Rowing the Atlantic and Beating Cancer: Unshakeable Resilience with Felicity Ashley

Why Your Toughest Storms Are Your Greatest Advantage: A Masterclass in Mental Resilience

Motivational speaker and cancer survivor Felicity Ashley joins Megan on More Than Anxiety to share her extraordinary journey: rowing the Atlantic Ocean and immediately facing a Stage 3 cancer diagnosis.

This conversation is a must-listen for building unshakeable resilience and using mindset reframing to overcome overwhelming challenges. 

Felicity's story is a masterclass for high-achieving women to find their own strength and resilience, leading to sustainable success. 

• In this episode, learn:
  • How to apply your strengths from one life area to conquer a completely different challenge.
  • The secret to managing massive goals through "bite-sized chunks".
  • How your physical struggles can become a source of mental strength.
  • The power of using challenges to teach your children about determination.

Recommended for fans of: Confidence, Burnout Prevention, and Self-Leadership.

🌟 Be sure to check out Felicity's website and book. https://www.felicityashley.com/about

Thanks for listening!

You can help others find the help and encouragement they need when you leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review wherever you listen.

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Transcript

Megan Devito (00:02)
Hey everybody, thank you so much for joining me this week for another episode of More Than Anxiety. I'm really excited to be able to introduce you to Felicity Ashley. She has got an incredible story to tell you about perseverance, about grit, about determination, and about being an incredible example for her kids. So Felicity, I'm so excited that you're here. I would love for you to introduce yourself.

Felicity Ashley (00:24)
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. So I'm Felicity Ashley. I'm a mother of three. I've got three small children, well, smallish. They are eight, 10, and 12 now. I'm a motivational speaker and I'm one of fewer than 250 women in the world who have rode an ocean. and I'm also a cancer survivor. So I've had, yeah, I've had a roller coaster ride over the last few years. And that was really why I started becoming, you know, started speaking professionally.

Megan Devito (00:25)
Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (00:54)
to share my story and I hope to inspire and give hope to other people who are facing whatever challenges they're facing in life because as we've discussed you can't get to kind of midlife without going through some ups and downs ⁓ and I think it's really helpful to share how people can get through those times.

Megan Devito (01:14)
Yeah, and you definitely have been through some ups and downs. I know that we've talked a couple of times before this, and I've had the privilege of hearing a little bit of your story. So how did you go from finding out, finding out, dealing with cancer, to saying, you know what, I think I'm just going to row across the ocean? Because cancer alone, to me, is terrifying. But rowing across the ocean, that also is another level of terrifying. So this is so...

so much fun and I love what we just talked about. So, how did you get to where you were like, yeah, I'll just jump in a boat, and start going.

Felicity Ashley (01:50)
So it was actually the other way around. I decided to row the ocean before I, well, before I knew I had cancer. ⁓ I actually had cancer for probably 12 months during my training and then during the row itself. I just didn't know. ⁓ But I had, before I did the row, I had had a hip replacement. So, ⁓ you know, I'd already been through kind of a, you know, a significant health challenge. ⁓ And in many ways that was the...

Megan Devito (01:57)
Okay, okay.

Felicity Ashley (02:16)
that was the enabler to say yes to the row because prior to that, I'd been suffering from kind of pretty severe hip pain and it reduced my mobility and my ⁓ ability to exercise and do challenges. And then I had my replacement ⁓ and it really did give me a new lease of life. ⁓ And it made me think, right, well, what can I do now? And then the opportunity to row across the Atlantic came along. My sister gave me a call one day having seen her husband row the Atlantic and she said, look, I've got a boat.

Do you want to come and do it with me? And do you know, I just thought, why not? There's, know, initially I said, of course I can't do it. You know, I said the kids are too young because...

Megan Devito (02:55)
I love that you were like, why not? And I'm like, are you kidding me? Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (02:57)
Yeah,

well there were various things going on. suppose, you know, part of me said originally said no because I thought, God, what will people think of me? Because at the time my children were two, four and six. I thought, what will they think of me kind of, you know, abandoning my children for two months to go and do something crazy like rowing across the Atlantic? I was also pretty terrified about the prospect. You know, you're in a tiny boat. Our boat was 28 feet.

