Show Transcript

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Kevin Lowe: Have you ever had a day where it felt like your entire life was falling apart?

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Kevin Lowe: If so, well, then you can relate to Niamh McAnally.

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Kevin Lowe: Because in the span of one day, she became jobless, homeless.

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Kevin Lowe: And the only form of transportation she had were the shoes on her feet.

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Kevin Lowe: At this point in her life, she was divorced in her mid-50s.

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Kevin Lowe: And to be honest, she didn't know what she would do. But thankfully,

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Kevin Lowe: Niamhhas a spirit like nobody I've ever met, and she realized that there was something more.

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Kevin Lowe: And so she would embark on an adventure, traveling the world for a year,

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Kevin Lowe: Working just for food and lodging.

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Kevin Lowe: Now, where her story really gets exciting was the last trip,

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Kevin Lowe: the last go-round, before settling down, getting back to that, quote, normal life.

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Kevin Lowe: She was going to help a solo sailor crew his sailboat from Florida to the Bahamas.

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Kevin Lowe: Now, what happens next? That is only a story that Niamhcan share herself.

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Kevin Lowe: All I can do is to urge you to not go anywhere.

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Kevin Lowe: As a matter of fact, I want you to be sure that you listen all the way through today's episode.

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Kevin Lowe: Even if you have to take a break, you come back a few times,

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Kevin Lowe: be sure you finish it. because there's a story at the very end of our conversation

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Kevin Lowe: that ties it all together.

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Kevin Lowe: It's a part of her story that you never knew you were missing,

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Kevin Lowe: but once you hear it, you realize you can't live without it.

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Kevin Lowe: My friend, this is a story that I hope is going to set your soul on fire.

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Kevin Lowe: It's going to have you wanting more out of life because that,

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Kevin Lowe: after all, is the whole point of sharing it with you. With that said,

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Kevin Lowe: I welcome you to what is episode 346 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

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Yo, are you ready to flip the script on life? Because those bad days,

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they're just doors to better days.

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And that's exactly what we do here at Grit, Grace, and Inspiration. Your host, Kevin Lowe.

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He's been flipping the script on his own life, turning over 20 years of being

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completely blind into straight-up inspiration, motivation, and encouragement just for you.

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So, kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your host, Kevin Lowe.

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Kevin Lowe: I am in the studio today with a woman who I have been looking forward to meeting

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Kevin Lowe: again because the first time I talked to her, she stole my heart.

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Kevin Lowe: I love her. And I'm excited to get to introduce her to you right now.

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Kevin Lowe: Niahm, welcome to the podcast.

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Niamh McAnally: Thank you so much, Kevin. Lovely to be here with you.

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Kevin Lowe: Oh, well, I am excited to dive into your story all the way back from Ireland,

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Kevin Lowe: all the way to Florida. We're going around the world today.

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Kevin Lowe: And I guess I figure, you know, we might as well start back at the beginning.

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Kevin Lowe: And specifically, I would love for you to kind of dive into a story,

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Kevin Lowe: sharing with me a bit about life growing up in Ireland and specifically growing

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Kevin Lowe: up in a family that were all actors.

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Niamh McAnally: Right. So both my parents were actors. So I kind of grew up in that theatrical background.

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Niamh McAnally: And it's kind of hardly surprising that I ended up in the business myself originally

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Niamh McAnally: in theater and eventually became a television director.

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Niamh McAnally: The best part about it that has been useful for me in my life has been the fact

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Niamh McAnally: that they were both freelance actors.

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Niamh McAnally: So they would get cast in a show for three or four weeks at a time and they

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Niamh McAnally: would never know necessarily where the next job was coming from.

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Niamh McAnally: Now, they were both very good.

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Niamh McAnally: They knew they had the talent and they knew they had, you know,

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Niamh McAnally: the demand, but they would never know for sure.

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Niamh McAnally: So as a result of that, like variety was very much part of our norm growing

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Niamh McAnally: up and you didn't know what was going to happen in two months' time or three

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Niamh McAnally: months' time, people would ask them for commitments for six months out and they'd

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Niamh McAnally: be like, well, we don't know because we don't know if we're going to be working then or not.

