Human Cogs Podcast

On an ordinary day in August 2018, Craig Hopper woke up living the dream, got ready for the day, kissed his three kids goodbye and went off to work.

Meanwhile, his wife dropped their youngest at school and set off as a fit 46-year-old on her regular morning run. 

What happened next changed their lives forever. Craig’s wife suffered a massive heart attack and was found by a passing cyclist unresponsive, unconscious and without a pulse.

It took 24 hours to get her heart started again, 10 days in a coma, 7 operations and 10 weeks in hospital before she was finally able to return home to the family, with a brain injury.

While this is her story, it is also the story of how Craig as her partner became an instant carer to four dependents, adjusted to this complex new normal, and is still finding a way to navigate the difficult journey through hope to grief and beyond

In this episode, Craig shares his insights on the healing magic of talking and the unexpected power of asking for help.

Guest: Craig Hopper
Website: Brave New Blokes
Socials: LinkedIn

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rachael Neumann is an uber impressive high flyer who has experienced countless successes around the globe in the ever-changing and complex worlds of venture capital investment and business. But business wasn’t the focus of our fabulous and high-octane chat. 

Instead of deep diving into her latest hot startup deal, Rachael shared some of the formative experiences that have shaped the inner narrative which has fuelled her fierce drive and ambition based on growth and acquisition, which has often come at the cost of her being able to experience fun, levity and real joy.

Rachel also shares the painful story of her brother’s sudden death aged just 21, which she internalised and has over time prevented her recognising and prioritising her own suffering, hurts and emotional wounds. 

There is so much in this conversation that we can all learn from, but at it’s very core, it’s a powerful toolkit of advice for everyone about how to give yourself permission, time and space to be who you are, and not continue to be complicit in the conditions you create for yourself.

The takeaway message is to believe we are worthy of choosing ourselves, over and over again. Which we all acknowledge is a work in progress! 

Enjoy our chat with Rachael.

Guest: Rachael Neumann
Website: flyingfox.vc
Socials: LinkedIn, Twitter

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Sabina takes to the mic solo without her articulate co-host Mads to meet James “Fish” Gill, a Heart Coach, Yoga Teacher, and Transformational Facilitator. Fish shares his own learnings and teachings about how to see the beauty in conflict, the power of curiosity in relationships, and why certainty is almost always a red flag.

From giving himself permission to feel joy, even while coaching others who are experiencing deep pain, to finding ways to acknowledge and validate himself, we explore themes of abandonment, hurt and blame, and the two non-negotiable rituals Fish practices to soothe and support himself most days.

If you’ve ever experienced conflict in a relationship, and let’s face it… who hasn’t!! Or if you long to give and receive more understanding, compassion and love, then Fish has some gems for you! And if you’d like tools that trigger safety rather than attack or defend cycles with a partner, parent, child, sibling or peer, then join us for some coaching tips that will help you see the goodness in others and help them see the goodness in you.

Guest: James 'Fish' Gill
Connect with James at these links: Retreats, Online/In-Person Coaching, Podcasts
Socials: Instagram

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you know that the average age of menopause is 51, menopause that occurs between 40 and 45 is called 'early menopause', and menopause that happens before age 40 is called 'premature menopause’?  

October is Menopause Awareness Month. So we're opening up important conversations on Human Cogs to explore all of the usual sleepless, sweat-soaked challenges that menopause brings, and also to sit inside the lives of remarkable humans who invite us into the complex experience of an unexpected early menopause transition.

In this episode we meet Kirsty Costa - an award-winning educator, global environmentalist, values-based leadership coach and self-confessed “bird nerd” - who at the age of just 31 faced what she describes as her “Triple Whammy” year, when she lost a pregnancy, discovered she carried the BRCA (breast and ovarian cancer gene), and experienced a devastating premature menopause. 

In this powerful and emotional conversation, Kirsty shares the story of how she and her husband somehow managed to get through that year, and how today she continues to get up and show up in the world when so much of her is still grieving, and coming to terms with the fact that life didn’t go according to plan. 

Kirsty also reminds us all of how living with hope and optimism can be a galvanising roadmap through the inevitable highs and lows that life brings, and that fate is far less relevant than the choices we each choose to make every day.

Just a word of note to our listeners: This episode does touch on the deep grief and trauma of needing to make a decision to terminate a pregnancy; what it’s like to be diagnosed with the BRCA gene; and also the lived experience premature menopause.

It’s a real and authentic conversation, however we do acknowledge that some of the content may be triggering for those who have lived through similar experiences. Please do  seek help from a professional if you need support.

