Reinvention of Self: Building Community in New Zealand

I’m here today with my guest, Emily Morrow. Emily is a dear friend who brings us her story of reinventing herself professionally, personally and culturally. Emily is a highly successful estate attorney. Emily retired in 2004 at the age of 52. As she began a consulting practice, she and her physician husband decided to build a second home overseas. After a stint in Sydney, Australia, they moved to Auckland New Zealand. We are going to talk about her experiences making this brave move, her talent for building community, and her personal transformation. Welcome, Emily. 

Emily

Thank you, Mercy. It’s nice to be here. 

Mercy

It’s great to be here with you. So let’s start with some background of your life in Vermont, where we met. What motivated you to retire and your decision to seek a second home overseas? That’s a big chapter, but let’s give some background. 

Emily

I graduated from law school in the late 1970s and after a couple of interim moves, my husband and I moved to Vermont where he had grown up. We moved into the family home, and we’re settled there for almost 25 years. I was a partner, a senior partner, and then managing partner at a large law firm there, and built and managed a successful estate trust and estates practice. 

Then September 11th occurred in 2001. And I remember coming home and thinking to myself that the US was going to go through a fundamental change as a result of this experience. Interestingly, my husband, a forensic pathologist, within a couple of hours of that event, he was mobilized to go down to New York City to help with victim identification. I was home in Vermont for about two weeks by myself while he was down in New York working. I had a lot of time to kind of think about the implications of this event. And to be honest, I didn’t have any fears about terrorism in Burlington, Vermont. But I had some concerns about the US and the reaction to this event.  I had concerns as I watched the aftermath of September 11th about the clear growth in what appeared to me to be xenophobia and nationalism, both of which concerned me because those typically are trends that are not particularly helpful for a country. That was one factor that got me to begin to think about building a life in a country other than the United States. 

Another factor was that we had been to New Zealand, we loved the country. New Zealand is a beautiful place. It was appealing to think about moving there. It’s a small, benign, friendly country that is culturally, in some ways, similar to Vermont. I decided that at that point I was ready to quit the practice of law. My husband, who was the Chief Medical Examiner of the state at the time, he decided that he was ready to leave that position. You might say that our philosophy of life is retire early and often. 

So, you could call this the first of many retirements, but I really thought of it more as the “r” word being reinvention of self rather than retirement. He was able to get a job first in Australia and then in Auckland and in August of 2005, we packed up. We each had two suitcases. We rolled them out of the house and trundled off to Sydney. That was the beginning of that new life abroad.

Mercy

When I think of your time in Sydney, one of the first things I want to talk a little bit more about is your background, your profession. You were very embedded in the Burlington, Vermont community. I remember you telling me that you had gone to a lady’s luncheon of the Expat International Women’s group in Sydney. This was such an unusual type of thing for you to be doing in the context of your career. Can you tell the people a little bit about what the scope of your practice was and what the kind of community you had? 

Emily

I did trust and estate work and my clientele were, the rich and famous in Vermont, because they were the ones who needed estate planning. 

I was on and chaired many boards, including the board of the largest commercial bank in Vermont. Historically, my work and my community involvement had been in the context of doing things that women typically didn’t do back then, like chairing bank boards and, being in leadership roles of a variety of types. So, when we went to Sydney, I didn’t know a soul and I was open to all offers, and I was introduced to this women’s organization called the Sydney Women’s International Club. And most of the members were the wives of successful executives who had lived overseas. And they were the classic bonbon eaters and Ladies Who Lunch.

I had never spent time in my life with women like this. So, it was a cross-cultural experience. They didn’t quite know what to make about with me, because of my professional background, I’d had a career. They had often gone to university, but they’d never had a career. Their primary talents were raising children and cooking great meals. And neither of those are my great talents. 

Mercy

Well, you are a very graceful and skilled entertainer. From there you really platformed that kind of easy entry. Maybe it was interesting and unusual for you, but you then, began to make connections through them. That took you in a direction for your second career. 

Emily

What had happened was I had been interested in, had applied to and been accepted into a master’s degree program at the University of Sydney in Executive Coaching. And I was all set to embark on that training. Then actually the husband of one of these women, I had lunch with him, and he gave me an introduction to a woman who ran a national consultancy company in Australia.  I had lunch with her, and she asked me about my background. I filled her in about that. She looked at me and she said, “why in God’s name are you going into this master’s program? You already have a doctorate. Why do you need this master’s? I’ll hire you to do consultancy work with lawyers and law firms who are our clients here in Australia, and we’ll put you to work right away.”

