[00:00:18] Emma: You are not going to believe this, ladies, but when I was 30, maybe I was having a midlife crisis. I don't know. I got a tattoo and I decided to buy a motorbike. One of the worst decisions I have ever, ever made. I don't know what got into me.
[00:00:32] I was very logical. I'm very practical. I had a couple of houses at that stage, so I was like financially secure. Maybe. I thought I needed a little bit of excitement in my life. If you've listened to our other podcast episode, which is about me finding a husband, it was just before that. So maybe I was like looking for something, and I thought I was gonna be the aunt's freaking pants.
[00:00:55] I was like. I'm gonna ride that thing. I'm gonna wear pink. I'm gonna look cute, like Wonder Woman, and I'm going to have my hair blowing out in the breeze under my helmet, of course, 'cause safety first, and I was gonna ride it with high heels. What could possibly go wrong with this situation? I was like, I'm also gonna meet some fellas, because they rode motorbikes.
[00:01:19] It ticked all my boxes.
[00:01:20] All my non logical boxes
[00:01:22] and I just wanted. To work out how to ride a motorbike. So I walked into the motorbike store and of course. Another man fest Men everywhere. five foot, nothing and blonde. So maybe looked like I didn't know what I was doing, to be fair.
[00:01:41] Didn't. Anyway, I saw her. She was beautiful. She was loaded the ground. She was electric. Blue ladies, if I could have got pink, would've but electric blue. She was beautiful. And I got on her and I was like. This is it. [00:02:00] This is the baby I'm taking home today. Now, I don't know if any of you have ridden a motorbike ever, but you have to get patted out with, you know, leather pants, which don't get me wrong, loved the leather pants, but also booties. Top helmet, special sunglasses.
[00:02:18] Oh, all the things, right? So it was a whole new wardrobe for me. I'm like, yes, I can have a motorbike wardrobe. That is gonna be awesome. There's just one small problem. Um, I didn't know how to ride, so that was awkward. Uh, so then I had to get hooked up with some lessons. Also, a very nice young man who gave me lessons, who made me feel like.
[00:02:40] A little bit stupid. he's like, what do you want to learn? I said, well, I need to learn how to go across the west skate bridge because my mom lived on the other side of Melbourne and it's a windy bridge, and I also need to know how to.
[00:02:53] Do all the things safely and I also need to know how do I pull this off in the most sexiest way possible. He burst out laughing and um, yeah, I wish I hadn't have said that. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So I'm pretty sure over beers that night though, he was saying to his mates, you should have seen this chick today, 30-year-old.
[00:03:10] Rocks up, bored and bow self, a motorbike. Doesn't know how to ride the thing. I can imagine it now. Any who, I'm old enough and ugly enough to know it's okay. It's okay. Now. I, I had romantic notions of this motorbike situation. I had romantic notions of riding with my friends. I had romantic notions of doing it with in high heels.
[00:03:31] I didn't have romantic notions of bugs flying into your helmet. falling off the thing and also falling off the thing and dropping it on the ground and not being able to pick it up because ladies, I don't know if you know, my, my motorbike was light at 250 kilos and, um, I don't weigh anywhere near that.
[00:03:51] And so I basically had to, when I fell off, which. It wasn't that regularly, but it was regularly enough when I fell off. [00:04:00] I just had to wait for a guy, any guy who was worth his salt to stop and help me pick up this bike. Like, it's humiliating. It's humiliating. Great lessons for me.
[00:04:11] 'cause We always need some humiliation at some point don't we? Because, you know, we don't wanna get too, um, confident so. I got to learn a new skill. I like to got to meet a new group of friends. it really makes you focus because on a bike across four lanes, cars do not watch. And it really, really made me very uber aware of what was happening on the road.
[00:04:37] And, uh, you have to focus, you just have to like lean in and focus. But I have to say, rocking up at someone's house in your leathers, far outweighed any of the other humiliation that I had suffered. And the fact that people are like, you rode a motorbike. I'm like, yes, I did. What I didn't tell them is how many times I fell off trying.
[00:04:59] But anyway, it doesn't matter. It was so out of character for me. I am practical. I am not romantic. If you listen to my story about finding my husband, it was all strategy and, no romantic kind of bone in my body, maybe in my little finger because to be fair, I did just write mark a song.
[00:05:17] So there's that. Anyway, that's another day, another story. and so I'm not romantic, but I'm very practical. I loved, loved having a motorbike. I also knew when it was time to retire the bike. It was the worst decision I made. When I wanted to go out, I had to have like a lead time of an hour just to get suited up to go in that thing.
[00:05:38] No one else was riding, so then it was just me on my own. and it actually made me feel a little bit lonely. A little bit like business, I suppose, where you feel like you are on your own until you find that community of people that understand you and know you. So I woke up one morning and I went, I actually don't like being a motorbike rider, which is so random because you [00:06:00] sink all this money into the gear, into the bike, into clubs, and all the things. But I just wasn't loving it. I just was not feeling safe on the bike. I'd only had it for a few months and I could have gone, I'll just let it sit in the shed, but I'm like, actually, I don't want to let it sit in the shed.
[00:06:16] I actually want someone else to enjoy it. Who? Wants to go and ride it. Who loves riding it? I could have made it mean I was a failure. I could have made it mean I've sunk a lot of money into this silly hobby that everyone told me not to do. I could have been embarrassed about it, was I, no, I don't have those bones in my body.
[00:06:35] I just thought I've tried it. And now it's time to stop. And I'm okay with that. And sometimes in business we put a new offer out, doesn't work, so we stop. It's no big deal. But what is the big deal is the meaning that you give things. I didn't give it any meaning. Expect I didn't love it anymore. That's all.
[00:06:54] And so we stopped. I sold it. I sold it to a beautiful gentleman and he was so stoked at the low case on it, and also so stoked that he also had a girlfriend and she fitted all of my gear. So bonus for everyone. I feel like it's a win-win, win just as sometimes in business it can be a win-win, don't you think? even if you make the worst decision of your life, which this is one of them for me. You can pull out at any time. You can pivot at any time. You can just choose to get off the bike, sell your equipment, and get going.
[00:07:25] And the same in business, right? I was determined to, ride as many cases as I possibly could, but you know, at the end I'm like, Who am I doing it for? Who cares? And so if you lose that passion, you gotta work out what do I do next? And for me it was ditching the bike and getting back behind the wheel of a car.
[00:07:44] Anyway. I hope you have enjoyed this episode. we are trying some new things here and we would love to hear what you think about them. I know riding a motorbike doesn't sound very sexy to some people, but it was very sexy to me. And, uh, if you could be so kind as to [00:08:00] leave us a comment on Spotify or Apple, we would love to hear from you.
[00:08:03] Thank you so much for coming along today.
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