Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase that means "horrible year". It’s the antithesis of annus mirabilis which 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 see the back of.

As this episode goes to air, Mads shares what this past year has been like for her, marred by deep grief and a few mortality jolts that have brought into sharp focus what really matters. 

Mads doesn’t count her experience as unique because this is just ordinary human life, of course, playing out as it ever has with its wonders and horrors in chorus. 

But it is true that for most of us, by the time you’ve clocked up a few decades of living, you’ll likely have had a front row seat to witnessing some people you deeply love die, dement, disappear or divorce.

How you choose to walk through those human hardships is the only choice you will ultimately have because life will continue to throw curveballs, which means you will need to deliberately choose - again and again - where you will focus your energy, who you will spend your precious time with and who you will need to let go.

Sarah Grynberg knows this walk well because she’s had to make some pretty hard personal choices recently to let a few old friends and habits go so she can create more space for serendipity in her life.

This has partly been prompted by what Sarah has learned in her professional life, as an internationally acclaimed mindset coach and speaker, and the host of A Life of Greatness podcast which to date has had millions of downloads.

On her podcast, Sarah interviews some of the world's greatest thought-leaders, sporting legends, famous entertainers and best-selling authors as they explain how they have overcome challenges, conquered self-limiting beliefs and unearthed what it means to achieve greatness in their own lives.

Of course, what a life of greatness looks like is very different for each of us. But as Sarah walks us through her own difficult journey to now, we hope you can all take a little tonic of greatness from this conversation. Enjoy.

Guest: Sarah Grynberg, Host of A Life of Greatness Podcast and internationally acclaimed Mindset Coach and Speaker
Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet)
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

*****
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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 - physics, philosophy and theology.

Stan says since the Voice to Parliament Referendum he’s been taking time to take stock, that he’s done too much time plucking the wings off butterflies - and that right now he’d rather write beauty into the world.

So he’s been working on a new book that is a meditation on time, on God, on the temporal nature of our being and on the complex state of our modern world.

There is plenty for Stan to sit with and sort through right now.

As a journalist and correspondent who covered war for 40 years, he's seen the worst of what we can do to each other but he has also seen love endure in the most Godforsaken of places. So he knows first-hand the paradoxical contradictions of what it means to be a human in a world like ours.

Stan believes it's essential we all have something bigger than ourselves to believe in because if the human being is the limit, then we will only see the limits of the human.

And in a world so often consumed by the chaos of modernity, ongoing conflicts and the binaries of identity, Stan Grant is keenly focussed these days on kindling what we share rather than what divides us for, as Franz Kafka said, identity is a cage in search of a bird.

I'd love you to listen to this episode of Human Cogs podcast as we journey with Stan through his rivers and eddies of thought, where philosophy, theology and the mystical realm converge to offer a deeper understanding of Stan Grant the mortal, what might lie beyond this life, and how we humans can all - somehow - someday - find our place in the untold cosmos.

Guest: Stan Grant, Award-winning Journalist, Author, Writer, Poet and Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.
Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet)
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

*****
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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 attended countless retreats in Australia and overseas, and every time I have made one or two changes that have catalysed bigger shifts in my life. I believe we need to update our beliefs that retreats are somewhere “broken” people go, and replace them with the idea that retreats provide an environment with all the ideal ingredients that help set us up for tuning into our own innate sense of knowing and wisdom that have the potential to invite us back to a sense of wholeness, rest and repair – emotionally, physically, psychologically and mentally.

In 2023, I spent six life changing days at Aro Hā Health Retreat in the glorious New Zealand mountains near Queenstown. In this episode, we are joined by Aro Hā’s co-founder and glorious human, Damian Chaparro. He shares the philosophy embedded in the program at Aro Hā as well as what a typical week looks like for guests. Damian shares his own younger year experiences of working tirelessly in an IT job with all the financial trappings, and too much alcohol, minus the meaning and fulfillment. And how as a life-long learner he continues to find ways to acknowledge all the parts that show up in him and how he has learned to listen to self and others with curiosity and acceptance.

We discuss the benefits of fasting, movement, nature and stillness, and what gets in the way of creating sustainable behaviour changes that we desire, yet so often sabotage. Damian also reveals some entertaining and heartfelt stories of connecting with his 80 year old mum after they both shared the plant-based psychedelic, ayahuasca (not at Aro Hā by the way!)

If you’re curious about dialling up wellbeing, or are wondering what a health retreat might be like for you, or if your body, mind and soul is looking for a reset, then this conversation is for you. I deeply believe the world would be a better place if we all had the opportunity to experience the magic of Aro Hā.  Here’s my chat with Damian.

