THE PODCAST FOR ONLINE COURSE CREATORS GOING BIG!

 

Join business strategist Tina Tower as she explores how to build your empire by packaging your expertise into online courses, speaking, content, podcasting and credibility.

Tina has over 17 years of experience in starting, building and selling companies, she's a speaker, teacher, mama and world traveller.

She's unapologetic about living an intentionally big life and if you want too, this show is designed to show you many different options to help you gain clarity over YOUR version of awesome.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

You may know my guest today as many different things. She's a reality TV star from Survivor, a corporate keynote speaker, an endurance athlete, a mama, a wife, a course creator and founder of HerTrails and a philanthropist. Samantha Gash is the very picture of what it looks like to live a big, beautiful, massive life!

Sam has more energy and spunk in her pinky finger than a lot of people are ever able to experience and today, she's sharing how it all fits together, how she entered this wonderful world of online courses, and above all else, how she does life her way.

It's educational, inspirational and I am such a fan!

OUR PODCAST GUEST - SAMANTHA GASH

 

Find Sam at hertrails.com

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/samanthagash

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Show transcription

 

Tina Tower 00 :00 :00
Hi, friend , and welcome to episode 202 of the Female Course Creator show. Today I have for you not
only such an incredible inspirational Course creator , the founder of her Trails, Samantha Gash, but she's
undefinable one of those people which so many successful people are undefinable . So Sam I met at a
business chicks conference a couple of years ago. I was in the audience , she was on stage and I was
there just awed at her in going , look at this . So she's shorter than me and I am short , so I'm nearly five
foot one. Sam, I think , is four nine and this tiny human that does all of these massive things . So she's an
endurance athlete , an inspirational speaker , a relief run co founder , an AIA vitality ambassador , world
vision and royal flying doctor service , goodwill ambassador , mum , wife and reality TV star from Survivor .
So Sam is many, many things , but what I love most , and one of the main reasons why I asked them to be
on the show is because I admire people that live big . I admire people that kind of throw out the rule book
in this life that we feel like we're supposed to live but really identify with . This is the life that I want to be
able to lead and then just go about doing that . And Sam lives the most . Like, I don't think I've spoken to
someone recently that he's just so alive and does this and that and all of the good things that make her
feel good , that make the people around her feel good and that are good for the world . She is an
incredible , incredible human and so down to earth and just so fabulous in all of the things you're going to
love this conversation we run past why she runs in deserts . She was the first woman and youngest
person to run the Four Desert Grand Slam. Which one of my questions is why ? Why Sam? Why?


Tina Tower 00 :02 :16
So she's going to answer that one. She's raised over $1.3 million for different charities . She's the
founder of her Trails. So her Trails is her online program , which is a global female adventure platform ,
empowering women to discover their resilience self reliance and play through connecting to the Trail
nature and themselves . So super , super cool . She's just so cool and I'm a fan girl . So enjoy this chat with
the incredible Samantha Gash. Hello and welcome to the Female Course Creators show. I'm your
business strategist and host Tina Tower, and I am so happy you are here . My goal with this show is to
bring you the inspirational and informative interviews as well as the tool tips and resources to help you
build your online business . Since I started my first business at 20, I've built and sold four times . And in
2018, while I was traveling around the world with my family for a year, I tripped and fell into this
wonderful world of online courses and I instantly fell in love. It's so leveraged , impactful , scalable . I'm a
million dollar course creator , world traveler , bestselling author , mummer of two , manchildren and wife .
And I know that when you have the courage , knowledge and support , you can shortcut your success .
There's no one way, no set path to follow . Despite what some may tell us, this is your business and your
life to design . And in the Female Course Creator show, we explore all of the methods so that it can ignite
ideas like fireworks in your mind and help you to take massive action boldly in the direction of your
dreams . There's no playing small here . It's your time to grow, to run a highly profitable business that
makes you a wildly wealthy woman while you positively impact your clients and have the life you've
always dreamed of. Let's get it

Tina Tower 00:04 :05
Samantha Gash. Welcome to the female course creator show.

Samantha Gash 00:04 :09
I'm so excited . Makes me think when we first met too, at a female event , 2020 , something like that .

Tina Tower 00:04 :22
Was it before COVID or like in the bubble window ? During COVID where we go, maybe the window , we
got it out . That was so fun. And you were such a superstar . I mean, that was the first time that I had seen
you standing on the stage and just like, look at this powerhouse of a teeny tiny woman. Because for
those that don't know how tall are you, Sam?

Samantha Gash 00:04 :45
I'm just a smidgen under five foot .

Tina Tower 00:04 :49
I'm nearly five one five foot and a half.

Samantha Gash 00:04 :52
What's that ? I should know this saying so much better , but it's not the size of the dog , but the fight in
the dog . Yeah, I bet that's totally my saying. And then I didn't even know what the full saying is, but so
that's .

Tina Tower 00:05:06
A good place to start , because , like, if we describe you so so your thing is endurance athlete ,
inspirational speaker, relief run, co founder , AIA Vitality , ambassador ambassador for World Vision, royal
Flying Doctors . You're a mum, you're a wife , you're a reality TV star, you're a coffee creator , you're a
runner, you're all these things . How do you describe you?

Samantha Gash 00:05:28
I mean, it really depends on speaking to me and how I'm feeling on the day. I mean, I wear a lot of hats,
like I think a lot of women do. But the interesting thing , like, you know, the further on in my journey I get ,
the more they all are threaded together . So they're all on this thing specifically of, like, exploration of
mind , you know, like the utility of how you explore your mind through connection with your body and
connection with nature , the connection of women being able to be in space , physical or virtual with each
other. And then what is that power ? And you can bring that force together . And typically it's like thinking
of a purpose bigger than yourself . And that's where that social impact advocacy space comes . Because
if I think about it from a personal perspective , I've gone through that journey , I've explored myself, my
mind , my body's capabilities . And then the natural point is like, when you see who you are and you're
constantly growing as a person , so many people have the inevitable question of, can this be something
bigger than just for myself ?

