Human Cogs Podcast

“How many kids do you have?” It’s a question asked so casually, often as part of small talk. Yet, for those who dreamed of parenthood but find themselves childless, these four words can land with a heavy blow. Today’s guest, Kelly Donougher, is a successful interior designer and founder of 13 Interiors, with design studios in Perth and Melbourne. But behind her professional success lies a deeply personal story. In her new book No Fence, No Limits, Kelly opens up about her and her husband’s decade-long journey with infertility—marked by rounds of medical interventions, the heartbreak of miscarriage, and the ongoing process of navigating grief. In our conversation, Kelly shares the tension between meeting society’s expectations and honouring her own truths, how the medical system can make you feel like just another number, and what it means to carve out an identity beyond parenthood. She also reflects on how grief, while devastating, can spark transformation—and how creativity and career reinvention became lifelines of healing. This is a conversation not just about infertility, but about the universal struggle with life’s “shoulds,” the boxes we’re told to tick, and the courage it takes to choose a different path. Kelly’s story is one of perseverance, hope, surrender, and ultimately, acceptance. Most of all, she reminds us that even when our sense of agency feels diminished, we still hold the power to choose. To learn more about Kelly’s book, head to kellydonougher.com, and to explore her beautiful design work, visit 13interiors.com. Host: Sabina ReadProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen *****Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share? Get in touch via website or Instagram @human.cogs We'd love you to share our podcast and leave us a quick review! It helps us get these human stories out there! Thanks, as ever, for listening.  Go well. Be well. Human well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How often do you think about worst case scenarios? Contemplate fate or imagine catastrophes or run the gamut of ‘what ifs?’  The reality is that none of us really know what’s coming down the life pipes next … as famed author Joan Didion wrote “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You can sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” For Pete Conroy, that instant came on the most ordinary of mornings - the third of November, 2022. It was dead quiet on the peninsula that day. Pre-dawn. Pre-birdsong. Pete was driving to work, thinking about the day ahead, staring into the darkness, thinking about maybe an ocean swim at Dromana later on, about dinner tonight, about working on his golf handicap on Saturday.  Just an ordinary morning. On an ordinary day. That with no warning, suddenly turned into the worst day of Pete’s life. In the darkness, in an instant, everything would change: the life Pete loved, the body he lived in, the world he knew and the way he moved through it. The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius once wrote: “You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” This is a conversation about that kind of strength, and the story of a truly remarkable man who chose to meet the very worst of what happened on an ordinary day with unimaginable grace, superhuman grit and extraordinary good humour. As Pete says in this episode: “Every human’s got their own Everest. Some are bigger and steeper than others but at some stage, everyone’s got to make the climb. This is the story of Pete’s climb. Guest: Pete ConroyPowering Up Pete: Donate hereInstagram: Powering Up PeteHost: Mads Hanger (Grummet)Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen ***** Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Get in touch via website or Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share our podcast and leave us a quick review! It helps us get these human stories out there!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well. Human well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Don Watson has spent a lifetime listening closely - to the language of politics, power, persuasion and all the spaces in between. A historian, author and master of the written word, he is perhaps best known as the speechwriter behind some of Australia’s most unforgettable words - including the iconic Redfern Speech, delivered by then-Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1992. It remains one of this country’s most raw and courageous reckonings with our colonial past, and a landmark moment in the long and unfinished story of reconciliation. But Don Watson's work doesn’t stop at politics. Over decades, he’s carved out a formidable legacy as one of our most astute and fearless cultural critics - writing bestselling books, searing Quarterly Essays and brilliantly biting commentaries that strip the varnish from political spin, corporate waffle and the TikTokian digital decay of modern language. In this wide-ranging conversation, Don offers his brutally clear-eyed take on the state of language and the state of the world with that other Don running amok in the White House. From the rise of meaningless buzzwords and the weaponisation of language to the turning of the free world under the Trumpian Project 2025 dictate, Don Watson says America was never a perfect democracy anyway - and that if anyone tries to tell you what is going on in the United States, you should quickly walk away.  