Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / Broadcaster Christian O'Connell on Connection & Being Human

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Broadcaster Christian O'Connell on Connection & Being Human · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: For almost 30 years, Christian O'Connell has connected with millions of people live on air by embracing the unscripted moments that make us human.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: He arrived in Australia a complete unknown and took his Melbourne Breakfast Show to number one in just 15 months.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Today he hosts Australia's first national commercial breakfast show and is the first broadcaster ever to top the ratings in two countries, the UK and Oz.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: But the ratings are only half the story.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: O'Connell is one of the most compelling storytellers in broadcasting.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And what he really builds isn't a radio show, it's a community.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: In the new book, Unscript, Christian argues that in a world of fake content, fake influences, and AI everything, the most radical thing any of us can do is show up real.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: After decades on radio, speaking with everyone from celebrities to everyday callers, he realized he'd often been presenting a curated version of himself.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Choosing to show up more authentically changed everything.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: That lesson was reinforced in some of the most significant moments of his life.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: After his mother-in-law died suddenly, a paramedic's act of compassion transformed the family's final hours with her.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Later, the same paramedic revealed that Christian's openness about panic attacks had helped him through a difficult period in his own life.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: The experience became a powerful reminder that the moments we are most tempted to hide are often the ones that help others feel less alone.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: A similar lesson emerged following the Bondite tragedy.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Christian's first ever Sydney broadcast was scheduled for the morning after the attacks.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Faced with a grieving city, he abandoned everything he had prepared and chose instead to simply be present.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing I could say would make sense of what had happened, he says.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: All I could do was create a space for people to talk about how they were feeling.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Connection matters far more than having the right words.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm absolutely thrilled to have Christian O'Connell join us in the What I've Learned Podcast Studio.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Christian.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for inviting me.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, well done what you're building here and have built.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You've had some amazing guests on.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you work in a very similar space.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: You understand the power of a good conversation and how important it is to listen.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really interested in your new book.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about this because actually it takes, and I was just talking to you about my new book that's coming out, and it takes a lot of discipline and a lot of self-analysis and reflection to do a good book.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me how your book started and where you got the idea.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've been doing radio for almost 30 years, 20 years in the UK, where I built up a big radio show of two and a half million daily listeners there.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then I walked away from it in my mid-40s and moved with my wife and two daughters to Australia to kind of find my mojo and start again in the most ridiculously competitive battleground in radio there is, and that's Australian Breakfast Radio.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so moved here in 2018.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: There was a huge backlash to an unknown English guy having the audacity to come on the radio here.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Managed to learn a lot, unlearn a lot going through that.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: You mean talk about authenticity and connection when you're a foreigner, the other side of the world?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I'd learnt in the UK, some of it mattered, a lot of it didn't.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was brutal.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was a radical stripping away.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what it taught me motivated me for the last couple of years.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I kept thinking about wouldn't be great to write a book that really helped people have better conversations because I think the connective muscle of us getting in front of each other and having genuine conversations is getting weaker.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're spending about 10 hours a day on our screens, whether that's our TV, our phones, we're spending more and more time indoors.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we're actually connecting less and less.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So these days it's becoming a rarer and rarer thing to connect with each other.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when we do, because of the pressures of social media, where they're selling a very filtered, fake.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're talking about AI slot, but I think there's just as much human slot around now on social media.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then people think, well, I can't speak as well as that.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a script.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of it is increasingly not human as well.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so really it's trying to help people take the pressure off how they connect.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, you don't need to be perfect.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can't connect to somebody who's trying to be perfect.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so because I've been doing this day in, day out, very early in the morning at 6 a.m., I have got practices that are really deeply rooted in the practical how do I do a three-hour radio show without a script every single morning.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I've also had anxiety and panic attacks a lot over my years, still with that, to store a bit of go on air and speak to hundreds of thousands of people.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it came from a genuine place of I'm 53, Deborah.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to, I've been very lucky to learn so much from this unique job that I've been lucky to do that I wanted to pass some of it on.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but I struggled with it for a couple of years.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I try to write it, it was just a very boring book about speaking.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, yeah, I actually don't want to write this, and no one's going to want to read it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and then something happened two years ago.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: My mother-in-law collapsed in front of us and had a massive heart attack.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife had to do CPR.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then the paramedics turned up, and one of the paramedics was this beautiful man who I'm now a close friend with.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just saw him for dinner a couple of weeks ago.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, his name's Rob.