Experience life for yourself.
Scarlett Vespa has spent more than 30 years working at the intersection of creativity, media, storytelling and human behaviour. She was one of Australia's first female television commercial directors, later Head of Broadcast at Commonwealth Bank, and has worked with brands including Disney, David Jones, Westfield, Toyota and Foxtel. Today her work explores something she believes matters more than ever: what it means to be human in a rapidly changing world.
Through media, speaking, content, community and the brands she's created, she starts conversations about how we live, connect, create, age and experience life for ourselves.
But somewhere along the way, she became far more interested in the people than the brands. Life had also given her plenty of experiences of her own. She raised a son, went through a divorce, travelled to Nepal on a spiritual journey, found the love of her life, lost almost everything and rebuilt again.
Now, at 63, she's experiencing another chapter for herself. So This Is 60+ is her take on what life beyond 60 actually looks like: style, strength, reinvention, curiosity and refusing to let age tell us how we're supposed to live.
Today, she's the Founder of Making It Human® and The Highland Woman®, and Creator of The 7 Essential Human Experiences®: Authenticity, Belonging, Growth, Love, Meaning, Purpose and Safety.
Her work now sits at the intersection of human experience, identity and a rapidly changing technological world. As AI becomes more capable of thinking, creating and making decisions alongside us, she's interested in what we should embrace, but also what we should never give away.
Because technology can give us the outcome. But it can't have the experience for us.
Talking Points
Experience Life for Yourself: How much of our experience should we outsource?
Technology can increasingly think, create, interpret and decide with us and for us.Experience Life for Yourself: How much of our experience should we outsource?
But experience does something an outcome alone cannot. It challenges what we believe, changes the meaning we give things and evolves the way we see ourselves and the world.
Scarlett explores what happens when we outsource not simply tasks, but the processes through which we develop critical thinking, judgement, creativity, identity and meaning.
This isn't about resisting technology. It's about becoming more discerning about which experiences we want technology to make easier and which we need to experience for ourselves.
The Benefit of Friction: What if everything difficult isn't something to remove?
We're becoming very good at eliminating friction.The Benefit of Friction: What if everything difficult isn't something to remove?
But uncertainty, challenge, discomfort and not knowing are often where we question, learn, create, develop judgement and discover what we are capable of.
Scarlett explores what friction gives us and what we may lose when technology increasingly allows us to bypass it.
The 7 Essential Human Experiences™: Understanding what our experiences are showing us.
Authenticity. Belonging. Growth. Love. Meaning. Purpose. Safety.The 7 Essential Human Experiences™: Understanding what our experiences are showing us.
Scarlett introduces her original framework for understanding our lived experience and recognising what moments of friction or disconnection may be showing us.
Rather than immediately fixing or avoiding discomfort, the framework asks: What is this experience showing me?
Our Relationship with AI: What do we want from technology, and what do we need to keep for ourselves
Most conversations about AI focus on what it can do.Our Relationship with AI: What do we want from technology, and what do we need to keep for ourselves
Scarlett asks a different question: What is our relationship with it doing to us?
As technology increasingly participates in how we think, create, decide, interpret and make meaning, Scarlett explores how we can become more discerning about what we want from that relationship, what we are willing to outsource and what we still need to experience for ourselves.
We invited scarlett to speak at a recent shesays event and she wowed the audience! scarlett was articulate and held the attention of our ladies to talk about the topic of creativity, in part ... keep reading She Says
I absolutely had a shift. I realised that I have focused so much on my career, my family and my relationships over the years, that whilst I have been telling myself it is time to do things for me , I haven't been doing it right! The day gave me clarity, and refreshed me for my business and life. It was amazing to be in a room full of love and intelligence and no judgement
The finesse with which you curated and facilitated each speaker made it a well-organised event that was informative, vibrant and fun. The presentations were authentic, short sharp and sweet
