Life Uncut - Am I Enough Yet? Uncut with Layne Beachley

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Hello wonderful Lifers,On today's episode Britt has gone MIA but we have the wonderful Producer Keeshia out from behind the laptop and joining Laura on today's show and boy oh boy do we have some big, long, unsolicited dick pics to discuss. We cover the 'shlong' and short of it some might say and unpack Tommy Lee's dick pic that broke Instagram, and had everyone in up roar - or did it?We are then joined by the wonderful Layne Beachley!Layne is a 7 times world champion surfer, and the only surfer to have ever gained 6 titles in a row. She is tenacious, dedicated and did whatever it took to win.In this chat, we speak about seeking validation and the avenues of which we all land on the same question "am I good enough?"Layne was conceived through assault and adopted into her family and it led to her reaching for huge successes to prove that she was worthy and that she belonged. Layne has been with INXS' Kirk Pengilly for nearly 20 years and we talk about how initial chemistry and fireworks aren't absolutely necessary to form a great, passion filled relationship. If you'd like to check out Layne's awake academy, you can here: https://awakeacademy.com.au/ANNNNNND if you'd like to grab yourself a ticket to the live show you can tap this little bad boy and snag yourself one of the last seats: https://www.lifeuncutpodcast.com.au/Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gadigal land of the Aurora Nation. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. And I'm not Brittany.

I'm producer Keisha, filling in for Britt. You really jumped in there quick, didn't you? I could see that you were about to say something. I was like, and Brittany's not here, but don't worry. Producer Keisha is here to the rescue. No, Britt, look, she's got a few things happening at the moment. She's not currently able to record. And so we are very, very lucky to have the fabulous, wonderful, beautiful producer Keisha

sitting in to talk to you all today about Tommy Lee's dick. Can't wait to talk about Tommy Lee's pain. And also I realized this morning that you and I, we've worked together for like a year and a half now. This is our first like one-on-one. This is our first time recording together, just the two of us. Also, I don't know why when you said that before, you were like, this feels really intimate. it's our first time I was like this has got weird connotations that I don't think you should be

saying to your work colleague and we don't have a HR here because we're still recording it if we had an HR none of us would have jobs no but also speaking of which I am wondering what is going on on your neck there because Laura Byrne that if I'm not mistaken is a huge hickey I know that you and Matthew Johnson went to a wedding on the weekend. So I'm starting to think that things were successful at the wedding and there was a celebration of love. As if this 36-year-old woman, mother to two, has a hickey on her neck.

Please. The people have been listening to this podcast long enough. Okay, I'm going to describe what is on Laura's neck because obviously this is an audio platform. All right, we'll chuck this on socials. About two centimetres, quite a deep purple, almost looks like a kind of scrap. Like Matthew really got his teeth in there.

fair it doesn't look as bad on video as what it does in real life um no the only fun actually that's a lie we did have sex on the weekend oh congratulations thank you thank you everyone seven minutes in heaven yeah it was it was slightly no it was it was very drunk it was after the wedding oh drunk sex is fun if you're in a relationship though yeah it was do we want to get to the bottom of that it was because i i had said to matt i was like let's go home and have sex and he was like no i'm too drunk and then i was like let's do it anyway and he was like, no way, it's not happening. He was like, wow, I really didn't expect that tonight.

Yeah, that's it. And now you're here being like, it was all right. No, it was good. He warned you. Sometimes when they've had a lot to drink, it's not as functional. No, no, it was exceptional. It was just unexpected. That should be better.

Yes, it was great. But I would just like to go back to the hickey situation. It's not a hickey. it is a burn from a curling wand that's what this is you know I think that that's exactly what my friends and I all used to tell our mums when we were about 17 as well so it's it's a convenient little excuse there that oh no I just I dropped my straightener on my neck by accident and all of a sudden purple I'm sorry are you trying to downplay my third degree burn is this what's happening here let's just stop talking about my potential kiki also my sex life love life

we can we're gonna sorry that is the foundation that this entire podcast is built off of that is true but we have something far more exciting to talk about than my sex life i don't know if there's anything that exists that is more exciting than i'm ready do tell me then missionary position um that is seven minutes thank you produce keisha okay that is and we announced it on instagram last week we talked about it on last week's episode but we're doing a live show actually it's British she's gonna be there producer Keisha I think I'm gonna be there too right you will definitely be there I mean we haven't discussed will you be on stage will you be backstage I don't mind just as long as I can be a part of it you're like do I have to buy tickets do I have to buy a

ticket we're doing a live show baby we are doing our very first live show it is on in Sydney it's at the City Recital Hall we are so sorry to everybody who is not in Sydney we understand that that's monumentally annoying if you're not here and not able to come but the reason why we're doing just one show to trial it to test it out is because maybe if it does well and we don't absolutely suck we will roll it out next year just dip in the little tip of the toe in the water just just the tip there's a lot of sexual innuendos quite early on in this podcast which i'm assuming is exactly what the live show is going to entail of as well but we have at the moment completely sold out the bottom floor of the city recital hall that's like 800 tickets

already sold out there's two more levels which there are seats still available but not many I think there's like only 200 or maybe 250 tickets left so once they are sold out which they absolutely will be this week that'll be a sold out show and then you won't be able to buy a ticket that's pretty exciting just like this little side note that's pretty fucking cool I was telling my family about it this week i was like yeah like we're gonna do a live show and they didn't quite understand what that was they were like oh the live radio recording and i was like no no no we do one of those every week i was like we're gonna get up and stand in front of people and and talk about stuff you know probably our sex life 1200 of them and what are we going to talk about for

the other 53 minutes of the hour matt's brother so matt's brother his name's david also single if anyone is looking for a very handsome man in Rockhampton. Excuse me, you work with Brittany and I. How have you not ever mentioned this? It's true. Oh, you know, don't shit where you eat. Oh, you don't think we're up to the standard of the Johnson family? No, no, no, no.

I don't think he's hot though. Yeah, I reckon you guys could a little. Interesting. Anyway, a few single people coming to the wedding. Very nice. Tell Brittany to keep her paws off. What I was going to say is that when I explained to him what the live show was, he stood there and went,

oh, that's fucking frightening. And I was like, I know. I am well aware. So, yeah, look. You know, some people say fake it till you make it, but I'm all about authenticity. I'm so excited and I'm equally very scared. It's going to be amazing.

Come, buy tickets. Let's do this together. There'll be lots of audience involvement. we've got some amazing guests already lined up we've got some very fun music happening all that's very secretive but please don't miss out on buying a ticket where can you buy tickets you can buy tickets from thank you so much for asking produce keisha because you know it's funny as the producer of your entire podcast um you would think that i would know exactly what the answer to that was and you would think that that question was a little rhetorical maybe rehearsed it's not i

actually don't. I know you know you're coming but you haven't even looked to see where you buy the tickets from. I didn't think I would need to purchase one but if I were to which maybe after this conversation I will have to is it the swipe up link link on Instagram bio bio life uncut pod you could go onto our website which we do also have this is news to you isn't it no no I do update the website every week so I'm across the website but I didn't know that we'd put the tickets on there but it's good to good to find out let us tell you what today's episode is about go buy tickets like put pause us now go do that come back today's episode we are interviewing lane beachley now lane beachley if you haven't heard of who she is she is one of the greatest

surfing legends of all time a seven-time world surfing champion but there is so much more than just being a surfing champion lane's childhood is something that played a hugely profound role and impact in her life and the reason why she had such a drive to be successful and part of that is because she was adopted into the Beachley family when she was born. Now we're going to get into the full story but the reason why Elaine was adopted into the Beachley family was because she was conceived through assault and it is truly a story where I think you sit back and you question like what would you do if you're in that situation? And also I think something even more interesting about Lane's story is that like we look at surfing today and she was she came through earlier

generation a generation ago when women's surfing in particular was not what it is today it was completely underfunded it was really under supported and she was kind of a pioneer of women's surfing so her story of how she got to the success that she is it's just it's phenomenal and I think she's an incredible woman also her love life has been very interesting and quite spicy And she is currently married to one of the founding members of In Excess. His name is Kirk Pengilly. They got married 18 years ago. Their love story is remarkable.

And yeah, I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. But first, now, before we get into the deep and moving and quite beautiful part of the episode, let's talk about something that wasn't so moving but was extremely alarming. Tommy Lee and the dick pic that he posted to Instagram on Thursday night. well Thursday night our time I think it was early in the morning in the states so for anyone who isn't aware can I just set this first I did not see this on Instagram I didn't get on there and see the unsolicited dick pic I got sent it by producer Keisha so not only did everyone else it was like forced upon me through other channels excuse me it is my job to find content for the

podcast like this is research to our podcast group and I was like whoa guys this is wild by the time i send it to you it had already been up for two hours no content warning no nothing just a penis in my inbox it's been a long time since i've just had a penis in my inbox uh so for anyone who missed it and frankly i don't know how you did because it was it was genuinely everywhere thursday evening our time tommy lee who is the 59 year old american musician he is a part of the motley crew band and he's really known for the sex tape that was made with his then wife Pamela Anderson he posted a full frontal selfie in the nude if you haven't seen it I had conflicting feelings about how we were going to navigate this part of the recording I was like do I encourage

people to go and google it but I guess the thing is he willingly posted it so like totally he's like consenting for you all to go and see it it's not like his it's not like his iCloud got hacked And these photos have been put out there without his, you know, will or without like against his will. And that's why I didn't have a problem screenshotting it and sending it. Totally. Because if this was like a leaked photo, I would feel very, very, very conflicted about talking about it and about encouraging that kind of, do you know what I mean?