I said OKAY. 

She said, “if you don’t like it, well then go back and do the master’s program.”

So, I ditched the master’s program and went to work with her firm, all of which worked well. And that got me started on this second career of doing consulting work for lawyers and law firms, which is something that I’ve continued to do here in, in New Zealand. 

Mercy

So, you were working with a firm, and they had their idea of how they worked with people. They had a protocol for how they worked with clients. And part of that involved pitching an offer of sales, right? 

Emily

Yes.

Mercy

Was that something you had to do much before? 

Emily

Oh, yes. I built a law practice from scratch.  I’ve always been very entrepreneurial about building a professional practice. It’s something that I enjoy doing. And this was the same.  I used the same approach, albeit in a different sector being the consulting sector rather than in the practice of law. 

But the same relationship building, networking, building profile, professional profile within a cohort of prospective clients and referrers. 

Mercy

You were involved not only in working with clients that they brought in, but part of your job was also to bring in clients. 

Emily

Yes. 

Mercy

Which was always a basic skill of yours. 

Emily

Yes

Mercy

Which you had cultivated in developing your practice. 

Emily

I love that business development component of a professional practice. To me that’s in some ways the most fun. 

Mercy

Interesting. Because it varies a lot for different professionals.  I might think of my father’s medical career, he was always just very reliant on his competence, right?  So, it was not about him. I mean, obviously there was natural networking that took place in a small town. And to him, it was not something you ever thought about doing or did purposely. It was very much based on merit.  You meet me, you see what I do. I don’t think the word marketing or networking ever crossed his mind. So, all to say that is a particular approach of yours. And do you find that many lawyers have that? 

Emily

Well, it’s a good question Mercy. I would say the vast majority don’t. And part of that is just the temperament profile of the typical person who goes into the law. They often can be relatively introverted. They’re interested in the law rather than relationship building. One of the things that I do a lot of work is now with lawyers, in terms of the consulting work I do, is working with people on developing business development capabilities. Because increasingly law firms are putting pressure on their people before they’ll make them partners to demonstrate that they can build a partner level practice and meet the financial goals the firm has for them and bring in clients. 

Mercy

Now, I won’t stoop so low as to credit your extroversion for that <laugh>. Because I really do think it’s a skill, but I do notice how enlivened you are when you’re reaching out and getting to know people. 

Emily

It’s an important skill for anyone to have. I think the other thing I love to do, ever since I was a kid, I love to do public speaking, just love it. Put me up in front of a group of people. I have a blast. 

Mercy

It’s interesting when they study stress and anxiety and the physiology.  You in a sense would be an anomaly in that because it’s almost not universal, but very widespread that people get anxious with public speaking. 

Emily

No, I love it. 

Mercy

And you’ve used public speaking as part of networking.  

Emily

Yes. Public speaking, one-on-one, relationship building, public speaking, networking, and social media. 

Mercy

And tell me about the social media. 

Emily

Well, it’s relatively straightforward. It’s having a good website. It’s being active on LinkedIn, it’s remaining in touch with people through email, getting, sending them information that they might have that would be of interest to them. And I think in terms of a website, that an effective website is one that is fairly, short, and crisp, and professional. Not a lot of ancillary information about you as a person, but more you as a professional. That that seems to work well, at least for lawyers. 

Mercy

And one that’s got good search engine optimization. 

Then what happened with that experience in Sydney with the consultancy? 

Emily

I did that for three years and that was fine, but it became clear to my husband and I, after about three years, that Australia was not the place we wanted to be.  He was offered a job in Auckland, which is in New Zealand, which is the place we had wanted to be at the outset.  Although I had enjoyed that consultancy work with that firm, I was looking forward to being freelance and, and not being subject to the constraints of a larger organization about what I did and how I did it. So, when we got to Auckland, I had a very fortunate break. 

Mercy

Before we go on, I wanted to sit back with in Sydney for a bit.  I really love hearing you talk about that. What was it like in Sydney and what was your personal social life there, in terms of your natural community building?  That’s just the way you move in the world. What happened in Sydney with that? 

Emily

That organization strangely enough became the basis that Sydney Women’s International Club, even though I was a bit of a fish out of water within.  I did meet some interesting women. And I think there’s a process of culling in an organization like that, where you over time identify the like-minded people, and you contact them individually and you do things one-on-one, and you have them over for dinner and that kind of thing. 