We talk about democracy - what it was, what it is and what it’s becoming - but we also  go way back to Don’s childhood on a muddy, blue-gum-lined dairy farm in Gippsland. A world of rolling hills, working hands and laconic storytellers - where his first understanding of Australia, its language, its past and its people took shape. We chart his unlikely journey from farm kid to the halls of academia where he discovered that the real nuggets weren’t to be found in textbooks, but in the colour, grit and perennial contradictions of Australia’s chequered political history. What is clear when you listen to this is that no matter where you sit - or not - on the political spectrum, Don Watson is a remarkable human and a rare thinker - a man unafraid to call out bullshit, challenge conventional wisdom and remind us that words aren’t just words; they define who we are.  Words can shape nations, tear down empires, ignite revolutions and - sometimes - heal wounds. Words can give voice to the voiceless, turn ideas into movements and hold power to account.  And in an era of misinformation, disinformation and the white noise of the White House, where the zone is flooded, meaning is diluted and truth is up for debate, the way we use language matters now - more than ever.  This is a conversation about the power of language but really, it’s about everything. About truth. About history. And about the kind of future world we want to live in - and the words we’ll need to build it. Guest: Don WatsonBooks: PenguinCatch Don at the Sorrento Writers’ Festival Host: Mads GrummetProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: Listen here🎧 Apple: Listen here Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Get in touch via website or Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share our podcast and leave us a quick review! It helps us get these human stories out there!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well. Human well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Politics is the stuff of Shakespeare. Acts of revenge, personal sabotage, falls from grace and epic power struggles have always pushed politicians in and out of public favour. As Australia heads toward a federal election, in our own political landscape we see the high drama of campaign theatre play out against the global backdrop and twisted plot of an increasingly shaky world order.  Do you still have faith in our democracy and the kind of leadership Australia needs right now? I recently sat down with Julia Banks - former federal MP, corporate lawyer, leadership consultant and author of Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs. Julia’s story is one of grit, resilience and a deep commitment to challenging the structures that hold people back. She made headlines when - after winning the seat of Chisholm in 2016 as the only Liberal to take a seat from the Opposition - she later walked away from the party, calling out Scott Morrison, the toxic culture, gendered power plays and systemic bias she experienced firsthand. Julia unpacks the realities of Australian politics behind closed doors, and unpacks the tension between ‘positional power’ - the authority that comes with a title - and ‘personal power’ - the strength we each carry within us.  While Julia’s experiences in Australian politics played out in the full glare of the public eye, her insights extend far beyond the bearpit of Canberra.  In Australia's boardrooms, workplaces and everyday interactions, she says women in leadership roles are still labeled as "too ambitious," "difficult" or "overemotional" - coded language used to diminish their power. And women are still gravely unrepresented in the political arena. In this episode of Human Cogs, Julia brings a perspective that is sharp, honest and deeply needed at a time like this, in a world like this.  Julia reminds us that while the power struggles will perpetuate, we all have a choice in the leaders we elevate, values we uphold and future we collectively shape through our individual actions and democratic participation. Guest: Julia BanksBook: Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' ClubsTwitter / X: @juliahbanks Host: Mads GrummetProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: Listen here🎧 Apple: Listen here Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Get in touch via our website or Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share our podcast.Please share, follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these human stories out there!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase that means "horrible year". It’s the antithesis of annus mirabilis which means "wonderful year". Of course years don’t exist in those binaries but we all know that some years are better than others: some are defined by greatness, and others we just can’t wait to see the back of. As this episode goes to air, Mads shares what this past year has been like for her, marred by deep grief and a few mortality jolts that have brought into sharp focus what really matters.  Mads doesn’t count her experience as unique because this is just ordinary human life, of course, playing out as it ever has with its wonders and horrors in chorus.  