September 3, 2025 • 48 mins
Bloody hell, Eve Ash has lived 10 lives in 1!!
She's a psychologist, filmmaker, author, and so much more. Eve uncovers the secrets of her past and how she's uncovered injustice in this fascinating life story. We dive into the psychology behind her curiosity to uncover the truth about her family history and identity in the Netflix documentary 'Man on the Bus'. Eve shares the clues that led her on a decade-long investigation to find her biological father.
Hear how Eve went from psychologist to filmmaker after a bold letter to John Cleese kickstarted her passion for comedy films. She gives a behind-the-scenes look at creating her unique blend of comedy and true crime documentaries.
Maaate, she is a unicorn, and you're gonna love her!
SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: testartfamilylawyers.com.au
EVE ASH
Website: eveash.com
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches/
Website: tiffcook.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
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(00:29):
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reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au eve Ash Welcome to
(00:54):
Roll with the Punches. How are you.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Mate, I'm good. How are you, Tiffany, I'm very good.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm very good. It's not often that I sit down
before a podcast, have a little browse back over the
person I'm about to speak to and think to myself,
bloody hell, where do I start? Is this just one
person I'm interviewing? You like, are the epitome of overachiever?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, when you live long enough, you do a lot
of things.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's quite incredible. So yeah, I can't wait to see
where this conversation goes. But one of the first things
I mentioned to you is I came across your Man
on the Bus documentary and that sparked my interest. But
before we even kick that off, introduce yourself to me
(01:51):
and the listeners the way you would introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Well, I am a psychologist and filmmaker, so those two
things go together in a very interesting way. I have
written books, but I've produced over a thousand films, some
television and documentaries, so a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
A lot, a lot. What came first, psychology or filmmaking.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Psychology came first, and then I started using video to
train new psychologists and make short videos for training in
a government department and thought, this is really good fun.
So I set up a business doing solely that.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
What was it about that? What part of that were
you doing? Were you just managing that or are you
one of those get stuck into it and do it
you figure it out yourself first.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, I just got stuck into it, set up a
company and just started making films just like that.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
That's amazing, that's amazing. Tell us about the Man on
the Bus film.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, that one took over ten years to make, and
it was sparked by a long held weird feeling that
I had that I was somehow an implant into this
family that I'd grown up with, even though we were
a loving nuclear family, one sister, two parents. They were
(03:24):
Holocaust survivors, and I did think maybe I'm adopted, but no,
I was, you know, my mother showed me my little
bracelet thing from the hospital. But I had this weird
feeling that my sister and I looked so different and
that we were different, and I don't know, I just
(03:45):
started investigating. I put together some really weird clues and
ended up filming my investigation and uncovering this massive secret.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
What a curious little mind did you do? You ask
your parents if you were adopted? Were you like, openly, hey,
I'm not I cannot be the same as you guys.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Well, I felt like, you know, they were European, they
were Holocaust vivers, and I just felt very aussy and
quite different. But no, they assured me I wasn't adopted.
So then my next theory was that my sister and
I had different fathers, but I couldn't quite work out why,
(04:26):
or I just had this gut feeling which now a
lot of people have come out and told me who
have seen the film that they also had gut feelings
about their past and when they finally worked it out,
it all made sense.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Wow, the power of intuition. Yeah, that's insane. Imagine how
your mom felt when you started asking probing questions.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, she thought she died eventually, and my dad died,
and she thought she took the secret to the grave.
So for her, the secret was gone. And for me,
the secret became the understanding of where I'd come from
in my life and what had happened. But one of
(05:15):
the biggest clues that I had was this sentence in
my head where she had said he and there was
no who he was. He named streets after us, And
so many years ago I was studying the old paper
street directory, looking up my name Eve and her name Martha,
(05:39):
and my sister's name Helen to find streets that we
were named after. And all I could find was Martha
and Eve, and I thought, whoever named these streets? That
person is my father. I don't even know why, but
I thought, why wouldn't he name a third street Helen
(06:03):
after my sister?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So? Wow, what when did she say that line?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
To you. I don't even remember. It just was in
my head and I really don't remember, but it just
was there.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Wow. All right, tell me more about the making of
the film and the investigating throughout that process.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Well, I don't want to give away too many spoilers.
It's still on Netflix, so I have to do it carefully.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I'll be watching it this week.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
But I went to find who this man was and
if he existed, and I went with my niece and
we filmed ourselves going and that film became the beginning
of the film. And then I started it investigating what
(07:02):
happened to my parents in Poland? How did they escape?
How did my father escape? I started interviewing oldies that
knew them from the past, and I just started putting
it all together. And it's an unbelievable story and it
really unfolded with twists and turns. So you know, people
(07:24):
have told me they've cried, they've laughed, they couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, what about you, like, in terms of was that
an emotional rollercoaster? How were you about the idea of
that being your potential life? And then kind of digging
it up and feeling back the layers of it well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You know, there were people who said, why are you
doing this? You know, did you love your parents? I sink, yes,
then why are you trying to unravel something that might
change that history. I don't think you change history. You
uncover more to uncover the truth. And the truth is history,
(08:08):
not the history that you've made. That's one history. And
I know for a lot of people who discover something
different about their past or unravel something, it isn't always
a good outcome. So there was the potential that this
could all be awful, but it ended up being amazing
(08:30):
for me, absolutely amazing, a really good outcome.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Do you think your background in psychology set you in
good steed for that or planted a few blind spots?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I think it was really good because you kind of
train to be calm and reasonable and rational. But on
the day of, you know, I just had a freak
out and that you know, it was there. But it
does help because you're also inquiring, you're asking questions, and
(09:05):
you want to find without a nastiness. You just want
to find a truth that's comfortable and work with that.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
What's happened to be talking about it recently the last
couple of weeks with someone the idea of having adopted
parents and or children. And I just think, like, when
you say that you had this sense, I think most
of us can't really like that doesn't exist for us,
So we can't wrap our minds around the concept of
why would you want Why wouldn't you just love your parents?
(09:39):
Like because we just we put everyone in our experience,
which is, these are my parents that I grew up with,
and I love them. Why wouldn't you just love yours
the same? But we don't have this whatever that sense
is that you felt that connects you with somebody else,
And it's quite It's quite fascinating, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
It is? And also I think after my parents had died,
I did feel the release that it felt okay to dig.
I'm not so sure that the digging process was really
happening while they were alive. I did get a researcher
to interview my mother to keep it at arm's length
(10:20):
from me long before this, to try and interview her
about her background and what happened. And there was another
clue buried in that interview of sixteen hours over many months,
and there was one little phrase that did not add up.
