264. 4 lessons from my very freezy 40

I’m back from my very freezy 40th birthday trip to the world-famous Ice Hotel in Sweden!

It was an adventure that left me with four big takeaways for life and speaking:

1️⃣ The Power of Planning – Preparation creates freedom, on stage and in life.
2️⃣ Don’t Overthink It – Simplicity is confidence. Trust yourself and just do it.
3️⃣ Shift Your Perspective – You might not be able to change the room, but you can always change how you see it.
4️⃣ Create the Conditions for Fun – Fun fuels your voice. Book the trip, say yes, and bring more play into your life.

I also share in this episode what it's really like to sleep in an ice room (spoiler: it’s warmer than you think!)

Transcript

Hello, I'm back from my very freezy 40th birthday trip to the Ice Hotel in Sweden and today I'm giving you a bit of a rundown of how it went, including what surprised me and I'm wrapping it up in four life and speaking lessons, I suppose four lessons for 40 years. So in case you missed all the action over on my Instagram at Sally Prosser voice, I'll start off by giving you a quick itinerary overview. So we flew from Brisbane to London via Singapore and when we landed in Heathrow at 6:30 in the morning, we hot-footed it to collect our luggage and then get over to terminal five to jump on an 8:30 AM flight to Berlin.

Oh my gosh, spoiler, we made it. So we had three nights in Berlin, three nights in Stockholm, then we flew up to Lulea. My Swedish pronunciation improved slightly over the time we hired a car and Patrick drove us to the Arctic bath, which is this really cool place with floating little villas out on the river and a cold plunge pool into the river in the center of the hotel. And we had an incredible dinner at the restaurant there, which was announced as a Michelin award-winning restaurant right after we left. So lucky! It was amazing. Then we drove further north to Kiruna to get to the famous Ice Hotel, which is where we stayed on the night of my 40th. And this is the topic of today's episode. And also my book, like a whole bunch of boxes of my book, arrived right before we left.

So of course I took a copy of Voiceprint with us on my travels, including into the Ice Room. Make sure you have pre-ordered your copy of my book and secured your ticket to the launch party on December 7th. I have the link in the show notes just for you. Remember, it's a secret link only for people who've pre-ordered, but I've put the direct link for you in the show notes.

So why did I choose to go to the Ice Hotel? Well, I wanted to do something memorable for my 40th birthday. I love marking milestone birthdays and I think I saw the Ice Hotel on Getaway, which is one of our travel shows when I was growing up. And it just stuck in my mind. It's been on my life list of things to do. So I got my act together and I made it happen.

And that is the first lesson. I really recommend the power of planning.

And look, I realize planning is a privilege. At times in my life when I've been highly stressed, unemployed, experiencing relationship issues, health issues, you don't really plan things in advance. You just, you know, get through one day at a time. And if you are in that boat at the moment, be kind to yourself. I once heard that the best measure of well-being in your life across the board, physical, mental, emotional, financial, relationship-wise, the best measure of well-being in your life is how far in advance you make plans. Whoa, like that really resonated with me.

I booked the Ice Hotel accommodation a year ahead of time to secure it more than a year ago. I remember times when I thought, how could I know what I was doing in 12 months time? Will I be in the same job or with the same person, you know?

But it's true what they say. A little planning goes a long way if you have a speech coming up, carving out time to prepare and practice will pay off. And often people book in sessions for this reason because they know they have that dedicated time in their calendar.

For example, those who do my be event-ready package, the first session we plan the speech by the second session it's written and the third one is the delivery. So people often book those sessions in so they know they've got that preparation and practice time squared away.

And as a business owner, if you don't plan breaks, you probably won't find time to take them. So my holidays always go in the calendar first. And this latest trip was such a testament to the power of good planning, not only securing the accommodation we wanted because hey, you know, if we're going all that way, we want the best room with sauna.

It also meant, you know, booking flights in double status, credit periods, designing the holiday. So there was no early morning flights personally writing to all the accommodation providers beforehand, having local sims so we had Google Maps on the road, you know, all the things that go into planning a trip and all of that planning means everything runs so smoothly.