You're unsupported, so there's nobody else around you to bail you out if you get into trouble. And you're out there for as long as it takes. Now, we set ourselves the goal of doing it in 45 days. It took us 40 days. But that's an awful long time when you push off from the start line, not really knowing when you're going to finish. It's a huge amount of time. And to know that you're going to face storms and massive waves that could potentially roll the boat, you could go through any number of different challenges.

Yeah, it's pretty daunting. So there was a part of me that thought, am I really up for this? But then equally, thought, do you know what, opportunities like this don't come along very often. I love challenging myself. I'd done kind of what I now call mini endurance challenges before, like triathlons, half Ironman. And I knew I was pretty tough. And I just thought, wow.

This is the ultimate test of both mental and physical endurance and what an opportunity to go and do it with my sister. So after a small amount of time to think about it and a quick conversation with my husband, I rang her back and I said, yep, I'm in. And what followed was two years of hard work. They say with something like that, that the biggest challenge is getting to the start line. And that was so, so true. We were four working mums.

Megan Devito (04:43)
Mm. Mm.

Felicity Ashley (04:46)
midlife mums called the mothership. have 11 children between us and that brings with it its own challenges. It takes a lot of logistical organisation to train around family life, to juggle all the things that you need to juggle. There were loads of challenges during that period of training, not least because it was during Covid and so for a lot of the time couldn't even get together as a crew.

Megan Devito (05:14)
Hmm.

Felicity Ashley (05:16)
know, we couldn't even get together in the boat to train on the water. So a lot of it was about kind of building relationships across teams or across Zoom, doing our own training individually at home, and then just taking the opportunity when lockdown was kind of eased to go and train in the boat. But what doesn't kill make you stronger? And I think actually all of those challenges meant that we were in a better position and kind of almost stronger and more resilient and more determined by the time we did get to the start line.

Megan Devito (05:25)
Great.

Felicity Ashley (05:46)
And so yeah, we did the row ⁓ and it was an absolutely incredible experience. Such a privilege to take yourself away from the noise of normal life for two months, really. Almost cut yourself off from communication and do something that so few people in the world will ever get to do. And it was hard. was physically really demanding. It was mentally really demanding. But one of the things

that I fell back on to help get through it was that never forgetting what a privilege it was to do this. I've chosen to do this and I'm expecting it to be hard. And I've almost, I'd feel cheated if it wasn't hard. And I loved every single minute of it because I knew what a privilege and opportunity it was to be in that boat doing something so extraordinary. And really, you know, getting back to basics, all we had to think about was eat, sleep, row, repeat.

Megan Devito (06:30)
like that.

Felicity Ashley (06:46)
And it was about just learning how to be, how to, you know, when you strip out the layers of life, it's who you are really underneath all of that. And it was just such a brilliant experience, know, belly laughing like we hadn't laughed in years and years and years, because there's no time in normal life to do that. Playing silly games like what are the clouds in the sky? What animals do they look like? Looking at the different colours in the sea, you know, all sorts of things that you just don't do in normal life because

because things take over and there's so much noise. So it was an absolutely brilliant experience, taught us all so much, think, about who we are, about our strength and determination and courage, our capacity to deal with challenge and adversity and come through stronger, about relationships, how you work together as a team in a tiny boat like that when you are going through pretty testing times.

Megan Devito (07:15)
Hmm.

Felicity Ashley (07:45)
Yeah, there were so many things to take away from it. It was a bit like a 40 day, you know, leadership management training course on steroids, but an absolutely brilliant, brilliant experience. And then so, you know, I had the euphoria of completing that very quickly followed by cancer diagnosis. So I was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer just a few weeks after completing it. And that was a real wake up call.