(10:41):
Plus I found some eight millimeter film footage from the fifties,
and in that footage there was there was all this
lovely family footage, family holidays, me, my sister, our friends
and family, and then all of a sudden there was
(11:04):
this footage of a man looking into the lens and
I know my mother was the one filming, and I
just saw love in those eyes. And you know, he
mouthed some words, and I tried to lipbreed and got
lip breeders to try and you know, work out what
he was saying. But anyway, that was another clue.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I can't as you're talking. I just my mind is
just thinking, like the idea of those streets and all
of the potential secrets or clues there are to because
all of the streets that we live in have a story, correct,
and I've just found out that some of them have
(11:48):
a hell of a story.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Well, he apparently named streets after lovers' children a boat
that he built, you know. And when I got to
meet him, I said to him, you know you didn't
name Helen in that little suburb. And he said, oh, well,
(12:14):
there were only two streets. And I said, but you
were just proudly telling me you named the three streets
across from that Hey, Hay, B, BW, and C SEA,
so it was ABC HEYBC. I said, well, there are
three streets you could have and so he said, yeah,
(12:36):
you've busted me.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So what was it like to meet him?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Amazing? I mean I sort of felt in the last
minute like why am I doing this? Why didn't I
just let it rest and let it go? But by
then I had DNA evidence with one of his kids
that we were a half brother sisters. Wow. And she
(13:06):
was a complete stranger to me, but we looked alike.
So that was really you know, weird, spooky.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
And what was he like?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
He was very together. I mean he was in his
eighties by then and he ended up living till last
studio to one hundred, So yeah, it was it was
pretty good and we bonded. We think thought very similarly,
and we had a kind of mission together that we
(13:42):
focused on one of my projects. And yeah, it was good.
It was very good.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Great story. I feel so boring now, Oh, don't be silly.
Oh I love it. Okay, tell me more about all
these filmmakers. You one countless and been nominated for countless
awards for films. What makes a good film.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think I like real stories and for me, probably
one of the greatest things I've made was together with
the company in Sydney called CJZ. I had started filming
with a couple of other people what we believed to
(14:29):
be a wrongful conviction in Tasmania and the more it unfolded,
the worse it got and how bad it was. And
I had hundreds, probably thousands of hours of footage and
they came on board and we made a TV series
for Channel seven that went on to be on seven Plus,
(14:50):
and that really unfolded this very bad situation of what
had happened to a grandmother me in ta Mania who
was arrested and charged with the murder of her partner
and she has always said I didn't do it. And
(15:11):
we ended up investigating that, me and my team, and
discovered what was most likely to have happened, and there
was other DNA and so on. So we made that
TV series undercurrent Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
True And I'm from Tazzy so.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
That really when did you leave Tazzy.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
In two thousand and three?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
All right, Well, this happened in two thousand and nine
and it was the case of Sue Neil Fraser and
her partner disappeared there. Newly acquired yacht was in the door,
went like right in the middle of like you know
Sandy Bay in Hobart. It was right there and it
(15:57):
was found sinking, and her part I just disappeared and
right from the beginning the police focused on her with
I believe very strong tunnel vision.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Wow, I just got it. I know everyone seems to
be into cru crime, true crime, but it was just
when I was in Tazzy in February, I happened to
listen to a true crime podcast, which I don't normally
listen to, and just because there was a local Jackie Lamby,
(16:29):
had put something on social was about a young girl's death. Yes, Edie,
and I got so hooked on that, like it's you know,
what's really amazing is I guess that platform now of
being able to provide and bring up evidence and it's
it's so compelling. Like I used to think true crime, Oh,
(16:51):
who wants to listen to that? But now I'm like, oh,
I want to hear what's going on here? Like it's
to think that's that's happening.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Well, it's often the family who say this isn't right.
This was not a suicide, This couldn't have happened that way.
We know this person, this isn't right, and they start questioning,
and if they're persistent, or you've got a journalist or
a filmmaker or a podcast maker who delves and digs
(17:23):
and puts it out there publicly, then other people bring
in more information. And I think citizens today have a
huge role in helping to overturn wrongful convictions because there
are certain the justice system works most of the time,
(17:44):
but it fails many people, as we know because we
hear of wrongful convictions being turned around every year.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I don't know if you've listened to that series, but
I was just I just remember being dumbfounded by everything
that got swept under the rug and the reality of
all of the evidence. I was like, oh my goodness.
I don't think I could listen to too much Drew
crom I'd get too mad about it.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
It makes you very angry, and so much goes into
one case and they still haven't opened an inquiry for
that case. You're kidding. And even after I did a
feature film, a six part TV documentary, there were three
(18:34):
sixty minutes stories on the case. I was on. She
still spent thirteen years in jail and is still to
this day even though she's out on parole, a convicted murderer.
You know how heartbreaking. So yeah, it's hard. So I
really encourage people to ask questions and when something doesn't
(19:00):
feel right, to look a little bit further and to
not be led and swayed by necessarily a story that's
put out there in the first instance by the media,
because if they can get it wrong too.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, I think they're starting to well, people are becoming
more savvy and really pushing back on the way media report. Now.
I know, I am. I can't stand it. I haven't
listened to or watched the news itself for a long
time because I get wild about just the way they
I guess, title and describe everything to deliberately evoke rage
(19:43):
or you know, public outcry. So I'm off the media bandwagon.
I'm interested in in terms of filmmaking itself and your
psychology background. I feel like that's such a strong correlation
to a film six because I think like you have
this understanding of the psychology of how to present or
(20:08):
how to impact people, So how much does that come
into the creating of a film or is it more
about that helping you identify what a good story is
to begin with, or a bit of both.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I think it's a bit of both. And there's another
aspect to it as well. When you make a film,
you're working with a team, and so the team skills
that you need to manage people. It can be helpful
if you've got those skills of being able to communicate clearly,
(20:42):
give instructions, clearly, be open to various people's input because
often there can be filmmakers who work in a very
hierarchical way where everybody's got their roles and there's no crossover.
And I'm very open if the soundtist has a thought
or an idea, I want to hear it. So you
(21:05):
know that's on my film shoots. Everybody has a say
on how things might be or I love people's ideas.
So that's one thing, but that's not necessarily being a psychologist.
That can be a personality, Like you're a good listener,
you're a good asker of questions. So you've got that
(21:26):
in you clearly and would have had that for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
How do you manage so inviting ideas? But then how
do you manage people, because I imagine they're quite attached to
their ideas, especially when they get the chance to present them.
How do you manage the choosing or declining of ideas?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Look, I think it's with anything. You commend people for
coming forward with an idea, but you have reasons why
one idea won't work. Or we could try this, but
we probably won't have the time to shoot that little
extra bit, or perhaps we can work out how to
do it in tomorrow's shoot, or why do you think
(22:13):
we need that? You know, just just asking and you
know that's the way it works. I mean, in terms
of the psychology, the majority of my work is education
and business films, and so for that I really do,
really like we make programs and I do them with
(22:35):
fellow psychologist Peter Quarry a lot, and he and I
will do programs on you know, four ways to develop
your critical thinking, how to communicate better, how to present information,
how to be a great manager. And we've been you know,
doing videos and I now do e learning courses on
(22:59):
all of that for years. But I also do comedy
films which I shoot in Los Angeles, and I have
a comedy team who are part of a fictitious office
there where for the last fifteen years they've all got
their roles. There's the manager of the vice president, the
(23:22):
team leader, the policymaker, a whole lot of people who
are actors and stand up comedians and many of whom
have been in the corporate world. And I just go
over there and we shoot new videos and it's enormous fun.
