Jamila Rizvi is an author, presenter and political commentator and writes regularly for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Good Weekend and Sunday Life. She is also a  commentator on The Project, Today, The Drum and ABC News Breakfast, and the Chief Creative Officer of Future Women.

Described as one of the preeminent voices of young Australian women online, Jamila is a refreshing force for change, advocate for women, and pushes conversations and ideas to work toward a more equal world.

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Madeleine Grummet and Sabina Read talk to Jamila about her quest to push to the edge (and sometimes over it), the costs of living life at full throttle and her ongoing health battles with brain cancer which have forced her to confront the discomfort of living in her new body and grieving the old one.

Jamila reflects on her metric of success, never wanting to leave anyone feeling left out, and the value of passing down wisdom from women who have gone before.

Read Jamila's latest book, Untold Resilience, here.

Guest: Jamila Rizvi
Website: JamilaRizvi.com.au
Socials: Instagram, Facebook, 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

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jane Tewson, Founder and Director of Igniting Change,  is a global change maker who’s founded five flourishing charities, was named by The Times as a top ten innovator in the UK, received a CBE from Prince Charles, and humbly continues to create meaningful change in the lives of countless others. 

But this episode is not about accolades. Because Jane does not see herself as anything special, and she is not interested in being in the spotlight. What Jane does see are individuals who have the desire to create change in their own lives despite their circumstance. Jane believes that people inherently carry the capacity to find their own voice, when they feel respected, understood and listened to, rather than when they are spoken at, or given to, by (often) well-meaning others.

Jane is ever-curious and drawn to the humanity and courage of people doing it tough, and in this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Madeleine Grummet and Sabina Read free range with Jane about her incredible childhood, her instinct for igniting social change, how we bring death to life - and how we can all better connect with each other by making judgement fall away and ultimately seeing people without the labels that typically define them. 

Jane is an unassuming force of nature and invites us all to consider how small shifts can create deeply meaningful change. 

You can read more about Jane in Martin Flanagan’s book, The Art of Pollination, published by Hardie Grant and available from Amazon, Booktopia and Dymocks.

Guest: Jane Tewson
Website: Igniting Change
Socials: 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

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Thanks for listening! 

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Riddell is an award-winning global futurist, forensic optimist and truth teller. 

Voted in the top 5 most inspirational keynote speakers, Chris is a trend spotter, media commentator and digital expert who provides powerful insights into emerging trends and human behaviour, and has delivered keynote experiences to nearly a quarter of a million people in 27 countries.

Enlivened by the real world, by humanity, and by ‘the now’, Chris makes sense of the uncomfortable, challenging and dystopian technology-driven world of ‘the future’ by instead making the case for connection, optimism and the unlocking of opportunities to propel us all forward into an exciting, new reality.

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet chat with Chris about his unwavering faith in humanity enduring and innovating to problem solve for the ethical and global challenges of our times. 

We also traverse topics that go deeper into the human Chris is: why the pursuit of perfection has him often sailing to the very edge of the cliff in himself; how the threads and patterns of his past have shaped his present; and why he’s never sleeping, forever flying and always searching. 

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

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Kate Save is an incredible Australian entrepreneur, Practicing Dietitian and Exercise Physiologist, and the founder of several businesses including the award-winning, multi-million dollar Be Fit Food empire.

This business catapulted Kate onto the public stage after her appearance on reality TV show Shark Tank in 2017. But Shark Tank was a double-edged sword, which connected her with influential business mentor and Boost Juice founder Janine Allis, but also exposed Kate to the public where her credibility was attacked despite her decades of clinical experience and numerous qualifications.  

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Madeleine Grummet and Sabina Read chat to Kate about the hard reality of being a founder at the helm of a company that rocketed to explosive 1500% growth overnight, her everyday mantra to "finish fourth not first", what it was like to grow up feeling poor - and how her hard-won life and work lessons have shaped the woman - and now the mother - she has become. 

