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July 9, 2025 14 mins

What childhood obsession did you bury that's still calling your name?

Most of us silence that voice. We call it 'being realistic.' We tell ourselves we're too old, too late, too far gone. But what if that buried obsession isn't dead what if it's your empire waiting to be built?

Sarah Pousho thought the same thing. At 10, she was obsessed with space staring at the stars, dreaming of rockets, devouring Carl Sagan's Cosmos like it was her bible. Then life happened. Thirty years of detours, practical choices, and buried dreams.

But here's the thing about buried dreams they don't stay buried forever.

At 50, Sarah didn't just rediscover her space obsession. She turned it into SpaceBridge Partners, the company she wished existed when she was that starry-eyed 10-year-old. Now she's not just watching space happen she's making it accessible to dreamers, not just billionaires.

This isn't just about rockets. It's about what happens when you stop running from who you really are and start building the empire that's been waiting inside you all along.

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If this podcast has been landing deep… if each story feels like it’s peeling back something raw and real in you… then don’t ignore that.

Every guest you’ve heard made the same decision: to stop performing and start healing.

Now it’s your turn.

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Learn more about Baz Porter at www.bazporter.com

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of
Arise from the Ashes.
I am honored to be in front ofmy next guest, Sarah.
Sarah, how are you Please sayhello to the world and tell the
world what you do and a bitabout who you are.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Thanks for having me, baz.
I'm Sarah Pujo, co-founder andCEO of SpaceBridge Partners, and
I'm doing really well.
I'm talking to you from nearSan Francisco and in the middle
of starting up this company,which I launched a little over
15 years ago with my or 15 years, 15 months ago with my
co-founders.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
You wish it was 15 years, right?
So that's a bit about yourcompany.
Tell me about you.
Obviously, you're in SanFrancisco.
Are you Bay-born or did youcome there from other means?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I was actually born in Detroit and, yeah, I wasn't
there very long.
My parents moved when I was sixmonths old to Arizona first,
and then Southern California,where my brother was born and my
sister.
So I consider home SantaBarbara.
That's where I grew up and thenI came to the Bay Area to go to
college.
I went to University ofCalifornia at Berkeley and then

(01:09):
moved back to Santa Barbara andgot a job that moved me to
Virginia.
So I lived there a couple ofyears and then Indiana.
I lived there about five yearsand then moved back to Northern
California a long time ago, 98.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
That wasn't a long time ago.
Come on, you make me feel old.
When you said Detroit, itreminds me of an 80s film,
beverly Hills Cop, because thefirst ones to come out was him
in Detroit, when he was a cop inDetroit and he went anyway.
That's what the first one comesto mind.
Love that movie.
So you went to Berkeley.
What did you study at Berkeleyand what was your passion back
then?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
My passion back then was my passion for most of my
life, which is space.
I wanted to be an astronautsince I was a little girl, so I
went to Cal to study astronomy.
That was my goal, and when Igraduated I was going to go work
for NASA and discovered veryquickly that I would not be able
to graduate if I stayed with anastronomy degree.
Yeah, all the math andeverything that went along with
that, even though I was astellar student in high school,

(02:07):
was tough at UC Berkeley.
So I switched majors torhetoric and graduated with a
rhetoric major, which mostpre-law people did.
I was not going to go into lawschool, so I wasn't sure what I
was going to do after Igraduated.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
You said you mentioned earlier you lived in
South Bay, whereabouts.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
I lived in Southern California, so I was in Santa
Barbara, but in the Bay AreaI've either lived in Fremont or
Berkeley or Sausalito.
Now I'm currently in Richmond,which is like Northeast Bay yeah
.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I know I've traveled quite extensively Awesome, I
know these sort of areas.
The reason I ask is because mywife and I we lived in Redondo
Beach for a while.
I had an office in Palos Verdesfor two or three years.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
There's nothing like Southern California.
I definitely miss it.
And, of course, now we boughtour house it's a beautiful house
overlooking the ocean.
I should say my parents when Iwas a kid for I don't know
$35,000 or something crazy, andnow it's worth $4 million.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
So it's phenomenal.
It just got so that yourupbringing was coming from West
Coast to East Coast, east Coastto West Coast.
You graduated through Berkeley.
You changed, pivoted.
What was the driving forcebehind being an astronaut?
Because space, I love it,universe, etc.
I've always had a fascination.
Never really understood fullywhat it is and how.