Tina Tower 00:06:29
Yeah.

Samantha Gash 00:06:30
And so that's where the lens of growth and the lens of exploration has taken me, to a place where I like
to think bigger .

Tina Tower 00:06:38
And so on that note , because a lot of the work that we do with people in online courses is crafting your
personal brand and how to show yourself to the world . Now, with so many like, you are the
quintessential , multi , passionate entrepreneur . Do you actively say, this is my personal brand , these are
the bits I'll show, these are the bits I won't ? Or are you total open to all the growth ? And every year you
evolve and just come as you are and what will be, will be? How do you kind of work that balance in?

Samantha Gash 00:07:09
Well, you're still always conscious about what you share. Even if you're an open roar, even people say an
open book , it's still a conscious , deliberate decision how far you go. And I do like to retain privacy and
boundaries to my personal life. People might think that they know everything about me, but the reality is
you don't . You still know what I choose to share. And then you know what you interpret from what I've
shared .

Tina Tower 00:07:35
Yeah.

Samantha Gash 00:07:35
And so you do things like reality TV and people then think they understand you even more or they know
what you're about . And I'm like, no, you know what ? The editor wanted you to know about me.

Tina Tower 00:07:46
Which on the last one because you've been on Survivor twice .

Samantha Gash 00:07:49
Yeah.

Tina Tower 00:07:49
And on the last one, I felt like they depicted you very differently to what they did on the first one. Yeah.

Samantha Gash 00:07:57
I reckon the second time I was badass . Let's be realistic . Women are listening to this podcast , so you'll
get this and I hopefully this is something that you think about when you're watching reality TV.
Mainstream Australian , I don't know where it 100% sits in, like, the US society . We are still not yet
comfortable watching intelligent women make decisions on TV and corral people to our position and feel
comfortable about it. And that's who I am. I'm someone that is strategic in my personal life and my
professional life. I know what my objective is, and I like to reverse engineer how to get to that objective .
So whether that's in my business , in my personal life, if I'm trying to help my family win $500,000 on TV,
it's intentional and I'm not ashamed about it. I think my first season round , I was that person , and I didn't
do it particularly well because I think the first time you go on reality TV, you don't even know what the
game is. And then when I went back a second time , I was like, I know what this game is now, and I'm
going to go and I'm going to go and win it.

Tina Tower 00:09:11
So how did that come about in the first place ? What made you go? You know what ? I'm all these things
I'm going to.

Samantha Gash 00:09:17
Do Survivor, I just run across India. Well, so I've done something , really. I'd completed basically a six year
goal where from ideation to putting the infrastructure together to doing this 77 day expedition , I finish
that , experience that journey , and then I kind of typically have a thing where I go into restoration because
I don't want to be defined by one thing . And so I'm then open to different areas of my life. Sometimes I'm
intrigued into areas of my life that I've possibly neglected to be single minded to go going across India.
And so I was just open in that space of not wearing a watch and not running all the time , but still
spending time in nature to have clarity and, you know, move my body. I just was listening to, like, little
signals of where I should put my energy into . And in a week, three people came up to me and said,
auditions are open for Survivor. I reckon you'd be awesome at it. I mean, hey, you just ran across India.
And I loved watching the show Survivor. And I was like, oh, I don't think I want to do reality TV, but I also
love putting myself in the deep end and seeing if I can get something that seems really challenging to
get onto . Yes, I love hacking the code . And so I auditioned with the intention of if they ever auditioned
me and I got on, I just wouldn't do it because , hey, I don't want to be on reality TV.

Tina Tower 00:10:50
Really? You just wanted to see if you could ?

Samantha Gash 00:10:52
Yeah, I kind of was just intrigued by the process . I mean, it seemed like a process that seemed you watch
it on the US american Survivor, you know, tens of thousands of people have applied , like, make someone
get onto those things . And so I put my audition video in just being really myself. And then I got a call the
next day and then the audition process went and I'm like, no, I'm not going to do this . But then I got
caught up and I was like, you know what ? Maybe this is my thing . And I got on it and then I was like, this
is not my thing . I did it. It was not my thing because I was still trying to be like, this is Samantha Gash.
And I got burnt for being who I was. And then the second time around , my husband and I were asked to
do it. We've just been hit by a massive storm through our community . The downtown ranges we were in
covered , so we're in epic lockdown in Melbourne . And when they said, oh, it's going to be like in
Queensland , get me out . We're like, get us the fuck out of Melbourne . And then I was like, if we're going
to do this the second time around , we're going to be smart about it, this we're not going to get caught
up in the public perception . We're going to go into the team. We're going to reverse engineer this the
right way. And I'm like, I'm going to research what is the code ? What's the code to win this ?

Tina Tower 00:12:16
I love this so much .

Samantha Gash 00:12:18
And the craziest part is like the code to win it, it's sometimes dropping your ego, which is something I
can do really good because you have to do that as an endurance athlete all the time . You create this epic
plan to get you to a start line and then you realize that plan built yourself belief and your confidence to
stand on the start line of something so unknown . But the reality of what gets you to whatever is that
finishing line, which could change its parameter and goalposts all the time is adaptability . And you can
only be adaptable when you're willing to drop your ego because ego makes you rigid . Ego makes you
feel like you have to hold tightly under something , even if all the set of circumstances in front of you no
longer suit that beautiful plan that you created , that you color coded , that you got an Excel spreadsheet
that you declared to the universe , this is how this thing is going to look . And so for anyone who watched
Survivor, like one of Marks and my tenets of winning that game, which was a season of blood versus
water, where you were a team but you're an individual where it doesn't matter who wins. We just need to
make sure that one of us wins. And I essentially sacrificed my game a couple of times throughout that
experience so that Mark had a better shot at.

Tina Tower 00:13:32
It and that didn't hurt a little .

