'Living life to a different level': Sarah Wade embraces her 'massive dream' of playing on CBS's 'Survivor'

Rebecca Mitchell, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·6 min read

Apr. 4—FIJI — Diving in the mud. Searching for idols. Forming strategic alliances. Navigating puzzle pieces. Balancing trust bonds. And hopefully inspiring young girls as a bold and strategic player.

While these are only small pieces of her nine days on "Survivor," Sarah Wade said her experience was a "massive dream." Wade is a 2014 Mayo High School graduate. She is a management consultant in Chicago with finance and economics degrees.

"It's amazing because really in no other experience in my life can you watch it back or can you show your loved ones and friends like, 'Look exactly what I experienced. You can watch it on TV,'" Wade described of watching the "Survivor" episodes. "And just a reminder of certain moments has been phenomenally entertaining."

She

played on Tribe Tika

through the first four episodes of the competition before being voted off on March 22. Carolyn Wiger of Hugo, Minnesota, and Frannie Marin, a St. Paul native, are continuing the "awesome game." Season 44 will air on the CBS network through May 24. She answered questions in an interview.

What were some of your favorite challenges and experiences on "Survivor?"

My favorite part was really just the day-to-day. Like living with everyone, like you get to interact with so many people who are so different than you and

playing games 24/7

is just something that I don't think you can really get in any other experience. You wake up in the middle of the night and people are whispering to you, like, 'Do you know where Carolyn went? Why isn't she sleeping right now?' And it's stuff like that, it's just so all-encompassing and non-stop, and is such a blast in that way.

On the show, you said you grew up watching "Survivor." What did it mean to you to be on the show?

It was the coolest thing in the world to me. ... I had grown up looking up to so many women that played. So it was not only a massive dream but also it was like, 'Oh my gosh, maybe there's little gals watching out there that would maybe be looking up to the way that I played or the way that I present myself out there.'

How did your knowledge of watching the show help you in the game?

I think having watched for so long you know some of the ways that the game has been played and the

twists that have put into the game

but I think there's nothing that can fully prepare you for going out. Because so much of it is the people that you're playing with and the social dynamics that they have, the way they're approaching the game. I think also we've seen so much in recent seasons that there are new twists and new advantages and new idols, or new fake idols, which clearly got me. ...

You can prepare for the way you think the game might be designed but it's not designed the same way every time. So the prep certainly helps and we're all super fans out there, but you can't know everything that you're going to face out there.

What did you learn you were capable of on "Survivor?" Or other lessons from your time on "Survivor?"

It certainly points out what things that you're good at, the things that maybe benefit you in the real world that don't benefit you on the show, or vice versa. And I think being out there, 1) you realize actually how not uncomfortable it is. Of course, I was only there for nine days so I'm sure the difficult part would have been coming.

But another big takeaway for me was how much fun it is when you just go out on a limb, go for that crazy experience and of course, you don't regret it. It's like living life to a different level, which is awesome.

I think another thing that I learned out there is a lot of the things that I think really benefit me, and that I love in real life, are bad for the game. Like I'm so optimistic and hopeful always that things are going to go my way and that's a horrible way to play "Survivor." You can't just be optimistic that it's going to turn out. I think it's way better to play scared or play with a little bit of anxiety about the situation. And that's not a way at all that I am in real life.

Trust was a theme coming into the show for you and seemed to be throughout. How was that built and broken with fellow castaways for you?

Trust is interesting because you know

everyone is out there to play a game,

so it's not necessarily like you want to find someone that you trust. You want to find someone that you think is incentivized to act in the way that you want them to act. Because at the end of the day everyone out there is a giant "Survivor" fan, a giant gamer. No one out there is like, 'I'm here to make friends.' And, plus, the cast gets along super well. We certainly have very real friendships but I think everyone is able to separate that from the game side of things.

I don't think it was necessarily trust, but it's funny because people always talk about trust with "Survivor," but it's really just figuring out the balance of can I trust this person in the sense of does this move ultimately make sense for them? In like whatever priorities that person has in their head at that time. And it's hard to know those priorities.

You played in honor of your friend Kalie who passed away. Just wondering what inspired you and guided you through the show with that?

I think in the moments where I was

very clearly on the bottom,

probably like right after Helen (Li) got voted out ... it was helpful to come back to like what my purpose was and thinking about how Kalie would approach it. She was so bold and bad and brave in the way she lived her life. So it was remembering I'm out here playing this awesome game, this phenomenal opportunity, and you have to fight so hard. ... And I think that having that mentality really made those days where I was like, 'Shoot I'm still on the bottom,' so much more fun.