Guest: Kirsty Costa
Helpful Links:
Health Talk Australia - Early Menopause
Jean Hailes - Premature and Early Menopause

Socials: Twitter, Instagram

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For those of you into AFL, footy finals fever just swept the nation as we aired this episode of Human Cogs.

So who better to get on the show than an ex AFL player and ex coach, to explore the game of football, and the game of life. 

There are lots of things we assume about people who are outliers. People who have gone beyond the everyday, achieved extraordinary success, and who completely and undeniably stand out from the rest of us.

Scott Watters is one of those people.

From his Huckleberry Finn childhood exploring holiday islands and looking for adventure, to tens of thousands of hours playing sport in his youth, Scott pushed to get the absolute best out of himself which led him to a successful VFL and then AFL career, and ultimately to the helm of the St Kilda Football Club as head coach. 

But what happened next challenged him.

In this conversation, Mads talks with Scott about his Croatian-Australian heritage, his talent and drive - is it born or built?, about success and failure and where growth and learning come from when you actually step into the arena to face crisis - and how absolute adversity helps you find your gift when you’re in the midst of the perfect storm.

Scott knows this all too well. As the Founder and CEO of the national LifeChanger Foundation, his organisation works to help students connect with inspiring mentors to share, repair, connect and build life-affirming skills at moments of clear challenge. 

In our chat, Scott has some great tips on what parents can do to recognise and find the hero in their kids, and shares his advice on what can give us all connection and clear space in moments of anxiety.

There is so much in this conversation that we can all use to change our own lives and stories, no matter who we are, where we are, or where we’re at.

Guest: Scott Watters
Links: Instagram, Facebook

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nicole Dyson is an award-winning educator, has represented Australia as a delegate for the G20 Young Entrepreneur’s Alliance, and is the trail-blazing founder of Future Anything, which has worked with 1000’s of students and schools across Australia delivering entrepreneurial education to unleash the potential of young people.

Nicole trained as a teacher in the USA, UK and Australia and has held leadership positions at Queensland’s top-performing public schools, where she has repeatedly led the design and implementation of education system changes to support future-ready learning, placing young people at the forefront of co-designing learning experiences - exactly where they should be.

As Nelson Mandela said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

But what is the role of education in a rapidly changing world, and a world in which young people are facing uncertain futures fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, globalisation and exponential technological advancement?

In this conversation, Nicole shares her thoughts on the challenges of today’s current education approaches, which can default to an industrialised ‘chalk and talk’, ‘teach to the test’ model which doesn’t keep up with the real world, and increasingly sees students disengaging or dropping out of education altogether.

Compounding that disengagement is a generation of young people who are given scant opportunity to play, experiment and explore their passions and interests at school, and who in many instances are being raised by stressed out, low capacity parents, who have no idea how to support their kids' learning and future pathway development.

This is an episode for educators and parents out there who want to discover what rich and engaging project-based learning can look like if it is anchored in real-world and relatable educational experiences, and who want to excite young people again about transforming their talents, passions and curiosities into game-changing ideas that can - and will - make the world a better place.

Guest: Nicole Dyson
Links: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Website

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brad Feld is the author of eight best-selling books on venture capital investing and entrepreneurship, has been an early-stage investor for more than 30 years, and is pretty much a global legend when it comes to startup communities and entrepreneurial ecosystems, and what makes their flywheels spin.

Currently Managing Director at Foundry Group a US-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies, Brad also co-founded Techstars, and has been a major force in the global startup ecosystem, backing thousands of founders on their startup journeys to date.

But truth be told, the world of venture investment can get a bit of a bad wrap sometimes. Competitive, fast-paced, low on diversity and high on testosterone, it is often regarded as the arena of Alphas.

So in this conversation with Brad, Human Cogs Cohost  Madeleine Grummet gets under the hood of Brad's real life as a VC, to uncover his personal drivers, trigger points and life learnings, and discover that the human underneath is incredibly thoughtful, deeply reflective, remarkably wise - and a great storyteller.

As you’ll learn in this episode, Brad shares how it has taken him a while to find his place, and that as a reformed workaholic, he now regularly goes off the grid to hit the trails around his hometown of Boulder in Colorado to run miles and miles solo.

With his 'engineers brain', he's also committed to continuous improvement, and the kind of person who’s more interested in moving towards not away from problems. To that end, he and his wife Amy schedule monthly mandated ‘life dinners' - kind of retros on their relationship - in order to keep it alive and thriving.