Website: Aro Ha
Links: Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, 

Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina Read
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

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Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.
www.humancogs.com

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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 over 45 are in fact - men. Yep. NINETY per cent.

Why is that? What’s going on? And how does this skew attitudes and perpetuate gendered inequality in society?

Well our guest today, Jo Stanley, asked herself those questions for years, and is now on a mission to change the stats with the launch of Broad Radio - Australia's first women-centric radio network - connecting women through audio and serving the mostly overlooked five million-strong female audience aged over 35.

Jo Stanley is, of course, no stranger to audio - with a decades-long successful career in breakfast radio including rating number one for six years on Melbourne’s Fox FM, and dominating the top spot at Gold FM alongside her ongoing TV, writing and podcast gigs.

Despite being in the public spotlight and sharing her life with millions of listeners every day, in this conversation Jo shares how the lack of levity in her childhood shaped her, the challenges of living with fear, and how the birth of her daughter taught her what being enough really means. 

Click here to listen to Broad Radio

Guest: Jo Stanley
Links: Facebook, Instagram

Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina Read
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

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Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.
www.humancogs.com

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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 the untold secrets and human essence of things.

Journalist Corrie Perkin was born with stories in her blood. Her father, Graham Perkin - the famed journalist and editor of The Age newspaper - was a story that unfolded before her larger than life, as she grew up on a diet of breaking news, of ink and print, and the daily happenings of the world at large playing out in fervoured conversations at her kitchen table.

But her father’s tragic death when she was aged just 14, set Corrie’s story on a different arc, and changed her life in ways that today are still unfurling. 

In this conversation we talk about grief, how we each make sense of our lived stories, about Corrie’s decades working as a respected journalist, storyteller and champion of novelists and books, and mostly, about why in an increasingly fractured and distracted world, our words really do matter.

Guest: Corrie Perkin, Journalist, Podcaster and Director of the Sorrento Writers Festival
Sorrento Writers Festival: https://sorrentowritersfestival.com.au/
Book tickets: https://sorrentowritersfestival.com.au/artfuel/program
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorrentowritersfestival
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sorrento-writers-festival/
Host: Mads Grummet
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

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www.humancogs.com

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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 compassionate and wise Dr Meg Jay, a developmental clinical psychologist, who is on faculty at the University of Virginia and maintains a private practice in Charlottesville where she specializes in twentysomethings.

Her first book, The Defining Decade, has sold more than half a million copies, launched one of the most-watched TED talks to date, and is the topic of 13.7 million views on TikTok.

Meg has just released her third book, The Twentysomething Treatment: A revolutionary remedy for an uncertain age, which upends the pathologizing of young adult life and offers practical skills and hope as she normalises the hurdles faced by young people, to help navigate this important time of life.

Meg shares with us why the 20s isn’t a developmental downtime to be pushed to the side, but rather a transformative time that paves the way for decades to come. She shares how small tweaks in our 20s can metamorphosis our careers, mental health, and relationships for the rest of our life.

We also discuss Meg’s fascinating second book, Supernormal: the secret world of the family hero, which details stories of people who have faced adversity in the form of death, divorce, mental illness in a family member, abuse or bullying and who go on to thrive. We deep dive the impact of keeping family pain in the shadows and the power of sharing secrets to help us grow and develop in healthy ways despite the family dynamics we grew up in or the hardships we endured.

Meg’s warmth, insights, knowledge and watertight evidence-based research invite us to rethink our 20s, and understand that this decade won’t be the best years of our life. In fact, she states if your 20s are the best years of your life, something has gone terribly wrong! This is a not to be missed conversation for any parent and any 20 something.

Guest: Dr Meg Jay
Latest book: The Twentysomething Treatment: A revolutionary remedy for an uncertain age
Links: Instagram, LinkedIn,TikTok, X, Threads
Host: Sabina Read
Producer: Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

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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 conversation, action and policy change for survivor-victims of sexual abuse across Australia. 

Finally, this was a chance for Grace Tame to find - and use - her voice, after years of shadows and silence.

"Let's make some noise Australia" was her catch cry.

In this honest and at times confronting conversation, Grace shares with us the findings of a new Australian study - the largest of it’s kind in the world - that validates what victim-survivors have been saying for years; that child sexual abuse is a public health issue and the current statistics are shocking.

Child sexual abuse is widespread in this country. According to the study, one in six (15.1%) Australian men report sexual feelings towards children and one in ten (9.4%) Australian men have sexually offended against children. 

