Rebecca (00:01.025)
Hello and welcome to episode 35 of the Champagne Lounge podcast. If this is your first episode that you're tuning in on, this is where you get to meet some of our wonderful members of the Champagne Lounge community and we deep dive into who they are, what they do and why they do it. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Sami Yeager. Welcome to the show, Sami.
Sammi Jaeger (00:23.958)
Hey, thank you so much for having me. And this is cool to be a shoe on the other foot because you have been on my show. So I'm excited to be back here to completely exchange.
Rebecca (00:31.214)
I have.
Rebecca (00:38.429)
Now you get to answer all the questions and I just get to listen. The beauty of that. Yeah. So Sammy, I've known you now for a number of years. You've recently jumped in to the Champagne Lounge in the last couple of months. And your focus in your work is about living a fueled up life. Like making sure your relationships are the best they could possibly be in the way that looks for you. But it hasn't always been that way. What has led you to...
Sammi Jaeger (00:42.647)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Rebecca (01:06.649)
now living, breathing, teaching, talking about maximizing life to the fullest.
Sammi Jaeger (01:13.886)
Yeah, I hit a crossroad in 2019. I was about to turn 30. And I was burnt out. I had been general manager at a training and education company. And I'd been through a really like steep trajectory of growth over the previous three years that had led me there. And I was exhausted. I went into summer of 2020 at 2018.
I took a little bit of time off. I went to Sri Lanka, came back to work in the first week or so of 2019 and just thought, I can't do this for another year. Something has got to change. I don't know what, but not this. I was depleted in every area of my life. I'd been going all in on my, my career element. And then all of a sudden I couldn't picture myself there anymore.
So I knew something needed to change. And since then, I've basically been on a journey of what makes a great life, what creates happy, fulfilled, meaningful lives. And a really big part of that is our relationships, one with ourself and then with the people that we choose to surround ourselves with, whether or not that's our romantic partners or our friends, family, peers, chosen family. Yeah, so that's how I spend my time now, is advocating for people to create
and live and design lives that are really fueled up.
Rebecca (02:40.933)
I love that. And I can talk, well, I want to talk to you about how you map that out and plan that out because I do my own way of living life to the full. And so we definitely gel along in that way, but I'm curious, burnout is something that I can completely relate to, very much so in the sense of you get to a point where you go, I can't keep going with this anymore, and you've got to change it up and you've got to draw a line in the sand. Now, for you, it sounded like you had a career, you had a job and you went, I'm done.
Sammi Jaeger (02:46.77)
Mm.
Sammi Jaeger (02:56.848)
Mm.
Sammi Jaeger (03:08.257)
Mm.
Rebecca (03:09.377)
Did you just sort of cut the, bite the bullet, just cut it off and just jump away from the safety net? Ha ha ha.
Sammi Jaeger (03:12.49)
I did. With the blessing of my husband, I jumped with no plan, quit. I felt really incongruent leading a team to a future that I knew I wasn't going to be part of. And I also knew that I probably wasn't going to be able to find the solution while I was still swimming in the pool.
Um, yeah, so I quit with no plan. Um, and because I'd been working for a training and education company, serving business owners, I had a really developed network. I knew a lot of people in business. Um, and I picked up a lot of, uh, freelance random projects that were sort of in my skillset and wheelhouse, um, at the time, and I did that for a couple of months before heading over to, um, Europe for a big, big trip that I had, I had planned.
And then it was on the return of that trip that my husband needed to go back to work. And I didn't because I didn't really have a life to go back to. So I had a bit of a panic and was like, I can't go home. I've had these beautiful few months off and I've done no soul searching. I now need to cram that soul searching and figure out how am I gonna restart my life or rebuild my life? So I went, I left.
Nathan at Madrid airport and he flew home to Australia and I flew to Lombok, Indonesia, and spent two basically two weeks on an island crying, grieving, looking in the mirror trying to figure out how had I created this. You know, I was a very intentional goal setter, planner, strategic thinker before that and yet I had still created something that was a mess.
