Work and Wellness

What if getting more done isn’t about finding more hours in the day?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr Amantha Imber — organisational psychologist, bestselling author and founder of Inventium — to talk about her latest book, The Energy Game, and why managing our energy could be far more important than managing our time.

Amantha burnt out in 2024 despite being one of Australia’s leading experts on productivity. That experience led her to rethink the way we approach productivity and ultimately became the basis for her most personal book yet — a science-backed look at how to boost, rest and protect your energy so you can perform at your best without running yourself into the ground.

We also talk about AI, why it isn’t delivering the productivity gains many organisations expected, what we risk when we outsource too much of our thinking, and the one experiment Amantha challenges every listener to try this week.

Key Topics

• Why time management alone won’t save you from burnout — and what to focus on instead
• The three categories of energy strategies: boost, rest and protect, and when to use each
• Why most of us are doing “fake rest” and what real rest actually looks like
• The minimum viable dose of cold water immersion and why you don’t need an ice bath
• How AI could be making us cognitively lazy and what we risk losing if we outsource our thinking
• Why AI isn’t delivering the productivity gains many organisations expected
• The silent walk — one of Amantha’s favourite strategies and why it works

About Amantha

Dr Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist, bestselling author and founder of the award-winning behaviour change consultancy Inventium. In 2021, she became the first Australian to win the prestigious Thinkers50 Innovation Award, described by the Financial Times as the “Oscars of Management Thinking”. In 2025, she was named AI Consultant of the Year at the Australian AI Awards.

She is the host of the number-one-ranking business podcast How I Work, with more than six million downloads, and her work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Forbes and Fast Company. Her latest book, The Energy Game, explores the science of how to better protect, restore and use your energy.

Connect with Amantha

• ⁠Book: The Energy Game⁠
• ⁠Substack: One Percent Better⁠
• ⁠How I Work podcast

We all have them. The colleague who drives you absolutely crazy. The leader who says something that leaves you speechless. The person you genuinely cannot figure out.

In this episode, I get into one of the most requested topics I've had — how to work with difficult people without losing your mind or your professionalism. Because not everyone who feels difficult actually is difficult. Sometimes it's a personality clash, sometimes it's a values difference, and sometimes yes — it really is just them.

I break down the three categories every difficult situation falls into, why understanding someone's motivation changes everything, and the exact phrases I use when someone says something completely out of line. This one is practical, honest and full of things you can use immediately.

Key Topics

• The difference between a personality clash, workplace friction and genuinely dysfunctional behaviour and why each one needs a different response
• Why understanding what motivates someone changes how you work with them completely
• The question every team should ask before starting a project together and almost never does
• What to say in the moment when someone says something wildly out of line
• When to document behaviour, when to escalate it and when to make a decision about your environment
• How to have the awkward but necessary conversation about working better together
• Coming back to self awareness before deciding someone else is the problem

Keywords: Difficult people, workplace conflict, communication, leadership, boundaries, self awareness, team culture, performance, mental health, wellbeing

Nobody teaches you how to be a great leader. You just get promoted and figure it out.

In this episode, I open up the Instagram question box and answer your leadership questions completely off the cuff, no textbooks, no frameworks, just the real lessons from my own experience leading teams through COVID, the Northern Rivers floods, and everything in between.

We cover the questions people are actually asking but rarely get honest answers to — is leadership really worth the promotion, how do you stop taking things personally, how do you lead when you don't have the answers, and what is the one leadership skill nobody talks about enough. This one is practical, personal and full of the kind of advice I wish someone had given me when I first stepped into a leadership role.

Key Topics

• Is leadership really worth the promotion and what you need to honestly ask yourself before saying yes
• The future of leadership in an AI-driven world and the human skills that will matter most
• How to stop taking things personally as a leader without stopping caring
• How to lead through uncertainty when you don't have the answers either
• How to support your team without absorbing all of their problems
• The SBI framework for hard conversations and why clear is kind
• The two most underrated leadership skills: repair and pause
• The best leadership advice Angela has ever received

Keyword: Leadership, management, high performance, communication, burnout, feedback, hard conversations, self-awareness, team culture, future of work

This one is personal. It has just ticked over a year since my dad, Phil — big Phil — suddenly passed away. And over that time, through my own experience and in talking to so many people who have been through grief and loss, I've come to realise that there are some things nobody really talks about openly enough.