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Niamh McAnally: And that really helped shape my outlook on life in terms of reinventing myself all the time.

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Niamh McAnally: I've had like five careers across five different industries,

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Niamh McAnally: but it just seems normal. You just start again.

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Kevin Lowe: Yeah, that is fascinating. Now, you had siblings as well who were into acting also, correct?

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Niamh McAnally: Yeah, both my brothers were in the business as well. they were in front of the

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Niamh McAnally: TV cameras and also behind them and then into radio production and music television production.

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Niamh McAnally: So, yes, there was it was quite a family event.

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Kevin Lowe: Yeah, that's fascinating. Now, growing up, did you pretty much just know like

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Kevin Lowe: after school and stuff that you would want to get into that line of work?

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Niamh McAnally: I wasn't sure, to be perfectly honest, because I didn't.

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Niamh McAnally: My parents were both so talented. I wasn't sure if I would have enough talent

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Niamh McAnally: and I didn't want to disgrace them.

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Niamh McAnally: So Ireland at the time, it was very much a homogenous society.

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Niamh McAnally: And it wasn't a foregone conclusion that everybody would go to college.

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Niamh McAnally: And to me at the time, it seemed like it was mostly, you know,

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Niamh McAnally: people who wanted to be teachers and professors.

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Niamh McAnally: And also, I had read an essay for our leaving certificate, the equivalent of

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Niamh McAnally: like high school graduation, by Cardinal John Henry Newman, which was the idea of a university.

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Niamh McAnally: And in it, he said something that has resonated with me my entire life was,

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Niamh McAnally: it's a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter.

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Niamh McAnally: And so I thought to myself, well, I'm not going to see that diversity in Ireland.

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Niamh McAnally: Now, certainly it's a much more diverse country now.

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Niamh McAnally: But at the time, I also loved English and I loved French.

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Niamh McAnally: So I took off as a teenager to Paris, France, and went to study French language

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Niamh McAnally: and literature at an international class in the Sorbonne University.

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Niamh McAnally: And that opened my eyes to the world, if you like, because everybody was from a different country.

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Niamh McAnally: And also I was living in the family with a French family minding one of the children.

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Niamh McAnally: So I thought, hmm, there's so much to do and see in the world. and I wanted to go.

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Niamh McAnally: But I came back to Ireland at the end of, I think it was 18 months, not quite 18 months.

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Niamh McAnally: And it was time to, well, maybe I should try and support myself now and get a job.

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Niamh McAnally: And it was coming up to the Dublin Theatre Fest. I remember it was autumn time.

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Niamh McAnally: And I got a job working as the assistant stage manager on one of the shows that

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Niamh McAnally: was a couple of weeks in rehearsal and then two weeks playing in the Olympia Theatre, I remember.

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Niamh McAnally: And then that was like, I really like this.

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Niamh McAnally: You know, it was it really kind of helped me with my artistic talents and creativity.

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Niamh McAnally: So I kept going and I was working in theatre for a number of years and then

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Niamh McAnally: ended up with the Abbey Theatre, which is the National Theatre of Ireland.

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Niamh McAnally: And I trained as a trainee director, had another bit of experience over in London

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Niamh McAnally: with one of Sir Peter Hall, who was a director who took on trainee directors.

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Niamh McAnally: And then finally, I moved into the area of television and became a TV director.

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Kevin Lowe: Wow. Wow. So you were the woman behind the scenes, making everything work.

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Niamh McAnally: Right. Exactly. From the beginning, I was kind of like I was testing the waters

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Niamh McAnally: in front of the scenes, if you like.

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Niamh McAnally: But then after that, it was like, no, behind the scenes was where I really felt that that was my spot.

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Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Well, you mentioned about reinvention, reinventing yourself.

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Kevin Lowe: And I'm going to assume from the little bit I know that those reinventions are

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Kevin Lowe: probably going to guide our conversation a lot today.