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

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Wendy Tuohy is an outstanding Australian editor, journalist and newspaper columnist who has spent the last three decades working across print, digital, TV and radio.

Wendy has also won multiple awards working in senior roles with The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, ABC Radio and the Herald Sun, and is a passionate advocate for women, gender parity, mental health - and speaking truth to the reality of the working mother juggle in a modern world.

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet chat with Wendy about the role of the media in a rapidly changing, volatile and fake news world, the hidden currency of care that working women so often carry, and also unpack how today's parents can more consciously model behaviour to override gendered stereotypes and unleash authenticity in their children and in themselves. 

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.

We all have a slightly dysfunctional relationship with creativity. We love it, value it and want more of it but often just can’t seem to find the time, space or resources to cultivate it, whether that’s a book not written, a garden unplanted or a song not sung.

Mykel Dixon is an award-winning speaker, musician, learning designer, event curator and author. A gypsy by nature, musician by trade, fierce non-conformist and prolific anti-perfectionist, he works with senior leaders and teams of Fortune 500 and ASX200 companies to unlock breakthrough creativity.

In the spaces between, he rocks out with his band, is a brilliant lyricist and poet, and pushes to the edges of himself to explore the seemingly endless bounds of human creative potential.

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet dive into places they didn’t plan to go and uncover Mykel’s turbulent past, expulsion from high school, weeks spent in silent Ashram retreats, plus they unpack why his early and prolific self-expression was contaminated with feelings of shame.

This high-energy conversation is pretty wide-ranging, from spiritual woo woo to seeing the world around you as a canvas, divergent thinking that put humans on the moon in the 60s to making magic from the mundane.

But in a world being whacked with wicked challenges right now, Mykel’s Infectious optimism and sense of creative possibility are contagious, and he reminds us that the common practice of dialling ourselves down is something we should all learn to do a little less.

For anyone who has ever sat in the grandstand but wanted to play the game, for the starters not finishers, the dreamers not doers, this is a conversation that will give you the fuel you need to stop listening to the voices in the world and start listening to the voices in you; the courage to unshackle yourself from the self-imposed constraints of the everyday; and the safety to go the edge (and just a little bit beyond) to unleash your inner wild.

Mykel Dixon is the author of best-selling book ‘Everyday Creative - A Dangerous Guide To Making Magic At Work’.

Guest: Mykel Dixon

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

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might think you know Hugh Sheridan.

A four time Logie-award winning actor who’s played starring roles on shows like House Husbands and Packed To The Rafters, he is also the Number 1 Ticketholder for the Port Adelaide FC, and spends his time living and working between homes in LA and Sydney. 

He’s also an accomplished international jazz singer, ballet dancer, film director, screenwriter and passionate human rights advocate.

But what you might not know is that there is a deeper, hidden, vulnerable - and very human - side to Hugh Sheridan, which he now wants to share publicly. 

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet chat with Hugh about his lonely childhood; his engagement at the young age of 17 to a woman; his early experiences at NIDA where he then fell passionately in love with a man; and his ongoing quest to assert the need to not be defined by labels, but instead, by the whole and compassionate human he is.

Hugh believes that we have become too focussed on unhelpful and binary definitions of who we are across the facets of our lives, and invites us all to challenge the way we talk to each other, to move towards a more accepting and united view of humanity, without bias and the impact of boxing each other in.

He also reveals the drawbacks of fame and living life in the public spotlight; and a life-changing moment in India when he came face to face with himself as an infant, small child, adult and ageing man, and was finally able to accept himself as the boy he was, man he is, and human he seeks to be.

What he does know is that you don't need a star on Hollywood Boulevard to say that you are someone, and that it’s now time for Hugh to sit in his own skin, accept himself, and as George Michael once said to him: “Just sing what you want to sing.”

This isn't a story about sexuality, but rather about accepting ourselves as we truly are, and wanting others to do the same.

Enjoy our conversation with the very Hugh-man, Hugh.

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! 

