September 17, 2025 • 51 mins
Sarah Grynberg built her career behind the mic as Executive Producer of Hamish and Andy and on breakfast radio, before stepping out front with her own hit show A Life of Greatness.
In this chat, she opens up about burnout, personal growth, the role of community, her spiritual journey, becoming a mindset coach and why podcasting can be as therapeutic as it is powerful — including her experiences interviewing some of the world’s biggest stars.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Greenberg. Welcome to straight Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Mark Forrest, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
As a feeling of being on the other side of
the mic.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Yeah, I love it. Really, I love it.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
But you don't get it like a bit weird and
you want to start asking questions.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
Yes, like I do, because that's obviously naturally what I do.
But at the same time, it is nice to be
able to talk and give more of my opinions as well.
I love telling my story too, So you know this
feels very normal to me, with the microphone and all
of the setup.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, it's it's probably it's funny, I get quite. I
don't feel comfortable on the other side. Really, yeah, no, no, no, no,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I don't come.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I would never have thought.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I don't really like talking about what I've done and
stuff like that just doesn't interest me. I'm more interested
in having a guest so I can find out what
their deal is. Yes, I'm not interested in in myself.
It's funny, I take I have a view on conversation,
which is what podcasts are.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
But I have a view on conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I think conversation generally, especially if you're speaking to an audience,
a live audience is it's the person's doing the talking
is actually having a conversation with themselves. So when I'm
talking to you now, I'm actually having a conversation with
myself about what I want to know about you about Sarah. Yes,
if I'm doing the talking, you're asking me a question.
(01:21):
I mean having a conversation about myself. And I find
that myself really boring because I know about it. I'm
not learning anything, I'm not finding anything out about myself,
but I find it really boring. So for me, conversations
are not two way. I find all conversations that I
think in theory. My theory is that all conversations are
one way, but they somehow blend. So I'm talking about
what I'm talking about is right now, I'm talking about
(01:41):
my own thoughts, and you're talking about what your thoughts are.
Sometimes the audience are listening to them, they're trying to
put them together all the time. The audience is trying
to put it together for us all the time. But
really everything we talk about is what's going on in
my own head.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I do think a really good interviewer will ask you
questions that make you think, and so then you might
go back in your mind and either maybe too many
years ago or to something that you've never contemplated before.
And then you discuss that and you feel really good
about it, hopefully, and then it kind of is something.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
New, you realize something about yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, I got interviewer though.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think the reason why I say though, is because
people want to talk to me about what happened twenty
years ago, like back in the Wizard days and all
sort of stuff. Yeah, and I've told that story so
many times that I just find it incredibly boring just
for me, that's all. It's just a personal thing. I'm
probably being selfish, but personal thing. And I'm so selfish though,
(02:42):
I actually want to learn about everybody else. I want
to know what their deal is. And speaking of that,
So you were the executive producer of The Hamish Andy Show.
I was that's four years biggest podcast in the country and.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Has been since it started and I start with it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So what year was that?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Oh, my goodness, that's a good question.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
It was six and a half years ago, six and
a half seven, about seven years ago now that I
moved into podcasting, and when I moved into podcasting. They
said to me when they were trying to get me
to move over to that department. They said, look, no
one knows this but Haimi, she and you're about to
(03:25):
finish up on radio, and we would love you to
be their executive producer. And you know, if anyone gets
offered that job, it's like the best thing in the world.
So I'm I as a producer, couldn't believe that I
was getting offered this role and took it in the second.
But the funniest bit was seven years ago, podcasting wasn't
that big, and I kind of was like podcasting and.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'd only listened to Cereal.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
I don't know if you remember that podcast, but it
was like one of the only like decent ones back
in the day. And then I moved over to podcasting.
I started with The Boys, which you know.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
This podcast one.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
This is podcast one.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, you were there. I was the first.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
They got me to change my podcast name to The
Mentor so it used to be called the Mark Borers Show.
So I got a call from what's the guy's name
is otters He and he said, we'd like to do
your podcast and this is the business model blah, blah blah. Yeah,
and in those days prior to that, we used to
do our podcast up here in King's Cross on top
(04:27):
of the underneath the Co Cola sign, and we did
all ourselves. But and he offered me a good deal,
so I thought I'd do it, and that was to
launch podcast one, which is a platform which is like
has become listener.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's a different platform, but it has become listener.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, and yeah, and Haimer Sandy were we all start
around at the same time.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, that's exactly correct.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Six seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
It was seven years ago.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
And then six months, three months into me producing Hami Shenandy.
Because I'd had my own experiences of burnout and a
few other things, and I'd really gotten into personal development
work and the idea of mindset, I said to Todtter's
grant Todd Hill, who I had worked with for years, Hey,
I've got this idea for a podcast. And I told
(05:12):
him the idea and I put together a plan because
you know, I knew how to do all that, because
I had done so many years of producing. And he said,
you know, just give it a go, but you'll have
to produce it yourself. For the time being and I did.
And it's funny how things work. I'm not sure if
you would know this guy, but he's huge in the
personal development word world. The first person that I had
(05:32):
on my podcast, A Life of Greatness was Joe Despenser. Yeah,
I don't know, ye, yeah, he's massive, So, like, what
a great get for the first person to have on
your podcast. You know, I don't know if you were
like this because you've had a lot of experiencing TV
and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
But I'll never forget. He was doing a show in Melbourne.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
He'd come from the States, and I had gone down
with my audio producer and we had like twenty minutes
in the break for an interview.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I mean, I would never do a twenty minute interview now.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I was so nervous, you know, the first time, like
you do something like that. I was so nervous and
we did it so well and I still can't believe
that was like the first interview I ever did, when
he is like one of the biggest names in personal
development and the podcast took off from there.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
It's just prior to that, though You're you said you
were an executive producer producer.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Were you producing radio show.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I was producing radio at for.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
The Southern Cross Oostereo A grip.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yes, so it was so this was an interesting thing.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I had worked for them for years, Fox, Triple M,
Southern Cross Ostereo. I had worked in corporate before and
then I always wanted to work in media and I
got the role when I was a decade No, I
think it was like fourteen years ago, and I started
doing activations on all these kind of things, and I
really wanted to do producing and I really wanted to
(06:55):
understand how that world worked.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Because we explained to audience, what is a producer?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Yeah, great quest. So a producer basically someone who puts
the show together. For example, for a podcast, it could
be getting the guests, editing the podcast before it then
goes to an audio editor doing a first edit on it.
It'd be everything from booking studios to organizing lighting to
(07:20):
making sure that everything runs efficiently. And it's kind of
like a lot of admin is required for that, but
a lot of personal skills are required for that. Because
you're dealing with talent majority of the time. You need
to be able to deal with any of the talents
requests or demands and make sure that they're in a
situation when they do either their radio show or the
(07:43):
podcast that they feel that they're taking care of right.
So it's actually quite high pressure, but you know, if
you're working with great people, it can be absolutely so
fun and vibrant.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And so this is what I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
And so I was doing my day job of activations
and things at the radio show and I had said,
I really want to try out producing, and they're like,
all right, will you sit with the Hot Breakfast This
is back in the day with Eddie Maguire Lee Darcy
and they had like Jay Mueller as their EP.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Who for anyone that doesn't.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Know Jay, which is probably the majority of people listening,
he is like the best producer, one of the best
in the country. So I unpaid, woke up at like,
you know, four at thirty in the morning, sat with them,
watched some of the world.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well Australia's best producers do their thing.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
And then I would also unpaid stay later and then
sit with other producers at nighttime for the nighttime shows
and watch them. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
And I asked good questions, that's what they told me.
And after a while they Dave Cameron, who at the
time was I think the general manager of Osterio, said
(08:55):
we've got a producing role if you want to take it.
And I thought, okay, great and again and I was
working on weekends doing the weekend breakfast show. And so
I was working Monday to Friday and then Saturday doing
the show. But I loved it so much, and you know,
sometimes you have to put in the hard yards when
you're young to get to where you want to go.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And then we got the tap on the shoulder. I
was doing a show.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
On the weekend that they wanted this show to be
the breakfast Show of Sydney, but it was going The
talent were in Melbourne and this was the first time
that they were going to broadcast to Sydney from Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So the producers and a lot of the team were
in Sydney.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
But then I was in Melbourne with the talent and
like the digital producer and you know, an assistant.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And I don't know if you know.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Much about breakfast radio, but it is grueling, absolutely grueling.
And at the time I had a two year old
and a four year old and I was waking up
at like three three thirty am five days a week,
and it was just it was hard, and it was
long hours and very hard with young kids. And it's
(10:04):
a kind of job where you never turn off. It's
not like if something big happens that you can just
miss it. You need to be on top of the news.
You need to be on top of what's happening in sport,
in entertainment. And it was just really full on, and
I got really sick and ended up just having this
moment where I was so burnt out and so unhappy.
(10:26):
And with all that came the fact that I'd never
done any inner work on myself. It was all about
trying to achieve these great things, the big producing role.