And I’ve always found that one of the best ways to build relationships in a new communities have people over for dinner, kind of goes back to that Christian notion of sharing bread together. I’ve always enjoyed that. Some of those professional relationships morphed into friendships as well. 

Mercy

But the primary decision had to do with Paul’s career, with your husband’s career and then also wasn’t there more of a problem getting a visa? 

Emily

Oh yes. Well, we were interested in getting permanent residency and ultimately citizenship. The Australia Forensic Pathology licensing board was making it difficult for my husband. And he got sick of the process. 

Mercy

It’s a tough thing when you’ve been the Chief Medical Examiner of the state, to have to jump through those hoops. 

Emily

Exactly. 

Mercy

Now Emily, I want to talk about your move to New Zealand where you live currently. So, you and your husband had decided that Sydney was not a place where you could stay. 

Emily

Yeah. It was culturally too different to Vermont. Australia and New Zealand could not be more different to each other. And living in Sydney was a lot of fun. It’s a lovely fun city, but it’s more like living in Houston, Texas. And Australia is a dry, harsh climate. 

We came from a lush green place being Vermont. And ultimately the environmental and cultural differences were just too stark for us. 

Mercy

Can you spell out a little bit more like, what about Houston?  What about Sydney? 

Emily

Well, you know Houston. It’s a very big city. It’s very brash. It’s quite intense. I would say I liked Australia, but I would say that the climate, and to some extent, the people are harsh. Whereas I would say in New Zealand, the climate and the people are benign. We used to joke about Australia and say, the reality of Australia is that what you don’t know in Australia is likely to kill you. I mean, they have just the number of poisonous plants and creatures and fish and jellyfish. Whereas in New Zealand, there’s nothing poisonous.  

Mercy

Isn’t that interesting? Such a different ecosystem. 

Emily

Completely different. Most people don’t appreciate that. And in New Zealand, the people who settled here came here for a better life. 

So, and it was subtle during a different time in the British empire. Australia has one of the darkest histories of any country that I know, including how it was settled and its’ treatment of its aboriginal people. In New Zealand, our indigenous people are alive and well. The culture is strong, and it’s a very, very different situation. 

Mercy

Right. They have a dynamic citizenry. One of my favorite books about American patterns of immigration is called Albion’s Seed. There are other people who’ve written about how the culture in different parts of our country  mirror some of those differences. They are linked to where the immigrants were coming from. So, this makes total sense to me, and I would certainly love to hear more about New Zealand in that respect. 

But right now, I want to talk about your move to New Zealand. Did this primarily have to do with Paul? I know you had your eye on New Zealand originally. 

Emily

Oh, yes, we had absolutely. That was the country we had wanted to move to, but at the time we were ready to make the move, there wasn’t a job available in New Zealand. And then a job became available and Paul applied for that and was hired. So that gave us the possibility. And it was through his skills that we were ultimately able to get permanent residency and then citizenship in New Zealand. Which we’ve done because he then went to work for the city of Auckland as a forensic pathologist for the local hospital. He’s switched, he’s done some different things since he’s been there. 

Mercy

Right. He’s always been a forensic pathologist. 

Emily

Right. But, he keeps, he keeps retiring and then getting rehired. They won’t let him retire because his skills are in such demand. 

Mercy

And did he did get a Master of Public Health, right? 

Emily

He did, yes. Just a couple years ago. He went back and got a Master’s in Public Health and not to be bested, I’m in the process of going back and getting a Master’s in Counseling at the University of Auckland. I mean, I’ve got to keep up with the Joneses here. <laugh>

Mercy

Can’t let your husband have more degrees?

Emily

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Mercy

I’m a strong believer in, you got to keep growing and developing. Well, that’s a nice joke, but I know that’s not the motivation. So, you arrived in New Zealand, and you were originally in a high rise in Auckland. 

Emily

We were. And I just hated that. So, quickly we got ourselves out of there and moved to a suburb of Auckland called Devonport, which is a lovely little suburb across the harbor.  Once again, I was fortunate I’d had some introductions to people in Auckland from people that I knew in Sydney. There’s quite a bit of cross pollination. And fairly soon along I got to know a professional colleague who gave me an introduction to one of the larger law firms in the country to start doing one-on-one coaching work for their people. It turned out to be relatively easy to develop an individual consultancy practice. 