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, you’ve probably heard of the Shameless empire - a side hustle that turned into a media phenomenon and explosive podcast that's been downloaded 10 million times, was awarded Australia’s Most Popular Podcast in 2019 and has captured the hearts and minds of the 20-30 something generation.

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Madeleine Grummet and Sabina Read chat to Zara McDonald, one half of the Shameless Media brand, which was born on Zara and her cofounder Michelle Andrew’s bedroom floors in March 2018 after they met working as journalists at the Mama Mia Women’s digital media network.

By their own admission, Michelle and Zara knew sweet F-A about podcasting when they started the journey.

A few years in, they now have millions of listeners, multiple award-winning shows, have just released a best-selling book (The Space Between) plus are at the helm of a juggernaut Australian media brand that just keeps on growing!

But behind the scenes of success, in this conversation Zara candidly shares her journey to now, including her battle with imposter syndrome, feeling like she’s “young, ignorant” and never “doing it right”, and the work she’s still doing to try and build a thicker skin so the opinions of others carry less weight. 

This is a fascinating and candid chat about the boundaries that need to be drawn between our (online) public and private lives, the liminal spaces that 20 to 30-something “mainstream-media ignored” women in today’s uncertain world occupy, and how we can all work to make each other feel way less alone by sharing more of ourselves in the raw truths, lived experiences and real human moments of the space between. 

Guest: Zara McDonald of Shameless Podcast

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.

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In between when you woke up this morning and when you go to sleep tonight, 55 Australian women will be told they have breast cancer. The same will happen tomorrow, the day after that and every day ongoing, making breast cancer the most common cancer affecting Australian women.

In fact, it is estimated that 20,000+ new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in Australia in 2020. Only 5-10% of breast cancers are hereditary, which means that over 90% have no genetic link. 

In this episode, Human Cogs hosts Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet chat to the extraordinarily insightful, soulful and courageous Kath Elliott.

A successful business woman and mother of 3 boys who worked in the fast-paced world of PR, Kath's life was suddenly stripped bare of the superfluous when one ordinary morning in August 2019, aged 46, she discovered a breast lump while getting dressed to race out the door to another busy day at work.

What follows is her raw story of surrender, survival and ultimately, acceptance as she has gone deep to find a way back into herself - physically, spiritually and emotionally. 

But you don’t have to have been personally touched by cancer, or know a loved one who has, to reap the deep insights and life lessons shared in this chat. These lessons are a teacher for us all about the importance of living in your body and not just in your head; what a sliding door moment of cancer diagnosis can catalyse in your life; and how looking death in the eye can make you feel more fully alive than you ever have. 

Guest: Kath Elliott 
Websites: Breast Cancer Network of Australia (BCNA) kathrynelliott.net
Socials: Instagram @healingbreastcancer

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.

A self-described “brain for hire”, Ben Sorensen is a media host, presenter, writer, and marketing whizz. Ben also sits on the Autism Spectrum, and has learned to “hack his brain” to find ways to help him make sense of the world.

From an early age growing up in country Queensland, Ben recognised that the way he processed the world was very different to people around him, and that his brain worked faster and at a more meta level than neurotypical people, leaving him feeling socially isolated and perplexed about how humans work.

But last year, at the age of 36, Ben sought out a formal diagnosis of ASD, and has continued to kick goals, hone his gift and fully “utilise his asset” - his remarkable brain - and capacity for human kindness.

In this episode of Human Cogs, hosts Sabina Read and Madeleine Grummet explore Ben’s lived experience of autism, the inner workings of a mind trying to decipher the complexity of human emotions and relational nuance, and some of the challenges he has faced in better understanding how to do human well.

But beyond his diagnosis, we also learn about Ben’s personal philosophy and values including the importance of being “consciously kind”, the need for us all to move from mere tolerance to true acceptance, and his continuing quest for greater equality in the world.

Ben says he wouldn’t trade his ASD for quids. Because it gives so much more than it takes.

Guest: Ben Sorensen
Websites: bensorensen1.com bseaustralia.com friendinme.com
Socials: Instagram 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.