There's such a difference because he's the one who actually posted it. Well, I guess just on what you said, like if it was a leaked photo, I honestly think that when it's a leaked photo, talking about it actually is more problematic than letting it go under the radar because it encourages more people to go and Google what the fuck is it that they're talking about. Whereas in this instance, it was willingly posted, go Google. It is still very much on the internet. You can see exactly what it is that we're talking about. But for anybody who doesn't want to see it in all its glory, I'll describe it to you a little bit. He's sitting on the side of the bath. He's taken a selfie, which has no head, no neck.

and it is from just his torso, his nipples, his completely well-shaven penis, well-maintained and his schlong, because that's what you'd have to call it. It's very big. It's just dangling into the bath, like schlonging away. And I, let me tell you, I saw it and I didn't know how to feel because I did at the start, I was like, oh, that's pretty funny. And then as a mom, I was like, there are children on Instagram. Someone think of the children. And then I started to consider more of the conversation around what is censored on Instagram versus what is okay to post. And now, obviously this picture was absolutely not okay to post, but the thing and the question and the conversation that has arisen is the fact that it did stay online for six hours. Yes. Look, I think

there are a couple of different ways that you can look at this. And if I'm being completely transparent the very first way that I looked at it was whoa and I laughed because I thought it was pretty fucking wild but I also kind of thought it was a bit funny the photo was filtered it was captioned oops I was like oh honey this is a really desperate way to remain relevant but congrats to you because you know what it fucking worked and what is in his bio is order my new album the album came out in 2020 and if that is a successful publicity stunt to get eyes on your page you have succeeded Tommy Lee. Now this is not to say I am very aware of how problematic of a person Tommy Lee is. I got some stats about like I already had this idea in my head I was like I

know that he's a bit of a troubled person and has a pretty checkered background but just to give a little bit of context in 1998 he served six months in a county jail pleading no contest to kicking Pamela Anderson while she was holding their son Dylan. He's been in trouble for swastika tattoos, instigating riots, racist comments and assault. Like this guy, he's not a moral citizen. He's not someone that I look up to. And I would even go to say that I don't even think many of the 1.5 million people who follow him on Instagram are following him because they think he's an inspirational person. Well, I guess the other part of this, like, look, before we unpack the reasons why obviously it's problematic and kind of the nuanced parts around this whole conversation,

it is very obvious that Tommy Lee does not give a fuck like that is why he posted the photo he doesn't care about Instagram censorship he doesn't care about what impact it has on you he doesn't care whether you consented to a photo of his dick or not he doesn't care so us talking about like the why or the psyche behind what compelled him to post this is pretty irrelevant but I do think the thing that was very interesting is and I'm part of this so are you Keisha like we saw that photo and our very first initial reaction was to laugh right and then we were like okay that's a bit uncool very recently Britney Spears was also posting photos of herself where she was relatively nude but covering her private parts with her hands and my initial reaction and I would

go as far as to say as most people's initial reaction wasn't that's fucking funny it was maybe there's something wrong maybe maybe she's going through something that is really interesting for me when I saw those photos of Britney Spears a big part of me a big part of me at the time thought oh I get this because you have been so controlled for so long and right now this is a middle finger to the man like this is a kind of like now I can do whatever I want however you are completely right the amount of conversations about like oh my god she's not well like she's not well you know she's not okay and I think about this now and I think about my own bias to it and I'm like you know and obviously the whole free Britney movement is a very separate conversation everyone

is like entirely stoked that she's not under conservatorship because that was royally fucked but I think about my own bias and why was my bias like is she okay verse when a man does it I thought and I think a lot of other people thought that's funny so why is male nudity funny and female nudity is something else that needs to be unpacked in more of a like psychologically what's wrong with that person why would they do that and and I think it goes to show that there is just two very different sets of standards when it comes to the way that we perceive nudity but it also comes back to that whole notion about why are women's nipples censored but not men's when ours has a functional purpose and theirs are literally there for no reason at all a bit of an evolutionary hangover well and I

mean as we have said there are multiple layers to this and most of the outrage that I saw was about the fact that they saw a penis when they didn't want to which is fair enough like I said it's been a long time since I've been sent an unsolicited dick pic like long time really well I mean no I'm not single you are when was the last time you got one uh unsolicited when was the last time you got one at all the last time I got one was much more recently uh but unsolicited it's been a while since I got one unsolicited entirely I feel like they're not the other ones I received were encouraged but look I mean on top of that in terms of this gender conversation about what is and isn't okay on Instagram I actually personally have a friend who's a sex worker

and she's had I think upwards of three accounts completely removed before because she was found to violate the nudity standards and in none of the photos that were actually the reason that they were take her accounts were taken down was she actually nude so what was she showing in these photos to have the accounts taken down or was it more the conversation that was taking place look I'm not sure I'm not Instagram but the photos were raunchy but she was not nude so it kind of go it starts to make me question okay so what's the difference between her posting photos that are almost nudes super hot photos she looked great and it's a her business that she's a sex worker so she was promoting her business as a lot of us do on Instagram right what's the difference

between that and Tommy Lee and the only thing I could think of was Tommy Lee has a blue tick he's a verified account. Yes. And this was the big cause of outrage, right? The fact that this dick pic stayed online for six hours. It was still on Instagram's platform six hours after it was posted. Now, something that I haven't seen come up too much in conversation around this, because I know a lot of people are talking about this dick pic, but it has to do with verification. So some of you might remember, but back in 2014, Rihanna had her entire account removed because she posted a photo, which was her top, like you could see parts of her nipple. And it was a cover photo that she had done for a French magazine called Lou. And she posted the cover photo and her account was taken

down and suspended. Rihanna then completely boycotted the platform because she was like, fuck this. I don't want to be on Instagram where I'm having my images, which are editorial commercial images censored. Instagram turned around. And in order to combat that, what they did is they created a system. So part of their algorithm is if you have a blue tick and people are reporting you, your content is not taken down anywhere near as quickly as somebody who's not verified. And the reason for that is because so many people who do have a blue tick have their content reported all the time. And so it's to stop these sort of trigger algorithms that would allow someone's account to be taken down. And that's kind of, I mean, I'm not here defending Instagram

because like that's that is not the hill that I want to die on but my my thought is is that's what's happened here there has been something in the algorithm obviously millions of people would have been reporting this image I have no doubt that Instagram was copying a huge amount of reports for violation of the codes however I think because of this weird loophole for being a celebrity it's not just because he was a man but it's because he's a like a celebrity man that he was able to get away with it for so long do you know what I'm and this could be a little bit conspiracy theory of me but remember how last week and the week before there was all of that shit about how Instagram had changed to be more like TikTok and the CEO of Instagram had to come

out and be like guys we stuffed up we're going back Kylie Jenner was someone who was outspoken about how much she hated the changes and there were all those memes about wanting Instagram to just go back to its former glory of nice pictures of her friends right a part of me and it could be look, this is completely me chucking a question into the air and going, did Instagram know about this? Sorry. Instagram is international. It's not like they were asleep. They weren't all asleep. There were people there monitoring it. And the stories that were being shared of Tommy Lee's picture were being taken down for nudity. So like, let's say you worked for Instagram. You see that and you go, okay, we need to take that down. It's got nudity. Where did that come

from the whole world right now is putting up all of these pictures of this penis where is it coming from six hours very long time to respond but if you want to turn the conversation away and back to everyone talking about this photo that was posted on instagram and away from the fact that they stuffed up this new format that tried to make it look like tiktok guess what's a good way to do that let it go up let the world talk about instagram let them kind of divert that conversation away from how it's becoming this older platform that people are not enjoying as much and let them talk about Instagram. So instead they have an old 56 year old man posting his dick. I'm not saying that they asked him to do it okay I think they might have seen an opportunity and gone how can

this benefit us? When did Keisha Pettit turn into a conspiracy theorist? I'm a little bit sus on them just because of how much the backlash about Instagram had and like we all know that TikTok has started to take over from Instagram. I'm a little bit, it could be a bit tinfoil hat going on, but I reckon that there could be something to it. Six hours is a long time in social media world. Yes, it's a very long time. Well, I actually did a poll because I guess when I kind of unpacked the way that I felt about this whole thing, and let me tell you, I have spent way too much time thinking about Tommy Lee's dick pic, like far too long. But I wanted to put a poll out there to see how you guys were all feeling about it. Now, there was more than 8,000 people

who responded to this poll and these were your options. I said, if you saw Tommy Lee's schlong on Insta last night, did you think it was A, fucking funny? 21% of you said you thought it was fucking funny. B, absolutely fucked. 38% of you thought it was absolutely fucked and C, didn't really care. 41% of you said you didn't care, which probably means we've been speaking about it for way too long but the other thing I wanted to add and I think that this I mean just taking it away from Tommy Lee taking it away from the fact that it was like we none of us consented to seeing this dick pic the thing that I also find very interesting is just how much Tommy Lee's penis has been spoken about over the years and how much he hasn't had a say in his penis being

