Suzanne Heywood: Learning from your childhood
What can we learn from our childhood?
Imagine sailing around the world for 10 years starting from the age of seven, covering more than 47,000 nautical miles. You experience different cultures and enjoy some amazing sights, whilst also dealing with many hardships, including isolation, hunger, and a lack of education. That was Suzanne Heywood's childhood, which she captured in her brilliant book, Wavewalker: Breaking Free.
In this episode, Suzanne shares the highs and lows of that childhood, with events and situations unimaginable for many of us. She also talks about how she overcame challenges living at sea and on land, often on her own. We find out about her three superpowers from this experience, and what she's learned from it in terms of how she approaches obstacles, and how she's brought up her own children. Her experience gives us plenty of inspiring stimuli to help us tackle difficult decisions, situations, and people we face.
“My parents chucked me off the boat on an island, abandoned me in New Zealand, and disowned me in Oxford.” - Suzanne Heywood
You'll hear about:
00:00 - Start
01:23 - Suzanne's highlights of living all around the world
03:15 - Were physical or mental challenges the hardest?
07:26 - Where does Suzanne’s determination come from?
09:46 - How to tackle long periods of boredom
11:25 - Living in a confined space for a decade
17:53 - Breaking free from a relationship with her parents
23:12 - The shifts from boat life to university life
26:41 - How has her life impacted relationships with her children?
30:25 - Getting the balance right between work and family
About Suzanne Heywood:
Suzanne Heywood was born in the UK but for most of her childhood sailed around the world with her family, with limited access to formal education. She came back to the UK aged 17 and won a place to study at Oxford University. After her PhD at Cambridge University, she joined McKinsey and Company where she became a senior partner. She is now a Chief Operating Officer of Exor. She married the late civil servant Jeremy Heywood in 1997 and they have three children.
She is the Sunday Times bestselling author of What Does Jeremy Think?, and Wavewalker: Breaking Free
Her resources:
• LinkedIn: rb.gy/wms7n and suzanneheywood.com/
• Book ‘Wavewalker’: rb.gy/xg9vk
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Пікірлер: 17
This was an incredible book, I just finished it this morning and was interested to learn more. Thank you for this interview! What a strong And determined woman! I appreciate what she said about being fully present with our children ❤ THANK YOU!
@DavidLancefield1
Ай бұрын
Yes, she is super impressive. It's an inspirational (and often upsetting) story, isnt it?
I read the book and believe her account. There is nothing odd about two different people having two different recollections of events, or even two different experiences from the same events. For anyone who actually did read the book, it does not come across as mean spirited. It very much does come across as someone, who is now an adult, trying to make sense of their childhood. The fact that brother and father challenge her account is not all that odd. Interestingly, neither father nor brother dispute her core issue…that for ten years, she was unable to go to school, for ten years, she grew up on a small boat, and was eventually dropped of in NZ to fend for herself. Neither father nor brother dispute this. They simple seem to think, it wasn’t that bad, things turned out ok in the end, so why is she complaining?
@XxBloggs
3 ай бұрын
If you believe this account you’re fooling yourself. Anyone who was there doesn’t support it. If you only knew the truth.
Has anyone been able to verify this story?
@DavidLancefield1
9 ай бұрын
Well it’s her experience, Ben. She kept diaries throughout her childhood. Here’s an article that describes the response from her family: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12134311/amp/Lady-Heywoods-brother-father-angry-riposte-author-told-miserable-childhood.html
@user-zm2hr7ph3k
9 ай бұрын
@@DavidLancefield1 The Daily Mail is not a reputable source. I read an article in which Mr Cook was interviewed about this. His story was very different.
@DavidLancefield1
9 ай бұрын
That's your view of this newspaper. I was merely trying to be helpful in sharing an article that included both sets of views. Having read the book a number of times, read various articles, and interviewed Suzanne, I found her account very moving (and shocking) and have no reason to not believe what she said.@@user-zm2hr7ph3k
@TheNonbinaryPancake
8 ай бұрын
I bet it was. @@user-zm2hr7ph3k
@user-zm2hr7ph3k
8 ай бұрын
Interesting. Have you found anyone at all that can verify the account? Her father would remember the wave incident better I would imagine given she was 7 and he was a grown man. Has anyone talked to the doctor who treated her? Has anyone associated to her in any way verified any of this?
Fascinating interview. Thank you
No she completely dragged her family and mother and father for fame. Her brothers accounts are quite different and she out and out lies about several things. Attention seeking