[00:00:00] Emma: I was 30 and I didn't have a husband, and I really thought by 30, oh man, I would have a husband and children. I had visions when I was 18 having a husband having children, When I was young, I would flip through those bridal magazines and I wanted the pink fluffy, you know, the toilet covers. You get those ones.
[00:00:22] I wanted that dress, the pink, fluffy dress I wanted, the whole shebang. A massive wedding. Lots of children, all the things. So you can imagine my disappointment at 30 of having none of those things. And today I wanna share with you a really personal story about. How I came to having a husband and children because it was not easy for me.
[00:00:44] And if you are in this spot as well. Oh my goodness. There is hope. I promise. I promise. And yes, I have coached people to find their husband. That's another episode for another day. So I woke up at 30 and I'm like. I want a husband. I appreciate that. Some people go through their lives and they don't care. I really cared.
[00:01:03] I had done a lot of traveling. I had done a lot of work, and I really just wanted someone to spend my life with, and I wanted dogs. Let's start there. I wanted dogs, but I didn't want the dogs without the husband and the kids. I don't know why. It was just random in my head. Logic. So I woke up at 30, threw myself a party.
[00:01:20] Got a tattoo and then I decided to get serious about finding a husband. So I challenged myself the first six weeks. Oh, those magical weeks. I went on 31 first dates. Ladies 31. Yes. I had criteria. I only had three criteria to be fair. The person I was looking for needed to be kind. They needed to have family values and they needed to be driven.
[00:01:45] That was it, because you know, at 30 you feel like you're getting a bit left behind and I thought if I had a big, long list, might be really hard to find. So I just carved it down to three. I laminated it ' cause I'm a weirdo and I also like stationary. And I then I [00:02:00] made 10 copies of it and I handed them out to.
[00:02:02] All my friends and told them this is the person that I was looking for and had the laminated card in my purse and my handbag at my desk everywhere, right? I focused on those three things. So 31 first dates. The rules were simple for the 31 first dates. I would go on a date with someone and I would not judge them on their appearance.
[00:02:23] and if the first date was good and I didn't feel like throwing up, I would go on a second date. And so off I went six weeks, did a major experiment. Ladies, do you know how long you have to spend dating? When you go on 31 dates in six weeks? It's a lot of time. I'm gonna leave you to do the maths anyway, at the same time, I decided to dial it up a wee bit more.
[00:02:43] And I went on two dating shows because I'm sucker and I thought, yes, of course my husband is gonna be on a dating show. Of course he's, that's gonna be a great story to tell our children. well one of the shows was a current affair. So randomly my girlfriend rang me and said, uh, she ran a charity and she said, Emma, we're having a charity night and it's actually a speed dating night.
[00:03:04] Can you come and can you bring some girlfriends? And I'm like, yes I can. And so off I went, not realizing that I was going to be the star of the show. So anyway, a current affair was there filming the whole thing. And I'm pretty sure I signed off with one 800, call me Emma or something. So stupid.
[00:03:22] But anyway, no husband to be found there. Just saying. Then I went. On and auditioned for a dating show. So that's when they put you in front of a green screen and they ask you questions about your life. When the producer had finished asking me my questions about my life, he said to me, and I kid you not, Emma, you're still single.
[00:03:43] What's wrong with you? And I went, because I'm me. I went. Have you seen me? There is nothing wrong with me This is very new to me. I am sharing something super vulnerable with you today. [00:04:00] If you love it, please let us know. It's so hard if we don't get feedback. So if you're on Spotify, if you're on YouTube, if you're on Apple, please let us know. Leave us a comment on YouTube and leave us a, a comment on any of those platforms so that we can give you more of what you want. By the way, the dating show was 10 women in a horseshoe, and you had to put your light out if you didn't like what the bloke was saying, and you kept your light on if you liked what the bloke was saying.
[00:04:27] And it got down to two of us, and I was the winner because also, as you know, I am. Hugely competitive. So I was the winner and I won the bloke anyway. He was also not my husband. So then I went, I have to get serious. I know you're probably standing there. If you are walking, having coffee, you probably spat it.