In this episode, I share my unfiltered thoughts from the last year — the things that helped, the things that hurt, and the unexpected gifts that grief brought with it. Because grief is not just something you get through. It changes you. It shifts your perspective in ways that are impossible to fully explain until you've felt it yourself.

This episode is for anyone who is grieving right now, and for anyone who loves someone who is, because at some point, we will all need to know how to sit beside someone in the mud.

Key Topics

• How grief changes you as a person in ways that are permanent and profound
• Why acknowledgement is the most powerful thing you can offer someone who is grieving
• The heartwarming and heartbreaking reality of how people show up — and don't
• Why grief is not linear and why the world moving on doesn't mean you have to
• The unexpected gifts grief brings — clarity, perspective and freedom from other people's opinions
• Why going back to work too early is something Angela wishes she hadn't done
• The stone in your pocket — Angela's analogy for what grief really feels like over time

Connect with Angela

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mind.your.grit/

Website: https://www.mindyourgrit.com/

Keywords: grief, loss, wellbeing, mental health, perspective, resilience, support, death, healing, mindfulness

What if everything you've been taught about resilience is actually making you less of it?

In this episode I sit down with Jay Abbasi — global keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, former Tesla leader and host of the Unstuck podcast — to completely reframe how we think about pressure, resilience and what it actually means to thrive. Because the version of resilience most of us have been sold about keep going, push through, don't show weakness, is not resilience at all.

Jay brings a rare combination of high-pressure corporate experience and deep expertise in mindfulness and neuroscience, and he is one of the most genuinely thoughtful guests we have had on this show. We get into his formula for real resilience, why people pleasing is actually a selfish act, the difference between being a superhero and a captain of the ship, and the story of what happened when his long-awaited TEDx talk couldn't be published and how he responded. This one is rich, practical and full of reframes that will stay with you.

Key Topics

• Why the traditional definition of resilience is nonsense and what it actually requires

• Jay's formula: energy plus space plus choice equals resilience
• The difference between being a superhero leader and being the captain of the ship
• Why people pleasing is not selfless — it is self-serving
• The Victor Frankl quote that changed how Jay thinks about pressure and presence
• Why curiosity and effective communication will be the most critical leadership skills in the AI era
• What Jay's TEDx talk story taught him about bouncing back from unexpected adversity
• Why trusting your intuition requires stillness and how to cultivate it

About Jay

Jay Abbasi is a global keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, coach and host of the top-rated podcast Unstuck with Jay Abbasi. A former Tesla leader who built and led national training programs for over a thousand employees, Jay has since coached leaders at Google, Amazon, TikTok and Wells Fargo. Blending corporate experience with deep expertise in mindfulness, resilience and wellbeing, Jay's message is that success isn't about avoiding challenges — it's about mastering them with clarity, energy and purpose. He has been featured in Forbes, Authority Magazine and Medium, and is based in New Jersey.

Connect with Jay

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayabbasi
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayabbasi_
• Website: https://jayabbasi.me/
• Podcast: Unstuck with Jay Abbasi — available on YouTube and all podcast platforms

Keywords

resilience, leadership, high performance, burnout, pressure, mindfulness, self-awareness, curiosity, communication, intuition

What if the most important investment you could make in your health, your performance and your wellbeing isn't a supplement, a morning routine or a productivity system, it's your relationships?

In this episode I sit down with Megan Gourlay, founder of Love With Me, a boutique matchmaking service built on the belief that meaningful relationships have the power to change lives. Megan spent 25 years in the corporate world before pivoting to help people find genuine connection and her insights go far beyond romantic love.

We talk about what people are really searching for beneath the desire for a partner, why loneliness is one of the most invisible and underestimated health risks of our time, what green flags actually look like in any relationship, and why high achievers are often the worst at prioritising the very thing that makes them better at everything else.