I was getting paid more money than I ever had
at the time, and it ended up in me getting
unbelievably unwell and just really like what they call a
(10:47):
dark knight of the soul, looking at my life and
kind of saying, how did it become so empty? You know,
on the outside it looked perfect, but inside everything I
felt was crumbling, my relationships. I was so tired the
whole time, And it was then that I decided that
I needed to do something with my life that would
(11:08):
be able to change the way that I thought and
the way that I lived.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
How do you know if you've got burnout? Because people
say it all the time. Yeah, it's sort of overused
to some extent, yes, potentially.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
How did you know?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And how does another person know if they actually are
suffering from burner because some people are suffering, they just
keep going.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I felt like I was like that.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
So my health was becoming not great, you know, which
ended up in what I mean, so I yeah, it
was started getting like a lot of colds and even
to just like look at myself, like my skin looked bad,
and you know, I've never had those kind of issues.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I felt like I had permanent jet lag.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
And the worst bit was that when I would go
to sleep, I couldn't sleep because my mind was just
swirling with all the work and things that I had
to do. And so it was like one day to
the next to the next, I just felt so depleted,
and then it was this feeling of complete apathy where
I didn't care about anything anymore. And it's interesting when
(12:08):
you talk about emotions, they actually say that that emotion
is kind of worse than being angry or you know, sad,
because then it's an actual emotion that you have this
strong feeling towards. But apathy is like you stop caring, right,
You stop caring, you stop enjoying. Like I remember, everything
(12:30):
became hard, even my kids, who I loved dearly. It
became hard looking after them. Like nothing was fun, nothing
was exciting to me anymore. I was so tired, and
I was all I could think about was work twenty
four to seven and that moment where I got a
really bad case of the flu. This is the pre
COVID times, and I could barely walk to the count
(12:54):
I remember, as I said, in that moment, just thinking
I can't do this anymore. It was a light bulb moment,
but also one of the worst moments of my life,
where I thought this, I just can't go on like this.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I need to make a change in my life. And
I did.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
But did you look at it, like, did you think
to yourself, this is a failure?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Did you?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Did you?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And if so, did you have to struggle with what
is failure as opposed to being successful by actually recognizing it?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, that's real. That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
I think at the time I probably did feel like
it was some sort of failure because, as I mentioned,
I always wanted to achieve that. I always wanted to
be this well. I wanted to do a lot of
acting and things like that when I was young, but
I wanted to the show to work, and I wanted
(13:50):
to be the best producer I could, and I thought
that I had built something that would would allow me
to do that. And what I realized is that I
was completely crumbling inside. So I one hundred percent felt
like I had failed, and yet at the same time,
I also was still.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Too scared to let go of that job.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Why because I was scared to go into the unknown,
and I was scared that I was at the best
show that I could be on for radio at the time,
and I wouldn't maybe get another job anywhere else, And
it was very it was very safe for me. You see,
going into the unknown is scary for majority of people,
(14:35):
and it's something at that time and even now still
when I know all about the unknown and how a
lot of potential comes from going into places that we fear.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
For me, that was scary. So you know what happened.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
This is quite a funny in hindsight story. I didn't
want to leave that job even though I hated it
and I felt so unwell and all that kind of stuff.
So when I had that dark night of the soul
moment when I was very unwell, the decision that I
made was, I want to understand the mind body connection.
(15:10):
I want to understand why some people are happier than others.
I had had a friend that was doing a lot
of personal development work, and so I went and dived
into every personal development book, anything on psychology that I
could study, because I wanted to understand how I could
change the way that I was thinking one thing about me.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
If I do something, I go all in, right.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
I don't just like read a book or listen to
a podcast and sure I understand it, but make no
changes in my life. I am that sort of person
where I make a decision to do something, I'm going
to do it. And I thought to myself, I need
to change my behaviors and my habits because they have
led me to this point of burnout. For example, for example,
I had a mind that was running wild.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
There's a beautiful Sufi poet from the nineteenth cent called Rumy,
and he has this saying which was my mind.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It says, why do you put yourself.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
In jail when the door is wide open, And that
is talking about the mind, where the way that we
are thinking is how we perceive things on the outside. Right,
we can change that in a second. And for me,
I had grown up in a family who was so
loving and beautiful, but they were worried about everything, right.
So it was like, you know, worried about me driving
(16:27):
at nighttime, worried that I was too cold, worried that
I was too hot, whatever it was. So I grew
up with this understanding of worrying. So I would worry
about everything. I would constantly worry about my job. I
would worry about things that hadn't happened. Say, for example,
I'd get an email from someone that I worked with
that might have been more superior to me, and it
(16:47):
would be like something like I want to see you
tomorrow to discuss a project we're working on. I wouldn't
be able to sleep that night, and then I would
drive to work thinking that I was probably going to
get fired or some other negative thing. Right, And this
was all because an email said I want to meet
you tomorrow to discuss a project. So my mind was
(17:09):
so wide marked towards the negative rather than the positive.
That was just my way of coping. But it was
driving me mad, and it was making me sick. Right,
everything I would worry about, even the smallest things, right,
you know, Oh my god, my kids are going to
this excursion today, will they be okay? The worst case
scenario always playing in my head. It was a safety mechanism.
(17:32):
And then the more I studied the mind body connection,
the more I realized, hold on the way that I
think is my choice, not someone else's. I have the
ability to change the way that I think. And we
know now through neuroscience and neuroplasticity that the mind can
rewire itself to the day that you die. You just
(17:54):
need to know how to use it properly. So I
started to learn about how do.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
We do that?
Speaker 4 (18:00):
When we get negative thoughts, how do we get rid
of them and replace them with a positive feeling thought?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What happens when we're ruminating?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
How do we get out of the cycle of having
this negative thought when it's three point thirty am and
not being able to sleep. And the more I studied that,
and the more I learnt about it and how to
undo that, the more that I was free and it
wasn't free from any person. It was free from myself, right,
And it was the most deliberating thing that I've ever experienced.
(18:31):
And so going back to the story about what happened
is I was still the only thing I was still
scared of was moving out of that role, right.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So I was holding on to.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Dear life to a role, which sounds so crazy even
now when I'm telling this story, I'm like, why would
I have done that that I did not like? But
it was security for me. I was getting paid a
lot of money. And then the boss came from Sydney
to Melbourne and he says, your role is moving to Sydney, so.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
You know, do you want to move to Sydney? And
I'm like, I can't move to Sydney.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
I'm my whole family's in Melbourne, and it's just not
going to happen. And it was interesting because I'd been
maybe two months or so on this, studying the mind
and learning about psychology and all these other different bits
and pieces exactly, and I would have normally have freaked
in a situation like that, but for some reason I
(19:26):
felt okay, and I reckon. It was one and a
half two weeks later, when I got a call from
Dave Cameron and Totter's saying, hey, we're just started podcast
one and Hami Shehnandia moving from radio into podcasting. Do
you want to be their executive producer? And I was like,
(19:47):
oh my God, of course I do. And like I said,
three months into being their EP, I came up with
the idea for my podcast because I could not believe
these changes in my life that were happening when I
started to change the way that I viewed the world
and the way that I thought about myself.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
You talked about europlasticity before, and that's obviously what you've done.
You've got to change the way you think and the brain.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Can do that. But what's the step before it?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Like, do you have to have a catastrophe around you
such as so much so that you're at the lowest
point you just got nowhere to go except do something
like this or further demise. Or do you get inspired
by somebody else and hopefully someone could be listening to
this right now, we'll read your book, which we'll talk
about a little bit later, or listen to your podcast
might get inspired by you and make a change. How
(20:39):
do most people decide that they're going to make that
mindset change.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
So, as you would know from your podcast and I
know from mine, I would say ninety five percent of
people that come on have some hardcore story and it's
a negative one that has made them look within to
then make changes in their life. But your work and
my work, we don't want people to get to that point.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
You can change yourself at any stage in your life
by listening to a podcast or reading a book, But
a lot of us won't change if we're comfortable. We
change because we're uncomfortable and we don't want to go
on like this. And some people don't change at all,
you know, and that can be detrimental to them because
they can get into a point where they're in a
really bad situation and they don't know how to get
(21:30):
out of it, or they you know, thinking really badly
of themselves and they don't know how to rewire their
mind or make any sort of changes in their life,
and they lead the rest of their life not being
very happy people.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
How important is it for say, like someone like you,
and given that you now talk about this a lot,
how important is it for us to have a good
community around us to help us sort of either recognize
this issue or have someone to talk about this issue,
even if it's only one person, and or once we
make the decision, have people to support a sleep, husband
(22:06):
and wife, a friend, a brother, sister, mates, whatever deal is.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, I think it's unbelievably important. Oh had helped me immensely.
I was really lucky, and I think about this a
lot that I had friends that were interested in the
same things as me. So I had a friend in particular,
as I mentioned, that was really getting into personal development works.
So she said, why don't you read this book? Why
don't there's another book that's great. So she was guiding
(22:33):
me a little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Because she thought you needed it, or because I reached
out to it.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah. I reached out to her because I knew she
had started really getting into this stuff, and she seemed
very happy as well.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
How did you know you should do that? Because some
people don't even know.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I know, it's interesting instinct. It was instinct. It was instinct.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
I've always had an interest in personal development and never
at all religion, but I really do understand and appreciate it.
And so there were when I was eighteen I studied
(23:13):
the coupler. I'm a Jewish person, and there was this
very well renowned still exists rabbi in Melbourne, where I'm from,
and he was teaching the Coverla and it was the
spiritual teachings of you know, the Jewish religion, and that
really interested me for some weird like it seemed quite
strange because no one else was into it except maybe
(23:33):
Demi Moore and Madonna.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
At the time. It was not a bad company, yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
And I remember like studying with him and really enjoying it,
and then it kind of lay dormant.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I did that for a year or so, and I
was young.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I just finished school, and so I always had that
interest in learning about things to do with the mind,
things that were slightly esoterical.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It just interested it interest me. And so when I
was at my darkest point and I saw that my
friend had been doing some other work on herself, and
I thought, you know what, I was thinking about this
for a little bit of time, and now that I'm
at a point where I really need help, this is
what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Did you see did your friend does that deduction or
that conclusion to do that once you're experiencing what you're experiencing.
Does that come about as a result of having someone
within your community where you have observed that person going
through either something similar or alternatively going having made the
(24:37):
decision to work on their personal self, and then observe
that it looks like they are enjoying themselves a lot better?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And therefore how important is the whole community thing?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Because if some people don't have you've ever been, If
you hadn't been sort of open to this individual and
didn't have a relationship with this individual, then you may
have never gone down this track.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Look, I think fifty percent was seeing her working on
herself and how well she was doing. And fifty percent
was also me understanding that this personal development world existed
and always having a slight fascination with it, you know,
because the couple art stuff really talks to that as well.