[00:04:49] I go, how much more serious can this chick get? You know, a whole lot more serious. So I basically pulled out a roadmap. You know, the, in the olden days, my daughter calls it, have a roadmap, and I did a. Drew a circle around a five kilometer circle around work and a five kilometer circle around home, because I live in Melbourne and I didn't really wanna go over the Westgate Bridge, and then I went, all right, where is the biggest population of blokes?
[00:05:19] Let me tell you. Embarrassed. But anyway, I went to, a running club, hate running. I went to a tennis club, hate tennis. I also went to a Lego building kind of situation. wow. I mean, if I thought I was a nerd anyway, no judgment, just saying that was not for me. I then decided to take myself off to a boxing gym, a stinky boxing gym.
[00:05:44] I had heard that this boxing gym has footballers and that it was dirty and sweaty. And so I thought, oh, well, my husband must be there. So off I went. just to set the scene. Wearing pink lululemon all the way through, including my [00:06:00] new pink boxing gloves. walked inside and ladies talk about stinky wows. It was stinky to the max. There was sweat dripping off these blokes, and I was the only woman. And I'm like, TA, yes, I'm here. I'm here. There's a lot of men. This is gonna be freaking amazing. I didn't know what I was doing to be fair.
[00:06:24] And the instructor came over and said, uh, is there something that I can help you with? And I'm like, oh yeah, I need to kind of know how to box. And uh, so he showed me a few moves and that was cool. I went to that stinky, sweaty boxing gym, I reckon three to five times a week, sometimes did double sessions 'cause mis committ.
[00:06:46] I'm like, my husband is here, I need to make sure I'm in all the places to find the guy that is going to be my husband. And, uh, I need to backtrack a minute because I went, one of my friends, her name is Tanya, she's beautiful.
[00:06:59] She was with me on this journey from day dot, and when I said to her when I turned 30, I said, tan, I'm gonna be married. I'm gonna be married in a year. And she's like. Who too? I'm like, it doesn't matter. That's not actually important what is important in this story is I'm gonna be married. And she's like, okay, I will do whatever I can to help you get married.
[00:07:20] So she was my wing woman. She came to all these events with me. We went to speed dating all the things. And um, she was on this journey with me. It's so important to have support people who are like puffing you up because if you don't have a cheer squad. Far out. This is tough. And she would laugh when I would come home and say, to her, oh, my latest date, dating saga, or the fact that I pulled up alongside a landscape gardener and he had his mobile phone on number, on the van, and I just rang and we went and had random coffee, or she would, laugh at me when I told her that my shortest date was 22 minutes because he had literally nothing to say, and then I had to pay for coffee.
[00:07:57] She would laugh along with me and cheerlead me [00:08:00] all at the same time. This was tough ladies. You think rejection on sales is hard? Nah, it's got nothing on rejection on getting married anyway, so I was like determined. I think you can hear that in my voice determined. I went on lots of bad dates. I had to pivot on the strategy and I was determined.
[00:08:20] Please don't mistake determined for desperate. There was many a men that I, whose heart's eye broke. Sorry guys. and also my heart got broken quite a lot as well. but, you know, I'm chy and resilient and I bounce back.
[00:08:34] Anyway, I kept going to this lovely boxing gym and I decided I'm not waiting any longer for a husband. I'm gonna buy two dogs. I had this idea in my head, find the husband. Get the house, although I didn't really need the house, get the dogs and it would be great.
[00:08:49] The moment I made the decision to get the dogs, I'm like, right, I'm like doing this thing. And so my husband's just gonna be, have to be happier with my two dog choices, who I gave my boy names to. So I bought these two Maltese brothers and I named them Oliver and Spencer. My two names for my boys, that I haven't had yet or ha weren't going to have.
[00:09:10] As it turns out. But anyway, I gave my names away, so I had these two puppies. I went to puppy training 'cause also cute guys do hang out at puppy training, right? So, you know, you gotta keep your net wide. Anyway, boxing gym. So there was a particular dude at the boxing gym and I thought you are, you are quite sweet.
[00:09:27] let me get to know you a little bit more now ladies. Boxing talking and men doesn't really go together. So it's kind of like you've gotta like grunt a question and then just get the grunt back and um, that's what I did. And I'm blonde, I wear pink. I'm five foot nothing.