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Kevin Lowe: And just as kind of like a sneak preview, would you mind sharing as an overview

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Kevin Lowe: what those reinventions were that you've done?

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Niamh McAnally: Sure. So earlier in 87, I had been introduced to scuba diving.

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Niamh McAnally: And I met somebody that was also on the instructor program when I became a scuba instructor.

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Niamh McAnally: And we were together and it was like, oh, let's go travel the world and teach

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Niamh McAnally: scuba diving. We can go to all these wonderful places.

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Niamh McAnally: And at that stage, I was a television director and I thought,

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Niamh McAnally: oh, yeah, that sounds great. We just take off and travel.

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Niamh McAnally: And so that's when I got into the professional end of scuba diving instruction.

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Niamh McAnally: And that's what brought me originally to Belize, where I was working on a volunteer

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Niamh McAnally: project. and then ultimately from there to Key Largo, Florida and stay there a number of years.

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Niamh McAnally: Now, the relationship didn't work out. So I kind of figured like, well, what's next?

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Niamh McAnally: And down in Key Largo at the time, the biggest kind of employer I could see

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Niamh McAnally: at the time outside of Scuba was one of the hotels. It was a Sheraton hotel at the time.

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Niamh McAnally: You know, a little bit brazen. I went down there thinking, well,

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Niamh McAnally: I'm Irish and we're supposed to be renowned for hospitality.

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Niamh McAnally: So how hard could it be to work at a hotel?

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Niamh McAnally: It's like it's like I had this idea like somebody comes in

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Niamh McAnally: and you say oh good evening here's your key off you go you know

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Niamh McAnally: I mean with absolutely no respect

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Niamh McAnally: for all the people who have like gone to college and gone

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Niamh McAnally: to hospitality degrees and everything else like that you know but anyway I started

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Niamh McAnally: working in the hotel they very graciously gave me a job with zero experience

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Niamh McAnally: and pretty soon though they realized that I had you know managerial kind of

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Niamh McAnally: style of working so they offered me a job as the, I think it was the front office,

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Niamh McAnally: a front desk supervisor originally.

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Niamh McAnally: And anyway, from there, I did more and more and I kind of backdoored my way into it.

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Niamh McAnally: I then started doing my certificates and my diplomas and all that good stuff.

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Niamh McAnally: And I ultimately became a manager of a hotel and living over on the island of

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Niamh McAnally: Sark in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, just off the coast of France.

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Niamh McAnally: And I lived on this amazing island, which was three and a half miles long,

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Niamh McAnally: a mile and a half wide, accessible only by ferry.

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Niamh McAnally: There's no cars on the island, no paved roads and no airport.

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Niamh McAnally: So it was incredible. And it rises 300 feet up out of the ocean, if you like.

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Niamh McAnally: Yeah, it's quite a stunning, stunning location.

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Niamh McAnally: In fact, Enya, the singer Enya actually has an album out called Dark Sky Island.

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Niamh McAnally: And it's about that island, Sark, because they became the first island in the

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Niamh McAnally: world to get dark sky status, you know, where there's no light pollution and

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Niamh McAnally: you can see these amazing stars. So that's how that came about.

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Niamh McAnally: So that brought me into hospitality.

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Niamh McAnally: At the end of 2014, I had been on Sark for five years at that point,

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Niamh McAnally: and the owners decided they weren't going to open the hotels in the year of 2015.

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Niamh McAnally: So I thought, hmm, what's next? so I

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Niamh McAnally: was so involved and addicted to

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Niamh McAnally: volunteer travel every time I went on vacation I would

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Niamh McAnally: volunteer to try and you know live in the community

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Niamh McAnally: and I thought I know what I'm going to do I'm going to take a year out and I'm

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Niamh McAnally: going to travel the world as a volunteer in one direction so start out in London

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Niamh McAnally: and head west and keep going the whole way around the world and take 12 months

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Niamh McAnally: to do it that was my plan and it worked out really well I did some amazing projects like in St.

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Niamh McAnally: Barthes, down in New Zealand. I was in many of the islands in South Pacific,

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Niamh McAnally: like Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, French Polynesia, back up through Palau,

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Niamh McAnally: across Asia, and then eventually back to London, right? Job done.

