Life Uncut - Samantha Wills Uncut

Episode Date: August 28, 2019

In this ep we sit down with the delightful entrepreneur extraordinaire Samantha Wills and talk about her journey from the beach town side of Port Macquarie to the bright city lights of New York, from selling jewellery at Bondi markets to being a brand adored by celebrities all over. We talk all things business, story telling, relationships and why she closed the doors on her multimillion dollar company while it was still at the height of its success. Subscribe and share because, we love love.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to Life Uncut. Today we are super excited to have a guest on the show that has been an inspiration to both of us for many years and for different reasons. This woman has been profiled by Forbes, the Huffington Post, the New York Post, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, and in 2011 was named Breakout Star by the New York Times. Known originally for her creative skills in jewelry design, she grew her brand to astronomical heights. She had offices in London, Paris, New York, Sydney, LA, and Tokyo. But on top of that, she's a brand ambassador, a well-known keynote speaker, is currently writing her first book,

and has a foundation set up to support women in business and gender equality. Living between New York and Sydney some would say she has it all but my favorite part of this story is the fact that she came from very humble beginnings and from my hometown Port Macquarie. Now if that's not inspiration for everyone to go out and do more I don't know what is so Samantha Wills welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you what an intro. I actually felt like I was on a game show like who could this be she also likes this space hi welcome thanks for coming in thank you guys so much Samantha I am genuinely excited to have you here today I have my own jewelry business and it's something that I'm really passionate about and I have a lot of that to attribute to you because

going back eight years ago I was reading an article online about this jewelry designer named Samantha Wills who had forged for herself her own career and I remember sitting there in my office in my job that I freaking hated at the time thinking I could, I could do that. Maybe I could do that. And I was doing Bono markets very similarly to how you got started. And I ended up quitting my job a few weeks later and I've had my business ever since. That gives me actual goosebumps. The, that means so, so much to me. So thank you for sharing that with me. Congratulations on all you have achieved. Um, but it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's a rare thing. I think a lot of people come to me and say, Oh, we've read your story so many times, but not a lot of people say,

here's how I acted on it. So congratulations to you. It's all you that has done that. Well, I was worried that you would think I was a crazy fangirl, but I'm very happy that you are here today. Yes, I'm very happy to be here. She actually is a crazy fangirl. Yeah, that's all right. Sign this for me before you leave. So let's just start off. You grew up in Port Macquarie. Did you grow up as a little rat bag running around barefoot like I did? I did indeed. Tell us about it. So, I mean, I don't have to tell you about Port Macquarie, but it's a very small town on the mid-north coast um it's very very idyllic and beautiful so I think you know childhood was spent growing up at the beach um Peppermint Park and Fantasy Glades were like a poor very poor man's

Disneyland back in the day they're all closed down now um but it's just a very tiny um I say it's country New South Wales but people argue that it's coastal which I understand but it's it's regional New South Wales you know going to the city was to me going to Coffs Harbour or New Castle for Art Express in high school or something and Sydney was the huge huge city so it felt very isolated in a way but you know I was in high school in the mid to late 90s and I do say I'm like you know when I was at school the internet wasn't even around and I do sound like my mum that at Port Macquarie High School we had two computers that had the internet at the time and they were both for the computer coding class so what you saw was all you kind

of knew and I think that's the best it was very much like summer bay I think yeah I often we actually went to the same school so I went to Port High but I think we're a few years apart so you had the internet well no I actually remember the internet coming in what a day what a time to be alive isn't it but I remember one of our one of our classes at school would you believe Laura was surfing studies where we picked up a surfboard and we walked across the road to the beach and we used to surf for an hour mate I was going to the wrong school we probably dated the same people at some stage oh god this is not about you and who you dated Brittany stop always trying to bring it back to you so do you take any inspiration when you started making jewelry did it come from port

mcquarrie from that like idyllic beachside town um not so much the i don't think the creative inspiration my mom put me into beading classes in in our local craft store back there when i was 11 so i was hand making jewel i learned the basis of jewelry back then as a kid and then my mom and dad always had small businesses so my mom had a store um opposite mcdonald's there which was called near perfect which was uh factory seconds and she let me have my little jewelry stand set up there when I was, you know, 12 years old. So I've kind of, I guess the entrepreneurialism kind of was learned from my parents and small businesses. And I think that, like I said before, that kind of isolation, I'm also an only child. So I think you naturally somehow have to be creative in that

realm. So I think the creativity and how big that I would think and how crazy of a journey my mind would go on sometimes in creative wise, I think has been a huge part of my journey. Yeah. I'm jumping well ahead here sort of years in the future but something that I have always found really inspirational from what you created was your bohemian bardo ring and the fact that it became this cult staple and a collectible item and I was always curious is this something that was strategically implemented or was it something more that just happened by happy chance and happy circumstance and then you were like hey I'm onto a good thing here and we know what to make out of it it's a great question because usually people like you know how do you get your products on

celebrities but I think there's such a dichotomy to celebrity placement so especially with jewelry so the products you know is so small or secondary to the apparel you need to firstly be able to get it into the hands of the celebrity or the stylist then the celebrity has to be you know hot at that minute being like they've got a movie out or something's going on that they're in the press if it's a ring it has to be turned around the right way if it's earrings hair can't be covered there's so many things that can go right or wrong so that's just like getting a photo of the on the celebrity the second thing is once it hits um once you get the image of it there's it's only good if you've got only good for you as a business if you've got product in the warehouse because people

are they want it now so for us and the placement that I think really skyrocketed the bohemian for us was the Eva Mendes placement and it was completely unplanned like we were doing 70 SKUs so 70 styles per collection at that point there was only four collections a year at our peak we're doing 20 collections a year um and i just designed it like any other piece and um just as a segue but i think with with business you know everyone's like oh it's a creative company or it's a design company design and creative was the smallest division within our company like you're very warehouse and logistic heavy finance was a big division so um so i was kind of you know churning through these designs to meet these skew counts and it is a matrix that