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they tried really hard to save my mother-in-law's life, but they but it's couldn't, it was just too late for her.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's very traumatic.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was my daughters were there and my wife was there.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I say this out of all the shock, I mean, utter shock and fear and tragedy of it happening so sudden.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, my poor wife is doing CPR to her own mum.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I say this there's no ideal way to go out in life, but being surrounded by your loved ones, not dying alone or suffering for years in a hospice, which I've seen happening to friends.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Jackie, we were able to say how much we loved Jackie as her own daughter to try and save her life.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so Rob this paramedic, the reason why it helped me out have an understanding of what I want to talk about in the book.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: As he was packing up to just carry on with his shift, he said to me, Oh, as soon as I came here, I recognized you and I always hoped one day to meet you to say thank you.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, What do you mean?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, two years ago, I was going through very chronic panic attacks and uh they're really bad.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's been he's been a paramedic for 40 years, so obviously so much trauma.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's these people's everyday life.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I happened to be on a podcast that I recorded a couple of years ago, talking for the first time publicly about having very bad panic attacks.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I saw that.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And all I felt at the end of that was shame, to be honest.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to ask them to edit some of it out, but I didn't.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes when he when we share those stories that we feel like we've overshared or we're worried about judgment or what people are going to think of us, those are the most important stories to share.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't know it sometimes.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Two years later, that story comes back around on the worst day of our lives.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Rob this paramedic happens to be the paramedic that's just there.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he said it really helped normalize it for me so much.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it gave me something back as well.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: It gave me something a bit, it gave me less shame.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: It helped me understand about real authenticity, vulnerability, and storytelling.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was my mother-in-law's last gift to me.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: She sort of, I saw something in all that horror and tragedy that was genuinely beautiful, and it's how much we need each other.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's what authentic connection is, it's showing up.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Rob took a risk, which is why I call it unscript.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have all these scripts.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I love the name, by the way.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think the name is a very important thing.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's like you get it.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that I mean, I think first of all, that story is quite beautiful, and I relate very much to the notion of an interview as you described a lot of people on this podcast.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this is sort of a beautiful space and community where people have shared some pretty raw moments, such as the one you just shared now, which was which is very moving, and also that serendipity and that circularity of what you just described is quite extraordinary, actually.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it shows that if we listen and we actually trust and have faith, and we do share our stories, there's very few people that haven't been through something similar or a version of it, because what this shows is the universality of our experience, and in that there's comfort.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what this podcast actually is.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: It shows people what I've learned.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the words of wisdom that you've just imparted that you learned and that he learned from you, that's very moving.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really what I think both you and I are actually about.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds your book is very much in that vein, and that's what you're trying to impart.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: It also takes courage, as I've mentioned in before.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think part of that also as a male, if I might say, there are not too many males, although there are more that are coming out and talking about this stuff.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot of males that have been quite reticent or been trained to repress or to be strong or to be, and that doesn't mean you're not strong.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: It means actually you're stronger by being authentic and honest about your panic attacks, your anxiety.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think it's your fuel in a way, don't you think?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to me, honestly, it took me years to really understand that and feel the truth of that most of the time.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: When I first started to talk about it a couple of years ago, it was news to my mum and dad, my best friend, my sister, everyone really, and they were shocked, shocked that I hadn't told them.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But also it's just like, as men, and I'm talking about because I have lived a male experience, so that is my experience.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we are, I think men, it's not so accepted for you to talk about certain emotions.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it creates so many problems for men, it also equally creates so many problems for the people around them.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It leaks out into so many destructive ways.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and to be really fair, I haven't written this book from an area of mastery.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is we still, I think any of us in any situation, any given day, find ourselves defending some part of us we still haven't healed or needs a bit of care and love.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We we still do that.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think constantly you're you're sort of going up and down between your head and your heart.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so anyone who says that they're they're fully optimized is an absolute liar.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the book is full of very flawed stories, and I'm constantly still being reminded of where my work is and sort of where I am.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But my you know, my daughters are 19 and 21.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned just as much as I've learned from you know thousands of live radio shows and stand-up tours.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've learned just as much from being a dad, really, from from my daughters, especially having daughters as well, because sometimes I'll see them and my wife, they will just they're like microwaves for their emotions.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: They it all happens within like a minute.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, and then they're like crying, arguing, hugging, then laughing.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I didn't know this was an option.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, you can do this.