But that's using comedy. So I do crime and comedy.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
What a fascinating intersection of skills and ideas and interests
and collaborations. And I love it like I love that
because we so often get boxed in or box ours of,
like I am, this is what I do. When did
you start getting into the comedy side of.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Things straight away? And it was right back at the beginning,
because when I was a psychologist and working as a
trainer in the Commonwealth government in the very early days,
John Cleese, a very famous actor who did Faulty Towers
(24:30):
and many other amazing films, he just started making comedy
business films and people loved them. They just thought, oh,
that's incredible. So I thought, hang on, I'm in Australia,
I'd like to do comedy business films as well. And
so I wrote to him and I think this is
(24:55):
part of it. Like I wrote to him, I don't
know why, but I just said, look, I use your films,
I admire other films, and now I want to make films,
comedy business films in Australia. And I don't know why.
Maybe I was saying it because I just wanted him
to know that I'm going to start making them. Or
(25:15):
maybe it's about voicing your vision, like if you go
back to wanting to start your podcast series, did you
voice that vision to somebody you know? Do you voice
it to somebody who's already doing something amazing just to
get their feedback. Anyway, he wrote back to me, which
(25:35):
was amazing. Like in those days there was no email.
And he wrote back and he said, look, if you're
ever in London, here's my phone number, just give me
a call. So I wrote back and said I'll be
there next week. As a matter of fact, I wasn't
going to be there next week, but I quickly resigned
(25:55):
my government job and thought, this is very cool. I'll
go over there. And it was just that being acknowledged
and that's how I got started. So I did a
lot of work in the early days with some actors
that ended up in doing the comedy company, and also
another very funny comedian, John Clark. So I kind of
(26:20):
started with comedy very early, four decades ago.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
More than that, I feel like I can hear all
the listeners that are listening right now going, how did
you have the bravery to just pick up and say
yes to something brand new that seemingly sounds a bit
crazy given where you were, You know where you were,
what we were focused on, and then to just get
up and quit your job and go and say yes
(26:47):
to meeting someone like that.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I think there are turning points in everyone's life where
there might be a risk, but you take it. You know,
you take it when you meet a new person and
they become you're in a relationship with them, a love
relationship or a friendship relationship, but it could also turn bad.
(27:12):
They could be a bad person or a bad person.
Forew you're taking a risk at every new turning point
in your life. But I think I'm very open to
change and what can happen now. Maybe it's my parents
coming from extreme horror where all of their families were
(27:38):
wiped out. Both my parents lost their husband and wife,
you know, my mother's father was my mother's husband was
shot in front of her. They had horrific things and
they just came to a country Australia, didn't speak English,
had to learn the language, learn the culture, learn and everything.
(28:01):
And maybe just that ability to change appreciate new things.
I think there are many times when we have opportunities
where maybe we don't take them, and life is about
twists and turns, and sometimes you just have to be
very open.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's like Buddhism's non attachment, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, so attached correct.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
To our identity, to our staff.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
And it becomes habit. There's a lot of habit in it,
and you know, and sometimes that's a really good thing.
You know, if you keep wanting change and keep wanting
stimulation and something different, you may never be satisfied as well.
So it's a matter of choosing what are these risks
(28:52):
or interesting things you're going to do, but also taking
the time to enjoy it and develop it and not
just you know, be randomly going from one thing to
another and never really putting the effort and work into
making something really good.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I'm definitely one of those people that loves to get
up and change and go. And it's taken me most
of my life to land in a place where I've
got enough. I've injected enough variety and autonomy and control
to be able to dip in and out of that too,
so that I don't have to keep changing jobs or
changing careers or doing new things. You know, I always
(29:34):
feel the desire for what's the next shiny thing, what's
the next thing?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Well, you're You've got a great situation because you're jumping
into people's lives and all of their experience and asking
these great questions and sharing them. How fulfilling is that?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Oh? It is next level, you know. And that came
about simply because of the pandemic. I went, oh, well,
what am I going to do with this time? I'm
not going to do anything to do with making money
because I had gyms at the time, right and they
were shut down. So I was like, oh this okay,
Well this could be real bad for me financially. So
(30:16):
the last thing I'm going to do is get real
busy trying to make money. But I would try and
make something that cannot be taken away. So and like
you said, the blessing of these conversations and like an
hour at a time, being able to pop myself in
the shoes of someone else and almost feel like I
(30:37):
get to live a bit of their life and take
on their lessons. It literally changed my I guess my life,
but definitely my identity, my experience of life. I was like,
I'm not the same person I was. I'd love to
talk to that person to see just how different she was.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, that's that's awesome and it's so lovely to hear
a pandemic positive. I also had a pandemic positive where
I shifted direction into creating e learning courses from videos,
and now they absolutely outsell our videos. So I mean
(31:23):
this is a part from every so often a feature
film or a TV series. That's my main work is
these business and educational films.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah. Yeah, what's been the best challenge for you?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
It has been to be financially successful because I finance
all my own films, and that really, you know, comes
with You've got to take risks, like to go to
America and do a whole film shoot. There is very
(32:00):
costly thing. So the challenge is making money, but making
enough to be happy as opposed to just making money
for the sake of making money, So I just enjoy
the work. And I think, you know, as you get older,
a lot of people look forward to retirement. Well I don't.
(32:24):
I just my biological father worked to ninety nine doing
land surveying. He was a land surveyor. That's how he
got to name streets. And he kept working to ninety
nine and died at one hundred. So you know, I
think if you keep your mind active and you just
(32:49):
I think people need to not become boring. And to
not become boring, you need to be doing things you
need to be. Or you may be an avid reader,
so you read a lot of really interesting books, or
you listen to a lot of interesting podcasts, and your
mind kind of grows and you feel like you feel inspired.
(33:14):
I'm sure people feel inspired listening to your podcast. I'm
sure you get that feedback.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I loved I love doing intimately doing things that are
completely different. Like I a few years ago did an
improv workshop. Oh great, the first time I had an
improv coach on the show. I didn't know what improv was.
A friend referred to them and I'm like, what is Like?
I literally didn't know. I'm like, what is improv?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
What is that, and I go to research it and
I'm like, it's pretending. It's grown ups, pretend like I
don't care. What is this is? What's this person coach?
This is so weird. And then I have a conversation
with him and I thought, gee, like that felt like
the metaphor of the boxing ring and my life. It
(33:59):
felt like a similar kind of thing. So I signed
up and did it improv workshop and eight week workshop,
and I think I want to do another one because
it's getting out of the echo chamber of podcasting and fitness.
