Shipra left home at 18 to find her feet. She studied law for five years, walked into the courts, looked around, and thought: this isn't for me. So she pivoted into call centers. Night shifts. Graveyard hours, leaving post-it notes on the fridge for her husband because that's the only way they saw each other some days.

Then Nokia came knocking. Literally. Someone rang the doorbell, handed an envelope to her husband, and she opened it in the kitchen and couldn't speak.

That job took her to Australia to benchmark Nokia service centers. She didn't think much of it at the time.

Years later, two kids, the move to US with her husband, moving back to India, the decision to move to Adelaide to rebuild her career and also finding herself questioning that, a national water industry award in Australia, and a regulation role that lists a law degree as a prerequisite. Her kids call it "the lawyer in her."

We talk about what it actually costs and means to keep starting over. About the priorities in life. About the years she couldn't get a single interview in India because she'd taken time off for family. About her dad, who used to go out at midnight with blankets for strangers, and what that does to a kid who's watching.

And about what she means when she says she's just trying to find herself back now that the boys are grown.

There's lot we uncover in this fresh new episode and is a must watch for anyone contemplating on taking calculated risks in life, getting frustrated to start over in a new country, taking decisions for family. Very inspirational talk.

MJ has been a florist for more than a decade. She taught herself, trained under florists in Sydney and the US, and built MJ Floral and Events out of her home before opening a shop. Three months later, COVID shut it. She rebuilt the whole business around artificial florals and became one of the first people in Adelaide doing it.

Then she had her son, and it stopped.

MJ talks about going from two or three weddings a weekend to a house that was quiet and lonely. About working until 38 weeks pregnant because that was all she knew. About postnatal anxiety and depression, pushing people away, and walking down the street watching other mums laugh with their babies and wondering why she couldn't feel it.

She also tells the story of the wedding where the wind flattened every centrepiece two hours before the reveal, on a public holiday weekend, with every shop shut.

The person behind the profession. That's the whole show.

If any of this sounds like where you are, PANDA runs Australia's national perinatal mental health helpline. 1300 726 306, weekdays 9am to 7:30pm, weekends and public holidays 9am to 4pm. You dont need to suffer alone.

San Arora runs Onyx Realtors in Adelaide. Before that he was a kid in a joint family in Delhi who fell into a computer science degree, took the campus placement, and spent four years in a job he had no reason to be in.

He found interest in real estate and studied that and did it at the top end of the Delhi market, leasing to embassies and expats. One property he rented out went for AUD 18,000 a month. Then he walked away from it, moved to Adelaide in 2014, and started again as a student.

He founded his own real estate agency 'Onyx Realtors' on the 9th of March 2019, working out of a corrugated iron garage at the end of a driveway with a $45 Kmart heater under his chair to keep his feet off the cold concrete. COVID showed up the year after.

We talk about 12 hour Saturdays, why he thinks work-life balance isn't a real thing, what Jim Rohn's voice did to him on a 5am run in the dark, and the elderly couple across the road who took him in as their son and gave him the name he goes by now. He lost them three years ago.

And the line on his office wall that he runs his whole business on: FOCUS - Follow One Course Until Successful.

I'm Sabika Jasmine, and this is Human After All, the show where we pull back the title and find the person underneath.

New episodes every two weeks.

Note - bear with us for the first 6 mins of the video as the audio cannot get any betterSaman Attarian left Iran, rebuilt his life in Adelaide, and somewhere along the way moved from engineering systems to something far harder — understanding himself. He's an organisational coach, an inner development researcher, and the author of Self 2.0. But before any of that, he was someone standing in a new country, not quite sure who he was becoming. In this episode we talk about what it actually takes to start over. The inner cast of characters shaped by childhood and culture. The moment he realised he wanted to help people, not just manage processes. And what his book is really about — that the restlessness you feel when life shifts isn't a sign something is wrong. It's a signal. This one is personal for me. Saman is my coach. Sitting across from him and asking these questions felt different to every other episode I've recorded. I think you'll feel that too.

Book - https://www.amazon.com.au/SELF-2-0-CATCH-YOUR-FUTURE/dp/1764427602

Inner Development platform - https://innerdevelopment.au/

Thirty years as a police officer, emergency management, risk assessment, training the next generation of officers. But the line that stopped me mid-conversation wasn't about any of that.

He carries a belief most people wouldn't expect from someone in his job. One officer, one interaction, can change how someone's day goes.

This week, I sit down with a police officer to talk about listening versus hearing, the assumptions people make before he says a word, and where his mindset actually comes from.

This one's for anyone who wants to see the human side behind a job like his. And for the officers out there doing the same work, doing it the same way, who could use a reminder of why they started.

"Your baby has died." Four words that changed my life forever.

In this deeply personal episode, I share the story of my daughter, Amayah, who was stillborn just days before we were preparing to welcome her into the world.

Joining me is my grief counsellor, Jay, whose support has been an important part of my healing journey. Together, we have an open and honest conversation about stillbirth, pregnancy loss, grief, and what it means to keep living after unimaginable loss.

We explore:

• My personal experience of stillbirth and the days that followed

• Why pregnancy loss and stillbirth are still surrounded by silence and stigma

• The many ways grief can show up, and why there is no "right" way to grieve

• How loss can affect relationships, marriage, and family dynamics

• Navigating cultural expectations while honouring your own healing

• Ways to honour a baby whose life was brief but deeply loved

• The importance of trusting your instincts during pregnancy and advocating for yourself

• Practical insights for anyone supporting someone through child loss

• How grief counsellors care for themselves while holding space for others

This conversation is for parents who have experienced pregnancy loss, for families and friends wanting to better understand grief, for expectant parents, and for anyone who believes that difficult conversations deserve compassion rather than silence.

If this episode helps even one person feel less alone, then sharing Amayah's story has been worthwhile.

Content warning: This episode discusses stillbirth, pregnancy loss, infant death, grief, and bereavement. Please listen with care and take the time you need.

If this conversation resonates with you, I'd love for you to follow the podcast, leave a review, or share this episode with someone who may need it. Together, we can help break the silence around pregnancy loss and remind those grieving that they are not alone.

Some resources to help you or someone you love -

RedTree Foundation - the one that helped me - Pregnancy & Child Loss Support https://www.redtreefoundation.org.au

Stillbirth Foundation - https://stillbirthfoundation.org.au/help-and-support/stillbirth-support-services/

Red Nose Australia - https://rednose.org.au/grief-and-loss-support/overview/

Still Aware - https://www.stillaware.org/

SA health Stillbirth - https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/conditions/stillbirth

Red Nose Grief and Loss Support Line at 1300 308 307 (available 24/7)

SA Health Stillbirth support line - 13 14 65 (available 24/7)

Sands National Support Line at 1300 072 637for dedicated pregnancy and infant loss support.

The episode was recorded at ABC Radio Adelaide.

The editing and production by Troy Sincock. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/troy-sincock/101853710

This is Human After All.

Every episode, I sit down with someone whose profession puts them right in the middle of life's hardest moments. And I ask the questions that usually get skipped.

What brought them here. What it costs them. What they wish people actually understood.

Episode 1 drops Wednesday 15th July.

I'm Sabika Jasmine. Follow the show so you don't miss it.