you're filling when you're designing to kind of you know fill out these collections so i just kind to put it in um we were working with a PR agent in um the states at the time who knew Rachel Zoe the stylist and Rachel was working with Eva so uh she placed it there and then we had this placement and it just went berserk but it was kind of a the stars aligned with it because we got this great photo Eva had just done a stint in rehab so she'd just come out of rehab it was her first event so everyone wanted a photo of her which is you know not an not an ideal thing you know she was very photographed the ring looked great on her we had stock somehow which was very weird because usually you give product out in advance of having stock in the warehouse so everything aligned

and then we're like wow that sold out in like 24 hours let's do it in another color and another color and in the end it came in 366 colorways people were collecting them like one lady owns nearly 260 you do I had a few to be honest it was sort of the go-to present when I was that age yeah yeah all my friends would just buy each other those presents well when we closed we did in a mini style so we um in the six month lead up to the closure we did one more collection of them and they just they were selling out within minutes and then that ended up on ebay like it was even to me now you know we had that uh skew in our business for 10 years we sold over 1 million of them in um over five different tiers so there was the entry price point and it went all the way

up depending what stones and things we'd use but it was the backbone of our business it never once left our best sellers list for me and coming from a jewelry background for me that was so incredible and so inspiring and I thought now did she do this strategically or and I thought maybe it's just one of those things where you get lucky by chance and so to hear that it's amazing and it's it's I mean if I if you could do that by strategic I would but I don't even know if you can do it without you know it was we couldn't have even planned the stars just aligned yeah they did and speaking of the celebrities so was there ever a celebrity that you saw wearing one of your pieces where you were just like what I can't believe this I mean all of all of them it still

blows my mind um you know when we actually had this bag we did a little collection of uh clutches with jewelry pendants on them and we sent them out to you know gift celebrities and stylists in the states and then about a year later so you kind of like there's a life cycle on it when you gift product you're kind of like all right in the next three months we'll keep an eye on photos to see if they work and then so after about a year Beyonce showed up carrying it and I was just it was it just literally blew my mind her and jay-z they used to photograph when they went out on their date nights on her instagram and then she was just there holding it and so it's another thing you can have every aspiration of wanting to dress a certain celebrity and then it just it just kind

of happens so yeah her and then we had taylor swift on the cover of 17 magazine but before she was massive and i'm a huge taylor swift fan now at the time i was like oh this new emerging artist and i'm like oh my god that was incredible yeah i've seen her three times in concert Samantha Wills was so much more than just jewelry it was a cult brand and it was storytelling at its heart and it was you what was the most challenging part of being held up as an inspiration you guys are making me really emotional today it's a beautiful reflection we are very emotional women true that's a very lovely way to say it thank you sorry what was the question I just wiped the tears from my eyes we were just here telling

you how wonderful you are what was the most difficult part what is the most difficult part of being held up as being an inspiration? I think when you have a brand that you're so modestly named after yourself at 21 years of age. I do also like that you used to model for your brand as well at the very beginning. I couldn't afford to pay anyone so I was like I'll give this a crack. I had your catalogs and I was like this girl's amazing she can do everything. No I couldn't afford to pay anyone. I think when you have a brand that is your name it naturally is the DNA of you and it it has to tell your story because if not it's you're not telling authentic stories um so I think the hardest part about that is is the duality of what you then share with yourself

or share with people versus what you keep to yourself versus what you have to be transparent with and things like that so it's really so an example is people in the office when they felt weird calling me Samantha Wills because they're like oh no that's a brand name so that's how I got the name SW because they needed to differentiate because you do become so infused in in that way I don't know I think the rest is like it's it's not difficult if if you're being truly authentic if you're posting something being like does this sound authentic then it's probably not well I think that also comes back to your Instagram as well you use that as a very authentic channel to not only have the communication of what the brand Samantha Wills was but also for what you

stand for how are you using that now moving forward since you're moving away from jewelry into this personal brand space well I say everyone is a brand whether you've got a product or a business like if you've got an Instagram feed you're a publisher you're CEO of brand you think when we know better we do better and as you evolve as a person you start to evolve your thought process and what you what was once acceptable to you no longer becomes that so you can kind of see over my Instagram and I think I've tried to be very vulnerable with that where I used to post outfits in a mirror that I had in my house I know the one you know so I would I would post it and you know I was doing it to kind of show how I was styling I had to find a way to show how I was

wearing the jewelry in a consistent basis and then and they'd get lots of likes but the reality was you know I was being loaned a lot of the clothes some of the clothes were mine but a lot of them were loans um I'm a creative director so I know how to light a shot like it just wasn't like if people are looking at that going why don't I have those type of clothes or why doesn't don't my selfies in the mirror look like that it's because you know I know professional lighting and I know all these things and so um and the reason I actually took all of those off my Instagram is when I was watching the royal wedding of Meghan and Harry and the commentary was,

I can't believe that Kate's worn the same dress twice. Like she's throwing shade to Meghan and all this. And I was just like, that is so ridiculous. And then I thought about it. I'm like, wait, maybe I'm adding to that problem by posting these outfits once. And the intention wasn't for that, but it was, you know, about the jewellery.