And you know, last year I went to India and
in the lead up to going with a group of people,
(34:20):
all I wanted was I just can't wait to be
away from the sameness and see which parts of me
are there that I've packed away and forgotten about. I
just wanted to be see who I was underneath all
of the things that I do here today that reinforce
who I think I am. Bloody hell, what an amazing experience.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
That's that's amazing, that's great. In fact, my comedy team
in LA they improve. I give them script outlines and
then then there's a lot of improv and it's so
much fun.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, so funny, it's so it's such a Yeah, there's
so many I think in anything that we do, especially
things that make us uncomfortable, there's so many just such
a chance to learn and grow in ways that you
don't realize the transfer into life, which is why I
go I want to go back and do that again,
(35:16):
not because of any reason that I think I know
the answer to, just because I know that it will
push me into uncomfortable areas and there's always a gain
in that, and I don't have to In fact that
sometimes the more I have to know and control something,
the worst off I am.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
For it, which really that's great.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, what's some of the weirdest things you've done?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Oh god, I've done a lot of weird things. I mean,
sitting in Melbourne and deciding that I would investigate a
crime that happened in Tasmania has to be at the
top of the list. It didn't go down well with
my partner, who said, like, why would a psychologist and
(36:05):
filmmaker in Melbourne no better than or think that they
could do better than the Tasmanian Police force and the
justice system. So that to me is one crazy thing
to do.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, it kind of is It's like, was it
scary to go? Like, you know, I think of your
there's people out there that have potentially not done the
right thing, and then there's people like yourself that are
putting things into the public eye to highlight that. Is
(36:43):
that a bit scary?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
It is because the police turned on me and my
team during our time there, and we were our phones
were bugged, my bank accounts, who checked all sorts of
we were followed. There were terrible things that happened. And
I have documented all of this in a podcast called
(37:06):
Who Killed Bob? So I've done that podcast as well,
So that, yeah, I think that and it really sidetracked
me for a decade into that world of it's not
fair and it's unjust, and I kind of wonder like
(37:30):
why did I become so obsessed with it to actually
want to keep persevering And even to this day, you know,
would still like to work out how we can overturn
that conviction and get a proper, a proper judicial inquiry
into that case. But anyway, if Jackie Lamby can get
(37:54):
Eden's case on to out the public and there's an inquiry,
then that's the start of something good happening. In Tasmania
for that, I'll.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Be cheering that on for sure. The psychology. When you
first started, did you do clinical psychology. I was only
speaking to someone recently around psychology and remember being quite
surprised about because we just think, oh, you go and
study psychology and you become a psychologist and you sit
(38:30):
in a room and put someone on a couch and
you talk about their problems. And then one of the
last psychologists I think it might have been James Kirby
I had on and he was talking about all of
the options, all of the things you can do. And
obviously you've gotten into business psychology and crossed over with filmmaking.
But when you were first studying that, where did you
think you wanted to take it?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Well? I started in counseling psychology, as did Peter Quarry,
and it was you know, it was was called vocational psychology,
so talking to people about their careers and about what
makes them satisfied at work and whether people assessing people's
employability skills and running one on one sessions and group sessions.
(39:18):
But my career path did a sharp turn to the
right and the filmmaking just completely took over.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, yeah, what's been your favorite project.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Man on the Bus is probably the one that was
personally satisfying because I managed to film so much and
put so much together and then tell a story that
has resonated. A lot of people out of the blue
have contacted me and said it resonated with me. This
(39:57):
is my story, and their stories are quite different. Sometimes
there's a similarity, but it's people have said thank you
for making it, and that makes me feel good. That
really makes me feel good. So I would have to
say that's very rewarding. Another big one that was very
(40:17):
rewarding was working with Kathy Freeman many years ago and
we made an animated series for children where we combined.
She had this thing when she was about eight years
old that she wrote on the wall, I want to
be the greatest athlete in the world, something like that,
(40:37):
or the greatest runner in the world. Something I can't
remember the exact words. It's in her book. And I
had written a book about when you talk about your
positive things that you want to do, you're more likely
to achieve that. And I had this thing called the
scripts in your head and that they need to be
(41:00):
positive scripts. So I wrote this book, Rewrite your Life Anyway,
I met Kathy Freeman at an event and we just
got on so well, and I said, oh, we should
do a project together. She said, I'd love to make
a suggestion. So I seen her three suggestions, you know,
and one of them, which she said, let's do this
(41:21):
one was this animated series for children three to eleven
called Finding My Magic, and we changed the concept of
scripts to me messages so that children could get hold
of their me messages and if they're me messages were
(41:44):
I can do that, I can ride a bike. It's
going to be much better than I'm awful and I'm
an idiot and I can't do this and this is hard.
So we did that, and she was the voice of
the little girl character who was drawn in her her
image called Katherine, So she was the voice of Catherine.
(42:07):
And we made sixteen episodes and there's still they were
on n ITV and they were they're still in schools.
So that was a lot of fun, a lot of
fun and very rewarding. How fun.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
How when you like you like a little idea factory,
factory just churning out ideas, How do you cultivate creativity?
How does that happen for you?
Speaker 3 (42:34):
I don't know where it comes from, but it often
happens at like two or three in the morning and
bloody sleep, and invariably it is a form for me.
A lot of the creativity comes from procrastinating about another
task that I should be finishing, and I diverse to
(42:59):
something that is so interesting. I come up with a
brand new idea, and I justify that by thinking, this
is such a good idea. I'm so glad I thought
of it. So I start writing that out, and then
I go back to what I had to do, which
might be markup scripts or edit footage or prepare for
(43:20):
a film shoot or whatever. So say that is often
the case, and I don't know why. Or it can
happen when I'm skiing because I'm free, or it can
happen in the shower. I think the shower is a
great place to be creative.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
How do you go at seeing things through? Then?
Speaker 3 (43:40):
I'm very good with that, Like if I set my
mind to it, I see it through. But I've also
learned that some ideas were fun in creating the ideas,
but they're not practical, so let them go and working
out when to let them go and not keep pushing
(44:03):
an idea. Just because you've invested a lot of time
and effort into something, you have to learn that some
just these little things that you cast to drift and
they go, and maybe they were just an opportunity to
exercise your mind.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah. I love that. I recently wrote wrote wrote right, No,
I didn't write it. I read it. I read the
book Quit by Is it any Duke? I think? And
so it's the opposite of grit, which is Angela Duckworth's book.
So the idea and quit. Gee, that was an interesting
(44:42):
read on the psychology of quitting. And there's so much
science behind Yeah, because grit gets all the glory, right.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah, and because we're taught to persevere, to have the grit,
keep going, to keep pushing, but you have to also
let go of some things.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, and we're not good at that. I don't think
we're good at that, or we feel guilty not finishing something.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
I've had a big journey with letting go. It's been
a bit of a well. I just think it's been
such a theme of the amount of conversation. I have
a regular guest, a friend of mine, Mark lebask and
he's a coach and a leadership bloke too and have
great conversation for a HELLI probes and yeah, we've had
(45:31):
some big conversations about that, you know, like outsourcing. You
know what I'm I'm I love creating ideas too, but
I hold on to every aspect of the doing, which
is such a like you burn yourself, you can't you
limit your output. So I often, you know, maybe one day,
when I'm a grown up, I will get a handle
(45:51):
on letting go a little bit easier than I still
do today. But yeah, I'm fascinated by all Right, if
you've got any advice on any topic for anyone that
would be listening to us right now, what do you
think your most valuable piece or couple of pieces of
advice would be.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
I think be somebody who is not boring, and what
that takes for you will be different to what it
is for me. What it is everybody's going to be different.
But keep your mind being stimulated. Do things, whether it's
do physical fitness, but turn some corners, take some risks,
(46:39):
you know, discover things about yourself and just be open.
And probably the other thing which we didn't really talk about,
but is to the ability to let go of disappointment
and anger when something hasn't met your ex spectations or somebody,
(47:03):
because we can rarely change other people so that they
would be my two kind of areas.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I love that awesome. You are such a unicorn. I
love I love what you've done. I'm going to be watching.
I'm gonna be busy. I've got a lot of hours
of watching to do so. Thankfully, yesterday I just resubscribed
to Netflix, so that's a bonus. I have something to watch.
Thank you so much. Can you direct people to the
(47:33):
best place to find and access any of anything you'd
like to promote? Really?
