Legends Interview Series Presented by Sarah Furuya Coaching Sarah Furuya

Joy leads us on a mystical journey through thin places, magical backstreets, tarot, mysticism, poetry, grief and death. day jobs and other jobs. (wait for the ferry story)
There are multi-swears and adult themes in this conversation so please be mindful of who you are listening with. Grandma will love it but your kids…
Joy read two of her poems for us - her poetry is like Shibuya at night; all of it. Neon, concrete, streets, softness, sex, longing, eros, grime and stubble. Her inaugural book of poems Pause::Heartbeat is a visceral trip through Tokyo humanity, pleasure, longing and self. When I first read it I was stunned; 4 years ago, it brought me back to those days of grime, risk, and physicality of being young. The tawdry tales of a life lived fully in the light and dark.
Joy is generous in talking about sobriety and it’s always such a deeply satisfying experience talking frankly with other sober people. Each tale is different but there’s a sameness. There are echoes that reach out into each experience. Her descriptions of the spirals into alcohol dependence, the root of vortices and path to recovery are deeply evocative.
Evocative is a notion that comes up a lot in our conversation and Joy’s words cracked Sarah open, gave her chills, surfaced tears and allowed her to explore what it might be like to feel good every day.
Joy is Sarah’s sempai; her senior or mentor in terms of sobriety, and you can hear in the conversation the high context that happens between two people who have similarly overcome a destructive spiral with alcohol. There are unwritten and unspoken knowings about what remaining sober is and you can feel it in the texture of this conversation. While Sarah is 10 years Joy’s senior, Joy is most certainly ahead of her in the unfolding of alcohol-freedom. Speaking with Joy feels like and evocation. This works on many levels.
There’s poetry in the lilt of the back and forth in our conversation, we explore many places on human existence; the outer world, the unseen world and the inner world. And spirals.
The symbolism in everything. Tarot and its mathematics; its symbols and the card that Joy connects with regularly.
Joy is powerful. There’s a quiet optimism and kindness in her being. Getting over disappointment transmute - she loves reading aloud
Her poetry reading makes me cry

We speak to nostalgia and the erotic; listen to the end to find out about sexy time on a ferry and the French foreign legion; to betrayals that crack open the most creative places and had Joy demand of herself that she doesn’t edit and goes all in on her writing and her poetry.

It felt sacred, this conversation. And practical; Joy has a day job that supports her art and Sarah is of course irreverent about manifesting. No surprises there!

In this episode discover:
Gorgeous old-school language and words; be astonishedWhich previous Legends Podcast guest we honour for their emotional fullnessAlcohol’s impact on Joy’s ability to create and what sobriety did for her writingTarot, symbolism, poetry and A love story that lasted a lifetime and ended in bereavement 

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

About Joy
Joy Waller was raised in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada and spent her young adulthood on Vancouver Island. She currently resides in Tokyo, Japan, where she serves as an editor at the Tokyo Poetry Journal and co-hosts...

In this weeks creative musings, Sarah muses on some wildly creative, yet ethically questionable facilitations she did in the past and wonders - has she lost her moji?
Also on evolutions she’s gone through in her coaching practice. 
She wonders has she lost her coaching mojo…?
Find out on this episode! 
*please note none of this episode, or any episode, besides any cited research is anything but Sarah musing, in real time, about events in her life. It has a coaching context, and a psychological backbone. Don’t take her advice under any circumstances…
But do take her coaching. It’s good. 
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.
Connect with Sarah
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sarah-furuya-creative
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahfuruyacreative/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahfuruyacreative
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXsuS_yVT9fMHjhAylVy8-whttps://www.sarahfuruya.com/simply-coaching