But when I sat back, I'm like, hang on, no, you're perpetuating that problem. So I was just like, enough. You know, as I said, once you have that realisation, it's then the responsibility to do something about it people do connect with you as a person you have more to communicate now as an individual than just as a brand that's connected to a product definitely I think more to communicate but I think there was a time when Instagram came out and aspiration was the word rather than inspiration and I still I don't use that word I don't use

what inspiration is associated to myself but I think you know you look at and it was it was it was this new platform that was kind of this very popular the whole thing was around filters so you know it was around that but I think now people are just over saturated with that kind of messaging like people want connection um you know the best brands of female brands I think are when women can when it can alleviate a pain point for a person so if that means that something me seeing something on your Instagram makes me feel connected to you then that's that's the goal in in that authenticity space we still have a long way to go I think in getting everybody to a point where you don't have to feel ashamed to put a photo up that isn't filtered isn't photoshopped

doesn't have perfect lighting like i literally i just had when i had a facial today you look great thanks but i um i had this peel as well i'm just giving you all my info here and i um i took a selfie of my skin because it looked so good and i went to put it on instagram no makeup at all no filter nothing the lighting wasn't even great and i put it on i went to post it then i can't post that I look gross and then I deleted it for one second and then I thought how ridiculous that I just said I can't put this up so I put it back up but just that second of insecurity that someone would judge you for being so raw made me feel sick I guess this also comes down to personal development and getting to a point where actually it doesn't matter what other people think and

being true and authentic to yourself exactly and I think that that's part of everyone's own personal journey and getting there and you have definitely come come closer to what is that you're trying to achieve on on social media and I just I really think that that's something that is now very aspirational and inspirational at the same time yeah no and I I think firstly I think everyone thinks that I don't think it's an isolated issue whatsoever so I think that um and you're right it does come down to us and I think the other thing is like other people really don't give a shit like we're so focused on like what is people going to think about me and everyone's I'm just like no one's thinking about you like no one really cares like we we sit there and be like oh what

people to look at what and it was like no one really cares so it's um and they scroll straight past you and then you're gone I mean yeah and although probably like it looks great like I don't know I think we we spend so much time worried about the response from other people and everyone's just so worried about themselves so it's um it's yeah it's a bigger deal than we think it is but your skin looks great I'd post it for sure well I mean I have makeup on now but thank you was there ever one defining moment where you sat back in your career and thought holy shit i have made it no there's not because i think once you think that your career's done kind of thing um and i also like i don't think there ever is an end point

because if there is then you're probably being quite lazy in in your dreaming i guess um i think that you know a question i do get asked similar to that is you know when you made it you know was life great kind of thing i was like no it's when you're in startup the problems are just big and you don't really know how to tackle them and it could be probably a financial issue. And the more, so then once you take finances out of it, you're like, all right, now we're a very financially viable business.

But the problems just get bigger. You just get more equipped to be able to deal with them. So it's never that it goes away. I think you just mature and you know a lot more. I think that there's definitely been times where things have happened and I'm like, I couldn't have even dreamt that we could do that.

So I think that's probably the closest answer I can give to have you have you made it I'm like I don't I never thought that but I was like wow like this is bigger than I could have ever thought I think as things grow as well you then have the problems that occur have such a higher level of responsibility because you're responsible for so many people and so sometimes it's almost like ignorance is bliss that gets you through things that start you're like oh I can do that yeah and then as you become more aware of what's at stake it's almost like you can be less inclined to take risks absolutely I look back when I was 21 and started the business everyone's like oh you're so brave I was like no I was naive I had no idea

and I kind of envy 21 year old mindset me because I'm so fearful of so many things because I know so much more now so the more you know the more you know kind of thing so um yeah I I think it's definitely that and I and I think that is a good thing when you're like you know your responsibility is to other people's livelihood absolutely there's a responsibility there but yeah it's a different mindset so on the other end of the spectrum I mean you've said that there was never this moment where you're like yes i've made it but was there a moment that you just thought i can't do it i'm gonna give up it's too hard i have heard you say before that you don't like to be called an overnight success because you put in the hard yards so was there ever this time where you

thought i can't do it anymore yes every day i love i love these answers this is now a 10 minute podcast because i can't answer a question i love it um absolutely yes i mean and so many times throughout the journey up until the day that I did decide to close um I think at the start as I said you're like you wear all hats you know you're the cleaner and the designer and the marketer and the all these things and it just becomes so overwhelming and you just don't know when you're starting out it's not like you know when you're doing it wrong you just don't know so you're kind of like treading water just kind of learning along the way um other times throughout I think um you know at the end of by the 15 year mark I designed over 12,000 pieces of jewelry so

I guess every like 5,000 pieces I'm like oh my god more jewelry kind of thing so and that kind of started to wear on me but but I think I just kind of accepted it as like not creative block but creative exhaustion in a way I'm like all right well you know that you're producing as I said up to 20 collections a year at one point so it's just part of it definitely around production and sourcing that's a huge thing where I'm like do we really have to go through this again so it's all the same things that just repeat and probably like once a year on the dot of every like collection I'd have the same reaction but it just kind of yeah float flowed with it do you think that at one point like now after 15 years after

you saying the every year came around and I just thought I don't have to I can't do this again it became too much of work and less of passion is that how you found it I think at one level yes on a very creative front but I think over the years every time I'd think that I'd always go back to well what else do you want to do and the answer was nothing like I love this so I think I think it's okay to have days where you don't you're not like celebrating you know this entrepreneurial journey and I think that they are actually quite common days um I think in the end that wasn't the reason I decided to close I decided to close because uh for personal reasons for two reasons one that I felt the brand over 15 years had done everything and more that we'd wanted it to and I

think that um continuing to push that it wasn't really honoring the legacy I wanted to take kind of a leaf out of the Seinfeld book and close while we're on a high and so many people had touched the brand over those years like hundreds and hundreds of people and I think all the work that they had done on it meant was important to so many people so I wanted to kind of you know round it out at 15 years for a legacy perspective and from a personal perspective you know I was a basing I am based between New York and Sydney but for nine of those years I was six weeks New York 10 days Sydney consistently so by the time I had done that hundredth flight between Sydney and JFK it was you know when I added it up that's not including into production houses in in China and India

over to our European offices that was just that leg and it just was over three and three months without my feet on the ground and I'm like how can you be grounded in life when your feet physically aren't on the planet and I hope you had frequent flyers she had her own seat with a name on it When she got onto the plane. No, when I get on and then corners are like, oh, hello, welcome back. So I was like, oh, that's great. They know my name. And then after, I'm like, that's really bad.

