Creative Heleena Trahanas on Sustained Passion, Creating With the People You Trust and Finding the Beauty in Imperfection

Interior Designer Chloe Matters on Burning Out, Starting Over and Rebuilding a Life on Her Own Terms

Chloe Matters is the founder and creative director of Matters and Made, one of Sydney's most distinctive interior design studios. Chloe came into the world with an innate confidence - a willingness to back herself and simply go for it. Which is exactly what makes her honesty in this conversation so compelling. She's remarkably candid about what it felt like to lose that confidence. She launched Matters and Made when her second child was just six months old and her first had only recently turned one. What followed wasn't the version of success she'd imagined. There was burnout, the end of her marriage, and a period where her confidence was completely shaken. So she rebuilt. Learning to trust herself again, to work differently, and to define success on her own terms. In this conversation, we explore the role our homes play in regulating the nervous system, how her relationship with work has evolved, and the non-negotiables that now shape the way she lives, leads and designs. Follow Chloe: @mattersandmade_ | Find her at mattersandmade.com ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Creative Heleena Trahanas on Sustained Passion, Creating With the People You Trust and Finding the Beauty in Imperfection

Heleena Trahanas is PR and Marketing Manager at Dinosaur Designs and co-founder of Alex and Trahanas - the Sydney-born Mediterranean lifestyle brand she built with her friend Alexandra Heard. Heleena's family came from Greece - her grandparents migrated separately, each building something from nothing. That tenacity is in everything she does. She has spent over thirteen years at Dinosaur Designs while building Alex and Trahanas on the side - a world of hand-painted Italian ceramics, beautiful linen, and a deep love of the Mediterranean way of life, now celebrating ten years. In this conversation, we talk about what it actually takes to sustain passion and creative energy over a long professional tenure, how Alex and Trahanas was born on a friendship built on shared loves, and why joy - not grind - sits at the centre of everything Heleena creates .Find Alex and Trahanas at alexandtrahanas.com | Dinosaur Designs at dinosaurdesigns.com.au | Follow: @alexandtrahanas @heleenatrahanas [https://www.instagram.com/heleenatrahanas/#] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Pilates Founder Ali Handley on Determination, Scaling With Soul and the Power of Community

Ali Handley is the founder of Bodylove Pilates with four studios across Sydney, Bali on the horizon and a community of women who are deeply, genuinely devoted to what she has built. Ali didn't find her calling immediately. She started in PR and media before discovering Pilates in New York, where she specialised in prenatal and postnatal work. She came home to Sydney in 2018 and opened her first studio a month after having her third child. In this conversation we talk about what it really takes to scale something without losing the soul of it, how she holds the line between gut instinct and hard data and the role of genuine community in building a business that lasts. Bodylove has been a consistent anchor in my life for the past six years - through grief, burnout, pregnancy and recovery - and has fundamentally changed my relationship with my body and with movement. I'm share excited to share Ali's with you. Find Bodylove Pilates at bodylove-pilates.com | Bodylove Mamas at bodylove-mamas.com | Follow Ali: @bodylove_pilates ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Model and writer Jessica Vander Leahy on Building a Career That Doesn't Box You In, Conscious Balance and Why Boundaries Are an Act of Compassion

Jessica Leahy is a journalist, model and author and one of the most joyfully multi-hyphenate women I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with. Raised in Papua New Guinea before moving to Sydney, Jess built an incredible career across two worlds - as a journalist working across Australia's leading women's publications, while simultaneously building a modelling career with Bonds, RM Williams, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Jess built her modelling career at a time when there were very few women who looked like her in Australian fashion. She didn't just succeed in spite of that - she used her platform to make sure more women like her could. She is also the author of Loved People, Love People - a gorgeous children's book about self-love. In this chat, we talk about the portfolio career before it had a name, what it means to be malleable in a world that wants you to stay in your lane, and why advocating for your own boundaries is the most important thing you can do. Follow Jess: @jessicavanderleahy  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Lucky Dragon's Stephanie Feher on Embracing Every Setback, the Dinner Party That Became a Career and What Happens When You Finally Go All In

Stephanie Feher is the founder of Lucky Dragon Supper Club, author, content creator, and someone who has built something genuinely original in a space that didn't exist before she created it. Stephanie grew up in an Australian-Chinese-Hungarian household, and that mix of cultures runs through everything she makes. She studied music, taught briefly, wound up in digital and tech - and after Covid started filming her dinner parties just for the love of it. Lucky Dragon grew from there, slowly and on the side, into a community of people who wanted to cook and gather the way she did. She built it while life kept interrupting. The redundancies weren't the plan but they became the permission she needed. And then everything happened at once and she went all in. In this conversation we talk about building something without a blueprint, the shift from perfectionism to a pursuit of excellence and why the dinner table has always been where she feels most herself. Follow Stephanie: @luckydragonsupperclub | Find her book wherever great books are sold ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.