Purpose & Finding Your Why - Di Westaway, Founder of Wild Women on Top

Diane Westaway is the founder and CEO of Wild Women on Top - a social purpose enterprise aiming to inspire and support women to embrace adventure and achieve things that they never thought possible. 15 years ago, she founded Coast Trek, a charity hike which started along the coastline of Sydney and now extends across Australia. It has raised over 50 million Australian dollars to date and seen over 80,000 Trekkers participating. In 2020, Di was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to women’s sport and recreation and charitable initiatives. She is the author of thousands of blogs about women’s health and fitness and hiking as well as two books, “How to Prepare for World Class Treks” and “Natural Exhilaration: How to Lead an Adventurous Life you Love.” Di's passions are rock climbing, mountain biking, mountaineering, hiking and sleeping under the stars and she holds the record for doing the World’s Highest Handstand on the 7,000 meter summit of Mt Ama Dablam, in the Everest region of Nepal to celebrate turning fifty.

In this episode, Diane shares the adventure that changed her life and set her on the path to providing a platform for others to live more adventurously too.

This episode is part of a mini series with Adventure Mind - a collaboration of researchers, practitioners and organisations in the outdoor adventure space. Adventure Mind offers a grant, an annual conference and access to resources and evidence to support adventure practice.

Each episode shines a light on a current/ former speaker at the Adventure Mind Conference, their reasons for being involved and the benefits they have personally experienced from living life adventurously.

To find out more about Adventure Mind, visit:
Adventure Mind

To find out more about Di Westaway visit:

https://www.wildwomenontop.com
Coastrek
Instagram: @wildwomenontop

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Transcript

NICKI (00:03):

Hello and welcome to the Everyday Adventure Podcast. My name is Nikki Bass and I'm a business psychologist, army veteran, and everyday adventurer. I'll be sharing my conversations with some truly incredible guests who are weaving adventure into their daily lives. And I really hope that these conversations inspire you to undertake your own everyday adventures too. So welcome to the Adventure Mind Cross with the everyday podcast miniseries. So thrilled you've joined us here. If you've not heard or you've not listened to this series before, this is a mini series embedded in the main Everyday adventure podcast. I'm collaborating with the Wonderful Adventure Mind, which is a conference and a movement, which was started by the brilliant Belinda Kirk you've heard as part of this series. And what we are doing is sharing some stories from some of the incredible people that have been involved with Adventure Mind to Date, and who leading up to the conference, which takes place at the end of November.

(01:06):

So today it is such a pleasure to welcome Diane Westaway to the podcast. Diane, thank you so much for joining me. Diane is the founder and CEO of World Women on Top, which is a social purpose enterprise aiming to inspire and support women to embrace adventure and achieve things that they never thought possible. She's also the founder of Coast Trek, which is a charity hike, which started along the coastline of Sydney 15 years ago and now extends across Australia and has raised over 50 million Australian dollars to date and seen over 80,000 Trekker take part, which is just the most incredible statistics. I wish we had more time to go into all of this, Diane, but I'm going to cover what I can over the next 15 minutes also. So welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me.

DIANE (01:52):

Thank you for having me.

NICKI (01:54):

So the first question I want to ask, which is for our regular listen is a slight departure from the usual, but I'm really interested because Adventure Mind is all about thinking about how we frame adventure and encouraging more people to live more adventurously as well. How do you define adventure? What does it mean to you?

DIANE (02:14):

Well, adventure is something that sounds like fun, but it involves some element of excitement and risk, something slightly daring or anything from slightly daring to extremely daring. So for me, adventure is really about stepping outside your comfort zone in some way. And my understanding of it really relates to the outdoors. So obviously you can use adventure in many contexts, but for me it's an outdoor, fun, exhilarating, exciting, daring, potentially a little bit risky, something that requires you to manage risk, experience and something that takes you to another level.

NICKI (02:57):

I love it. I love you started the definition with as well. I think for many people that's sort of what we call type two fun, which can be, it's not always sort of skipping through pretty flowers or having the time of our life, but like you said, actually often the thing that keeps us going with it is there's the sense of achievement, but there's also just how it opens up our world. So thank you so much. That's such a wonderful definition. I would love you then to just share a little bit more about your work, how you got started with it, and also what drives you to continue. Because obviously, as I said in the intro, you've been going for quite a while with your mission with both missions around wild women on top and around Charity Trek as well. Yeah. Could you let me know a little bit more about how you got started with it?

DIANE (03:46):

Yeah, so it started really almost by accident. When I say by accident, it was when I was about to turn 40 and I was in quite a bad patch in my life. I would say that I thought, is there more to life than this? I really hope there is. But I was married in a dysfunctional marriage with two young children and devastatingly looking forward to 40 not. So I was like, no, I can't be 40. Life ends at 40. This is just really, it's all downhill after that. And out of the blue, I got an invitation to go and climb Mount Aconcagua, which is the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere in the Andes Mountain range. And I had never heard of the mountain, I didn't know anything about it, and the person that invited me was a personal trainer, and I was like, oh, wow, that sounds like a great excuse to get out of the house and leave my husband and kids for a few weeks and I'm going to be turning 40, so I don't need a better excuse than that.