The power of planning can actually be applied to almost everything in life, especially speaking, you know, if you have a tricky conversation coming up or a presentation or a speech, think about your prep plan. The more prepared you are, the better you'll be able to catch those curveballs. Now once we arrived at the Ice Hotel, I was expecting things to be a little more formal I suppose. Like, I thought we might have got a briefing on, okay, this is what to expect, this is how to stay warm.

And then, I don't know, we'd all go over as a group to the other building, which is the Ice Hotel and I don't know. But pretty much we rocked up at reception and the staff was super friendly by the way, just so relaxed. Oh the Swedes are so relaxed. He basically said, Here's your key, you are in room 307. You know, people will be looking at the display until 6:00 PM but you can access the back part, which was the warm part with the sauna and the bathroom and all of that, and go for it. That's it.

So then, we walked across the boardwalk to the other building, which is the Ice Hotel. So the one we stayed at is there all year round. It's called Ice Hotel 360. Whereas there's another one that gets built every year purely of ice. And that one opens in December. So that hadn't started construction. We could see where it was going to go.

Anyways, we get there, we walk over to the guy at the front desk because you can just go and visit a lot of people go and visit the Ice Hotel without staying there. And we said, oh, we're staying here. And he's like, Okay. And I'm like, Do we need to get one of these ponchos? 'Cause they had these racks of, you know, really warm overcoats and he's like, Oh, you know, I suppose if you know if, if you want to like, you don't have to. And we're like, Oh, I think we should. It was, you know, negative five inside. So we put that on and we just walked in and it just wandered around the hotel. There was no, don't touch this signs, there was no staff.

It was just really trustworthy. Kind of points to maybe how much of a nanny state Australia is. I just don't feel like you could do that in Australia. Anyway, so we just walked around all really relaxed. We went to the ice bar, I was expecting kind of, you know, a balm and standing there and lots of people, but it was quite quiet. And the guy who was at the front desk just came over, made us the world's strongest cocktail and was like, There you go.

And we run into these couple of guys and I'm like, Oh, what are you doing here? Turns out they are actual rocket scientists, like aerospace engineers who are working on a rocket, which is apparently the only rocket station in Europe, which happens to be right near the Ice Hotel. And that's where they were staying anyway, really, really random.

I was like, how strong are these drinks? And also the Ice Hotel's display in the foyer is all space-themed, like with rockets and stuff. So I'm like, have they got these guys in as part of the theme? I don't know. Didn't seem to be like that! So had a bit of a chat, but then we, you know, went back to the room, just zapped ourselves in from the public ice room into the warm room. We had a sauna, went for dinner, came back, pulled out the sleeping bags from the bag that they gave us. Had a bit of a read of the sign on the wall, which kind of told us what to do. They said to wear thermals, but we didn't. And luckily we didn't 'cause it was so hot. The sleeping bags were designed for negative 20 and so the room was negative five, so it was actually a lot warmer than what we needed for the conditions.

And we just went in there and they have like this kind of mattress and then an animal skin and then these two kind of plastic-y pillows and you kind of get inside your liner in the sleeping bag, which is like a sheet. And then you are inside the big sleeping bag and you kind of just zip yourself up. And I wore a little hat and, we went to bed. So it was such a crazy experience.

And the the second lesson I got here, is, don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. Like here I was thinking there'd be a full briefing, there'd be staff everywhere, but don't overthink it. Or as Patrick would say, don't overcook it. And this is so true with speaking as well, so many problems and concerns.

My clients come to me with simply overcomplicates the matter. And I find the language of really confident presenters. They see it so simply. They're like, but what do you mean? Like you get up, you just say your bit and you sit back down and look, of course they can be more to it. However, there is a beautiful simplicity in not overthinking it and just trusting and doing it. So often we build roadblocks for ourselves, or you know, first I need to get training, I need to get a drink, then I need to get a website, then I need to get the right tech setup that I need to find time. Then I need to, then I need to... When do we really need to? Or are we making it more complicated than it needs to be?

Relax. Like the Swedes don't overthink it. Even in Stockholm, I had done this really simple online check-in. So I got to the desk, I said, Hi, I'm Sally. And she said, Oh, fantastic, you are in this room. And just gave me the key immediately. No credit card hold, no forms, no any of that. Like it was just so streamlined and easy. I'm like, Oh my gosh, why are there hotels here where you have to sort of sign your life away before you can get the key to the room? It's crazy!