Samantha Gash 00:13:35
What hurts sometimes showed up like us having these little domestics on TV because we're this couple
that were essentially playing for one of us to win. Because if one of us wins, it goes to our bank account .
And that was the objective . And I think at times Mark's ego got caught up into like I want to prevail .

Tina Tower 00:13:54
Well, it would be hard not to. I mean, you both love a challenge . You both love to succeed . You both love
that achievement .

Samantha Gash 00:14:02
And it's totally fair. I was actually impressed that I was happy to bow out because I could say, I think
you've got the better numbers . We've made a few decisions earlier on in the game that place you in a
better position . Let's be realistic . People are often happier to hand over money to someone who's Mark's
archetype versus my archetype , I could see the people on the jury just naturally had an inclination more
to Mark than me and I was willing to do the dirty .

Tina Tower 00:14:30
Work that is incredible .

Samantha Gash 00:14:31
Pam so I actually genuinely didn't care. The only times I had a care is when I didn't feel like Mark valued
what I was doing for our family. And it was just like in the moment stuff that was the hardest part to
reconcile . And then we get off the show and it's totally fine . And then I felt like I still played such a role in
that win, even though team at the end of the day and you don't need to be the person like when you
think about teams , you don't need to be the person whose face is plastered on everything . Like if you
work in great teams where every person honors your contribution and creates space for you to be in
your lane and lets you expand and develop , you don't need the applause and the credit . Something .

Tina Tower 00:15:16
I was talking to my sons about this the other day because they're talking about school and they've gone
into year eight and year nine now, so they're like, manchildren . And they were talking about because I've
just hired a whole lot of team in ours. And I was talking about how strange it is that things are happening
and things are getting done and so good and we're , like, winning . But then I feel odd that I didn't do it,
and then somehow it feels like I cheated because people are like, oh, my God, that's amazing . And I'm
going , yeah, it wasn't me. And I was talking to them about that and going what school is teaching them is
that they're cheating if they collaborate and work together . And they have to be really cognizant of that
as they go through school because life is only done really well and they can only build businesses . And
even if they choose corporate , whatever they choose to do, they need to allow other people to help
them and to work with them and to have that team. So how did you develop that to not have to do
everything yourself ? Because even through all of your endurance , running and everything , you've got a
massive team that is essentially keeping you alive. I've seen some of your videos , Dan. They're crazy.

Samantha Gash 00:16:21
Yeah. So many people who don't realize a part of who I am is an endurance athlete . And I have taken part
in events all over the world , typically in quite extreme and hostile environments where you really don't
know what's going to happen , not just to your body, which the reality is what's happening to your body is
probably a bit more controllable than what's happening in the environment around you. Culturally ,
politically , logistically . Like, that stuff is sometimes the really hard parameter . And some of these I've
done with a crew who are physically there with me and they're helping me make decisions and they're
contributing to my health or they're contributing to my logistics , or they're contributing to the social
impact component of it. And then there's times when there's no one. Like in my most recent expedition
in Nepal, it was me and my teammate Jesse. And then we had people who were back in Australia who
were working on the campaign . And I think I've learned it by probably having an inclination to try and do
everything and realize that I just can't create scalable , sustained , meaningful work if it's all driven from
me. I'm trying to learn to get better with boundaries and realize that if you try and do everything , you'll
do it at a kind of mediocre level. But if you can nail your area, your lane, and work with people that you
trust to be in their lane, then you're going to get so much further . But the reality with that is you have to
learn to let go. And here's the controversial thing . I had a meeting with World Vision. I presented a part
of a documentary that I did when I was in Nepal. There were my sectorial expert . I've been a Google
ambassador for nearly eight years. And then I met the new CEO, and he's been there for a bit less than
two years, and he's such an interesting cat. And as we were talking , we both shared this feeling of the
whole consensus model is bullshit . Like, we feel like we have to get on meetings and everyone has to
feel good about something for it to go forward . Why is it important for me to feel good about something
that I have no experience in? That's not my lane. That's taking so much time for us to get on this zoom
call and where , you know, we're trying to defend our position and this , and then now I have to feel good
about it. If I've got someone whose specific job is content creation of strength and mobility
programming , all that really needs to happen is she just needs to give a report on where she's at with
that and if I trust her. Cool. Sounds great . It's great for me to know where you're at and what tasks have
been done, but I don't need to feel good about where you've moved with it or the substantive content of
it. And I think we waste a lot of time in business all trying to get on the same page. You feel that you
need to be on the same page with your entire team, maybe have a think about the team members that
you've got on board or your need to be directly connected to every element of your business .

Tina Tower 00:19:19
It's a learned skill. I think when people start to let go of that and then realize that , hey, we can trust the
process , it's all okay. People are actually really good at their jobs when we let them do that .

Samantha Gash 00:19:29
And they are more invested . You talk about how do you get people to be legacy team members , and it
doesn't always have to be for a really long time , but the goal is when you bring people on. You typically
want them to stay for a long time . Let them feel like they're creating part of the business , that they own
it. You will get people to stay so much longer, to be so much more connected and invested and work
harder for what you're creating as a team than if they just feel like they're a very small cog in the
machine .

Tina Tower 00:19:59
It's great advice . I would like to ask you more about , like you mentioned earlier with Survivor, that the
first time you got really judged with that . And a lot of people , when they're trying to show up online , it's
hard knowing the judgment and showing yourself in that light . You've done that on steroids because
you've done reality TV and you're a keynote speaker, which even to me, I find one of the most polarizing
things with all the light speeding down on you, annoying . There's just like people just staring at you from
the audience in there . Even when I went to do all of the questions for this interview , the first thing I do is
Google people . And when I Googled Samantha Gash, the three top questions that come up is how old is
Samantha Gash? Like, why do people care? Second . Are Mark and Sam still together ? And third , how tall
is Sam? Australia survivor questions ? And I was going , gosh , how do you deal with you put your
relationship online as well with Survivor that you get judged in so many different ways? How have you
developed that thick skin to know whose opinion matters ? Because it's one thing to say don't care about
other people's opinions , another thing to not feeling .