spoken about so when we talk about the sex tape that was released of him and Pam that was released against their will his sex tape as well along with Pamela's was released against both of their wills Pamela was hugely the victim in that because of the way that society perceived her at the time and Tommy Lee kind of came out of it as a bit of a champion because his penis was so big yes he came out notorious and she came out as the quote-unquote slut who filmed a sex tape but he still didn't ask for that to happen he still didn't want that sex tape to be released the second thing as well in this is that if anyone has seen the tommy and pam docuseries that came out there is a whole segment where he is standing in this and obviously it's an actor but imagine if you had a docuseries made

about you against your will and there is an actor there talking to his penis the shot is like a full frontal penis shot of Tommy Lee's what's supposed to be Tommy Lee's penis it's been tattooed and everything to make it look exactly what Tommy Lee's penis looked like in the sex tape so once again his genitals are out there for public conversation and for public viewing and then I almost feel like this is him getting to a point where he's like fuck it here it is look I think this conversation could be like I definitely can see what you mean about him wanting to have ownership of his own body and of his own body parts I think it could be a very different conversation if he wasn't as proud of his dick like he was made famous he was already famous but he was made a lot more famous

because of the look of his penis and it's been I knew before I saw this photo I have never seen the sex tape I've never seen the Pam and Tommy docuseries I already knew from the pop culture space that Tommy Lee apparently has a big dick yeah I agree but I also think like let's look at this from the alternate perspective for a minute as well and I like I said I am not here defending Instagram nor am I here defending Tommy Lee because I sit on the side of thinking it was wildly inappropriate I have kids who absolutely do not need to see a man's penis on Instagram like I think it was pretty fucking disgusting but I do think it's an interesting thing to unpack let me flip this for a second just going back to this idea of the double standards and the way that we

kind of view female nudity versus male nudity imagine if a female had had a sex tape released where her and like this has happened you don't need to imagine it but like just follow me along here if a woman had had a sex tape released where her vulva was front and center then a docu-series was made where her vulva once again was visibly front and center and she didn't have ownership of it and everyone was talking about it where her vulva was talking that's what happened in the docu-series tommy's penis was talking back to him then a few months later she posted a photo of her actual vulva to Instagram would we think it was a statement or would we think that it was just her doing a power play and trying to like claw back some sort of publicity would we view it

differently I think yes I think we and I think it's a really interesting point that I hadn't actually thought about until we sat down to record this and you mentioned it like I don't think that I'd actually thought about it in terms of if Pam were to do this I would think it was a statement of her being like I'm trying to get ownership of this back I wouldn't necessarily have I very much agree you've made me think about how I initially thought this was pretty funny but it wouldn't have been my response if Pamela I wouldn't have thought it was hilarious if Pam had been the one to post it who would have ever thought that a dick pic would be so thought-provoking this is certainly the most I've ever thought about one in my entire life well actually we had one uh a lot

of facebook in the discussion group you can join a life uncut discussion group on facebook there was a lot of conversation about this as i'm sure you are not surprised by but there was one comment by one of our facebook friends christiana and i just loved this she said in all fairness not a bad looking dong a sight to behold something i'd be proud to show off when asked politely of course but not what i wanted to see while passing my morning stool i thought that is exactly how the rest perfectly all right well with all of that out of the way let's get into our favorite part of the episode accidentally unfiltered all right I'm gonna go first a few years ago I was in a shopping center and I had to kill time before a job trial I decided to quickly go into a swimwear

store and try on some bikinis I picked a huge handful of different options and went into the change rooms I saw the sign on the door that said please keep your underwear on when trying swimwear But for some reason, I decided I was going to ignore this. I felt like I couldn't see what the bikini looked like properly with undies on underneath. That's fair. And that's why they have the plastic thingy on. It's not fair.

That is fucking rank, Akish. It is not fair. This was you. You wrote this in. Okay. After I put a pair of swim bottoms on, then I looked at my phone and I realised the time I was running late. I quickly put my pants on over what I thought were my undies.

and walked out of the change room and handed the retail worker the swimmers that i didn't want as i walked out of the store the security buzzer went off and i realized i had walked out with the swimwear bottoms on and i had handed the retail worker my dirty undies i was so embarrassed and realized i would either have to do a runner and steal the bikini bottoms but i felt too guilty to do that so i ended up having to walk back inside the store collect my undies off the counter directly from in front of the woman go back into the change room change into my undies and then i handed the bikini bottoms which i had clearly tried on without underwear despite the warning signs back to the woman this was the epitome of my most embarrassing moment i have a question

that's a walk of shame why didn't you buy them i'm sorry if she knows and you know and everyone knows that you have rubbed your vagina on those swimmers they are not sellable you need to buy those they are sellable that's why they have the plastic you damage them i am sorry that you cannot try undies on in a shop you can't like it the plastic sticker is just in case that you're maybe your underwear is not thick enough it's not for direct contact i mean i very much agree when i'm thinking about anyone else trying them on because i don't want anyone else trying on swim bottoms before I do. Imagine if you bought a pair of swimmers that someone had tried on

in a store and then you with your hands peeled off that sticker. You've just touched their vagina. I mean, without any of the pleasure. You got nothing out of it. Nothing other than the remnants of a good time. You literally just got rubbish. That's all you got out of it. Oh, this poor girl.

I know why she didn't buy the underwear because she had to get to a job trial. Because she didn't have a job. Because she was unemployed. that's why she couldn't buy the swimwear okay i also think that you have way too much sympathy for her and i still think you might have written that in all right your turn once you're accidentally unfiltered okay so i'm an emergency nurse and because you're pretty much always rushing around i had this habit of when someone asked for a vomit bag or looked like they needed it i would grab a

bag that comes neatly folded in its own little plastic ring and i would punch my hand into the opening. It would open it out. During one hectic shift, I was looking after a patient whilst I was standing at the bedside who said to me, I think I need to vomit. I reached up, I grabbed the only bag left on the shelf and I punched my hand into it. To my dismay, I quickly realized that the bag had already been used and I had vomit up to my elbow as someone had already vomited in the bag and neatly folded it back onto the shelf instead of putting it into the bin. So she literally just punched her hand into liquid. It actually gets worse.

Punching a bag of vomit. It gets worse. My patient still had to throw up and because there were no free vomit bags, ended up throwing up into their own hands on the bed. And so I spent the next 20 minutes apologising, cleaning up my patient, wiping their own vomit off of them, changing the vomit bed sheets and also washing my entire right arm. Can you imagine how confused that patient would have been

when she picked up a full vomit bag and punched her arm in? And also I know the vomit is one of those conversations that makes people really squeamish. But I was once on a public train, super hungover. I went and saw Florence and the Machine and I was so hungover. And I get motion sickness at the best of times. Dude, I was sitting on a country link train driving back to Wollongong and I felt it from the depths of hell.

And the only place there was was to vomit into my hands. And then I just had to drop it. What were you going to do with it? What do you mean you just had to drop it? They have toilets on trains. I can't carry it down. It was dripping. I couldn't carry it down the carriage.

Oh, my gosh. I just left it. I mean, I didn't just leave it. I had to tell the lady that I had motion sickness. I did not tell her that I was hungover. I felt even more embarrassed. Anyway, this is not about me. I love how both of us have written in accidentally unfiltered today

and we're making out that they've been written in by other people. This one time I punched a bag of vomit. Anyway, guys, on that note, let's get into the chat with Lane Beachley. Lane Beachley is a seven times world champion surfer. She spent 19 years of her life on tour and she was a pioneer for women in the sport of surfing. She's regarded as the most successful surfer in history and she joins us on the podcast today. Now, we like to start every one of these interviews in exactly the same way, is that we like to start with an accidentally unfiltered story where you tell us

your most embarrassing story. Well, the challenge for me, Laura, is not to tell you my most embarrassing story. It's to pick which most embarrassing story to tell you because my life has been filled with embarrassing moments. Make sure it's the worst one. Don't censor it. There was one I wanted to tell you but I'm just so ashamed by my behaviour that I just couldn't tell. Lane, that's perfect.

