getting intimate with. With that, even asking that question and allowing it to emerge because, you know, it's, it's an impulse, isn't it? It's very often an impulse. It is. And sitting with the discomfort until it goes and, Yes. There are tools and strategies for it to do that. But it's, it's, it's a big journey for people to get from the conditioning of, Retail therapy, the conditioning of, oh, okay, I can manage this with a bandaid and, with, with clothing and not realizing the consequences of it. You know, as you say, six generations of people could be. Wow. Yes, that's right. And you know, I've been there myself, you know, the impulse buying and you feel like it's almost an addiction, like you can't help yourself and, oh, I said I wasn't going to do that. And Just noticing means that you're bringing a consciousness to it. Yes. Yeah, that's right. You're making progress when you go, Oh, I said I wasn't going to do that and I've done it. Yes. Well, that is true. Yeah. Because you're having that conversation with yourself. We're doing the first step. Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, this is where we now in the fashion industry. I remember thinking that I started thinking about degrowth and that. Where, to what end, how much does a brand need to produce because it's created the overconsumption of fashion. It's created so many problems. We have discounting that happens very quickly. We have new clothing that is ordered for the discounting process. We have dead stock. We have a lot of dead stock. We have brands high luxury brands who will not discount because that hurts the brand. And so what they do is they either incinerate, send to landfill their clothing. They destroy their clothing. And so that's, that's another issue. And so That's the conversation that needs to be had, I think, is the conversation that I have with businesses is, okay, so what is an elegant sufficiency? What is where it's enough? And, you know, there needs to be enough resources coming in. You know, there's got to be flow. I mean, the world is in the Western world is built on retail of one form or another. So there's got to be enough flow coming in to feed the what's going out. But there's also, as I say, some. Investment happening for your future and however that is, because, you might get sick, something might happen, you might need a sabbatical, you might burn out, whatever it is, but having those, and this is the traditional way, wasn't it, you know, you had, you made a little bit of money, you saved a little bit of money and you spent a little bit of money. I mean, Ramat Sethi talks about this and he says 65 percent towards your day to day living expenses and knowing that and then, you know, say 10 to 15 percent towards investment another, 10 percent towards savings, which is your emergency fund. And then you can have 20 percent for play, which can be, clothing or experiences Or whatever you need to spend the money on. But I think that what's happened is this aspirational, you know my father used to always say, you can always increase your lifestyle, your standard of living to meet whatever, new salary increase you might have. And it is this, Oh, well, we can always have a bigger house. We can always get a newer car. We can always have a. Let's replace the boat. Let's, I mean, you see it with people like Pottery Barn, like it's not just in fashion. It's in housewares now, I've got my Halloween cushions out. Now, I don't have Halloween cushions, just so you can think of anything like that. And what they're doing, you know, I work in branding. Years ago, decades ago, I would be involved in these conversations. Okay. So how do we repackage this food where, no, no, no, no. Let's not just have the jar of, Vegemite, you know, which is this jar and no, no, no, let's bring it down. And what do people eat Vegemite? So let's put that together with this, and this, and you're breaking it down. You know, for it's school lunches, so it's all about convenience because people have no time and yet with all the time saving devices and all of the conveniences, people have no more time, they're more time poor than they've ever been. Yes. Yes. So it's not. Touching just one area of our lives. It's touching every area of our lives. Yes, that's right. That's right. And everybody find out where your moon is and satisfy your moon. Yes. You will be asking different questions. Yeah. So here's a question for you. Am I, am I satisfying my moon? When you look at my chart, Well, it's your, well, it's the question has to be reflected back to you because I can't tell you that, but I can pause it that your moon is in the sign of Sagittarius, which is higher learning, it's intellectual, it's, rules, religion rules, spirituality rules, astrology, it's the connection with a meaning making system, which is what astrology is essentially. And that's in your sixth house and the six houses in the day to day. So you're not going to be living, you know, a terribly ordinary life, you know, you're not going to just be satisfied with getting up, going to work, coming home, plugging into the TV or, you know, that you want more meaning in that. Yes, yes, that's right. And that has actually come with a bit of sacrifice. Because in order to create that kind of. journey and pathway that I am on currently, especially what I'm doing with my work. I've created that. I've created that pathway and I've said this is what I want to be doing and this is the kind of work. And you know, because it's research based now I'm making some really great connections. And the research would be? would be very Sagittarian. You know, absolutely. It would be, you know, wanting to connect the thought with, okay, does this make sense? You know, does this have meaning? Does it have greater meaning, higher meaning? And, you know, and then I suppose the question is, do you feel that you're growing into your son, which is, you know, the Torian, and that's, For