G'day, I'm Gus Wallin, host of Not An Overnight Success.
Welcome to series four, all brought to us
by our mates at Shore and Partners Financial Services.
Today's episode is with Madame Butterfly, Susie O'Neill,
legendary Australian swimmer.
We've been great mates since we did
the London Olympics together for Foxtel
all those years ago in 2012.
Love sitting down with Susie.
She gets really vulnerable.
She talks about chatting with her coach,
she talks about childbirth,
as well as now her new life
as being on Brekkie Radio in Brisbane.
Fantastic chat, really enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoy our chat with Madame Butterfly.
Okie dokie, welcome.
And we're very, very lucky to have Madame Butterfly,
Welcome to the podcast.
How are you this morning?
We've just got you after you doing your Brekkie show
up there in Brisbane.
How are you this morning?
I'm good actually, I'm pretty good.
I loved working with you actually.
It's good to see you again.
Remember we worked together in London at the Olympics.
It was some of the best time of my life, honestly.
We just loved it.
And for people that don't know,
it's the go to the Olympics
where someone like Susie was just incredible.
And then we just became really good mates.
We spent a lot of time together.
Susie would call the swimming
and then I would chat to the swimmers
that would want to chat on poolside.
And the girls did well in the Olympics,
the boys not so flashed,
but it's a relationship in that week
that I really, really enjoyed, Susie.
But you know what I loved that you did for me
is remember we always met for coffee
before we went out to the pool?
Just like a bit of, I don't know,
what do you call that?
Yeah, connection.
I really enjoyed that.
And I must admit I've known you for a little while,
obviously you being a swimmer and so forth
before we became mates,
but it did surprise me
that you're now doing a breakfast radio show
because you are reasonably shy.
And I know certainly when you were younger and swimming
that media wasn't something
you were necessarily gonna get into.
So what was the reasoning for you
to get into the show in Brizzy?
God, if you had told me when I was A, at school
or just finished school
that I would be doing a breakfast radio show,
I would have thought you were making it up.
I'm a shy person.
I'm gradually getting more confident in social situations,
but I don't like meeting new people.
But how did it happen?
Well, kind of by luck.
I ran into Lutzi, one of the co-hosts I work with.
I work with Ash Bradnum and Lutzi, David Luttrell.
I ran into Lutzi up at the Noosa Triathlon
and I was drunk and he was drunk.
And I was telling him
how I had just been to see a life coach.
And he's like, oh wow, that's interesting.
And funnily enough at that life coach,
I didn't tell Lutzi this at the time,
at the life coach I had to put down
if I could succeed at anything and not fail,
what would it be?
And I said, be on a radio show.
Can you believe that?
And it was weird.
And then I ran into Lutzi.
I didn't tell him that.
I just kind of said, I've been to this life coach
and he thought I was,
and I must've said all this kind of weird stuff
that he's like, this would be great to share with people.
And then I also knew Ash
because he used to be a sports reporter
when I was a swimmer.
And so they asked me to come and trial,
or not really trial, fill in for Mitch Lewis,
who's Wally Lewis' son, who reads our sport here.
So 10 years ago, he went on, not maternity leave,
honeymoon, that's right, honeymoon.
And for three weeks,
and they got me as one of the girl athletes
to come in and read the sport for a week.
And then I just stayed and it started really slowly.
And then just a break, like 7.30 to eight,
and then a day, a week, and then two days,
three days, four days.
I went five days full-time, I think five years ago.
And now you've been so, what's it like?
I mean, I did 10 years with Maddie Johns and MG,
two poor fed rugby league players.
But that alarm, not only for me, but for my partner,
Vicks had to wake up every morning,
even though she could roll over and go back to bed.
It's a killer, especially with children
that you have as well.
Yeah, it is a killer.
And you know what?
I remember you talking about it
when we did that show in London at the Olympics.
I remember you saying it was so hard to get up.
And it is, I've been doing it for 10 years now.
Actually, you know what?
I'm getting really sick of it, if I'm being honest.
I'm getting really sick of getting up early,
getting up early.
That's what I meant.
If you could just do the show, it would be so wonderful.
But the fact you have to get up at such an hour
to then be able to plan the show and produce it all up
to get ready for six o'clock when that might goes live.
I mean, you've got to be on every morning, haven't you?
I mean, it's really different to swimming training
because swimming, when I was swimming and getting up early,
which is what I did most of my life, that's all I was doing.
So I tailored my life around that.
But now, as you said, I've got children and family.
I do other things.
I've got other roles and other jobs.
I turned 50 this year.
Tell you what, you look fantastic.
I mean, you probably don't feel it right now.
You've just done your Breckie radio show,
but you look 15 years younger than 50.
I try to keep myself really fit.
So I exercise every day.
I swim a couple of times a week.
I've just been on a surfing holiday to Indonesia.
So I just like to invest in my health.
Well, we've sort of jumped to the back end.
So I'll get back to the start
because I want to know about you as a kid.
What sort of childhood did you have
and how did you grow up and where and who with?
It's funny you should ask this
because I've been seeing a psychologist lately
and she's been asking me the same stuff.
Because I'm at a point now I'm 51,
one child's left home.
I've got one in grade 12 and he's going to leave home.
So I'm going to be an empty nester next year.
And it's like, who am actually I?
Because you know, when you got kids,
you kind of just, you play a role, don't you?
You don't really think about yourself too much.
So I've been thinking about what was I like as a kid?
I was pretty different kid.
I was a massive tomboy.
I had an older brother
and I pretty much hung around with him all the time
and did everything that he did
to the point of, you know,
I wore his board shorts with no shirt.
I tried to go to the toilet like him.
I've just really, really idolized him
but he was really sporty as well.
So that's when I learned how to surf.
We'd always be competing with each other.
Like to the point we lived in a two story house
and we had this sort of round stairs
that went up to upstairs.
And nearly every night we went to bed,
we'd race up the stairs and the, you know,
the person behind you could,
you could ankle tap the person in front of you
and they would face plant on the stairs.
So everything was a competition and a race
which I need to thank him for being competitive.
But I was just, I was pretty hyperactive, I suppose.
I was always active.
I spent a lot of time by myself.
I didn't like socialize a lot with other kids.
I was more active.
I was more active based kind of kid,
I suppose you would say.
But yeah, it was a really good childhood.
I had really great parents.
So you're up there in Queensland.
Was it Brisbane that you were at mainly as a child
or was other parts of the, of the state?
I was born in Mackay
but I only lived there for a couple of months.
Dad just had a job up there.
But yeah, I lived in, in Brisbane,
but all our holidays were at either the Gold Coast
or Noosa, Sunshine Coast.
Two holidays a year.
Usually like most families back then.
Easter we went to Noosa.
December we went to Green Mount near Kilngatta.
But I started swimming quite early.
Like Brisbane got the Commonwealth Games in 1982
and I was in grade four.
And my year four teacher really focused
on the Commonwealth Games.
We collected all the newspaper clippings
and really, really focused on it.
And I remember thinking that's, that's what I wanna do.
So I started swimming that year with Mr. Wakefield.
So that was a big part of my life is,
is swimming with Mr. Wakefield at the local pool
and with the swimming club and all the friends I made there,
which I'm still friends with one of them.
One of my best friends still.
Oh, that's so good to have those sort of memories.
Before we get into the swimming,
were you good at any other sports?
Was there something that you loved?
Was there another sport perhaps if you focused on the,
you might've done well at?
I did a lot of sports growing up.
I love any type of sports.
I played a lot of tennis.
We had a tennis court at home
and I played fixtures and lessons
and I played fixtures twice a week.
So quite often I would go swimming training
and then go straight to tennis fixtures.
What else did I do?