Samantha Gash 00:21:11
Yeah, I'd love to know what are the most common questions ? If you put Mark's name up.

Tina Tower 00:21:16
Hold on, find out live while we're here. Mark Wales. What does Mark do for a living ?

Samantha Gash 00:21:26
I know, I know.

Tina Tower 00:21:27
There we go. Does Mark know? Ask them . And Mark still together . Same second question . What rank
was Mark Wales? There we go.

Samantha Gash 00:21:37
Yeah. They care more about his profession . It's just what I look like and what's my relationship .

Tina Tower 00:21:41
And how old are you, Sam? Exactly the same age.

Samantha Gash 00:21:47
The desert really helps my aging process .

Tina Tower 00:21:51
So how do we deal with that ?

Samantha Gash 00:21:54
Before Survivor, I felt like I had a really peachy brand . I mean, who's going to hate on the girl that's
running for charity ?

Tina Tower 00:21:59
Yes.

Samantha Gash 00:22:00
And so it would be mainly people who are ultra runners that might feel a bit jealous or how does she
manage to pull partners and sponsors on board , never realizing that there's so much hard work that
goes behind the scenes . And anyone who knows me deeply knows that I, like, work my butt off for every
single thing that I've created . And it hasn't come easy, but people only see the outward thing and so
sometimes you feel like you get judged by the people who were typically in your industry the most . But
then when I went on Survivor, yeah, there was definitely more negative commentary and trolling and very
typically not about how I played the game, but it got personal . Like, the questions would be like, she
must be a terrible mum, or I remember when I fell pregnant with Harry, people were like, I hate that baby.
The baby's not born . That's an ultrasound . But it was just and so it feels like everyone's feeling this and
everyone's thinking this , but when you kind of can take one step away from it and I could typically take a
step out once I'd gotten voted off the game. When you're in it, it feels so intense . The moment on both
seasons , the moment I got voted out , it was amazing that my care level dropped . And I was like, it's the
same few people who are making these comments . Overwhelmingly , people either haven't watched the
show, so don't care, watch the show, and are not thinking deeply about it. That said, I did sit on a plane
once coming back from her Trials retreat in the Lara Pinter, and there was a guy sitting next to me who
was the former CFO of Swiss, and he told me that initially when he watched , I made this big move on the
game. I stole someone's idol, blah, blah, blah. It was a great move. Like, it was amazing . And he said
when he first watched it, he really disliked me. And then his wife called him out going , you know, a few
seasons back , like, a guy made a similar kind of move, and he thought it was the best move of Survivor
history . And she's like, you know that you have two daughters and you're critiquing a woman for being
strategic when you saw it in someone else. And he thought it was incredible . And so he said, how he like,
we're having this really great conversation . He's like, yeah, I really got caught on my bias. And so where I
feel with it now is a lot of the confrontation or the trolling that I get is kind of related to gender. It's
related to how people perceive women online , how they feel when to show up in a public arena, and
definitely also in a personal arena. Like, I went to Nepal for 70 days last year without my four year old
son. And like, yeah, I get a lot of feedback from women , even more than men.

Tina Tower 00:24:46
I get , without a doubt , every single time I go away for business for more than two weeks, sometimes
even sometimes even less than two weeks, I will get messages on Instagram saying, one, how does your
husband let you do that ? Is a big one. How do you deal with the guilt about being away from your kids ?
I'm like, I don't have any, which then gets it even more riled out . But I get those questions all the time
when I'm doing business , which I can imagine when you go on your big endurance runs for 11million
years that you would get them as well?

Samantha Gash 00:25:23
Oh, I do. And it's so projected in the person , and I think it is hard. I mean, I do have a little bit of guilt and
you can do an endurance project and have a fear of heights and have a fear of fast flowing water. I think
we can have duality of fear or guilt and still be incredible businesswomen and have to actually confront
our fears or confront our guilt . We can live alongside it. We're incredible women . We can
compartmentalize that , live alongside it. And it's okay to say that for me, that I don't have a degree of
guilt would be incorrect . I don't like being away from my son and missing these incredible moments and
milestones that he's doing , like, so much as a, you know, nearly five year old. But also, I have in the back
of my mind that , like, I can be a great mum and I'm very, very present when I'm around and I'm around a
lot of the time , but also, like, I want to be me. Like, you know, I didn't have a child till I was 33. I crafted a
sense of self that was separate to my identity as a mother . When my child becomes 18, he might want to
leave the home. And if I haven't retained a piece of me and cultivated my own personal growth there's a
lot of women on the other side of their forty s and sixty s that are really having to recapture themselves
once their children leave home. There's no right and wrong about these processes . Some people go like,
I just want to be fully present and I'll deal with that , Reidentification later on. I preference not to go
through that . I preference to try and make it work . And it's never a balance and it always looks messy. It's
sometimes a total shit show, but this is the pathway that I've chosen to do that makes no sense to me.
And it doesn't mean that when Harry is eight that I might not be like, you know what , I'm going to put my
career on pause and I'm going to take my kids around Australia in a caravan and I'm going to be fully
mum mode and no business . It might look different .

Tina Tower 00:27:21
And it was the best year of my life.

Samantha Gash 00:27:24
It's just I'm making changes just like I do in expeditions . It's always about the micro , every single
moment , decisions that shift all the time . So I would say to people who are feeling , like, the judgment , it's
typically the person's problem , it's not yours . Someone said to me the other day, I struggle to do a five k
park run. How do you then go across Nepal? And I'm like, that's on you. Like, if you struggle to release, I
mean, that should take you no more than an hour. If you're not comfortable leaving your kid for. An hour.
That's on you. And I've got my strategies . I actually took Harry out for two weeks in Nepal and we did a
seven, eight day trek in the Lang Tang Valley. So I might not do some things that mums do, like I might
not always be there to pick up or drop off. But then on the flip side, I take him for seven days hiking up to
4000 meters above sea level. We do it our own way.

