Jump on the waves with us for raw, honest conversations with athletes and artists, medicos and military, scientists and advocates, survivors and everyday extraordinary humans.
Welcome to the tribe!
When Michael Bradshaw moved from Japan to Australia when he was 14, his Caucasian appearance didn’t match his Japanese identity. During his transition through culture shock and social awkwardness, his passion for music became an unhealthy escape before it became, and continues to be, a major means for connection.
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Imagine, as a child, having a local minister order gangs to march on your house when your father becomes the first African-American head of the Chicago Police Department. It'd be quite a formative experience, wouldn't it?! It certainly was for James Miles.
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Her parents were the oldest couple in Australia, with a combined age of 206! Given that there was no particular precedent for longevity in their families, Alix Bradfield began to ponder why. Eventually her curiosity led her to interview a number of specialists in health and wellbeing fields, to find out how we can increase our chances of growing older with energy and quality of life.
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Giving birth – a wondrous, miraculous, painful and traumatic experience for many women. According to birth trauma specialist, Pippa Scott, distress in birth is experienced by upwards of 80% of birthing mothers and affects not just the mother but the baby, the partner and the family unit.
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Tim Thomas never conquered fear. It stayed with him during his tours of duty and the many life-threatening situations in which he found (and placed) himself. What he did realise about fear, though, is that its primary goal is to immobilise us. He realised that action is fear’s antidote.
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Dr. Nilmini Fernando is a feminist. Now, as soon as you read that word, your idea of what that means will have come to your mind. In this episode, Nilmini challenges that, just as she challenges our perceptions of racism and unveils the intersections of attitudes, society’s systems and the chains of history which have allowed racism and sexism to continue to flourish.
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Our life journey certainly shapes us and makes us who we are but it can also become an unwanted chain shackling us to a painful past, inhibiting people’s ability to see us as a person without a label. Abiola Ajetomobi talks of the exhaustion in being asked to dredge up the trauma and pain of a difficult past.
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There’s something, well, almost indescribable about time spent in Australia’s desert country. It’s something that needs to be experienced to be understood. Chief scientist and desert expedition leader, Max Tischler, speaks about the spiritually transformative effect of the desert and time spent walking through the landscape with camels.
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Narcissism - it's a term thrown around a lot and is used to describe all sorts of self-important behaviour. It's a spectrum, ranging from a personality exhibiting a few narcissistic traits through to its full expression - narcissistic personality disorder. Judith Richards (founder of The Richards Trauma Process) and I discuss how narcissists' manipulations of relationships can be subtle.
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It should never happen, but it's so incredibly common. Horrifying? Yes. But unfortunately true. Approximately 50% of my clients have been victims of it. If this was not an experience in your childhood, you will know someone for whom it was - whether you're aware of it or not.
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It's everywhere, and yet so few know the truth behind anxiety. Not only that, but the bar is so very low in terms of helping people who suffer from it. Here, Judith Richards (Creator of The Richards Trauma Process) and I talk about the foundational causes of anxiety, what it's a symptom of and how it can be resolved... Yes, resolved! Too many sufferers are told that they have to live with it and manage it. Not so. Listen for more.
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Law of Attraction... woowoo gobbledegook or real phenomenon? We'd all like to think it's real, right - particularly as we consider the year ahead? In this conversation Judith Richards and I uncover the truth behind the law of attraction as well as the things you're not told - things that could prevent its ever working for you. It's based in science, not wishful thinking, and it may well make all difference.
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Are you in an abusive relationship? Would you recognise it if you were? Are you inadvertently being abusive? Do you know someone else who's in an abusive relationship but doesn't 'see' it? This direct conversation with Judith Richards brings all of these questions to light and addresses them, without making the reality 'palatable'.
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JUDGEMENT… We’re not talking end of life stuff here! We address judgement here and now and less external than internal. I talk about how I was a living example of someone who was incredibly hard on myself and, as so often happens, then held others to my own impossibly high, exacting standards. Thank goodness I’m over it!
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In this short, poignant, powerful episode, Judith Richards and I discuss ‘learned helplessness’. So often we are so much stronger, more capable, intelligent than we give ourselves credit for, AND those around us are so much stronger, more capable, intelligent than we give them credit for. Are you stifling self-belief?
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In this brief, punchy, no-nonsense episode, Judith Richards and I discuss the importance of fun. We talk about what ‘fun’ has come to mean for so many in our fast-paced, goal-driven society, why it’s vital to the health of all areas of our lives, what the Dalai Lama said about it and how to embrace it once again.