I did a lot of running.
I still hold the running record at my high school
for the 400 meters running.
Yeah, I did a lot of cross country, surfing, bike riding.
Yeah, I did heaps of stuff.
I did play netball.
I didn't love team sports, I've got to say.
I didn't like relying on other people
to what I wanted to do.
You know, in a team sport,
you've got to wait for the ball to be passed to you.
And you're like, I don't like that.
I'm getting a theme here that you were focused
pretty much on mucking around with your brother
or doing individual sports.
That seemed to be your happy places.
Yeah, pretty much.
And yeah, I did a lot of things.
Swimming, I had a teacher actually
that really got me into swimming at school,
who I also am still in touch with, Mrs. Brett.
I still see her regularly.
So she really encouraged me to do those zones
and regional swims, you know, those from school.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I used to love them because then she would get me
to come to her classroom and show my medals to her class.
She never taught me.
And I really remember that.
So I liked sport and I liked competing
and I liked winning things actually.
So what sort of stage early on, like you're there,
you start swimming through the 82 Commonwealth Games,
at what stage does someone say,
you're actually pretty good at this.
If you stick at it,
you might be able to be a swimmer.
What was sort of the process for you then?
Yeah, well, I really remember a particular point
when the dream is really put into my head
and of that I could be really good.
And I was probably about 12
and I was training with Mr. Wakefield at the local pool.
And I remember I was sitting on,
you know those seats that they used to do the judging on
at the end of a pool, the judges used to sit on them.
Anyway, they were tiered seats.
They were tiered seats, a little bit higher, yep.
Yeah, and Mr. Wakefield coming up to me
and saying, one day people will know me
like they know Shane Gould,
who was a really famous swimmer.
I don't know if people remember her,
but she was a super famous swimmer back in the 70s.
And I remember just him saying that, thinking,
oh, you know when someone puts that dream in your head,
I could be like that.
But then fast forward, I mean,
then my career was quite different.
I mean, I could give you a speedy version,
but back then swimming, most people gave up swimming
as soon as they finished school, they were quite young.
The Tracy Wickhams and all that were 19, 20
when they gave up swimming.
So I always thought that I would swim.
So I started in back grade four,
that I'd swim until I finished school
and then I'd go to uni and get a proper job.
And obviously my parents were really big on schoolwork,
et cetera, et cetera.
But then it kind of worked out differently,
mainly probably because of the Sydney Olympics.
What I love is that dream that gets put into your brain
and for you to go, oh, Shane,
it's like a cricketer now, a young 12 year old saying,
you could be Steve Smith one day
or you can be Mitchell Stark one day or Glenn McGraw,
whatever sort of generation we're talking about.
That's an incredible thing to hear.
And did it sort of sink in and you went, oh,
mom and dad, this is what I've been told?
Or did you think they wanted you to go
to the traditional path and swimming was just a bit of fun?
I wouldn't have told my parents that he said that to me,
And I wouldn't have thought that,
and they were definitely traditionalists.
Yeah, I don't know.
But yeah, when someone just actually does it,
you're right, it just makes you believe.
Cause a lot of things in life are just believing
you can do it, don't you think?
Or faking it till you make it.
Especially now that I'm doing radio, I'm like,
oh wow, okay, so this is what happens.
You just like pretend that you can do it
and all of a sudden you can do it.
It's weird, isn't it?
And just believing that you can do it.
Yeah, so for Mr. Wakefield to say that,
it's like, oh wow, imagine if people knew me
and they knew Shane Gould.
Just going, wow, I'd love that.
I'd love everyone to know who I was.
So did Shane Gould one day come up to you
or did you go up to her one day and have that conversation?
Have you told her that story?
I have told her that story, yeah.
What did she say?
She didn't say too much.
Because a lot of people,
well, surprisingly, she does talk a lot,
but a lot of people, when I was a bit older,
a lot of people said that we were very similar as swimmers,
her mannerisms and different things like that.
I did tell her, what did she say?
She's pretty quirky, Shane.
Have you interviewed her?
No, I never have.
I love her because she always has
really good pearls of wisdom.
Like, I remember once she said to me,
which is what I'm feeling like I'm going through
at the moment, I said to her, how are you going, Shane?
I don't know how old she was.
She's probably about my age or maybe a bit younger.
She goes, you know, I'm like the field
that has had a lot of crops growing in it
and needs now to take a rest
and just like rejuvenate to see what they're going to plant
in the paddock, you know, before we go on.
I'm thinking, I really remember her saying that.
And at the time, because I was a lot younger,
I must've been early 20s thinking,
that's a really odd thing to say.
But now that I'm 50,
I feel like I'm going through exactly the same time
that she said, do you know that feeling?
Yeah, she explained it so well in a picture.
I feel it needs to be rested a bit
to find out what they want to plant in it again.
And then of course, at the age of 50,
you've got another 25, 30, hopefully, of healthy years
and you can go again.
You can literally do what you've done in your first 50
and your next 30.
I've gone through the same discussion.
I'm 54 now when we're empty nesters,
Abby, Ella and Jack all gone ski.
Ella's been living in London now for a couple of years.
And it's just a different world now.
And we've got to work stuff out
to see what's going to be right for Vicks and I moving forward.
It's a lonely old place at times
and not just haven't got that energy
that you used to have around the house.
Yeah. And do you feel like time's running out?
I've got this weird feeling that time,
I haven't got enough time to fit in everything.
No, I've never, I've always felt very,
I've always been a positive cat
and I've always felt that I'll be able to do whatever.
I've just got to just keep my head in the game
and she'll be right sort of thing.
So I feel we're going to be right.
I got another 30.
So you're the fourth grader you go through.
I'm assuming you're winning everything.
There's more medals and ribbons and stuff
and you're doing all strokes.
Well, I have a mixed swimming result.
Can't speak. I've been speaking for too long today.
See if I know the words.
I've got a mixed result thing cataloged
because I actually used to get so nervous
before my races when I was younger
that when I dived in and swam like freestyle,
I wasn't doing butterfly at the time,
but freestyle, I would actually stop.
So I'd have a panic attack
and I felt really claustrophobic and stop.
As a consequence, I was a backstroker,
so I could keep my head out of the water.
So I would win state titles when I was 10 at backstroke,
but not even finish the freestyle event
because I get pulled out of the water
because I was a nervous competitor, nervous competitor.
But backstroke, my head's out of the water,
so I never got that claustrophobic feeling.
So at what stage did that change
for you to be able to go, you know what,
I can work through this, keep my head in the water
and finish these races where the head was down?
Yeah, probably around 13.
And we were doing a lot of butterfly in training then
with Mr. Wakefield.
And so at 14, I switched and became a butterflyer
And then I got second at the Olympic trials,
Open Nationals when I was 14 in butterfly.
I didn't make the team,
but also didn't do backstroke again.
Okay, so everyone has a crack at swimming.
You do the freestyle, a little bit of breaststroke.
You're mucking around.
No one does butterfly, because it just hurts so much.
What made you eventually become Madame Butterfly?
What was that thing that went, you know what,
this is hard, but I'm good at it, so I'm sticking at it.
Well, probably like you said then,
because I was good at it.
And we did a lot of butterfly in training, like I said,
and then it kind of just popped out and I was good at it.
And I was good at the 50 and the 100.
But moving to the 200 butterfly,
that was the one that I particularly
didn't really want to do, to be honest.
But my coach, Mr. Wakefield, said,
this was in 1992.
So I'd made the Commoth Games in Auckland and Pampax,
where I was 100 meters butterfly.
But 1992, the lead up to that Olympics,
Mr. Wakefield said, there's a big opening
in the 200 butterfly, not only in Australia,
but internationally.
