Advertise on podcast: FINE FORM with Rebecca Jarvie-Gibbs

After thirty conversations about ambition, identity and what it means to define success for yourself, I wanted to turn the questions I’ve been asking my guests back on myself. In this final reflection on Series Two, I share some of the things these conversations have left me thinking about: our relationship with ambition, knowing when to push and when to let go, separating who we are from what we achieve, and accepting that what we want from our lives will continue to change. It’s also a reflection on a season that unfolded alongside some significant changes in my own life, and what they have taught me about grief, friendship, motherhood, work and what matters most. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This one is a very special one today - it is the final episode of Series Two, with the beautiful Elizabeth Hewson - marketer, food writer and cookbook author. Lizzie has built a career at the intersection of food, storytelling and genuine connection. She started out in PR, wrote her first cookbook at just 22, then packed her bags for a small town in Northern Italy to study food culture in the birthplace of the Slow Food movement. She returned to Australia to become the creative force behind Fink, helping build the profiles of some of the country’s most celebrated chefs, including Peter Gilmore and Lennox Hastie. And then, on a quiet Saturday night at home, she made a bowl of pasta that changed everything. Saturday Night Pasta began as a personal ritual. It became a movement, then a bestselling book, then a product range. And when we sat down together, her third book, Home Food - a cookbook for imperfect cooks - had just been released. In this conversation, we talk about the long game of a creative career, what it means to build authority in a space without being a chef, her relationship with anxiety, how cooking became her most reliable practice of presence, and the folder on her phone called Sunshine that she returns to whenever life feels heavy. Listening back now, that feels especially poignant. Since this episode was recorded, Lizzie and I have both experienced the devastating loss of our beautiful friend, James. Releasing this conversation without him here feels almost impossible. James was someone who championed the people he loved with his whole heart, and I was so looking forward to him hearing this conversation between two of his closest friends. So today, we’d like to dedicate this episode to our beautiful James. We love you. We miss you. And we’ll keep trying to make you proud. Find Elizabeth's books wherever great books are sold | Follow: @elizabethhewson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest is Paulina Paige Ortega - creative director, art director and founder of Actual Studio. Born in the Philippines, Paulina was staging elaborate Barbie photo shoots as a child that, looking back now, were her first foray into fashion editorials. She studied graphic design, began her career at one of the Philippines’ most awarded agencies, and eventually made the brave decision to start again in Australia. From working at the clothing store Incu, where she found the creative community that would shape her career, she went on to creative direct Par Femme and ELLE Australia, before founding Actuel Studio with her business partner, David Caon. And this week marks an incredibly special new chapter with the launch of PERSONA, created with her dear frriend Grace O'Neill. PERSONA is a portrait of the most interesting and captivating women of our time - singular and obsessive in its approach, with each issue dedicated entirely to one woman - the debut being the glorious Bella Freud. It’s a beautiful and ambitious idea, and one that feels so distinctly Paulina: considered, curious and underpinned by a strong point of view. In this conversation, we talk about building a creative practice rather than simply chasing a career, the role relationships play in shaping a creative life, and what becomes possible when you choose collaboration over ego. Paulina moves through the world with such grace and generosity, but beneath her gentleness is a formidable creative conviction. I’m so excited to be sharing this conversation in the very same week PERSONA makes its way into the world. Follow Paulina: @actual.studio @paulinapaige Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s guest is Annabel Hay - founder of Clutch, the world’s first reusable fashion tape. Annabel has always been someone who spots a problem and can’t help but solve it. At just eight years old, she made a promise to herself: she’d never be the person with a brilliant idea who never acted on it. Years later, after a wardrobe malfunction on a night out at Chinese Laundry, that promise came full circle. The idea for Clutch was born - followed by four years of quietly iterating, saving and building the business alongside full-time work before she was ready to launch. Then came Shark Tank. Annabel delivered what the show described as one of the strongest pitches in its history, received offers worth more than she’d asked for, and walked away. Not because she wasn’t grateful, but because she knew exactly what her business - and her vision - were worth. Since then, she’s built Clutch into a globally recognised brand stocked across Australia and overseas. When we recorded this conversation, she was just two weeks away from moving to New York to take the business into its next chapter. In this conversation, we talk about the discipline that sits beneath confidence, what six months of preparation really looks like, why she never walked into a room asking people for money, and the values she’s determined to protect as Clutch continues to grow. Follow Annabel and Clutch: @clutch.official | Find the product at clutch.com.au Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s guest is creative hotelier Julia Ashwood - someone who has built an extraordinary career by trusting her instincts, even when the path ahead wasn’t clear.  