So over that two weeks, I did a lot of self-reflection and ownership about, you know, what had I done or what had I not done that had created this. What I really realized was that my relationship with myself had deteriorated to it wasn't in a good place. The way that I was talking to myself, the way that I was spending time with myself or not spending time with myself and that relationship was really setting the tone for every other relationship that I was having.
Sammi Jaeger (05:26.99)
So I started there about tapping back into what did joy look like for me? What were the things that I really loved and what I now say like fuel me up that I wasn't doing? So yeah, it's yeah so...
Rebecca (05:40.329)
And what were they? What were those things? Can you share with us what those things are? Because I'm sure a lot of people are listening going, I'm really not enjoying where I am at right now. And they can probably really relate to what you're talking about.
Sammi Jaeger (05:50.578)
Yeah, there was so many things even just from I used to love going to a new cafe and sussing out, you know, new environment and sitting on my own and journaling or reading. And I couldn't remember the last time that I had taken myself out on a date. And definitely not I couldn't remember when the last time I'd done that without some sort of other stimulus of a podcast or, you know, talking to a friend on the phone or some other kind of scroll hold distraction.
While I was in Indonesia, I went and hired a wakeboard for a couple of hours and did some board sports. And this was really one of the catalysts is I sat there and reflected, I was like, this was just the best. I had so much fun. I enjoyed this so much. And I was like, well, when was the last time I did this? And it was like more than five years ago. So I just made a list of what are all the other things that have, you know, fallen off of my life. And it was like, when was the last time I saw a sunrise?
When was the last time I saw a sunset, like intentionally? When was the last time that I did some like journaling that was not about my career or, you know, personal development as such, but just what do I want? What do I really want and is this serving me? Yeah, so that's really where I started, but you know, everything had fallen out. Like I loved pole dancing and...
going to dance classes and I had stopped doing that. I loved baking and I'd really fallen into this place of like, well that's not productive for me to be baking. I could just buy that cake and it would be cheaper than if I bought the ingredients and spent the time. So you know, so I'd stopped baking and stopped cooking, which is like part of my DNA. I love food.
Rebecca (07:36.109)
Oh, I can feel you when you say that. I'm like, oh, I went through a phase during my sort of burnout, discovering what I was going to do next scenario and just went, you know what? I have no interest in cooking whatsoever. And as soon as that thought popped into my brain, I'm thinking that's a red flag because that is my happy place, right? It's my happy place. Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (07:47.287)
Mm.
Sammi Jaeger (07:51.414)
That's a red flag.
Sammi Jaeger (07:55.494)
Yeah, so they're all things and like even just the way that I was taking care of myself in terms of like my skin, my diet, my quality of sleep and sleep hygiene. Yeah, it was all really not great. So those were kind of the pillars that I sort of started to look at first. But then I really realized that, you know, I went when I got home, I went back through my
goal setting and annual planning that I'd done sort of for the previous four or five years because I had been an intentional goal setter. And what I realized was that there were these eight different categories or what I now call as fuel tanks and that they all need fuel. And it's okay if one or two of them is running on, you know, below half or running towards empty. But when it starts to become
Rebecca (08:40.094)
Hmm.
Sammi Jaeger (08:48.182)
two, three, four, five tanks that are running on empty, it absolutely impacts the rest of your tanks or the rest of your life. And if you neglect them and ignore them, I was going to end up exactly where I was, burnt out, exhausted, not in love with myself all my life. So those eight, I talked about the first one already, my relationship with myself, number two, my romantic relationship.
Number three, my relationships and network. Number four, having household. Number five, career and business. Number six, wealth and lifestyle. Number seven, the world. And number eight, the future. So I started to get far more intentional about planning goals for all eight of these areas as opposed to one or two.
Rebecca (09:37.297)
Yeah. And when you, when you plan goals, like I love, um, I love those eight buckets, right? I think they're, they're filling up the tanks and the analogies of that. You can, you can picture it and you can feel it and you said measurable thing that you can watch. But when you think goal setting and dreaming and creating something that's going to be amazing, people tend to think really big, you know, like, Oh, I really want to do this and achieve that. And actually sometimes those goals, whilst they're definitely possible, we kind of miss out on
Sammi Jaeger (09:57.431)
Mm.