So I was 18 when I did my first 200 butterfly,
which is, it's pretty old for a swimmer.
So I took it up in that year and I won trials.
And then I got third at the Olympics in the 200 butterfly.
Good on Mr. Wakefield.
I know, Mr. Wakefield.
But I only did it, to be honest, because I was better at it.
Everyone wants to be a 50 freestyler
and then 100 freestyler.
And then as you're less talented,
you move out into different events.
Well, you did pretty good at all.
I mean, I've got your stats here.
Across Olympics, world champs, long course, short course,
the Pampax Comm Games, 24 gold, 33 silver, 10 bronze.
Do you know those stats?
You don't seem like the type of person
that would perhaps know every stat,
but that's pretty impressive stuff.
When you hear that, how does that make you feel?
Yeah, well, it makes me feel good.
And you're right, I don't know my stats.
I've never been into stats.
I never knew my best times or who I was competing against
or any of that stuff, which made commentating kind of hard
because I wasn't into stats or results.
But nearly every time, I reckon,
nearly every time I walk into a pool now
and I walk into a pool probably three times a week,
I actually go, oh, wow, I've made it.
And I'm a good swimmer.
Who would have thought that when I was 10,
when I walked into Mr. Wakefield's squad
like Hibiscus Gardens, that I would have it ticked off
pretty much every single goal that you could in swimming.
So I do, I reminisce about it a bit.
And I smell the chlorine and I love it.
And then how good that I still love swimming.
Like so many swimmers don't swim anymore.
Don't swim anymore, like most, I reckon.
I love the fact that you call him Mr. Wakefield.
I went back to my old school for R U OK Day
and Mr. Gooding was there and he was my favorite teacher.
And I said, oh, Mr. Gooding, he goes,
oh Gus, please call me Martin.
And I go, I can't, I'm so sorry, I can't.
There's a few mates of mine whose fathers,
until they passed away recently, I called them Mr. as well.
Like I'm teared up thinking about those relationships
and people that steer you in a path that you go,
oh, if I believe in Mr. Wakefield,
if I believe in my guy, Mr. Gooding,
I'm gonna be a good kid.
He's gonna put me in the right path.
You sound so fond of this man.
Can you tell us more about him?
Is he still with us?
How important was he in your life?
I mean, it's more now that I finished swimming
and I've got older, I appreciate him so much
because I'll tell you how it ended.
It didn't end that great.
So I'll start the bad part first.
Yeah, let's go with the bad part first.
So I ended up when I was 21,
when I went to the 94 World Championships
and Commonwealth Games,
I was really disappointed with how I'd swum.
So I'd swum with him since I was nine to 21.
So I decided to leave him at that point when I was 21.
It was really difficult,
probably more for him than for me.
I remember going with my mom to see him and telling him
and he was really angry and probably upset
and pretty much said I would never swim as fast
with anyone else.
And I changed coaches.
So I had that and I moved to Scott Volkers,
and so the last six years of my career was with Scott Volkers.
And then three weeks before the Sydney Olympics,
Mr. Wakefield died.
He died of cancer at a pretty young age.
But there's so many things I regret
that I didn't do when he was alive.
Like when I broke the world record in 2000
in the 200 meters butterfly,
just before the Sydney Olympics,
which was a big deal at the time.
And for me, I've been recently watching
a lot of my old races and I watched the interview
and I didn't thank him.
I didn't thank Mr. Wakefield,
who was such a big part of me swimming
and the big part of,
he is actually a big part of my personality now.
And I really regret not thanking Mr. Wakefield.
And I'm not crying now
because I've been to a psychologist a lot about this.
And every time I,
because I really regretted it.
You know, do you ever have those moments
that you regret things? Yeah, of course.
But I was young, I suppose,
and I was selfish and I was self-centered
and self-focused with my swimming.
But going back to how good he was,
like he was like a granddad to me, to all of us.
And he would, in winter we used to train
at a pool a bit further away at Chandler.
And he used to pick us all up,
like four girls and pick us up and drop us back home again.
And he would tell us stories
and I don't know how to describe him.
He wasn't like, he never raised his voice ever.
And he would tell stories about fairies in his backyard.
And he'd written me beautiful letters,
giving me things that I've still got.
He was really articulate.
He was ahead of his time, his coaching.
He was actually amazing.
And I think back to when I left him,
because I probably could have been almost as,
maybe as successful with him.
I don't know, you know?
Yeah, you'll never know.
I don't even know.
But I mean, because I was the only one training with him
and it was, I was hating it.
And I, you know, I wanted to go to a squad
where there was other swimmers.
There was a couple of reasons and things, but.
Yeah, you need to freshen it up.
I need to freshen it up.
And I didn't really talk to him again after that much
Just the business of swimming,
were you quicker once you went to Scott
than you were with Mr. Wakefield?
Like thousands of a second, you know,
was the difference between, you know,
gold and silver and so forth.
So you were, in terms of swimming in the business,
it was the right decision.
It was the right decision, yeah.
Yeah, I improved substantially.
I just feel sorry for him.
Cause now I'm an adult.
I'm like, oh, poor Mr. Wakefield.
But I've resolved a lot of my angst around that.
And I think at the end of the day,
he probably was very, very proud of you.
He was just hurt because you were his protege.
You were, he knew how bloody good you were.
And you'd had so much success even at that age.
That's a tough one though.
And because he was such a great coach,
I hardly trained when I was younger.
He was real quality in kilometers wise.
So up until the age of 21, I was only,
so most swimmers, you swim around 70 to a hundred Ks
In swimming terms, probably with him,
I was probably doing 35 to 40 Ks a week.
So I don't have any shoulder injuries.
I don't have any, probably why I still love swimming.
He made it, but I mean, he's ahead of his time.
He made it fun and enjoyable.
And that's the reason I kept swimming for so long.
And the reason, one of the reasons I still love it.
Susie, let's talk about the real sort of successes,
if you like, initially in the pool for you
and how much it meant to you personally,
a shy girl that didn't necessarily want to be
around a lot of other people.
You eventually get to the stage
where you're representing Australia.
How does it work for people listening?
Do you get a phone call saying you're in the Australian team
or is it just done on times or tell us that moment
when you first put on the green and golden
and knew that you were going to represent?
Yeah, we go to a trials event for swimming
and most of my career, it was pretty black and white,
whether you made it or not.
And then you get it announced at the end of the swim meet
that you made the team.
Probably the only time when I wasn't sure
if I was going to make it or not
was my first Olympic trials at 1988.
And it was at the Sydney, the old Manly pool,
not Manly pool, yeah, Manly Warringah pool at Sydney.
And I came second, which so usually you got to come
on the top two and make a qualifying time.
But back then it was a bit more iffy.
Don Talbot hadn't come on as the head coach yet,
who was our famous head coach for all my career,
who made it quite strict.
But every other time I kind of knew I'd made the team,
but it's a good feeling for me.
I remember different things.
Like I remember my second team probably,
which was the Commonwealth Games for Auckland.
And we trained at the Institute of Sport
before we went away and we had a three week camp there.
And I really remember kicking,
like the whole of the Australian swimming team
is in the 50 meter pool.
And I remember just kicking on the board going,
wow, I'm in the Australian swimming team.
Thinking that was amazing.
Cause I remember really remember watching
the 82 Commonwealth Games and seeing Lisa Curry
and Tracy Wickham and the mean machine.
And that was when I was nine and here I was,
I was what 15 years old.
So not that many years later, six years old,
six years later going, oh, I'm now part of this team.
So it was a real prestige thing
to be part of the swimming team to start with.
And then going to the Commonwealth Games,
my coach on the team saying,
you can win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games.
