Ep 89 Sarah Grynberg on shedding skins, letting old friends go and finding greatness.

Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase that means "horrible year". It’s the antithesis of annus mirabiliswhich means "wonderful year". Of course years don’t exist in those binaries but we all know that some years are better than others: some are defined by greatness, and others we just can’t wait to s…

Ep 88. Stan Grant on life post-Voice To Parliament, lament and writing beauty into the world.

Stan Grant is a man of remarkable intellect, profound story and deep faith. On a late winter's afternoon recently, I meet Stan in a moment when he is on a difficult journey through a kind of lament - deeply contemplating the three big disciplines that have steeled his extraordinary life and work -…

Ep. 87 Damian Chaparro on swapping a corporate job for a slower pace of life, founding a health retreat and honouring the reset.

When you think of a health retreat, I wonder what thoughts and feelings come to mind? Yoga with a monk on a mountain, people healing their deepest wounds around grief, illness or weight issues, or perhaps it’s images of Nicole Kidman in 9 Perfect Strangers as depicted in the book and movie? I’ve a…

Ep. 86 Jo Stanley on women in media, comedy as catharsis and the case for vulvas.

If you’ve turned on the radio lately, have you ever sat back to listen to who’s telling the stories? Current data shows that only 27 per cent of radio hosts are women, female experts are quoted just 34 per cent of the time and - here’s the clanger - NINETY PER CENT of radio voices of people aged ov…

Ep. 85 Corrie Perkin on the Fourth Estate, storytelling and why words do matter.

It was the poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou who once said ‘there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you’. Stories are what help us make sense of the world around us and of ourselves, of great tragedies and fates and fortunes, of buried histories and mysteries, of t…

Ep 84. Dr Meg Jay on rethinking your twenties, why this decade isn't necessarily "the best years of your life" and thriving through skills not pills.

Being a young person in your 20s is a complicated and challenging time. Whether you’re living through this decade of your life now, or you’re a parent to a twenty something, you likely already know that the 20s are the most uncertain decade of life. In this episode, we talk to the always compassio…

Ep 83. Grace Tame on social justice, human connection and sharing our pain.

Grace Tame is a name that needs little introduction, but that doesn’t mean you know Grace - or indeed her story - on her own terms.  Catapulted into the spotlight as 'Australian of the Year' in 2021, Grace stepped squarely into the public eye and became a powerful catalyst for a tidal wave of conv…

Ep. 82 Cat Bohannon on the science of sex, why men have nipples and how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution.

Over the Summer I spent countless hours deep in the pages of a remarkable book called Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. The book is written by the very entertaining scholar, researcher and poet Cat Bohannon, and it's making very big waves across the world right no…

Ep. 81 Cath Mahoney on over-sharing, a high-profile divorce, career change insights and coming back to self.

When you google Catherine Mahoney, the first thing it says is Andrew John’s ex-wife. But as I know nothing about the NRL or his career as one of Australia’s biggest sports stars, this isn’t what led me to invite Cath to join us on Human Cogs. Cath is an ex-publicist, writer, podcaster, talented cr…

Ep. 80 Rachelle Unreich on mothers and daughters, fate and the goodness of people.

How are you going with the state of the world right now? Wars and violence continue to rage, hate and abuse fill social media feeds, and an escalation of ideological conflict is causing uncertainty and division in our politics, in our communities and at our dinner tables. It can make you lose a l…