Uncommon

Adam Ni is a researcher of geopolitics focusing on China. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, and Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at The Australian National University. His main areas of interest include China’s international relations, strategy and security issues. Adam has extensive experience working on China-related issues, including in academia, government and the private sector. He is a frequent commentator on geopolitical and China-related issues for Australian and international media.

The rise of China has come to the fore in many Australian minds, and a hot topic with recent developments in the South China Sea. Adam appeared on our screens in an interview for 60 Minutes discussing the recent play by China to create a naval base in Vanuatu.

Adam holds a fascinating background and curious insight into one of the most important topics for the future of Australia, our place in Asia.

Lola Hunt is a sex worker, entrepreneur and co-founder of Assembly Four.

Assembly Four makes products and services to empower sex workers throughout the world, committing a portion of profits to help those sex workers in need.

Assembly Four rocketed to the forefront of the industry with the launch of Switter as legislation known as FOSTA/SESTA effectively banned sex workers safely engaging clients online. Switter was the beginning of Assembly Four’s modern tech disruption to an industry that globally is worth $186b, and historically is not too tech savvy. The launch of further services in Tryst (for Advertising) & Honey Notes (a CRM), underscores Assembly Four’s commitment to the industry.

Interviewing Lola was the perfect opportunity to discuss intimacy and relationships, with an individual who knows what’s crucial to those two aspects of our life - communication.

Lola’s work is grounded in privacy and the liberty of an individual, a fascinating area of technology where we’ll go into further detail with her co-founder Jack in a future episode. This episode is definitely not suitable for work (NSFW).

Tammi Jonas is the co-founder of Jonai Farms, President of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, an ethicurean farmer, and mindful meatsmith. Jonai Farms is a pastured fed farm which was the first in Australia to crowdfund development of its infrastructure and a leader in community-supported agriculture.

From a very young age, I idolised the idea of having my own place to produce homegrown food. When an old friend purchased a farm recently in Gippsland, my interest was piqued again.

Keeping the “pigness of the pig” is the first line in Tammi’s list of principles, inspired by one of my favourite farmers, Joel Salatin. The commonality amongst both Tammi and Joel is what we call Holistic Farm Management. A systems thinking approach to farming that minimises the effects on the local environment, ensures the “pigness of the pig” and provides healthy food or animals for us to eat. The bedrock that supports this is a distribution model called Community Supported Agriculture, a subscription-based form of distribution that caps the horrible downside that farmers can experience.

Many thanks to Jackson O’Malley for the recommendation to Tammi’s work.

Holly Ransom is the CEO of Emergent, a Keynote speaker, Port Adelaide FC Director, the 2014 G20 Youth Chair, a fan of avocado with Vegemite and the youngest person to be named in Australia’s “100 Most Influential Women”. She has been featured on ABC’s Q&A, Channel 7 News & Channel 10’s The Project for her commentary on intergenerational economic and social issues.

Holly specialises in disruptive strategy and building the capacity of leaders for change, which has seen her work with the likes of Microsoft, Virgin, INPEX, Europcar, KPMG, & the AIS, as well as government. She’s an experienced non-executive director who has shown her capacity to lead across many organisations - including when the Australian Prime Minister appointed Holly to Chair the G20 Youth Summit.

Her corporate career has involved working as Chief of Staff to NAB Wealth CEO Andrew Hagger and for Rio Tinto CEO Sam Walsh, with Sam imparting an immense sense of what real leadership is.

Holly represents what happens when you maximise the opportunities given to you in life and that when you ask for more responsibility, how meaningful life can be. She’s so industrious to the point you almost think she must be carrying a “Time-Turner”, the time-travelling device used by Hermione in Harry Potter. But she’s also aware that life requires balance, having dealt with the overwhelm of responsibility and depression. That’s an incredible message for anyone to hear.

Many thanks to Michelle Bourke for the introduction.

Sarah Moran is the Co-founder and CEO of Girl Geek Academy, while also being NAB’s Girl Geek in Residence. Girl Geek Academy is behind Australia’s first all-female hackathon #SheHacks; the first all-female makerfest #SheMakes; the first hackathon for young girls #MissMakesCode; and the career development event for women in gaming #SheMakesGames. Sarah has a mission to encourage 1 million women to get into tech and launch their own startups by 2025, a lofty challenge over the next 7 years.