So I think it was both the social proof that
(25:22):
she was doing well and I.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Trust her good sentence social proof like that, and.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Then also my own inkling that this was kind of
an area that also interested me, and I think now
seven years later, no, it's more than that. For people
that don't have community, they have podcasts, they have live shows.
There's so many more books out there. It's become so
(25:48):
mainstream personal development wellness. It's you know, you know, when
you sell a podcast. We were talking about that before
we started. It is one of the top tiers of
things that people are interested in. I think coc yeah, exactly,
crime is always the first one. I think COVID really
helped that too. People had good awareness. Yes, people looked
(26:10):
within and they realized that a lot of people suffered
during that time, you know. So it then really builds
out this understanding of what more can I do for myself?
And you know, how can I get my inside secure
to make the noise of the world and what happens
on the outside which we don't have a lot of
control of, How can I deal without knowing that I've
(26:31):
got a deep inner core that I've worked on.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So you.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Launched before covid. You launched your podcast before covid, albeit
sort of in a very modest way initially, I guess.
But it sounds like you had some pretty big guests
early up. But how much do you think that covid
has conditioned our minds or listeners' minds to be far
(26:58):
more open and have a not even a prepare something
greater than a preparedness, like nearly like a punch on
a penchon to find out more about mindset and wellness
and mental wellness and and having good balance.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
How do you how important you think COVID was for that?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Because I think huge?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
Huge, right, Because firstly, people were in crisis because they
were locked up or good reason.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Right, you know we weren't, you know down in Victoria,
especially down where I was. People still talking about that.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Now and the fact that we talked about community and
how important that is. We were taken away from that, right.
You know, you were lucky if you had a family
or someone that you lived with, but otherwise if you didn't,
that was very hard. So what happens again, people go
through crisis, and what happens when you go through crisis.
(27:54):
Crisis is the touchstone of spiritual expansion of some sort,
and you know through that is personal development work. I
can only control what's I do. I can't control the
outer world, So how do I make my inner world
as strong as possible? And that's what happened during COVID.
So I do think for sure, everything from wellness to
(28:16):
personal development to mindset boomed after.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
That and do you think it? Certainly is my case.
But do you think that your podcast is a form
of therapy for you?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
My podcast brings me so much joy because it's not
like work.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Firstly, I get to meet the most amazing people.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
I choose who I have on, so I'm not It's
not like producers are saying, yeah, they might give me ideas, sure,
but no one's forcing me to have certain people on.
And I think that makes such a difference in the
quality of the conversations. I remember back in the radio
days when I was producing, they had to have certain
people on, right, you know, you've got to do this
(28:56):
for Channel nine, You've got to do this and that.
There's none of that in podcasting, so I mean maybe
some podcasts, but not ours. So I love that, And
I have an interest in all different types of people,
and I honestly love conversations like you. I love hearing
about what makes someone tick. I love hearing about how
(29:17):
they went through adversity and then climbed out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And I love listening as well.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I honestly do so when I have a conversation with
a person, I just love hearing what they have to
say and engaging with them in that So it is
absolutely a form of therapy. And is that podcast has
done so much for me.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's funny because.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
A lot of people they have a brand and they
create a name for themselves and then they do a podcast.
Whilst I didn't have that because I was a producer
and I had an idea, and I also had been
through my own stuff and I had, you know, this
knowledge of mindset and personal development, and I started the
podcast like that, and then that podcast has turned.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Into a book.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I do live shows now, you know, with thousands of
people in the audience.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I'm a keynote speaker.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
That podcast has been the door to open so many
opportunities for me, and I love it still more than anything.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Do you think that maybe when you look back on
at those things, is that it was always you always
meant to be a podcaster, which is sort of like
a semi performance. I think it is anyway in my case,
and therefore you were probably always meant to be a
performer of some type.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, it's funny you say that as opposed to me
on the other side.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Yeah, And when I was on the other side, I
enjoyed it a lot, so I wasn't you know some
people that kind of go on the other side, but
they always want to be in front.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I wasn't like that at all.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
But when I was young, I loved acting, right, So
I was at a big drama school in Melbourne from
four or five years of age. I did all the
school plays. I went to UNI and did you know,
marketing and all these other things. But I also studied
film when I was there. I absolutely loved that. But
(31:11):
then a drama teacher said to me when I was
at UNI, so I would have been you know, around
eighteen ninety nine percent of actors are unemployed. If you
think about doing this, you should think again. And I
was shattered. But I also didn't want to do a
job where I wasn't going to earn money and you
have to waitress on the side. I didn't want to
(31:32):
do that. So then I moved into corporate like marketing.
I did that at a bank, I did it at
real estate, dot com and all these other places. And
then it wasn't till maybe ten years of working within
that kind of very corporate sector that I got the
job at Southern Crosso Stereo. But you know what, Mark
and I talk about this often, and from a business perspective,
(31:55):
I think you could.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Relate to it.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Doing the hard yards in corporate, which at times was
not fun and it was definitely not exactly what I
wanted to do, gave me the most unbelievable skills.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Right, What skills do you get from that?
Speaker 4 (32:09):
So even things like being able to write an email properly,
being able answering the email, an efficient amount of timing,
understanding where you have bosses, just how to speak to
them what's expected.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It's quite rigid in those places.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Can't just stop you there there for sir, because you've
glossed over something and you're being very modest about it.
But it's an interesting point of being able to read
an email and then being able to craft a response. Now,
some people do get stuck because they overthink the response
and as a result of that, the response is late
(32:46):
and it's no better. But they might do twenty drafts.
That's a skill. But to be able to hit it
up in one draft, two drafts, small changes, but do
it quickly and efficiently. But get back to the individual
who's asked sent you the email. Yes, because because if
you get twenty emails or thirty emails in a day.
These just just back up. Yeah, and that's a new
(33:07):
form of stress and anxiety. And look, I haven't answered
all the questions, I haven't answered all the emails. I
can't get on top of this. It's getting too much
for me. How did you learn that skill about how
to be efficient around what is good enough as opposed
to what's perfect?
Speaker 4 (33:23):
So working at places like Census, real estate dot com,
Like I worked at all of them, and they were,
you know, big corporates, and they expected a lot from you,
and I was junior going into these roles, and so
basically I just was at the understanding that if someone
emails you, you need to get back to them that day, right.
(33:46):
And you know, I was always a good writer, so
I knew how to put an email together. But I
just became unbelievably efficient because I never wanted anyone to
have to wait around for some email from me or
whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
So it just became practice.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I'm sure the first couple of emails, the first year
of emails, wasn't as good as the year after that.
And you know, I think I got in trouble here
and there. I remember a lawyer at one of the
places I worked. You know, I got in trouble because
I didn't put something within an email. So you learn, right,
You learn when you make little mistakes along the way,
and it's enough to kind of scare you a little
(34:21):
bit to go, Okay, I'm going to do better at
this time. I'm going to make sure that I include
whatever it is that they wanted. I might read over
the email a couple of times to make sure all
the spelling and grammar is good. I mean, these are
way before AI days, and you just learn how to
do that. I find now and I was talking about
it with a girlfriend the other day who also worked
(34:44):
in corporate.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
It allows you to be unbelievably efficient.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
And these days, a lot of people you might wait
three weeks and get an email back, and this is
like an opportunity for them. And you're asking, you know,
quote me on something, or can you do this?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You're like, don't.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
There was not even an acknowledgment like, hey, I've got
your email. I'm so snowed down at the moment, I'll
send you something next week.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Nothing.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
You're like, did I even have the right email address?
There was no bounce back things have changed, and I
think working in that corporate role being unbelievably efficient. It
being quite strict and rigid, which you know, I felt
was boring at times. Then when I moved over to
the Southern Cross Steria, I was like, this is the
most relaxed place I've ever worked. Right, But I was
(35:30):
an amazing producer because I'd come from that very strict,
rigid things have to be done perfectly, and it ended
up leading me to this point because of all the
knowledge I got in those other roles, especially.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I worked in PR.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
For a period of time, I worked in marketing, so
I can think like that when I have my podcast. Now, okay, marketing,
what will work?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
PR? What's going to work? So everything leads you to
this point.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
So for anyone listening that might not have gotten their
dream job straight away, I mean I didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
It took me years to get to wherever I wanted to.
It's an evolution. But I learned so much from those
roles that I didn't love.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
So that's you talked about routine. So how important do
you think working in the corporate environment actually taught you
and actually enabled you to get a proper mindset as
to how to structure your email answering process.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Let's call it that. It's not all you did in
the day, but how to structure that part of your day.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
In other words, every day nine am, or every day
six pm, or every evening at eight pm, or every
certain time, I'm going to go through more emails, emails
and make sure everything's been answered. That mindset of efficiency,
because the only way you get efficiency is through.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Structure and structure ISO it comes from the right mindset.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
And that goes back to what you were talking about
mindset for yourself relative to know how you were suffering
when you do in the radio.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Show, changing your mindset.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
But this is a learned skill, yes, and I put
it down a mindset and mindset.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
To me, it's about structure. How do I set my mind?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
And I think when you have people around you, you know,
like I said, I was young, these were like the
first jobs besides you know, doing bits and pieces when
you're at UNI, these were the first like proper corporate
jobs that I had. Watching people who are above me
in the way that they were behaved, you know, they
guide you human behavior. It was everything. I can't I
(37:26):
feel bad if I have left an email without a
response for more than two days.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
I feel bad.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yet I see that that behavior not from other people. Right,
So it was so good in getting me to where
I am, and it absolutely allowed me to have the
mindset of, Okay, this is how you work in a business,
in a corporate business, in one that's very successful, in
one where you know they're dealing with other things that
(37:54):
are very very important, and this is the way I
need to show up for that.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
So I learned a huge amount, a huge amount.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
So just a quick observation from my point of view
in relation to you, how important do you think in
your case it has been for you to succeed through
various ups and downs, for you to have this one
characteristic that is the ability to be an observer. In
(38:25):
other words, you observe your girlfriend who was going through
some challenges, she changed her mindset. You observe the people
in the corporate environments and which behaviors were successful, which
weren't successful successful?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
How important?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
And by the way, podcasting is all about observations your
most but how important do you think stepping back and
just looking at what's going on around you being a
really good observer as opposed to a participant, because you know,
some people just want to be the participant. They want
to be in the front or front row, participating, involved,
(39:02):
But sometimes you need that's important to be that, but
sometimes you've got to be able to step back and
be observed.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
How important is that to you?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Everything? And no one's ever asked me that question. I
love it everything, you know, how imported.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I've got that question.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I was like, God, this is good.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
It made me a very good interviewer.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
And I'll tell you why, because as a producer, I
used to sit there and this is when I was
on radio and they have like six minute breaks. I mean,
just to think that we do podcasts that go for
an hour or so and we get into the topics
and it's, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Really thoughtful.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
You go on a radio show and god forbid, you're
trying to like promote a book or whatever it is.