(04:56):

So I signed up for this adventure and talked to my best girlfriend into joining me. And once we'd signed up, we started to look at what was involved and we were like, oh, this is the serious mountain. This is high. People die on this mountain. So anyway, we went off and it was an adventure at the extreme end for urban moms. We are both working full time, both trying to bring up children and juggling all those balls that working moms juggle. And we went off to South America after six months of very inappropriate training. We basically thought we could push weights in the gym and go running along the beach and that that would get us ready for this big pack carrying mountain climb. But we had the most incredible, terrifying, but exhilarating and extraordinary adventure in the beautiful Andes Mountain range. Very sadly, we didn't get to summit, but as novices, we probably shouldn't have expected we would, but the main reason we didn't summit was because the team that we were with fell apart.

(06:08):

Some people went that way, some people went that way, some people had to be rescued. The whole thing was really a bit of a disaster. And on the day that was supposed to be the summit day, the head guide said, well, I can't guide you anymore. You guys can go up that way a bit further if you want to, but I'm rescuing these two and we are going back to base camp kind of thing. So it was a really interesting, really moment of like, oh, are we going to try and do this on our own? And in the end, we decided that we weren't because we were mothers after all, and we'd promised our families we'd come back safely. So we came back home and both of us had that first feeling of we were complete failures, and this is really embarrassing. We told everyone we're going to climb this big mountain and how good we were, and we actually weren't.

(06:54):

But for both of us, it was the classic life-changing adventure. And for me, it led to my interest in seeing if other women wanted to put adventure back into their lives. Because it's very common for many of us, particularly women, to go on that journey where you get married, you have children, and you just in that, you just live that suburban boring a and when you get a taste of adventure, when you're in that headspace, there's no going back. So I was successful in finding a couple of other moms at the local school, and we got a little group of hiking moms together and we started planning one adventure after another. And what I realised was that when you have a big adventure to look forward to, not only does it bring you a great deal of happiness and joy and a great sense of purpose, but it also gives you the motivation to get really fit and stay really fit and squeeze in training and fitness in a way that you wouldn't otherwise. So that was really the beginning of wild Women On top, it was that desire to connect with other women who were wanting to get out of the house and go and I guess explore there inner child and have an opportunity to be in amazing locations around Australia and around the world.

NICKI (08:19):

It's such a powerful story, I think, and I think it will resonate with so many people. I mean, I reflect such similar reasons. I started running retreats in my business back in 2017. It was that thing of going, actually, like you said, and it's a story I've heard so many times for so many friends and colleagues, and I used to do this. I used to go out and I went travelling around the world or I did adventurous things. And life has happened, and it's not through people wanting to let go of that part of themselves, but it's that actually your time is so squeezed and there are so many demands on it that suddenly often people just find themselves in that place of going, well, what happened to me? What happened to that bit of myself? And I absolutely love how you grasp that for yourself, but also how you then taken that and change the lives of so many other women as a result of having that experience. And I wonder what continues to drive you then? Is it the same motivation that kickstarted it all the way back? Not all the way back. That's a bit harsh. Yeah, it's all

DIANE (09:29):

Years back. 20 years ago, that's a long time ago.

NICKI (09:32):

Now,

DIANE (09:36):

Look, Nikki, my passion hasn't diminished at all. I'm as passionate, in fact, maybe even more because over that 20 years, we've seen the rise of the internet. We've seen the rise of social media. We've seen people become less and less connected. Our children spending more and more time on screens, people becoming more and more sedentary. The World Health Organisation has done this report on we've got to increase the rate of physical activity by 15% by 2030. And since they wrote the report a couple of years ago, physical inactivity is on the rise. So people have become less active. And we had a little burst during Covid where we started moving a little bit more and exploring our local neighbourhood. But by and large, many of us have sedentary jobs that we are stuck inside and we're stuck on screens. Our children are stuck in their bedrooms on screens. I've got friends whose teenage kids don't even come out of the bedroom for dinner. The food's just taken into the room. So I've become even more, I guess, inspired and motivated to use adventure and the fun and the thrill and the excitement of outdoor adventure and the connection with others as that motivator to get you out of the house. Just go.

NICKI (10:55):

Yeah, no, I totally resonate with that, being the mother of one of those, I've got a nearly 14-year-old set upstairs currently, and I have to physically drag him from the room sometimes especially, and it's hard. And like you said, life becomes stacked up in terms of the opportunities to get out and do things. What you are having to work that much harder. The whole culture shifts. And therefore, like you said, actually, actually having ways in which people can connect with that and can find a way to break that trend in that mould is so important. And I guess that brings me to my next question, which is around Adventure Mind and how you became involved with Adventure Mind. And I guess what inspires you about the, like I said, it's a conference, it's a movement, it's a community, and yeah, what brought you to it?