So whether you’re a founder, funder, searcher or finder, Brad’s unique perspective, wisdom and worldview are well worth sitting in for a while.

Why? Because we are all works in progress, and we each have so much to learn from simply hearing each others’ stories.

Guest: Brad Feld

Links: Blog, Books, Podcast, Foundry Group, Techstars

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From a young age, Kai Lovel has been curious. After school each day, he’d race home to take apart old computers, build robots, gorge on YouTube tutorials, and feed his insatiable appetite for the why and how of things.

He realised pretty quickly that he was drawn to the internet. And each week would research and test a new online platform or app, build websites for the fun of it, digital sales funnels for the hell of it, and systems for the challenge of it.

Kai channelled those passions into projects along the way. By the age of 12 he was hosting his own radio show, by 15 he had built 4 businesses, taken the stage with TED Talks, and last year aged 16, he decided he was learning more in the world than he was in school, and decided to opt out of formal education altogether.

He is currently living and working in Perth, not yet an adult, and yet advising companies, clients and organisations on product strategy, growth marketing and what the world looks like from a 17 years old’s vantage point.

Kai is in many ways an outlier. Someone daring to chart waters that aren’t mapped. He is insightful, intensively curious, smart as, and has digital in his DNA.

This conversation with Madeleine Grummet will blow you away, challenge your beliefs about the holders of wisdom and who’s designing the world, and restore your faith in the next generation.

The good news? We’re in very good hands.

Guest: Kai Lovel

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How many of us meander and stumble along in “a life that is expected of us?” For Rochelle Pattison, that meant pursuing a successful career in law and finance, getting married and having kids.

Growing up as a young boy in a regional NSW town, Rochelle knew that she was different, but believed she had to hide that difference. As a teenager, she worked hard, and excelled at sport, music and academia while boarding at an all-boys boarding school in Melbourne. So, when her Dad pulled her aside to tell her she was “too prissy,” she was hurt and terrified.

After living under a painful cloak of secrecy, lies, and shame for decades, Rochelle made a decision to explore her agony in therapy, as well as open up to the only person who knew her secret, in a quest to discover her true self.

In this conversation with Rochelle, we learn what it’s like to live with unbearable shame and the distress of living a life that’s inauthentic to who you are at your very core. We also glean emotional insights into what can ensue when you tell your partner of 29 years that you’re not who they think you are.

However, don’t be fooled. This is not only a conversation of gender dysphoria, but a powerful story of the fight to live as the real you, the you that you always sensed you were. And that makes it a profoundly human story that could be yours or mine, but luckily for our treasured Human Cogs listeners, this is Rochelle’s story.

Guest: Rochelle Pattison
Socials: Instagram, LinkedIn

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People throw around words like kindness and empathy like empty packets.

They don’t deeply feel those values, really know the lived truth of them or take them and use them to give comfort or a safe cradle to the people around them.

But Lucy Thomas does. 

As the Co-founder and Co-CEO of the phenomenally successful social enterprise Project Rockit, her vision is of a world where kindness and respect thrive over bullying, hate and prejudice, and where all young people are free to realise their unique potential. 

Since 2006, Project Rockit has reached half a million young Australians by delivering powerful in-school workshops and online resources to teach kids to stand up to and not stand by bullying, and to help them navigate the complex individual, relational and societal human skills of inclusion, respect, diversity and empathy. 

In this conversation, Lucy shares the Project Rockit story to now, and how after building her career as an indomitable social crusader tackling bullying, her life was fundamentally changed when she herself became the target of an extended pattern of bullying. 

Lucy wrapped up these personal learnings in her widely received TEDx talk, Kindness: The ultimate rebellion against bullying, has recently received an Order of Australia Medal for service to youth and against bullying, and has now stepped out to create impact on the global stage working with Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter to combat cyberbullying.  

This conversation with Lucy strikes to the heart of things. Unseats us all a little bit. But it matters. Because it reminds us so we won’t forget, that imagination is the birthplace of empathy, unconditional positive regard is the bedrock of all real human connection, and that no matter what, kindness conquers all.

Guest: Lucy Thomas
Website: projectrockit.com.au
Socials: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube

Hosts: Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet
Producer: Daryl Missen at Purple Wax

Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website.

Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?
Join in the convo at insta @human.cogs

Want to support our show? We will sprinkle you with loving kindness and all good things if you CLICK FOLLOW on Apple and Spotify! Or if you're really feeling it, please leave us a REVIEW.

Thanks for listening! 

Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.