I remember thinking, no, as if I'd be able to do that.
You know, just again, I look back and go,
if only I was as confident as I was at the end of my career,
at the beginning of my career,
you know, it just takes a while for that confidence
and belief to kick in.
I would have, I felt like I would have been a bit better.
So the first gold medal, firstly, when was it?
What was it like?
And did you just sort of sleep with it on that night
What was that day like for you?
My first big gold medal was probably in a relay,
to be honest, which was the 1990 Commonwealth Games again,
because I'd done the individual hundred
and came second in that to Lisa Curry.
But in the four by 100 freestyle relay,
it was me, Lisa Curry, Angela Mullins,
and someone whose name escapes me.
It'll come back to you.
Oh, Karen Van Werdem.
Yeah, that's right.
And I remember thinking, well, I really remember that
and thinking, I'm going to be so famous.
Everyone is going to know who,
that's what I remember thinking is,
everyone's going to know who I am.
I don't know, I must have really had an obsession
with people wanting to know who I was.
I must have, hey.
For someone who wanted to stay sort of just
in your own lane, it's a bit weird.
I always wonder with that,
is this my only way I could get attention?
Because in real life, I was so quiet,
pathologically shy, I would call myself back then.
Barely been able to function in social situations.
But when I swam, everyone took notice of me.
I think I really enjoyed that.
But I wasn't famous by the way,
because I remember getting back to Australia
and thinking, oh, everyone's going to know who I am
when I walk down the street, but no one did.
So you win the first gold.
Do you sleep with it that night?
I don't think I would have slept with it.
I'm trying to think of my first big individual gold.
I can't remember.
Isn't that funny?
Well, you've won, like I said before, 24 of them.
So it might be hard to remember.
If there's not the first one you don't remember,
what's the one that absolutely stands out for you?
Actually, probably is my first really big one
that does stand out, was the 96 Olympics gold medal.
Because ever since I'd seen,
so I watched the 82 Commonwealth games,
but then I watched the 84 Olympics in LA.
And remember John Sieben won the gold medal.
In the 200 meters butterfly.
And I had that poster on the back of my wall of him.
He put his hand up at the end
and I thought John Sieben was so cool.
So when I won the 200 fly at the Olympics,
I'm like, and I felt like it was just one of those
preparations that just felt like it was going to happen.
It's probably the only time it's really happened
in my career, to be honest.
Like he just knew that I was going to win.
So everything was just,
so the preparation was good.
You hit the wall, you look around and you're like,
I'm an Olympic champion.
Like, whoa, how good's that?
And my brother was there in the stands.
It was in Atlanta.
So my brother was there with his wife, a friend,
my cousin, Cliff, who I was dating at the time was there.
And they all had t-shirts on with my photo
and zinc on their faces.
And yeah, I remember hopping out of the pool
and looking up at them and throwing my arms in the air.
And I really remember that.
That was amazing.
That was a weird night
because then we all went out to Centennial Park,
which is where all the athletes hung out
in sort of sponsored sort of areas.
But that was a night, the bomb went off.
It was such a weird night.
Do you remember the Atlanta boss?
I remember, yeah.
It was that night.
And then we all had to quickly rush to get home.
And there was no mobile phones back then.
So no one knew where we were.
And everyone was just trying to make their way back
to the village and different places.
So it was a really, it was a really funny night
because yeah, it was a night I won the gold medal,
but also a weird night because a bomb went off
and we're trying to get home.
But that's definitely my favorite medal probably.
And my favorite race is probably the world record.
And the Madam Butterfly, when did that name happen?
And was that Ray Warren that did that,
the commentator at the time?
Or did it just appear in a newspaper
and you rolled with it?
Cause that was, if someone says now Madam Butterfly,
Like you perhaps weren't famous
after winning that first gold medal at the Comm Games,
but you certainly are now just by nickname.
So how it came about is Mary T. Ma
was a tuna butterfly in America.
She was an American and that was her nickname,
And that's actually subsequently the world record
I ended up breaking.
So you took a world record and you took a nickname.
Yeah, stole her name.
Have you ever apologized to her?
I've spoken to her a bit.
I think I might've and she's really,
she's an amazing lady actually.
She's 10 out of 11 children,
number 10 out of 11 children I think,
grew up in this really religious family
and is the nicest lady,
like the nicest, most low profile lady you've met.
And I met her, her husband worked for sport.
He was an athlete as well.
Can't remember what sport he did,
but he worked for the Goodwill Games
and they came to Australia in 2001.
So I met her around that time
and I was going for her record at that time
because she had the longest standing world record
in swimming, 19 years.
She'd broken this record back in the early eighties,
I think or the mid eighties.
Actually, I don't know when she'd broken it,
worked that out with this calculator.
But I really remember meeting her
and thinking she's such a normal person.
And that again, belief,
once you meet someone who's done something extraordinary,
you realize that they're not extraordinary people.
They just work really hard to do extraordinary things.
So when I met her, I was like, oh, she's really normal.
I could probably break this record,
but yeah, I stole her.
I stole her nickname.
I do feel a bit bad about it.
And Wayne Smith, he had a reporter from the Australian.
Do you remember him?
Yeah, I remember him, yeah.
He took it and ran with it
and then it grew and grew and grew.
And I love it so much.
It's the best, there's so much.
As soon as you say it, it's so positive.
People know exactly, they smile,
they remember a race of some description.
Yeah, it's a fantastic nickname.
Can we move now a little bit,
obviously from swimming at some stage,
you've got to decide,
okay, I'm not gonna do this anymore.
How did that come to you,
that moment where you had to hang up the cozies?
Yeah, that's a gut feeling.
I've been thinking about that a lot at the moment,
probably because I'm going through a bit of a crossroads.
What's that gut feeling that tells you,
I don't wanna do this anymore.
And for me, it was probably around a year
before the Sydney Olympics.
So it was about a year before when,
well, that stage I was about 26, I think, or 27.
And so I felt like all my friends were out being adults
and I'd met Cliff at that stage.
I was married, yeah, I was married then.
And I kind of felt like I wanted to be an adult,
but I was still in this really kids sort of,
really, to be a good swimmer, it's really disciplined.
You do 10 sessions a week, you have to go to bed early.
And you kind of really,
I feel like you really have to give 110%
every single session.
If you're not really passionate about it
and you start not giving 110% every session,
I don't know, your performance starts to go down a bit.
And also it was getting to the point
where winning wasn't that fun anymore.
It was kind of a relief, but losing was horrible.
So it became, so not only was training not as easy for me
because I wasn't passionate, when I competed
and I was always a nervous competitor,
it was kind of getting a bit worse
because it felt like I had to win.
If I didn't win, I don't know,
it's just a weird feeling.
You were torn between a couple of different sort of worlds
wanting to give up, but not being able to win stuff
was going to annoy you as well.
So you're a bit stuck.
It wasn't as fun.
No, and plus this year, no one needs to win too, right?
Like at that stage, you're winning a lot.
So you didn't want to be that bunny
that ended up coming last or missing out on stuff.
Well, I kind of really wanted to stop at the top as well.
I mean, how do you know when the top is?
I remember my dad saying that to me a lot too.
You've got to get out when you're on top,
not when you start coming down the others.
You can't go too early either in case you miss out
on some really good stuff that you've worked so hard for.
So I think physically,
I probably could have kept going a bit longer.
Looking now, especially at athletes,
how long they're all swimming for.
I think Kate Campbell's in her thirties
and Kelly Slater's competing at 50.
So I retired at 27, but I knew I was done.
I was sick of training
and I was getting really nervous competing.
Sydney Olympics was great.
And also what a way to go out to home Olympics, I suppose.
And then Sydney was fun, but it was terrifying.