Michael is a fascinating human and not so much a chameleon as he is absolutely himself wherever he is. He has an uncanny ability to have skin in the game. He is the first person to EVER present INBOX ZERO to me as something that is appealing, and he is very frank about what the first couple of hours of his day look like. 
Michael requested at the top of this podcast to turn some questions on me too - and I obliged. It’s hard to put into words, and I am still answering his questions in my head about some of my philosophy and humanity but I think something I didn’t articulate at all well was that I don’t feel like ‘Look at my spicy friends!’, moreover, it’s far more akin to - this is my life, and your life; the real world and the world we live in and occupy. Whatever you see is not my attempt at diversity or inclusion - it is my history, my art and I am part of it. And so are you, whether you know it or not. Humans are not my market. They are and also they aren’t. I am in service.  Like I say, it’s very hard to articulate. Michael sneakily got me talking about this topic - it’s high context, we understand between us, but it would be hard to put a PowerPoint presentation together about it. Please don’t request this. 
Identity is huge in this conversation - such a rich inquiry and we muse on how ‘ordinary, or ‘normal’ is simply another diversity and also how he starred in a film called ‘Spoiled Identity’ directed by former Legends, Yukiro Dravarious (or full video here) and Duncan Whom. 

Michael exemplifies this as we dive into his Haus and attempt to describe it! 
In the podcast discover
What the surfboard under young, blond, tanned Michael’s arm really represents…Time; taking time. Time for relationships to settle, time for preparation in the morning, time for rest and sleepThe wisdom of video games and mountains (and a surprising connection we have between my Mt Fuji Climb and his work with Shine on Kids)How he seamlessly moves between his life-roles as Director of the Drag Haus von Schwarz, Event Producer of Shine on Kids Cancer Charity and being founder of Bainsoft, his talent agency and localisation studioCan he reconcile Christianity and faith with his life?

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

About Michael

Michael Bain is Founder/CEO of Bainsoft, Event Producer for Shine On! Kids, and Manager of Drag Collective Haus Von Schwarz. He left his hometown Brisbane, Australia in 2014 to get closer to the video game music industry in Tokyo and is now uniquely positioned to help eliminate barriers between Japanese/Western companies and artists.

In 2022, he founded Bainsoft, a talent agency and localization studio. Bainsoft manages narrators, singers, voice actors and composers, matching English-speaking talent with Japanese companies, and vice versa. Recent...

[To have "skin in the game" is to have incurred risk (monetary or otherwise) by being involved in achieving a goal] Wikipedia 
I kept thinking about what it was about the people who have been really piquing my interest recently. Or as I look back on previous guests what is it that connects them?
I loved the very creative folk, and the last season of reinventors. Everyone in fact. Whether buying land to build a sculpture studio, traveling across the world to enter a hardcore Karate dojo, starting a drag house, becoming a citizen of Japan in order to have political influence, starting a radio show, falling in love, recovering from business disaster, so many of my guests had put serious skin in the game.

I look at my friends and the people I admire. The feminists, the activists, the style mavens, the weirdos, the deeply genuine; the people who speak out or show up along the edges of culture and I noticed; they had skin in the game.

I also realised, if I am to enter into the fullness of the next iteration of myself and my family unit - that’s what I need. And so I am fascinated to explore with my guests, what it means to them and how they are moving through the world with skin in the game. 

For me, getting my skin in the game requires some serious outside help. And that help might not quite be what you imagine.
Of course I am 18 months sober, a constant source of relief and fascination as thought after thought emerges through the sobriety for me to soberly deal with (skin in the game) AND MY LORD did I feel like drinking this past week - it was strange. But I didn’t. 5 months post-surgery, I am getting used to this new body and new way of being in the hormonal world This time last year my body was being physically and emotionally violent towards me. I had severe anaemia and felt utterly insane. Now the stability of hormones and absence of bleeding is a whole new and very welcome landscape to navigate. 

This episode is all about how I am using signals from nature and from my surroundings as my points of coaching inquiry. How I am experiencing a lot of change and choice and communing with the flowers in my garden, the trees in my eye line, the jasmine at my door to deliver messages through the ether. #ordinarymagic And also my neighbour moved out, I was upset but then that revealed something else that I muse on in the recording. My Mum and Dad were visiting their old neighbour the same week. Everything changes all the time, Nature’s rhythms are not influenced by culture, and I probably need to get some fertiliser for the plants if I want them to flower.

What can the nature outside my window tell me about what’s happening inside me, about my thoughts; what emblems and metaphors can I dance with. And the movement of people in and out of our lives. I could see my neighbour every day for 5 years then POOF gone - disappeared, like they’d never been there; a home becomes a house, filled with the #potentmagic if the next occupant.

