Better Than Yesterday with Osher Günsberg

Luke Heggie is a comedian from Sydney Australia. I’ve known Luke since we were eight and growing up with him and watching his career flourish has been one of the true pleasures of my life. 

One new year’s day he decided he’d give stand up comedy a go. Less than a month later he’d won his heat in JJJ’s high-profile national Raw Comedy competition, and soon after that had won the whole thing. 

Since then he’s worked tirelessly to hone his writing, his delivery and his work. 

He regularly tours internationally and is launching into his new show for 2018 “Tiprat” at the MICF. 

You can get tickets to the shows lukeheggie.com, and look out for shows in Sydney and Perth too. 

When you do go to his show, have a listen out to the intro voice over guy. 

He’s pretty good I reckon. 

Talking with Luke is always wonderful, and usually it takes place on the back of small folding bicycles as he and I ride around the south eastern suburbs of Sydney looking for a cafe to play some scrabble in, yet today you’re able to hear one of these chats and I couldn’t be more happy about it. 

Luke regularly gets 4 & 5 star reviews, and I would encourage you to go and see why. 

The thing about talking to comedians is that the conversations sometimes aren’t 100% funny from front to back - that’s because the things that they say on stage are meticulously crafted to be a precise delivery of thoughts and ideas to make you react in a certain way. This is more a chance for you to get to know what makes up the man that is selling out shows from coast to coast, and rightly so. 

Please enjoy this conversation with Luke Heggie.

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My guest today is Michael Cassel.  

He’s an internationally acclaimed theatre producer - when you see Lion King or “Beautiful” the Carole King musical - he’s the man who put everyone together in the same place to make the show happen.  

Hundreds of people didn’t suddenly decide to learn the same songs and dance routines and turn up in a theatre to perform them in synchronicity with thousands of people deciding to sit in that theatre - he’s the man that makes those moments happen.  

And he’s been making those moments happen since he was fifteen years old.  

Even if musical theatre is the furthest thing from fun in your mind, Michael’s Story of how he just saw what he wanted to do and went after it with a relentless passion is the stuff I love to soak up.  

I need to hear stories like his, to get reminded of how success can work. To be reminded of how focus can work.  

Now you and I might not be aiming to put on the most ambitious musical productions of our time - we might be just hoping to lose a few kilos, feed ourselves and our family a little healthier, or maybe get a little further ahead at work - regardless of your goal - hearing Michael’s story will put the fire under your feet to get focused on what you want in life, and you might even do it with a song & dance routine to make it a moment.  

Michael’s current production “Beautiful: Carole King Musical” is playing in Melbourne until at least June, you can get tickets at beautifulmusical.com.au  

As Michael describes, it’s nothing but hits.  

Enjoy this chat with Michael Cassel.  

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Today’s show is with Dr Elise Bailylew, founder of Mindful in May and you can find out about her work at Mindfulinmay.org (https://www.mindfulinmay.org) 

It’s no mistake that Dr Bailylew is on the show today, as you know I’ve been trying to work a mindfulness-based meditation practice into my day as a way to help me deal with life now I’m off meds. It is certainly not enough in itself, but it’s one of the things that I use to help my brain work things out. 

I wanted to get Dr Bailylew on to maybe help you understand a bit more about why mindfulness works and the science behind it.  

And I should state my position pretty clearly here - I’ve done my time with people who are called “healers”. I’ve shown up to a granny flat out the back of a house near Byron Bay and made my way through the wind chimes to have someone lay hands on me while I inhale plumes of patchouli. 

While that may have been ok for me in the past - now I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through, now I’ve had the experience through psychosis of having my ability to perceive reality correctly dissolve into a shimmering mess around me - nowadays I can’t just go with faith and placebo. That might have worked for me in the past - but now for the most part, I need to know that what I’m doing is backed by research. 

And for me, Mindfulness Meditation has enough scientific clout behind it to warrant me using it as one of the tools that I have when it comes to living with the brain I’ve got. 

It’s important to tell you that for a long time I wasn’t well enough for this meditation to help, or even work. 

It was only after being on meds for a long time that my brain healed enough so that now I’m able to start to train my brain to use these techniques.  

It’s hard work, not unlike training a puppy - but I am making progress.  

When I was really sick - meditation didn’t make things better for me, in fact they made things worse because then I’d be trapped in this rumination spiral in a state of consciousness that I’d deliberately put myself into. 

It was not ok. 

So let me underline that - don’t just stop taking your meds and download an app and think you’ll be right. 

You won’t. 

Everything I do that I tell you about it something that I’ve talked with my doctors about first, and that’s what I must insist on. I am no better at treating my own mental health as I am fixing a mechanical fault with my car. I know nothing about psychology or psychiatry - so I leave those decisions to the people who have studied and practised for years. 