And I don't know, it was a good time to leave.
So Suze, at that stage, everyone knows you,
you're Madam Butterfly and that sort of stuff.
And for a lot of athletes,
it's hard then to sort of work out
what you're going to do next.
How long did it take you to sort of work out that next stage
and what did you do after you finished swimming?
Yeah, it probably took me, well, it took me 13 years
to find something that I loved, like radio.
And it was comparable to elite sport, to be honest,
similar type feelings and pressure and excitement and stuff.
But yeah, it was a real up and down time.
God, I didn't realize it would be so difficult
retiring from sport,
because I retired exactly on my terms
and I'd achieved everything that I want,
everything I wanted to achieve.
So most stories I'd heard,
people were struggling because they went out
out of injury or they didn't perform well,
they missed a team, et cetera, et cetera.
But I thought I'd be fine
because I left when I wanted to leave.
And I was fine for about two years.
And I was busy doing a lot of,
it was probably really good for me, actually.
I was doing a lot of functions, meet and greet functions,
which I didn't enjoy,
but it probably really helped me learn skills,
how to talk to people better
and mix and mingle with people better, you know?
Sort of thrown in the deep end.
I think I was traveling every week somewhere,
doing functions and stuff.
And then after about two years,
I reckon two years is fine.
And then you're like,
oh, now what do I do now?
What's my next goal?
I was like, Cliff, we should have some children.
He's like, you beauty.
No, he was like, no,
I don't think we should have them straight away,
which I think was sensible.
Cause he's a doctor, right?
Yeah, he's a doctor.
He's like, I think we should wait a little bit longer.
Was that his career that he needed
to sort of spend a bit more time or?
I think he wanted me to be outside of swimming
for a few years before I had children,
which I think was actually good advice.
Like, you know, I waited,
it was about two years and then,
well, to be honest,
I probably wanted them straight away
because that's like, that's my next thing.
That's the next thing on my list of things I need to do.
So, but he wanted to wait a few years.
It did actually work in with his career quite well.
I wonder if he did actually plan it.
He had it all planned.
He had it all sorted out.
He had it all planned.
Is he a sensible cat, Cliff?
So you're slightly left of center.
He's a sensible cat.
I wouldn't say loose.
I'm not a loose person.
I'm not a loose person, am I?
Left of center at times or whatever,
And then I had kids
and that was a real wake-up call, wasn't it?
How hard is having children?
Well, you got through most of it.
You got one in year 12 now and one that's left home.
So tell us about that experience.
What sort of kids have you got
and what sort of kids are they
and what sort of mom are you?
Well, I can look back and laugh at it now,
and I like to give people a realistic,
when I was on the radio,
a realistic account of what it was like being a mom,
because I felt like when I became a mom,
all everyone other moms used to say was,
oh my God, I love it.
I love being a mom so much.
And I was thinking, but I don't love it.
This is really hard.
A lot of hard work.
I had really bad postnatal depression actually.
I'm sorry to hear that.
But it's funny when I look back at it,
cause you can look back at it sort of laughing,
cause I went to a GP and my GP I'd seen my whole life
and she's like, I think you've got postnatal depression.
I'm like, no, I don't.
And so I'd left her and I went to a different GP.
I'd never seen before.
That was my solution.
I go in and he goes,
I think you've got postnatal depression.
I'm like, oh, okay.
Did you then go back to the one you'd spent?
I'm like, okay, I've got postnatal depression.
And he was, he was really good.
It's a tough time.
I can look back at it laughing now
and it sounds like it's not even real looking back at it,
but it's hard, you know,
when you just can't even really get out of bed
and you're so tired and so sad and anyway,
but I muddled through it.
I had great support with my GP.
I took some medication.
I'd made some more time for myself.
That was probably the biggest thing I did.
I started back swimming at the local pool.
I had a crèche and I could put my kids in there and swim.
And yeah, so I muddled through that and got through it.
And I really enjoyed motherhood,
probably especially from the ages of,
I reckon seven to 13.
And that was my favorite time when I was a kid as well.
And that was my favorite time of being a parent.
And I'm so proud of my kids.
Honestly, they have turned out so well.
I'm really, really, really proud of them.
So tell us about them.
Yeah, they're nice humans.
Who was number one?
So Alex is number one.
So she's my daughter and she's second year uni doing BAEF,
like got a really good score as a brainiac doing,
so it's a sort of specialist mathematics finance course
is really, really caring.
It's hard to put into words what they're like, hey,
but just a really caring, beautiful person.
Yeah, I mean, everyone says this
about their kids, don't they?
I think she's found her people now.
I've got three and I could come up
with all sorts of adjectives for mine.
Depending on what day.
She hasn't had an easy time.
I don't think it's easy being my daughter, to be honest.
Thankfully, she's got a different last name,
but people aren't always nice to other people, seems,
but she's found her way now and has found her tribe
and she's going great.
Son as well, he's had his ups and downs
over the years as well, but he seems pretty mature.
Even this last night at dinner,
he just started rubbing my back.
It's so nice, just without even thinking about it.
Yeah, and I'm not a really touchy feely person.
That's the only, I've had a few regrets.
As a mom, I didn't tell him I love them enough
because my parents didn't do that to me,
so I find it really awkward to do.
I'm trying to do it more now and I'm not,
do you want to do it?
Like I don't physically, which I'm trying to do more now,
but I wasn't enough, I don't think, over the years
because they're really huggy,
I've realized now they're really huggy people.
This generation tend to be more huggy
and I'm a massive hugger and I love you all the time,
even at like, not to the Uber driver necessarily,
but I've certainly said it to an Uber driver.
I love you, love you brother, thank you so much, you know,
but the I love you bit with your kids for me,
because I never got it myself from dad in particular.
In fact, I brought it up with my dad the other day,
he lives in Canberra and my brother and I
drove down to see him.
And at the end I said, okay, dad, thanks so much for lunch,
love you and gave him a big hug.
He goes, okay, have a good trip, you know,
let me know when you get home and stuff.
And I'm in the car with my brother, I'm just like,
why won't he just say he loves us?
He goes, you know he loves us.
I was like, yeah, but I want to hear it, right?
So I rang him, I rang him back.
I said, okay, we're on the road.
Dad just wanted to say,
it really was a lovely lunch.
Blah, blah, blah, he goes, good on you, that's great.
And then dee, dee, dee, you know, I'm like,
oh, my brother's just shaking his head.
He said, it's a battle you'll never win
because granddad never showed him that.
So he doesn't know how to do it.
It's just that generation, isn't it?
Yeah, but these kids, they want it.
They love to hear it and they say it to each other.
They say it to their friends there.
Like you say, your daughter found her people.
Where I had one daughter as well that struggled to find it
and all of a sudden she found her people.
And that's the greatest blessing as a parent, isn't it?
When you just go, oh, thank God they found their people.
I know, it's better than any,
like you don't really care what they do, do you?
Like, or degrees or-
It's all nonsense.
You just want them to be, and it's such a cliche, isn't it?
You want them to be happy, but you want them to be happy.
Find your people, find your tribe
and just go and have a good time
and you'll bumble your way through.
You know, you'll find whatever you need to find.
And that's happened with all three of us.
We're empty nesters too at the moment,
all three away from home.
So with Vicky being English,
they can live over there, you see.
So I've missed them terribly.
Oh, you would, hey?
Oh my God, worried about that.
Yeah, well, but also it'll be, you know,
it's when you've got little humans
that are adults and stuff,
that's a pretty good feeling too.
And they become really good friends
and you have that whole different relationship.
Someone growing up to me just said to me,
your kids are only ever alone.
And I think that's good.
You know, like you want,
you actually want them to be able to leave home
and find their own way.