And I guess, it could, you always wonder how you're to react when you hear the words, you've got cancer, and you never really know until you hear those words. But in many ways, the row had set me up for that. had prepared me brilliantly for going through, yes, a very different challenge, a health challenge, but how to tackle something like that. And I just applied everything I'd learned from the row and all of the tools that I'd learned to get me through the row to this very different challenge of cancer. So it was about,

Megan Devito (08:22)
It's smooth.

Felicity Ashley (08:45)
I suppose using all of the kind of mental resilience tools that helped me get through the row and applying them to cancer. But it was also about staying physically strong and exercising through it because that was also going to keep me mentally strong. ⁓ And I was just able to think, you know, why not me? It would be understandable having had a cancer diagnosis when I felt fitter and stronger than ever and relatively young at the time to think why me.

But I actually thought, you know what, because I'm fit and strong, having just done the row, and because I'm relatively young, well, why not me? I'm better placed than almost anybody else to get through this. And that just sort of mental reframing was such a powerful tool to get through that period. ⁓ So yeah, not a lot of fun, I have to say. But what are those things that when you're faced with it, you just find a way of getting through, because you have to. ⁓ And having three children as well, they were a tremendous motivator.

Megan Devito (09:22)
Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (09:43)
to get through because yeah, because you look at your kids, I know you've got four, haven't you? And I just thought, you know, I need to do everything possible to get through this for my children. I don't want them growing up without their mum. But also I don't want to frighten them. I don't want them to see me feeling and looking terrible. So I kept going for them. And I think that was was so powerful.

Megan Devito (09:45)
Absolutely.

I do, do, yeah.

Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (10:11)
having people to get through it for and that's where having that strong motivator or why is it whatever you're facing is really important.

Megan Devito (10:15)
That's...

Yeah, I love that you said this is so much because I am imagining what it's like, first of all, to be in a boat with other women for that amount of time in the ocean. It had to be terrifying and exhausting. And at some point you had to be like, this is insane. I'm going to lose my mind on these people. I'm not sure I could do this. But the mental resilience, I just wonder between the rowing and the physical endurance that it took to get there and the mindset that you had to have to stay in that.

and to say, I chose this, I want to do this. But then to come back and immediately use that same lesson to say, ⁓ wait a second, why not me? Because as we discussed earlier, that so many people get a pebble in their shoe and it's, everything is so hard. Why does life have to be so hard? It's all like, I can't do it. I'm too tired, I'm too old, I'm too bored, I'm too broke, I'm too...

whatever it is that they've got and they shut down. Like they thought the first struggle that comes in, it's like, it's too much, I just can't handle this. And here you are rowing across an ocean with your babies on a shore somewhere and having people undoubtedly judge you for leaving your kids. And then you come back and you have to deal with that. What do you think? Like if you were to compare the physical struggle of having to go through the row or even ⁓ cancer treatment versus the mental struggle.

Felicity Ashley (11:31)
Yep.

Megan Devito (11:49)
Which one was harder?

Felicity Ashley (11:51)
think it's the mental struggle. yeah, in all ways, I think it was the mental struggle. Not that I found it a massive struggle, but it was about, I suppose, equipping myself with the right tools to be able to cope with that. Certainly, rowing an ocean is much more about mental resilience than physical resilience. Of course, it's physically super demanding. You we were rowing between 12 and 16 hours a day, every day for 40 days through the night.

Megan Devito (12:17)
Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (12:18)
and

that's physically tough, it's amazing how your body just gets used to that and can keep going and keep going and keep going. And of course, being mums, actually that was our superpower because we knew having fed children through the nights for months, years, whatever, we knew that you can still get up the next morning and keep going. You just do. And I think that was a tremendous advantage actually being mums and having experienced sleepless nights for months and months on end.

Megan Devito (12:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (12:47)
because some of the younger crews had never experienced that. And that was a real kind of mental challenge for them. Whereas we thought, well, we can do this. Sleep deprivation isn't a challenge, isn't a problem for us. ⁓ So I think in many ways, although we were written off as being midlife mums and nobody expected very much from us, I think actually being mums and doing the juggling act that we all do every day was a huge advantage.

Megan Devito (12:58)
Right.