Grace calls for policy change and accountability for the big tech giants who continue to allow online access to child sexual abuse material on their sites, and for intensive education so grooming is implicitly understood by children, parents and bystanders - which means all of us. 

Like every human on earth, Grace is a work in progress, and is still coming to terms with her experiences of instability, uncertainty and trauma. But she is powerfully reclaiming her narrative by ceding control as an adult in charge of the story of her life. And in Grace’s words: “Peace is not freedom from pain; it is the acceptance of it.” 

WARNING: This episode is about child sexual abuse, and may be disturbing to some listeners. Please use discretion when considering listening to this episode, and if you do need support please contact Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14 or 1800 RESPECT.

Guest: Grace Tame
Book: The Ninth Life Of A Diamond Miner
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamepunk/
Grace Tame Foundation: https://www.instagram.com/gracetamefoundation/

Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina Read
Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
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www.humancogs.com

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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 now.

The book is an epic story and sweeping scientific exploration that starts with mammals 200 million years ago and moves forward through time, to fundamentally challenge the real origin of our mammalian species. In fact, in this book, Cat Bohannon completely rethinks human history, and offers a necessary myth-busting, landmark corrective about how humans have really evolved.

It took Cat 10 years to write this book: it is exhaustively researched but beautifully readable, and is densely packed with astonishing facts and revelations about how the female body came to be, why the size of male balls influences monogamy, why wet nurses in ancient cities catalyzed explosive population growth, and why modern medicine needs to stop the default to the male as the norm.

This conversation touches on all of that, and much much more, and it will completely change what you think you know about human evolution, the design wonders of the female body plan, and why Homo Sapiens have become a dominant species on our pale blue planet.

A warning that we talk about vaginas and sex and balls and swear in this episode, and also that you’ll need to strap on your big brain for this listen, and get ready to learn a lot, because this conversation will literally blow your mammalian mind.

Guest: Cat Bohannon
Book: Eve: How the female body drove 200 million years of evolution

Host: Mads Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
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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 creative, and had me rollicking on the floor with laughter when we first met two years ago. Her warm, funny and relatable 2022 memoir Currently Between Husbands tells the story of her marriage and separation to Andrew as well the relationship insights gleaned before and after her relationship with Andrew.

As a self-confessed over-sharer, not much is off the table.  In this conversation, Cath reflects how being a people pleaser has helped and hindered her personally and professionally. How being separated and divorced is both challenging and also freeing.

She also shares some of the top tips she has gleaned from interviewing over 150 guests on her fabulous podcast So I Quit My Day Job, where she talks with career changes and how they made the leap.

Cath reminds us that being yourself and being at ease in your own skin is the best roadmap to follow. She also acknowledges that this is hard when we are drawn off course by the needs and expectations of others; and perhaps fear of judgement or failure too.

She’s Currently Between Husbands, and yet she’s so much more than that… here’s my chat with always delightful and witty Cath.

Guest: Cathrine Mahoney
Book: Currently Between Husbands
Follow: Instagram, Podcasts

Host: Mads Grummet + Sabina Read
Producer: Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

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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 little faith in the world ... wonder if humanity will be ok, whether we can actually save ourselves from ourselves.

Until you remember that there are stories of hope and love and life and survival everywhere, if you make the time to seek them out.

Today’s episode is a story that will restore your faith, and fill your cup.

It’s the unforgettable story of Mira Unreich, who one fine Spring day in 1945, was freed from a concentration camp in Germany, and found herself alive, under blue skies, against all odds. She’d survived four death camps, including Auschwitz, and a death march. 

And in the decades that followed her release, she never explained the mystery underpinning her extraordinary survival, and why the holocaust’s greatest lesson for her - despite unimaginable horror - was experiencing the innate "goodness of people".

When Mira’s journalist daughter, Rachelle Unreich, many decades later, realised time was running out for her mother who was in her final weeks of terminal cancer, she decided to sit down and finally ask her some questions. 

It would be the most important interview of her life: a chance to discover the secret to her mother’s boundless optimism, the sliding doors of fate and chance, how love and grief can run as deep as the years, and how the past and present weave a powerful and indelible connection between a mother and child, even when they’re gone.

Heartfelt thanks to Rachelle - and of course to Mira - for sharing this remarkable story.

We hope this episode leaves you all feeling a little better about the world right now. 

Guest: Rachelle Unreich
Book: A Brilliant Life: My Mother's Inspiring Story of Surviving the Holocaust

Host: Mads Grummet + Sabina Read
Producer: Daryl Missen

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :)

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
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