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Oh well, Netflix. Man on the Bus podcasts are easily
easy to find on iTunes or Spotify. On Matt that's
for Who Killed Bob and most things. Evash dot com
e v e ash.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Dot com brilliant. Thanks again, Eve, Thank you, Thanks everyone.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
She said it's now never. I got fighting in my blood,
got it?
Speaker 3 (48:16):
What a coast gotta
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Gotta
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm tiff This is Roll with the Punches and we're
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(00:29):
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reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au eve Ash Welcome to
(00:54):
Roll with the Punches. How are you.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Mate, I'm good. How are you, Tiffany, I'm very good.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm very good. It's not often that I sit down
before a podcast, have a little browse back over the
person I'm about to speak to and think to myself,
bloody hell, where do I start? Is this just one
person I'm interviewing? You like, are the epitome of overachiever?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, when you live long enough, you do a lot
of things.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's quite incredible. So yeah, I can't wait to see
where this conversation goes. But one of the first things
I mentioned to you is I came across your Man
on the Bus documentary and that sparked my interest. But
before we even kick that off, introduce yourself to me
(01:51):
and the listeners the way you would introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Well, I am a psychologist and filmmaker, so those two
things go together in a very interesting way. I have
written books, but I've produced over a thousand films, some
television and documentaries, so a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
A lot, a lot. What came first, psychology or filmmaking.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Psychology came first, and then I started using video to
train new psychologists and make short videos for training in
a government department and thought, this is really good fun.
So I set up a business doing solely that.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
What was it about that? What part of that were
you doing? Were you just managing that or are you
one of those get stuck into it and do it
you figure it out yourself first.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, I just got stuck into it, set up a
company and just started making films just like that.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
That's amazing, that's amazing. Tell us about the Man on
the Bus film.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, that one took over ten years to make, and
it was sparked by a long held weird feeling that
I had that I was somehow an implant into this
family that I'd grown up with, even though we were
a loving nuclear family, one sister, two parents. They were
(03:24):
Holocaust survivors, and I did think maybe I'm adopted, but no,
I was, you know, my mother showed me my little
bracelet thing from the hospital. But I had this weird
feeling that my sister and I looked so different and
that we were different, and I don't know, I just
(03:45):
started investigating. I put together some really weird clues and
ended up filming my investigation and uncovering this massive secret.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
What a curious little mind did you do? You ask
your parents if you were adopted? Were you like, openly, hey,
I'm not I cannot be the same as you guys.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Well, I felt like, you know, they were European, they
were Holocaust vivers, and I just felt very aussy and
quite different. But no, they assured me I wasn't adopted.
So then my next theory was that my sister and
I had different fathers, but I couldn't quite work out why,
(04:26):
or I just had this gut feeling which now a
lot of people have come out and told me who
have seen the film that they also had gut feelings
about their past and when they finally worked it out,
it all made sense.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Wow, the power of intuition. Yeah, that's insane. Imagine how
your mom felt when you started asking probing questions.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, she thought she died eventually, and my dad died,
and she thought she took the secret to the grave.
So for her, the secret was gone. And for me,
the secret became the understanding of where I'd come from
in my life and what had happened. But one of
(05:15):
the biggest clues that I had was this sentence in
my head where she had said he and there was
no who he was. He named streets after us, And
so many years ago I was studying the old paper
street directory, looking up my name Eve and her name Martha,
(05:39):
and my sister's name Helen to find streets that we
were named after. And all I could find was Martha
and Eve, and I thought, whoever named these streets? That
person is my father. I don't even know why, but
I thought, why wouldn't he name a third street Helen
(06:03):
after my sister?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So? Wow, what when did she say that line?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
To you. I don't even remember. It just was in
my head and I really don't remember, but it just
was there.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Wow. All right, tell me more about the making of
the film and the investigating throughout that process.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Well, I don't want to give away too many spoilers.
It's still on Netflix, so I have to do it carefully.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I'll be watching it this week.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
But I went to find who this man was and
if he existed, and I went with my niece and
we filmed ourselves going and that film became the beginning
of the film. And then I started it investigating what
(07:02):
happened to my parents in Poland? How did they escape?
How did my father escape? I started interviewing oldies that
knew them from the past, and I just started putting
it all together. And it's an unbelievable story and it
really unfolded with twists and turns. So you know, people
(07:24):
have told me they've cried, they've laughed, they couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, what about you, like, in terms of was that
an emotional rollercoaster? How were you about the idea of
that being your potential life? And then kind of digging
it up and feeling back the layers of it well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You know, there were people who said, why are you
doing this? You know, did you love your parents? I sink, yes,
then why are you trying to unravel something that might
change that history. I don't think you change history. You
uncover more to uncover the truth. And the truth is history,
(08:08):
not the history that you've made. That's one history. And
I know for a lot of people who discover something
different about their past or unravel something, it isn't always
a good outcome. So there was the potential that this
could all be awful, but it ended up being amazing
(08:30):
for me, absolutely amazing, a really good outcome.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Do you think your background in psychology set you in
good steed for that or planted a few blind spots?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I think it was really good because you kind of
train to be calm and reasonable and rational. But on
the day of, you know, I just had a freak
out and that you know, it was there. But it
does help because you're also inquiring, you're asking questions, and
(09:05):
you want to find without a nastiness. You just want
to find a truth that's comfortable and work with that.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
What's happened to be talking about it recently the last
couple of weeks with someone the idea of having adopted
parents and or children. And I just think, like, when
you say that you had this sense, I think most
of us can't really like that doesn't exist for us,
So we can't wrap our minds around the concept of
why would you want Why wouldn't you just love your parents?
(09:39):
Like because we just we put everyone in our experience,
which is, these are my parents that I grew up with,
and I love them. Why wouldn't you just love yours
the same? But we don't have this whatever that sense
is that you felt that connects you with somebody else,
And it's quite It's quite fascinating, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
It is? And also I think after my parents had died,
I did feel the release that it felt okay to dig.
I'm not so sure that the digging process was really
happening while they were alive. I did get a researcher
to interview my mother to keep it at arm's length
(10:20):
from me long before this, to try and interview her
about her background and what happened. And there was another
clue buried in that interview of sixteen hours over many months,
and there was one little phrase that did not add up.
(10:41):
Plus I found some eight millimeter film footage from the fifties,
and in that footage there was there was all this
lovely family footage, family holidays, me, my sister, our friends
and family, and then all of a sudden there was
(11:04):
this footage of a man looking into the lens and
I know my mother was the one filming, and I
just saw love in those eyes. And you know, he
mouthed some words, and I tried to lipbreed and got
lip breeders to try and you know, work out what
he was saying. But anyway, that was another clue.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I can't as you're talking. I just my mind is
just thinking, like the idea of those streets and all
of the potential secrets or clues there are to because
all of the streets that we live in have a story, correct,
and I've just found out that some of them have
(11:48):
a hell of a story.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Well, he apparently named streets after lovers' children a boat
that he built, you know. And when I got to
meet him, I said to him, you know you didn't
name Helen in that little suburb. And he said, oh, well,
(12:14):
there were only two streets. And I said, but you
were just proudly telling me you named the three streets
across from that Hey, Hay, B, BW, and C SEA,
so it was ABC HEYBC. I said, well, there are
three streets you could have and so he said, yeah,
(12:36):
you've busted me.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So what was it like to meet him?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Amazing? I mean I sort of felt in the last
minute like why am I doing this? Why didn't I
just let it rest and let it go? But by
then I had DNA evidence with one of his kids
that we were a half brother sisters. Wow. And she
(13:06):
was a complete stranger to me, but we looked alike.