Felicity Ashley (13:15)
because we were used to that. And actually life at sea had a beautiful simplicity to it. All we had to do is eat, sleep, row, repeat, and think about the other three people on the boat. We didn't have to think about the three children necessarily back at home and juggling family life and working life and everything else. And so in some ways life was a lot easier on the boat. Yeah, yeah, so.

I think women, think, you know, we beat ourselves up and we think we're not doing a good job of anything because we're juggling lots of different balls. But I think when you stop to think about how much we do do, I think we need to give ourselves a bit of a break and, yeah, and recognize that we're all superheroes ⁓ every day, just in different ways. Yeah, yeah.

Megan Devito (14:06)
Yeah.

Surely at some point in this, or maybe this is just me thinking how I would react, was there ever a time if you questioned that, am I actually able to do this? Because a lot of times I'll talk with women about confidence to be able to try something they'd never done before. And here you are, you're like, no, no problem. I'm going to get in this boat. I'm going to row across the Atlantic Ocean. At some point, how did you, where did your confidence come from?

Felicity Ashley (14:34)
It's a really good question. ⁓ I think partly it came from having had my hip replacement and ⁓ quite a funny story when I limped along for three years, not really knowing what the problem was, going to endless physiotherapy appointments and eventually saw a surgeon who scanned my hip and he said it's a hundred percent screwed. He said it can't get any worse. ⁓ He said you shouldn't be able to walk, let alone run. And I was able to sort of run for an hour.

And in my head, I interpreted that as I'm nails. I actually thought I'm tough as old boots here. I can do things that most people can't. And I sort of adopted that I'm nails as my mantra. I, I, suppose it became my superpower. And I thought, well, if I, if I can do things that 99 % of people can't do, then of course I can wear an ocean. And so I really use that, that kind of.

that lesson from the hip replacement to power me through the row is a reason to say yes to go and do the row. ⁓ I used it through the cancer treatments. ⁓ And then subsequently taking on different challenges. So I marked the three year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis earlier this year by running the highest marathon in the world from Everest Base Camp. You know, I'd never done anything at altitude before. I'd only done one marathon before, but I thought, why not?

I've rowed an ocean, I've got through cancer, know, I've had a hip replacement. I know I'm tough. just apply this as something new. Yeah, yeah. And again, it's a reason that I'm now training to row across the Pacific next year. Because I think, I'm Nail so I can do this. So it's something that I think...

Megan Devito (16:02)
second run up Elphabris. This is not a problem. Yeah. I love that.

I love that.

Felicity Ashley (16:20)
Everyone has a superpower, know, not everyone will believe that they're nails, but everyone has something about themselves, something innate, something that's unique and personal to them, that if they can recognise it and harness it, they can use it to their advantage to get through whatever life throws at them. And I think it's so important to try and take the time to understand what makes you unique and what your kind of inner strength is, because we all have something. You know, we've all got...

greatness about ourselves, it's just about recognising it and then using it to our advantage.

Megan Devito (16:54)
And sometimes I think, especially as women, taught not to recognize our strengths, right? Just be humble, be sweet, be kind, be all those things. And my response to that is always, yes, please be humble, be kind, be generous, be all those things. But you can also be nails at the same time. You can be kind and tough. Those things aren't necessarily, they don't have to stay separate. So finding.

Felicity Ashley (17:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

No.

Yeah, no. And, you when I one of the reasons we as a crew of mums decided to ride the Atlantic was to set an example, set a positive example for our children, to encourage them to dream big, to show them that the world is their oyster. There are so many opportunities out there just waiting to be explored. And, you know, whether they're boys or girls or regardless of age, they can go and do anything they choose to do if they're prepared to work hard for it and have the kind of right attitude.

⁓ And it's so lovely now hearing my children talk about, you know, talk about me to their friends. Just the other day they were were were chitter-chattering to their mates and saying, and my daughter, who's now eight said, my mummies rowed the Atlantic and she's she did say I've climbed Everest. I haven't, but she said, and she's been to Everest and now she's rowing the Pacific. And, you know, it's just this sense of pride they have in the things that I've done.

that I think they reflects well on them as well. And I just think that's brilliant. You that's why we did it, to get them thinking, you know, dreaming big and knowing that they can go and do these things as well if they choose to do that.