But it is true that for most of us, by the time you’ve clocked up a few decades of living, you’ll likely have had a front row seat to witnessing some people you deeply love die, dement, disappear or divorce. How you choose to walk through those human hardships is the only choice you will ultimately have because life will continue to throw curveballs, which means you will need to deliberately choose - again and again - where you will focus your energy, who you will spend your precious time with and who you will need to let go. Sarah Grynberg knows this walk well because she’s had to make some pretty hard personal choices recently to let a few old friends and habits go so she can create more space for serendipity in her life. This has partly been prompted by what Sarah has learned in her professional life, as an internationally acclaimed mindset coach and speaker, and the host of A Life of Greatness podcast which to date has had millions of downloads. On her podcast, Sarah interviews some of the world's greatest thought-leaders, sporting legends, famous entertainers and best-selling authors as they explain how they have overcome challenges, conquered self-limiting beliefs and unearthed what it means to achieve greatness in their own lives. Of course, what a life of greatness looks like is very different for each of us. But as Sarah walks us through her own difficult journey to now, we hope you can all take a little tonic of greatness from this conversation. Enjoy. Guest: Sarah Grynberg, Host of A Life of Greatness Podcast and internationally acclaimed Mindset Coach and SpeakerHost: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet)Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: Listen here🎧 Apple: Listen hereGot some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It really helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.▶️ www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stan Grant is a man of remarkable intellect, profound story and deep faith.On a late winter's afternoon recently, I meet Stan in a moment when he is on a difficult journey through a kind of lament - deeply contemplating the three big disciplines that have steeled his extraordinary life and work - physics, philosophy and theology. Stan says since the Voice to Parliament Referendum he’s been taking time to take stock, that he’s done too much time plucking the wings off butterflies - and that right now he’d rather write beauty into the world.So he’s been working on a new book that is a meditation on time, on God, on the temporal nature of our being and on the complex state of our modern world.There is plenty for Stan to sit with and sort through right now. As a journalist and correspondent who covered war for 40 years, he's seen the worst of what we can do to each other but he has also seen love endure in the most Godforsaken of places. So he knows first-hand the paradoxical contradictions of what it means to be a human in a world like ours.Stan believes it's essential we all have something bigger than ourselves to believe in because if the human being is the limit, then we will only see the limits of the human.And in a world so often consumed by the chaos of modernity, ongoing conflicts and the binaries of identity, Stan Grant is keenly focussed these days on kindling what we share rather than what divides us for, as Franz Kafka said, identity is a cage in search of a bird.I'd love you to listen to this episode of Human Cogs podcast as we journey with Stan through his rivers and eddies of thought, where philosophy, theology and the mystical realm converge to offer a deeper understanding of Stan Grant the mortal, what might lie beyond this life, and how we humans can all - somehow - someday - find our place in the untold cosmos.Guest: Stan Grant, Award-winning Journalist, Author, Writer, Poet and Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet)Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gUBnf7gb🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/gfWstDmeGot some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It really helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.▶️ www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you think of a health retreat, I wonder what thoughts and feelings come to mind? Yoga with a monk on a mountain, people healing their deepest wounds around grief, illness or weight issues, or perhaps it’s images of Nicole Kidman in 9 Perfect Strangers as depicted in the book and movie? I’ve attended countless retreats in Australia and overseas, and every time I have made one or two changes that have catalysed bigger shifts in my life. I believe we need to update our beliefs that retreats are somewhere “broken” people go, and replace them with the idea that retreats provide an environment with all the ideal ingredients that help set us up for tuning into our own innate sense of knowing and wisdom that have the potential to invite us back to a sense of wholeness, rest and repair – emotionally, physically, psychologically and mentally. In 2023, I spent six life changing days at Aro Hā Health Retreat in the glorious New Zealand mountains near Queenstown. In this episode, we are joined by Aro Hā’s co-founder and glorious human, Damian Chaparro. He shares the philosophy embedded in the program at Aro Hā as well as what a typical week looks like for guests. Damian shares his own younger year experiences of working tirelessly in an IT job with all the financial trappings, and too much alcohol, minus the meaning and fulfillment. And how as a life-long learner he continues to find ways to acknowledge all the parts that show up in him and how he has learned to listen to self and others with curiosity and acceptance. We discuss the benefits of fasting, movement, nature and stillness, and what gets in the way of creating sustainable behaviour changes that we desire, yet so often sabotage. Damian also reveals some entertaining and heartfelt stories of connecting with his 80 year old mum after they both shared the plant-based psychedelic, ayahuasca (not at Aro Hā by the way!) If you’re curious about dialling up wellbeing, or are wondering what a health retreat might be like for you, or if your body, mind and soul is looking for a reset, then this conversation is for you. I deeply believe the world would be a better place if we all had the opportunity to experience the magic of Aro Hā.  