Yeah, it means you've done your job.
You've done a good job.
You don't want them to be hanging around necessarily.
We had a stat the other day, Suze,
that by your kid's age of 18,
90% of your FaceTime with them is done.
Oh yeah, I saw that the other day on something.
Isn't that scary?
And when someone said the other day,
oh, when do you, how often do you see your dad?
I said, I'll go down three times a year,
four times a year maybe, blah, blah, blah.
So how long do you go down for?
I said, sometimes a day, sometimes two.
If he lives to 90,
got like 12 days left with your dad.
You can't do that.
I've got all these years and they go,
yeah, but you only see him once every three months or so
because of life or whatever.
It's scary how quickly it all goes.
And you know what else as well?
Like we say that our parents don't say stuff to us,
but I keep thinking, I need to say to my parents,
thanks for being great parents.
Because especially my mom, like she was a full-time mom.
That is, it seems like a really thankless job.
And I think she struggled a bit over the years
with her self-confidence and stuff,
because you know, she hasn't had a job or any,
you know, like a pay job.
I know that if I said that to her,
and I've said it on the radio once,
and I got dad to play it to her,
but to actually say it to her,
I mean, she would just, I don't know what she'd do,
but that's what I need to do.
When your dad played it to your mom,
what was her reaction?
He said, because he played it in front of some friends
as well, because they were on a caravan trip.
She puffed her chest out.
She puffed her chest out.
She'd be so proud.
She really would.
There'd be that many people in Australia
that would see you as sort of our sporting daughter,
as we do with our sporting heroes and legends,
to actually be your mom.
She'd be very, very proud.
And I'm sure she's very proud of the mom
that you've become coming through all that as well.
She'd understand it more than most.
If you ever say that to her, she goes,
someone came up and said to me
that I must be really proud of me.
And mom goes, and I said to them,
what about my other two children?
Oh yeah, of course.
You know, they're like that.
That's funny, but yeah, no, she should be proud.
Hey, Suze, growing up in Brizzy and having their success
and now being on The Brecky Show and so forth,
do you find it hard sometimes to have a bad day,
to honk someone in the traffic or to not be up and about
because people have a persona, you know,
and that's a positive one that they'd have with you.
And we ask all our guests this,
how do you manage a bad day?
Yeah, I'm a shocker.
I'm a massive people pleaser anyway.
So that added with people who might know who I am.
I never crack up.
I don't think ever.
I think I need to work on that a bit more actually.
I need to set better boundaries
because I think if you are a people pleaser
and you don't want to upset people
and you think they know you as a nice person,
you let people do more things than you want them to do.
They take advantage of it, for sure.
Yeah, not on purpose,
but I've got to work on saying no a bit better.
But no, I would never be rude to someone
mainly because, yeah, and not mainly,
probably because I'm upbringing as well,
but also the added layer on top.
I do actually feel that a bit, to be fair.
Now, a lot of people say the same thing.
I only heard one of your podcasts with Ben Fordham
and he was like, no, I don't care less.
So I'm thinking, oh my God, good for him.
He's a different cat, that's for sure.
Yeah, he's fantastic.
And of course he's gone on to bigger and better things.
He's now the king of Sydney radio
in terms of the AM dial
and fighting it out with Kyle and Jacio
every morning for that spot.
But yeah, he's super confident, of course,
and he is a genuinely good person anyway.
So I doubt he's ever in that position much,
but yeah, people do take advantage, that's for sure.
And you need to put them in their place every now and again.
Now talk about Cliff,
before we go into another couple of things,
your rock, your stability, Cliff,
you knew each other from a very young age.
Did you know that he was the one?
Yeah, well, I met him at my brother's 21st in 1992.
So I was, I just turned 19 years old
and I definitely had a connection then.
He had another girlfriend for two more years after that.
So he didn't white out that relationship?
No, so he had another girlfriend for a couple of years.
And then we kind of caught up again.
He went to uni with my brother.
So that's how I know him.
So in two years time after that, 1994,
they were graduating from uni.
My brother got married.
There was a lot of parties and things.
So I started going to things where he was at.
And what really drew me to him is his confidence.
He is also very confident and can talk to anyone.
I was probably at the beginnings of,
I was hands up myself,
but people kind of knew who I was a bit.
So people wouldn't always, I don't know.
They were a little bit standoffish to you
because you were on the telly and so forth?
Maybe, and Cliff is, and even now when we meet,
might meet someone famous and I'm like,
oh, I don't want to bother them and won't talk to them.
You always go straight up to them and just start,
and people are fine, aren't they?
They're humans, they're human.
Yeah, yeah, so I suppose his confidence
and he's quite different to me.
Back then he was very social
and really the life of the party.
You know, I kind of wanted to be around that.
He was more, he was like a real leader.
Yeah, good energy.
Really good energy.
So what happened to the poor girl before you?
She's a really nice girl.
Everyone keeps saying, they're still kind of running.
I've run into her once.
We look very similar actually.
Oh hello, he's got a tight, he's got a tight big fella.
Yeah, I think she got happily married and it's fine.
So you and Cliff, eventually after meeting
a couple of years later, you start hooking up and so forth.
He's there for a lot of your swimming after that.
And I remember you were waiting for him
when we were doing the London Olympics together
and he was coming sort of at the end of the swimming maybe.
I'm remembering you and I having a pizza express pizza
one night before I had to do,
remember I was doing the Brekkie show
from midnight till 3 a.m.
How are you doing that?
I was on such a high because we were having such fun.
And I think I was at the Olympics going,
wow, this is just incredible.
And you and I having dinner one night
and I think he might have been coming the next day
to sort of enjoy the Olympics
because you then could, you had more time.
You could relax after the swimming was done.
And by that stage, you were married, but no kids.
Is that right then in 2010?
Or did you have some kids?
No, I would have had kids.
No, I would have had.
So you left the kids at home for the Olympics.
So grandma and granddad stepped up.
Seven and eight year old, maybe eight and nine year old.
Of course, of course.
Yeah, that was good.
Oh, I really remember that.
You know, the first night he arrived
because I went to dinner with Rebecca Wilson
and her husband at the time.
We had a really nice dinner.
I went home and to the hotel and Cliff was there
and I got a message on Facebook or something from,
I don't know if I should say this
because I'd commentated all week.
It's hard to commentate, right?
And not offend people.
I remember you being sad.
I wasn't going to ask you about it,
but I remember you'd said something
and it'd been interpreted the wrong way
and you were really upset.
Well, I said, I was honest.
And now I think you can be too honest sometimes when you-
Can you remember what you said?
I was being interviewed by Eddie McGuire
and cause you know, I used to do like an interview
between the hits and finals sort of a thing.
And the team wasn't going as well as expected.
I kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
I'm going to blame Eddie,
but it's my inexperience as well.
But he was asking me why isn't the team going as well?
And I think finally, I just said,
I wonder if I can say it again.
It's not going to blow up again, is it?
Cause it's a big deal at the time.
I'm sure it won't.
We're a few years on now.
I just don't think this team has the same work ethic
as maybe 10 years ago,
which is kind of what I'd heard from people around the thing.
You're not everyone.
It was a very general comment.
Of course, of course.
And Eddie can be very persuasive.
Yeah, persuasive.
That's one thing I wish I'd never done
because remember the next day it was front page
and the swimming was still going.
The swimming was still on.
It was so bad for the team.
I really regret that because I'd been in that situation
before as a swimmer.
When you're swimming your heart out, doing your best
and an ex swimmer comes in and says something ridiculous
like they want the attention or whatever,
but it's not, that isn't what happens.
And it's during the meet and everyone hears about it.