Julia’s career is glorious zigzag. It began in marketing, moved through TV journalism and advertising, and eventually took her to New York, where she talked her way onto shoots just to be in the room, soaking up everything she could. New York expanded her world, but eventually it stopped feeling like home, so she returned to Byron Bay. Not long after, she and her husband made a decision that would change everything. Instead of spending their house deposit on a new home, they bought a 125-year-old country pub. That became The Eltham, where Julia discovered the joy of creating spaces that make people feel something - starting with the five guest rooms she lovingly designed upstairs. Together, they went on to co-create Sun Ranch Byron Bay and, most recently, co-found Room Service, an online course for aspiring hoteliers who want to build spaces with soul. In this conversation, we talk about what it takes to back yourself when the future feels uncertain, how grief reshapes the way you understand your own story, and why the most meaningful careers are often the ones that unfold in ways you could never have planned. Julia has the most beautiful, infectious energy, and I know you’re going to love this conversation. Follow Julia @the_vista Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest is Liana Rossi - creative consultant, cultural critic and speaker. Liana grew up the daughter of Italian immigrants - grandparents who came to Australia post-war with very little, parents who built beautiful lives from hard work and oomph and pizzazz - something she has in spades. She moved to Sydney at 19, grew a creative network and built a career that is entirely, stubbornly inbound. People find her. Work finds her. That's not an accident - it's the result of two decades of building genuine relationships and showing up exactly as herself. She now works across strategy and creative consulting with some of the most interesting brands and agencies - and she calls her practice Surprisingly Professional, after something a creative director once said to her that she refused to let land as an insult. In this conversation we talk about what incremental ambition actually looks like, the deep unlearning that comes with letting go of people pleasing and and the importance of letting your values evolve.  Follow Liana: @lianarossi Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

⚠️ Content note: This conversation includes discussion of pregnancy loss. If this is a tender topic for you, please take care while listening. Katherine Sabbath is the effervescent baker, author and creative force behind some of the most extraordinary cakes you’ll ever see. Before the cookbooks, the television appearances and the hundreds of thousands of people following her work, Katherine was a high school teacher in Campbelltown, baking cakes for her students as a way of making them feel seen. That simple act of generosity became the foundation for an entirely new career. But this conversation goes far beyond cake. We talk about finding the courage to face your fears, exploring the financial realities of backing creative ideas, her relationship with risk, and her experience of carrying grief while continuing to show up publicly with joy.  Katherine truly is as good as they come. Follow Katherine: @katherine_sabbath Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adriana Picker is one of Australia's most beloved illustrators and the best-selling author of several books - including Petal, a stunning coffee table book of botanical illustration that thousands of copies around the world. With an upbringing in NSW’s Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley, Adriana has been surrounded by nature and botanicals since her early childhood and she talks beautifully about her formative years shaped in her grandmother’s garden. After moving to Sydney to study at the Collegue of Fine Arts, she became an intern for acclaimed costumer designer Catherine Martin - her illustrations for the film Australia were shown at the Oscars. She followed that with The Great Gatsby, then stepped out entirely on her own. Her folio today spans commercial and editorial illustration, murals, exhibition work, and several books — including Petal, which hasn’t left my coffee table since it came out. She came to our conversation 31 weeks pregnant and I was incredibly grateful to speak to her at this transformative time. In this conversation, we explore what Covid completely changed about her relationship to ambition, how she lives with hyperfocus and what she's learned to do with it, what it means to structure a whole life around appreciating beauty, and what happens to your creative identity when you're about to become a mother. Find Adriana's work at adrianapicker.com | Follow: @adrianapicker | Petal at all good bookstores Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chloe Matters is the founder and creative director of Matters and Made, one of Sydney's most distinctive interior design studios. Chloe came into the world with an innate confidence - a willingness to back herself and simply go for it. Which is exactly what makes her honesty in this conversation so compelling. She's remarkably candid about what it felt like to lose that confidence. She launched Matters and Made when her second child was just six months old and her first had only recently turned one. What followed wasn't the version of success she'd imagined. There was burnout, the end of her marriage, and a period where her confidence was completely shaken. So she rebuilt. Learning to trust herself again, to work differently, and to define success on her own terms. In this conversation, we explore the role our homes play in regulating the nervous system, how her relationship with work has evolved, and the non-negotiables that now shape the way she lives, leads and designs. Follow Chloe: @mattersandmade_ | Find her at mattersandmade.