Here’s my chat with Damian.   Website: Aro HaLinks: Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook,  Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’ve turned on the radio lately, have you ever sat back to listen to who’s telling the stories? Current data shows that only 27 per cent of radio hosts are women, female experts are quoted just 34 per cent of the time and - here’s the clanger - NINETY PER CENT of radio voices of people aged over 45 are in fact - men. Yep. NINETY per cent. Why is that? What’s going on? And how does this skew attitudes and perpetuate gendered inequality in society? Well our guest today, Jo Stanley, asked herself those questions for years, and is now on a mission to change the stats with the launch of Broad Radio - Australia's first women-centric radio network - connecting women through audio and serving the mostly overlooked five million-strong female audience aged over 35. Jo Stanley is, of course, no stranger to audio - with a decades-long successful career in breakfast radio including rating number one for six years on Melbourne’s Fox FM, and dominating the top spot at Gold FM alongside her ongoing TV, writing and podcast gigs. Despite being in the public spotlight and sharing her life with millions of listeners every day, in this conversation Jo shares how the lack of levity in her childhood shaped her, the challenges of living with fear, and how the birth of her daughter taught her what being enough really means.  Click here to listen to Broad Radio Guest: Jo StanleyLinks: Facebook, Instagram Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was the poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou who once said ‘there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you’. Stories are what help us make sense of the world around us and of ourselves, of great tragedies and fates and fortunes, of buried histories and mysteries, of the untold secrets and human essence of things. Journalist Corrie Perkin was born with stories in her blood. Her father, Graham Perkin - the famed journalist and editor of The Age newspaper - was a story that unfolded before her larger than life, as she grew up on a diet of breaking news, of ink and print, and the daily happenings of the world at large playing out in fervoured conversations at her kitchen table. But her father’s tragic death when she was aged just 14, set Corrie’s story on a different arc, and changed her life in ways that today are still unfurling.  In this conversation we talk about grief, how we each make sense of our lived stories, about Corrie’s decades working as a respected journalist, storyteller and champion of novelists and books, and mostly, about why in an increasingly fractured and distracted world, our words really do matter. Guest: Corrie Perkin, Journalist, Podcaster and Director of the Sorrento Writers FestivalSorrento Writers Festival: https://sorrentowritersfestival.com.au/Book tickets: https://sorrentowritersfestival.com.au/artfuel/programInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorrentowritersfestivalLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sorrento-writers-festival/Host: Mads GrummetProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Being a young person in your 20s is a complicated and challenging time. Whether you’re living through this decade of your life now, or you’re a parent to a twenty something, you likely already know that the 20s are the most uncertain decade of life. In this episode, we talk to the always compassionate and wise Dr Meg Jay, a developmental clinical psychologist, who is on faculty at the University of Virginia and maintains a private practice in Charlottesville where she specializes in twentysomethings. Her first book, The Defining Decade, has sold more than half a million copies, launched one of the most-watched TED talks to date, and is the topic of 13.7 million views on TikTok. Meg has just released her third book, The Twentysomething Treatment: A revolutionary remedy for an uncertain age, which upends the pathologizing of young adult life and offers practical skills and hope as she normalises the hurdles faced by young people, to help navigate this important time of life. Meg shares with us why the 20s isn’t a developmental downtime to be pushed to the side, but rather a transformative time that paves the way for decades to come. She shares how small tweaks in our 20s can metamorphosis our careers, mental health, and relationships for the rest of our life. We also discuss Meg’s fascinating second book, Supernormal: the secret world of the family hero, which details stories of people who have faced adversity in the form of death, divorce, mental illness in a family member, abuse or bullying and who go on to thrive. We deep dive the impact of keeping family pain in the shadows and the power of sharing secrets to help us grow and develop in healthy ways despite the family dynamics we grew up in or the hardships we endured. Meg’s warmth, insights, knowledge and watertight evidence-based research invite us to rethink our 20s, and understand that this decade won’t be the best years of our life. In fact, she states if your 20s are the best years of your life, something has gone terribly wrong! This is a not to be missed conversation for any parent and any 20 something. Guest: Dr Meg JayLatest book: The Twentysomething Treatment: A revolutionary remedy for an uncertain ageLinks: Instagram, LinkedIn,TikTok, X, ThreadsHost: Sabina Read Producer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo at Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to support our show! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening.Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grace Tame is a name that needs little introduction, but that doesn’t mean you know Grace - or indeed her story - on her own terms.  Catapulted into the spotlight as 'Australian of the Year' in 2021, Grace stepped squarely into the public eye and became a powerful catalyst for a tidal wave of conversation, action and policy change for survivor-victims of sexual abuse across Australia.  Finally, this was a chance for Grace Tame to find - and use - her voice, after years of shadows and silence. "Let's make some noise Australia" was her catch cry. In this honest and at times confronting conversation, Grace shares with us the findings of a new Australian study - the largest of it’s kind in the world - that validates what victim-survivors have been saying for years; that child sexual abuse is a public health issue and the current statistics are shocking. Child sexual abuse is widespread in this country. According to the study, one in six (15.1%) Australian men report sexual feelings towards children and one in ten (9.4%) Australian men have sexually offended against children.  Grace calls for policy change and accountability for the big tech giants who continue to allow online access to child sexual abuse material on their sites, and for intensive education so grooming is implicitly understood by children, parents and bystanders - which means all of us.  Like every human on earth, Grace is a work in progress, and is still coming to terms with her experiences of instability, uncertainty and trauma. But she is powerfully reclaiming her narrative by ceding control as an adult in charge of the story of her life. And in Grace’s words: “Peace is not freedom from pain; it is the acceptance of it.”  WARNING: This episode is about child sexual abuse, and may be disturbing to some listeners. Please use discretion when considering listening to this episode, and if you do need support please contact Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14 or 1800 RESPECT. Guest: Grace TameBook: The Ninth Life Of A Diamond MinerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamepunk/Grace Tame Foundation: https://www.instagram.com/gracetamefoundation/ Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the Summer I spent countless hours deep in the pages of a remarkable book called Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. The book is written by the very entertaining scholar, researcher and poet Cat Bohannon, and it's making very big waves across the world right now. The book is an epic story and sweeping scientific exploration that starts with mammals 200 million years ago and moves forward through time, to fundamentally challenge the real origin of our mammalian species. In fact, in this book, Cat Bohannon completely rethinks human history, and offers a necessary myth-busting, landmark corrective about how humans have really evolved. It took Cat 10 years to write this book: it is exhaustively researched but beautifully readable, and is densely packed with astonishing facts and revelations about how the female body came to be, why the size of male balls influences monogamy, why wet nurses in ancient cities catalyzed explosive population growth, and why modern medicine needs to stop the default to the male as the norm. This conversation touches on all of that, and much much more, and it will completely change what you think you know about human evolution, the design wonders of the female body plan, and why Homo Sapiens have become a dominant species on our pale blue planet.A warning that we talk about vaginas and sex and balls and swear in this episode, and also that you’ll need to strap on your big brain for this listen, and get ready to learn a lot, because this conversation will literally blow your mammalian mind.Guest: Cat BohannonBook: Eve: How the female body drove 200 million years of evolutionHost: Mads GrummetProducer: Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening.www.humancogs.com  Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you google Catherine Mahoney, the first thing it says is Andrew John’s ex-wife. But as I know nothing about the NRL or his career as one of Australia’s biggest sports stars, this isn’t what led me to invite Cath to join us on Human Cogs. Cath is an ex-publicist, writer, podcaster, talented creative, and had me rollicking on the floor with laughter when we first met two years ago. Her warm, funny and relatable 2022 memoir Currently Between Husbands tells the story of her marriage and separation to Andrew as well the relationship insights gleaned before and after her relationship with Andrew. As a self-confessed over-sharer, not much is off the table.  