So that was really you know, weird, spooky.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
And what was he like?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
He was very together. I mean he was in his
eighties by then and he ended up living till last
studio to one hundred, So yeah, it was it was
pretty good and we bonded. We think thought very similarly,
and we had a kind of mission together that we
(13:42):
focused on one of my projects. And yeah, it was good.
It was very good.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Great story. I feel so boring now, Oh, don't be silly.
Oh I love it. Okay, tell me more about all
these filmmakers. You one countless and been nominated for countless
awards for films. What makes a good film.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I think I like real stories and for me, probably
one of the greatest things I've made was together with
the company in Sydney called CJZ. I had started filming
with a couple of other people what we believed to
(14:29):
be a wrongful conviction in Tasmania and the more it unfolded,
the worse it got and how bad it was. And
I had hundreds, probably thousands of hours of footage and
they came on board and we made a TV series
for Channel seven that went on to be on seven Plus,
(14:50):
and that really unfolded this very bad situation of what
had happened to a grandmother me in ta Mania who
was arrested and charged with the murder of her partner
and she has always said I didn't do it. And
(15:11):
we ended up investigating that, me and my team, and
discovered what was most likely to have happened, and there
was other DNA and so on. So we made that
TV series undercurrent Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
True And I'm from Tazzy so.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
That really when did you leave Tazzy.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
In two thousand and three?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
All right, Well, this happened in two thousand and nine
and it was the case of Sue Neil Fraser and
her partner disappeared there. Newly acquired yacht was in the door,
went like right in the middle of like you know
Sandy Bay in Hobart. It was right there and it
(15:57):
was found sinking, and her part I just disappeared and
right from the beginning the police focused on her with
I believe very strong tunnel vision.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Wow, I just got it. I know everyone seems to
be into cru crime, true crime, but it was just
when I was in Tazzy in February, I happened to
listen to a true crime podcast, which I don't normally
listen to, and just because there was a local Jackie Lamby,
(16:29):
had put something on social was about a young girl's death. Yes, Edie,
and I got so hooked on that, like it's you know,
what's really amazing is I guess that platform now of
being able to provide and bring up evidence and it's
it's so compelling. Like I used to think true crime, Oh,
(16:51):
who wants to listen to that? But now I'm like, oh,
I want to hear what's going on here? Like it's
to think that's that's happening.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Well, it's often the family who say this isn't right.
This was not a suicide, This couldn't have happened that way.
We know this person, this isn't right, and they start questioning,
and if they're persistent, or you've got a journalist or
a filmmaker or a podcast maker who delves and digs
(17:23):
and puts it out there publicly, then other people bring
in more information. And I think citizens today have a
huge role in helping to overturn wrongful convictions because there
are certain the justice system works most of the time,
(17:44):
but it fails many people, as we know because we
hear of wrongful convictions being turned around every year.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I don't know if you've listened to that series, but
I was just I just remember being dumbfounded by everything
that got swept under the rug and the reality of
all of the evidence. I was like, oh my goodness.
I don't think I could listen to too much Drew
crom I'd get too mad about it.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
It makes you very angry, and so much goes into
one case and they still haven't opened an inquiry for
that case. You're kidding. And even after I did a
feature film, a six part TV documentary, there were three
(18:34):
sixty minutes stories on the case. I was on. She
still spent thirteen years in jail and is still to
this day even though she's out on parole, a convicted murderer.
You know how heartbreaking. So yeah, it's hard. So I
really encourage people to ask questions and when something doesn't
(19:00):
feel right, to look a little bit further and to
not be led and swayed by necessarily a story that's
put out there in the first instance by the media,
because if they can get it wrong too.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah, I think they're starting to well, people are becoming
more savvy and really pushing back on the way media report. Now.
I know, I am. I can't stand it. I haven't
listened to or watched the news itself for a long
time because I get wild about just the way they
I guess, title and describe everything to deliberately evoke rage
(19:43):
or you know, public outcry. So I'm off the media bandwagon.
I'm interested in in terms of filmmaking itself and your
psychology background. I feel like that's such a strong correlation
to a film six because I think like you have
this understanding of the psychology of how to present or
(20:08):
how to impact people, So how much does that come
into the creating of a film or is it more
about that helping you identify what a good story is
to begin with, or a bit of both.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I think it's a bit of both. And there's another
aspect to it as well. When you make a film,
you're working with a team, and so the team skills
that you need to manage people. It can be helpful
if you've got those skills of being able to communicate clearly,
(20:42):
give instructions, clearly, be open to various people's input because
often there can be filmmakers who work in a very
hierarchical way where everybody's got their roles and there's no crossover.
And I'm very open if the soundtist has a thought
or an idea, I want to hear it. So you
(21:05):
know that's on my film shoots. Everybody has a say
on how things might be or I love people's ideas.
So that's one thing, but that's not necessarily being a psychologist.
That can be a personality, Like you're a good listener,
you're a good asker of questions. So you've got that
(21:26):
in you clearly and would have had that for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
How do you manage so inviting ideas? But then how
do you manage people, because I imagine they're quite attached to
their ideas, especially when they get the chance to present them.
How do you manage the choosing or declining of ideas?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Look, I think it's with anything. You commend people for
coming forward with an idea, but you have reasons why
one idea won't work. Or we could try this, but
we probably won't have the time to shoot that little
extra bit, or perhaps we can work out how to
do it in tomorrow's shoot, or why do you think
(22:13):
we need that? You know, just just asking and you
know that's the way it works. I mean, in terms
of the psychology, the majority of my work is education
and business films, and so for that I really do,
really like we make programs and I do them with
(22:35):
fellow psychologist Peter Quarry a lot, and he and I
will do programs on you know, four ways to develop
your critical thinking, how to communicate better, how to present information,
how to be a great manager. And we've been you know,
doing videos and I now do e learning courses on
(22:59):
all of that for years. But I also do comedy
films which I shoot in Los Angeles, and I have
a comedy team who are part of a fictitious office
there where for the last fifteen years they've all got
their roles. There's the manager of the vice president, the
(23:22):
team leader, the policymaker, a whole lot of people who
are actors and stand up comedians and many of whom
have been in the corporate world. And I just go
over there and we shoot new videos and it's enormous fun.
But that's using comedy. So I do crime and comedy.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
What a fascinating intersection of skills and ideas and interests
and collaborations. And I love it like I love that
because we so often get boxed in or box ours of,
like I am, this is what I do. When did
you start getting into the comedy side of.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Things straight away? And it was right back at the beginning,
because when I was a psychologist and working as a
trainer in the Commonwealth government in the very early days,
John Cleese, a very famous actor who did Faulty Towers
(24:30):
and many other amazing films, he just started making comedy
business films and people loved them. They just thought, oh,
that's incredible. So I thought, hang on, I'm in Australia,
I'd like to do comedy business films as well. And
so I wrote to him and I think this is
(24:55):
part of it. Like I wrote to him, I don't
know why, but I just said, look, I use your films,
I admire other films, and now I want to make films,
comedy business films in Australia. And I don't know why.