They know my name. I think it's such a important message, what you just said before about how when you're an entrepreneur, when you're running your own business, people think that you're just living your dream, but it's still a job. And especially over the years, it does wear on you. And there are days where you have to sit back and go, okay, well, I don't really want to work today, but that doesn't take away from the fact that we are very privileged to be able to still absolutely do a job that we love and it wouldn't be work it just wouldn't be work

if you were going there every single day going well I think you know aren't there are times where I hate my job but I actually love it and I feel so privileged that I get to run my own business and I hope you're not talking about the podcast Laura and this too sometimes no but I think one can't exist without the other like if it was just all roses I'd probably my feedback would be like you're probably not pushing the boundaries enough and you know you you appreciate things because of the bad days and that shows you how good the good days are you know jewelry was my hobby and then then I turned that into a very very big commercial venture but there's this thing now where someone's good at something like oh you should sell that and it's like you don't you don't have to monetize

everything that you love because in the end it doesn't not that I hate jewelry by any means but it became you know I was designing to a matrix it wasn't actually that creative when you hit that type of level commercial requirements so I think to follow curiosities I think is a big thing these days and it doesn't actually have to mean that you monetize it yeah I think that we do though live in a society where if you do have any sort of skill set people are like oh you could work for yourself you could run your own business but there's so many more facets of running a business that doesn't just come down to being creative or making something and you've got to be passionate about all those other things absolutely as well to be able to do it successfully

and I think that's why so many people try and start business ventures but then they fail because in essence they're really passionate about their hobby but they're not passionate about business. They're not passionate about running a P&L in a warehouse. Yeah which is very it's a very special thing specialized thing to be passionate about. Absolutely and I say like find people who are good at the things you are not and I think when I found my business partner three years in you know I'd gotten myself into eighty thousand dollars debt but I built this like very well-known brand even at that point so I knew how to build a brand but did not know how to run a business and the success of the brand was was meeting him and he really commercialized the

back end and then allowed me to do what I was really good at. So you did actually this is super interesting you did go from eighty thousand dollars in debt to turning over your first million in two years was it in our first year first year yeah first year absolutely incredible how was there I'm not going to say was there a secret but was there a secret I mean what if there was I clearly didn't know it but what changed all of a sudden first and foremost it was getting my business partner on board because my mind just didn't think in numbers you know at 23 I really did not know how to run a business at all and um it wasn't it's kind of like you need I say business is what and brand is why see business is your product it's the pnl but why you do it

is the brand and i was doing it completely out of passion you know it started on my dining table but if if i hadn't have had a business structure around it i'd still be on my dining table making jewelry till all hours of the morning so i think that's the first foundation of it and after that there's there's many different factors you know celebrity was a huge part for us but doesn't mean it's right for every brand but i think having that um commercial and creative and where that meets and that's assuming you want a commercial creative business a lot of people i say that you know if you're on the art if you're a true true artist and you're like i'm not selling out for anything kind of thing you know i'm happy to to sleep on a friend's couch it's all about the

art like that's not me i didn't barely finish high school i didn't go to a design college i'm like now how do we tell a story i start at the end i'm like how do we tell this story and reach a huge amount of people by telling stories and then what do we need to fill that pipeline okay it's it's a product and it's jewelry and here's how you make it and here's how you produce it and kind of you know working backwards that way and that requires a commercial framework but it's amazing that you managed to maintain that and still keep authenticity to the brand and still keep storytelling because I think that one of the things that I've loved so much about Samantha Wills as a brand is that even though you are massive and were in every single shop that there was and department stores

the the story behind it though still seemed very relatable well it's interesting you say and thank we worked that was the goal and i think the biggest mistake i made in business was when i moved over to the states in 2010 so we're getting a huge amount of celebrity placements and we're getting a lot of american retailers calling so opportunistically we're sending all these product over and we're like hey we need someone on the ground over there to see where the brand's actually being placed so i went over there i was 28 it was the first time i'd had a disposable income we were very successful in australia by that point first time i'd lived out of Australia and I just got stars in my eyes I was like this is amazing all these brands are

creative energy it was just brilliant and I think as you know brand builders and as creative directors we can have every ideal of wanting our brand to sit at a certain place in the market so we can be like all right you know I want to be a thousand known as a thousand dollar necklace band I only want to be in Vogue and be in Barney's and Bergdorf's kind of thing but at the end of the day the market tells you where, where your brand sits. So if, if the marketplace is buying $120 bracelet sets and that's your biggest selling skew, then you're literally $120 bracelet set brand, which is fine. But if you're trying to continually talk to someone that you want to be talking to, who's not listening to you, but you know, all the people that are listening to you,

you know, you're not talking to them anymore. So I went over to the States. I was like, no, I want the Samantha Lewis brand to sit a tier to a tier and a half higher. So in Australia, we were very successful. We had, you know, we're known as a bohemian brand. It was very, layering burnished metals lots of turquoise lots of color statement size and I went over to the states I was like nope this way we're not doing turquoise anymore we're doing only polished metals everything's minimal we're doing no layering and you know what the Bondi market story that's not very that's not glamorous dining room oh that's not so I stripped every piece of authenticity out of our story I changed the design language within one season and shockingly not so it didn't

work and um we'd come off the back of such a successful season that retailers then like all right well we're going to give you another 20 extra budget so they kind of buy in really heavily it didn't sell through for them the consumer became unengaged because my story became everything you just spoke about became you know so inauthentic and no one sterile you know when it loses that well it's like samantha designs jewelry like it was there was nothing exciting about it and then my team lost faith in me because you know i was a creative director that wasn't directing and it was a real I call it a come to Jesus moment where I had to really go back and sit with the girl at the Bondi markets table and ask her why did you start this business in the first place and I

picture it now like sitting in the demise of like this like demolished kind of construction site and having to pick up the pieces of what we're going to move forward with but also leaving behind the ego and the you know imposter syndrome and all these things that I allowed to get in conversation with each other for far too long and go back to the authenticity. And it took a long time to rebuild that. So it's definitely the biggest, our biggest offering, I think, as a brand was our authenticity. And it was also my biggest mistake to step any way away from that. Storytelling is such an important part of brand. Absolutely. And once you lose that, it just becomes generic. People buy into the story and they buy into you as a person.