Like I’ve said before - trying to make a decision about how you’re thinking using the thinking you’re thinking with is like trying to bite your own teeth. 

Clear? Clear. 

Ok. 

If you want to find out more about Dr Elise Bailylew and the work she’s doing, Mindfulinmay.org is the website. 

She’s a great human with a great story and she’s really helping a lot of people doing what she’s doing. 

I hope you enjoy the show.

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Geoff Wilson is a noted figure in the Australian Finance industry, he’s the founder and chairman of Wilson Asset Management. In the last year Geoff was named an officer in the general division of the Order of Australia for services to the business and finance sector, professional financial bodies and the community as a supporter of charitable foundations. 

I never grew up knowing anything about finance, the stock market, investment - it just wasn’t around me. It was only later in life that I started to meet people who actually knew what all the little numbers and charts in the stock exchange mean. It was only later still that I started to realise that these were jobs that people had, that they worked their way up to, that they could make careers out of. 

And Geoff is one of those people. 

I wanted to talk to him because I was fascinated by not only his career path and how a life in the finance world can build into an incredible career - but also because of how he and I met. 

Geoff is the founder of a number of managed funds - we will get into the terminology in the chat - but two of the funds particularly, Future Generations and Future Generations Global, are ways for investors to not only see a return but also give back to the community. 

As Geoff explains - the way fund managers get paid is usually a percentage of the fund and a performance bonus. 

So Geoff created the Future Generation Investment company and the Future Generation Global Investment Company model as a way for the funds management and finance industry to make a significant and ongoing impact to the community. 

How it works is that The Future Generation fund managers do not charge management or performance fees, allowing the companies to donate 1% of assets to the supported charities each year. 

What that does is provide an ongoing source of funding for Australian charities, with a focus on children at risk (Future Generation Investment Company supports 14 charities) and youth mental health (Future Generation Global supports 8 charities including SANE Australia, which is where I met Geoff). 

Listening to Geoff’s story and how he built a career in an industry that I knew little about was fascinating to me. But then hearing how he was affected by time spent working as a Lifeline counsellor - that was truly the most incredible part of this conversation. 

He’s clearly a very successful man, he’s worked very hard to get where he is today - and yet he still found time on a weekday morning at 9am to come over to my apartment to talk about his career, his work, and why he does what he does.

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Tess Haubrich is an Australian Actor who you can find on instagram @tesshaubrich (https://www.instagram.com/tesshaubrich). 

She's currently starring in Wolf Creek 2, available on demand on Stan in Australia - she’s also in the Ridley Scott film Alien Covenant and kicking ass and taking names in the Jackie Chan film Bleeding Steel. 

She’s an absolute badass and proved this by showing up at the apartment with her 2yr old when the sitter didn’t eventuate. 

So, through this show you’ll hear the occasional interruptions of Tess’ kid who was a delight to have around - and you’ll probably hear a few sounds of parenting that occur as she effortlessly kept her child occupied while she and I talked. 

It would have been easy for Tess to cancel the chat - but she didn’t. 

She came around and we had a great chat and I can’t thank her enough for that. It speaks volumes to the kind of person that she is, and I can’t wait for you to get to know her.

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Sandra Sully is Australian Journalism Royalty.  

She’s the Senior News Editor for Network Ten News and has been the Anchor of their afternoon bulletin for more than a decade.  

She's on Twitter @sandra_sully (https://twitter.com/Sandra_Sully).  

Sandra is an astonishingly focused person, her dedication and drive to do great work is undeniable as you’ll hear in this conversation.  

In a time when news of varying reliability is coming at us from every angle ten times a minute through our phones, the role of a legitimate and well-resourced news anchor is in my opinion has never more important. And that’s where Sandra comes in.  

De-legitimzing news sources is a tool that politics has used for decades - and in these times of Fake News being thrown about any time there’s a critique of policy, it’s never been more important to have staunch and solid news sources.  

That means -​​ not Facebook.  

So - without any delay, come to the boardroom at Network Ten in Sydney across from the fish markets to have a chat with the incredibly powerful person that is Sandra Sully.

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Beverley Mirolo OAM is the chairman of the Leukaemia Foundation Australia and she’s participating this year in the world’s greatest shave.  

Bev’s got an incredible story - she grew up in country Queensland, trained as a nurse from the age of sixteen and is still a RN now in her 70s.  

Through her work she had first-hand exposure to the challenges faced by people living with blood cancers. She started working at the Royal Brisbane Hospital in 1980 where she played a major role in the planning and development of the Leukaemia Foundation Bone Marrow Transplant Unit there.  