In this conversation, Cath reflects how being a people pleaser has helped and hindered her personally and professionally. How being separated and divorced is both challenging and also freeing. She also shares some of the top tips she has gleaned from interviewing over 150 guests on her fabulous podcast So I Quit My Day Job, where she talks with career changes and how they made the leap. Cath reminds us that being yourself and being at ease in your own skin is the best roadmap to follow. She also acknowledges that this is hard when we are drawn off course by the needs and expectations of others; and perhaps fear of judgement or failure too. She’s Currently Between Husbands, and yet she’s so much more than that… here’s my chat with always delightful and witty Cath. Guest: Cathrine MahoneyBook: Currently Between HusbandsFollow: Instagram, Podcasts Host: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join the discussion at Instagram @human.cogsWe do this for love. But we'd love you to support our show! Please follow us on the podcast platforms or leave us a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How are you going with the state of the world right now? Wars and violence continue to rage, hate and abuse fill social media feeds, and an escalation of ideological conflict is causing uncertainty and division in our politics, in our communities and at our dinner tables. It can make you lose a little faith in the world ... wonder if humanity will be ok, whether we can actually save ourselves from ourselves. Until you remember that there are stories of hope and love and life and survival everywhere, if you make the time to seek them out. Today’s episode is a story that will restore your faith, and fill your cup. It’s the unforgettable story of Mira Unreich, who one fine Spring day in 1945, was freed from a concentration camp in Germany, and found herself alive, under blue skies, against all odds. She’d survived four death camps, including Auschwitz, and a death march.  And in the decades that followed her release, she never explained the mystery underpinning her extraordinary survival, and why the holocaust’s greatest lesson for her - despite unimaginable horror - was experiencing the innate "goodness of people". When Mira’s journalist daughter, Rachelle Unreich, many decades later, realised time was running out for her mother who was in her final weeks of terminal cancer, she decided to sit down and finally ask her some questions.  It would be the most important interview of her life: a chance to discover the secret to her mother’s boundless optimism, the sliding doors of fate and chance, how love and grief can run as deep as the years, and how the past and present weave a powerful and indelible connection between a mother and child, even when they’re gone. Heartfelt thanks to Rachelle - and of course to Mira - for sharing this remarkable story.We hope this episode leaves you all feeling a little better about the world right now.  Guest: Rachelle UnreichBook: A Brilliant Life: My Mother's Inspiring Story of Surviving the HolocaustHost: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join the discussion at Instagram @human.cogsWe do this for love. But we'd love you to support our show! Please follow us on the podcast platforms or leave us a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Affairs are a little like childbirth. Someone is always having one somewhere, usually right under the nose of a spouse because nobody knows everything that happens inside a marriage, not even the people in it.”  Award-winning author and journalist Kate Legge has chronicled social and political affairs and other people’s stories since the 1980s. But Kate’s latest book - an unflinchingly honest and raw memoir called 'Infidelity and Other Affairs' - explores her own story and the tumult that took hold when her husband’s serial cheating upended her life, decades-long marriage and entire sense of self. Kate’s story and that of her complex family of origin are compelling, and in this episode of Human Cogs she details her hurt, fury, agony and the eventual forgiveness and understanding she developed for her husband in the face of his betrayal and deceit. To this day, they remain firm friends. As Kate writes: “Affairs create their own weather systems. They leap fences like wildfires and give reason the flick, and in the aftermath there is a bill of claims and damages to be logged. We are drawn to broken glass, like ghouls guiltily feasting on the drama. The hurt, the highs, the hubris, the audacity, the anguish jolts us out of complacency.”Listen to this if you want to go deep into the complexities of marital infidelity, understand how our families of origin shape and scar us, and discover how the getting of wisdom is mostly got along the rutted roads and blind turns of our very messy human lives. Guest: Kate LeggeBook: Infidelity and Other Affairs by Kate Legge Host: Mads GrummetProducer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join the discussion at Instagram @human.cogsWe do this for love. But we'd love you to support our show! Please follow us on the podcast platforms or leave us a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re all familiar with the idea of mindfulness and leadership and most of us would have some preconceived ideas about what each of these terms mean. So what happens when the two constructs collide at the deepest level? And what does mindful leadership mean for the leader, the team, the organisation and the bottom line? Michael Bunting is a keynote speaker, best-selling author, researcher, facilitator and co-founder of the Awakened Mind app. As the co-founder of global consultancy, The Mindful Leader, he is committed to changing lives through leadership, team and culture transformation.  And it’s clear Michael is a man who walks the talk. He has been meditating for 32 years, and just recently completed 126 hours of meditation in 2 weeks. That’s 9 hours a day for 2 weeks! In this conversation, we share Michael’s personal story of financial challenges, divorce, the impacts of the GFC, and what amounted to a long dark night of the soul leaving him in tears every day for 2 years.  With his ever-developing curiosity, commitment, and compassion, Michael went on to support his two now adult children to thrive, wrote four books, remarried, and had two more children.  