Tina Tower 00:28:20
He's got the wonderfully unconventional lives.

Samantha Gash 00:28:22
Yeah, but everyone's way is kind of unconventional because you're all trying to just make it fit for you. So
now I have people judge me that it's too extreme that I did it. But then I also have people go, oh, now
seeing that you're doing it and like, Harry's not a superhero , I'm not a superhero . I just put all my
attention into him in that moment , helping him. I mean, it was amazing . And we have good memories for
life. And now on a daily basis he goes, I want to go hiking this year, we're going to the mountains and I
want to see the snow. Nice.

Tina Tower 00:28:51
Yeah. So you are so driven by challenge and very ambitious and have all of these different opportunities .
How do you decide what to say yes to and what to say no to when you've got so many? Like, you would
always have more ideas and options than time and energy available. How do you discern what you're
going to put that energy to?

Samantha Gash 00:29:14
I go through phases where if we call ideas like balls and sometimes the balls are sitting on the table and
sometimes you're throwing them all up in the air. I do both . I have a lot of balls for sure. Like from I've
currently just signed a publishing contract to write my book .

Tina Tower 00:29:31
Congratulations .

Samantha Gash 00:29:33
Thank you. I've really got to sit down .

Tina Tower 00:29:37
You could write it Gary V. Style. He did it walking the streets of New York and like voice dictated it.
Maybe just run, Sam, just run.

Samantha Gash 00:29:46
No, you never know. And then I obviously got her trails , which is a massive focus for me because I really
have felt the impact , the positive impact onto the lives of the women who were taking part of our
programs and retreats . And so it's a massive driver for me. But we are shifting up a bit of our business
because that business started drilling covered and our model really suited covered . And I do think we're
in a new world now of how people want to feel connection to community and so if you don't evolve, you
die. And so we're in like an evolution period of how we deliver those programs . I'm also creating I've got
documentaries coming out from Nepal. I've got another series in mind which will have me traveling quite
a bit . And I'm creating another online course for resilience in motion . So fair to say there's a lot of balls
during COVID when my entire oh, I'm a corporate speaker, but corporate speaking left during COVID And
it was terrifying to see your entire year of work evaporate in a week. But then I was like, okay, cancel the
Netflix subscription . Canceled . I canceled the spot . I canceled anything that didn't seem relevant at that
time to just save a little bit of money and to kind of feel like I had control of what was my expenditure .
And then I was like, okay, with that saved money, I'm going to invest that in some of these ideas that
have been, like, percolating , like the balls that were in the basket that you couldn't reach. And so I
grabbed that entire basket across , and I was like, Throw them on. And so I released a podcast . I started
her trails . Like, I was writing more. I was doing a YouTube channel . It sounds crazy because people were
like, how did you do it all at once? And the reality is, you can't do it at all at once for a sustained period
of time , but when you're doing them all at once, you really work out what you care about the most . And
so as some of those balls are dropping , I saw which ones I kept trying to catch to keep them alive. So
that was a really good test for me to see where I felt compelled to where was my audience most
attracted to. And then the following year, after kind of COVID that subsided a little bit in terms of, you
know, us having to be locked in at home. Twenty four, seven. I then started to say no to a bunch of them
and go, right now I'm going to focus on this one, which was like Her Trails and bring corporate speaking
back . That's kind of how, in that moment , I think I what's right for the.

Tina Tower 00:32:14
Next part rather than yeah.

Samantha Gash 00:32:16
And that doesn't mean that they totally those ideas aren't extinct of some of the ones that I started . It's
just that you then have an awareness of how much time they each take. Sometimes I think when it's just
a theoretical idea, like a podcast , I release 30 podcasts in a year. And I know you do a lot because I was
also trying to save money. I did every element I edited , I did a lot . I loved it, and it served a really
beautiful role for me when I was having disconnection with society and not having great conversations .
And like, I'm going to incorporate that back a bit now. But I just think yeah, I think sometimes you got to
be willing to, like, put yourself on the edge to do the dance and see which one you care about the most .

Tina Tower 00:32:59
I love that . So talk to us about Her Trails and how you've set up your online empire .

Samantha Gash 00:33:04
Oh, my gosh . I know. Do you know what ? Her Trails really makes me feel like I'm an entrepreneur and a
business owner versus being a conduit for other people's objectives . So I always kind of put myself in
the category of entrepreneur , typically as a social entrepreneur , but I think I was as a corporate speaker.
Yes, you have your own business , but you're waiting for someone to book you. And so I felt like I didn't
have as much control over the direction of that . Yeah, I could say what my speaking topics were for the
year. Yes, I could go out and do my own marketing , but a lot of the times , you're still waiting for someone
to go. I see value in what you are doing for our corporate business . And so now what I love is her trial is,
like, everything that I live and breathe and think is important for women to feel personal growth , to feel
value, to feel connection through the lens in which I understand , which is in nature movement in a
sustained and safe, holistic way. So typically , our idea is bringing trail , running to the masses, to the
female masses. And I would say our target demographic is women 30 and above who are professional
women who have children . Now, that you don't have to do it if you can be 20 and not have a kid, and
that's totally fine. But my business owner, Beck and I are both we're in our mid to late 30s . We're mums ,
we run our own businesses , and we attract like, does attract like, you can't change how the verbiage that
you use to always suit everyone . So I feel like over time , like, we have, in times , really tried to expand our
language to encompass everyone . And then I'm like, you know what ? Own your area. Own your area.
There's incredible programs for women in their early 20s , but I feel like we can really service that
woman, you know, mid thirty s and above forty s, fifty s. We've got women up to their seventy s, and we
really talk about within our programs . How do you honor where you are physically and mentally are in
this stage of your life? So we talk a lot about being perimenopausal menopausal postmenopausal and
how that should affect how you move your body, how you nutritionally support your body, how you
should honor rest and recovery . So it's an online program . You can do it from anywhere in the world , but
we have a really strong community for each program . And then once COVID stopped , we then started to
do, like, really high caliber, high touch , incredible adventures to bring a bespoke service to women who
wanted to go to the entirely next level. So we started with the Lara pinter. We've just done our first
retreat in Hobart and Brunei Island, and it's like, oh, my God, it's , like, insane. I know. When I talked about
it the first time , and you were, like, one of the first women to sign up to our Lara Pinter retreat . It's
incredibly high caliber women who are investing in themselves understand that self care isn't just going
and having a bubble bar.