That's exactly what we're here for. Do you know what, though? It's one of those things that's so galvanising. Like everybody has something that they're so absolutely mortified by that they are like, oh, I'll never, ever share it. And that's the story that you should share because it makes everyone else feel better. okay i don't know how this could ever make anyone feel better certainly doesn't make me feel very

good about it but i have to get over it so the more i share it the more i'll process it the less i'll care about it and then it's out there in the world one of the most embarrassing stories that when you ask this question the first i always trust the first one that comes to mind was when i was competing in fiji many many years ago it was about 2001 and near 2000 2001 anyway we're at Tavarula, beautiful tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean over there in Fiji. It's one of my favorite places to visit. The people are so warm and friendly and respectful. And at the time, my relationship with my former partner, a guy called Ken, was really starting to dissolve. And in a typical athlete, tenacious form, I just pretended that everything was okay,

even though I knew I was behaving in ways that was not congruent with who I am or aligned with my values and we decided to party one night and the contest was still midway we hadn't completed it but let's just get on the booze and you know hope for the best and so we were partying and I and everyone had gone to bed except for me a lifeguard and a couple of other none of my competitors were still out it was just like one of the one of the lifeguards one of the people who kind of work around there and then me and we decided that we were still thirsty even though They put padlocks and chains around the fridges and I decided that there was a possibility we could possibly get under that

and steal a couple of drinks because we just needed to keep going. Nothing good happens after 11 o'clock at night, right? You don't need to drink anymore. 11 o'clock is early. Usually people say nothing good happens after 2, but 11 o'clock is fair as well. Nothing good happens after that. I feel like nothing good happens after a padlock is involved

could be a fair comment. Nothing good happens after a padlock has been put around a bar and you think it's an invitation to get in there. So I had the lifeguard lift and it was one of those bench freezers, fridges, and he was lifting it up, straining the chain and the padlock, and so I'm reaching in to try and get my arm in this fine little hole between the top of the freezer and the rim, and as I'm reaching in to grab what really felt like a very warm beer,

As I'm reaching in, the chain breaks, the freezer hits me in the chin, my tooth goes through my lip, I get a fat lip and all of it has been captured on CCTV. So I then have to front up and face the music the following morning. Meanwhile, before that happens, I have to go and surf a heat. The waves pop up overnight. I'm hung over feeling very sad and sorry for myself with a fat lip and incredibly embarrassed by my behavior anyway I go out I lose anyone surprised I lose in that heat I come in and then

the general manager of the tour at the time decides to rake me over the coals and made me watch the vision back and explain myself oh no unnecessary he knows what's happened totally seen it do you know what though you're just lucky that this wasn't of the time of social media or that's it would have ended up and then you would be reliving it all the time the amount of things that i've done that have not been captured on social media is an absolute blessing in disguise there's no way that my career would have the adulation and respect that it has if everything that i did that was somewhat duplicitous or nefarious was caught on captured on social media what i'm taking with that story anyway is just that you like a challenge like you saw an obstacle

you thought there's a way to overcome this. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. I'm solutions focused. Well, Elaine, we often start these interviews by asking what was your childhood like? And I feel like for you, your childhood has had such a profound impact on who you are as a person. And it's such an interesting part of your story. Could you tell us a little bit about what it was growing up as a Beachley, but more so how you became a Beachley in the first place? So I was adopted into a beach loving family with the last name Beachley and became a world champion surfer. How many times have you heard that that is so coincidental that you were adopted into the beachly household and you spent your whole life on a beach? I'm sure that's the first

time, right? If only I was given a dollar for every time I heard that. So you now owe me a dollar. Okay. And my dad was a surfer and my brother, Jason's a surfer. And the mother who adopted me was not a surfer, but loved the beach. So we would just spend every day possible at the beach. I remember being plonked on the sand before I could walk. And I remember falling in love with the nature and the beauty of, and the freedom of the ocean and the sand and the sun. I mean, the ocean is my happy place and still is to this day. So I was very fortunate to have been adopted into that beach loving family and then be given the opportunity to fulfill my dreams and ambitions and set such audacious goals. But when I was four years old, that's when I started surfing.

when I was five years old I started surfing on the ocean side I actually started surfing on the harbour side when when the ferries came in that's when I would test my balance and ride my foamy and this was at Manly Beach is that correct Manly Beach yeah the most appropriately named beach in the world yes man town I call it and uh yeah and so by the time I'm six years of age I'm out there having a ball and that's when we lost Valerie we lost my mum Valerie to high blood pressure she had a brain hemorrhage on the operating table during cosmetic surgery of all bloody things oh wow so that was deeply distressing and then that's when kids started asking questions why do you look so different to your family where do you come from because all my family are over six foot

tall they're pasty white skinned they got brown hair and I'm five foot well I'm five five I've got dark olive skin I've got bright blonde hair and bright blue eyes so I didn't really look very much like my family there was very few similarities as an eight-year-old that's when dad decided to tell me that i was adopted and he knew nothing about my biological family at all how did you take that information as an eight-year-old firstly i felt like uh the couch was swallowing me whole i felt so scared because i had wrapped my identity around this story that i belonged here this is my family unit this is where i've always come from and unfortunately by the time you're six your brain waves have shifted and instead of being a narcissist and everything's happening about you

to you and for you your brainwaves get to this capacity where you can judge criticize analyze and create meaning around stories so my dad said you're my baby girl we've always loved you yet you're not a blood relation I heard you've been abandoned by your mother you've been rejected by your mother your own mother didn't even want you therefore you're undeserving of love that's how I took it so I was very scared felt very abandoned felt very rejected and instantly decided that I was now worthless. And I thought that the only way I could become worthy or deserving of love is that if I become a world champion surfer. So that's literally the goal that I set myself as an eight year old was to become a world champion, not a surfer, just a world champion. And I basically

wrapped all my sense of self-worth, my identity, my vision of success was around unless I become a world champion, I will never be deserving of love. Did you feel resentful or angry that you didn't know earlier because I feel like by eight you really you know even though you're still so young as you said you have this real understanding of your identity of your place in the world and also coming off the back of your mother's death you've already lost a sense of identity you're already in this turmoil and grief to then be given another piece of information that who you thought you were doesn't quite fit into that puzzle anymore was there resentment there it's a difficult thing to reflect on and anchor down those feelings I have no doubt there was sadness

there must have been anger and frustration and that sense of loss because I lost my sense of identity and my sense of belonging my sense of being and I don't remember I don't recall feeling resentful or having I'm resentful is not really an emotion that I tend to resort to but there was definitely anger and sadness involved for sure and when was it that you found out like about your biological mum was that you know in your childhood or was that much later in life much much later so dad told me when I was eight I then joined the pro tool fresh out of high school when I was 17 and then traveling the world and you know seeing what the rest of the world has was very eye-opening and I often say that joining the pro tour fresh out of high school

gave me a much broader education than any institution could ever give me but it also opens when you open cans of worms it presents as many questions as it does answers so I started to to seek more understanding of who am I where do I come from why am I the way that I am because I was constantly either being judged or ridiculed or told that I was this way and I wanted to get an understanding of where does this behavior or where do these characteristics emanate from so I went to the birth deaths and marriages registry in Sydney and applied for my original birth certificate because in the 70s it wasn't mandatory to have connection or contact you didn't have to leave your details as a biological parent to allow you actually there was vetoes

on a lot of kids in that stage to actually prevent them from reaching out to connect with their biological families so I fortunately when I applied there was no contact veto and I received my original birth certificate so that gave me my mother's name my name that I was born with which was Tanya Maris Gardner and it gave me an understanding of who she was and where she was at so she was born in Glasgow she was living in Surrey Hills she was 17 years of age so we just put a story around that that perhaps maybe she was a backpacker or you know who knows what happened but that gave me some sort of solace in understanding okay this is who I am this is where I've come from and this is why I was given up and and that helped me kind of piece it all

together and you know what that same general manager of the tour decided to hand me because that certificate that birth certificate came to me while I was in South Africa preparing to compete actually I was competing it was it was a day that I was competing and he received it from my flat mate who faxed it through and he decided to hand it to me 15 minutes before I paddled out like just clueless so he hands me my birth certificate right before I paddle out and of course it messes with my head and I still win because I'm able to pull myself together but that was the first indication of my original identity and then that set the wheels in motion what did you do with that information I mean even just knowing what your birth name was

I can't even imagine how foreign that must have felt what do you do with that information when you have a little bit of an insight into who your birth mother is you take time to process it that's fortunately what I did I mean I processed it while I was in the water which was a massive distraction and I almost lost the heat but I was able to get my head back in the game and then I came in and I spoke to friends about it who understood the journey that I've been on and were willing to share in that journey and I I shared some of my questions and just spoke about it just shared it because a problem shared is a problem halved and it did present quite a lot of challenges to me and understanding how important this piece of information was to to fulfilling my

my desire to to get a clearer picture of who I am and why I'm there but the thing is that what it did teach me is that we don't need to rely on our past to determine our future you know our past is a great reference point and we can learn a lot from it but we decide who we are we decide how we show up how we feel how we behave and we can't keep relying on the events of our past or the genetic predisposition of our of our ancestors to predetermine how we feel about ourselves so in hindsight I realized I was relying on historical references to validate who I am today when in actual fact the only one that gives me permission to do that is me did your biological mum at the time know who you had become and the successes that you had gained no and we didn't

make contact the first time until 1990 1999 she reached out to me so I was 27 and I was uh about about six weeks away from winning my second world title all these dates and numbers you're following when you've got so many trophies I know how do you remember just by the years I know I won my first one in 1998 so it's on from there and so she reached out to my dad and at the time somehow she said she'd been searching for me for years and she found I don't know how she found it but she found that my last name was Beachley and the first person in the phone book under that name was my dad and so she reached out to him and that was the time that she found out that my mother had died when I was young and that I grew up without the family unit that she so desperately wanted me