you in the 11th house, it's around, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It's like for the collective. Building that ecosystem, you know? Yes. And probably for in connection with your particular work, it's like you can have this really rich, luxurious life that is a simple life that and that is a much more authentic life with synthetics in it. You can synthesize without the synthetic. Yes. Yes. Oh my God. That's got to be a tagline somewhere. We'll find it. And I think this is where this is where taking myself out of the city for a number of years and my family to a beautiful place like the South coast and Burma Kiwi because I was able to. Have a natural transformation inspired by a lot of beauty, inspired by quietness, inspired by, some very intellectual people around me and it enabled a lot of questioning and thought thinking around. Where we need to be in the fashion industry and our impact on the planet and our impact on each other in this industry. And, there were a couple of words that kept coming up, and one of them was responsibility, urgency. And then moving more back into the city, there's this new word and it's called collaboration. And I think being on the south coast and being entrenched in that very authentic way of life with other fashion brands and fashion makers pulling these events together, where it was about this cohesiveness of this is for you, this is our community, let's build this community together to be kinder and more ethical. And then coming back to the city and being faced again with that competition of the fashion industry where it is highly competitive And yet it's through integration that the differentiation occurs, you know, so it's a, it's really, I mean, this is the essence of branding is, is that people think that they're competing with another brand. Are they competing with somebody else? Essentially, it's through really digging into, you know, your own fate, your own chart, your own unique story because your story is, you know, yours. It's very, very different. And it's like, what are your stories to tell in service of? what it is that you want to be known for. And for you, it is the pioneering, you know, bringing the discipline with that Saturn in the 10th house and Saturn rules the 10th house, and, you know, you have Mars in the fourth house, which is about our own security and Mars is our ambition and our drive and our will so how do you use your Mars in service of that? You know, so I think it is when we, when we recognize, oh wow, we're not in competition. And if we can teach these people that they're not in competition and it's not like, okay, you know, because what we have seen, I think in all industries is, oh, let's be sustainable and let's be altruistic. And let's, you know, look as if we're philanthropic, but it's signaling that. rather than being authentically driven to create that. And I think that's an area where from a branding point of view, I would suggest that, you know, With that Leo in the second house, using that Scorpio to get deep into the transformation is how you can really support people to take this on and, you know, where it, where it aligns with their values, because they're not going to do anything that isn't aligned with their values. I mean, if somebody really wants to live a superficial life, they can. Yes. Yes. And I had I had a conversation with now in Australia, we have a national product stewardship program to transition our fashion industry to full circularity by 2030. Now that's just around the corner. That is the whole of Australia. They're bringing in legislation for that? That's, that's already happened. It was launched, it was announced last year. And, and that's the same list. program. So back in under the Liberal government the Australian Fashion Council, after petitioning for many years for funding, finally got almost a million dollars to develop a framework. Of how to transition the whole of industry to circularity and what that was about, it's a, it's based on the Paris Agreement of keeping to 1. 5 degrees. And, if you want to explain, we probably should have done this earlier, but explain exactly what circularity means in terms of fashion. Sure. So circularity is about it's an intent. So as a designer, you take ownership of the whole of life. Of the garment. For the entire journey. So at the design concept, you look at what am I creating? Who is it for? How is it going to be used? What textiles am I relying on? How durable are they? How close to nature are they? What, where will the resources be extracted from? Is it mostly nature based, or is it synthetic? So, petrol petroleum based, and in the fashion industry, we, we rely on 1% of all the petroleum that's produced annually for fashion to make synthetic fabrics. And so it's based on a number of principles of designing out waste as well. You mentioned already that you knew, just found out about a brand where she has discovered fashion. Yes. So you design out waste and you look at the whole life cycle, the first generation owner, the second generation owner, third generation, where will it end up at the end? That means how many different, so first, second and third generation, just to translate, is that there'll be the one owner and then it'll either go to your friends or to an op shop and then there'll be somebody else who will own it after that. Yes. Yeah. So it's kind of like passing the down. You know, my mother refusing when I was four saying, I'm not wearing those because she wore them. Yes. So as a designer make a brand retailer, can I buy this back from the customer? And that's one of the projects that I'm working on is rolling out of a re commerce program. Every REIT fashion retailer in Australia has the capacity to introduce a REIT commerce department in their, within their store, whether it's online or bricks and mortar. And will the legislation shame them into doing this or, you know, is that because Australia does