And that's why there's this continued legacy that people want to know what it is that you're doing now because you were inextricable from the brand. Yeah. And I think the thing with storytelling is, you know, I say people can replicate your product and they can replicate your packaging, but if you are telling an authentic story, it cannot be replicated is the one thing that makes you unique in, in this market. And, um, I think it's so important and I don't think it's spoken about enough actually, because yeah, it's businesses, as I said, business is what, but your story is, is why you're doing it. And you did recently decide to walk away from the brand when it was so successful commercially still. Talk us through that. Well, I think,

as you said before, Laura, for me to walk away from it was a really big ask and it's a long journey to, I think, rename a brand. And my heart wasn't built in a way where I could kind of sell the brand off and just watch what someone else did with the Samantha Wills business. Too many people had put their heart and soul into it. So selling wasn't an option to me. And I think I got to the point where you know I'd done so many of those flights and I don't know I just wanted to do something new and I did I didn't know what that was um and so my business partner and I send each other four emails a year that have nothing to do with the numbers or the P&L and he'd sent me this email and he said the business is at a crossroads and essentially what the email was

saying was um you know we need I know that you know you don't want to be traveling as much and maybe we can look to get a head designer and replace you as head designer or you know tell me what you want to do personally and we'll build the business around that and I kind of I opened this email and I was at a meditation retreat in upstate New York at the time and I had my phone in one hand and it said the business at a crossroads and I looked up and I was actually standing at a physical crossroads on the campus and I just put my hand on my heart and I just heard this voice and people are gonna think this is so woo and crazy but I swear to god I just had this voice and was like it's time to close and it was the calmest almost like a whisper but like an

assertive whisper I was like okay it's it's time to close and I stood at that crossroads and I've got a photo of it on my phone which I revert I revert back to often and it kind of so the right side of the brain is the creative you know intuitive side and the left side is the more logistics and analytical and the right side of the crossroads was kind of this beautiful like bark chip through a kind of veggie garden and then the left crossroad went around campus it was the more the tarmac kind of road that went around campus and I was like now it's time to follow your intuition and see you know see what what happens and I think until you close a door I know specifically as a creative person until you close a door you can't allow new ideas to

arrive to you so that was the moment that I decided and I didn't tell a soul for two weeks I kind of woke up every day pretending that I'd already done it to myself because I woke up and was said to myself you don't have a company now how does it feel I didn't say what do you think about it i didn't know because thinking and feeling are very very different things and every morning i woke up i said it you know it feels right and so then we started to implement that closure process i just got goosebumps from that story because you can you tell it with so much truth in your eyes i know you think people think that's crazy i don't think that's crazy because i'm really big personally on the universe and and asking it for what you need and

i did actually read that you said that the universe always has three answers and that is yes not right now or i have something better in store for you absolutely so do you do you think that that is those three statements can relate to any situation is that how you look at it every situation can go into three categories absolutely i do i think that um i think we're always being guided and whether that is whatever your belief is in a power higher than yourself whether that is god whether that is religion whether that is the universe nature whatever it is i think we're always being guided but we get so um focused on the outcome that we want so it's this tiny little pinhole of an outcome that we think and that's what i was saying before when you said

did you have a oh i made it success and i and i couldn't even dream of what so if the brand had been what i wanted we would have had one retail store at bondi probably near bondi market so once we surrender what we think we need um we really then can sit and start to see what's unfolding around us and I liken universal guidance to listening to your own internal intuition and matching it with external awareness and that crossroads moment was completely a joining of the two and the other part to that story is I walked back to my cabin that night and I kind of I looked up and I said to universe like this affects a lot of a lot of people please give me a sign that this is the right thing to do and so I went into the bookstore I was just kind of like

looking around I was really drawn to this book which was Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic and in it she interviews singer-songwriter Tom Waits and he said you know as artists we take ourselves so seriously when all I'm really doing as a songwriter is creating jewelry for the inside of people's minds and I'd been offered a few book deals by this point I was like I'm not a writer I'm not a writer I can't write and I was like oh wait maybe I just need to be making jewelry for the inside of people's minds and and I was like writing needs to be my next my next journey well we were going to ask about your new venture and your business memoir that you're writing. Who is the person that you want reading this book? I think, well, the book essentially parallels the journey of

the brand, good and bad, and also parallels that against my personal life and the personal sacrifices or wins and losses that might not have been seen so publicly. So it's, I guess, yes, it is a business memoir and anyone looking to start a business or has a business, there's a lot of business stuff in there but essentially I think it's written for anyone who's ever thought they're on the wrong path and it kind of goes back to that where I say we hone in so instantly be like how did I end up here why but it's really we any situation that we're in if it's not going our way there's a reason for that and if we can let go of the the anger and frustration and look around we will see where we're trying to be guided to and I think in in writing memoir in the concept

of hindsight and retrospect I can look back on these 15 years that I'm running I'm like oh my god I remember sitting you know crying my eyes out over something and then you know to be able to write it 10 years later you're like oh that's why that happened but in the moment it's you know the most devastating thing in the world so I think it's you know it's a bit of business it's a bit of personal and I just hope it's it's a vulnerable sharing and I hope other people see a little bit of their stories in it as well. We did have a conversation in last week's episode about this concept of having it all and what that means to people and if it's even possible to have it all and I'd love to get your perspective on what having it all means to you I think that the

concept of having it all suggests we don't have it all right now and I think that if we continually live outside of this present moment that's we're living in anxiety and we're living in this future trip of what if I don't get to x y and z so I think in this very moment I'd like to go back to that practice of, yeah, right now we do have it all and it's unfolding exactly as it should be. Amen. Amen. That was literally our conclusion last week.