Tina Tower 00:36:07
It was the idea of being with women that are awesome in the middle of nowhere and just being able to
breathe and get that simple part of life back .

Samantha Gash 00:36:15
Yeah. And carving space , like, carving space isn't just for a day. You need more time , and you need to be
able to release your routine . And if you think about , like, here's this crazy thing , we're willing to lose our
sense of self, we're willing to lose our sense of belonging , we're willing to lose our sense of purpose . But
so, typically , we hold onto comfort really tightly . Pretty much everyone globally has a TV and a couch .
And so I do believe that the most fast track way for growth is to put yourself out of your comfort zone.
And there's many, many ways that you can do it. I think changing your routine is one of them . But the
bigger way, like carving space , where you really start to reflect on who you are and the way you want to
go to, as I said when we first met, so many people live their life and autopilot of all the roles and
responsibilities they tie themselves with . I'm a mum. I work for someone . I work for myself. And it
occupies so much mental and physical bandwidth that it's only when you put a pause to all that stuff and
then you connect with other women in a space that is remote and desolate and you're walking or you're
doing meditation or you're doing yoga, that you can start to untie the knots .

Tina Tower 00:37:38
There's something so incredible . I mean, I travel a lot . I don't run, but I travel .

Samantha Gash 00:37:44
Our retreats are not running . PS. Our retreats are walking or they're meditation or their yoga. So it's even
more accessible to anyone.

Tina Tower 00:37:53
Yes, but I just think being in such a different environment , like, as soon as I was talking to my husband
about it the other day and going , there's something about getting on a plane and getting your head up.
Above the clouds , going into a totally different environment with new smells and languages and culture
and different things , and you're there . And I can literally be there for 24 hours and go, there's the
solution to all the problems I've been stressing about for ages. And I go, Why does that not happen at
home?

Samantha Gash 00:38:21
It just can't . I mean, yeah, sure, you can do a little . I mean, I'm constantly in the work . We're all in the
work . We have different ways of doing the work . We have therapists , we have our girlfriends . But
Immersive experiences are a fast track way of doing it. The last retreat that I just did in Hobart and
Brunei Island was the only women who had done Lara Pinter because I wanted to access and get into
stuff even quicker . And it was the most beautiful thing of seeing women who even summit had just done
the retreat four months earlier, but some had done them close to a year earlier what shifts they had
made in their everyday life. There was women who were now asking for promotions that were changing
their jobs , that were crafting better physical and mental routines that weren't just applicable to
themselves , but also to their entire families . Through this Tasmania and Brunei island retreat , I actually
started to reach out to all their family members . The women didn't know, but I was in contact with their
emergency contacts that were typically their partners or their mothers . And I started to like, I was
nervous to make those phone calls, but it was so interesting to see. I was like, you might not know who I
am. Like, your wife's coming on a retreat with me in a couple of weeks. They're like, I know exactly who
you are. And I was like, oh, gosh , they're going to be like, you know, my wife spends a lot of money on
your experiences . But what I really quickly learned is that it wasn't just an impact for their wives or their
partners or for their daughters . It was huge for their entire family. And I was like, yeah, I'm proud of the
work that we're doing and the work that these women are continuing to do when they get home. It's not
just this week flash in the pan, they're then connected like our WhatsApp group for each of the retreats
is just on fire . We've got a group of women we're going to set up to do the bond at a manly this year, an
80K ultra that you can do solo, but you can also do it in a relay of four. So essentially , you're a team of
four. You do your leg in the exact way that you want to do it. If you want to jog it, if you want to sprint it, if
you want to walk, run, no one cares. But you're a part of a team of four. And then you're a part of the
bigger community of her trails that will have recovery events and like connection events . And I asked all
the retreat members , would you like to come and join one of the teams ? And I reckon 85% to 90 % of the
women who've done the retreat signed up straight away because they see it, they see the power and
they're together .

Tina Tower 00:40 :46
And that's the thing , I think when like, online communities , it does move so much to community as well.
There's one thing to learn something in a course , but it really sticks and takes on its own when you can
build that community around it. And you've done such a beautiful job with that . I want to ask you, you do
a lot for different organizations and for charities and for a lot of philanthropy . A lot of people do what you
do, but don't have that social impact tied in. Where did that desire come from ? Because you've been
doing it for a long time too.

Samantha Gash 00:41:18
Yeah, so I think I initially talked about how I really spent time exploring self, testing out my physical and
mental boundaries , and then it connected to purpose and looking broader . But if I was to do like a real
honest gut check , it has been interwoven from the beginning , and it might have been in the way that I
was brought up. I just have felt it the power for self when you have a really hard wired bent to contribute
to others . And it doesn't have to be in these massive ways of trying to raise a million dollars for charity .
It's in the small, it's in the micro . It's like caring about your neighbor across the road. It's about post this
retreat . I just had a feeling that someone was going through something , was like picking up the phone
call and just checking in on them . Like, my friend's Dog is being put down today. And so I sent him a
video message today. It's like in the everyday I even say to Mark , like, I wake up the morning and I think
in my relationship and also with him, but also with other people , is there one thing that I can do today
that makes their life just a little bit easier? And I think I am fueled by that . And then the more you do it, I
guess you build your skill sets to do it on a bigger level. And it doesn't always, as I said, have to go
bigger . It all starts at home, and if you're not doing it at home, it's hard to do it broader . But yeah, I love
using the things that I'm good at, like community , running for change , and then getting people to have
their own experiences . It doesn't just have to be supporting me and have an experience and then
wanting to donate because that dries up quickly . The first time they see you do an expedition , everyone
gets behind it, but the second time around they're like, well, that's what you do. That's not really out of
your comfort zone. And I mean, it totally is out of your comfort zone, but it's a harder sell. And what I've
realized is people need to experience their own discomfort for them to care for a broader purpose .