to have and that my name had been changed and that was all a lot for her to process because she had these grand ideals around you know she wanted me to grow up with the name Tanya she wanted me to have a mother and father you know she wanted all these things for me that she couldn't give me and so she felt like she'd let me down and my dad did his best to reassure her that she you know she's part of a very loving family unit and that she's done okay for herself but she's in Indonesia so she wrapped this story around the fact that I may perhaps I'm a journalist and I've gone to indonesia to find a story or something anyway google no she googled me and found out who i was and what i'd done and so then she got all excited and then got too a little too excited because

after my i was in i was on a surf trip in indo went back to hawaii dad rang me and said your mother's called i was like what what are you smoking dad yeah yeah first mom's dead no your biological mother's god like what wow i gave her your i gave her your name but i didn't give her your number and i told her you would make contact with her when you're ready and then there was all these stories from you know my partner at the time i wonder if she's googled you i wonder if she's a gold digger you know i wonder if she's a fame you know a bit of a moth you know moth after a bright flame who knows what the circumstances are but you know he wrapped all this kind of almost fear and ambiguity around it and I just went look I trust

it I'm going to make the conversation I'm going to make the effort to have a conversation with her but I'm going to wait till I get home when I'm in my own home in my own space and I can feel comfortable and relaxed before I had that chance she picked up the phone and called my home phone number and then tried to make up for the last 27 years in the first 15 minutes of our first phone call together so it was really confronting I guess there's so much for you at that point to to package up and to actually get your head around and also for someone you said your mom was 17 or your birth mother was 17 when she put you up for adoption there's also a lifetime of her wondering where your life is and wondering about this child that she said goodbye to can you tell us a little

bit around why she at that time at 17 put you up for adoption yeah i'd say the one big regret i have is actually never deciding to view it from her perspective you know it was all about me impossible to though at that age yes of course but I didn't take the time to think imagine what I have no idea what she's been through to give birth to me and in the 70s you know it would have been easily to abort me there was no guarantees that she was going to keep me and so in the first meeting I hear from her that she went on a date she was an aspiring model and went on a date with a guy who owned a modeling agency and after dinner he invited her back to his place and she thought that was an innocent introduction

and then he took advantage of her and raped her and then I was conceived. So essentially I'm the product of date rape and she says in my book that, you know, she picked up the phone and called him and said, this is what you've done, goodbye. And so we don't actually have any record of this guy. I know his first name, don't know his last name. And SBS have come knocking asking me to do Who Do You Think You Are

and when they basically ran all the facts that my mum had about this guy they all they all rang true you know there's really no evidence of this guy so I can't do that I have no connection to the paternal side of my being but that's okay I have a very nurturing dad and loving husband and so I connect in that way but as far as trying to make sense of it it's very difficult because it's smoke and mirrors back there no there's no real guarantees about what I'll find so conceived through date rape and then her parents told her that she wasn't allowed to keep me so she put me up for adoption and then the rest is history you know you said something early on which really like I've been waiting to bring it back up with

you so sorry to pull it back up from the depths of the interview you said that when you very first decided like I'm going to be a world champion I'm going to be the best at this I'm going to succeed that a lot of those feelings were spurred on when you were eight years old and you found out that you had been adopted and you were like I'll prove my worthiness I want to get into that whole period of your life and the successes that you did have but what do you do when you have created a whole life around achieving succeeding and being the absolute best at something what happens when you come to the end of that journey and your whole identity and worthiness is tied up in being one thing you feel lost that's what happens you lose all sense of self I mean it's a wonderful question

because everybody goes through it especially if you're as fiercely dedicated committed and tenacious as I am and I did feel really lost at the end of my career even though I chose to retire and it was a really easy decision to make to retire like I'm still working as hard as ever but yeah but from that one thing that you were like that's it yeah yeah yeah and I had to find a mentor to help me through it because uh I kept thinking that I had to reinvent myself I kept thinking I had to do the next thing that was going to bring me that next sense of fulfillment and elation nothing compares to standing on a podium in a bikini holding a world title trophy above your head being sprayed with champagne it's just there's no nothing like it you know for me

that's a regular saturday like that's on a podium getting sprayed and hanging out in your bikini she's single she's living the best life trophy above your head it's irreplaceable and it's uh it's a difficult thing to let go of like when you say laura when you've defined yourself by it you know your whole sense of self and identity has been wrapped up in it so i had to redefine i had to let go and start all over again as ben crow often says i was a human doing and i had to become a human being and I learned so much from my professional career and that's what I'm teaching people today either through awake academy or from on stage as a motivational speaker or facilitator but ultimately it's about defining who you are how you feel and what you want and then you can

then go and share your gifts with the world but if your sense of self-worth is constantly wrapped up in things outside of you then no matter what you do you're never going to be enough and then you're riding this roller coaster when one day you're successful so therefore you're up and the next day you may fail so therefore you're down and then it's just like this consistent roller coaster that just slaps you around and there's just no comfort no satisfaction no joy and it just it rips you apart to the point where when you if you become so identified with and defined by things outside of you that your heart is just never filled it's never full it's never filled you You just feel incomplete and unhappy and dissatisfied all your life.

Blaine, it makes me question, you know, you were a seven times world champion. You're the only surfer, male or female, to ever get six in a row. So the most successful surfer on the planet. Not even King Kelly could win six in a row. Take that, Kelly Slater. When you are at that level of success, I assume, I mean, I have never done anything to that extent. So I can't personally relate.

Like to have that amount of dedication to something, do you have to be 100%? You know, you're talking about that you struggled after you retired because it was the only thing that you identified with. But is there any other option? Like when you are so wholly devoted to surfing, was there time for anything else? Yes, absolutely.

I made time for other things. No matter how much you love your job and no matter how committed you are to it, you still need a break from it. and I learned that early on because we often believe that the only way to achieve something is through the way in which we know and what I've learned throughout my career is that I can disprove what I know by learning how to do it a different way so I've won seven world titles I won six in a row but I only won two in a state of love the other five are one in a state of fear and the way that I differentiate the two is when I'm in a state of fear I'm outcome driven so when

I'm not winning, I am losing. And I am a dismal failure when I'm losing. I beat myself up. I give myself a hard time. So now I'm winning at all costs. If you're not with me, get the fuck out of my way. I'm on an absolute mission and I'm on a path of destruction. So I must win. You don't understand how much of my self-worth, my identity, everything about me is wrapped up in this. And if I don't achieve this, then it's your fault. So piss off. Leave me alone. I've got to get this done that's world titles number two to six number one to seven my loved based world titles were one in a love of process how can i be better today than i was yesterday if i'm a little bit fatigued then what do i need to do to re-energize my body if i'm feeling really focused and energized

am i making the most use of that particular amount of energy so everything was self-actualized everything was in alignment and when I had good days they were good days but when I had bad days they weren't bad days they were speed bumps so when I wasn't winning I was learning so the victim mentality is if I'm not winning I'm losing the victor is if I'm not winning I'm learning it's a really subtle mindset shift to go from losing to learning but it just comes down to a commitment and asking yourself is the way in which I'm going after my goals or the way in which I'm pursuing my ambition sustainable because world title number one and seven prove to me that it can be done in a sustainable fun and effortless way if you continue to anchor yourself in gratitude world

titles number two to six which were win at all costs mentality must get this job done if my if my body's breaking it's just a sign that I have to work harder I will not honor my body I will not honor my health I will sacrifice and compromise every aspect of my being because if I don't win I will not be deserving of love and I proved to myself that I was worthy and deserving and world title number one why did I stop trusting in that because I placed a story around it that was going to be my very next question I was like why did something change at world title number two I just expected more of myself I thought that the world expected more of me and the only way that I was going to fulfill that expectation is by working twice as hard trying twice as hard doing

twice as more and then I wonder why my body breaks down so halfway through the first 1999 was my second world title and in May I tear the medial ligament in my right knee now instead of taking six weeks out I take 10 days out and I come back and I surf and I compete and then I win the richest event in the world at the time with a knee brace on and then the next time I fracture a rib I I surf while it feels like I've got a punctured lung. You know when there's a rib out and it just feels like it's constantly hitting your lungs and you can't breathe properly. And then I smash my face.