So, all that’s worked well. I would say that the networking skills that I used in Sydney and in Vermont were very helpful here. I mean, it’s kind of like I’m like a duck in water, you put me in the water, and I’ll just start swimming around and meeting the other ducks. 

Mercy

What I find is extremely helpful in that regard is to just to ask people about themselves and listen. 

Emily

Yes, people are interested in telling you their stories. A friend of mine who used to do image consulting for people, she once made the comment, the most charming person is the best listener. All kinds of things that I read is the important thing is to be the listener. 

And yet, at the same time, it’s a skill to be practiced. 

Mercy

Right. And not everybody is just a natural at that. 

You moved to Davonport, and you bought a home there.  What other type of community activities were you involved with in the beginning? 

Emily

Well, I joined the local Rotary Club, and I have been on and off various nonprofit boards in New Zealand. And we then we joined one of the local churches.  I would say of the different modalities that we used to build community, I would say joining the church, which is a very community-based church, has probably been the richest and fulfilling of those.

Mercy

So Interesting. Is it a church of a different faith than the one that you were raised in? 

Emily

Yes. It’s an Anglican church, very much community based, so that essentially everybody in the church lives within five minutes of the church. So everywhere you go in the community, Devonport is a fairly small community. Everywhere you go, you run into people from the church. Which is lovely. 

Mercy

I don’t know if this is fair to say, you correct me otherwise, but initially, I wouldn’t have called you a religious person. 

Emily

This is true. 

Mercy

You met people and you build community, but there was more to that community that had significance and meaning for you. 

Emily

Yes. 

Mercy

Can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Emily

At the time, we were going through some difficult things in our family, and I had reached kind of a dead end in terms of my ability to deal with some of those things.  I just was drawn on some level to go to the church. I went for a midnight mass one Christmas Eve, and really, really liked what was going on at that church. It’s a traditional Anglican church. I mean, it’s not anything out of the ordinary for Americans. Now, my grandmother actually was from an Anglican tradition, and she went to the Episcopalian church. Of course. That’d be the US version. 

Mercy

Did you like what you experienced when you first went?

Emily

Absolutely. I like the leadership. Our Vicar is great, a wonderful woman. And whenever I get involved with an organization, this is just me, I tend to get involved in a leadership capacity. I was invited to go on to vestry, and now I am what’s known as the Vicar’s Warden. 

Mercy

Can you explain what those are? 

Emily

Well, the Vestry is the governing body of the church.  And the Vicar’s Warden is essentially the person who is the confidante. The person with whom the Vicar can talk candidly about difficult things that are going on in the parish in a confidential way, kind of the support person for the Vicar. 

Mercy

You also started going on retreats with the church, so you were developing a more in-depth relationships with others. 

Emily

Yes, that’s a good point. My philosophy tends to be, if you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly. I mean, don’t do something unless you’re going to do a good job with it. And if you can’t, if it doesn’t feel like you can commit yourself to that and doing a good job with it, then don’t bother step, step away from it. 

Mercy

So, you dove in. You really took what was offered, and you took advantage and developed, you also developed relationships with other families. 

Emily

Yes.  In the community, in the church. 

Mercy

It is so interesting, both of us coming from the Vermont, which is, a state of small communities. We lived in Burlington, Vermont, and Shelburne, which is probably the largest, most populous city. And yet it’s still a small community in the end. 

Emily

You know, when you walk down the street, you’re always going to see someone you know. Well, I remember a Kiwi friend of mine said to me as she’s a lawyer in Auckland, and she said to me as I was building this consultant seed practice, she said, you must understand about New Zealand, that New Zealand is like a small village, and Auckland is a neighborhood in that village, and all the lawyers are an extended family in that village. That’s how things operate here. And it really is true.  I mean, New Zealand is a country of 5 million people, and there are no secrets in New Zealand. 

And like Vermont, it’s a place where if you want to meet somebody for whatever reason, they’re only at the most, two degrees of separation. You can get access to that person very easily. I would say it’s a very high functioning, well integrated community like Vermont. It’s got a high level of social capital. 

Mercy

Yeah. It’s wonderful place.  What do you mean by that? A high level of social capital? 

