That’s goin’ straight to the pool room!
By Kerryn Vaughan
2nd April 2022
I’ve written before about success and how we most often associate the word success with money. But success comes in all shapes and sizes and is actually determined by what we as individuals value the most.
For me, that’s experiences that money can’t buy.
If you’re at all familiar with the 1997 iconic Australian movie ‘The Castle’, you’ll recall that whenever Darryl Kerrigan received something he considered to be pretty amazing or unique, like a German beer stein, he’d proudly say “That’s goin’ straight to the pool room!”.
And we all knew what he meant - this is so valuable it deserves pride of place.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have, and this was triggered by Captain Australia.
Simon Harvey (aka Captain Australia) walked from Brisbane to Melbourne to raise awareness for kids with cancer, and specifically to raise funds for the Kids Cancer Project. But there were other important aspects to his walk. He had personally overcome stage 4 cancer of the neck and face, but not without a terrible struggle with depression caused by compounding health issues that made him feel completely broken.
So he also walked to heal a broken man, and succeeded. The third aspect was to leave a legacy for his kids just in case the cancer came back.
I sent Simon a message when he was at the NSW/VIC border and offered to shout him dinner and a room when he got to Sale. This was the first moment I thought “You just can’t buy these experiences!”. I then thought about the pool room. This was indeed a pool room moment.
As it turned out, somebody else ended up getting him a room and taking him out for dinner. I got dumped at the last minute, but I’m ok with that, because that gifted another person a pool room moment.
Not all was lost. I saw his Facebook live and noted he was in the town only 10 minutes from me and was about to head into Sale. I jumped in my car and caught him on the side of the road and grabbed him for a quick interview.
As we sat drenched in my car making a 15 minute video (that lasted an hour), it really hit home that we don’t get these moments by wishing and hoping. We have to take action.
By the way, Simon will be on the podcast soon so stay tuned!
Then I interviewed Dr John Demartini for my Get Off The Bench podcast. I have admired John’s work for over 15 years, and put him on a pedestal which, by the way, he tells people not to do. But here I was chatting with him like we were long time friends. When you are truly in conversation with somebody and the energy is sitting in love, there are no status levels or feelings of inferiority, just genuine connection. That is beautiful.
Tonight I’m reflecting on other experiences like:
Being on a zoom with the Dalai Lama
Helping youth kickstart climate change projects in 92 countries
Meeting a real life gangster who was a prisoner in Alcatraz
Sitting where royalty sat at the very first Olympics in Greece
Singing at the Hilton Hawai’ian
Sharing hot chips with Alan Sandow, the drummer from Sherbet
Enjoying a deep and meaningful conversation with Art Alexakis, the singer from Everclear
Swimming with Hawai’ian sea turtles
Hanging with Suzie Quatro
Meeting Wayne Dyer
Lying in bed in Yosemite National Park listening to a bear trying to break into the cabin
Seeing the Grand Canyon white with snow
Being told by songwriter Jason Blume (who has written hits for Brittney Spears and Backstreet Boys) that he could listen to me sing the phone book and still love every minute of it
Having my song ‘Broken’ used by a plethora of animal rights groups around the world
Singing several times with the legendary Frankie J Holden
Being told over and over that me just showing up has changed somebody’s life
Connecting clean water to villages and schools in Uganda
Waking up to the first snowfall of the season in Canada
These are just the handful of things I can remember right in this moment, but as I think further there will be hundreds of things, especially music career moments.
I suppose I could also include the not so good things like being kidnapped, shot at, having machine guns waved around my face, and somehow talking my way out of being mugged on several occasions, but I think I’ll stick to good things as pool room moments!!
So I’ve decided to create a ‘pool room moments’ journal, and to start adding to it every time something happens that money just can’t buy.
We are blessed daily with magical pool room moments, if only we choose to notice.
How will you capture yours?
Kerryn Vaughan is the author of ‘Magnificent Kids!’ and ‘Get Off The Bench!’, founder of One Planet Classrooms, co-founder of Girls With Hammers, and host of Get Off The Bench Podcast.
Kerryn is also a DISC ADVANCED® accredited consultant.