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Niamh McAnally: And then I saw one more project on this website that I used to go to,

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Niamh McAnally: to find these volunteer projects.

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Niamh McAnally: And it was to help a solo sailor crew his boat from Florida to the Bahamas.

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Niamh McAnally: And it was only going to take a month. So I thought, perfect,

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Niamh McAnally: I'm going to apply for that.

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Niamh McAnally: And in the meantime, I'll send out my resumes and then I'll be back in time

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Niamh McAnally: by the time I get interviews, et cetera.

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Niamh McAnally: Well, I get on the boat and let me just say, it was supposed to last a month

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Niamh McAnally: and I lived on that boat for six years. Yes.

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Niamh McAnally: And then and then it turned out one of the

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Niamh McAnally: things is the captain captain gary was

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Niamh McAnally: not looking for a relationship neither was i by the way but when you live 24

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Niamh McAnally: 7 in a 40 foot space on the high seas and you have to rely on your fellow mariner

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Niamh McAnally: for your safety and there's no wi-fi no internet no self-service per se.

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Niamh McAnally: Guess what you do after the day is done? You sit and you talk.

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Niamh McAnally: And we got to know each other so profoundly, you know, through chit-chat,

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Niamh McAnally: but then some really deep conversations because Gary had a degree,

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Niamh McAnally: a master's degree in spiritual psychology.

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Niamh McAnally: And I had spent a year after Fiji, after my first trip to Fiji with the Tony

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Niamh McAnally: Robbins program, which really taught me an awful lot about why we do things

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Niamh McAnally: and, you know, and how you motivate yourself.

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Niamh McAnally: And so the two of us came at similar conversations with similar approaches,

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Niamh McAnally: but they were still different enough for us to, you know, have meaningful conversations.

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Niamh McAnally: So after that, It was like, hmm.

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Niamh McAnally: And then about, I think it was four years on the boat and we were down in the

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Niamh McAnally: Caribbean on a little island or anchored off a little island called Bequay.

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Niamh McAnally: And it was Thanksgiving and the sun was setting and he proposed on the deck.

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Kevin Lowe: Amazing.

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Niamh McAnally: Yeah, yeah, that was quite extraordinary. And then we were planning,

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Niamh McAnally: that was 2019, and then we were planning on getting married in 2020.

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Niamh McAnally: And we're going to have a big wedding over in Ireland. His family was going

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Niamh McAnally: to come over. and my family would be there. But of course, then COVID hit.

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Niamh McAnally: So it took another year and a half. We eventually, we ended up doing a legal

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Niamh McAnally: ceremony down in Antigua where we were.

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Niamh McAnally: And then about 18 months later, we were able to have a wedding,

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Niamh McAnally: but it was still quarantine time.

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Niamh McAnally: So we flew to Ireland and we had a wedding reception for my family and then

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Niamh McAnally: flew back to America and had one a week later.

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Niamh McAnally: Same outfits, everything, just hiked them up, put them on the plane and off

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Niamh McAnally: we went. And we did another wedding ceremony in America for his family.

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Kevin Lowe: Wow. Wow. I love it. Well, that is quite the overview of this journey.

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Niamh McAnally: Just the overview. Sorry about that.

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Kevin Lowe: Oh, my goodness. That is insane. So I'm so excited. Let's go back a little bit.

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Kevin Lowe: And I'm curious about when you finally you went off and you became doing a scuba

00:14:48.120 --> 00:14:52.780

Kevin Lowe: diving. and then that kind of just opened the door to all these new adventures.

00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:59.280

Kevin Lowe: What did your family think of you leaving this industry that they all were in?

00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:02.360

Kevin Lowe: Did they think you were crazy or were they in full support?

00:15:02.580 --> 00:15:05.680

Niamh McAnally: I think everybody I know thinks I'm crazy most of the time.