Emily

Well, social capital is that kind of amorphous and yet ubiquitous element, if you will, that creates the stickiness and sense of cohesion within a community. And it manifests itself in many, both obvious and less obvious ways. For example, in a state like Vermont, which has high levels of social capital, I’m referencing here the work I think it’s Robert Putnam, who wrote the book, Bowling Alone.  That there are a lot of indica of social high levels of social capital. Everything from higher rates of graduation from high school to lower teen pregnancy rates to less poverty and better health outcomes and all that stuff. And the distinction by it as social capital, is that it has to do with not so much your financial status. Or your material status. It has to do with your connections to other people. That’s your social capital, your status, and your stature in a sense, in your community and in your network. Your stature could have to do with the way you organize church suppers.  It doesn’t have to do with necessarily a prestigious role in the community. I mean, it could have to do that. But the thing is, when you move to an entirely new country and a new community, you have no history. Nobody knows whether you’re an honest person or a dishonest person, a trustworthy one, or a toxic one. You have to rebuild that identity from scratch through cumulative and iterative interactions with other people in which you rise to the occasion and meet, if not exceed their expectations. 

Mercy

Yes. Right. 

Emily

So, in some ways, one of the things that I have found so very interesting about living overseas, well, it’s twofold. One is that I think it requires me to be the best person I can day to day, because  every time I open my mouth, I announce that I’m from away. That’s because of my accent. 

Mercy

Because of your accent. That’s true. 

Emily

When I meet somebody new, they may be bringing some expectations to that interaction. I need to manage myself in a way that my best self is the one that comes forward with and yet the authentic self. And secondly, the other part I love about it is that every day something is new and different, that every day I’ll bump up against some cultural difference that I perhaps didn’t even realize was there. 

Mercy

Right. I remember I lived in France for a year, but then I went back eight years later,  I was there for about four months by myself. And I remember feeling quite isolated. I was there working on a dissertation, so I wasn’t out and about all day, but I often had to go out. And of course, I had that other language, which was still somewhat of a challenge, although I was confident. I would tell myself at the beginning of every day, something interesting is going to happen today. At the end of the day, you’re going to be able to look back and see something that surprised you. And it was always positive. There was always something curious or positive or an interesting interaction with somebody, I could count on it. So it became my mantra in the beginning of the day. It was the antidote to feeling isolated and I would feel afraid of walking out the door. I’d have to say,” Mercy, come on this is okay, everything’s going to be fine. You can do this. “

I had to talk myself into it. I think that experience is really fascinating. 

We’re at the point of taking another break and then I want to come back, and I want you to tell us more about New Zealand. You’ve told me a lot, and I want to try to explore more of that for our listeners so that they really get a much more nuanced view of the culture, of the way that it works, what your experience has been like, especially since you’ve been there, and we’ve been through Covid there. And then also your personal transformation. You’re a different person now. Now you’re not particularly different to me, but I know you’ve had a lot of experiences that have really changed the way you see the world, and I’d like to talk more about that.

Mercy

Emily, we were just talking basically how you connected to the small community,  Devonport, which is part of the city of Auckland is, or contiguous. It’s a suburb. It has a small community church that you’ve been very involved with on many levels. Always a leader, a soul sister. You’ve really embraced that. You and I have spoken regularly throughout this journey, and I have really been fascinated with your view of New Zealand as a country, as a culture. 

And certainly, we talk about it in contrast to some of our feelings and experiences in the United States. I would like you to talk a little bit more about that. I guess one place I’d like to start is what we referred to in our conversation about Sydney and the relationship between the Western immigrants and settlers onto the island with the native or aboriginal people. Which has been a harsh history in Australia. Dark one, very, very dark, and dark in the United States as well. Tell us more about what it has been like in New Zealand and how that is active in the culture today. 

Emily

Yeah. Well, it’s not like it’s a bright and happy history in New Zealand. 

On the other hand, when the Crown arrived and started actively colonizing New Zealand in the 1830s and 1840s, it was considerably later than when they were doing that in Sydney. And Māori being our indigenous people, they are big, strong people. They’re Polynesians, they’re physically very robust and they’re warriors. And what happened in New Zealand is that there were years of conflict between the Crown and Māori across the country. And in 1840, the Māori fought the Brits to a truce. To a standstill, which resulted in what’s called the Treaty of Wang. The Treaty of Wang was a written document that attempted to codify the relationship between the Crown and between Māori. That document continues to be the seminal legal document to this day that is referred to whenever there are issues around the relative rights and responsibilities of the Crown. 