You see that’s a lot of what’s happening here. I’m looking to see who is following the rhythms and flow of their nature, even if it is outside the flow of the culture. And if you flow outside of culture, then you have skin in the game. Each guest describes this differently yet with some similarity.
Every single day I muse on this, in conversation with the tree outside my door, the neighbours past and present, the books I read, the music I choose, the voices in my ears. I observe my husband, his way of being in the world, our love, our third entity and I muse on this. And the folk with skin in the game. And how if I am to dance with culture even more, reveal my nature, live in the ordinary magic; getting more and more skin in the game is not an option. It is inevitable collateral.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love...

This episode is dedicated to Clinton, Leonie’s brother 
LEONIE FREAKIN DAWSON! In the compelling conversation we meet a woman who has touched many thousands of lives with her Brilliant Biz and Life Academy and created wealth, confidence and happiness for herself, her family and for her clients. She is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, loved-up wife and partner and parent of two and the creator of many many life-changing trainings and classes
While it hasn’t all been plain sailing Leonie has remained true to her calling, her heart and intuition among the topics we muse upon in today’s conversation are:
Leonie’s inability to create, and this one hit me hard, a professional mirage, and how she attracts clients and has a thriving business while keeping it wild and weirdHow she leverages neurodivergence and revolutionizes her unique set of abilities in how she works - 10 hours a week - she rests for resultsThe importance of taking care of business and making money and her advice to women who have left taking care of business later in life (it’s never too late)How the sudden death of her brother when Leonie was 15 changed the course of her lifeHer love of relocation, renewal and reinvention and her devotion to the land of Australia
Her membership site; the Brilliant Life and Biz Academy (which I forget the name of in my excitement, even though I’m a member) is an investment that will pay you back dividends. If you are a small biz, entrepreneur or want a refresh or restart in your biz, there is great content, calls, community and new programmes being added all the time. Use this SFC affiliate link to sign up and access loads of great Leonie offers.
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

About Leonie
Leonie Dawson is an internationally best-selling author of the 2024 My Brilliant Year workbooks (formerly known as the Goal Getter workbooks) which have been used by over 500,000 people worldwide.
A multi-passionate entrepreneur, Leonie has generated over $14 million in revenue while only working 10 hours a week. Leonie has been recognised for her business acumen by winning Ausmumpreneur’s People’s Choice Business Coach, Global Brand & Businesses Making A Difference Awards.
Leonie has spent the last 10 years living in some of the most beautiful places around Australia. She currently lives with her two daughters and husband on the Sunshine Coast.
Leonie uses she/her pronouns.

Connect with Leonie
Website: https://leoniedawson.com/ 
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/leonie_dawson/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsleoniedawson/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leoniedawsonauthor/ 

Connect with...

Dedicated to the memory of Yasuko Mori, RIP
It is with deep sadness and great respect that I talk about the influence that Mori Yasuko had on so many people in our Tokyo community. She influenced me in positive ways to look at business through a new lens of service and innovation. She made a unique contribution to society. I will miss her monthly paper newsletters that were full of personal and business information. But mostly I will miss her. 
We each contribute to one another. Each small business or organisation provides some kind of service that makes life fuller or easier. Ease, order, beauty, lawfulness, coaching, administration, body-care, relaxation, all those things that your friends or family can’t always provide. 
I have been lucky, so very lucky over the years with the services I have received and the clients I have served. I never ever take these things for granted and always feel great joy and humility thinking about everything that happens around me. Please enjoy this love letter to (most of) my people.
A love letter to my collaborators part one.
In this Podcast:

Muse on the connections, webs and ripples that influence our businesses, friendships and the quality of our livesThe void that is left when people leave usHow the small business community exists due to the flow of commerce, communication and recommendations between usThe impact that small gestures and immense generosity has on people’s businessThe deeply healing influence of gratitude and reciprocity - I’ve been so lucky with my collaborators (this is part one because I keep forgetting to mention people!)
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram and Facebook

Connect with Sarah
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sarah-furuya-creative
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahfuruyacreative/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahfuruyacreative
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXsuS_yVT9fMHjhAylVy8-w