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Heleena Trahanas is PR and Marketing Manager at Dinosaur Designs and co-founder of Alex and Trahanas - the Sydney-born Mediterranean lifestyle brand she built with her friend Alexandra Heard. Heleena's family came from Greece - her grandparents migrated separately, each building something from nothing. That tenacity is in everything she does. She has spent over thirteen years at Dinosaur Designs while building Alex and Trahanas on the side - a world of hand-painted Italian ceramics, beautiful linen, and a deep love of the Mediterranean way of life, now celebrating ten years. In this conversation, we talk about what it actually takes to sustain passion and creative energy over a long professional tenure, how Alex and Trahanas was born on a friendship built on shared loves, and why joy - not grind - sits at the centre of everything Heleena creates .Find Alex and Trahanas at alexandtrahanas.com | Dinosaur Designs at dinosaurdesigns.com.au | Follow: @alexandtrahanas @heleenatrahanas Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ali Handley is the founder of Bodylove Pilates with four studios across Sydney, Bali on the horizon and a community of women who are deeply, genuinely devoted to what she has built. Ali didn't find her calling immediately. She started in PR and media before discovering Pilates in New York, where she specialised in prenatal and postnatal work. She came home to Sydney in 2018 and opened her first studio a month after having her third child. In this conversation we talk about what it really takes to scale something without losing the soul of it, how she holds the line between gut instinct and hard data and the role of genuine community in building a business that lasts. Bodylove has been a consistent anchor in my life for the past six years - through grief, burnout, pregnancy and recovery - and has fundamentally changed my relationship with my body and with movement. I'm share excited to share Ali's with you. Find Bodylove Pilates at bodylove-pilates.com | Bodylove Mamas at bodylove-mamas.com | Follow Ali: @bodylove_pilates Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jessica Leahy is a journalist, model and author and one of the most joyfully multi-hyphenate women I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with. Raised in Papua New Guinea before moving to Sydney, Jess built an incredible career across two worlds - as a journalist working across Australia's leading women's publications, while simultaneously building a modelling career with Bonds, RM Williams, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Jess built her modelling career at a time when there were very few women who looked like her in Australian fashion. She didn't just succeed in spite of that - she used her platform to make sure more women like her could. She is also the author of Loved People, Love People - a gorgeous children's book about self-love. In this chat, we talk about the portfolio career before it had a name, what it means to be malleable in a world that wants you to stay in your lane, and why advocating for your own boundaries is the most important thing you can do. Follow Jess: @jessicavanderleahy  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stephanie Feher is the founder of Lucky Dragon Supper Club, author, content creator, and someone who has built something genuinely original in a space that didn't exist before she created it. Stephanie grew up in an Australian-Chinese-Hungarian household, and that mix of cultures runs through everything she makes. She studied music, taught briefly, wound up in digital and tech - and after Covid started filming her dinner parties just for the love of it. Lucky Dragon grew from there, slowly and on the side, into a community of people who wanted to cook and gather the way she did. She built it while life kept interrupting. The redundancies weren't the plan but they became the permission she needed. And then everything happened at once and she went all in. In this conversation we talk about building something without a blueprint, the shift from perfectionism to a pursuit of excellence and why the dinner table has always been where she feels most herself. Follow Stephanie: @luckydragonsupperclub | Find her book wherever great books are sold Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samantha Wills is a bestselling author, creative strategist and one of Australia's most compelling entrepreneurs. At 21, Samantha launched her self-titled jewellery brand from a kitchen table in Port Macquarie. Within a few years she had offices across the globe, the New York Times declared her a Breakout Star, Forbes took notice, she made history as the first Australian jewellery designer to appear on QVC. And then, after 15 years and at the height of her success, she closed it all down. What Samantha did next - and why - is the real story. Letting go of something you've built your entire identity around is one of the hardest and most honest things a person can do, and yet it has given Samantha a clarity and a purpose that feels even bigger than what came before. She is now a bestselling author and everything she does is in service of the same thing - helping women build creative careers from true alignment. In this conversation, we talk about what happens when the thing you built becomes the thing you need to leave behind and what it takes to trust yourself enough to do it. Find Samantha at samanthawills.com | @samanthawillsinstitute | @samanthawills Of Gold and Dust available at all good bookstores Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lia Townsend is the founder of Stories to Gather - one of Australia's most distinctive creative studios, building bespoke food installations that are, at their core, works of art. What Lia does is hard to put in a box - and that's exactly the point. She doesn't style food. She builds worlds out of it. Edible, immersive, sensory experiences that transform produce into storytelling - from intimate celebrations to large-scale brand activations for some of the biggest names in luxury. Lia grew up in an Australian-Italian household where food was never just sustenance - it was the reason people gathered. In this conversation we talk about what it means to build a creative practice around beauty and joy, what it took to finally back herself in this career, the label that was placed on her early in her professional life that quietly shaped how she saw herself for years, and how motherhood has influenced her approach to work and business. Find Stories to Gather at storiestogather.com.au | Follow: @stories_to_gather @rebeccajarviegibbs @thisisfineform Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.