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As CEO of Impact Solutions International, Mary C. Dwyer’s particular interest is in the correlation between higher levels of consciousness and wise, ethical and powerful leadership. Our conversation in this episode is full of heart, compassion and practicality, as we explore such questions as living beyond our fear, how our levels of consciousness can drop shockingly quickly, purpose beyond ego and the extraordinary fulfilment in the simple and ordinary.
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Cathy Domoney is acutely aware of factors which allow for a child’s inner genius to shine, and those that don’t. Parents out there, be encouraged! This is not about fault-finding and pressure to do the ‘right thing’ according to others. This is about you being the right person to parent your child – no one else. It’s about trusting your genius as a parent and looking deeply beyond society’s expectations and outer pressures.
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It’s been said of Jennifer, she is a person who not only poses questions, but finds answers. In this episode, Jennifer talks about how she found her spiritual path and her purpose (though she cringed when she did!), her perspective of life as the story we tell ourselves and she describes how being guided by her own intuition has changed her experience of life. Fortunately for us, she also shares some simple tools to help us step into the present moment, ‘switch on’ awe and learn how be guided by our own innate wisdom.
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Sam McIntosh, in his very own unassuming, modest, quiet, sensitive way, is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. When the three-time paralympian from Ocean Grove had the accident which resulted in his disability, his words to his desperately worried mother on the accident scene were: “I’m going to be the first person in a wheelchair to base jump into the Grand Canyon.” He already had a mental list of the things he was going to do as a person in a wheelchair. Yes - he has an uncanny ability, natural and unforced, to see silver linings and turn adversity into a “fire in his belly”.
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If you sat in a doctor’s office and were told you had very little time to live, would you find a way to do the things you’ve always wanted to do? Kirsten Macdonald did and is pretty sure that you would too. She ticked everything off her bucket list in 2 years. Then, to her surprise, she was still alive and wondered… hmmm, what now?!
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Highly awarded film maker, Bill Bennett, heard a voice which saved his life. Determined to understand this experience, Bill traveled all over the world speaking to intuition experts across science, religion and spirituality. The result was a highly acclaimed film, from which developed a book.
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After his business premises burned to the ground, Dr. Jim Skivalidas found himself considering suicide. He could easily have become one of the six men who, each day in Australia, takes his own life. Floods of self-doubt, sense of unworthiness and self-hatred rose to the surface. He found himself thinking: “I’m a disgrace”. He felt full of shame, and his whole identity as provider for his wife and mother, as husband, son, successful health professional and business owner came crashing down around him. He shares with us how he got through it.
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He grew up in a housing commission flat in poverty, became a leading chef in some of the Bellarine’s most prestigious restaurants and now, with co-founder Lana Purcell and a team of almost 200 volunteers, delivers around 7,000 meals per week to people in need. They also have a donations-only grocery story, coffee shop and restaurant, and they always have space for more volunteers!
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Clinical neuroscientist and researcher, Dr. Izelle Labuschagne, has been studying the hormone oxytocin for a long time. Known as the love hack chemical, her research has shown that it’s so much more! Its administration via nasal spray can, for example, temporarily relieve extreme social anxiety in young people. It induces feelings of connectedness and promotes resilience, among other things.
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Grace Kim has always known the value of making music a part of children’s lives and the crucial role it plays in brain development. But when her oldest child was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and struggled in live music settings, she saw a need to bridge the gap between comfortable performance environments and audiences with special needs.
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Music educator, Dr. James Cuskelly, has taught music to people of all ages and levels, and does just that with his young students. He talks with great passion about the far-reaching benefits of a music education for everyone, from language acquisition and literacy to self-expression and the ability to think in a creative way and complete complex tasks. He speaks of the modern understanding of ‘talent’ and what it means to be able to connect with, and give meaning to, sound.
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Jo Farkas was 20, parasailing in Bali, and something went wrong. She found herself under the water with a rope wrapped around her neck. And then the most extraordinary thing happened; she experienced a sense of expansion and oneness, an unconditionally loving, neutral presence, and it seemed as though she was the only thing in the world. Jo remembers thinking, “Well, this isn’t such a bad way to go!” Then her physical survival mechanisms kicked in and she found herself gasping for breath, panicked.