I mean, they ask you one question, they say the
name of your book. You you know, they greet you,
and it's time to go.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
It's transactional.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
It's so transactional.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
And it was interesting because I would think, why is
the host cutting them off?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
They didn't even ask a good question. This person has
so much to say.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
And they haven't read the notes properly because usually in
radio it's the producer that's writing the questions. And you know,
I'm not always but a lot of the time, and
I observed so much, and I always would think they
should have done this, or maybe they could have done that,
but also maybe that was really good. And I love
the way they interacted with that person. And so again
(40:23):
not really realizing, I wasn't so conscious about it, but
I was picking up so much knowledge by observing what
these people were doing over however many years, and then
working even on Haymish and Andy. They didn't really interview
people on their podcast, but what I observed from them
(40:43):
was how to be a good boss because the two
of them, yeah, yes, the two of them, they weren't
even really my boss, to be honest with you, but
they were just talent that we were working with. But
the way that they there was ten of us, and
the way they ran the show was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
It was efficient.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
You had a laugh every single day because they're so
naturally funny. They were kind, they were generous, and you
wanted to work hard for them, even though they didn't,
you know, tell you that or anything like that because
you adored them. And I remember thinking, because I'd had
some crumby bosses over the years as well as some
really nice ones, and I remember thinking, when I build
(41:28):
my team, that's how I want to be because they
are they are leading through kindness, and we were efficient
for them, not fear. And it was so old school
to lead through this fear kind of mindset. And if
I scare the person, they're going to work harder for me.
Because those boys, they've still got people on their team
(41:48):
that have worked for them, I think for like nearly
twenty years, and it's a young team. So these people
who have worked with them since they were just out
of UNI or whatever, because they love them. And so
that from an observation perspective was life changing for me
as well.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Would you say to people, how would you say to
people to get the right balance between being a participant
because you've got to be a participant too and end
or being an observer man, how do you work out
when I should sit back and observe or when I
should jump in and participate Because some people are shy,
they don't like to participate, they like to observe. Some
people around the other way. They've got no sense of
(42:26):
awareness and all they want to do is participate all
the time. I don't want to step back and observe.
But getting that balance, there's a bit of balance involved here,
A lot of balance evolved in here. You've learned it
because you've had the opportunity to work with.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
All these various people, these great people you've worked with.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
But how would you say to an average person who
or a young person might be listening to this now.
It might be thinking, I want to go and do
a podcast, I want to either be an executive producer
or podcast or want to become a podcaster.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
What would you say to those individuals about getting that
balance right?
Speaker 4 (42:55):
Look, I think observing, as we said, it's a great
thing because that's where you learn from. And then if
you have questions to ask through your observations, then absolutely
ask them because you know, if you're asking them to
people who are wise or experience, you're going to get
great answers. But you don't need to be the loudest
person in the room, right. I think a lot of
(43:17):
people think that if I talk a lot, if I
ask like a huge amount of questions, it seems like
I have high self esteem and that I'm really, you know,
very curious and into it. That's not true. You know,
the people that feel the best about themselves and have
the most confidence are usually the ones that sit back
(43:37):
and don't need to prove anything. But if there is
something that you have a question about, then for sure
ask it. But do a kind of dance between the
balance between both, because you're going to learn a lot
by observing what's going on, and then ask the question
and make sure you think about the question before you
ask it.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
So your book, so first, your book is called Living
a Life of Greatness, Living a Life of Greatness, which
is steps to fulfilling existence. Your podcast is called the same,
A Life of Greatness, A life of greatness?
Speaker 1 (44:10):
What does that mean? A life of greatness?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
So maybe you can because I'm sure it doesn't mean
you want you're going to turn people into Donald Trump
or assuming he's great, or whoever else could be great
in the world.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
You know, what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Yeah, So it's interesting because I asked this question at
the end of my podcast to every single person, what
is a life of greatness to you? And I think
I've done five hundred and something interviews and you'll get
similar answers from a lot of people. But I think
a life of greatness is about doing work or living
(44:47):
a life that has purpose and meaning in it. You know,
doing something that you love and even if it's not
an actual something to do with work, doing something in
your spare time that fulfills you allows you to want
to weigh up in the morning, and also having an
element of that that is of service. So everything you
(45:09):
do helps people right, helps them in their own lives
in so many different ways. With all the avenues of
the businesses and things you do. I mean, how much
would it fulfill you when you get an email or
you see someone in the street and they said, you
know what that podcast episode or the TV show or
whatever it was that changed my life And I am
(45:30):
now doing X, Y and Z because of something you said.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I mean, you don't need any more than that to
keep you going right.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
So being able to do anything that has an element
of service attached to it is going to make your
life great. And you know, within my book, I realized
there were certain pillars that I found in my life
through my own work as a mindset coach, but also
from interviewing people A life of greatness where I thought,
if people have these certain pillars, and that's the different
(46:03):
chapters in the book, then they'll be able to lead
a fulfilling and great life. But you know, showing up
and doing things of servers are always going to make
you feel more enriched than doing something that's just for you.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
And do you lean into your podcast stories or some
of your podcasts some of them, yeah, into your book, Yeah,
some of them I do.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yeah, So you're you.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Know, you're taking some of those things that experiences out
that you have experienced and or the guest's experience and
put them into the book. And who and who do
you think your book or who is the book sort
of directed to apart from just anyone who wants to
read it. But did you have in mind I want
to share this with certain Cohorter people.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Yeah, look, I think it Basically, I thought, it's for
anyone that wants to better their life, right, anyone that
wants to work on themselves and they don't, as we said,
have to go through a crisis or anything like that.
Someone that just wants to have a life that is
better than it is. Now, that was it. It wasn't
just for females or just for males, or for a
(47:07):
certain age demographic. I wrote it in a way that
I wanted to make it easy to understand for most
people and that they could pick it up and also
have elements that they could relate to. Right, So I
think when I write, people say to me, you know,
I could relate to that story. I saw myself within
something that you wrote about. They'll say that with the
(47:27):
podcast as well. And we know when we relate to something,
we go, oh, I'm not alone, Sarah went through that too,
or whoever.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
My guess, I can't believe you went through it, but
the fact that you said you went through it.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
It gives them hope.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, and it's very.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Very interesting so that you've done this and obviously your
podcast as well. But what's interesting about this type of
thing is that there's a lot of When you write
these books, as I've written a couple Boks, it's requires
a lot of honesty and you have to dig deep
and you have to be honest with yourself and whoever
the book. And that also makes you start to thinking
(48:03):
about what courage is, how does courage fit into my life?
And you know, I'm going to say something in my
courageous enough to say that or admit that, especially if
you're admitting what would normally considered be considered not to
be success or challenges. And because that's what people want
to read about, they're not really interested about reading about
(48:24):
your success.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
No, it's true.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
They want to relate to what I experienced that too,
and she got over and I can get over it.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
So sort of off the back of that you get
hope as well.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
So honesty, courage, hope, and they're the sort of things
we don't talk about much these days. We want to
talk about everything else, but we don't talk about virtues enough.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
And that probably brings me.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Right back to the Kabbala and or the Bible, or
or any of those great scriptures that have been written.
Even if you go back to you know, the stories
by Homer, they're all about the same thing. They're sort
of they and they your every generation for thousands and
thousands of years, and it could be in any text,
(49:05):
could be Buddhism for that matter, basic virtues.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
It's all the same sentiment. Someone said this beautiful quote
to me once. It was don't take away someone's hope.
It might be all that they have.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
You know, and.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
You write these stories to allow people to know that
it's okay and that we all go through hard times.
And I had this beautiful lady on the podcast one
day and she said this really profound line to me.
She said, no day of your life will ever come again.
And it sounds so simple, No day of your life
will ever come again. But the more you think about it,
(49:43):
the more you're like, oh my god, that's so right.
Why do I sweat the small stuff? You know, if
any of us have come into a situation where health
comes into question, or someone we love suffers something that
scares us, you know, to do with their health or
whatever it is, mortality, we realize that all the things
(50:04):
we were worried about and.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
All those little things they don't matter, right.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
And having knowing that again, it allows you to change
the way that you live your life thinking not going
to be worried about those things anymore. There are bigger
things that play here, more important things, and not everything
in life has to be, you know, with a silver
(50:29):
bowl around it and perfect. It's okay. It's okay to
go through life and have hiccups and all of that
along the way, but to show up as a good person,
to serve other people and do the best that we
can in something that we enjoy and love the people
around us. That's the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Some of the greatest gifts in life, don't do not
come in activity. Bag, Yeah, in some other form of
some of the fashion and hopefully it's after listening to
your fabulously successful podcast and now you're really successful book.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
Thanks very much, Sarah, thank you so much for having me.
