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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Inherited. This is the first episode of our mid-year break. And today we're sharing three of our wonderful stories about hitting success before the age of 30. It's seriously so impressive to be able to sit down with so many intelligent, inspiring guests every single Tuesday. And today you'll hear me speak to three of the best. First up, you'll be hearing from the
Hannah was only 24 when she took a massive life risk and moved to create Cheek Media. She talks about the importance of meeting as many new people as she can, making new friends in a new city and the relationships as well that she's built with mentors. She also talks about the anxiety of becoming a public figure, how proud she is of all of her hard work.
But of course, that does come at a cost too. Here is the brilliant Hannah Ferguson. And in 2023, you moved to Sydney and you quit your full-time job to focus on Cheek. How did you feel letting go of that security? What was that like for you?
It was terrifying. I was in like quite a high paying job. I was like a legal representative for a union. So I had a lot of confidence because I had been in a legal role where I was going up against, you know, BHP, Rio Tinto, Coca-Cola, like lots of big companies, Qantas, and doing lots of legal negotiations. And I felt really confident in myself, but I was so missing my creative piece in
I loved doing Cheek and I didn't love doing the law. And I was very much of the view that I needed to leave. I had a breakup and I was like, there's nothing tying me to Brisbane right now, except that, you know, I had two co-founders at the time and they decided to step away because they didn't ever want to monetize the business.
They wanted to just sort of like have it be something that was a hobby on the side. And I always wanted to make it my career. So I was offered a book deal at the end of 2022. I took that. I resigned from my job and I moved to Sydney by myself and lived by myself in 2023. And that was just a massive, terrifying step because I had no management. I had no income streams.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Hannah Ferguson to take a leap of faith in her career?
I was so confused by how I was going to make money. And I just did it. You just did it. Yeah, you just do it, don't you? You just do it. It's the bias for action. Like it comes back to the rule a bit. Like you just have to take the leap because the only thing I ever would have regretted is not taking that. It's not taking that risk. Even if I had failed, at least I had tried.
And so you lived alone then. How did you go with change? It was really important to me that when I moved back, when I moved, I say back because it does feel like back. Moving back to Sydney when I'd never lived there before, moving to Sydney felt like coming back to a different time in my life from high school days because lots of my close friends were there. Yes.
But I was quite determined to not fall into the pattern of just joining their friendship groups. Like I have my close friends, but I was really determined to meet everyone that I could that year. And like every person that came into my LinkedIn orbit, I was like, can we get a coffee? Yeah.
Like I met so many people and I was really striving to just understand how to break through new ceilings with Cheek. But at a personal level too, like I was found it really isolating to write a book by myself and to go from having two co-founders to being alone and making decisions and feeling incredibly watched.
Because I think that transition can be really hard when you still, like I was 24 by this stage. And I was just, again, I didn't have like a mentor. I really think that's what I was missing at the time. And there was a couple of older people I trusted and wouldn't go and have lunch with sometimes. So I wanted to be my mentor.
But when you're carving a space in media that hasn't existed before, like Instagram, social media, commentary, a lot of the advice I received from people I trusted also clearly had an agenda and had price tags in mind. And I didn't want that. And so I found it hard to attach to like a few people in the industry significantly.
And it was really like that studio space and my friends that got me through it that year.
How do you feel about becoming a public figure? I suppose we've already touched on this, but that's when you started to really become one in that year as well in 2023, 2024.
There are little things that make me really anxious. Like obviously it's an honour and a privilege like to have random people come up to me in the street and just know me and talk to me like I'm their friend because I think that is a lot of the content that I make.
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Chapter 3: How did Hannah navigate the challenges of becoming a public figure?
We just looked at each other like, Dude. We're both winners. Who cares what happens? Yeah. So I think when he said that, we didn't actually care who was going to win. Yeah. Because we were both getting to record music. So we were like, oh, sick. We're both winners. Like, it doesn't matter. And so we just enjoyed it. I think because I generally never have a drink before a gig. I'll drink after.
I think... Shan's like, mate, we're getting on the beers now. We're getting on the beers. So we had a few beers before and it was just a beautiful – that whole thing, I can only describe it as a beautiful exchange of kindness, that whole idol thing. And, you know, I'm here looking at the word shameless. Like if there's anything I am about idol, it's shameless because –
I've grown up seeing people who've gone on those shows try and like distance themselves and dissociate from, well, who cares? Just do good stuff. Like just put out good music or just be good at what you do because that exchange of kindness is so tangible and physical back in 2003 where strangers were
are looking at this Afro hair, kind of odd looking guy sing and they went, I'm going to spend my own money, 55 cents a vote, a text. Yeah. For someone I've never met, I'm going to spend my own money and vote for that person because I think he should have, like he should be able to achieve his dreams. That sounds corny, but that's what it is. That's the truth of it.
Complete strangers I've never met spent their money for me to do this. So it creates this like unbelievable gratitude but also a weight of don't screw this up. People put you here. Don't ever forget that. And I'll never distance myself from it. I'll be shameless of that decision forever because it's like – I wouldn't be here.
I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for Idle and everyone's got a vehicle. Mine was Idle and I'm proud of it. It was awesome. It's really good.
And we're finishing up with entrepreneur and mom, Sarah Davidson. It was more important to Sarah to make sure that she created a life with nothing unexplored. Here she speaks about the moment she quit her full-time career in law to pursue her own business, March a Maiden. And she also shares how surprisingly it was her mom who pushed her to take the road less traveled. Here's Sarah Davidson.
Okay, so why the lesson is actually first to decide how you're going to decide is because I used to not use this. I used to decide much more based on prestige, on security, on stability, because those were the metrics that really mattered to me. And I think where people go astray is when they don't work out what metrics matter in their life, because it's going to be different to everyone else.
Some people are... you know, much more stability focused. Some people have a higher risk tolerance and some people like change, some people don't. And I think, yeah, we run into trouble when we use other people's values to make our own decisions. So I used to be a lawyer.
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