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're going, yeah, you can do this.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm I'm I've learned so much from being a man in a matriarchy, quite uniquely, with three very strong women showing me what it really is to feel your emotions.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and of course, they struggle with it sometimes, and we all do, but to what you were talking about, my book, and whenever I when the wonderful things, whenever I talk about panic attacks, oh the emails I get from men are incredible because they're like, Oh, thank you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for just talking about it.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like I've got a hack and my five-step technique to defeat all your monsters.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's more like normalizing it.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: That I think these days means a lot for people.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It goes some way towards acceptance.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely agree.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think also, you know, just with the nature of what's happening in with men and the manosphere and the complexities around everything we're saying, which obviously you'd be fully aware of.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is like the release valve that men need so that they know that there is a way to communicate and a way to listen by seeing people like yourself talk about this stuff so overtly and so authentically.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually, it should be just, as you say, normalized.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not sure why.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's a cultural thing or a historical thing.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have daughters as well, and I have a son.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I was talking with Dr.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Shafali, as I mentioned yesterday in an interview, and she's a big US psychologist who specializes.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: She's she talks about the difference in the way we raise men and raise women.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that is fundamental that we realize that men have to be allowed to express themselves, not be judged, and that the culture has to change to facilitate that.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So part of what you're doing is quite important for the next generation.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, for the the men that your girls might marry, you want to know that they have the capacity to express themselves and feel safe in doing so.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think there's so much.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you look around the world, there's so much pain in the world from so many men whose emotions and what's in their heart is sadly a stranger to them.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like certain parts of us are frozen away from us.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I speak as one of those.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a very long journey for me.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And to be really honest, the panic attacks when they first happened in my mid-40s, don't know how old you are, but to some of your listeners who might be what who might know what the middle ages are like, I found that once you get in your 40s, shit gets real.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what scaffolding you think you've built up to defend yourself from life, it will get shaken to its foundation.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it needs to.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think it actually needs to.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: It did for me.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I built up this perfect system of protective and nuclear defense system and no one's going to get in.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But trouble is, if you build up a system where no one can get in, you can't get out.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, exactly.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I became trapped.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so actually, the panic attacks that I used to say, oh, they've just come out of nowhere, they were warning signs for years.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that I outworked them.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just found other ways to try and quiet it and numbing it down.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually what starts as a whisper in your body will end up as a scream.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it did with chronic panic attacks.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, at the time they were horrendous, but then I can see now that actually they were an incredible gift for me.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think the more men that approach it that way, the better.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you're a wonderful example of that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about also your, you know, you've got it quite a power tool in the sense of your work and your scope to reach lots of people.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's a privilege and it's an extraordinary platform that you have and that you've obviously cultivated and created.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you're very respected in your field.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel that you're getting a resonance and that you're seeing transformation in your listenership?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Are people responding to what you're saying?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned that example of the paramedic, but do you think there is change?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think that there is some understanding that this change is absolutely critical moving forward?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that people are starved of real human connection right now.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I do see in my job.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I can call it more than I think any professor that you might interview in a way, because I haven't got it's not peer-reviewed, it's it's lived experience of every single day, day in, day out.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you think about when I'm on the I've only ever done breakfast radio, and that's all I ever want to do.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think it's a real privilege to talk to people in the morning.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the morning, right, you wake up and the day is it's still got promise and potential.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You might get most of your things on your to-do list done.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's all like today might be the day, and you haven't, and as you listen to me, or whoever you listen to in the morning, or you're driving to work or whatever, and do the school run or whatever you're up to in the morning, you haven't quite got all your emotional armoring fully in place.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you get to the workplace, it has to be game phase time.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm speaking to people in this kind of liminal open space.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can have this incredibly funny, authentic sharing and storytelling, and it's incredibly quite a magical connection.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But and what I've seen over the years is like when I first started on radio, it was the late 90s, and so people just wanted it fast, funny, big, brash.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and I was part of that, and now it's completely different because context.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: People talk about content all the time, but context is just as important.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the way of the world right now, it is a scary time to be alive.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're in very divided times, and it turns out that social media isn't actually that social, it's there, the algorithm is built is built on keeping us in there, engaging us with fear, mistrust, anger, and division.