Tina Tower 00:43 :11
Yeah. You are remarkable . Okay, last question is what's in store for 2023 ? Where's her trails heading ?
Where are you heading ?

Samantha Gash 00:43 :21
Yeah, I mean, we're heading into a bit of a split in the business to where we initially had these , like,
cohort start dates where we've got a ten k program that starts on this date and people would sign up.
And it worked so well, as I said during COVID when there weren't events going out there , so people were
just happy to wait for the date , but we've realized that people we're making it hard for people to buy our
product because events are happening . A community that's already established want to push
themselves to the next level. And if our program cohort start date doesn't fit in with an event , it's really
hard. So we're now going to lower the price of our existing programs , and they can be run at your own
pace. With community connection , a little bit less used to be a part of community , but in terms of our
integration into it, a little bit less, but more scheduled and clear. And then we're going to pick five
flagship events starting initially in Australia and New Zealand that our entire community will really put our
efforts behind . We'll create bespoke programs like this Bond Item Manly, where I'm going to go onto the
Bond Item Manly course and curate content specifically . Like, if you're doing this race, this is what the
terrain looks like. This is what you need to have in your pack for this , like, really specific , and then have
an incredible celebration where we come together and we're honoring our journey . So that kind of her
trials is going to split into that kind of model and really trying to get people to come and experience
those retreats , because when you see the shift in people , you realize that's where a lot of your energy
should go into .

Tina Tower 00:44 :58
Yeah, completely retreats in person events are so much work , but it's what makes it so much more fun.
Yeah.

Samantha Gash 00:45:06
And I think you've also got to know your skill set. I think I have. Like, one of my skill sets is, like, being
able to create a blueprint of an experience . Like, how do you take people through chapters and then
close off that chapter , then evolve them into the next one? I think I'm intuitively really good at it, and I'm
great at bringing the right people together . So when I talked before about letting people honor their
lanes, I had a team of six people who were facilitating in different areas the Tasmania retreat , and I let
them own their space . I trust them . If I brought you on to support these women on this experience , I trust
you so much . You do your thing and you let me know where I can support you. And then it just flowed so
beautifully . And for a first time retreat in a location with new facilitators , in my opinion , to go seamlessly .
The more times you do things in the unknown , the more times you back yourself to continue to go into
the unknown . And that's what I do.

Tina Tower 00:46 :03
That is such a good quote . That one's going in the notes .

Samantha Gash 00:46 :07
I love it because , like, I've wanted I mean, for everyone , I've wanted to work . I feel like I work with Tina,
but I haven't officially worked with Tina. All my friends know about tennatel like, everyone know about
everyone knows about ten of towels . I'm like Tina towel , you know, tentatel . And I feel like if we talk about
2023 2023 is the year that we're going to work together .

Tina Tower 00:46 :26
Yeah, maybe I'll start tracking part of my commitment . 2023 is vitality . So I have got a personal trainer
twice a week and I'm off alcohol . But it's been 45 days so far, and it is a new thing , so maybe it will be
what's the word ? Both of us?

Samantha Gash 00:46 :48
Do you know what to your audience , I could not encourage you more to experiment with being alcohol
free. We talk a lot about the negative effects for male culture and, like, the stigma of, like, celebrate
commiserate numb and dumb , and alcohol gets a part of all of those moments . Now, alcohol increases
your cortisol , where the reality is the majority of people who listen to your podcast are people who are
juggling a lot . So you don't need cortisol to be increased . That's basically your stress hormone . So it's
making you more stressed , more anxious , exposing yourself to mental illnesses , but more broadly , like
reducing mental happiness , because it's a depressant , it takes away clarity . It makes it harder for you to
shop in the morning to the things that are important to you because you're kind of like dealing with
sometimes shame and all this kind of stuff . So I've never really drunk that much and maybe had a little
drink here and there , but in the last couple of months , I've been around people who don't drink , and I
feel like I'm celebrating the power of not drinking a lot more. And at the end of our last retreat , it was an
alcohol free retreat , but at the very end of it, I closed off the retreat and a couple of people went out and
had a drink and totally fine and there was no judgment . But I feel like I'm going to incorporate in a little
bit of the information of, like, you've created this beautiful week for yourself , where it's been no alcohol ,
you've had no hangover of what I've said, because sometimes when you're drinking , you're not having
conscious conversations , like you're blubbering and dribbling about stuff . It's often superficial , and I just
think it's something in our hands to control . I think there are more and more women and we don't talk
about it because it's a bit shameful , but we're having a glass of wine when things are stressful . Two
glasses of wine, three glasses of wine. And I think the studies , if you're drinking even just one drink , one
glass a day, like, you're an alcoholic . Yeah.

Tina Tower 00:48 :53
Zero amounts of alcohol . That is healthy for you. Yeah, it's a hard thing . I mean, I'm new, I started in
December , so I've gone through Christmas , New Year's, my birthday , two weeks of a tropical holiday. So
I feel like I went through the hard parts . But really the interesting part for me was I got back last week
and my husband is away, of which he looks after us a lot , so he does all of the housework and the
cooking and the cleaning and the kids and all of that sort of thing , which I could not live my life without
that . But he's been on a surfing trip with his mates , so I was doing all of that plus my job and the stress .
What I have gathered is my alcohol consumption is to eliminate the stress to go when things get too
much or overwhelming . I'm a very sunny person , and I realize that I maintain that because when I start to
feel like, oh, shit , it's getting out of control . A couple of gins happy days, going to stress .