Beverley has dedicated her life to helping and caring for people living with these diseases, elevating through her career to be the CEO Haematology Oncology Clinics of Australasia before she retired. And then in a strange twist - was diagnosed with a blood cancer herself.  

Her story is incredibly moving, and I hope it moves you do support her doing the 20th anniversary of the World’s Greatest Shave - you can support her http://osh.is/worldsgreatestshave  

I hope you enjoy this conversation with the wonderful Beverly Mirolo.

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Yumi Stynes is a Radio & TV Presenter, Podcaster, Photographer and writer from Sydney, Australia. You can find her on twitter and instagram @yumichild.  

She and I have known each other for 18 years now, and I get a bit teary at the end of this one when I start telling her how happy I am that she’s still in my life.  

Yumi and I got together at the house where she lives with her wonderful family, to talk about her new book.  

Look, there’s a lot of swearing in this episode - but we’re all grownups, and my download stats show me that you’re probably listening to this alone, with headphones. So no-one need to know why you’re giggling when she uses the C-word.  

So now you’ve been warned, let’s talk about Yumi’s new book. It’s called  

Zero Fucks Cooking.  

Best Food, Least Effort.  

Anyone that heard Yumi’s brilliant podcast “Ladies We Need To Talk” will know that Yumi is a powerhouse when it comes to keeping her family running.  

And anyone that knows her knows that she lives a life of Zero Fucks. The cookbook is wonderful. And for me, it’s just the front door into how this incredible woman has created a life that is full of joy, laughter, children, happiness and a career to be proud of.  

Yumi’s book is out on March 1st, buy it where you buy books.  

If you’ve never bought a cookbook - this book is for you.  

If you are intimidated by TV cooking and think you can’t do that so I won’t even try? This book is for you.  

If you’d like to live a life where you give zero fucks?  

Get on board.  

So, throw a Zucchini on the barbie and enjoy a glorious hour around the dinner table in the home of Yumi Stynes.

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Lucy Durack is a singer and actress from Australia who came to prominence as Glinda the good witch in the Australian production of Wicked. Lucy's method for creating the life she desired is astonishing.  

You can follow Lucy on Twitter @lucydurack (https://twitter.com/lucydurack)  

Her story of how she manifested her dream role, how she stayed ready for when the opportunity came her way - is incredibly inspiring.  

I can't wait for you to hear this.  

You can see Lucy perform in Wizard Of Oz, which just wrapped its run in Sydney but is heading to Adelaide and Melbourne in the coming months.  

I won't lie - there's some nerdy musical theatre stuff on the way, but that's ok. I'll not apologise for loving musicals. I feel they're a wonderful form of storytelling that transcend the generations.  

​So take a big breath in, let a big breath out - and prepare to bask in the glow of the radiant energy of the fabulous Lucy Durack.

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Hilary Innes is an Executive Producer at Network Ten, and she oversees the shows that I work on, including Bachelor, Bachelorette and the soon to be seen Bachelor in Paradise.  

Hilary is a legend of the Australian TV industry, and we talk all about her time working closely with Ray Martin during the heady days of the Midday Show on 9 - and yes, the famous Normie Rowe/Ron Casey punch-out segment was one she produced and she tells the whole story in this conversation.  

Hilary went on to be the Head of Entertainment at Nine, and from there left the network to become Head of Entertainment at ITV studios Australia, a production company that makes such massive shows as I’m a Celebrity, and The Voice - so she went from making a bunch of huge shows from different production companies to making a bunch of huge shows for different networks.   

Coming back into the broadcast side of things, Hilary is now an Executive Producer at Network Ten - where she oversees and steers from the Network side of things various shows in their line up, including the ones I work on.  

Full disclosure, I adore working with Hilary and you can tell that as we speak.   

She has such an incredible depth of knowledge and experience and her career is truly remarkable both in the legacy of the shows she’s made and the time she’s been a major influence in Australian Television. Hilary also has a magnificent sense of style, and my team I work with on Bachelor are always commenting about how incredible her jacket is, or my goodness look at that scarf. She’s brilliant.  

When we recorded this we’d just wrapped up Bachelor in Paradise, so she and I do talk about that a bit, and as you can tell - we’re both very excited by it.  

There is another side to Hilary which I am very grateful she opened up about. At the same time as having a career that anyone would envy, at home Hilary is dealing with her partner of over 20yrs slowly succumbing to Multi-System Atrophy, a degenerative neurological disease that is fatal and has no cure.    Listening to the way Hilary talks about their relationship, even in the face of this extraordinary challenge, will move you beyond measure. I’m so grateful Hilary came to my apartment back in December so that we could talk.  

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