Maybe I was saying it because I just wanted him
to know that I'm going to start making them. Or
(25:15):
maybe it's about voicing your vision, like if you go
back to wanting to start your podcast series, did you
voice that vision to somebody you know? Do you voice
it to somebody who's already doing something amazing just to
get their feedback. Anyway, he wrote back to me, which
(25:35):
was amazing. Like in those days there was no email.
And he wrote back and he said, look, if you're
ever in London, here's my phone number, just give me
a call. So I wrote back and said I'll be
there next week. As a matter of fact, I wasn't
going to be there next week, but I quickly resigned
(25:55):
my government job and thought, this is very cool. I'll
go over there. And it was just that being acknowledged
and that's how I got started. So I did a
lot of work in the early days with some actors
that ended up in doing the comedy company, and also
another very funny comedian, John Clark. So I kind of
(26:20):
started with comedy very early, four decades ago.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
More than that, I feel like I can hear all
the listeners that are listening right now going, how did
you have the bravery to just pick up and say
yes to something brand new that seemingly sounds a bit
crazy given where you were, You know where you were,
what we were focused on, and then to just get
up and quit your job and go and say yes
(26:47):
to meeting someone like that.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I think there are turning points in everyone's life where
there might be a risk, but you take it. You know,
you take it when you meet a new person and
they become you're in a relationship with them, a love
relationship or a friendship relationship, but it could also turn bad.
(27:12):
They could be a bad person or a bad person.
Forew you're taking a risk at every new turning point
in your life. But I think I'm very open to
change and what can happen now. Maybe it's my parents
coming from extreme horror where all of their families were
(27:38):
wiped out. Both my parents lost their husband and wife,
you know, my mother's father was my mother's husband was
shot in front of her. They had horrific things and
they just came to a country Australia, didn't speak English,
had to learn the language, learn the culture, learn and everything.
(28:01):
And maybe just that ability to change appreciate new things.
I think there are many times when we have opportunities
where maybe we don't take them, and life is about
twists and turns, and sometimes you just have to be
very open.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's like Buddhism's non attachment, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, so attached correct.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
To our identity, to our staff.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
And it becomes habit. There's a lot of habit in it,
and you know, and sometimes that's a really good thing.
You know, if you keep wanting change and keep wanting
stimulation and something different, you may never be satisfied as well.
So it's a matter of choosing what are these risks
(28:52):
or interesting things you're going to do, but also taking
the time to enjoy it and develop it and not
just you know, be randomly going from one thing to
another and never really putting the effort and work into
making something really good.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I'm definitely one of those people that loves to get
up and change and go. And it's taken me most
of my life to land in a place where I've
got enough. I've injected enough variety and autonomy and control
to be able to dip in and out of that too,
so that I don't have to keep changing jobs or
changing careers or doing new things. You know, I always
(29:34):
feel the desire for what's the next shiny thing, what's
the next thing?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Well, you're You've got a great situation because you're jumping
into people's lives and all of their experience and asking
these great questions and sharing them. How fulfilling is that?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Oh? It is next level, you know. And that came
about simply because of the pandemic. I went, oh, well,
what am I going to do with this time? I'm
not going to do anything to do with making money
because I had gyms at the time, right and they
were shut down. So I was like, oh this okay,
Well this could be real bad for me financially. So
(30:16):
the last thing I'm going to do is get real
busy trying to make money. But I would try and
make something that cannot be taken away. So and like
you said, the blessing of these conversations and like an
hour at a time, being able to pop myself in
the shoes of someone else and almost feel like I
(30:37):
get to live a bit of their life and take
on their lessons. It literally changed my I guess my life,
but definitely my identity, my experience of life. I was like,
I'm not the same person I was. I'd love to
talk to that person to see just how different she was.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yeah, that's that's awesome and it's so lovely to hear
a pandemic positive. I also had a pandemic positive where
I shifted direction into creating e learning courses from videos,
and now they absolutely outsell our videos. So I mean
(31:23):
this is a part from every so often a feature
film or a TV series. That's my main work is
these business and educational films.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah. Yeah, what's been the best challenge for you?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
It has been to be financially successful because I finance
all my own films, and that really, you know, comes
with You've got to take risks, like to go to
America and do a whole film shoot. There is very
(32:00):
costly thing. So the challenge is making money, but making
enough to be happy as opposed to just making money
for the sake of making money, So I just enjoy
the work. And I think, you know, as you get older,
a lot of people look forward to retirement. Well I don't.
(32:24):
I just my biological father worked to ninety nine doing
land surveying. He was a land surveyor. That's how he
got to name streets. And he kept working to ninety
nine and died at one hundred. So you know, I
think if you keep your mind active and you just
(32:49):
I think people need to not become boring. And to
not become boring, you need to be doing things you
need to be. Or you may be an avid reader,
so you read a lot of really interesting books, or
you listen to a lot of interesting podcasts, and your
mind kind of grows and you feel like you feel inspired.
(33:14):
I'm sure people feel inspired listening to your podcast. I'm
sure you get that feedback.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I loved I love doing intimately doing things that are
completely different. Like I a few years ago did an
improv workshop. Oh great, the first time I had an
improv coach on the show. I didn't know what improv was.
A friend referred to them and I'm like, what is Like?
I literally didn't know. I'm like, what is improv?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
What is that, and I go to research it and
I'm like, it's pretending. It's grown ups, pretend like I
don't care. What is this is? What's this person coach?
This is so weird. And then I have a conversation
with him and I thought, gee, like that felt like
the metaphor of the boxing ring and my life. It
(33:59):
felt like a similar kind of thing. So I signed
up and did it improv workshop and eight week workshop,
and I think I want to do another one because
it's getting out of the echo chamber of podcasting and fitness.
And you know, last year I went to India and
in the lead up to going with a group of people,
(34:20):
all I wanted was I just can't wait to be
away from the sameness and see which parts of me
are there that I've packed away and forgotten about. I
just wanted to be see who I was underneath all
of the things that I do here today that reinforce
who I think I am. Bloody hell, what an amazing experience.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
That's that's amazing, that's great. In fact, my comedy team
in LA they improve. I give them script outlines and
then then there's a lot of improv and it's so
much fun.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, so funny, it's so it's such a Yeah, there's
so many I think in anything that we do, especially
things that make us uncomfortable, there's so many just such
a chance to learn and grow in ways that you
don't realize the transfer into life, which is why I
go I want to go back and do that again,
(35:16):
not because of any reason that I think I know
the answer to, just because I know that it will
push me into uncomfortable areas and there's always a gain
in that, and I don't have to In fact that
sometimes the more I have to know and control something,
the worst off I am.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
For it, which really that's great.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, what's some of the weirdest things you've done?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Oh god, I've done a lot of weird things. I mean,
sitting in Melbourne and deciding that I would investigate a
crime that happened in Tasmania has to be at the
top of the list. It didn't go down well with
my partner, who said, like, why would a psychologist and
(36:05):
filmmaker in Melbourne no better than or think that they
could do better than the Tasmanian Police force and the
justice system. So that to me is one crazy thing
to do.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, it kind of is It's like, was it
scary to go? Like, you know, I think of your
there's people out there that have potentially not done the
right thing, and then there's people like yourself that are
putting things into the public eye to highlight that. Is
(36:43):
that a bit scary?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
It is because the police turned on me and my
team during our time there, and we were our phones
were bugged, my bank accounts, who checked all sorts of
we were followed. There were terrible things that happened. And
I have documented all of this in a podcast called
(37:06):
Who Killed Bob? So I've done that podcast as well,
So that, yeah, I think that and it really sidetracked
me for a decade into that world of it's not
fair and it's unjust, and I kind of wonder like
(37:30):
why did I become so obsessed with it to actually
want to keep persevering And even to this day, you know,
would still like to work out how we can overturn
that conviction and get a proper, a proper judicial inquiry
into that case. But anyway, if Jackie Lamby can get
(37:54):
Eden's case on to out the public and there's an inquiry,
then that's the start of something good happening. In Tasmania
for that, I'll.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Be cheering that on for sure. The psychology. When you
first started, did you do clinical psychology. I was only
speaking to someone recently around psychology and remember being quite
surprised about because we just think, oh, you go and
study psychology and you become a psychologist and you sit
(38:30):
in a room and put someone on a couch and
you talk about their problems. And then one of the
last psychologists I think it might have been James Kirby
I had on and he was talking about all of
the options, all of the things you can do. And
obviously you've gotten into business psychology and crossed over with filmmaking.