00:15:09.740 --> 00:15:15.800

Niamh McAnally: I'll tell you when the crazy comments came for sure, it was when I said I was

00:15:15.800 --> 00:15:19.220

Niamh McAnally: going to go to sea with a man I'd never met before. That was like definitely

00:15:19.220 --> 00:15:20.880

Niamh McAnally: on the top of the crazy list for them.

00:15:21.060 --> 00:15:24.360

Niamh McAnally: They said to me like, you know, how do you know he's not an axe murderer?

00:15:24.860 --> 00:15:29.020

Niamh McAnally: And what I didn't know at the time, what we've since laughed about,

00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:33.260

Niamh McAnally: is that his friends were saying to him, you're taking on somebody you never met.

00:15:33.420 --> 00:15:36.120

Niamh McAnally: How do you know this woman isn't a modern day pirate?

00:15:36.380 --> 00:15:39.520

Niamh McAnally: I'm going to take your boat away from you when we're 12 miles offshore.

00:15:43.220 --> 00:15:47.840

Niamh McAnally: And you know i'll tell you what kevin the thing that all of those comments really

00:15:47.840 --> 00:15:51.080

Niamh McAnally: resonated with me and something a decision i've made in my life,

00:15:51.947 --> 00:15:56.067

Niamh McAnally: People out of the best interest, maybe they think they have your best interest

00:15:56.067 --> 00:15:59.007

Niamh McAnally: at heart and say, oh, be careful with that or you shouldn't do this or,

00:15:59.067 --> 00:16:02.127

Niamh McAnally: you know, you might get hurt there, that kind of thing.

00:16:02.627 --> 00:16:09.507

Niamh McAnally: If you allow somebody else's fears infect you, you'll get stuck.

00:16:09.927 --> 00:16:13.967

Niamh McAnally: You won't go, you'll get stunted. You won't be going and doing the things that

00:16:13.967 --> 00:16:16.647

Niamh McAnally: your heart sings and wants you to do.

00:16:16.847 --> 00:16:19.727

Niamh McAnally: Do you know what I mean? so I've I took a

00:16:19.727 --> 00:16:22.367

Niamh McAnally: while to learn that in life because you know early on we kind of

00:16:22.367 --> 00:16:25.767

Niamh McAnally: do things we should do we we ought to do for

00:16:25.767 --> 00:16:28.667

Niamh McAnally: maybe for approval maybe for people say

00:16:28.667 --> 00:16:31.567

Niamh McAnally: this is the best idea for you you know and until

00:16:31.567 --> 00:16:35.347

Niamh McAnally: such time as you step into your own persona

00:16:35.347 --> 00:16:40.567

Niamh McAnally: and listen to your intuition listen to who you really are and uncover all of

00:16:40.567 --> 00:16:45.447

Niamh McAnally: that you can allow that to stop you and And that's one of the beautiful things

00:16:45.447 --> 00:16:49.847

Niamh McAnally: that I've learned from traveling is that now I just listen to my own gut and

00:16:49.847 --> 00:16:51.647

Niamh McAnally: it really hasn't steered me wrong.

00:16:52.187 --> 00:16:58.787

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to ask questions and we're going to dive into

00:16:58.787 --> 00:17:05.627

Kevin Lowe: this just crazy thing of going sailing with a stranger and then turned into

00:17:05.627 --> 00:17:07.847

Kevin Lowe: just this beautiful love story on the sea.

00:17:07.847 --> 00:17:13.547

Kevin Lowe: But I feel as though it's important for us to back up a little bit in your story

00:17:13.547 --> 00:17:18.787

Kevin Lowe: because you were involved in another relationship. You were actually married before.

00:17:19.727 --> 00:17:19.887

Niamh McAnally: Right.

00:17:20.127 --> 00:17:23.107

Kevin Lowe: Will you talk to me a little bit about that chapter in your story?

00:17:23.787 --> 00:17:29.527

Niamh McAnally: Sure. I was married. And one of the things the reason I ended up getting married

00:17:29.527 --> 00:17:35.207

Niamh McAnally: was because I was in my 30s and I had that baby clock ticking away in my brain.

00:17:35.207 --> 00:17:37.767

Niamh McAnally: You know, I wante