I get a wave that lands on the back of my neck, herniates a disc, hevers my spinal cord. 80% of my spinal cord is severed. My left arm is numb. Atrophy, pins and needles, blunt hot butter knife wedged between my shoulder blades. You know what I did? Ignored it. Let's just keep going. Let's just keep pushing through.

a wave lands on the small of my lower back folds me in half crushes my lumbar spine paddle back out 30 minutes later to win another world title like just push push push at all costs gotta win and now in my 50s I'm in constant pain management I have to go and see physios I have to cryo chambers I have to see chiropractors massage therapists I have at least two sessions a week just to manage my body because I didn't honor it when I was competing you know you speak about this from someone who worked and and performed at the most elite level of professional serving and you were the one who put all of these demands on yourself because success was so important to you something I think that's so important is like people do this in different variations not just in

professional sport but people do this in different ways in their life all the time from what you've learned and when you got to a point when you were like my body is like I've done this to myself I can't keep performing at this level what changed in you how did you recognize that you were just at a point where you were completely taking yourself for granted or you kept expecting and yes you could keep doing it but you kept expecting an amount from yourself that was not sustainable what changed well I won my sixth consecutive world title I decided that winning six consecutive world titles meant being the most successful surfer in history I had defined success as being the most successful surfer in history and I defined being worthy of love as being successful which

meant being a six times consecutive world champion so what changed was a friend of mine said are you enough yet and she asked it in a way where she said what's driving you do you think it's because you're adopted and that was the first time that question had been asked in that way to me and it's so strongly resonated with my heart it almost put a stake through it I just went oh my goodness I'm still trying to prove that eight-year-old girl that she's enough I'm still I'm trying to prove to the world that that little eight-year-old who felt so scared so abandoned so rejected even though she was being reassured that she is loved and worthy and belongs here she has been proving to the world that until she becomes something she'll never be enough and the lesson that I've

learned is no one can ever tell you that you're enough no one will ever give you permission to be enough unless you do you know we all talk about how love comes from the self you know what enoughness comes from the self as well enoughness is acceptance that where you are who you are what you're doing right here right now is more than enough now I had convinced myself that the only myself that the only way that I could be enough was to become the most successful surfer in history and then I got there and I went am I enough yet yeah I'm enough now okay so now what let's go for another one you know I think exactly like what Laura just said in that you did this in the sense that very few people are professional athletes that are seeking validation by getting world

titles but I think a lot of us uh I mean I know that for a lot of my girlfriends and I we've spent a lot of our 20s kind of figuring out whether we're enough for the guy that we're dating and I think that when you get to that point of realization of I mean for me it came in my quite late 20s when I really started to unpack validation and I started to unpack why do I feel as though I'm not enough for these people and I think that's that there's that point of our maturity perhaps where you really start to process or actually this might not have anything to do with not being enough for this other person this might have a little bit to do with me and about me seeking validation in unhealthy ways and I think for you seems that you sought it

through winning through becoming the absolute best at something winning winning I think it's even interesting that you say that Keish because I I don't see this necessarily as being a token of maturity because I think there are plenty of people who are in their 50s 60s 70s who never reach a state of being able to self-validate I think that it's a mindset it's you know some people might learn it in their 20s some people might learn it in their 50s I don't think that it's necessarily something that you just arrive at when you hit 30 years of age and you go ah now I realize I don't need to get my validation from external sources and to that point I know teenagers that are enough yeah I know 13 year olds 12 year olds 10 year olds six year olds that are

enough lane just speaking about your time in surfing working in an industry that was so male dominated what was it like at that time and this is very much in terms of just your day-to-day being a professional sports athlete in in an industry that women didn't really have a foothold in it yet what was it like being a pioneer of that sport it was a shit show it was a so chauvinistic sexist shit yeah yeah the 90s 80s 70s 80s and 90s in women's surfing was not a very glamorous or welcoming place to find yourself as a woman it was really toxic you know we were first rejected by our male counterparts we had no support from the industry and the governing body really saw us as a distraction to the men so if you've seen that documentary called girls

can't surf that's a really classic snapshot of what we encountered what we're up against like let's cancel the women's event put the money back into the men because we want to pay them more because they attract bigger crowds but then we'll keep the bikini contest it was a really toxic culture and and like it says in the film we weren't given permission by the surf industry or the surf culture to be embraced by it and supported by it so as Catherine Fox and Kirsten Ferguson wrote in their book, Womankind, when women find themselves in an environment where they devalued, they devalue themselves and they devalue each other. And that's what women surfing looked like to me in the 90s. So not only were we devalued by the industry and our male counterparts

and the governing body, but then we saw every opportunity as a threat. So there were no opportunities, everything was a challenge. And so we dragged each other down, we pulled each other back and we really didn't celebrate or elevate each other and we were it was divide and conquer there was no collaboration there was no cohesion there was very little camaraderie and women are the minority in the majority of situations so if we see another woman succeed we automatically think that's one less opportunity available to us but at the end of the day if I reflect on my career every single one of us knew that when we're entering the sporting arena when we're entering competition and world title races only one person's gonna win lane i fucking love that

quote i had never heard that before but it's so i mean and i think it's true for so many things that you've spoken about so far like yes it's relative to the sporting world but it's relative to how women interact with each other in many different industries on social media in so many different ways and i remember having a conversation with someone recently and the response to something that we were talking about was like oh well women are the worst for it like they're so mean to each other on social media or they're so mean in how they interact. And it is exactly what you just said. It's this idea that when we're already pitted against each other, that we turn on each other. And I think there's so much to learn in that conversation as well. And the advertising

agencies or the advertising world and the marketing world ride off the back of that. They ride off our vulnerability. They ride off our belief that we're not enough by negatively reinforcing us to believe that we aren't enough. We're never going to be happy until we achieve this we're not going to be deemed successful until we achieve that we're not going to have enough money until we're able to drive that live there wear this do that you're not pretty enough tall enough skinny enough short enough like no matter what you do you're never enough so we're constantly reinforced to believe that and then like i said if we see limited opportunity then instead of elevating another to do it and celebrating that we pull push them out of the

way and stomp on them and seal silicone the glass ceiling up and say look i had to do it tough but it's worked out all right for me so you're gonna have to do it tougher because i want you to be better than me it's like where's the encouragement where's the compassion the consideration like the whole reason that we've got female pioneers is to pave the way not to close it up and seal it up and preventing the other woman from getting through there you know one of my major bugbears is seeing women in leadership positions making it harder for women to follow in their footsteps where the sign of a good teacher is when their student succeeds them what is the female surfing world like now no it's a very very different environment yeah yeah and

does that make you proud because i know that you were a really monumental part in changing that narrative absolutely i'm really proud of where women's surfing is today to say that there's still a long way to go and i'm proud of of where women's sport is today but then there's a shit ton of work still to be done to make that a better playing field for women. We all want to experience a state of equality, whatever that looks like and feels like, I don't know. But as long as we can keep pushing the cause and reinforcing the need to have female role models and pioneers in environments where they're paving the way for future generations, the way I like to present it is every pioneer must have the courage to plant a seed and water that seed to grow a tree that

they may one day never have the chance to sit under and quite honestly in my life I never expected women's surfing to be the first or surfing to be the first sport to announce pay equity not in my wildest dreams did I see that coming but I'm really grateful that I was a part of that narrative and drove that so hard because I was just extremely disappointed in the way in which we were treated I mean, in 19 years on tour, I earned a half a million dollars in prize money. Today, Stephanie Gilmore or Tyler Wright or Sally Fitzgibbons, they can earn more in one year than I earned in 19. So it's a completely different environment.

And it's not just about the money, but they're respected. They've got an industry body supporting them. They've got a governing body who believes in them, who will actually stand up and fight for them versus fighting against them, which is what they did to us. the men would protest that the waves had got too good for us back in 2002 they were protesting that the waves were too good for us and they stormed the judges tower and they asked the governing body to prevent us from being able to surf in waves that in their eyes were too good for us and we stood up for the first time in a very long time and fought against that and we won that battle

and we got to surf that day and I won that event but the guys were glowing about how well we surfed it's like no shit Sherlock it's the first time you've had a surf in decent conditions the quality of your performance is definitely dictated to by the quality of the conditions in which you're performing in if you're surfing in shit waves all the time which the constant narrative is if it turns to shit send the girls out then of course we're always going to be depicted in that way but also then it's that vicious cycle of like well you're surfing shit waves which people don't want to watch so therefore the crowds aren't there so therefore the investment in advertising you know i think this is like and it's a question i want to throw

to you in terms of how you view women's sports across the board but there is this ongoing debate comes up every year and it's around well women's sport shouldn't be paid the same because it doesn't get the same amount of views so therefore it doesn't get the same amount of advertising dollars and I guess for majority of people it's like well it's chicken before the egg like unless the conditions are the same the equity and the quality of the sport won't increase but what is your view on that when someone says to you oh but it doesn't get the same amount of advertising so how could they possibly pay women the same well even in that conversation this year was the first year that for the state of origin that the women were paid the same amount as the men in Queensland

if you played for the Queensland team you got paid the same amount but if you played for New South Wales the women got paid substantially less than the men and so we even within the same sport in the same game you've got this inequality yeah disparity sorry of pay yeah well this is this is an issue that goes across all industry not just sport I mean we see female lawyers earning less female doctors earning less female presenters earning less why is that based on gender is it because we allow it I think you know there's an element of personal accountability and responsibility that needs to fall on our shoulders and look I took that very seriously when I was competing because my sponsors would question my motivation even after winning six consecutive world titles

and threatened to drop me, whereas they're still going all out to support their male team riders. So to answer your question, I feel that it's multifaceted. I feel there's got to be a confluence of events that needs to occur. We can't just keep putting the onus on the industry to pay women more because women need to not so much earn it but they need the opportunity to build themselves up to be worthy of it because if I look at women's AFL like the first couple of years it was such a scrappy game but that was because

they didn't have the opportunity to play on the right fields they didn't have the support they didn't have the coaching they didn't have change rooms they didn't have just the comforts to make them feel like they belonged in the game and they couldn't train because they weren't getting paid enough so they had to do other jobs you know there's all that yes there's a lot more to it than just money though there's a lot more to it but they they need to feel like they belong there they need to be given the equal opportunity my my belief is that women do deserve to be paid equally and that argument especially when it comes to grand slams in tennis the women only play three sets so why do they get the same prize money as someone that's just played five well there's no

guarantee that the men's winner will have to play five sets by the way he could win it in three and secondly what about the enormous amount of sacrifice and commitment and compromise that women have had to endure to get to that place and to generate that equal opportunity we need the partners the sponsorship to see the value in the future of it sure right now it not it might not be that valuable but you have an obligation and a duty to make it more valuable than what it is it can't just fall on the players it has to or the you know the participants it's got to be a multi-faceted approach so i reckon the partners have a lot to play in it the broadcasters give us more airtime. We need to see our role models. I mean, one of the reasons why I was so compelled

to become a professional surfer is I used to watch the Coke Classic on TV. I videotaped it and I would rewind that cassette and play it every day, just being able to watch my role models. Being able to see that on national television helped me create a story around how I can be that too. So it comes down to the partners, the broadcasters, and then ultimately the talent. Now, when I say the talent, I mean the people who, like me, don't rely on either the broadcasters or the sponsors to dictate who I am. I need to know who you are because the more I know about you, the more I want to support you.