But when you were first studying that, where did you
think you wanted to take it?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Well? I started in counseling psychology, as did Peter Quarry,
and it was you know, it was was called vocational psychology,
so talking to people about their careers and about what
makes them satisfied at work and whether people assessing people's
employability skills and running one on one sessions and group sessions.
(39:18):
But my career path did a sharp turn to the
right and the filmmaking just completely took over.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, yeah, what's been your favorite project.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Man on the Bus is probably the one that was
personally satisfying because I managed to film so much and
put so much together and then tell a story that
has resonated. A lot of people out of the blue
have contacted me and said it resonated with me. This
(39:57):
is my story, and their stories are quite different. Sometimes
there's a similarity, but it's people have said thank you
for making it, and that makes me feel good. That
really makes me feel good. So I would have to
say that's very rewarding. Another big one that was very
(40:17):
rewarding was working with Kathy Freeman many years ago and
we made an animated series for children where we combined.
She had this thing when she was about eight years
old that she wrote on the wall, I want to
be the greatest athlete in the world, something like that,
(40:37):
or the greatest runner in the world. Something I can't
remember the exact words. It's in her book. And I
had written a book about when you talk about your
positive things that you want to do, you're more likely
to achieve that. And I had this thing called the
scripts in your head and that they need to be
(41:00):
positive scripts. So I wrote this book, Rewrite your Life Anyway,
I met Kathy Freeman at an event and we just
got on so well, and I said, oh, we should
do a project together. She said, I'd love to make
a suggestion. So I seen her three suggestions, you know,
and one of them, which she said, let's do this
(41:21):
one was this animated series for children three to eleven
called Finding My Magic, and we changed the concept of
scripts to me messages so that children could get hold
of their me messages and if they're me messages were
(41:44):
I can do that, I can ride a bike. It's
going to be much better than I'm awful and I'm
an idiot and I can't do this and this is hard.
So we did that, and she was the voice of
the little girl character who was drawn in her her
image called Katherine, So she was the voice of Catherine.
(42:07):
And we made sixteen episodes and there's still they were
on n ITV and they were they're still in schools.
So that was a lot of fun, a lot of
fun and very rewarding. How fun.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
How when you like you like a little idea factory,
factory just churning out ideas, How do you cultivate creativity?
How does that happen for you?
Speaker 3 (42:34):
I don't know where it comes from, but it often
happens at like two or three in the morning and
bloody sleep, and invariably it is a form for me.
A lot of the creativity comes from procrastinating about another
task that I should be finishing, and I diverse to
(42:59):
something that is so interesting. I come up with a
brand new idea, and I justify that by thinking, this
is such a good idea. I'm so glad I thought
of it. So I start writing that out, and then
I go back to what I had to do, which
might be markup scripts or edit footage or prepare for
(43:20):
a film shoot or whatever. So say that is often
the case, and I don't know why. Or it can
happen when I'm skiing because I'm free, or it can
happen in the shower. I think the shower is a
great place to be creative.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
How do you go at seeing things through? Then?
Speaker 3 (43:40):
I'm very good with that, Like if I set my
mind to it, I see it through. But I've also
learned that some ideas were fun in creating the ideas,
but they're not practical, so let them go and working
out when to let them go and not keep pushing
(44:03):
an idea. Just because you've invested a lot of time
and effort into something, you have to learn that some
just these little things that you cast to drift and
they go, and maybe they were just an opportunity to
exercise your mind.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah. I love that. I recently wrote wrote wrote right, No,
I didn't write it. I read it. I read the
book Quit by Is it any Duke? I think? And
so it's the opposite of grit, which is Angela Duckworth's book.
So the idea and quit. Gee, that was an interesting
(44:42):
read on the psychology of quitting. And there's so much
science behind Yeah, because grit gets all the glory, right.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah, and because we're taught to persevere, to have the grit,
keep going, to keep pushing, but you have to also
let go of some things.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, and we're not good at that. I don't think
we're good at that, or we feel guilty not finishing something.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
I've had a big journey with letting go. It's been
a bit of a well. I just think it's been
such a theme of the amount of conversation. I have
a regular guest, a friend of mine, Mark lebask and
he's a coach and a leadership bloke too and have
great conversation for a HELLI probes and yeah, we've had
(45:31):
some big conversations about that, you know, like outsourcing. You
know what I'm I'm I love creating ideas too, but
I hold on to every aspect of the doing, which
is such a like you burn yourself, you can't you
limit your output. So I often, you know, maybe one day,
when I'm a grown up, I will get a handle
(45:51):
on letting go a little bit easier than I still
do today. But yeah, I'm fascinated by all Right, if
you've got any advice on any topic for anyone that
would be listening to us right now, what do you
think your most valuable piece or couple of pieces of
advice would be.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
I think be somebody who is not boring, and what
that takes for you will be different to what it
is for me. What it is everybody's going to be different.
But keep your mind being stimulated. Do things, whether it's
do physical fitness, but turn some corners, take some risks,
(46:39):
you know, discover things about yourself and just be open.
And probably the other thing which we didn't really talk about,
but is to the ability to let go of disappointment
and anger when something hasn't met your ex spectations or somebody,
(47:03):
because we can rarely change other people so that they
would be my two kind of areas.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I love that awesome. You are such a unicorn. I
love I love what you've done. I'm going to be watching.
I'm gonna be busy. I've got a lot of hours
of watching to do so. Thankfully, yesterday I just resubscribed
to Netflix, so that's a bonus. I have something to watch.
Thank you so much. Can you direct people to the
(47:33):
best place to find and access any of anything you'd
like to promote? Really?
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Oh well, Netflix. Man on the Bus podcasts are easily
easy to find on iTunes or Spotify. On Matt that's
for Who Killed Bob and most things. Evash dot com
e v e ash.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Dot com brilliant. Thanks again, Eve, Thank you, Thanks everyone.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
She said it's now never. I got fighting in my blood,
got it?
Speaker 3 (48:16):
What a coast gotta
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Gotta
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