Yeah. We started off with saying, yeah, you can have it all. And then when we both sat and thought about it, we're like, you know what, you can't. Something has to be sacrificed. But I think it's like if the traditional have it all is, I assume, is a house baby. Like what is that?

Like what is that? And who said that that's what having it all is? Exactly. So I think once you, if we're trying to gauge it against something, we need to know what that is. And as I said, it's different for everyone, but I think it's such an unrealistic and dated concept that we hold on to, but we don't even really know what it is. Trust me, having it all, i.e. baby, house, job, you are just tired.

That's all it is. You are tired. I'm so tired. I don't even have a baby. What hope do I have? So Samantha, I don't know if you actually know, but we talk a lot about relationships and love on this podcast. Yeah.

so we do believe that things happen for a reason but breakups and toxic relationship they can have quite a profound um effect on you as a person and guide you and teach you lessons i did speak last or a few weeks ago about a relationship i was in with a sociopath and how that got me to where i am today and that i don't regret it and i do know you have a quite a an interesting breakup story and i heard you speak about it at i think a l'oreal event we sort of chatted afterwards but can you if you feel like telling us tell us a little bit about that relationship and and what happened yeah so um I had been in a relationship for three years and I think you know if I parallel that uh to my business it was around um 2005 sorry 2015 and um if anyone looking on would be like oh

that's a dream career for you you got you know named as yellow ground creative director you were your profile was rising outside of the jewelry stuff. I was, you know, on a plane every other week. Like it looked like a dream run career wise. And I'd been in a relationship at that point for three years. And there was a lot of moving parts. The company was, you know, going so, so well. We had everyone in the right place in the team. And there's just so many things going on. It was almost like a Jenga tower that there was, everything was holding the other piece up. But the thing with the Jenga tower is once you remove one piece, the whole thing comes crashing down and um I found out for me that crashing down was finding out that my boyfriend was cheating on

me and you know the few days after I just I couldn't speak I couldn't I just like completely fell apart it's like I was operating at such a high frequency that this you know really really floored me so my friends would come over and get me out of bed and then I'd just you know they'd change my sheets I'd jump back in because I just couldn't face what what was going on um so that was happening to me personally publicly I had some very big commitments that I had to fill and I had to go back to Australia and shoot three big campaigns. I had to shoot the Yellow Glen campaign which was a TVC billboard and print campaign which was going nationally.

I had two magazine covers to shoot and they were all locked in and I was just a complete mess but I didn't want to let these clients down. That was very important to me. And so I would set my alarm for 90 minutes before I knew I had to get up and I would just cry. I would just lay on the bathroom floor of any random hotel I was staying in and just try and breathe. and I was like okay if I can get all the tears out before I have to be on set then you know

hopefully the day will go a bit smoother if on set I had to fall apart I'd politely excuse myself and go to the bathroom and burst into tears and come back and profusely apologize to the makeup artist and keep shooting I could cry right now I feel for you and you know you know when you're like you're in such a fragile state and the worst thing someone can ask you is how are you because you're just like oh god that just sent you over the edge yeah so how how did you find out well so I found out uh through I found text messages on his phone um and so then I kind of went and did all the the work that I had to do and I came back and I just I knew within me I didn't have all the information and I kind of liken it to a pool of you know when you're a little kid you jump in the

pool and you're like I just want to touch the I want to touch the bottom and you hold your breath and you kind of hover around the middle you come back and you hover so I was kind of hovering around and I knew that finding out all this info I had to be really honest with myself and that's the thing with honesty that the truth gets you instant answers whether you like it or not so I was like I need to touch the very bottom of this and and ask some questions and so I gathered up every piece of courage I had within me and I sat in front of him a few weeks after finding out and I said how long has this affair been going on and he looked at me and he said which one and I said well how many have there been and he said at least eight and as abhorrent and as i can even

like makes my stomach turn now retelling that story but as as abhorrent as that was i it put me to the bottom it was like there was no that that was all the information yeah you can't go lower yeah and you have to you have to go to the bottom to move through it um and so i sat down there and you know i described this darkness and it's kind of like how i talked about before i demolish the brain you've got to sit in that rubble and that darkness to be able to move forward as i sat in this darkness and i looked around a little bit and it's i kind of like explain it now where you have to sit close to what hurts you like we try so hard to get away from this pain but once we're down there we can sit with it and try to understand it is when we start to grow and evolve

and really take on these lessons for what is next on our path and so you know i kind of went through that healing process which took a long time and started to ascend and for me that's when you start to can bring alchemy to your life and your so the concept of alchemy is this old medieval concept of turning dirty metals into gold so as a jewelry designer I loved it and I thought you know down there was it was really dark but I'm ascending now and for me the Samantha Wills Foundation was what my alchemy was because I didn't want any woman to feel that you know the duality of small businesses that life happens and it can be shit and breakups happen and things happen but you know you still got to front up and and you have to deal with amen amen and so i wanted a place

where other women could kind of log on at any hour of the day and when i was starting out in business the it was the monthly profiles of like oh here's a designer profile and it was so beautiful and styled um and i wanted a place where i was like no no fluff and glamour i want people to be able to log in at any time of day because small business is not nine to five you're up at four a.m doing whatever um where they could log in and read real stories and see how that it affects people's personal life as it does professional and so that was kind of what i took out of you know it was a healing process for me to kind of put some good into the world after going through that well that's sort of how we came here actually we were getting so many people contact us and ask