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we're becoming meaner to each other online, and that is trickling out to being meaner and more judgmental to each other in person as well.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're losing empathy.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're losing is empathy.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm seeing in the morning through speaking to people that when we do get into areas of genuine connection, funny storytelling, kindness, compassion, it's like a superpower.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's what it's your of course they do.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm finding this even with the podcast the same thing.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: The most extraordinary yours is live, and you have obviously this extraordinary.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love that idea also of the morning when people are raw and they're somewhat their defenses are down somewhat.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, mine too.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was gonna say yours must be as well.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you must have to really have a really strong coffee.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you one thing I do want to chat to you about, and it's relevant to that.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you talked about that, I think you were doing morning radio on the morning of the Bondi tragedy, which is very close to my heart.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it was your first ever Sydney broadcast, was that right, scheduled for that morning after the attacks?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: You had a you had a scheduled and you were faced with a grieving city and you had to really abandon everything and prepare and choose instead to simply be present.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you I quote, you say nothing I could say would make sense of what had happened.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: All I could do was create a space for people to talk about how they were feeling.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: The connection matters for more than having the right words.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was just so moved when I read that.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Your quote.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because actually, you had this huge responsibility to hold a safe space for an incredibly emotional time in our country's history.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: How did you find that morning and how did you navigate that?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so like I said, I moved through eight years ago and I began in Melbourne, and then this year my show went national, so it was going to be going into Sydney, and so I thought it would be a really nice thing to do to go and say hello to the city of Sydney before starting in January when all the other shows were ending and saying goodbye for the summer and Christmas break, that I would just go and do a week to say hello, and because most of them wouldn't know who I was, and so I thought rather than just expect them to listen to me, so say this is who I am, this is the kind of radio I do, you know.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was replacing a show in Sydney, Jones and Amanda, that have been beloved, been on there for 20 years.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there was some animosity, and so I wanted to speak to that directly and listen to people.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I flew into town on the Sunday, the Sunday of the Bondi Beach massacre.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we were out for dinner, me and my team, and then everyone's phones were pinging and ringing, and I've never experienced anything like it.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been on air through, live on air through terrorist attacks in London 2005.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: This was very different, and people were stunned, like we all were, that it had happened in Sydney and Bondi, of course, which has had such a tough couple of years with the Westfield attack as well.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But this was just like it didn't feel like Sydney.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't quite believe it happened.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was easy to go, that can't be true, is fake news.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was easier to believe that than the real horror of what was happening.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then we found out just how many people had lost their lives.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't know whether we should be going on air.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: That was going to be the first morning.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking to them, and I didn't know who I was.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, people in tough times, they want familiar voices.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I felt this tremendous like, is it right that I do this?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, well, actually, I want to be of service.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think I can help.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like in these tough situations.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been in a situation like this.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I also thought, if I walked past a car accident, I wouldn't not go and try and help people because I didn't know who they were and they didn't know who I was.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, if I'm genuinely building a radio show here of kindness, compassion, authenticity, and community.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people talk a lot about bang on a lot about content.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm less interested in that and more about community, then I absolutely should show up in the morning.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever our friends go through tough times, we often don't pick up the phone because, and I've done this before, you go, I don't know what to say.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't about what you say, it's about being a friend, a witness to someone who's having a tough time.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that morning I went on air and I said to my team beforehand, No, and we're all actually scared, to be really.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Us.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And also, do you know what?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Really sad.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: The news that we were hearing before, obviously, we were going to share on air was the worst news for any city to wake up to.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, young people, old people losing their lives like that.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I said to my team, our job today and this week is to find the good news that is out there because we all know the darkness.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's our job is actually to find the light in all of this.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there were these incredible stories of the first responders.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: The young lads.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Bondi young teenagers running goosebumps, running for danger.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ahmed, you know, elderly couples who lost their lives wrestling with Bonday.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know what I do in that situation.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think we were all thinking that.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like what would you do when it's really is like that?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that elderly couple fighting with them.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was my job to celebrate that and not give in to the horror of what they'd what they'd created in the city.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because actually the truth is there's more good people in the world.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And just one amazing reaction around the world.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, millions were raised within 24 hours.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just people moved by a city going through something so horrendous, really.