When I was at high school, I remember that I was constantly pigeonholed and told that certain knowledge bases (like maths & science) where outside of my potential. The entire point of this podcast was to build my worldly wisdom (as Charlie Munger calls it), bringing you along the way and reinforcing that if you have the right attitude - most forms of learning are quite achievable.

Sarah’s work identifies that so long as you have the personality and aptitude to match, hacking and hustling are within your grasp.

New forms of education across large groups of people are going to be incredibly important in bridging the knowledge base as coding becomes the new blue collar job over the next decade.

You get a sense from this discussion why Sarah decided to focus in particular on women, and why that’s her north star.

Manoj Dias is a meditation teacher, speaker and co-founder of A-Space, Australia’s first multidisciplinary meditation studio. He’s been featured across multiple sources of media including Channel 9, Postcards, Broadsheet, and Vice Media. Manoj has worked with high performing teams and individuals on a range of topics including brands you may know like Lululemon, Melbourne Storm, BHP, and Mercedes Benz. As a spiritual teacher, he’s learnt from many of the greats including Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield.

I’m definitely a Type A individual. Industrious and hard working to the point of neuroticism - which is not a healthy long term pursuit in this modern world. It’s teachers like Manoj, that show me the way to contentment is not necessarily self-management, but self-awareness. You may not be as manic as me, but I’m absolutely sure that there will be principles to learn and benefit from with an introduction to meditation.

I’ve since visited A-Space after interviewing Manoj. I would strongly recommend our listeners or visitors in Melbourne to go check it out for as little as $20 for a drop-in lesson.

Anthony “Decryption” Agius is a tech reporter, entrepreneur, founder of multiple media brands including The Sizzle, MacTalk, One More Thing and Reckoner.

He’s contributed to Delimiter, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Macworld Australia, PC and Tech Authority - with Reckoner winning the 2014 Optus IT Journalism award for best independent media.

You may remember Anthony as the guy who hacked a big banks corporate flyer program, scored a bunch of frequent flyer points and some handy PR. What I like about Anthony is that he’s able to reframe the problem and always cuts straight to the point with no fluff or bullshit. This is typified by his quote in our interview that “marketing is the poetry of capitalism”.

The Sizzle is his latest baby; tech news & bargains with an Aussie slant, curated for you every afternoon for just $5 per month - incredibly underpriced in my opinion.

Eileen Ormsby is a writer, journalist and blogger of All Things Vice, as well as an author of two books - The Silk Road and The Darkest Web.

Every time I’ve sat down with professors and practitioners of sociology (Dr Monica Barratt), psychology (Dr Stephen Bright), or criminology (Dr James Martin) to talk about the Dark Web, one name kept recurring - Eileen Ormsby. She is undoubtedly the most sighted journalist in the field today, and we’re very lucky to have her living here in Australia.

The Dark Web is a fascinating place, mostly filled with scams, but also filled with people on the edge of the law and morality. The Gonzo style of journalism that Eileen embodies, challenges society on what should be right or wrong, showing the human side to every case and exploration.

Dan Monheit is the Director of Strategy and Co-Owner at creative agency Hardhat, Co-Host of the Bad Decisions Podcast, MC of lecture series Real Big Things and a self-confessed sneakerhead.

Dan truly embodies the archetype that is

“Chutzpah”- combine that with his need for incessant learning on cognition and you have one impressive media brain. From small beginnings lecturing at Monash University, to jumping straight into his own agency, Dan is full of that entrepreneurial spirit we see common amongst our guests. Couple that with running a podcast, a series of lectures with a fascinating premise and running the strategy of HardHat - you have an immovable force in a rapidly changing industry.

Michael Jankie was kind enough to introduce me to Dan a few months ago, and as you probably already know, I always sit up and listen when a former guest makes an introduction.

Anthony Ross is the founder of Tribal Wellness, host of the podcast Feed My Mind and a unique individual with knowledge in evolutionary biology, health and wellness.

The advertising guru David Ogilvy popularised the term that you should always surround yourself with individuals far smarter than you are. Anthony has this constant, insatiable drive to learn and regurgitate for the rest of us - like an industrious mamma bird spitting out knowledge. It’s people like this you should always surround yourself with, because they’ll only bring the best out in you.