Megan Devito (18:29)
to see your resilience. I'm sure that I can't imagine. So you started, where was the, the road start and where did it end? Cause I can't, I'm imagining you standing on the, whether it was the shore of the UK or Africa or anywhere, standing on the shore and looking out across the ocean. I can't imagine that physically you were the same person when you got to the other side.

Felicity Ashley (18:50)
No, I was quite a lot smaller. Thank you, Liz.

Megan Devito (18:52)
I'm like, I'm like you

or also a lot bigger. Like you end up some muscle.

Felicity Ashley (18:57)
Yeah,

mean, did, yeah, all jokes aside, I did lose 10 kilos, so quite significantly smaller, because you almost can't do that without losing weight. you're just very, ⁓ you you try and eat as much as you can, but there's almost not enough hours in the day to consume enough calories to stop weight loss. ⁓ So yeah, we went from the Canary Islands.

Megan Devito (19:12)
No, there's no way. Right.

rate.

Felicity Ashley (19:27)
a little island called Lagomera over to Antigua. the distance, straight line distance is 3000 miles. We rode about 3300 miles to try and find the best route and take advantage of winds and currents and things like that. Yeah, yeah. So it's an almost unfathomable distance when you're set off. And that's when you have to really break it down. There's no way you can set off and kind of mentally gear up for 3000 miles because

Megan Devito (19:27)
Mm.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (19:56)
you have no idea what that's, that's, you just can't imagine it. And so it's, yeah, exactly. 40 days, you just can't, you can't kind of compute that in your mind, 40 days of just rowing endlessly. So it was about breaking it down into more manageable chunks. So was getting through the first night at sea, and then the first 24 hours, the first hundred miles, you know, it's having those milestones and then ticking them off.

Megan Devito (20:00)
No, I really can't. I really can't.

So good.

Felicity Ashley (20:21)
because

that's the way that we kind of could see that we were making progress and we were chipping away at this huge target. And we almost didn't let ourselves think about the finish for at least the first half of the race. And then it became, instead of sort of counting up to 1500 miles, it then was counting down to the finish. And that's when we started kind of allowing ourselves to visualize our children on the dock side in Antigua at the finishing line. And yeah, the closer it got, the kind of the more we

Megan Devito (20:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (20:50)
started thinking about those things. But still it was very much a case of bite-sized chunks because we knew that, you know, the weather is so unpredictable, mechanically stuff could have gone wrong that could have meant an end to our race. So almost until the day we finished, there was no guarantee that we would finish it. And so you couldn't get complacent and you couldn't let yourself kind of just think about that finish too much because you knew there was just so many things that could go wrong in the meantime.

And I think complacency is one of the biggest, biggest dangers really, is that you think, we've done it, we've got halfway, we'll be fine now. And actually that's when things, you you start to let your guard down and things can go wrong and the biggest risk is human error. So you've just got to be on it all the time. Yeah.

Megan Devito (21:35)
I'm sure. Yeah. And such a

good lesson, though, to know that when you said, when you were like, we allowed ourselves to have those little tiny celebrations, because I imagine when you're out there and you're in the middle of the ocean and you're having a bad day, and surely at some point there was a bad day in there, where, ugh, what am I doing? Giving yourself those little celebrations so that you can keep going because

That's an incredible task, an incredible mountain that I cannot imagine, mountain, ocean, that I can't imagine handling. And so often we get wrapped up in the little inconveniences that drive us crazy. Like, why am I even doing this? This is so hard. Is it as hard as rowing across the ocean? Is it as hard as climbing a mountain? Because people do that too. So really being able to celebrate and to say, no, look at what we're doing. Look at how successful we've been, that we've done. We've come this far.

Yes, we're staying focused. Yes, we're going to give ourselves those little celebrations so that we can keep going. And I also love the idea of counting up then counting down so that it doesn't become, you know, there's so much perspective work in there of what's happening and what am I looking at around me? Am I looking at how bad my arms hurt? Because if you're thinking about that, that's going to be a lot to handle. We're not good with being uncomfortable. We're terrible at being uncomfortable right now.