I love this conversation a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
You're welcome
So Greenberg. Welcome to straight Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Mark Forrest, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
As a feeling of being on the other side of
the mic.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Yeah, I love it. Really, I love it.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
But you don't get it like a bit weird and
you want to start asking questions.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
Yes, like I do, because that's obviously naturally what I do.
But at the same time, it is nice to be
able to talk and give more of my opinions as well.
I love telling my story too, So you know this
feels very normal to me, with the microphone and all
of the setup.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, it's it's probably it's funny, I get quite. I
don't feel comfortable on the other side. Really, yeah, no, no, no, no,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I don't come.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I would never have thought.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I don't really like talking about what I've done and
stuff like that just doesn't interest me. I'm more interested
in having a guest so I can find out what
their deal is. Yes, I'm not interested in in myself.
It's funny, I take I have a view on conversation,
which is what podcasts are.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
But I have a view on conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I think conversation generally, especially if you're speaking to an audience,
a live audience is it's the person's doing the talking
is actually having a conversation with themselves. So when I'm
talking to you now, I'm actually having a conversation with
myself about what I want to know about you about Sarah. Yes,
if I'm doing the talking, you're asking me a question.
(01:21):
I mean having a conversation about myself. And I find
that myself really boring because I know about it. I'm
not learning anything, I'm not finding anything out about myself,
but I find it really boring. So for me, conversations
are not two way. I find all conversations that I
think in theory. My theory is that all conversations are
one way, but they somehow blend. So I'm talking about
what I'm talking about is right now, I'm talking about
(01:41):
my own thoughts, and you're talking about what your thoughts are.
Sometimes the audience are listening to them, they're trying to
put them together all the time. The audience is trying
to put it together for us all the time. But
really everything we talk about is what's going on in
my own head.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I do think a really good interviewer will ask you
questions that make you think, and so then you might
go back in your mind and either maybe too many
years ago or to something that you've never contemplated before.
And then you discuss that and you feel really good
about it, hopefully, and then it kind of is something.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
New, you realize something about yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, I got interviewer though.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think the reason why I say though, is because
people want to talk to me about what happened twenty
years ago, like back in the Wizard days and all
sort of stuff. Yeah, and I've told that story so
many times that I just find it incredibly boring just
for me, that's all. It's just a personal thing. I'm
probably being selfish, but personal thing. And I'm so selfish though,
(02:42):
I actually want to learn about everybody else. I want
to know what their deal is. And speaking of that,
So you were the executive producer of The Hamish Andy Show.
I was that's four years biggest podcast in the country and.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Has been since it started and I start with it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So what year was that?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Oh, my goodness, that's a good question.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
It was six and a half years ago, six and
a half seven, about seven years ago now that I
moved into podcasting, and when I moved into podcasting. They
said to me when they were trying to get me
to move over to that department. They said, look, no
one knows this but Haimi, she and you're about to
(03:25):
finish up on radio, and we would love you to
be their executive producer. And you know, if anyone gets
offered that job, it's like the best thing in the world.
So I'm I as a producer, couldn't believe that I
was getting offered this role and took it in the second.
But the funniest bit was seven years ago, podcasting wasn't
that big, and I kind of was like podcasting and.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'd only listened to Cereal.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
I don't know if you remember that podcast, but it
was like one of the only like decent ones back
in the day. And then I moved over to podcasting.
I started with The Boys, which you know.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
This podcast one.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
This is podcast one.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, you were there. I was the first.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
They got me to change my podcast name to The
Mentor so it used to be called the Mark Borers Show.
So I got a call from what's the guy's name
is otters He and he said, we'd like to do
your podcast and this is the business model blah, blah blah. Yeah,
and in those days prior to that, we used to
do our podcast up here in King's Cross on top
(04:27):
of the underneath the Co Cola sign, and we did
all ourselves. But and he offered me a good deal,
so I thought I'd do it, and that was to
launch podcast one, which is a platform which is like
has become listener.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's a different platform, but it has become listener.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, and yeah, and Haimer Sandy were we all start
around at the same time.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, that's exactly correct.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Six seven years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
It was seven years ago.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
And then six months, three months into me producing Hami Shenandy.
Because I'd had my own experiences of burnout and a
few other things, and I'd really gotten into personal development
work and the idea of mindset, I said to Todtter's
grant Todd Hill, who I had worked with for years, Hey,
I've got this idea for a podcast. And I told
(05:12):
him the idea and I put together a plan because
you know, I knew how to do all that, because
I had done so many years of producing. And he said,
you know, just give it a go, but you'll have
to produce it yourself. For the time being and I did.
And it's funny how things work. I'm not sure if
you would know this guy, but he's huge in the
personal development word world. The first person that I had
(05:32):
on my podcast, A Life of Greatness was Joe Despenser. Yeah,
I don't know, ye, yeah, he's massive, So, like, what
a great get for the first person to have on
your podcast. You know, I don't know if you were
like this because you've had a lot of experiencing TV
and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
But I'll never forget. He was doing a show in Melbourne.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
He'd come from the States, and I had gone down
with my audio producer and we had like twenty minutes
in the break for an interview.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I mean, I would never do a twenty minute interview now.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I was so nervous, you know, the first time, like
you do something like that. I was so nervous and
we did it so well and I still can't believe
that was like the first interview I ever did, when
he is like one of the biggest names in personal
development and the podcast took off from there.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
It's just prior to that, though You're you said you
were an executive producer producer.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Were you producing radio show.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I was producing radio at for.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
The Southern Cross Oostereo A grip.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yes, so it was so this was an interesting thing.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I had worked for them for years, Fox, Triple M,
Southern Cross Ostereo. I had worked in corporate before and
then I always wanted to work in media and I
got the role when I was a decade No, I
think it was like fourteen years ago, and I started
doing activations on all these kind of things, and I
really wanted to do producing and I really wanted to
(06:55):
understand how that world worked.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Because we explained to audience, what is a producer?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Yeah, great quest. So a producer basically someone who puts
the show together. For example, for a podcast, it could
be getting the guests, editing the podcast before it then
goes to an audio editor doing a first edit on it.
It'd be everything from booking studios to organizing lighting to
(07:20):
making sure that everything runs efficiently. And it's kind of
like a lot of admin is required for that, but
a lot of personal skills are required for that. Because
you're dealing with talent majority of the time. You need
to be able to deal with any of the talents
requests or demands and make sure that they're in a
situation when they do either their radio show or the
(07:43):
podcast that they feel that they're taking care of right.
So it's actually quite high pressure, but you know, if
you're working with great people, it can be absolutely so
fun and vibrant.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And so this is what I wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
And so I was doing my day job of activations
and things at the radio show and I had said,
I really want to try out producing, and they're like,
all right, will you sit with the Hot Breakfast This
is back in the day with Eddie Maguire Lee Darcy
and they had like Jay Mueller as their EP.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Who for anyone that doesn't.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Know Jay, which is probably the majority of people listening,
he is like the best producer, one of the best
in the country. So I unpaid, woke up at like,
you know, four at thirty in the morning, sat with them,
watched some of the world.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well Australia's best producers do their thing.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
And then I would also unpaid stay later and then
sit with other producers at nighttime for the nighttime shows
and watch them. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
And I asked good questions, that's what they told me.
And after a while they Dave Cameron, who at the
time was I think the general manager of Osterio, said
(08:55):
we've got a producing role if you want to take it.
And I thought, okay, great and again and I was
working on weekends doing the weekend breakfast show. And so
I was working Monday to Friday and then Saturday doing
the show. But I loved it so much, and you know,
sometimes you have to put in the hard yards when
you're young to get to where you want to go.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And then we got the tap on the shoulder. I
was doing a show.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
On the weekend that they wanted this show to be
the breakfast Show of Sydney, but it was going The
talent were in Melbourne and this was the first time
that they were going to broadcast to Sydney from Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So the producers and a lot of the team were
in Sydney.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
But then I was in Melbourne with the talent and
like the digital producer and you know, an assistant.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And I don't know if you know.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Much about breakfast radio, but it is grueling, absolutely grueling.
And at the time I had a two year old
and a four year old and I was waking up
at like three three thirty am five days a week,
and it was just it was hard, and it was
long hours and very hard with young kids. And it's
(10:04):
a kind of job where you never turn off. It's
not like if something big happens that you can just
miss it. You need to be on top of the news.
You need to be on top of what's happening in sport,
in entertainment. And it was just really full on, and
I got really sick and ended up just having this
moment where I was so burnt out and so unhappy.
(10:26):
And with all that came the fact that I'd never
done any inner work on myself. It was all about
trying to achieve these great things, the big producing role.
I was getting paid more money than I ever had
at the time, and it ended up in me getting
unbelievably unwell and just really like what they call a
(10:47):
dark knight of the soul, looking at my life and
kind of saying, how did it become so empty? You know,
on the outside it looked perfect, but inside everything I
felt was crumbling, my relationships. I was so tired the
whole time, And it was then that I decided that
I needed to do something with my life that would
(11:08):
be able to change the way that I thought and
the way that I lived.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
How do you know if you've got burnout? Because people
say it all the time. Yeah, it's sort of overused
to some extent, yes, potentially.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
How did you know?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And how does another person know if they actually are
suffering from burner because some people are suffering, they just
keep going.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I felt like I was like that.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
So my health was becoming not great, you know, which
ended up in what I mean, so I yeah, it
was started getting like a lot of colds and even
to just like look at myself, like my skin looked bad,
and you know, I've never had those kind of issues.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I felt like I had permanent jet lag.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
And the worst bit was that when I would go
to sleep, I couldn't sleep because my mind was just
swirling with all the work and things that I had
to do. And so it was like one day to
the next to the next, I just felt so depleted,
and then it was this feeling of complete apathy where
I didn't care about anything anymore. And it's interesting when
(12:08):
you talk about emotions, they actually say that that emotion
is kind of worse than being angry or you know, sad,
because then it's an actual emotion that you have this
strong feeling towards. But apathy is like you stop caring, right,
You stop caring, you stop enjoying. Like I remember, everything
(12:30):
became hard, even my kids, who I loved dearly. It
became hard looking after them. Like nothing was fun, nothing
was exciting to me anymore. I was so tired, and
I was all I could think about was work twenty
four to seven and that moment where I got a
really bad case of the flu. This is the pre
COVID times, and I could barely walk to the count
(12:54):
I remember, as I said, in that moment, just thinking
I can't do this anymore. It was a light bulb moment,
but also one of the worst moments of my life,
where I thought this, I just can't go on like this.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I need to make a change in my life. And
I did.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
But did you look at it, like, did you think
to yourself, this is a failure?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Did you?