The government in New Zealand, and Māori are strong people, and they’re bright people, and they learned the ways of the Europeans. They learned how to use European weapons. They’re highly effective people. Now, it’s been a difficult history. And there were periods of time in New Zealand where Māori were almost exterminated in other colonization stories. The focus now in New Zealand, however, at the present time I find this very, very exciting, is about creating a bicultural country in New Zealand and a bilingual country. The Māori language is Te Reo and there’s been a very big push to teach Te Reo in school. And in fact, there’s such a demand, not just around among Māori, but also among Paia, the, the Europeans to learn Te Reo, that there’s a shortage of Te Reo teachers.

And there’s been a real effort to integrate what’s known as Tik Māori. Tik Māori is Māori custom into the way things happen in New Zealand. And Māori are a strong political force in New Zealand as well. So that, for example in the election in which Jacinda and her government came into power, it was primarily because of a Māori, smaller party that threw the power to Jacinda. So, Māori are a very important force in this country. That’s one factor. I think another factor that differentiates New Zealand from the US and I think also from Australia.  There’s a book that’s been written about this called Freedom versus Freedom and Fairness. The thesis of this book is that the core value in the United States for a whole lot of reasons is around personal freedom. The development of the west. The core value in New Zealand is fairness. And it’s the value that if everybody can’t have it, then nobody should have it. And that core value drives a lot of things. It’s behind our national healthcare system. It’s behind New Zealand. One of the fascinating aspects of New Zealand that’s not well known is that we have no personal injury litigation in New Zealand. So, if you are injured in a malpractice situation, or you’re injured in a car accident, there’s no fault. What happens is that your remedy is through a government sponsored program called ACC that provides you with whatever resources, whether they be medical or supportive or whatever, to get you back into health. So the implications of this are that the doctors don’t have to worry about malpractice litigation. 

Mercy

It’s interesting because there are lots of lawyers in New Zealand and they earn a good living without being involved in malpractice litigation.

Emily

 Yes. Or personal entry litigation. Interesting. So there are lots of implications of this. People will often from the US will say, well, how is New Zealand and how are New Zealand and the US different? And I’ll say to them, well, you know, in the US, consumer goods are inexpensive, easy to get of great variety and high quality, but the public and municipal infrastructure is falling apart. Whereas in New Zealand, consumer goods are expensive, hard to get, often of low quality and a poor variety. But our public and municipal infrastructure, it’s not perfect, but it’s in pretty good shape because that’s where the investment goes. 

It’s very different culturally, and I’ve certainly known Americans who have come to live in New Zealand for whom it wasn’t the right fit, because they missed that very strong consumer culture. That they were used to in the US. 

Mercy

Oh, how interesting. What was your experience then? Now Jacinda, the Prime Minister, you’ve talked to me quite a bit about Jacinda, so I’m familiar with who she is. When did she come into office?  She was a very distinctive leader through the Covid. 

Emily

Oh, absolutely. Yes. 

Mercy

Can you tell us a little bit more about her?

Emily

She and her Labor Party came into power about five years ago.  She has managed a series of potentially destabilizing crises in that five-year period, Covid, the massacre in Christchurch, and a volcanic eruption that killed a lot of people here in New Zealand. 

And during Covid, it became very clear that New Zealand had one chance to do Covid right the first time, because our medical resources were modest compared to many other countries. I mean, in the whole country of New Zealand, there were maybe 200 ventilators at the time Covid broke out. And when you’re located at the end of the world, like we are hours from anywhere else, you can’t just order more ventilators when you run out. So Jacinda very quickly, and I think to her great credit, decided to play the only card New Zealand had, which was isolation in lockdown, literally after we’d gotten only a few Covid cases. So we had the advantage of seeing what happened in the rest of the world. But very, very quickly, Jacinda put us into a very intense lockdown and basically pretty much stopped international travel and created a system of what were called managed isolation and quarantine facility so that anybody coming from overseas had to go into a government run quarantine facility for two weeks. 

The effect was in the first wave of Covid, Covid was eliminated in the country. And during the time when Covid was spreading everywhere else in the world for that year, we lived a pretty normal, albeit insulated life of being Covid free. It was almost surreal sometimes. 

Mercy

I do want to move on because I have another important question for you.  I want to mention this vignette you told me about you. What we haven’t talked about is that you are a lifelong open water swimmer. If there isn’t ice on the water  you’re suited up and  in the water. And  you swim in the ocean, don’t you? 