Rebecca (10:06.329)
what I like to call those micro moments of those micro goals that actually take you along the way to getting there. So when you're planning these and planning your goals, do you have a sort of process rhythm for doing small goals and big goals? Or, I know, because it can be really quite scary, particularly if you're starting something new to go, okay, I need to start from this and I really need to work on all these buckets. What's the starting point into it?
Sammi Jaeger (10:09.124)
Mm.
Sammi Jaeger (10:21.131)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (10:24.469)
It can be.
Sammi Jaeger (10:34.514)
Yeah, so I fundamentally believe that celebration is an ingredient in success. And what gets celebrated will get repeated. And that was like the mantra for mine and Nate's 10th wedding anniversary, which we celebrated at the end of 2022. It's like, if we want to have a long lasting, enjoyable, fueled up marriage, like we're going to celebrate this. So that and that's, that's
Rebecca (11:00.657)
I love that. We love a bit of celebration. Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (11:02.674)
Yeah, yeah, in the champagne lounge. So what something that I learned from Keith Abraham, who is an expert in goal setting, is that we actually derive a lot of pleasure from being able to recognize progress. So when we can sit in the game, not in the gap, so the gain is in what where have I come from? Not where do I still have to go?
So this really like, I solidified this lesson. I did the F45 eight week challenge. And as part of that challenge, they really discouraged you from measuring anything throughout that eight weeks. And I showed up and I trained my ass off six days a week, cut out alcohol, cut out sugar, cut out all the things. And I got to the end of that challenge and was depleted. And I also didn't hit any of my goals.
So it really, I really learned from that how important it is for me to be able to track my progress. When I'm working towards something, I need to be able to celebrate the mini milestones along the way. So for me, I might go for the moonshot thing, whatever that might be. So for me, one of mine is that I only wanna work 40 weeks a year, not the full 52, that is quite-
or 52 minus a couple of weeks annually, but I really only want to work 40 weeks a year. But there's going to be some milestones on my journey to get there and I want to earn a certain amount of money, but work less time to achieve that outcome. So there's some milestones on the path to that. And like that just goes, okay, well how do we start tracking freedom days? Like then all of a sudden you've got to measure in a metric that you can see the progress. Like how many did I take this year? How many did I take last year?
Rebecca (12:30.445)
Mm.
Rebecca (12:53.437)
I love that freedom days. That's beautiful. Yeah. I love that. So like we've talked about how you plan, but I know that you and Nathan, Hubby Nathan, work very closely in the planning together and doing things as a team. Like you have your Date Forever podcast, you do a lot of stuff as a team, and it's not just you building a fueled up life, it's the two of you. How has that progressed and how have you...
Sammi Jaeger (12:55.446)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (13:09.611)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (13:19.819)
Yeah.
Rebecca (13:23.721)
I guess I'm saying how did you bring him along for the ride or did you sort of build the ride together?
Sammi Jaeger (13:26.229)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (13:29.662)
So it was together. So we moved from South Australia to New South Wales in 2014. And I think in 2015 2016, that sort of first 1218 months sort of we flew back and forth to South Australia, I reckon like eight or nine times, it was like, not quite every month, but it was a lot. And we got to the end of that. And we're like, I don't think we achieved anything that we wanted to achieve this year.
we were living very reactively to whatever we were invited to, or we had a sense of that other people were expecting us to be there. It was, you know, engagement parties, weddings, milestone birthdays, those types of things. But it really impacted our ability to set up our new life in our new location and develop new friends, new networks and show up. It's really hard to make friends when you're like, Hey, it was really nice to meet you. Let's catch up. When? Oh, never. So we knew that we needed.
after that sort of 12, 18 months or so, we were like, this is not working, we need to get far more intentional about how we're living our life. And that was probably, we got married in 2012. So it was like two years into our two, three years into our marriage. And we had done a lot of things that were like the default kind of path. You know, like thinking about meeting, getting engaged, getting married, like living together, building assets and things together.