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Charles Crawford has written and contributed to speeches for British Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, the British Royal Family and foreign dignitaries as well as composing and delivering his own speeches during his diplomatic career. He was described as “the Dale Carnegie of speechwriting” by John O’Sullivan, former speechwriter to Margaret Thatcher. You could say, he knows a thing or two about preparing and delivering speeches for leaders!
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Lesley Williams has an extraordinary knack of making you feel welcomed into her life, her presence, her story, into our shared history and making you feel like you belong – the opposite of her experience growing up under the control and monitoring of the QLD government under their ‘protection’ acts.
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Fabiola Campbell describes her loss of identity and sense of belonging, when she migrated from Venezuela to Australia, as the “death of her superwoman”. In a very different way to what she’d expected, she discovered her adult identity through the experience of being an immigrant. The process was rocky, at times humiliating, sometimes devastating, but ultimately became a journey of transformation where she was able to recreate herself and reawaken her "superwoman".
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August 2009 Katherine Varley’s car spun out of control, hitting a tree and leaving her with a serious brain injury. She was in her 30’s. She has little memory of that time and the first stages of her rehabilitation process, but she had to relearn how to eat, how to walk, talk… All those capabilities most of us take for granted every day.
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Holistic health and movement coach, Ross De Vincentiis and I, discuss the importance of creating mental space, why most of us struggle with it, and how to do it! We speak of our own experiences and those of our clients both when we’ve failed to give ourselves stillness as well as the surprising, wonderful things that have happened when we have.
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Matthew Boyd strives every day to use his career to create positive impact in this world. 5 years ago he decided to quit his marketing job and founded Vollie, an online marketplace that’s unlocking a new style of skills-based remote volunteering. In 4 years of operation, Vollie has seen 4,000+ social impact projects completed to date, through 200,000+ skilled volunteering hours, generating over $5 million of savings to the current 925+ non-profits using the service. It’s exciting stuff!
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Brent McKean has done a huge amount of walking all over the world, from the Inca Trail to the Blue Mountains, easy strolls in nature to incredibly demanding rugged walks of hundreds of km’s, and now he's editor of Australia's only dedicated bushwalking magazine, “Great Walks”.
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As soon as you hear him speak, his resonant, rich voice demands attention. Built like a Gridiron footballer and with charisma galore, Berlin-based Derrick Lawrence chose opera singing over football. He won the world’s most prestigious singing competition in New York when he was 23, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it all came easily.
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Getrude Matsche embodies Ubuntu – the African philosophy with which she grew up in a small town in Zimbabwe. She’s a warm-hearted whirlwind of passion, drive, energy and vision, and believes she has been given this life in order to make a difference to the world and to even out the inequality she sees.
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Unconscious bias – it’s part of our innate survival mechanism and, at its worst, it can threaten our survival. Justine Cooper has been delving into and training people, teams and organisations on unconscious bias for decades. With humility, humanity and wisdom she talks us through her personal realisations and experience around unconscious bias, how we can become aware of our own biases and how, even with small actions, we can have a huge positive ripple effect.
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Who hasn’t ever agonised over a difficult but necessary conversation OR avoided it altogether? (Yep, I hear silence here…) Cameron Shepherd is the master of ‘difficult conversations’. As an HR consultant he’s had to have them on behalf of different companies in vastly varying situations all over the world.
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Nikki Smith’s the person to have in your corner if you want to be fulfilled and energised by your work. She’s a psychologist and career / redundancy coach with nearly two decades’ experience, and a fount of the kind of wisdom we all need in order to feel great and perform at our best in our careers.
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Ross De Vincentiis is a guy who, to put it euphemistically, LOVES a challenge. He thrives on it! In this episode we talk about Ross’s career in the military, from infantry soldier to intelligence, the challenges, stories, injuries and what led him to become the holistic health, movement and nutrition coach he is now.
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Powerhouse Virtual CEO and CEO of Financial Executive Women, Alex Tullio, is raw, honest and oh so naturally insightful as we cover such diverse areas as moving from rule-follower to risk-taker, purpose and whether we need it, the painful, confronting, challenging road to change (on the inside first!) and deleting the j*** word from our vocabulary.
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Mark Kruger lived and breathed music for over 20 years. Being a concert pianist isn’t a job or even a vocation, it’s an all-absorbing way of life. In this conversation Mark talks about not only those experiences of elation, but the grind of the life of a concert pianist. He speaks candidly of his journey of self-discovery through music, and what ultimately led him to change his life direction.
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