us you know different questions about relationships and love and so we thought let's just put it out there to the world but we are super raw and honest on here and i do want to ask you i know when i found out that my ex had a double life we're getting married together for two years i'm so sorry oh no it's like dodged a bullet fine but I had this feeling and I want to know if you had it too and I'm disgusted that I had it but I think a lot of people do I still loved him and I couldn't understand it because I couldn't understand why I was still in love with this person and I wonder if any part of him sort of was begging for me to stay I wonder if I would have did you when you found out that did you still love him and you still wanted to stay or like what were you feeling

first i think that's so brave of you to share that so thank you for sharing that it's um when when i said how many and he said eight the my response then was actually showed me why i was in that position or in that darkness in the first place because he said eight and i said please don't leave me so you know so publicly i fought and stood and truthfully so stood for women's empowerment and i was that was what i what my you know fight was but personally you know, at the core of empowerment is self-worth. And personally, somewhere along the line in that relationship, I had let it completely drop the bar so low.

And I think, you know, by replying, please don't leave me is the same as what you're saying. Like, is there a part that he still wants to fix this? And, you know, and he didn't. And it was that reason. That's the bottom where you're like, okay, this darkness is because you need to align your self-worth both publicly and personally,

because what was next for me was the Samantha Wells Foundation and I needed to be in alignment to put that into the world. So in answer to your question, yes, I think. And you also like hold on, you miss that person. It's not, you know, there's still good times. It wasn't always awful. So I think it is a very natural reaction. I think it's also you would have had a life planned with him.

Like we were going to do this and this is when we'll get married and this is what we'll buy. So I think for a lot of people too, it's the loss. They mourn what was going to be the idea. Absolutely having to let go of that. But I think that's almost a hologram in itself. Like if I look back now, it's not like it was all rosy. My therapist was like, Samantha, this happened because you wore the red flags as blindfolds. I thought you were going to say this happened because you wore the red dress, Samantha. Red's not good on you, Samantha. No. I think,

and that goes back to paying attention. Like we see oftentimes what we want to see. And that's not saying that I had no idea that he was cheating, but there was times where I was like, just let that slide or you know as i was saying about lowering the bar we like you continually load the bar when they say one thing you're like oh that's they love me so much but it's really just above a very low bar so it's not a great gauge and do you feel like that's put you in a place now where you would just never let that fly it's definitely given me a whole new level of self-respect i think um it's raised my own level of that which is the most important level of it and i think when people show you who they are when people tell you they are believe them

rather than um it is about paying attention so i think that that is what it really taught me my tolerance for um your bullshit meter bullshit meter but like my tolerance for like oh they might change it's just non-existent anymore when people show you who they are believe them i really appreciate you sharing that what comes with seemingly being so successful and so unattainable is that people who are going through similar things think oh but that stuff doesn't happen to these other people and so it's so nice when you see yourself who i think is inspirational to then go actually do you know what I've been in some pretty dark shitty places too and I was pretty good at covering it up at the time right it's very relatable so thank you for

sharing that oh and I think that's the importance like there's a responsibility around storytelling because you can't just tell the the highlight reel that's it's not it's not true and um I think that as I said before we connect our vulnerabilities are found through storytelling and that's where the connection is so I think there's a real responsibility around it yeah thank you I Appreciate it. And are you, big question, are you dating anyone now? Britt, leave her alone. All right, we'll let that one slide.

So tell me, what is next for Cement the Wheels? So I've got to get this book finished. I'm on a deadline. When is it going to be finished? It's the story that never ends. Laura wants to line up at the top. It will be out pre-release early next year and it'll be on bookstands by June next year.

And I'm also working on the relaunch of the Cement the Wheels Foundation and cementthewheels.com. so they will be merging into a beautiful new site which hopefully will be up in the next few weeks or so. We are lucky enough to have Samantha joining us on Ask Uncut today. Samantha, this is where we have listeners writing a question. Today the question is, when is ghosting on Tinder or any other form of ghosting okay?

Is it better to tell the truth or ghost? Like how far along is the Tinder relationship happening? Well, there's no specifics, Samantha. Pipe down, Samantha. One or two dates. One or two dates. All right, let's just say a week. Okay.

I guess in general, ghosting. I mean, I think ghosting as a general rule is not ideal. But then also I don't feel like you don't always owe someone something if you've just had a few text messages back and forth. But, yeah, I think just being like, hey, I wish you well, there's always a kind way to end things. Does that answer the question? I think it's good to have closure.

even if you don't owe that person anything people crave having a closed book and you don't have to be brutal you could just be like oh it's you know take care like there's ways you can round it out and if they're out of here and if they don't get that then that's their issue well i used to i used to have a really hard time um if i wanted to end something or not speak to someone anymore or i used to have a really hard time and i will admit i have ghosted before but i was on the other end of that and it just feels shitty when it's awful when you think that something's going really well and they're not responding to you or you're not hearing from them all you want is an answer and then i was seeing this one guy and he was super honest with me he said i really liked him and he

said i think you're great sparks not there and he which sounds brutal but it's great well my thing is it didn't affect me i was like thanks cool otherwise you'd be wondering for well that's when i realized that i should be doing that to them too instead of worrying it's going to hurt their feelings they're going to care for about 0.2 seconds right and they're going to move on totally but it's because we're so fearful of any sort of confrontation as people that we're kind of groomed to be like oh don't say anything that might upset someone like everything's got to be peace absolutely it does in a lot of aspects of life but when it comes to delivering truth if that person takes that badly at least you've done everything to be as gentle and kind as possible