We traverse topics from change, pain, performance, growth and the power of course correcting even when it feels clunky. And we touch on how even the breathe can sometimes be used to numb our struggles. Guest: Michael BuntingWebsite: The Mindful Leader | Awakened MindHost: Sabina ReadProducer: Daryl Missen________________________________________________Human Cogs PodcastHosts: Sabina Read and Mads Grummet Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo at Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to support our show! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over recent weeks we’ve all watched and listened to the debate over 'The Voice to Parliament' play out in the media, at dinner tables and in the public sphere. Conversations have caught fire and it seems that a lot of confusion has got in the way of the facts.  This is partly because right-wing hardliners have deliberately launched misinformation and disinformation to seed fear, cloud issues and inflame political debate. But also because many people are saying they don’t really know what the proposed Voice to parliament and constitutional recognition actually mean, and what it will mean for Australia going forward … And yet, how many people - including you - are actively taking responsibility to seek out facts, stay informed and educate yourself about the Voice? The referendum date is set for October 14. The Voice would enshrine in the nation’s constitution a mechanism for a group of Indigenous representatives to offer advice to the Executive Government and Parliament on matters and issues affecting the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Embedding the Voice in the constitution would also finally recognise the incredibly special place First Nations people have in Australian history. The Voice would be an advisory body designed to improve outcomes in health, education and wellbeing. Important to note here is that this advisory body would NOT have the power to veto laws. As a journalist I understand and am committed to platforming many different points of view. But as a person committed to equal opportunity and fairness, improving outcomes for indigenous people who are - proportionally - the most incarcerated people on the planet by percentage of their population, the most disadvantaged ethnic group in Australia and a people who have an life expectancy of nearly eight years shorter than other Australian men and women, I personally think this referendum is a once in a generation chance to bring our country together. I asked Indigenous leader Thomas Mayo to join us on Human Cogs to have an open conversation about what the Voice to parliament means, and why it will play an important role in Australia’s future. Mayo is a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man, the Assistant National Secretary of the MUA, a signatory of the ‘Uluru Statement from the Heart’ and he sits on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Referendum Working Group, which drafted the referendum question. Mayo has recently co-written a book with acclaimed journalist Kerry O’Brien called 'The Voice to Parliament Handbook', to equip Australians with balanced and fair information about the Voice. No matter your view, I encourage you to listen to this conversation and make it your responsibility to make an informed decision when you step up to vote on October 14. It is the least you can do for democracy - and for the future of our country. APOLOGIES: Wifi was against us on the day of recording so please bear with the very ordinary sound quality. We promise it does get better as the conversation goes on! Guest: Thomas MayoWebsite: https://www.thomasmayo.com.au/The Voice To Parliament Handbook: https://lnk.to/thevoicetoparliamentbookHost: Mads GrummetProducer: Daryl MissenShow Notes:Read the Australian Government Referendum Question and Constitutional Amendment: https://voice.gov.au/referendum-2023/referendum-question-and-constitutional-amendment What is The Voice? https://voice.gov.au/ National Indigenous Australians Agency: https://www.niaa.gov.au/ The Voice To Parliament Handbook: https://lnk.to/thevoicetoparliamentbook Yes23: https://www.yes23.com.au/ ________________________________________________Human Cogs PodcastHosts: Sabina Read and Mads Grummet Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo at Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to support our show! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A quick google search shows that almost 8 hundred million people have searched for the term resilience and close to 5 hundred million have searched for the term grief. However, far less frequently, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, have the two concepts collided. Dr Lucy Hone is a best-selling author, speaker and award-winning academic researcher with a gift for translating complex science into practical tools. Regarded as a thought leader in the field of resilience psychology, tragic circumstances forced Lucy to focus more closely on grief when her 12-year-old daughter Abi was killed in a horrific motor accident in 2014. Her TED talk, 3 Secrets of Resilient People, was one of the Top 20 most watched TED talks of 2020. And her wisdom can now be found on Insight Timer as well as through her cohort-based and online courses run through the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience. Her recently updated and revised edition of her book, Resilient Grieving, offers readers practical and compassionate strategies and insights to cope with loss.  