Emily

I do, I do. 

Mercy

You weren’t even supposed to go swimming in the ocean during Covid. 

Emily

You’re right.

Mercy

But one day you did. 

Emily

Oh, this is a great anecdote. During the lockdown to avoid having medical problems because of somebody drowning or whatever, swimming was off limits. But I was with a friend, and we decided we were going to swim anyways. So, we went out at seven o’clock in the morning to what we thought was an isolated beach where nobody would see us, and we started doing our laps. There was one house at the end of this beach, and after a couple days of doing this, this elderly man, he must have been eighties, hobbled out of the house on a cane, came to the beach where we were, and yelled at us, “You are letting Jacinda and the team of 5 million down. Now get out of the water.” And he shamed us. He didn’t threaten to call the police or anything like that. He said, you are letting Jacinda and the team of 5 million down. And I thought that was brilliant. I wanted to go and shake his hand. 

Mercy

Probably he didn’t want you that close.  I love that story. I mean, it’s so unique.  I think that there are pockets in the United States that were operating like that, but it didn’t mark our country. 

Emily

That spirit. Right. 

Mercy

Emily, I want to see if we can dive a little deeper into talking about your personal transformation. We’ve been talking about how you do things, how you’ve done them differently, what kinds of activities have influenced you, but how would you begin to talk about how you’re different today than you were? 

It’s over 15 years ago, right? 

Emily

Yes. That’s again, a great question. I would say that when I was a lawyer, I was very focused on accomplishing things. And since we’ve moved over here, I would say I’m a lot more focused on just being, and there have been a couple of health related experiences during the course of the last 15 years that have impacted that. 

I would say one is that I was diagnosed with cancer, and that’s a pretty humbling thing to go from what you feel is brilliant health into being in a situation where you’re really debilitated by the, not so much the disease, but by the treatment. And then several years ago, it turned out that I needed a repair of my mitral valve. I had open heart surgery again, I went from being this very robust, capable person to being very dependent. I would say this plus involvement in the church has certainly made me more introspective and perhaps a little bit more of an observer, a little less of a doer. 

Mercy

How has your faith changed? 

Emily

We were Quakers initially, and I think the basic tenant of Quaker is that there is that of God in every person .  That religious, if you will, faith-based precept has not changed for me. And it has implications about how you interact with other people and how you manage yourself in life. I view Christianity and the Anglican Church and the doctrines of the Anglican church in a metaphorical way.  I don’t view them in a literal way. And the basic tenets of Christianity viewed through that metaphorical lens make a lot of sense to me. I was raised that my mother particularly was very clear that the bible was, that the lessons were a metaphor. And that there was deeper meaning in the stories that they weren’t literal. So that’s why I say Christianity is not for people who are metaphorically challenged. 

Mercy:

It’s challenging if you take it literally. You talked about doing versus being. When you and I met was during that period. We really got to know each other when I was hobbling around with a debilitated hip, and you were going through cancer treatment. It was in the winter, and I’d come in, we’d sit and talk, and we really got to know each other. That was a period of being. 

Emily

Oh, it was. 

Mercy

I’ve always known you as somebody who’s a girlfriend just in the moment, enjoying, having fun. 

And the next thing you know I’ve got my agenda, you’ve got your agenda, you’ve got your lawyer face on. 

Emily

You’re like, whoa, wait a minute, who is this person? 

Mercy

And I love it because it’s so almost seamless, at least for me. And having known you for so long, even as you are being more and more, you are still doing a lot. 

Emily

Yes. And it’s almost seamless because the being becomes more part of the doing and I think that’s really the goal. 

Mercy

True. It’s not just about eating bon bons. 

Emily, our time is up. And I thank you so much for joining me today. This is always a pleasure to talk to you, and it’s been very generous of you to give your time to me. This is Mercy Russell with a Remarkable Relationship Show. My guest today on the show is Emily Morrow, from New Zealand and Burlington, Vermont. And this has been her story of her, of reinvention, of Self and community building. Thank you for joining us today. 

Emily

My pleasure, Mercy. Thank you.

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Hi, I’m Mercy

I’m a leadership consultant who inspires leaders to lead themselves through relationship challenges. I inspires people to step beyond their roles as managers, administrators and parents and re-discover their unique gifts with a renewed sense of purpose.

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