i agree so i think ghosting is shit i have done it wouldn't do it again because that would be weird i did read a thing the other day though where it said if you're a date like in the new dating um few weeks and it's like if you're dating someone and they like you you'll know if they don't you'll just be confused absolutely like where was that when i needed that that's yeah so you're thinking oh should i write to him he hasn't written to me just don't just don't yeah just like it is true they're gonna let you know it's like you are you're gonna let someone know if you like them so i know we over complicate it so much and people are never that busy like if you're dating someone who's too busy to spend time with you that's just probably not the fact

because if you are a priority they will never be too busy to make you and if they are too busy then they don't want to be dating someone who's too busy yeah yeah we're so wise i love it when we all agree i'm just like really shattered by that uh comment because i'm too busy to date right now and i know that sounds sad but now you've said no one should date me because i'm too busy but you are too busy which means that then you shouldn't be investing your time in someone because you're only going to let them down so then you're probably going to attract the exact right person that's what happens when you're busy i hope so yeah i'm just gonna get another job i'm getting a fifth job nighttime stacking shelves you gotta like stack that schedule

we finish every episode we're talking about our suck and our sweet for the week brit you can kick it off because once again i don't know what my suck or my sweet is I even sent you a memo this week and I said, it's a really hard one, especially if you've had just like a good week. So where this stemmed from, I don't know if I even told you, this is just something my family grew up doing. So there's six of us and my parents used to make us sit around the kitchen table and say you suck.

It's just a way to force children to talk. Well, we did this every night in the batch house. Once we finished our group dates and our single dates, all the girls would sit around on the bunk beds and go, what was your suck in your suite? Please tell me on the bachelor. They called it Rose and Thorn though. We, oh, that was good. we did not call it rose and thorn you need to be hired bachelor producers if you listen to this

which i know that you do hire samantha wills she is fun employed right now we definitely didn't call it the rose and thorn no but we called it the cock and rose uh what britt once again no a cocktail party followed by rose ceremony the lingo was a cock and rose definitely needs reference it wasn't like some sexual party calm down okay so suck and sweet you can know samantha you can start what is your suck in your sweet no pressure well i i mean i didn't know how fun this podcast was going to be this has been this has been brilliant um i was going to say that taylor swift released her new song this week which i'm really loving yeah i've got two i've got two sweets that's you're allowed to have some more go nuts do you have any sucks um no no i've

had a pretty good um no i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to think if there's anything bad but no i mean it's great i've got two sweets okay do you break the rules only because we like you we're gonna let you break the rules i'm gonna think of one okay you go this way all right so i'll go okay so my second sweet controversially are the same thing we're recording this on a thursday yesterday was my birthday happy birthday guys thanks you so planned that um so yeah well i you know single life went out to buy myself a little present was thinking maybe some perfume i came back with a range rover what you bought yourself a range rover yes who are you no perfume and a range rover i know i just had this yolo i've always wanted a range rover so i'm sorry you

You bought yourself a Range Rover. A Range Rover Evoque. I go out and buy myself like absorbent breast pads. What do you mean you went and bought yourself a Range Rover? I've never done anything like this, but. So is your suck that you don't have perfume? No. Or is your suck that you have no money left in your bank account?

My suck is not the perfume, but I love your train of thought. No, my suck is that I am minus a lot of money now. Wow. But my sweet is I have a Range Rover. That's pretty impressive. You win. That's a good one. I don't know which outweighs the other, though.

Can you pick me up in the mornings to drive me here? If you bring me some perfume. Salt. All right. So, Samantha. No, we've already done Samantha's. We've got to do my second three. But she was going to think of a suck, wasn't she?

Oh. I wanted a coffee so bad. So, I was on set shooting something this morning. I wanted a coffee so bad. And someone kindly went and got some for everyone. And then I forgot to drink it. And then it was cold. And that.

That is pretty sucky. If that is your level of suck. I love your life. it's I'm grateful this week it's been good yeah that's great yeah all right Laura I've also had a really good week and so I hate doing this when my week's been great because I have nothing to complain about my suite is annoyingly always the same thing Molly is amazing I love my daughter I'm obsessed with her it's disgusting no she's ridiculous I saw her laugh in your video and it was so cute just wait until she's a little bit older like maybe 13 when I want to throw her out

the door and lock her in the garage but right now she's just the dream she is on a new no one cares she's on like a new sleep sleep routine it's great I'm getting sleep my life is brilliant these are huge sweets well they really are especially when you're a new mom and you don't really get out much and nothing really happens in your life sleep is like that's the sweetest I am not a mom and I love sleep that is the sweetest of the sweet uh and my suck my suck oh my sucks i don't really have many sucks my biggest suck this week was that i was a little bit irritable and i picked a fight with matt over nothing over instagram we had a fight a full-blown actual fight over instagram yeah i just called laura actually on the phone and i hung up don't

go giving out too much of my information i was leaving it at that i could just hear it no i could just hear it in your voice i was like something is irritating her has it been resolved though oh yeah we never we don't fight and when we do it was over the fact that i i wouldn't take a photo of matt for instagram because i was too busy and then i got really angry at him and it was super unreasonable he's gonna kill you 10 minutes later 10 minutes later we both realized that we were assholes and we stopped did you take a photo for him no there was no time there was no time so unfortunately guys you didn't get to see what he wore today because i didn't take a photo of him that was my suck and my suck for next week is going to be that i had a fight because i told

everyone about this one i can't wait for next week well guys thank you so much again for listening to another episode of life uncut samantha you are the dream and we are so grateful that you came today and shared your story thank you you guys are awesome this has been so fun thank you for having me you are actually more than welcome it has been so fun if you want to come back anytime and answer our questions for Life Uncut. You are far more informed than what we are. Not at all. Not at all.

I have learned so much here today. Thank you guys so much for sharing. You were hired. Well, guys, please, if you enjoyed this episode, leave a review, hit subscribe, send us your questions so that we can give you our very poorly ill-informed answers next week. And keep your eyes out for Samantha's book because we will be. Absolutely.

And we love love. We love love. Ciao. We'll be right back.