Samantha Gash 00:49 :50
And isn't it crazy that you think it's reducing stress because it's making you feel socially lubricated and
like you're numbing completely . Deep down underneath , you're creating more stress and you just don't
realize it because it's like it's the bandaid , but it's creating , like, a deeper wound challenge .

Tina Tower 00:50:06
It's been really interesting looking at all the trigger parts of when I go for that drink . And there has been
moments I don't drink every day. Normally I drink three or four times a week, but when I drink , I drink
more than what you're supposed to. So I'll have in my mind two gins, but in my gin bucket is two shots of
gin. So it's about five standard drinks for that three or four nights . So it's too much and I can't just have
one drink . When I have it, I'm like, Woo. Let's go more. So it's been really interesting in going , when am I
going for that ? And at the moment , I'm 45 days in, and I'm told it takes three months to not think about
thinking about drinking . Because there was a moment last week that I was so mad that I was like, what
am I trying to prove? What is going on? I should just do it. Does it really matter ? I would have drank a
bucket , Sam. A big one.

Samantha Gash 00:51:00
Yeah, but it's so interesting , and it's just one of the things that we do at her trials is that we get people
just have to record because people fall off the bandwagon of anything when it starts to get all hard. And
I typically say it's when you're going from something that you do know to something that you don't
know, and it's that clunky phase in the middle where you're finding your way, and it's like, that's the shit
show. That's where you feel embarrassed because it's not looking good , it's not looking perfect
internally to yourself , and you perceive that it's not looking smooth to the outside world . Yeah, that's
when we either abandon this pursuit of experience , something in the unknown , we defer to things like
not sleeping well, alcohol , more negative vices in our life to cope . And I think so we start to get women to
record , like, okay, when I did this training session , how did it make me feel? How much sleep did I have
the night before ?

Tina Tower 00:51:53
It tells me all about how sleep is without alcohol .

Samantha Gash 00:51:57
Yeah, it's crazy when you start to see, like, Data helps prove it to.

Tina Tower 00:52:03
Me, but it links back into community as well. So I think in Australian culture especially , it's more socially
acceptable to be a drinker than a non drinker. And one of the things that I do inside her empire build on
my membership is our top ten performers . Every year, I take them out on this boujee boat . We call it the
boujee boat . We go out and we celebrate . And on the boat last year, there were two women that are
alcohol free and have been one of them for a long, long time . One of them was about six months in, and
that was me going , huh, look at them , like they're having a ball jumping off the top of the boat , having so
much fun. And that was really when I started thinking about it. And then when I committed to it, I went to
a health retreat . They had to speak of it. This is the universe they're talking about alcoholism and its
effects and all of that sort of thing . I'm like, I'm going to entertain this . And then I said that to the ladies
that are in my program that are alcohol free. And then when I said I was alcohol free, there's another few
people that are going , Well, I'm going to do the year, too. So we're all on this app together . With the app,
I'm not sure I'll get the name of it and I'll link it below, but it tells you how many days and how much
money you've saved on alcohol since you've been.

Samantha Gash 00:53:13
I think Mark downloaded this because we've been having these conversations and it has.

Tina Tower 00:53:18
All of your teammates in there . And I 100% am not ashamed to say last week, if I was not part of that
team, I would have just snuck it in. But I knew I was like, I could sneak it in, no one would know, but I
would know and then the guild would eat me alive and I couldn't do it. I'd have to reset the clock and
then I'd let everybody else down .

Samantha Gash 00:53:37
And here's a flip side, though , Tina. It's also okay to relapse because we're not perfect and sometimes I
know and I've listened to a lot of podcasts about this topic , and sometimes it's actually really powerful to
go, hey, I did have a drink last night . I'm starting back again and I might look like day zero, but this is
what I learnt . And that feeling of, like, having to start again is actually what's going to probably stop me
from doing it again and just being honest . Like, we're not perfect .

Tina Tower 00:54:07
And that's what I love about your whole story , too, is you're so committed to this growth and change and
the simple act of being alive. You mentioned before so many women just continue on, just living the
same lives over and. Over again or saying, you're so lucky to have that . I wish I could have that life, but
never taking those steps . And that's really what that was. The main reason I wanted to interview you
was, there's no one that I know that's so alive, that just takes life and goes, let's have some fun with this .

Samantha Gash 00:54:36
If you're not having fun doing it, you've really got to question why you're doing what you're doing . But I
do think , like, action bias is powerful . Like, as is knowing when the pendulum has to swing and you have
to go into restoration , but realizing that restoration is still an action bias. Yes, that's an action . But I
recently had a bunch of friends who said to me, sam, like, you just go and make stuff happen . And I'm
just like it's . Also, that thing , the more you start to have an action bias, the more it facilitates you doing it.
Because whether , as I said, like, some of the things that I did when I was juggling that year of the balls in
the air, some didn't work . And I got a little embarrassed because I dropped a bit of my integrity with
some of that stuff . And I'm like, it's all part of the process . Just own it, do it, move on, keep going .

Tina Tower 00:55:21
Yes. You're incredible . Thank you for such an incredibly interesting conversation . We went many places . I
was not expecting to include my consumption of alcohol , so thanks for that one.

Samantha Gash 00:55:31
Samantha. Hope you don't have the hangover of sharing .

Tina Tower 00:55:37
Definitely not . But I'll link to everything , all your incredible programs because you do have a lot . You've
got ones for, like, the ten KS for twenty K, fifty KS for 100K, like, all of them in there . So I'll link to all of
those for everyone . And thank you so much .

Samantha Gash 00:55:51
I was so lovely chatting .

Tina Tower 00:55:53
This episode was brought to you by my signature group coaching program , her Her Empire Builder. The
best online education for female course creators in the world . Check it out@Tinatower .com. Along with
so many free resources to help you get building your empire and seeing those results that you deserve .
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and better content as we grow. Have the most beautiful day. I'm Tina Tower and I'm cheering you on all
the way