Felicity Ashley (22:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

No, exactly, exactly. And that's when I think thinking about why you're doing it again comes into play. Yes, it's hard, but the reason we're doing this is to show our, you know, inspire our children and other women that we are so strong. We can do anything we put our minds to and we can get through tough times. And, you know, particularly in the lead up to the, or the training for the race, when we faced endless challenges and that any one of them could have been enough for us to say, look, this is just too much, we're giving up.

But always I came back to what lesson is that showing my children about a resilience and determination and our ability to keep going and carry on ⁓ and achieve our goals. So yeah, there was all sorts of things like that going on. But I think also it was, it's a cliche, but it was about, it's about the journey, not the destination. And it was remembering that we've chosen to do this thing and this is such a privilege.

And so enjoy every single bit of it. It's not just about fast forwarding and imagining yourself on the finishing line. It's about appreciating everything you're experiencing for those 40 days, the good and the bad. And I think again, you know, that's an amazing lesson for life is that quite often we don't, don't, we don't, you know, hit the finishing line. We don't achieve what we set out to achieve, but even if we don't do that, we've learned so much along the way.

Megan Devito (24:22)
Okay, what was the coolest thing when you saw when you were out there in the middle of the ocean and what was the most terrifying thing? I have all of these visions of like giant squids and whales and things like that are horrible storms. But what was the most amazing thing and what was the scariest thing?

Felicity Ashley (24:32)
Thank

⁓

I think huge pods of dolphins, know, hundreds and hundreds just playing around the boat and you watch them and you just think they are literally just, they just love life. You know, they're just leaping out of the water for the joy of leaping out of the water. ⁓ And that was really special. You know, just being surrounded them everywhere you see those dolphins, that was amazing. In terms of other wildlife, there was also

Megan Devito (24:47)
Ugh.

Felicity Ashley (25:06)
I'm not sure if it was the same small bird, but every day a little bird came to visit us and it would swoop around. You'd think, well, wait a minute, I'm maybe 2000 or 1500 miles from shore. Where's this bird coming from? But it was a real fly every day when the little bird came to visit us. It was almost like it was checking in on us, know, like a little guardian angel. Yeah. And so that was lovely. ⁓ Scary times.

Megan Devito (25:17)
Yeah, where are you landing? Yeah.

that's really it. Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (25:35)
We had lots of, we had storms and they were, you know, in the moment. It was like being on a white-knuckle ride. But actually the most scary time was probably when we had mechanical problems. On Christmas Eve, our steering seemed to fail and we ended up spinning the wrong way around in the water and almost going backwards. And we didn't know what had happened and what had gone wrong. And it was in the middle of the night. And that was quite scary. Not because I felt...

Megan Devito (25:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

no.

Felicity Ashley (26:00)
we were in danger, physical danger, but I was worried that we wouldn't be able to carry on and that that would be race over. And almost that would have been such a tough pill to swallow, having trained for two years for this thing, for it then to be taken away for you because of something that's completely out of our control. then on Christmas Eve as well, our watermaker broke. And again, if your watermaker broke, it's kind of over if you can't fix it. So it's almost those mechanical

Megan Devito (26:14)
Yeah.

Mm.

Felicity Ashley (26:29)
challenges that were the most in some ways frightening, not because they were a risk to our lives, but because they threatened to take the race away from us and stop us finishing. Yeah, because I think that all of the storms were just things that we came to expect and it was about that mental preparation and visualizing how are going to manage it when it comes. And also what we realized about storms, that they push you there more quickly.

Megan Devito (26:33)
Mm-hmm.

Felicity Ashley (26:56)
And so even though initially the waves were the thing that I feared the most, actually you to welcome it because you know, it's sending you there faster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Megan Devito (26:57)
Yeah.

huh.

That's a great metaphor. That's a great metaphor. yeah.