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Did you?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And if so, did you have to struggle with what
is failure as opposed to being successful by actually recognizing it?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, that's real. That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
I think at the time I probably did feel like
it was some sort of failure because, as I mentioned,
I always wanted to achieve that. I always wanted to
be this well. I wanted to do a lot of
acting and things like that when I was young, but
I wanted to the show to work, and I wanted
(13:50):
to be the best producer I could, and I thought
that I had built something that would would allow me
to do that. And what I realized is that I
was completely crumbling inside. So I one hundred percent felt
like I had failed, and yet at the same time,
I also was still.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Too scared to let go of that job.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Why because I was scared to go into the unknown,
and I was scared that I was at the best
show that I could be on for radio at the time,
and I wouldn't maybe get another job anywhere else, And
it was very it was very safe for me. You see,
going into the unknown is scary for majority of people,
(14:35):
and it's something at that time and even now still
when I know all about the unknown and how a
lot of potential comes from going into places that we fear.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
For me, that was scary. So you know what happened.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
This is quite a funny in hindsight story. I didn't
want to leave that job even though I hated it
and I felt so unwell and all that kind of stuff.
So when I had that dark night of the soul
moment when I was very unwell, the decision that I
made was, I want to understand the mind body connection.
(15:10):
I want to understand why some people are happier than others.
I had had a friend that was doing a lot
of personal development work, and so I went and dived
into every personal development book, anything on psychology that I
could study, because I wanted to understand how I could
change the way that I was thinking one thing about me.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
If I do something, I go all in, right.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
I don't just like read a book or listen to
a podcast and sure I understand it, but make no
changes in my life. I am that sort of person
where I make a decision to do something, I'm going
to do it. And I thought to myself, I need
to change my behaviors and my habits because they have
led me to this point of burnout. For example, for example,
I had a mind that was running wild.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
There's a beautiful Sufi poet from the nineteenth cent called Rumy,
and he has this saying which was my mind.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It says, why do you put yourself.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
In jail when the door is wide open, And that
is talking about the mind, where the way that we
are thinking is how we perceive things on the outside. Right,
we can change that in a second. And for me,
I had grown up in a family who was so
loving and beautiful, but they were worried about everything, right.
So it was like, you know, worried about me driving
(16:27):
at nighttime, worried that I was too cold, worried that
I was too hot, whatever it was. So I grew
up with this understanding of worrying. So I would worry
about everything. I would constantly worry about my job. I
would worry about things that hadn't happened. Say, for example,
I'd get an email from someone that I worked with
that might have been more superior to me, and it
(16:47):
would be like something like I want to see you
tomorrow to discuss a project we're working on. I wouldn't
be able to sleep that night, and then I would
drive to work thinking that I was probably going to
get fired or some other negative thing. Right, And this
was all because an email said I want to meet
you tomorrow to discuss a project. So my mind was
(17:09):
so wide marked towards the negative rather than the positive.
That was just my way of coping. But it was
driving me mad, and it was making me sick. Right,
everything I would worry about, even the smallest things, right,
you know, Oh my god, my kids are going to
this excursion today, will they be okay? The worst case
scenario always playing in my head. It was a safety mechanism.
(17:32):
And then the more I studied the mind body connection,
the more I realized, hold on the way that I
think is my choice, not someone else's. I have the
ability to change the way that I think. And we
know now through neuroscience and neuroplasticity that the mind can
rewire itself to the day that you die. You just
(17:54):
need to know how to use it properly. So I
started to learn about how do.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
We do that?
Speaker 4 (18:00):
When we get negative thoughts, how do we get rid
of them and replace them with a positive feeling thought?
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What happens when we're ruminating?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
How do we get out of the cycle of having
this negative thought when it's three point thirty am and
not being able to sleep. And the more I studied that,
and the more I learnt about it and how to
undo that, the more that I was free and it
wasn't free from any person. It was free from myself, right,
And it was the most deliberating thing that I've ever experienced.
(18:31):
And so going back to the story about what happened
is I was still the only thing I was still
scared of was moving out of that role, right.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So I was holding on to.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Dear life to a role, which sounds so crazy even
now when I'm telling this story, I'm like, why would
I have done that that I did not like? But
it was security for me. I was getting paid a
lot of money. And then the boss came from Sydney
to Melbourne and he says, your role is moving to Sydney, so.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
You know, do you want to move to Sydney? And
I'm like, I can't move to Sydney.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
I'm my whole family's in Melbourne, and it's just not
going to happen. And it was interesting because I'd been
maybe two months or so on this, studying the mind
and learning about psychology and all these other different bits
and pieces exactly, and I would have normally have freaked
in a situation like that, but for some reason I
(19:26):
felt okay, and I reckon. It was one and a
half two weeks later, when I got a call from
Dave Cameron and Totter's saying, hey, we're just started podcast
one and Hami Shehnandia moving from radio into podcasting. Do
you want to be their executive producer? And I was like,
(19:47):
oh my God, of course I do. And like I said,
three months into being their EP, I came up with
the idea for my podcast because I could not believe
these changes in my life that were happening when I
started to change the way that I viewed the world
and the way that I thought about myself.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
You talked about europlasticity before, and that's obviously what you've done.
You've got to change the way you think and the brain.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Can do that. But what's the step before it?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Like, do you have to have a catastrophe around you
such as so much so that you're at the lowest
point you just got nowhere to go except do something
like this or further demise. Or do you get inspired
by somebody else and hopefully someone could be listening to
this right now, we'll read your book, which we'll talk
about a little bit later, or listen to your podcast
might get inspired by you and make a change. How
(20:39):
do most people decide that they're going to make that
mindset change.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
So, as you would know from your podcast and I
know from mine, I would say ninety five percent of
people that come on have some hardcore story and it's
a negative one that has made them look within to
then make changes in their life. But your work and
my work, we don't want people to get to that point.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
You can change yourself at any stage in your life
by listening to a podcast or reading a book, But
a lot of us won't change if we're comfortable. We
change because we're uncomfortable and we don't want to go
on like this. And some people don't change at all,
you know, and that can be detrimental to them because
they can get into a point where they're in a
really bad situation and they don't know how to get
(21:30):
out of it, or they you know, thinking really badly
of themselves and they don't know how to rewire their
mind or make any sort of changes in their life,
and they lead the rest of their life not being
very happy people.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
How important is it for say, like someone like you,
and given that you now talk about this a lot,
how important is it for us to have a good
community around us to help us sort of either recognize
this issue or have someone to talk about this issue,
even if it's only one person, and or once we
make the decision, have people to support a sleep, husband
(22:06):
and wife, a friend, a brother, sister, mates, whatever deal is.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, I think it's unbelievably important. Oh had helped me immensely.
I was really lucky, and I think about this a
lot that I had friends that were interested in the
same things as me. So I had a friend in particular,
as I mentioned, that was really getting into personal development works.
So she said, why don't you read this book? Why
don't there's another book that's great. So she was guiding
(22:33):
me a little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Because she thought you needed it, or because I reached
out to it.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah. I reached out to her because I knew she
had started really getting into this stuff, and she seemed
very happy as well.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
How did you know you should do that? Because some
people don't even know.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I know, it's interesting instinct. It was instinct. It was instinct.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
I've always had an interest in personal development and never
at all religion, but I really do understand and appreciate it.
And so there were when I was eighteen I studied
(23:13):
the coupler. I'm a Jewish person, and there was this
very well renowned still exists rabbi in Melbourne, where I'm from,
and he was teaching the Coverla and it was the
spiritual teachings of you know, the Jewish religion, and that
really interested me for some weird like it seemed quite
strange because no one else was into it except maybe
(23:33):
Demi Moore and Madonna.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
At the time. It was not a bad company, yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
And I remember like studying with him and really enjoying it,
and then it kind of lay dormant.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I did that for a year or so, and I
was young.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I just finished school, and so I always had that
interest in learning about things to do with the mind,
things that were slightly esoterical.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It just interested it interest me. And so when I
was at my darkest point and I saw that my
friend had been doing some other work on herself, and
I thought, you know what, I was thinking about this
for a little bit of time, and now that I'm
at a point where I really need help, this is
what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Did you see did your friend does that deduction or
that conclusion to do that once you're experiencing what you're experiencing.
Does that come about as a result of having someone
within your community where you have observed that person going
through either something similar or alternatively going having made the
(24:37):
decision to work on their personal self, and then observe
that it looks like they are enjoying themselves a lot better?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And therefore how important is the whole community thing?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Because if some people don't have you've ever been, If
you hadn't been sort of open to this individual and
didn't have a relationship with this individual, then you may
have never gone down this track.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Look, I think fifty percent was seeing her working on
herself and how well she was doing. And fifty percent
was also me understanding that this personal development world existed
and always having a slight fascination with it, you know,
because the couple art stuff really talks to that as well.