have a tendency to legislate towards I'll shame you. No, no, no, it's not about so the seamless program which was launched. In in July this year which is run by the the Australian Fashion Council and I've also developed a new board, which I'm very excited about, called the Guardians of Nature. So I, you know, I really love that kind of philosophy and the emphasis about going back to nature. So Tanya Plibersek, who's the Environment Minister when it was announced, they expected that by the time it was announced, that they would have a hundred voluntary companies. So R. M. Williams signed up Cotton On signed up it was Kmart, Suzanne, I believe, Country Road. Wow. Yeah, so there's, there's a big name. I'm a little bit surprised. Yeah. So when they announced it, they only had six volunteer. So it's a voluntary program and basically you pay four cents per unit of clothing, just clothing and whether you are a manufacturer or you're an importer of fashion. And it is to pay for how we process fashion waste. And how we educate the market to move and how we support brands to move to circularity. Because as Australians, we actually are the highest consumers of fashion ahead of the U. S. and China. So we're buying 56 items on average. That's our medium. So across all of our population, 56 items a year and our average spend, get this, our average spend is 13 per item. So most of that is fast fashion, or what they're referring to now as ultra fast fashion, and Shine and TEMU are the middle. You're looking at this, you're seeing my mouth open. I'm horrified, I'm horrified. Yeah, and we sent We're sending 228, 000 tons to landfill every year. Our op shops, our charity But 228, 000, what's the, how many football fields is that? So that people Oh, I should know this, I don't actually. But it's a lot. It sounds like maybe cone bush, you know, the size of the Olympic Park. Yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I do have statistics on. That would be a great stat for you to have for it so that people can visualize it. You know, this is 20 sports or 20 MCGs. Yeah, I do have a stat on the Sydney Harbour, how many times our fashion consumption annually has filled Sydney Harbour. Yeah. I'll get it to you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's fantastic. We have been talking for about an hour and 45 minutes. So, so that's really, yeah, yeah. So that's so interesting from the point of view of the title of this podcast. So it is, the discipline of freedom. And it's like through your disciplines, you know, through devoting yourself to your disciplines, you create freedom for yourself. And through devoting yourself to, to developing your own personal style, you create the freedom of not having to buy so much or not needing to buy so much through the industry or the legislation imposing disciplines on fashion, it will liberate them to think in a different way and for to produce in a different way. Because, you know, more sometimes can be more, but very often. Less is more. Yeah. So I suppose the question I ask you is how have you found bringing discipline to your message and to your work and even into your life? How has that liberated you in, in how you are living? Well it's, it's a, it's a, I feel like it's a process. Because I'm very much into a research and development phase of products and services that I'm delivering. So I'm working on a transitioning to circularity tool and consulting as well. So I feel like I'm in my complete element because it's highly creative work. It's very research based. And I feel incredibly satisfied. And I'm also very fortunate. I mean, you talked about how, when we worry about paying rent, that it really destroys our creativity. And so I guess I'm also in a very fortunate position where I don't have to worry about that. But part of that is because. I've learned to live quite simply. I've really tapped into what's highly valuable for me. And for me, that is my relationship with my family with my partner, with nature with myself. And what I'm actually doing which is a bigger purpose. And I am driving change. And I'm very fortunate that I have this brain that seems to be able to see things ahead of time. And where I am right now is where I, what I was dreaming about a few years ago. And that would be your Jupiter on your ascendant helping you with that, but carry on. Right. See, it's all linked. So I, I feel extremely satisfied that I'm on this trajectory where I should be. And I'm very, very excited. I mean, I'm pulling together a transition to circularity and decarbonisation action plan, and I'm taking it council by council because many of our councils now have a circularity climate change agenda. One of them here in Adelaide has an emergency climate change emergency agenda. And so what I've identified is that I really need to tap into these, these councils because So tapping in on that local level rather than going at the state level. Yes, but also councils are great at developing their business network. And, each council has a business development team, an economic team, and it's in their vested interest to support their local businesses. And so I want to map who's in each council, what kind of activity they're doing I want to help them with their decarbonisation plans. I want to track how much fast fashion is coming into each council area, where is it coming from how much fashion is being produced. Ditched thrown into waste. Why is it waste? What makes it waste? Where is it coming from? Because one of the things that local brands really have a gripe with is the sheens, the TEMUs, the ultra fast fashion that comes in online. They're not paying. They have no downstream financial responsibility. And yet we're all having to deal with that. And it's a real, you know, it, it's a tragedy, the problem that it's created for the planet. So, I would love to see more legislation around preventing that. I mean Wow, that's so interesting because that is a