And I think that it's such an important lesson for everyone. ⁓ We want things to be easy, but easy doesn't get you where you want to go. If it did, you'd already be there. We'd just sit around, do nothing, and everything would be easy, and nothing bad would ever happen. We wouldn't have to feel anything difficult or experiencing anything that stretched us or made us uncomfortable. the fact that you...

Felicity Ashley (27:20)
Yeah.

Megan Devito (27:34)
You said, no, those actually moved us forward faster. That's huge. That's a big deal.

Felicity Ashley (27:37)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's about having

the courage to make the tough decisions. Yeah. And not just taking the path of least resistance. Yeah. Because that typically won't get you where you want to go. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan Devito (27:43)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah,

very rarely. It's too bad, right? I mean, wouldn't it be great if... Maybe it wouldn't be great, you know? Again, it's that idea I used to tell my kids. One of my kids wanted to move to Disney World. Like, I think probably live in the park. And I was like, but if you lived here every day, it wouldn't be special, right? It has to be... There has to be something unique in your life to move you forward. Otherwise, if everything's good all the time, it's not good anymore. So having those challenges and you putting yourself in a situation with extreme challenges like that.

Felicity Ashley (27:53)
Yeah.

Mm. Mm.

Megan Devito (28:17)
What a gift to be able to see, I mean, to get home and just to appreciate maybe a bed that we just take for granted. Yeah.

Felicity Ashley (28:22)
Yeah, and you do. a

bed, you know, a porcelain toilet. Yeah, all of those things. In teeny tiny cabins. So, you know, yeah, I mean, I'm quite small. I'm five foot four. So I could lie down in the cabins. ⁓ One of the girls a lot taller, kind of was almost propped up ⁓ on one end of it. So, yeah, it's not comfortable, but it's, you know, when you're physically exhausted, you can pretty much sleep anywhere.

Megan Devito (28:28)
How did you sleep?

Great.

Felicity Ashley (28:50)
And the

rocking of the boat also helped as well. So I didn't really, I didn't struggle to sleep at all. I mean, it was, was very hot in those cabins. It was like being in a furnace sometimes. At the end, you just get used to it. You deal with it. Cause yeah, you have to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan Devito (28:52)
yeah.

I'm sure.

Ugh.

I'm picturing

all of this, of how it could have been. Like, how did you sleep? How did you eat? How did you go to the bathroom? How did you do all, how did you live? But yeah, that's...

Felicity Ashley (29:12)
And

then you start going down those, yeah, there's just endless.

Megan Devito (29:15)
Right, I have so

many questions for another episode probably, but I know you have a book. Tell everyone about your book. Tell them how they can get in touch with you about speaking and where they can purchase your book.

Felicity Ashley (29:26)
Yeah.

Yeah. So my book is called Stronger Than the Storm. And it's really my memoirs that, you the highs and lows of the roller coaster of my life over the last few years, primarily talking about the row and how I kind of how I got through that and then the cancer treatment, but also a bit about formative years and where I sort of built my, I suppose, my resilience, my mindset.

So it's very much a raw personal story, but there are lots of life lessons, I think, for anyone going through any kind of challenges, whether it's losing a parent or going through health challenges or challenges like the road that you choose to do. And it's available online. It's in Kindle form and paperback from Amazon. Should be easy to find.

Megan Devito (30:14)
Yes.

Felicity Ashley (30:15)
My website is felicityashley.com and that's got all the information about my book but also about my speaking. So I do lots of motivational speaking for organisations anywhere in the world really.

Megan Devito (30:28)
Yeah, well, I will be sure to post those links in the description, whether it's on the video or on podcast platforms. So what a gift to be able to hear your story. Thank you so much. Yes. Yes, I loved it. So if you want to hear more from Ashley, please check out our website. Please grab her book. And of course, I will be back again next week. In the meantime, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share this with your friends, because that is how we can help more people feel successful, confident, calm.

Felicity Ashley (30:40)
Thank for having me. It's been an absolute joy to have a conversation.

Megan Devito (30:57)
and resilience and I hope you guys have a great week. Thank you.