(03:29):
The expanse of it is a work inprogress always.
What was your passion for space?
What intrigued you at a veryearly age?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
A couple things.
One is I was born the yearbefore we set foot on the moon,
and so I think I grew up aroundjust seeing that in the news a
lot.
And the second was my parentswere very strict when it came to
television.
We were only allowed to watchPBS or the news, and then we or
we could had to highlight the TVguide to show which shows we
wanted to watch.

(03:57):
We got two hours of non-newsand non-PBS a week, so I watched
Cosmos a lot, which, of course,carl Sagan, lots of educational
shows, and so, yeah, I thinkthat sort of intrigued me.
Whenever I had a chance in gradeschool and high school to write
a paper that I got to choosethe subject, it was always
something to do with space, like, especially habitats.
I was always fascinated withliving off of planet earth.

(04:18):
And what would that look like?
How do you make gravity?
Could things grow?
Science was always my favoritesubject, so going down those
rabbit holes was alwaysfascinating to me and I just
thought, oh my gosh, if I couldgo into space and seeing
pictures of the earth rise andlike to be able to like I'm
giving myself goosebumps rightnow to be able to experience

(04:38):
that myself someday.
I haven't been to space yet,but that's on my bucket list for
sure.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Now I've got an interesting question for you.
Do you think space travel ispossible in our lifetime?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yes, 100%.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Can you back it up or can you elaborate, because I'm
curious now.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, right now a little bit of the hurdle is
finances.
But I'll give you an example onInspiration4.
I had the pleasure of chattingwith Chris Zambroski, who was
one of the civilian astronautsthat was on that mission.
That just happened a couplemonths ago that Jared Isaacman
funded.
Jared Isaacman made a lot ofhis money through financial
services company that he foundedand he had a contest for all

(05:20):
these businesses that used hisservice apply and you could
basically for a lottery to gointo space.
And chris zambroski I think he'she's in one of the trades like
carpentry or plumbing orsomething like I'm embarrassed
to say I cannot remember, but heapplied and won the lottery and
he got to go up in space andnow he's oh my god, I'm a space

(05:40):
ambassador.
It was so incredible and I'mthe first question out of my
mouth when we chatted was likeI'm super embarrassed to ask you
this, but I just got it Likehow was it?
What was it?
Like he goes.
I will never stop being able toanswer that question Cause it
was so amazing, I loved it somuch.
It was one of the best thingsin my life.
So there's ways to get in withif you don.
But and I know you probablyhave heard about the all women

(06:01):
trip from blue origin and allthe backlash they got from that,
but the thing I took away fromit, aside from blue origin,
could have probably done abetter job pr wise on that was
holy smokes.
Six women, or six people, cango into space whenever we want
to right now, and it took, intoday's dollars, $280 billion to

(06:23):
get three guys to the moon inthe 60s.
That's just crazy, the progressthat we've made and it's
speeding up exponentially withAI and with more and more
billionaires and trillionairescontributing to the space
ecosystem, that I think it'sjust a foregone conclusion that
in our lifetimes we'll have theopportunity to go to space I

(06:44):
love these conversations andthis is why because people who
are passionate about what theydo and love light up and hear it
.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
You can feel it, you can see it, and this tells me
that not you only, not onlygenuine about what you do, but
what you do is real and it alsoimpacts lives, and this is what
this podcast is about, becausethe listeners love to hear your
story, your origin story, whereyou come from and also what your

(07:18):
aspirations are.
Things become possible thatwere once deemed impossible.
People like yourself make thempossible.
Ten-year vision for yourself.
Where do you want to be?
What do you want to be doing inten years?
Retire to Saturday Beach inFlorida, or just giving it all
into your business and gettingpeople to the moon and beyond?