But yeah, we went, oh, hold on. What if we were doing this with what we really want? What a wild idea. But yeah, the eight tanks really didn't show up until 2019. So we had a pet planning process, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, but it's evolved year on year. So what it looks like now is we take one or two days, normally two days, towards the end of November. So as we're approaching the start of summer.
in Australia to review the year that was, figure out what our priorities are for the following year, get it down into the calendar, the things that I've got it to my right here, that we are non-negotiable, what are the things that we're saying yes to, and then you know the fixed commitments that we don't have, agency over moving the dates, like if there's conferences we want to attend or if there are weddings and things, but it's helped us get so much better.
Sammi Jaeger (15:55.118)
clearer on what we want to say yes to and what we want to say no to. And even just like we look at the money, how much money do we plan to make this year and how are we going to spend it? And why? Why is that the number? What are we going to do with it? And then we set some goals around each of those eight different tanks together. So like our humming household, like yeah, we're married and romantically entwined, but we're also housemates, like we live together, we share a space. What would make our household hum?
more effectively. So this year we're implementing a shared Google system. You know, like I've got a Woolworths account, whereas like really we should probably have a shared Woolworths account so we can both order and track the delivery from the same thing. So that's something we got from me and Northop. So we're transitioning those things that would make our, you know, running our household easier. Yeah, so and then those goals for each of those eight different tanks are sort of broken down into like the milestones. Like one of the ones we're doing this year is to
Rebecca (16:29.778)
Oh.
Rebecca (16:51.222)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (16:52.91)
create a home gym in our garage. And there's a few milestones that we need to clear the shit out of there before we can have a really effective space. So we're celebrating the milestones as we go.
Rebecca (17:00.497)
As someone, that's the one that spent last weekend cleaning out the garage and dusting the dust off the gym equipment and then packing stuff around the gym equipment again. I can feel your pain. Exactly, exactly. Now, Sam, you and I are total seasoned planners, goal setters. You know, we've got our buckets, we've got our tins, we know what we're doing. If someone's listening to this going, whoa, ladies, this sounds like hectic.
Sammi Jaeger (17:11.082)
Well done. Yeah, yeah. Well, you have it, right? You wanna use it. Yeah.
Rebecca (17:28.373)
Like this is, that's a lot, that's a lot of do. Like I don't know if I can do all of that. Like what's, it's not something that we have literally woken up with and gone, okay, this is how we're gonna do life and it's just working for us, you know? And the conversations we have inside the Champagne Lounge, someone will share a little bit and everyone will give their little bits of advice about how they do things differently. But if someone's listening right now going, okay, that all sounds fantastic and I'd love to work towards it, where would you?
Sammi Jaeger (17:30.511)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (17:42.775)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (17:50.848)
Yeah.
Rebecca (17:57.453)
point them in the direction of having a starting point. If they could pick, if you could pick one tank and one thing to sort of start with, where would you recommend that people start?
Sammi Jaeger (18:01.782)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (18:06.658)
So it's really, really hard to know if you're going to make it if you don't know where you are and you don't know how much fuel is in the tank. So I would encourage everybody to start by doing a tank check. So those eight tanks, I've got a like free PDF download everyone can grab, which is Sammy. Yeah. To.
Rebecca (18:26.633)
Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes because I think that'll be really helpful to have those starting points.
Sammi Jaeger (18:31.862)
to just work it through and go like, okay, how full is my self tank right now? Um, and like you sort of said back there, intent is not to have like a green light dashboard where every tank is running at full, like, no, we're just trying to create a diagnostic so that you can go, okay, is, do I need a bubble bath and a massage and a glass of champagne, or do I need to sit down with my spreadsheet?
to figure out our household budget for this month, quarter, year, whatever, which one of those is actually going to add fuel to the tank and is that the right tank? So kind of think about it far more as like a diagnostic tool, but I would encourage that's where you start is take a look at your tanks. Are they where you want them to be? Are there any that have surprised you in how full they are or how empty they are? And then start to get clear on what a full tank would look like and feel like.
Rebecca (19:10.489)
Mm.
Sammi Jaeger (19:27.218)
I think romantic relationship is a good one because most of us, you know, we're human beings, we crave human connection. And if we were to have a really healthy, thriving, romantic relationship, what would that sound like? What would that feel like? What would our partings and greetings look like? What would our sex life look like? How many dates would we be going on? How often would we be having quality time and do the diagnostic and go, okay, is that where we want it to be? And if not...
what could we do to add some fuel, you know, maybe today or this week.