direct consequence of, and an unforeseen consequence, you know, Nassim Taleb talks about this in The Black Swan. There's consequences that we can foresee, and then there's unintended consequences, intended and unintended consequences. So that when America, and let's not point fingers, but when globalization, when the West went. To emerging nations are third world nations for to make their products. And now you can see, that they now know how to make the products better. And often the big brands in a way, or they take all that intellectual property and they just make the products. And nobody saw that that would happen. You know yes, there is. Yeah, there isn't the respect for IP, there isn't the respect for design, all of that, you know, there's so much copycat stuff that's happening and happens in the fashion industry. Yes, and where we need to be really concerned in mitigating risk in the fashion industry, especially here in Australia. Is that we are reliant on these third world countries for production because, because it was so encouraged to take your production offshore. Yes. And these areas are the hotspots for continual extreme weather events. And they predict that by 2030, we're going to have 32 billion wiped from our fashion supply chain because of continual extreme weather events. And we saw that in Bangladesh. With flooding. We've seen that with heat waves. And and the conditions where people haven't been able to go to work, haven't been able to produce work. So that's a real problem. I saw a flood map of Bangladesh of what NASA predicted in the next 10 years. And Bangladesh is going to be under considerable amount of water on a regular basis. So the action that we take today in decarbonization, is going to mitigate the ongoing escalation of extreme events in the next 10, 20 years. So we're past the point of slowing climate change down. What we're seeing happening around the world. That's the new normal. It's not going away. What we do today prevents the escalation of that. Today is for tomorrow. You know, that's always, our lives are the compound interest of what we're doing every day. Yes. Yeah. It's like, how are you bringing your values to life?, to who you're being, that's who you become, you know, keep on changing and we need to be very conscious of where and how and what we're investing our energy into. Absolutely. And as I say, we are all responsible from individual to farmer to producer to oil company to, you know, the designer down the road. We are all responsible. Hmm. It sounds like we continue chatting for quite a while. So maybe what we'll do is we'll come back again in another few months. But very exciting. Anything that I should have asked you that I haven't asked you? No, no, I kind of came in with an open mind, ready to be asked anything and everything. And you've given me a lot of clarity with my chart. So I'm, I'm pretty happy I think it's you've definitely tapped into where I am. And I can see that, recognize that. So yeah, it's been wonderful. And where are you going to take it? Where am I going to take it? I'll tell you what, I'm running a forum next week for Adelaide Fashion Week. I've never run a forum. I've been very nervous about it. I'm a bit of a perfectionist making sure the presentation is perfect. I'm not going to worry so much now, so thank you. This information, if anything, has made me realize, and also, you know, that conversation around liberation because I'm talking to marketers in the room and marketers who are very, you know, rigid about how they deliver the philosophy of. Needing more fashion and and so I think that's a really good conversation to have, think about how you could do, do it differently. Well, the transit for next week, which is the ninth, is it the ninth of the 10th that you're doing it on? The 11th, October the 11th, 3 to 5 p. m. So 11, so we'll go three and we'll go PM here. So at that point, you have Neptune, which is in your ninth house, and that would be, kind of big expanse of ideas and imagination it's in Pisces. So Pisces is about realizing a dream. Now Neptune can be confusion, delusion, but also imagination. And if you're not employing it for delusion and confusion, how do you employ it in your imagination? How do you, really sell them the dream that also feeds their dream? And that's. how we work as marketers. I wouldn't consider myself a marketer, but that's how, as a designer, you know, I help people to dream a new dream. And that's what I would say is the invitation to you next week is how do you help them to dream a new dream? And it is a dream in, that they're not sacrificing anything. What they're actually doing is they're creating something. And I think that's one of the things that's really important. Mars will be in your first house. So, you know, that's helping you to kind of, you know, use that and ground it. What else have we got going on here? But I would issue a little thing about that Neptune is right on top of your Chiron. So it's really about you holding the space and grounding yourself and prepping yourself with whatever meditative or whatever tools you have so that you're really clear and you're owning your own wound, you know, so you become the healer and you're in that space of where you're the healer of this space. You've got your, the north node will be in Aries, you know, so it is the pioneering. This is the new experience that you're stepping into. So we own that space, you know, it's right on your Saturn. So I would say create that story with the facts because they can't argue with the facts. You know, so really have your facts and your figures there as you're telling this visionary story. Yeah. Yeah. Because marketers don't care what, you know, if. If they're driven by their values, of course they care and they want to do, really purposeful and good work. And I do believe that everybody wants to do good in the world. But it's how can you help them create the story that they can tell and they can tell a better story and a better story in service of the world as they're also in service of their industry. And that, I think, is actually the real opportunity, is how can we tell a story that's in service of fashion? Because it's not going to go anywhere, but how do we do it as it's made for good? You know, it's made for now. It's made for good. Yes. Yeah. No, it's made with a future. It's not just made for, you know, it's not for just immediate consumption. It's not what is it they say? Immediate gratification takes too long. Yeah. Yeah. Mm mm Beautiful. This has been wonderful. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you for being here. And if anybody wants to find out more, how will they find you? So the website the circular village.com au. Also on Facebook and on Instagram. So the Circular Village, I'm actually creating a new platform. I'm moving towards being a think tank. So Fashion Reborn is a new platform I'm creating and that's where brands will be able to connect, subscribe, eventually become members it'll connect the industry, our strain, industry and supply chain. Tell us about the event next week. Okay. So Adelaide Fashion Week we very, very lucky. We have an amazing panel of experts. And one of them is Kat Heinrich from Raw Tech. She's Circular economy consultant, and she started working in fashion. Amandine Johnson from Adelaide City Council. Adelaide City Council they have an ambition to be the most circular city on the planet. So, That's really interesting. Claire Neela, she was actually part of the working committee to develop the seamless program, that new product stewardship scheme that the Australian government is now driving to towards 2030. So she's former head of RAP Asia Pacific and she was the co designer of the seamless scheme, which is very much into we're not going to change the fashion industry by, you know, loving the planet, it has to have an economic incentive for us. It has to have a, it has to connect emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally, and economically, it's never just one, you know, and it's around how, how can we love what it is that we're doing. A space of where we see that it works for everybody. And I completely agree with her. Because we live in the society that's very economically driven. It's not society driven, right? Yes. Yes. Mary Ann Masumi from Deloitte. So she's a climate engineering expert. And a lot of her work and research is in sustainable supply chain. And Robert Crocker, who's a beautiful man, and he's a senior lecturer at UniSA and he's all about circular economy design. He's very big on repair. The repair industry. So and we've also got Rosalind Ward from Workforce, and she's talking about what government incentives are available for our local manufacturers and small brands who want to grow because, local manufacturing is an impediment to growth for a small brand. And so yeah, so bringing her in with some of the governments, you know, net zero. Talk around manufacturing. Great. Okay, that's great. Well, thank you for being here. It's been a stimulating and a circular one. Yes, thank you, including your chart. So thank you. That was wonderful. So that's it for today. And I am actually heading to Adelaide next week for, to be on the forum That you Landa has set up to speak to fast fashion from a branding point of view Because there's no doubt that all branding. It's storytelling. And there's no doubt this. A new vision, new mission, certainly new values, um, need to be told, which will of course create a new story. For a lot of fashion brands so they can get on board with this circularity movement towards sustainability. Um, and play their part. Bringing sustainability to that part of our lives. We can already see that this is happening in small business. But we really do need. The big brands to lead the way. So thank you for listening. There are two ways to work with me I do ask to brand. Readings. Which is where we work with your chart and also with your business. Vision and business model. And see how your chart can guide you towards that brand vision. How you. Create value and the impact you create for others. They're always super enlightening sessions and people go away with. some work to do to get their messaging really aligned with who they are. And who it is that they're most suited, skilled, and experienced to serve. Um, I also have a few spots open for one-to-one mentoring. These are advising sessions, maybe a particular project that you're working on, or it might be to bring something together in terms of your brand and your business vision. I work with the same clients for years and years. And I love these one-to-one sessions because you really kind of can get drilled down deep. Into what's going on for people. And it's always an integration of work and life. So, if you want to know more about that, just email me. You can book the Astro brand session directly on my website. So until next time. I've got a treat of a conversation coming up next week with anesthesia. We have another unpronounceable, a surname. That I'm not even going to dry. To say right now. We will be talking about the Mars retrograde that's coming up and what's, that is calling you into. Um, which I think. We'll be really valuable. Especially since we're just about to come out of eclipse season, which I've found to be particularly Cherney this time round, um, I don't know how your experience has been, but I feel as if my whole life has been sort of. Thrown up in the air and. It's looking like it land in very different places, we do our practices and we use our skills and our tools so that we can meet life as it meets us. And. With a smile on our face. You can find out more on my website. Alish, appreciate.com. And on Instagram. At Eilish. Appreciate thank you for listening. And until next time. Wishing you a wonderful day. Thank you to Aon for the wonderful music. You can find on Spotify.