[00:09:46] And so not exactly intimidating, but also quite noticeable in a sea of 40 blokes. So I, uh, had this reputation for just being miss friendly, miss optimistic, and some of them even looked up my [00:10:00] RSVP photo, just for those. You who are too young to know. RSVP used to be a dating app. I don't, I think it's Bumble now anyway.
[00:10:07] I don't know. But it used to be a dating app, so they would all check me out on there and then they make comment the next time I would come into the gym. Oh, you are cheeky Monkey 77. Anyway, so I decided that there's this one boy and he was quite nice I said, what's your status?
[00:10:23] After I got to know him, by the way, he had no ring on his finger, and I'm like, Hmm, I don't know enough about him. So I got to know him, and he was delightful. He also told me that he had just come out of a relationship. He was divorced and had two children and never wanted to get married again. Now ladies, most people would say, no worries, not Emma McQueen.
[00:10:45] Uh, Emma McQueen goes challenge accepted. Oh. So anyway, I got to know this bloke. He was delightful. And, um, after about six months of flirting, I'm like, come on, is he ever gonna do anything that's going to help us get out of this gym and into some kind of conversation? So this won't surprise you. Business card on the front of his windscreen and on the back of the business card it said, it's time you called me.
[00:11:15] So the next day I got a call because I'm bolshy. And uh, we went out on a date. He was delightful, still adamant, no marriage, no kids. I'm like, yeah, just wait. And on our third date I actually said to him, Hey, I. Know that you've said no marriage, no kids, all of the things, and this is only our third date, and this may bugger the whole thing up, but I just need you to know that I'm keen on getting married and having babies, and if you are not keen on that, that's cool.
[00:11:50] We just go our separate ways. Anyway, to my surprise, he was like, yeah, I'll think about it. I'm like, sweet. [00:12:00] Okay. So we kept going and we kept going. And six months later, ladies, he asked me to marry him because I'm amazing. then we were married another six months later, boo. Yeah. Now I have to tell you that when I stepped into that boxing gym, of course I was always gonna get married.
[00:12:18] I didn't know how, I didn't know where. I just knew that I was going to get married I didn't think it would be to the very first person that I showed up to at that boxing gym. And ladies, it was that instructor that asked me. In the first instance, what I could help him with, and
[00:12:35] I had to stop myself from saying
[00:12:37] "marry me" immediately because ladies, I knew that he was the one.
[00:12:42] So if anyone does the whole, don't listen to your gut. Listen to your head, what a load of bollocks. I looked into his beautiful kind eyes and I'm like, you are it in a bit and I'm going to make you my husband. So there you go, ladies. That is my love story. And, um, I'm wondering whether my husband would have a different version of that.
[00:13:05] he already had a couple of kids, so I came in and got some bonus kids very quickly, who are so delightful. They were six and seven when we met, and we've added another one to that. And she was a rainbow baby. So my body would not give me anymore. But what I wanna say is this.
[00:13:21] Determination is everything. Focus is everything. Being super clear on what you want is everything. Everyone knew what my three characteristics were. They were set at the wedding. they were laminated. I was very, very focused. Some would say obsessed. I'm gonna go with that. But you know, we've just celebrated 13 years, so I reckon I'm doing all right.
[00:13:46] And so this is what I wanna say to you. If you really want it, if you really want, whatever the thing is, it doesn't have to be a husband, it doesn't have to be a partner. It could be a house, it could be a bigger business, could be anything. If you really want it,
[00:13:58] get clear about what [00:14:00] you want. Put it out to the universe and focus on it, and take inspired action every single day.
[00:14:08] This one's been a weird one for me. I hope you've enjoyed it. It feels very vulnerable to share this, personal side of me, but being in business for so long has made me realize that the things that we do in our personal life. Can shape us and create, a or a resilience or, focus for also building business.
[00:14:34] And when people hear about my dating story, they're like, of course your successful in business if you put that much effort in, which I do. So anyway, I hope that you've got something out of today's episode. If you. Would love to share your dating story with me. Awesome. I had a client that I coached to find a husband.
[00:14:54] She also found a husband. Not patting myself on the back there, but just saying. And, I would love to hear from you in the dms if you like this style of podcast episode. Thank you so much for joining me.