So I think it was both the social proof that
(25:22):
she was doing well and I.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Trust her good sentence social proof like that, and.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Then also my own inkling that this was kind of
an area that also interested me, and I think now
seven years later, no, it's more than that. For people
that don't have community, they have podcasts, they have live shows.
There's so many more books out there. It's become so
(25:48):
mainstream personal development wellness. It's you know, you know, when
you sell a podcast. We were talking about that before
we started. It is one of the top tiers of
things that people are interested in. I think coc yeah, exactly,
crime is always the first one. I think COVID really
helped that too. People had good awareness. Yes, people looked
(26:10):
within and they realized that a lot of people suffered
during that time, you know. So it then really builds
out this understanding of what more can I do for myself?
And you know, how can I get my inside secure
to make the noise of the world and what happens
on the outside which we don't have a lot of
control of, How can I deal without knowing that I've
(26:31):
got a deep inner core that I've worked on.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So you.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Launched before covid. You launched your podcast before covid, albeit
sort of in a very modest way initially, I guess.
But it sounds like you had some pretty big guests
early up. But how much do you think that covid
has conditioned our minds or listeners' minds to be far
(26:58):
more open and have a not even a prepare something
greater than a preparedness, like nearly like a punch on
a penchon to find out more about mindset and wellness
and mental wellness and and having good balance.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
How do you how important you think COVID was for that?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Because I think huge?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
Huge, right, Because firstly, people were in crisis because they
were locked up or good reason.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Right, you know we weren't, you know down in Victoria,
especially down where I was. People still talking about that.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Now and the fact that we talked about community and
how important that is. We were taken away from that, right.
You know, you were lucky if you had a family
or someone that you lived with, but otherwise if you didn't,
that was very hard. So what happens again, people go
through crisis, and what happens when you go through crisis.
(27:54):
Crisis is the touchstone of spiritual expansion of some sort,
and you know through that is personal development work. I
can only control what's I do. I can't control the
outer world, So how do I make my inner world
as strong as possible? And that's what happened during COVID.
So I do think for sure, everything from wellness to
(28:16):
personal development to mindset boomed after.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
That and do you think it? Certainly is my case.
But do you think that your podcast is a form
of therapy for you?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
My podcast brings me so much joy because it's not
like work.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Firstly, I get to meet the most amazing people.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
I choose who I have on, so I'm not It's
not like producers are saying, yeah, they might give me ideas, sure,
but no one's forcing me to have certain people on.
And I think that makes such a difference in the
quality of the conversations. I remember back in the radio
days when I was producing, they had to have certain
people on, right, you know, you've got to do this
(28:56):
for Channel nine, You've got to do this and that.
There's none of that in podcasting, so I mean maybe
some podcasts, but not ours. So I love that, And
I have an interest in all different types of people,
and I honestly love conversations like you. I love hearing
about what makes someone tick. I love hearing about how
(29:17):
they went through adversity and then climbed out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
And I love listening as well.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I honestly do so when I have a conversation with
a person, I just love hearing what they have to
say and engaging with them in that So it is
absolutely a form of therapy. And is that podcast has
done so much for me.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's funny because.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
A lot of people they have a brand and they
create a name for themselves and then they do a podcast.
Whilst I didn't have that because I was a producer
and I had an idea, and I also had been
through my own stuff and I had, you know, this
knowledge of mindset and personal development, and I started the
podcast like that, and then that podcast has turned.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Into a book.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I do live shows now, you know, with thousands of
people in the audience.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I'm a keynote speaker.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
That podcast has been the door to open so many
opportunities for me, and I love it still more than anything.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Do you think that maybe when you look back on
at those things, is that it was always you always
meant to be a podcaster, which is sort of like
a semi performance. I think it is anyway in my case,
and therefore you were probably always meant to be a
performer of some type.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, it's funny you say that as opposed to me
on the other side.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Yeah, And when I was on the other side, I
enjoyed it a lot, so I wasn't you know some
people that kind of go on the other side, but
they always want to be in front.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I wasn't like that at all.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
But when I was young, I loved acting, right, So
I was at a big drama school in Melbourne from
four or five years of age. I did all the
school plays. I went to UNI and did you know,
marketing and all these other things. But I also studied
film when I was there. I absolutely loved that. But
(31:11):
then a drama teacher said to me when I was
at UNI, so I would have been you know, around
eighteen ninety nine percent of actors are unemployed. If you
think about doing this, you should think again. And I
was shattered. But I also didn't want to do a
job where I wasn't going to earn money and you
have to waitress on the side. I didn't want to
(31:32):
do that. So then I moved into corporate like marketing.
I did that at a bank, I did it at
real estate, dot com and all these other places. And
then it wasn't till maybe ten years of working within
that kind of very corporate sector that I got the
job at Southern Crosso Stereo. But you know what, Mark
and I talk about this often, and from a business perspective,
(31:55):
I think you could.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Relate to it.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Doing the hard yards in corporate, which at times was
not fun and it was definitely not exactly what I
wanted to do, gave me the most unbelievable skills.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Right, What skills do you get from that?
Speaker 4 (32:09):
So even things like being able to write an email properly,
being able answering the email, an efficient amount of timing,
understanding where you have bosses, just how to speak to
them what's expected.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It's quite rigid in those places.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Can't just stop you there there for sir, because you've
glossed over something and you're being very modest about it.
But it's an interesting point of being able to read
an email and then being able to craft a response. Now,
some people do get stuck because they overthink the response
and as a result of that, the response is late
(32:46):
and it's no better. But they might do twenty drafts.
That's a skill. But to be able to hit it
up in one draft, two drafts, small changes, but do
it quickly and efficiently. But get back to the individual
who's asked sent you the email. Yes, because because if
you get twenty emails or thirty emails in a day.
These just just back up. Yeah, and that's a new
(33:07):
form of stress and anxiety. And look, I haven't answered
all the questions, I haven't answered all the emails. I
can't get on top of this. It's getting too much
for me. How did you learn that skill about how
to be efficient around what is good enough as opposed
to what's perfect?
Speaker 4 (33:23):
So working at places like Census, real estate dot com,
Like I worked at all of them, and they were,
you know, big corporates, and they expected a lot from you,
and I was junior going into these roles, and so
basically I just was at the understanding that if someone
emails you, you need to get back to them that day, right.
(33:46):
And you know, I was always a good writer, so
I knew how to put an email together. But I
just became unbelievably efficient because I never wanted anyone to
have to wait around for some email from me or
whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
So it just became practice.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I'm sure the first couple of emails, the first year
of emails, wasn't as good as the year after that.
And you know, I think I got in trouble here
and there. I remember a lawyer at one of the
places I worked. You know, I got in trouble because
I didn't put something within an email. So you learn, right,
You learn when you make little mistakes along the way,
and it's enough to kind of scare you a little
(34:21):
bit to go, Okay, I'm going to do better at
this time. I'm going to make sure that I include
whatever it is that they wanted. I might read over
the email a couple of times to make sure all
the spelling and grammar is good. I mean, these are
way before AI days, and you just learn how to
do that. I find now and I was talking about
it with a girlfriend the other day who also worked
(34:44):
in corporate.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
It allows you to be unbelievably efficient.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
And these days, a lot of people you might wait
three weeks and get an email back, and this is
like an opportunity for them. And you're asking, you know,
quote me on something, or can you do this?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You're like, don't.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
There was not even an acknowledgment like, hey, I've got
your email. I'm so snowed down at the moment, I'll
send you something next week.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Nothing.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
You're like, did I even have the right email address?
There was no bounce back things have changed, and I
think working in that corporate role being unbelievably efficient. It
being quite strict and rigid, which you know, I felt
was boring at times. Then when I moved over to
the Southern Cross Steria, I was like, this is the
most relaxed place I've ever worked. Right, But I was
(35:30):
an amazing producer because I'd come from that very strict,
rigid things have to be done perfectly, and it ended
up leading me to this point because of all the
knowledge I got in those other roles, especially.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I worked in PR.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
For a period of time, I worked in marketing, so
I can think like that when I have my podcast. Now, okay, marketing,
what will work?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
PR? What's going to work? So everything leads you to
this point.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
So for anyone listening that might not have gotten their
dream job straight away, I mean I didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
It took me years to get to wherever I wanted to.
It's an evolution. But I learned so much from those
roles that I didn't love.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
So that's you talked about routine. So how important do
you think working in the corporate environment actually taught you
and actually enabled you to get a proper mindset as
to how to structure your email answering process.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Let's call it that. It's not all you did in
the day, but how to structure that part of your day.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
In other words, every day nine am, or every day
six pm, or every evening at eight pm, or every
certain time, I'm going to go through more emails, emails
and make sure everything's been answered. That mindset of efficiency,
because the only way you get efficiency is through.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Structure and structure ISO it comes from the right mindset.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
And that goes back to what you were talking about
mindset for yourself relative to know how you were suffering
when you do in the radio.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Show, changing your mindset.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
But this is a learned skill, yes, and I put
it down a mindset and mindset.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
To me, it's about structure. How do I set my mind?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
And I think when you have people around you, you know,
like I said, I was young, these were like the
first jobs besides you know, doing bits and pieces when
you're at UNI, these were the first like proper corporate
jobs that I had. Watching people who are above me
in the way that they were behaved, you know, they
guide you human behavior. It was everything. I can't I
(37:26):
feel bad if I have left an email without a
response for more than two days.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
I feel bad.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yet I see that that behavior not from other people. Right,
So it was so good in getting me to where
I am, and it absolutely allowed me to have the
mindset of, Okay, this is how you work in a business,
in a corporate business, in one that's very successful, in
one where you know they're dealing with other things that
(37:54):
are very very important, and this is the way I
need to show up for that.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
So I learned a huge amount, a huge amount.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
So just a quick observation from my point of view
in relation to you, how important do you think in
your case it has been for you to succeed through
various ups and downs, for you to have this one
characteristic that is the ability to be an observer. In
(38:25):
other words, you observe your girlfriend who was going through
some challenges, she changed her mindset. You observe the people
in the corporate environments and which behaviors were successful, which
weren't successful successful?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
How important?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
And by the way, podcasting is all about observations your
most but how important do you think stepping back and
just looking at what's going on around you being a
really good observer as opposed to a participant, because you know,
some people just want to be the participant. They want
to be in the front or front row, participating, involved,
(39:02):
But sometimes you need that's important to be that, but
sometimes you've got to be able to step back and
be observed.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
How important is that to you?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Everything? And no one's ever asked me that question. I
love it everything, you know, how imported.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I've got that question.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I was like, God, this is good.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
It made me a very good interviewer.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
And I'll tell you why, because as a producer, I
used to sit there and this is when I was
on radio and they have like six minute breaks. I mean,
just to think that we do podcasts that go for
an hour or so and we get into the topics
and it's, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Really thoughtful.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
You go on a radio show and god forbid, you're
trying to like promote a book or whatever it is.