DIANE (11:48):

Yes. Well, I a hundred percent agree with you. What Belinda has created with Adventure Mind is just incredible because it really shines a light on this connection between adventure and mental health. And one of the charities that we raised money for with our Coast Trek events, we walk along the coast and we raise money for a mental health charity called Beyond Blue. And in my journey of creating this business over the last 20 years, it's become more and more and more clear to me that our mental health and our wellbeing is massively served by five of the key things that we create in our Coast Creek brand and our wild women community, first of all is the essential nature of having a sense of purpose, and it's a sense of purpose beyond just going to work and being a mom. While those things are very important, it's a sense of purpose that's bigger than that.

(12:40):

So we need a sense of purpose for our core wellbeing. We need to connect with other human beings, and that connection needs to be physical face-to-face, not just on screen. So connection is the second one that's really important. We need physical activity. We were born to move our brains around, and that is just in human beings. If we don't move, we just can't stay mentally healthy and well. And then of course, getting outdoors and being in nature again is so much a part of our human beingness that we have to have that the fifth pillar we call them is about doing good for others because let's face it, we are all here to help others. If we can tap into that and find a way, a meaningful way to do that, which is the charity component of our Coast Trek hikes, if we can do that, then that fills our cup. And yes, we still need good food and this, we still need good sleep, and there's other things that need to be part of our daily routines and rituals, but having an adventure goal in your life, and it's when one finishes, you need to be starting on the next one. That is a recipe for a meaningful, happy, physically and mentally well and joyful life.

NICKI (13:55):

Oh, I absolutely love that. And yeah, I mean, I think you've just encapsulated so many reasons, like you said about one, why the Adventure Mind community is so important, but also just in terms of the work that you are doing and the way in which actually adventure is something that matters for everybody. It's not a niche. It tends to be sort of, I think, linked to activity in that it's sort of thing. It's either, well, it's something extreme that only a few people are mad enough to do, or it's a particular activity where you have to become obsessively good at it and give all your time to it. But actually it's this broader definition of have, how do we embrace all of those elements that you just talked about? And adventure is such a wonderful way in which to do that. So if somebody's been listening to this and they're like, yes, I'm going, I'm heading out on an adventure wherever they happen to be in the world, I want to start living my life more in this way. I mean, what's the one piece of advice you would give them?

DIANE (15:02):

There's a micro adventure outside your front door, and you don't have to go and climb Everest to be in touch with your adventurous self. You just have to go and explore your local woods. So I didn't fully answer your question about the connection with Adventure Mind, so I'm going to just loop back to that if we've got time. But I met Belinda through a colleague of mine whose name is Professor Ralph Buckley, and we did some research together on this actual connection between adventure and mental health. And Belinda contacted me as a result of that. And what I hold in a huge high regard is what Belinda is, what I understand she's doing with the Adventure Mind and that community is getting hold of some good hard research. And there's a lot of it out there now, getting this really strong evidence and research that demonstrates this connection between adventure and mental health and wellbeing so that the practitioners that are out in the field can have the confidence and knowledge and the strength to know that what they're experiencing anecdotally on their adventures and with their clients, it's real stuff and it's real value stuff, and it's probably the best pill that you could possibly get if they could bottle outdoor adventures into a little pill in the bottle.

(16:19):

That's what we need. That of course, it's not as simple as that. It requires some effort. So yeah, it's great. What she's doing is great. Shining the light on the research and encouraging those in the space to understand there is this body of research that underpins everything that they see every day.

NICKI (16:39):

No, absolutely. And I think it is so interesting isn't about, I mean, one thing I think that Covid did enable was this sort of an explosion in the research around suddenly people became more and more, I think alive to this idea that actually how we operate when we can't operate outdoors and we can't experience time in nature or go on adventures, how that does have such an implication for our wellbeing. And as a result, the research around it has grown exponentially. I know from my own experience conducting psychological research in this field, it's what we've got access to now compared to even 10 years ago is amazing.

(17:22):

But like you said, it's elevating that and letting people know this isn't just a good idea. This isn't just a few people say this because they like spending time either in the mud or in the desert, but actually there are really compelling research reasons why this matters. So thank you for highlighting that. And like you said, in terms of that little daily pill, well as you said, just stepping outside your front door can be a start of that dose. So thank you for sharing that too. Dan, it's been such a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much for joining me for this podcast. If people want to find out more about you, more about your work, where can they go?

DIANE (18:04):

Well, they can just Google Wild Women on top. It's all one word, wild Women on top.com. Don't leave out the wild and don't leave out the on top, otherwise you'll get other strange things. I can see where that could go is not us. We'll put it all in the show notes. You can follow the link there. Yeah, we're all about getting women into the wild and climbing to the top of a mountain because we all know the view is better on top.

NICKI (18:33):

Amazing. So as I just said, I will pop those links in the show notes so that people can go and find you. Thank you so much again for your time. In case people haven't realised Diana Space out in Australia, so I'm very grateful for her sharing her evening. It's 10 o'clock in the morning here, but I know it's a bit later for Diane. So thank you so much again for joining me, and it's been such a pleasure to speak to you. Take care.

DIANE (18:56):

Thank you very much, Nikki. Thank you.

NICKI (18:58):

Cheers. Bye.