Anyway, so we got into our ice hotel room, as I said, in these big sleeping bags. And our room was themed or it was called the artist called it "The Ice are the Window to the Soul". And the art was like people encased in ice, like at the start was like two big faces just looking at each other. Then there was people who looked like they were running, but they were trapped in ice.

And then get this, you can see it all on my Instagram, there's like a tomb, like an icy tomb and then an icy body inside the icy tomb, like right next to the bed. It was pretty freaky. I was like, Oh my gosh, how are we gonna sleep in here? And people did ask me that as well. They were like, Oh my gosh, I could not have slept in there. It was so freaky.

But we lay down and even when we turned the lights out, so in the ice they actually had a little light switch and there was a bit of a dim light in the room and I just reframed it and I thought, how amazing to be in this room. And instead of feeling like it was deathly scary, freaky spirits, I was like, It's beautiful, positive birthday spirits and guides. And isn't it amazing that we get to sleep in a room with all of this great energy?

So the lesson here is, you may not be able to change the room or the situation, but you can always shift your perspective. How can this work for me? You know, it's not, Oh my gosh, everyone's looking at me. Well, you are looking at everyone.

It's not, Oh my gosh, what if they, they don't like it? Well, what value can you add? What if they do like it? And reframing is pretty much at the core of the coaching work I do. When you change the way you think about speaking, it changes everything. That's where it all really starts.

And every single fear or concern you have about speaking, give it to me. We can reframe it. We can shift your perspective on it. And in my case at the Ice Hotel, it was the difference between sleeping with one eye open and sleeping like a baby, an ice baby. Oh my God, it was so funny. Patrick and I could not stop giggling there we were in these massive sleeping bags, sweating but kind of freezing at the same time. Curled up in an ice room in remote northern Sweden surrounded by the icy dead.

It was hilarious. And it really like awakened, you know, sense of playfulness. And it was such a fun trip. We went to the spy museum in Berlin and jumped through laser beams. We played Putt-putt. I got up on stage at the ABBA Museum, and we slept at the Ice Hotel. How cool is that? I know it's a very Millennial cringe word to use, but you know, in this case I feel like it's pretty appropriate.

And so my final lesson for this episode is to create the conditions for fun. Life can get pretty serious and mundane. Sometimes you go to the gym, you work, you eat, you sleep. And especially speaking can seem like this serious heavy thing. That presentation, that speech coming up, a lot of my clients describe it as a way to burden something. They can't wait to get off their chest to get out.

And a lot of the work we do is to bring levity and joy and fun into speaking. Speaking can and should absolutely be enjoyable. And it's so much easier to get into that fun zone if, you have fun in your life. So this is your sign to create the conditions for fun. Book in that activity, book in the Ice Hotel, if that's your thing. Book in something that makes your inner child feel excited.

It goes back to our first lesson, which is the power of planning. If you are always waiting for a spontaneous moment of fun, it may never come. So create the conditions to have fun. And I felt excited. Like that's exactly how I felt flying into London the day after the Ice Hotel experience. We did have another night in the warm room of the hotel, which worked out well because Patrick was able to listen on ABC Radio to the Brisbane Broncos win the NRL Premiership. Rugby League, for anyone who's outside Australia listening.

So then the next day we flew to London and I ran a Speak Up for Your Business workshop in London. If you're listening and you were there, oh my gosh, it was so nice to see you! And now we have workshops in Brisbane on October 31 and Perth on November 21, so make sure you book your place.

I promise, A bit of fun, a bit of crazy, a lot of breakthrough. And I'll put the link to join in the show notes.

Okay, so that is a wrap on my very freezy 40. Go and check out the post on my Instagram @SallyProsserVoice. I've got all the parts of the story into that carousel.

Plan, don't overthink, shift your perspective, and create the conditions for a bit of fun.

As usual, my DMs are open, so please slide on in like you're on ice and say hi. Now, if you're an avid listener, you may have noticed I just did back-to-back solo episodes because I had to share about my trip. But next week, we will have a guest back here and I will see you then.

Have a very freezy, very fabulous day!