I mean, they ask you one question, they say the
name of your book. You you know, they greet you,
and it's time to go.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
It's transactional.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
It's so transactional.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
And it was interesting because I would think, why is
the host cutting them off?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
They didn't even ask a good question. This person has
so much to say.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
And they haven't read the notes properly because usually in
radio it's the producer that's writing the questions. And you know,
I'm not always but a lot of the time, and
I observed so much, and I always would think they
should have done this, or maybe they could have done that,
but also maybe that was really good. And I love
the way they interacted with that person. And so again
(40:23):
not really realizing, I wasn't so conscious about it, but
I was picking up so much knowledge by observing what
these people were doing over however many years, and then
working even on Haymish and Andy. They didn't really interview
people on their podcast, but what I observed from them
(40:43):
was how to be a good boss because the two
of them, yeah, yes, the two of them, they weren't
even really my boss, to be honest with you, but
they were just talent that we were working with. But
the way that they there was ten of us, and
the way they ran the show was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
It was efficient.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
You had a laugh every single day because they're so
naturally funny. They were kind, they were generous, and you
wanted to work hard for them, even though they didn't,
you know, tell you that or anything like that because
you adored them. And I remember thinking, because I'd had
some crumby bosses over the years as well as some
really nice ones, and I remember thinking, when I build
(41:28):
my team, that's how I want to be because they
are they are leading through kindness, and we were efficient
for them, not fear. And it was so old school
to lead through this fear kind of mindset. And if
I scare the person, they're going to work harder for me.
Because those boys, they've still got people on their team
(41:48):
that have worked for them, I think for like nearly
twenty years, and it's a young team. So these people
who have worked with them since they were just out
of UNI or whatever, because they love them. And so
that from an observation perspective was life changing for me
as well.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Would you say to people, how would you say to
people to get the right balance between being a participant
because you've got to be a participant too and end
or being an observer man, how do you work out
when I should sit back and observe or when I
should jump in and participate Because some people are shy,
they don't like to participate, they like to observe. Some
people around the other way. They've got no sense of
(42:26):
awareness and all they want to do is participate all
the time. I don't want to step back and observe.
But getting that balance, there's a bit of balance involved here,
A lot of balance evolved in here. You've learned it
because you've had the opportunity to work with.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
All these various people, these great people you've worked with.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
But how would you say to an average person who
or a young person might be listening to this now.
It might be thinking, I want to go and do
a podcast, I want to either be an executive producer
or podcast or want to become a podcaster.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
What would you say to those individuals about getting that
balance right?
Speaker 4 (42:55):
Look, I think observing, as we said, it's a great
thing because that's where you learn from. And then if
you have questions to ask through your observations, then absolutely
ask them because you know, if you're asking them to
people who are wise or experience, you're going to get
great answers. But you don't need to be the loudest
person in the room, right. I think a lot of
(43:17):
people think that if I talk a lot, if I
ask like a huge amount of questions, it seems like
I have high self esteem and that I'm really, you know,
very curious and into it. That's not true. You know,
the people that feel the best about themselves and have
the most confidence are usually the ones that sit back
(43:37):
and don't need to prove anything. But if there is
something that you have a question about, then for sure
ask it. But do a kind of dance between the
balance between both, because you're going to learn a lot
by observing what's going on, and then ask the question
and make sure you think about the question before you
ask it.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
So your book, so first, your book is called Living
a Life of Greatness, Living a Life of Greatness, which
is steps to fulfilling existence. Your podcast is called the same,
A Life of Greatness, A life of greatness?
Speaker 1 (44:10):
What does that mean? A life of greatness?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
So maybe you can because I'm sure it doesn't mean
you want you're going to turn people into Donald Trump
or assuming he's great, or whoever else could be great
in the world.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
You know, what does that mean?
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Yeah, So it's interesting because I asked this question at
the end of my podcast to every single person, what
is a life of greatness to you? And I think
I've done five hundred and something interviews and you'll get
similar answers from a lot of people. But I think
a life of greatness is about doing work or living
(44:47):
a life that has purpose and meaning in it. You know,
doing something that you love and even if it's not
an actual something to do with work, doing something in
your spare time that fulfills you allows you to want
to weigh up in the morning, and also having an
element of that that is of service. So everything you
(45:09):
do helps people right, helps them in their own lives
in so many different ways. With all the avenues of
the businesses and things you do. I mean, how much
would it fulfill you when you get an email or
you see someone in the street and they said, you
know what that podcast episode or the TV show or
whatever it was that changed my life And I am
(45:30):
now doing X, Y and Z because of something you said.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I mean, you don't need any more than that to
keep you going right.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
So being able to do anything that has an element
of service attached to it is going to make your
life great. And you know, within my book, I realized
there were certain pillars that I found in my life
through my own work as a mindset coach, but also
from interviewing people A life of greatness where I thought,
if people have these certain pillars, and that's the different
(46:03):
chapters in the book, then they'll be able to lead
a fulfilling and great life. But you know, showing up
and doing things of servers are always going to make
you feel more enriched than doing something that's just for you.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
And do you lean into your podcast stories or some
of your podcasts some of them, yeah, into your book, Yeah,
some of them I do.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yeah, So you're you.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Know, you're taking some of those things that experiences out
that you have experienced and or the guest's experience and
put them into the book. And who and who do
you think your book or who is the book sort
of directed to apart from just anyone who wants to
read it. But did you have in mind I want
to share this with certain Cohorter people.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Yeah, look, I think it Basically, I thought, it's for
anyone that wants to better their life, right, anyone that
wants to work on themselves and they don't, as we said,
have to go through a crisis or anything like that.
Someone that just wants to have a life that is
better than it is. Now, that was it. It wasn't
just for females or just for males, or for a
(47:07):
certain age demographic. I wrote it in a way that
I wanted to make it easy to understand for most
people and that they could pick it up and also
have elements that they could relate to. Right, So I
think when I write, people say to me, you know,
I could relate to that story. I saw myself within
something that you wrote about. They'll say that with the
(47:27):
podcast as well. And we know when we relate to something,
we go, oh, I'm not alone, Sarah went through that too,
or whoever.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
My guess, I can't believe you went through it, but
the fact that you said you went through it.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
It gives them hope.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, and it's very.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Very interesting so that you've done this and obviously your
podcast as well. But what's interesting about this type of
thing is that there's a lot of When you write
these books, as I've written a couple Boks, it's requires
a lot of honesty and you have to dig deep
and you have to be honest with yourself and whoever
the book. And that also makes you start to thinking
(48:03):
about what courage is, how does courage fit into my life?
And you know, I'm going to say something in my
courageous enough to say that or admit that, especially if
you're admitting what would normally considered be considered not to
be success or challenges. And because that's what people want
to read about, they're not really interested about reading about
(48:24):
your success.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
No, it's true.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
They want to relate to what I experienced that too,
and she got over and I can get over it.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
So sort of off the back of that you get
hope as well.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
So honesty, courage, hope, and they're the sort of things
we don't talk about much these days. We want to
talk about everything else, but we don't talk about virtues enough.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
And that probably brings me.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
Right back to the Kabbala and or the Bible, or
or any of those great scriptures that have been written.
Even if you go back to you know, the stories
by Homer, they're all about the same thing. They're sort
of they and they your every generation for thousands and
thousands of years, and it could be in any text,
(49:05):
could be Buddhism for that matter, basic virtues.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
It's all the same sentiment. Someone said this beautiful quote
to me once. It was don't take away someone's hope.
It might be all that they have.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
You know, and.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
You write these stories to allow people to know that
it's okay and that we all go through hard times.
And I had this beautiful lady on the podcast one
day and she said this really profound line to me.
She said, no day of your life will ever come again.
And it sounds so simple, No day of your life
will ever come again. But the more you think about it,
(49:43):
the more you're like, oh my god, that's so right.
Why do I sweat the small stuff? You know, if
any of us have come into a situation where health
comes into question, or someone we love suffers something that
scares us, you know, to do with their health or
whatever it is, mortality, we realize that all the things
(50:04):
we were worried about and.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
All those little things they don't matter, right.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
And having knowing that again, it allows you to change
the way that you live your life thinking not going
to be worried about those things anymore. There are bigger
things that play here, more important things, and not everything
in life has to be, you know, with a silver
(50:29):
bowl around it and perfect. It's okay. It's okay to
go through life and have hiccups and all of that
along the way, but to show up as a good person,
to serve other people and do the best that we
can in something that we enjoy and love the people
around us. That's the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
Some of the greatest gifts in life, don't do not
come in activity. Bag, Yeah, in some other form of
some of the fashion and hopefully it's after listening to
your fabulously successful podcast and now you're really successful book.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
Thanks very much, Sarah, thank you so much for having me.
I love this conversation a lot.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
You're welcome
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.