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually that that that five days on air was the most profoundly moving week of my life.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it really did show me that it actually isn't about perfection, trying to have the right words.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's more about being present.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's more about listening to people and always trying to tilt it back towards kindness, compassion, and the like.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the loveliest thing was?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is on the Wednesday morning before the show, someone turned up at the radio station and they must have Googled what cake do English people like?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: They baked me a Victoria's sponge cake that they brought to the radio station at 5:30 a.m.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: to say thank you for showing up on the radio this week.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my word.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that is so beautiful.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I remember team in tears with the sponge cake.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was that kind of week.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know what it was?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was just felt big, raw.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think raw is a good description, actually.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it reminded us how much we need each other.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in the most extreme form, this was a vivid example of what happens when we become disconnected from our shared humanity.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: That radicalization, the manosphere.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it also, more importantly, showed us how much we want to help each other.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was getting calls every day from people who had been queuing for hours to give blood because there was such a massive demand on the blood bank of Sydney.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: People were queuing up of different ages and races and creeds wanting to help.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was more important to talk about and reflect that.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: That is such a powerful story you've just told.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it really was, it was like such a moment in history.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've grown up as an Australian my whole life.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was born in Sydney, and I have a lot, you know, we've all grown up on Bondo Beach.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a very, very palpable moment in time.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: But your response to it, I think, is just such an exemplification of why people listen to you.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think your humanity, which is at the cornerstone of your book and of what you do, is actually what we need a lot more of.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And personally, I'm just so grateful that we have people like you who can actually take that perspective and lead the way, shine the light, give us the roadmap, because you were thrust into something so extreme and so dramatic.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And your response was one of utter humanity.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if we could just make me cry.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I must be.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're gonna make me cry because I'm listening to the way.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I was so genuinely anxious and scared.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, this is a really this is I think you hit on the yeah, you said it actually, this is a moment in history, and it actually matters today what you say.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was this tremendous was a responsibility.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I never felt the weight of that before because sadly the last terrorist attack that I was on air for was just happening real time.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: You had no time to think about response, and that was 2005, it's a very long time ago.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: This city waking up, and also I'd been on air in I was a London trusted familiar voice then.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: This was you're an English guy, and no one really knows who you are, and suddenly going, hey, good morning, and then they're hearing this news.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just remember we also we gave away digital billboards.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we said, Hey, if there's something you'd like to say to everyone this morning, we've got these billboards, you know, hundreds of thousands of people will see it, and we did it every day that week.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the first one was I Love Sydney, that someone said, and it was just a beautiful way of togetherness, you know, that it brought everyone together.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's still bringing us together now, isn't it?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Month.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was just thinking that, you know, yeah, because I actually think, as I mentioned and we talked about earlier, the universality of our shared humanity is really what you and I are about.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the mission here, to actually continue that connection, to value that empathy, to understand that we're all fragile underneath.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And really, as you talk about the lessons learned and practical ways to build deeper connection, which I think your book alludes to.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a way of saying it does take, as we talked about courage, though, and bravery.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like even that morning, you it took incredible strength for you and courage for you to take a position.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I you know what I can't accept that because the real courage was the night before.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the people actually there.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's courage.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Mine was a different, was a different, you know, it's a different thing.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think though those voices such as yours are really pivotal and critical, and we must ensure that they continue to have prominence in our community, voices of reason, because you, as you mentioned, we are in a very disturbing time.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: And for your daughters, for my children, for all of our the next generation, this is the path that we need to carve so that they don't feel this isolation and sense that they are alone or without connection.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find as a parent, do you have these discussions with your kids about because they're in their 20s, mine are similar?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have these discussions and navigating this particular time in history, not just what happened at Bondi, but just everywhere?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: How are you finding that to guide them, but also let them thrive and and not just survive, but thrive?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, as much as I'm guiding them, I think, you know, sadly, built into the job of being a parent is obsolescence.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: You you are required to fade into the background.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is the saddest job description in the world.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna continually worry and love about them.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna give you so much love that you didn't know existed in the world in your body, and you must raise them, if you do it well, to walk out the door and shut the door behind them one day.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got to somehow fade into the distances.