In this conversation with Sabina, Lucy shares how she sought to apply her own deep knowledge in resilience to her very personal story of grief. We traverse many topics from motherhood and marriage to career change and empty nesting. And of course loss -- in its many shapes and forms that inevitably touch us all. Lucy somehow seems to balance a powerful mix of authenticity, vulnerability, wisdom and knowledge alongside her own kaleidoscope of honest and raw emotions ranging from unbearable pain to finding joy again. With warmth and hope, she reminds us that we can both grieve and live. ### Guest: Dr Lucy HoneLinks: Coping with Loss, TED Talk, Resilient GrievingSocials: Instagram, LinkedInHosts: Sabina Read and Mads GrummetProducer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo at Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to support our show! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kerri Sackville is a writer and columnist for Sunday Life magazine in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. She’s also the author of five books, including her most recent, The Secret Life of You – How a Bit of Alone Time Can Change your Life, Relationships, and Maybe the World!  Now, those listeners who know me well, know that even though I’m endlessly curious, I am not a voracious reader of books, and although I own thousands of books I’m more of a skim reader than a cover-to-cover gal.  So I even surprised myself when I deep-dived into Kerri’s latest book, and found myself highlighting like a kinder kid who’s drunk too much red cordial! In this conversation, Kerri explains that while we want and crave solitude, we avoid it like the plague, and when we do have alone time, we often fill the space with distractions including other people, or technology, work, or TV rather than becoming more deeply acquainted with ourselves.  In this illuminating and perhaps at times, confronting chat (confronting because truth bells were ringing for this pod-host), we discussed the oddly non-sensical societal rules of solitude that leave many of us feeling that there while alone time is acceptable in small doses, being in the company of others is often sold to us as the norm and the ideal. Whether the struggle to sit with solitude relates to our relationship status, patterns of work, family and home set up, expectations, friendship circles, personality style, belief systems, fears, or our social media usage, Kerri shares her own awakenings and the significant benefits of alone time, lamenting that she wished she had turned inwards earlier and not waited until she was single, after her 17 year marriage ended, to figure our who she was! While we all know that down time is vital and being with ourselves provides a richness like no other, it’s easy to over-ride or avoid this need. Reading Kerri’s book was a slap-in-the-face wake-up-call to me and she adeptly explains why in this illuminating episode. Here’s my chat with Kerri… ### Guest: Kerri SackvilleLinks: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedInHosts: Sabina Read and Mads GrummetProducer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo at Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to support our show! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ange Harbinson is an entrepreneur, tech and innovation trailblazer, digital strategist, and lover of all things data! In 2019, when she was still the Managing Director of Thirst Creative, a marketing, design and digital agency she co-founded with her husband, Ange saw a gap in the market for online resources to support people going through separation and divorce, and she cofounded The Separation Guide.  The Separation Guide is a divorce technology platform designed to make separation and divorce simpler and less stressful by providing resources, guidance, and referrals. Utilising her marketing nous, and passion for social impact, The Separation Guide has already helped close to 300,000 people, and the resources continue to grow. With approximately 40% of marriages ending in divorce, the ripple effect is wide reaching impacting not only the separating couple but also children, family, and friends as well as the workplace. I invited Ange on Human Cogs because I have seen friends and clients struggle to navigate the emotional, legal, financial and relational challenges that separation can create, and its clear people are in need of more support and a road map to help them navigate the complexities and pain of separation.  In this conversation, Ange highlights the four different pathways that can be taken when a couple separates, emphasising the goal to avoid costly court proceedings where possible. She references a podcast available on the site which helps educate parents on how to tell their children they are separating. And she explains some of the impacts of divorce on the workforce including reduced productivity and absenteeism. This is practical chat that will interest anyone who is thinking about, or in the process of separating. It’s a pragmatic yet hopeful exchange, that I hope will help minimise divorce stigma and shame, and help dial up a sense of agency and empowerment for anyone experiencing the end of a marriage. Here’s my conversation with Ange… ### Guest: Ange HarbinsonWebsite: The Separation GuideLinks: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTubeHosts: Sabina Read and Mads GrummetProducer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo at Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to support our show! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening!Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.