Rebecca (20:00.341)
Yeah, I love that little steps, it's little steps to making it, you know, and it's never going to be perfect and it's always going to be an evolution because as you change, it changes and it's a constant just, just the check in, don't put pressure on yourself to do it, just check in, check in how the tanks are filling up. Um, and what are the little things that, as you just said, um, enable you to feel more joy, you know, feel a little bit less pressured, a little bit less, um, pulled from pillar to post. I like the, the idea of saying,
Sammi Jaeger (20:02.658)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (20:14.455)
Yeah.
Rebecca (20:30.017)
saying yes to things that you want to do rather than saying yes to everything. That for me was a really good starting point when I looked at that a few years ago was what's my absolute, if I don't have it right. So that's actually, you know, got Sammy's plan there and we'll do the download. But for me, one of the things was it's either a hell yes or it's a hell no. I did have an F word in there, but I won't say it on the podcast. It's a hell yes or a hell no. And if I have an immediate gut reaction to an event, an invitation,
Sammi Jaeger (20:33.995)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (20:38.614)
Don't say yes when it's a lie. Like.
Sammi Jaeger (20:50.062)
Mm. Hahaha.
Rebecca (20:59.597)
I go with it. Like it's either I'm either all in or I'm all out. Like it's, I'm not sitting on the fence and showing up because I feel I have to for the benefit of other people.
Sammi Jaeger (21:03.735)
Yeah.
Sammi Jaeger (21:07.69)
Yeah. And when you've got clear goals and you've got clear values and you can see whether or not you're living in alignment with them, it makes it so easy to know that when you're in tune with what is it that I really want, it's very clear to identify what isn't that. It's very hard when you're in the grey area and you're actually not quite sure what you want or you're not quite sure what your priorities are, you're not quite sure what values you're trying to live more or less of, it can be really hard to make those decisions. So
I think that's why it starts with the clarity piece. What's important to me.
Rebecca (21:38.281)
Love that. What's important to you? So, Sammy, thank you so much for sharing all of this. I feel we've covered a lot of ground. I think there's a lot of golden nuggets and tangible things that our listeners can go away and go, oh, I can actually action that. And that's been really helpful. So thank you for sharing that wisdom. I think it's been amazing. As you said, we can't do all of this by ourselves. We like to bounce ideas around with different people and have different conversations and share our thinkings and learnings with the people that are in our network.
Sammi Jaeger (21:56.439)
You're so welcome.
Rebecca (22:07.941)
If you're, for some of our listeners now, what has being part of the Champagne Lounge community meant for you in terms of sharing those ideas and making new friendships and connections and learning new things?
Sammi Jaeger (22:19.506)
Yeah, so one of the things that I recognised when I hit that burnout, and I wanted to make the pivot from being an employee to entrepreneur, was that I my relationship and network tank was not where I needed it to be. I hadn't I didn't have personal connections, I had professional connections. So getting around other women who are doing or have done what I want to do is just
one of the most important investments that I make for that fuel tank and for my career in business and for my life. So I think for me, Champagne Lounge is about normalizing success for women in business.
Rebecca (23:00.149)
Yeah, very much so. Thank you. Thank you. You nailed it. It's celebrating the success. It's having those conversations as and when you want to, like taking the pressure off. If you haven't seen how we do conversations and connections, it's very similar to this. We jump in, see where the conversation flows. And unlike podcasts, we scheduled them to have the conversation. If you're free at the time to jump in, jump in and have a chat. And if you're not, there's no pressure and no judgment that you can't make it. So if you do want to come check out the Champagne Lounge, we'd love to welcome you as part of the community.
Head over to our website, thec to find out more about that. And if you're a good navigator, you'll find a free seven day trial on that site as well. So test it out, taste the bubbles, try the magic. Sammy, thank you so much for coming on the show. I've absolutely loved our chat and I love having you as part of the Champagne Lounge community.
Sammi Jaeger (23:48.13)
Thanks for having me.
