Zita Cobb, Entrepreneur and Innkeeper: Island Time INDAGARE GLOBAL CONVERSATIONS | 2.13 Melissa Biggs Bradley Hi there, and welcome to Indagare's Global Conversations, a podcast about how traveling the world shapes our lives and our perspectives. I'm Melissa Biggs Bradley of Indagare, a company I founded on the belief that how you travel matters. I'm sitting down in conversation with some of the most inspiring and innovative people I've met while on the road. They will share stories about their travels and how they lead lives of passion and purpose. Welcome to the conversation. The last time Indagare spoke to my next guest, Zita Cobb, the remarkable Canadian businesswoman who founded Fogo Island Inn, a very special property off of Newfoundland, here's a little of what she said. "Our project asks a big question. How do we belong in the world? Whether you are a person or a community, how do you fit in in a way that has integrity? How do you become a whole person? How do you ensure that you aren't just moving in and out of projects? We live together in a world that is out of balance. If you wanna be really extreme about it, our world is on fire and we are sadly both victims and perpetrators. We need to figure out how to make the world work within some idea of human communities." Amazingly, although these comments sound all too appropriate for today, that's what Zita was saying back in 2015, and that's why I'm so excited to catch up with her today. Hers is clearly a well-informed and big picture, on target perspective. I don't wanna give too much more away so that Zita can tell her story in her own words, but let me preface our conversation by saying that Zita grew up on Fogo, which is an island so remote, it has its own timezone. She was the only daughter out of seven children. Her parents could neither read, nor write, and raised them in a house without running water or electricity. And by her early 40s, Zita had become one of the highest paid women in all of North America. For that and many other reasons, she's incredibly inspiring and compelling to listen to. Zita, I'm so happy to have you here with us today. Thank you so much for doing this. How are things in Canada and where are you? Zita Cobb Melissa, thank you for having me. I've been a long time admirer of Indagare, so this is gonna be a mutual admiration club for the next (laughs) hour or so. Um, well, you know, in, uh, in Canada, the decisions around movements and health policy are made, uh, by the provinces and territories. And so the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, um, shut down, uh, pretty much to all visitors, uh, without ... Except with quarantine requirements and all of that, uh, in about the middle of March and so the inn really stopped being able to receive guests at that time. I think we all feel this ... We're in this odd time, where, you know, time- time flows, but doesn't move somehow. Melissa Biggs Bradley And for you, personally, Zita, have there been certain routines or changes in your life that you've implemented to kind of use this strange time productively and stay inspired and centered? Zita Cobb Yeah. A- and I feel like ... When ... I- I read this thing that says, you know, this, uh, COVID-19 pandemic is not an event, it's an era. And I think as soon as my thinking shifted around that, then I stopped thinking okay, this is a crisis that I just have to, you know, survive for the next weeks. And it is an era and I think, u- uh, for us, as a team ... And I'm in Ottawa because I sort of got a little bit stranded in Ottawa on my way home, when all the COVID pots boiled over and travel became difficult, and so I've been separated from most of my team. But we, like this, we have become masters of Zoom and Zooming and all of that and, uh ... I- I think in the very early days of it, we came to accept that, uh, it was gonna take an emotional and psychological toll on all of us. And actually, one of our team members said in the very early days, she said, "I feel the- the- the chronic home of menace," because, you know, we didn't know what was happening and what it meant and it ... And so as we were trying to make sense of it all, we came then to accept that it is an era and what we needed to change was our attitude about it and to be more open to the fact that it is very uncertain, it's very complex. And, you know, we're always trying to imagine possible futures and make plans for those possible futures, which is exhausting in itself. And so then we came to the conclusion that it's just fine if we make decisions in the morning and change them in the afternoon, and I- I think that gave us a bit of relief, uh, to- to just make sense of what's coming at us in real time. Melissa Biggs Bradley Yeah. (laughs) Now, can you describe what it was like growing up on Fogo Island? It's such a remote place and I wonder how that affected you. Zita Cobb I think there- there are probably two ways that people see their childhoods, either as perfect or completely imperfect, and I'm in the category of people that ... I see- I see it as perfect. And, you know, I grew up feral, which is to- to say we had all of the outdoors to ourselves as children and children's kingdoms were different than the adult kingdom and they didn't often mix and that was really, um, I think, strengthening for kids, about identity forming in nature with others in your age group or older as well. And so we, um, we kind of wandered the landwash looking for what the ocean had coughed up overnight and, um, we were a menace to the various kinds of animals that lived on the island and we made friends with rocks and it was a life lived outside. I mean, if you were inside, most people's mom would say, "Are you sick? Like, why are you here?" And, uh, and- and so I- I grew up with that deep sense of belonging to a place and having tuberculosis. So I was, uh, in a- in a sanatorium for a year when I was between five and a half and six and a half, and what I remember ... I mean, I remember a lot about that, but what I remember most is the pain of being separated from place. Melissa Biggs Bradley What about your family? Were you able to see each other? Or how far away were they from you? Zita Cobb And the answer is too far to visit. I didn't see, uh, any of my family and I was there for just under a year. Um, I do remember the day ... And it ... I mean, as a child, I felt ... Well, I thought I'd been sent to a reform school or something 'cause I didn't understand why I was there and why I'd been left. Um, as an adult, I look back on that now and realize how difficult that must've been for my father, who dropped me off and walked away. Uh, I remember the day he came back to get me and I really wasn't sure who he was, uh, because, you know, a year when you're five and six is a long time. Um, but yeah, it was, uh, it- it was a pretty terrible thing to be separated for that long at such a young age. But the pain that's lingered with me is ... And I think the thing that scarred me ... 'Cause I think I got reunited with family fairly quickly, you know, that ... They ... There was- there was cake when you come home and you kind of pick up and carry on, but I somehow felt I'd been exiled from the place. That took time, actually, to- to re- reattach. Melissa Biggs Bradley Yeah. And we do create bonds with places that are incredibly important for us and, obviously, that's something you identified in an early age, which sometimes takes other people longer to recognize, sort of the longing for a place or the sense of belonging to a place. Zita Cobb Yeah. I've been lucky 'cause I was born in a place I feel I belong and not everyone's born in the place they belong and sometimes, much later in life, people find the place that resonates with their souls and then that's a gift. Melissa Biggs Bradley Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Now, how do you think that the experience of being removed and in that sanatorium shaped you later in life? Zita Cobb For sure, it brought me really early independence because while I say I reattached with family, I- I think it- it made me, uh, kind of feel I need to navigate the world, uh, from a really strong internal place because a year in a sanatorium wasn't exactly a lord of the flies, but it had its moments (laughs) like that.