Deconstructing the saga: Lady Suzanne Heywood
In the latest episode of The Career Circus podcast, Lady Suzanne Heywood shared stories from a unique and challenging childhood spent sailing around the world for a decade, and how this has shaped her executive career.
Let’s unpack what made her stories so compelling and engaging.
Setting the scene
Suzanne Hayward’s childhood, spent sailing around the world for a decade, is inherently extraordinary.
What made her recollection compelling was how it was set up: Suzanne started by explaining why the she went on this journey: her father decided to emulate Captain James Cook’s third voyage.
This is important because people don’t just buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
Suzanne then quickly added two key details: she was 6 years old at the time of the voyage and the journey began in July 1976.
This helped painted a clearer picture of what she was up against by establishing the stakes of the story. After all, any listener above the age of 6 can quickly recognise how challenging a life at sea can be for a child.
By adding the date - July 1976 - Suzanne helped establish the backdrop of this story. Listeners old enough to remember 1976 will remember it as a time of economic malaise in Britain. And listeners too young to remember 1976 will wonder how Suzanne’s family navigated the seas in such an antiquated time.
Vivid recollection
After establishing the parameters of the story, Suzanne quickly moves on to a key episode that epitomised the challenges of this voyage: being shipwrecked by 90 foot waves crashing into her family’s vessel as they sailed around the southern Indian Ocean.
Noting that 90 foot waves were 3 times taller than her ship helped provide listeners with a sense of the scale of the impact and why it led to her horrific injuries: a broken nose and a fractured skull that required several surgeries without anesthetic.
Such an experience would be immensely challenging for any adult. That this happened to an innocent child increases the emotional stakes of the story. You don’t have to have met Suzanne or be a parent to feel for a child that’s undergoing such profound trauma.
Specific details such as “being flung against the ceiling of the main cabin” paint a harrowing picture that grips the audience’s imagination. In addition, the detail about being isolated on a tiny atoll with a French scientific base, create a cinematic quality that makes the story rather gripping.
Emotional Depth and Resilience
Suzanne’s story also stands out because of its emotional depth.
It’s not just the physical pain and trauma of being badly injured and operated on without surgery at a tender age.
It’s also her mother’s refusal to be present during her surgeries and her father’s relentless pursuit of the adventure, despite the severe physical and emotional toll that the journey was taking on his young children.
The emotional weight of being “on the boat against my will” after a family vote at age 11 or 12, and later being disowned by her parents during her time at Oxford, adds layers of complexity to her narrative.
Despite these significant challenges - enough to defeat many people - Suzanne’s story has a most inspiring arc, powered by her dogged determination and deep wells of resilience.
More specifically, Suzanne tells how she educated herself (despite parental resistance and limited resources) on a boat to gain admission to the finest university on the planet: Oxford. This transforms her story into one of triumph.
This emotional arc—from vulnerability to empowerment—resonates deeply, as listeners connect with her ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
What really stands out is that Suzanne never paints herself as the victim. Although she initially lacks autonomy (because she is a child), she creates autonomy for herself through self-education and goes on to forge her own path after an education at Oxford.
Universal Themes of Struggle and Triumph
Suzanne’s storytelling skill lies in her ability to weave universal themes into her unique story. Through her recollection of her journey sailing around the world she touches upon the human desire for autonomy, the pain of familial disconnection, and the transformative power of education.
Her struggle to fit in socially at Oxford, despite academic success and her admission of struggling with small talk helps to make her relatable and demonstrates how her unique childhood shaped her life long after the voyage concluded.
Additionally, the inclusion of Suzanne’s reflections on her career, such as her ability to draw on her childhood resilience during the COVID crisis as CEO, ties her past to her present, creating a cohesive and inspiring narrative arc.
Unique childhood fueling executive career
What makes the story additionally compelling are the dividends her unique childhood continues to pay in her adult life, as she is able to channel her experiences constructively.
Her breadth of cultural understanding—gained from time in Hawaii, South Africa, and Australia—becomes a resource rather than just a memory, directly feeding into her ability to navigate international executive roles.
This is compelling because listeners who felt for her or related to her due to the difficulties endured in Suzanne’s childhood, can then feel connected to the triumphs of these experiences fueling her professional accomplishments.
Humanity, Optimism, and Moral Reflection
Finally, Lady Heywood ends with introspection: the need to balance parents desires with children’s needs, and the catalytic power of education.
Her stories linger because they combine the spectacular with the intimately painful. All humans endure pain. Which makes stories that touch upon pain and struggle highly relatable.
Suzanne’s honesty, her gratitude towards those who supported her, and her effort to highlight others’ extraordinary childhoods, position her not just as a survivor and achiever, but as a narrator who understands—and champions—the importance of both resilience and empathy.
Key Factors Making These Stories Compelling
Exceptional Setting: High-stakes, globe-spanning events rarely seen in childhood stories
Emotional Rawness: Honest accounts of pain, longing, and the quest for belonging
Moral Complexity: Direct reckoning with parental decisions and systemic forces, not romanticized
Triumph Over Adversity: Hard-won transformation through education and self-teaching, not luck
Global Relevance: Insights offering relevance to business, leadership, and broader culture
Reflective Storytelling: Wisdom offered for parents and institutions, elevating narrative from memoir to message
By interweaving drama, emotional truth, and reflection, these stories don’t just entertain—they challenge, inspire, and invite deeper conversation about family, childhood, leadership, and the transformative power of opportunity.
Further reading
For more on Lady Suzanne Heywood’s incredible story, please check out her international best-selling memoir Wavewalker.