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wait, I don't know, I still want to be here.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't have to be able to do that.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that good at that.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: I hear you.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an empty nester now, my wife and I.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so my daughter's at university, one of them's just graduated, they're very passionate, they're very, they're really actively engaged in what's happening in their world.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh we have these very big discussions, sometimes it goes into arguments, but I I'd love the passion, uh, the the righteousness, they've got every ang every reason to be angry with the mess of the world right now.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the interesting thing is is the conversation.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can have these really incredible conversations, and as they're getting a bit older, they're meeting this the edge of the world, the ambiguity between idealism, where you are at college and you're in this tiny bubble, and then the harshness of real real life, but also the beauty.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess they've been lucky, they've seen their dad do a really unusual job, okay?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they've seen all these different versions of me.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the hardest one for me to share with my dad with my kids really is because I've always loved being the funny dad, okay, and making my daughters laugh.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's still how we bond about music and comedy.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the really, the most important version of me they needed to see was the undefended one.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I told them about the the first time about how almost quit doing this job they've known I've done since they were born, which was was was live radio and about panic attacks.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: That that deepened my relationship with my daughters far more than being funny.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Way, way more.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that when you know they both have any any daughters will go through their teenagers and that don't forget they moved the other side of the world.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about struggles and anxiety and things like that, you don't know they can come to their dad, or if I'm talking about it, I'm not talking about it as some superhuman, some fake version of a dad, which it they know isn't true anyway, that I've been through my own version of it, and so I've got a greater empathy for it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they have for oh my god, dad had panic attacks.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: He still did just he still managed a way to get back on the radio in the end, and so I think they've seen me mature and change how I do.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even having a book out like this, I would give them chapters of it, and uh, I remember one chapter about vulnerability.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I was just about to use that word.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's so I was just it was at the tip of my tongue, vulnerability.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: They were quiet, and I was really worried, oh my god, it must be terrible.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: They've literally got no reaction, and then afterwards they went, they were just surprised that it was so good.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: They went, This is like a sort of thing a professor would write once then.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: I went, okay.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then my youngest daughter, Lois, she goes, Yeah, I mean, it's actually it's actually shocking how wise you are.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then she goes, sorry, I mean, I mean, you of course you should be wise.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're you know, you're 53.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I went, it's okay, there's no no offense taking.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know what you mean.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Based on what you've seen so far from your dad, this is this is quite a bit of a leap.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just meant that they could, they're seeing it, they're still seeing a different version of me who can blend being a romantic in quite a brutal world, and yeah, it is a brutal world, and we must remind ourselves every single day it's also full of beauty and wonder, and there are way more good, beautiful people doing great things and just waiting to be spoken to by you as well.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, aren't they lucky to have you as a dad?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's well, I don't know about that.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: I really can we agree situational.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: As a parent of three, um I totally yeah, I get it totally.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard, but it's actually what you have pointed out is really important because the vulnerability actually empowers your relationship with them.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make you it actually makes it better.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: But gee, it's hard sometimes to expose your own vulnerability.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's really scary because you don't know how they're going to take it, but actually it makes them feel okay to do that too and to be vulnerable.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: But on that beautiful note, I just want to say I I really have enjoyed this interview with you and me too.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Your your book is really very important for people to get out and buy and read because the more voices in this uh genre and framework, the better.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because we need it, we need to stay real, authentic, and organic.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is the biggest invitation of our lives right now as we try and work out what's real and what's AI.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what's real is being more real, being more flawed, being deeply human.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's what's that's why I call my book unscript, you know, the radical act of being yourself.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you can do more than any algorithm will ever do, is show up more real, show more of your messiness.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we find each other in, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's not perfection.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that's so important.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: I love that, and it's certainly a very important message because there's too much on socials that implies that everything is perfect and it just is not, as we know.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, on that note, thank you so much for joining us.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for showing up how you do as well.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I really appreciate it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck with the book.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're gonna be in it.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um stop it.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Stop it.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing my kids right now, kids.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd just like to thank you so much for your time and um pleasure.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for joining us on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed that interview because we are so privileged to have a wonderful platform where guests come on and share lessons learned, rivers crossed, mountains climbed.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: We love our shared humanity, and we are so grateful to have such a beautiful community.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: So remember to stay curious, kind, and connected, and we'll see you next time at the What I Plant Podcast.