Although my birth certificate clearly states “Born – Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 1950”, I only truly arrived in Australia 16 years ago! I was sitting on the stage in Sydney, ready to deliver my precious address as a new Australia Day Ambassador with the Australia Day Council. My speech would be a celebration of my “Australian-ness!” I would share that, thanks to my adventure-loving parents, I had grown up on sheep and cattle stations (ranches) from Tasmania to outback Queensland. I would say my Dad was a stockman (cowboy), drover, shearer, shearers’ chef, wool-baler (he’d even run away from home at 13 to taste life in the great outdoors!) I would reveal that in this isolation, hundreds of miles from anywhere, I became addicted to radio serials and even gave all my toys voices and I’d hit them with a ruler when they answered questions incorrectly (no wonder I became a teacher!) I even made a wooden switch-board with holes and electrical wiring and would spend hours “talking to the world!”
Now, as Australia’s “Queen of Voice-Overs”, I was really talking to the world…in animation series seen in 70 countries (I had created the voice of the iconic Australian cartoon koala “Blinky Bill”), I sold millions of dollars worth of products in major commercials and created all female voices in the world’s longest running radio comedy “How Green Was My Cactus” (a political satire which has been sending up the Australian Government for 21 years!) I really was a “true-blue, fair dinkum” Australian!
Awaiting my turn to speak, I looked around the sea of faces in the audience…faces from all over the world. There was an eagerness in their eyes and electricity in the air. Why was everyone so excited on Australia Day? Sure, I loved my country, but prior to this night, Australia Day was a public holiday when I could catch up on my ironing!
Then I got it! At this special citizenship ceremony, 50 people were going to become Australian! These people were giving up their whole past to choose MY country! I had physically arrived in Australia in 1950, after making that 36 hour journey down the birth canal! I popped out, was smacked on the bottom and gasped my first breath of Australian air…but I was just born here…I’d never really chosen to BE here! That night I chose my country. I was no longer doing Australian…I was being Australian! I’d arrived in my life!
Surprisingly, the power of this choice started an avalanche of choices. I began to question everything else in my life where I was simply an “innocent bystander”, reacting to the circumstances and waiting for the “Fate Fairy” to hit me over the head with a brick. Mind you, this recipe had worked extremely well…I’d created a very daring, successful and happy life but still there was always “something missing!”
The choices came thick and fast:
Choice 2: I chose to BE “Mum” rather than the frantic woman who was trying to get everything “just right.” An abundance of fun, laughter, freedom and joy showed up in the place of the silent sadness of never having enough of me to go around.
Choice 3: I chose my faith. I was waiting to become a saint or to make a deal with God when a truck ran me over! I simply chose to be available for love and peace.
Choice 4: I chose my husband again. We had a relationship which was ordinary, yet every now and again a “peak experience” would happen to keep it interesting! It was a “conditional 50/50 relationship” where I was constantly evaluating his contribution. I always scored 50 out of 50 (well we women are perfect!)…he would sometimes only score 9 out of 50! Life sometimes didn’t deliver the 100% I always wanted. So, I chose to be responsible for love and I married him again! As we renewed our vows I promised “never to know him” (I threw away the list of expectations) so every day, he’s a surprise. I also promised “to love him as he is and love him as he isn’t”. If he died last night and God said that He’d found one precious second with him alive…which second would I want back? Answer: Any second! The ordinary-ness has now become the Extraordinary-ness!
There was another choice to come! Back in 1976, my husband/manager and I had made the daring choice to move from Hobart, Tasmania up to Sydney so I could “try my luck” as a Voice-Over Artist there. We’d built up an enormously successful business over 17 years. We had 2 beautiful sons and we longed for them to experience “our” Tasmania and to be shaped by the mysteries of this precious “Island State of Australia” (famous worldwide for it’s Tasmanian Devil!) We wanted them to know the tranquility and peace we’d known as kids, where in the wilderness, each second was twice as long! To come back home meant we would be moving 2 states away from my work! As a freelance person in the fickle entertainment industry…this would be shear madness!
There’s an old Irish saying, “If you want to climb over a wall… first throw your hat over. At least you’ll be committed!” We “threw our hats over the wall” and declared that we would base ourselves in Hobart, and I would commute to Sydney 49 weeks of the year. Our children were 11 and 8 years old at the time, so my schedule would be 2 days Sydney and 5 days home being Mum. In order to make this financially viable, I needed to enroll people into booking me to do a weeks voice-over work in 2 days. This happened! I also fitted in some National TV work.
Then an amazing opportunity occurred. A staff-member on the airline I commuted on, asked me to speak (for free) about their service at a conference. I was supposed to speak for 30 minutes however as everyone was laughing and crying and fully engaged, they invited me to keep going for 90 minutes. They said they derived more value from my talk than from the other speakers who had all been paid on the day! They said I should BE a speaker! I suddenly saw that all my skills and gifts were leading to this and that speaking was my BLISS! I made some new choices…BE a speaker and BE an irresistible invitation to participate in LIFE! (“The Power of the Word” and “BIG Words, BIG People, BIG Lives” would be my themes)
My speaking business began to evolve and flourish and as my sons became young men. Naturally my traveling increased…now I have been on over 4,500 planes in the last 16 years speaking all over Australia and overseas. Recently I was on 18 planes in 8 days, then 21 planes in 20 days, speaking to 50,000 people each year in my Corporate and Charity engagements.
Have the choices to BE Australian, to BE Mum, To BE my Faith, to BE responsible for my marriage, to BE Tasmanian, to BE a speaker, been worthwhile? You betcha! My husband and I are free to support each other in living our purpose, my faith is central to my life, I am profoundly satisfied being a speaker and our sons, (now 27 and 24) have grown into fine young men who love Tasmania, the environment, the sky, camping, genuine friendships and the ease, convenience and opportunities a “little” city like Hobart and a “little” Island State had to offer. But most of all they say, they enjoy the freedom to be “real” and to invent their own BIG life!
Our older son, Toby, graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney (NIDA) 2 years ago, just played a lead role in the Spielberg/Hanks mini-series “The Pacific”, has a Green Card and is bound for LA in June. Our younger son Daniel, is studying 4th year Architecture and has just won a scholarship to study in Denmark. They have both “thrown their hats over the wall” and are committed to seeing what’s on the other side!
“Arriving in our life” allows us to embrace the past and the learning experiences we’ve been given; savour the seconds we’re in and dare to dream about who we can become in the future.
Today, I have just been privileged to witness this way of BEING in my role as National Patron of Make-A-Wish Australia. I met little 4 year old Kiera, who had a brain tumor removed last year, has endured 12 months of chemotherapy and today told me she wished to ride on the back of a dolphin. I’m delighted to say, we’ll grant her wish…and this precious, effervescent, ‘shining’ little girl, who came so close to death at 3 years of age, will become a “dolphin-rider.” What an extraordinary way to “arrive in her life!”
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