The more I connect with you, the more encouraged I'll be to come to the games, to support you, to elevate you, to celebrate you, to share in your successes, to console you in your losses. To be a part of that journey is what we all want and that's how we connect with each other. so women need to tell we need to be able to tell bigger stories better stories and we need to be given the same level of opportunity to do that as women we need to hold each other accountable but

we also need to stand firm in who we are we need to stand firm in our values and what we set the standards by what we allow and i must admit i allowed way too much chauvinistic and sexist behavior to be considered normal so much so that i still have this underlying belief that men don't respect women in the water I've been able to disprove that by the guys I surf with today but I can still go back and validate that story very quickly if I if I just want to go down and surf at Manly or Narrabeen if you do go and surf at Manly like I can only imagine I actually have surfed at Manly and I picture myself paddling onto a wave and by the time I realize that it's Lane Beachley to my to my side I go there's no fucking way I'm paddling for a wave I am getting

out of her way yeah I do get my fair share I must admit it takes a lot to slow me down Lane uh life uncut largely built off of relationships and talking about love we do love a bit of love chat here do you love a bit of love and for anyone who doesn't know your husband equally as successful I don't know how you guys are competitive wise in your household she's like how many trophies do you have huh yeah how many trophies does kirk have i don't know because they're locked up somewhere like he never really wanted to display them because he was worried that people would feel overwhelmed or overawed when they walked into his presence and i was like let's celebrate this shit wait you were the biggest band in the world kirk come on

let's celebrate that so these are all plaques to give a little bit of context for anyone who doesn't know kirk your husband of is it 18 years now um 18 19 years something like that 20 years this year one of the most successful musicians in the world he's one of the founding members of in excess correct and every woman wants to marry a man that can blow a horn and he's a great saxophonist elaine the thing that i love and i've heard your story before about how the two of you met this is a conversation and debate that comes up all the time on life uncut and it's whether if you don't have an instant spark with someone should you go on a second date should you try and see if something grows. Now, I heard that when you very first met Kirk and went on a first

date, there wasn't really a spark there. There was no chemistry, no connection. There was nothing. Quite honestly, I didn't even want to go on the date. I had no interest in him whatsoever. John Stevens decided that we would be a great match. And quite honestly, I was much more attracted to John Stevens than I was Kirk Pangilli. John Stevens from Noiseworks, again, in case people don't know also a musician so he was front man of noise works became the front man of in excess after they tragically lost Michael and then they did some work with Terrence Trent Darby and then John came along and and then they've obviously reinvented themselves a couple of times since then but John's been a great mate and a big supporter and he's still a incredible

singer and musician and performer he decided that Kirk and I would be a great combination I have no idea how or why because Kirk and I have nothing in common and that continues to be reinforced daily about how little we have in common but we've been together for 20 years we've been married for since the 10th of the 10th so 12 years and our first date was really tenuous and I promised John that I'd take Kirk on a date so I literally took him 10 bin bowling at DYRSL we always want to start a date with a competition don't we who won we won one game each i think it's always good to do an activity on a first date then that way you're not tired of talking at dinner if there's actually nothing to talk about exactly and so then we walked from dy re to dy

beachfront to go to a restaurant that friends of mine owned and the whole way kirk decides to talk about surfing i'm like fuck me really the last thing i want to think about is and talk about is surfing but you obviously think that's maybe the only thing i do know anything about so okay i'll honor this conversation and and you know kirk hates the sun hates the sand doesn't like going to the beach yet we live right by one and uh then when we sit down at dinner we're yawning in each other's face we're really struggling to find conversation i go to the bathroom i'm thinking if there's a window i can climb out of i am fucking out of here and i'm thinking if i've done if i've spent enough time in here maybe i've given him enough time to do a runner and he's

literally thinking well he's at the table if I put money down do a run I think she'll care and then he realized his car was at my house so he couldn't do that because he doesn't really remember where I live so I came out of the bathroom and I must admit I was a little disappointed because he was still sitting at the table I thought I gave you plenty of time yeah yes exactly anyway the owner of the restaurant's a good mate of mine and he recognized that things weren't going so well so he sat down with us with a fresh bottle of his nonna's limoncello and that really loosened everything up like we just all right let's get out let's shake off the shackles and let's relax into this and have a real fun conversation and we laughed and told classic old stories and then we

walked home to my house and i was bouncing off the doors of cars just so drunk just square dancing all the way home and uh and then we get home and i put on monsters inc because i'm so fucking romantic i was like we're gonna sit down and watch a kid's film what are we doing what is this date it's just shit show that's what it is so we watched monsters inc and then halfway through it i'm thinking okay surely he's sober enough now to drive home but if he's a good kisser i'll let him stay so we went out of the balcony and he's still talking like fucking just shut up and kiss me so he kissed me i'm like all right yeah you pass all right you can stay and so i made him sleep in his clothes and then he woke up alone in my bed because I got up at six before dark and

went surfing and he went and he woke up went is this what I'm in for it's like jeez you're being a bit presumptuous aren't you well you're gonna be here for the rest of your life as it turns out now I am assuming he wakes up most mornings and you're not in bed yeah he's alone that's nothing's changed no that's changed a lot because I don't like getting up early especially in winter because it's too cold and all the briefcase bandits and school kids are in the water so I like to you know get up around 7, go surfing around 8, 8.30. That way it's a changeover, briefcase bandit's gone to work, kid's gone to school, have it to myself.

So, yeah, we've found our mojo, we've found our routine that serves us really. Kirk's a real cuddler. He's very, very nurturing, very affectionate, loves his snuggles and cuddles. He's a physical touch guy. Yes, that's definitely one of his love languages is physical touch, yeah. So I'm not allowed to get out of bed when it's dark unless it's absolutely necessary.

Lane, you are the founder of Awake Academy me. And now what it says on the website is that it provides self-empowerment and helps people detach from fear and take control and design a life they love. No bullshit transformation. Yeah. And I love this idea of detaching from fear. Why was this foundation so important to you? So before COVID, I had decided that it was time to write another book and I really wanted to condense all the life lessons that I've learned. So my biography is obviously it's a biography. It's, you know, it's a historical reference of the things that I've been through, but it really didn't encapsulate all of the really deep, fundamental, valuable life lessons that are

really applicable to our day-to-day lives. So I wasn't able to really incorporate that into my book, into Beneath the Waves. So I thought it's time to write another book and I'm going to call it Above the Waves since the first one was Beneath the Waves. Great sequel. I see what you did there. So I decided to put it into like a PowerPoint keynote format and I road tested it at one of my next keynotes with some of the things and a lot of it resonated, a bit fell flat and I was like, okay, I'll just keep working on it. And then I decided that I was going to host a public workshop

and it was the first time I'd ever asked people to come and pay to hear from me as opposed to being paid to go and speak to others. and the self-imposed the self-imposter you know the imposter syndrome sparked up was like I'm not smart enough that I'm not deserving of this I'm not worthy to share this information like is there really any value in it anyway people paid people showed up and that gave me the confidence to believe that actually my content is of value and is of worth and does need to be shared and then my girlfriend Tess who's now my business partner she helped me do like a snapshot you know

how retailers do stock takes to work out what's working and what's not yeah rid of stuff that isn't she did that with me I did a stock take on my life like what's working what's not how sustainable is my current lifestyle I'm talking about living in a well I'm talking I'm teaching people how to achieve sustained success and yet it's unsustainable and I realized I had fallen back into that fear mentality that win at all costs mentality that ferocious tiger shark the one that must must achieve at all costs my body was broken my relationship with my husband was strained but I just kept doing doing doing and she went whoa wait wait how sustainable is this and I went no not very she's like do you want to write another book I said no not really writing's