Speaker 2 (07:42):
10 years from now.
I don't think I'll everofficially retire.
I like working, especially.
It's something I like whichisn't really work.
10 years from now, my goal wouldbe to be back living in Santa
Barbara and to be involved in afew different businesses.
One is somebody else willprobably be running Space Bridge
Partners.
I want to be in charge of thephilanthropic arm that I want

(08:05):
Space Bridge Partners toeventually evolve.
We're hoping to generate enoughrevenue to where we can give
back to.
My passion's always beenscience, so how can I encourage
more science and educationmissions and even pay for them,
either personally or as thecompany, and then just be
involved in a lot of things thatI care about animal welfare,
animal welfare and a lot ofunderserved communities that

(08:27):
I've experienced over the courseof my lifetime and how can I
give back to them?
My whole goal, for obviously Iwould like to have enough money
to not have to worry aboutthings, but mostly I want to be
able to generate enough money towhere I have plenty to give
back to these organizations andservices and people that really
need it.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
That's interesting.
You say that because that's todo with compounding, and
compounding helps not onlyyourself but the ripple effect
for the future.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Giving back, paying it forward.
Those are so important, and notjust in the US.
I love to travel and I loveexperience in other cultures and
I'm sure there's a bunch ofunderserved communities I don't
even know about, and so beingable to go see them for myself
and then figure out how I canhelp would be awesome.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
What's your passion when it comes to underserving
communities?
You mentioned the underserved,but what specifically?

Speaker 2 (09:17):
I'm personally passionate about women in STEM
fields, so if I could startthere, that would be great.
Like finding budding scientistsall over the world and help
them somehow either paying foreducation or putting them into
paying for their school'sscience projects or space
projects or things like that.
That's one way.
Another is universities orcountries that want to do some

(09:38):
space related scientific studybut don't have the funds to get
their project into space.
How can I help them?
And that's that's also a goalfor my company space partners
eventually too.
So those are the two key points.
I love mentoring as well, soI'd love to to have a kind of a
mentoring not really a business,but program especially for
young women, but also for olderwomen, cause I transitioned in

(10:01):
my fifties from a completelydifferent career.
So if I could help somebody dothat, I don't really need to be
a coach, but if anybody wantssome inspiration, I'd love to
just be an ear for them andfigure out how I could help them
do that.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Listen, no matter what you do, and work how you.
My cat seems to come up and sayhello.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
I have the same problem.
I locked her out.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
This one broke in I love cats.
Max, come on.
No, we're not doing that.
Come on, get down.
The struggle is real.
What you're building isn't justfor now, it's actually setting
up for the future.
But, more importantly, why Ilike people like yourself, sarah
, is because you want to giveback and help other people.

(10:52):
And that's important for two ormany reasons.
One you said earlier is becauseit leaves a legacy In an ideal
world.
You want to go to space.
You want to give back.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
How are you serving yourself.
One is by creating my dream job.
I think that's a big one.
You talk about me lighting upwhen I talk about it.
I've never done that in my 30years in a different career, so
I know I'm in the right spot butalso understanding the people
that I choose to spend time with, the people that I choose to

(11:25):
support, and my work-lifebalance, which is such a cliche,
but I always thought I knewwhat it was until now, and now I
feel like I really get it, andI think also part of that is
building the company that Ialways wanted to work for has
been really enlighteningpersonally, because I also

(11:45):
thought I knew what that lookedlike and, as now I'm getting to
start from scratch and definecompany policies and what are.
Even our website looks like andthings like that really has
directed my own personal journeyas well, and it's been really
enlightening.
So I think those are a few waysthat I've been serving myself.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Love that If you could give the audience one
piece of advice about startingup a business in this day and
age.
You're going through it and youhave gone through it.
What's the one piece of adviceyou would give the audience
about starting the business?

Speaker 2 (12:20):
It's hard to narrow that down to one.
Make sure you have thefinancial means to stick it out.
That's the one thing.
And whatever you think, thatnumber is double it Great,
that's great advice From myaudience.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
thank you very much for listening, sarah.
We will see you on part two.
This is Royce Mignacci'spodcast.
My guest Sarah Parushi.
I'm sorry if I took too short,I do apologize, it's terrible.
Anybody who listens to thiswill say I'm credibly nasty at
names and I hate any of that.
All good, all good, but myaudience.
Thank you very much.
Please share the message, enjoy, change someone's life and I'll

(12:59):
see you on part two.
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