And then it's like another sort of knife,
a knife in the back of you as a,
cause as a swimmer you're giving a hundred
and you're honestly doing your best.
You're not going out there to not try.
I remember you being-
Cause we're a team.
Rebecca, you, me, Ray Hadley, we're a team.
And I remember someone saying that you're upset
and walking into the base of the Olympics
and you were obviously, you're teared up and so forth.
And we were trying to fix it.
And I know that's-
Cause I had to commentate still for a couple more days.
Yeah. And it was a difficult time.
The first night I went back to the night when Cliff arrived,
I got a message from one of the coaches of the team
giving it to me, saying disappointing,
uninformed commentary from someone who should know better,
which is exactly true in a lot of ways
and exactly wrong in a lot of ways.
But I definitely regret saying that.
And Cliff was there at least.
Or it wasn't the romantic first night he was expecting,
He got completely brushed.
Actually, you know what?
I think we had actually just before I read it.
Whilst you put your luggage down, darling.
You're doing the-
We're married, right?
So you've moved on, you've done your swimming and so forth.
You're now doing the commentary.
You're feeling a little bit more yourself
in terms of talking to other people.
You're practising that more.
So it becomes a bit easier.
But you become a breakfast radio host
on Nova up in Brisbane,
which I couldn't believe it at the time.
I was like, is this a stunt of some description?
And you knew me as a commentator then.
I know, but I just knew the way
that we had known each other,
that that breakfast thing,
it's gotta be up and about
and you've gotta be telling porky pies all the time.
It's just a different type of show
being on brekkie radio and being a bit zany and so forth.
But you've been doing it 10 years.
So it's something that you obviously are good at.
And secondly, you love it
because you wouldn't do it otherwise, right?
Yeah, yeah, I love it.
And I had really good people around me.
So Ash and Lutzi were great.
I was very lucky to come in at the top in radio,
you know, virtually.
First job breakfast radio.
I was in Brisbane, so I was in Sydney the top, I suppose.
But yeah, as you were.
Yeah, I definitely didn't take it for granted.
And they were, I made a lot of mistakes.
I don't want to, don't ask me what mistakes were
because I don't want to repeat them.
But I definitely said some wrong stuff.
We've all done that.
Probably should have been dumped.
It's hard, isn't it?
When you're just live radio
and you kind of got to be yourself,
but you know, not yourself exactly a hundred percent,
because if you're exactly a hundred percent,
you might say things
that you probably wouldn't say to everyone.
But yeah, I enjoyed it.
It's been challenging
and I get a good high from it as well.
Like I love the feeling that you get from it.
Yeah, I'm getting tired though.
I've got to say, I'm getting tired.
Tired getting up early.
Yeah, it's a balancing act.
Brekkie's a balancing act of your own.
Like I reckon I put on 40 kilos four times
in the 10 years that I was on Brekkie radio.
And I was always good at losing it as well.
But you know, getting up near 150 kilo, you know,
and then coming back down again
and having to have goals to focus on.
So that we took the show to New York in 2014.
I ran the New York marathon.
So I had a year of losing 40 kilos
and the team went with me on it.
We had all the experts come in.
And so we had little things like that to keep me going.
But yeah, I was not a healthy person,
but I loved it and I loved my team.
And I loved the thought of being in people's lives every day
and people coming up on the street, you know,
and just saying, mate, that was great.
Or I love listening to you guys.
You really helped me.
And I never got that high again
until I started Gotcha for Life, actually.
That professional feeling of like,
I'm doing something that is helping other people.
Yeah, that's it exactly, isn't it?
And people say they relate it to something that you said.
Oh wow, that's awesome.
That you feel like that as well.
They go, oh, I never would have said that,
but you said exactly what I was feeling.
Yeah, that's a good feeling, isn't it?
I remember the boss of Triple M saying to me,
they're me too moments.
Like people are driving along or listening,
they're in the bus and they go, oh yeah, me too.
I know exactly what Susie means there.
That's when you feel like you're hitting the right sort
of spots with your audience for sure.
Yeah, you do have to look after yourself though.
I'm in that point at the moment, I think.
I've got to make sure I get to get more sleep.
I got to get more sleep.
You got to go to bed earlier.
As you get older.
What time do you wake up?
I can, and I try to, and I have been,
because especially when I was training
for that World Masters event,
I can go swimming training before the show.
So I can get up at 3.45, go swimming training
from 4.15 to 5.15, and then go to the show.
And then so by 10 o'clock, I've done my exercise
and my paid work.
That's ridiculous.
We had to be in there for 4.30.
So there was no, like I was sleeping in the end.
I was getting one extra minute on my alarm
because I worked out that if I did everything correctly,
had my clothes laid out, that I could get up a minute later,
which would be 11.
Did you get 4.30 to get on air at 5.30 or?
Get on air at six.
So we're different to that.
We're a bit more preparation than your show, obviously.
Probably because you're Sydney.
I'm not prepared for it.
But, and I go to bed about nine, 9.30,
but I'm not, I don't sleep that well.
I think I'm going through menopause as well.
It's hard being a lady.
I know it is, of course, you poor things.
All I'm doing is complaining.
Actually, I shouldn't complain.
Breakfast radio was virtually three hours a day.
And it's about 35 minutes of actually on air time,
Yeah, it's not too bad.
I can't really complain compared to most people.
We shouldn't complain.
No, no complaining.
I'm grateful, hashtag grateful.
Yes, exactly right.
You mentioned the world aquatic masters in Japan.
You broke the world record for the 50 meter butterfly.
You took home another gold in the 50 to 54 age group.
Do you only enter events now that you can definitely
dominate or was this a stunt for the radio
or was it something that was a bit of a double whammy,
good for the radio, but also you needed it
just to keep your own physical fitness going?
It was a stunt for the radio, definitely to start with.
I didn't know about it, the boys worked it out
and they sold it to me that it was,
we're going over to the masters for my 50th birthday.
We're going to do a relay
because you can do mixed relays now.
So mixed four by 50 freestyle relay.
It's going to be the two boys.
They'll do freestyle, they'll do 50 free and me.
Plus we'll do a competition and a listener can win
and come along as well.
It's a great idea, hey.
And then they go to me and you've also got to qualify.
You've got to actually be in an individual event
to go ahead to do it, to be on it.
I'm like, oh, okay.
And then the executives at Nova started going crazy,
going, we're going to do this, we're going to do that.
I'm like, hang on, hang on, hang on.
It's the masters.
And I know from personal experience,
a lot of masters swimmers are very good.
You know, they train a lot.
So in my mind, I didn't think I was going to win
or break a world record.
I thought I'll be lucky to make the final
because the executives were going,
oh yeah, we'll do this as your big comeback.
I'm like, no, we'll get an interview
with Carl Stefanovic and you'll get you on all this stuff.
Today's show, blah, blah, blah.
No, I don't want to do that.
I'm happy to do the relay.
Anyway, so it worked out.
I had to qualify for the event at a local carnival
at Chandler and I broke the world record at that event.
So anyway, it was a really fun experience.
We had a great, it was really great for the team.
As you said, you know, you're doing different things
Yeah, a bit of fun.
And reconnect again.
Reconnect, just focus on the radio show for a few days.
The relay was fun.
But listen to what we got.
How'd the relay go?
We got fourth by one 100th of a second.
Who let you down?
If only those two I work with, Ash and Lassie,
had have spent one minute in the pool before we went.
I reckon we would have got there.
They literally no preparation at all.
They did a lot of weights.
They're really into doing weights at the moment.
Well, it's better than nothing, but they didn't.
If they'd done a lap, it might've helped.
Yeah, no, it was fun.
And what an experience for the listener.
Yeah, and she was great.
Like we got a good one.