not my jam I've paid for a right like a like an editor I'm paying her a shit ton and she's like are you sending me anything I'm like no I haven't written in the last two months like maybe we should stop doing this yeah you're right I'm throwing money away and so she said well what about doing a course like building a course I said that lights me up and then COVID hit and I spent the next six months in front of this little computer that I'm talking to you on typing out a course called own your truth that's housed on the awake academy platform to help people own their shit like wake up own your shit trust in love because we're a lot of us are going through life on default mode we're living life by default this course helps you live it by design so we're

all about cultivating connection growth and happiness in humanity and everyone that's done this course has walked away feeling more centered connected and confident and that's all I really want to do I really wanted to harness what I've learned over the last 40 years turn it into a self-paced online course that people can go through at their own time and their own pace and take bits from it that they can apply to make them feel happier and healthier it's enabled me to broaden my impact it's enabled me to deliver such profound content without me having to be there because it's all done through video and workbook and it's also I've been able to turn it into a corporate model where I've been able to scale it into corporate organizations and for 90 minutes a week for four

weeks I can literally transform your team and your workforce to make them feeling more interconnected and confident so it's something I'm very proud of and something that's enabled me to to be a better version of me and it actually helped me anchor my why because we all need to know our why it's what helps us get up especially on the days when we don't feel like it and my why is awakening others awakens me uh lane thank you so much for doing the pod today it's been an absolute joy speaking to you my pleasure thank you for being so open and sharing so much of your story but also so much of where you're at now it's truly been a pleasure and can you please tell everyone where they can find you your instagram so they can go on to awakeacademy.com.au

they can also find me on linkedin which is lane beachley or instagram lane beachley or twitter lane c beachley i think is the twitter handle it's pretty easy to find is what we're saying yeah it's really not hard to find me just google yeah just google me you'll probably find my phone number just give me a call but really easy to find me and the majority of my content is delivered through linkedin and instagram so just follow me there and then come and find me at a lake academy thank you so much for your time lane thank you girls love you to chat all right you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet our highlight and our low light of each and every week producer keisha you can go first what has been you said you have a funny one what

has been your suck so my suck is that i mean you are kind of aware of it is that i was really sick last week and it was the first time in years that I can remember I had been like fully knocked on my ass for quite a few days. Have you had COVID yet? I don't know. I don't think so. Had all the symptoms but didn't test. We don't joke about these things. I did test. I just think that it would be really hard for me to live the lifestyle that I do and not have had it. So I'm assuming that I've had it and just been completely asymptomatic. So it was a week that it like it really rattled me and as it turns out i uh i've been to the doctors and they think that i've picked up an amoeba in indonesia what's an amoeba it's a parasite right yeah so they think that

that's what's going on and the way that they test that and this is where the funny part comes in because it's something that i've never had to do before and there are moments in your life where like you're really humbled by your existence and one every time i get a pap smear this is yeah this is of the same level maybe worse for the first time i had to do a poop scoop and i had to do a fecal sample which involves you pooping onto a little like picture like a paper bag but they're dissolvable so you line the toilet with this paper bag my mouth is wide open i am in shock that we got here you go to the bathroom and then you have to get the little scoopy scoop and collect your own shit into a little tube and then you know what's worse no I don't want to know is that you

have to go back to the place you are walking around with a bag of your own boots until you get to the pathology place and drop it off in the little collection sample part yeah really humble humble humblizing is that a word I probably not certainly not one of those moments that I thought But, wow, no matter how much you think you've matured and progressed in your life. No matter the successes you have, there's always a poop the scoop that can bring you back down. No matter what fame and fortune you reach in life,

you've still got to do your own poop scoop. You do. Like even Beyonce, she's not getting her assistant to do that. I reckon Beyonce has someone. If Beyonce had an amoeba. Nah, I reckon Beyonce with an amoeba, there'd be someone there to poop the scoop, to scoop the poop. So that was my suck.

Wow. can I tell you when I was in India when I was like very young I went to India I got a terrible gut problem I ended up in hospital and I'll never forget when the guy was like we need a sample and I was like you don't want that and I did it and I handed it to him and he said no not a urine sample a stool sample and I was like that's what we're working with that's where we're at pal oh stool is the word I should have been using that's what that is but it is a pretty obvious suck to my existence not just my week. Okay well I'm very sorry that you brought home more than you bargained for from Indonesia and I hope that you send it back very soon. Thank you thank you

I do too. What is your sweet? My sweet for the week is that as an amoeba is not contagious I was allowed back out into the wild and some of my friends from high school came to Sydney for the weekend came for one of the girls birthdays and we got to spend all this time together and like they're friends that I don't really get to spend that much time with regularly and we ended up doing some really cool stuff like we went to some awesome restaurants and we went to the Moulin Rouge I am obsessed if you guys haven't seen the Moulin Rouge I am I was like in fucking in love I can't even find words I was absolutely sick on it producer Keisha not so much she was like take it or leave it no I wouldn't say that but I will admit I'm a massive massive fan of the

theater so I've been to a lot of musicals and I loved it see I loved it at a time where like throughout COVID and artists particularly like stage performers went through the absolute ringer and I've got a couple of friends that are in that industry and I kind of know how hard it has been for them to because you know they because we got in and out of lockdown they kind of came out and the productions were back on and then they'd be forced out of the productions again and I know that they've really suffered with people kind of being like I can't do this anymore it's not sustainable enough and so being back in the theater again was fucking great so what keisha's saying is that she doesn't want to say anything negative because she wants you to all go and buy

moulin rouge tickets but honestly i think just you know what i actually would say it wasn't the best show i've ever seen however getting to go and see shows is really great it's like there's i've got that newfound appreciation of it because we missed out on it for so long and so i'll be looking like there are a lot of shows on that are not as big as the moulin rouge so speaking of um shows also So there is a live show that you should go and book tickets to. I think it's called Life Uncut. Yeah, it's at the City Recital Hall in Sydney. 1,200 seats.

There's still some left, like go buy tickets. It's going to be the best fucking show. That'll be my sweet for that week. So what is your suck? So my suck for the week, unfortunately, also centers around poo, but slightly different. So we went away for a wedding. My mom and actually a couple of my really good friends took care of the girls.

But then on the day that we were arriving back, my mom and my stepdad, Neil came up and they took the kids and so there was a there was a lot of people in a very small house my sister and my nephew had also come over and my niece so there was like seven people eight people I can't count there was a lot of people in the house a lot of yelling a lot of stuff happening and I was like can we just put the kids outside like put the four kids outside just to try and bring this energy down a little bit so we did we chucked the kids outside the energy came down shut the door locked the door unfortunately we left the door open that was the problem left the door open push the kids outside i was like cool the energy was coming down everyone

was feeling better for it the kids were coming back and forth inside and outside marley was making potions and then i could smell something and i was like what the what stinks something in our house stinks then i realized that three of the four children had walked through dog shit and had been walking it through my house just in and out and in and out. Mummy, look at this potion, in and out. And there was a thoroughfare of dog shit footsteps all the way down the hallway.

Have you ever seen that picture that went viral of the, you know, the robot vacuum that went through the dog shit? I'm picturing that but in children form, like back and forth, back and forth. That is my idea of a horror story because so many people send it to me because I'm so obsessed with my robot vacuum cleaner, which if you follow me on instagram you know sweet is it the sweet that you just got the robot vacuum out to clean up where the kids have walked no because you see oh look it's too

technical you can't actually just set a Roomba across dog shit because it won't actually clean up the dog shit it'll just mop up it'll just put dog poo on the pads and then put those pads all around the house oh because it doesn't change the pads right okay this is a lot about robot you know what it needs to become more intelligent yeah it's not up to status yet I agree wholeheartedly um okay my sweet for the week though is is that we went to a wedding we went to Brisbane we got to see all of Matt's family they're like the best lovely wonderful people um I forced Matt into dancing with me and then I also convinced him to have sex with me not against his will he was very willing just a little bit drunk uh and then that was it we had a really it

was our first night ever away from the kids together we have never ever ever Matt and I had a night away from the children together there's always been one of us or the other but never two people away from the children entirely how did that fit will you be anxious freeing it was good like you felt good yes I will do it again great all right you will not be putting them in my care I know no ever anyway guys that is it from us Brit will be back on Thursday for our Ask Uncut episode producer Keisha thank you so much for jumping in for filling in the very big boots of Brittany Hockley I mean her feet aren't that big but for filling in her shoes and if you guys have loved the episode you know where to find us you can jump on instagram at life uncut podcast

you can join us in the facebook discussion group and you can also find us on tiktok because that's what we do now we tick and we talk like the 36 year old women millennials that we are did you see that meme i posted which is something that we actually do do on instagram a lot and it said people over 30 discussing tiktok and it's a picture of the women from golden girls sitting around a table that's us talking about tiktok yeah and it's at life uncut podcast we have 3 800 followers that's not bad go join get amongst it it's a pretty exclusive little collection yeah and if you want to get tickets to the live show you can find the details where can they find it keith they can find them in our bio and on our website yes they're on the website

buy for detail super organized that's why that's why you've got me here you can find tickets to live show on our Instagram bio or on the website and go buy tickets. It's in Sydney. It's on the 12th of October. It's going to be so much fun. We can't wait to see you all. And you know the drill. Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your friends. And Brittany normally does this. Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love because we love love. Thanks for watching!