You know, you don't always get good ones.
She was excellent.
She fitted in so perfectly.
It was really fun.
Suze, we could talk forever, but we're going over,
but I want to just get the final five,
fast five questions, which we ask all of our guests.
First up, have you got a favorite quote?
My favorite quote at the moment,
I especially have used it.
I've got to get it up though.
I especially use it when I've been on radio
because I found radio a lot harder than my swimming career
because sport for me became a lot,
sport was a lot more naturally easy.
Is that the right sentence?
Speaking was not, it's not something I did a lot of.
I'm not one of those people who go,
oh, she was in the debating team.
She's a perfect fit.
So I'm just trying to find the thing, perfect fit for it.
So it's a poem that actually I first saw,
Cliff actually pointed it out to me.
It was in Wayne Bennett's first book.
It's called The Man in the Arena.
Have you read it?
So do you want me to read it?
It's called, well, The Man in the Arena,
but you know, the man means men and women.
It's not the critic who counts,
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who was actually
in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat
and blood, who strives valiantly,
who errs and comes up short again and again
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming,
but who does actually strive to do the deeds,
who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions,
who spends himself in a worthy cause,
who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement
and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt.
You've heard it, hey.
How good is that?
Especially when I started in the radio, especially,
and you can imagine people don't like change.
You come into a radio show,
I was a lot worse than I am now,
and you get a lot of criticism, a lot of criticism.
I wanted to give up so many times, honestly.
I thought, why am I even doing this?
What's the point?
I just wanted it to be like a trophy
that they kept in a trophy cabinet,
how it already, you know, like as the swimmer.
Because I felt like, okay, I was good at swimming,
am I ever gonna be good at radio?
And all I'm doing is coming out here
and people are just saying how bad I am at it.
And I am bad at it, I know I'm bad at it.
I'm just trying to get better.
And every time I thought, I should not be doing this,
I would read that poem and think,
hang on, at least I'm out here trying.
I've got the opportunity,
not many people get the opportunity,
I'm very lucky in that respect.
And I don't always hit the mark, and I do fail,
but at least I'm actually trying, I'm not those,
yeah, losers just in the grandstands criticizing.
And 10 years on Breakfast Radio, mate.
You must be doing something right.
Your favorite holiday destination?
Anywhere to do with water.
I just had a surfing holiday in Indonesia.
I love to go to the Whitsundays and we hire those,
our favorite probably family holiday
is hiring those catamarans up in the Whitsundays
and going around, you sleep on the boat and stuff.
That's excellent.
Fantastic, what about your favorite book?
Are you a reader?
Oh, I do read a lot and I've struggled
with this question a lot because it just depends
on what I'm kind of reading at the moment.
Actually I bought in the book I'm reading at the moment
because it's excellent.
Okay, give it a plug, yeah.
It's called Solve for Happy,
Engineer Your Path to Joy.
Can you show us the, nice.
And what have you got out of that?
Well, basically this guy, he is a Google executive
and he was really, really successful, going really well,
but he wasn't happy.
And then he's like, okay, well I'm an engineer
and what I do to solve problems
is I do mathematical equations.
So I'm gonna do a mathematical equation
and then I'm gonna have to come up what is happiness.
So he did it and basically it's,
happiness is your perception of the events in your life
minus your expectations of what your life should be like.
So if you're expecting something to be really good
and it falls short, you're unhappy.
If you have lower expectations and it's better than that,
Yeah, so it's that sweet spot in the middle.
Yeah, so basically he came up with this thing
and he's like, okay, I've found the secret to happiness.
Then his son dies in a preventable surgical procedure.
I think he was getting his tonsils out
or his appendix out and sort of a human error
means that his son dies at like the age of 20.
And he's like, okay, well, I wonder if this equation,
solve for happy still works.
And he goes, it does.
And he talks about all that and how
you engineer your path to joy,
even if the worst thing in the world that happens to you,
which is one of your children dying,
that's probably the worst thing that could happen to you.
You can still be happy.
So I'm halfway through at the moment,
but it's really, really good.
That would test me that scenario.
What about favorite movie?
Are you a movie buff?
Do you like a particular flick?
But I was talking about to my daughter yesterday.
She goes, you know what I reckon it is?
She goes, you know, every time that she gets down
and or flat, we watch a movie together
and we watch dirty dancing.
We always watch dirty dancing together.
And I'm thinking, yeah, isn't it?
I mean, I'm not sure if it's politically correct
these days at movie.
I don't get into that stuff, but I love it.
I think if we see it for the sake of what it is,
it's all good fun and whatever,
but yeah, you can drill down on everything now
and make it a drama.
Yeah, but we watched that whenever she's like having,
we sit together and watch that movie together.
It's a safe place and you sit there together
and you're watching, you know what's gonna happen.
Yeah, you're soothing for each other.
And last question, Suze.
Very, very lucky to have a supporter
like Shoren Partners Financial Services
that have been a great supporter of mine
and for my foundation, Gotcha for Life.
And they've got $10,000 that they wanna give away
to any charity that you particularly have a soft spot for.
Who would you like to give the 10K to
and what do you think they'll do with that 10K?
Wow, yeah, firstly, thanks to Shoren Partners.
Very generous of them.
And I'd like to give it to the Fred Hollows Foundation.
So it's a charity for preventable blindness.
I've been an ambassador for them since the year 2000.
So my dad was an eye doctor,
which is how the connection with me and that charity.
And then Cliff now is an eye doctor as well.
He wasn't at the time,
but my husband is an eye doctor now as well.
So that's the connection and it's preventable blindness,
mainly in overseas countries.
They can do a cataract operation for,
I think the lens is $25 for a very affordable amount
and they train doctors overseas
to do those operations as well.
So it's a really, really good charity.
Yeah, and he's an absolute legend.
He was an absolute legend, of course,
and everyone knows and those ads brought a tear to your eyes
when you realize for 25 bucks,
you can give sight to someone.
So that's fantastic.
So that 10K will go a long way.
Before we let you go, the producer of this podcast,
Keisha, she's just sitting here off camera.
And she said, back in the day,
she thinks she had a Barbie doll that could actually swim.
And she thought it was the Susie O'Neill Barbie doll.
Was it officially a Susie O'Neill Barbie doll
or was it just that it looked like you
that everyone called it that?
It was a Olympic Barbie doll and she could swim.
And I did all the ads for them,
but everyone thinks it's the Susie Barbie.
It wasn't specifically,
I didn't endorse it as a Susie Barbie,
but I did the endorsements as Olympic Barbie.
The ads are funny.
I've got them at the moment.
I should send it to Keisha.
Yeah, it'd be good.
She was seven in 2000.
So it was obviously a big deal for her.
And when we said that you and I were mates
and we're gonna have this chat,
she was like, that went straight to her memory bank.
So it was a really lovely memory for her.
So many people say that to me, they had Susie Barbie.
Well, especially now at the moment,
like it's going off, isn't it, Barbie?
Such a good movie.
But hey, Susie, it's been so fun.
It seems to have gone really quickly,
but it's so lovely to catch up with you again.
And I love the fact that you're looking at yourself
and you're having a crack
and you're opening up all these type of things
to explore what the next 30 odd's gonna be for you.
And congratulations on your career and careers, I should say.
And it was a real pleasure talking to you.
And we'll make sure that Fred Hollowakes gets that 10 grand
all thanks to Shaw and partners.
It's good to see you again.
Good to see you too, mate.
I'm sure you loved the chat that I had with Susie O'Neil.
What an absolute weapon.
I absolutely love her.
And of course, that $10,000 going
to the Fred Hollows Foundation.
So that's it for episode one.
We'll be back next week with episode two.
Till then, see you later.