Whether you are single, partnered, or somewhere in between — this episode will make you think differently about how you show up in all of your relationships.

Key Topics

• What people are truly searching for beneath the desire for a partner and why it matters for all relationships
• The green flags that tell you a relationship has genuine foundations to last
• Why loneliness is one of the most invisible health risks and what Monday morning conversations reveal about it
• How high achievers unconsciously fill the void of connection through their work
• What the research on loneliness says and why it is as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day
• The habits Megan sees consistently in couples who go the distance
• Why waiting until you are ready is keeping more people on the sidelines than they realise

About Megan

Megan Gourlay is the founder of Love With Me, a boutique matchmaking service built on the belief that meaningful relationships have the power to change lives. After 25 years in the corporate world, Megan studied relationship counselling and created a highly personalised matchmaking approach that goes beyond dating apps and algorithms — taking the time to deeply understand each client's values, lifestyle and relationship goals. Having spent seven years single herself before meeting her husband in her late 30s, Megan brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to her work.

Connect with Megan

Website: https://www.lovewithme.com.au/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovewithme_dating/

Keywords

relationships, loneliness, connection, wellbeing, matchmaking, belonging, high performance, love, mental health, self awareness

You asked. I answered. No prep, no filter.

In this episode, I opened up my Instagram question box and answered everything that came in completely off the cuff. Personal questions, career questions, business questions and everything in between. You'll get an honest look at self-doubt, why I closed Grip Pilates, what I've changed my mind about, the biggest misconception people have about me, and the one thing I have completely stopped caring about since turning 40.

This one is a little different from our usual episodes — it's raw, personal and probably the most you'll hear about me in one sitting. I hope you enjoy it.

Key Topics

• How I deal with self-doubt and why doing hard things is the antidote
• What I'm still working on and why giving myself permission to stop is harder than it sounds
• How I knew it was time to close Grip Pilates and what I gained from letting it go
• The biggest misconception people have about me that used to really annoy me
• What I'm saying yes to more and what I'm firmly saying no to
• How I found my personal style and the three-word framework I use to shop intentionally
• What I love most about Liam and why he is genuinely the best decision I ever made

Keywords: self awareness, personal growth, burnout, business, career change, identity, style, relationships, mindset, behind the scenes

We talk a lot about working parents. We talk far less about the people who have chosen not to be one.

In this episode, I sit down with my dear friend Candice Harvey — speaker, workshop facilitator, former HR leader, author and founder — to have a conversation that is long overdue. What is it actually like to be child-free by choice in the workplace, in friendships and in life? And what are the hidden challenges that nobody thinks to ask about?

This is not a conversation about which path is better. Both are valid and both come with trade-offs. It is an honest, warm and at times very funny conversation about identity, purpose, belonging, burnout, boundaries and what it means to build a rich life on your own terms, whatever that looks like for you.

Whether you have children or you don't, this one will make you think differently about the assumptions we make and the questions we forget to ask.

Key Topics

• What people most misunderstand about women who choose not to have children
• Why burnout does not check your parenting status before it finds you
• The hidden wellbeing challenges of being child-free that nobody talks about
• Why leaving work early for yourself can feel less legitimate than leaving for a child and what to do about it
• How child-free people find purpose and legacy outside of parenthood
• The most unhinged things people have said when told someone doesn't want kids
• The real trade-offs on both sides and what you gain and what you consciously give up

About Candice

Candice Harvey is a speaker, workshop facilitator and business owner with 15 years of experience in HR. She now helps people manage themselves — shaking up their thinking so they can behave differently and get different results. She is also the author of her debut book, The Shake Up.

Show Notes

• Connect with Candice on ⁠Instagram⁠

• Buy her book ⁠The Shake Up:  This isn't another self-help book. This is a shake-up⁠

• Learn more about Candice's ⁠work and workshops.⁠ 

Keywords: child-free, women at work, identity, purpose, burnout, wellbeing, boundaries, belonging, life choices, workplace culture

What if everything you've been told about manifestation is wrong?

In this episode I sit down with Georgie Stevenson — co-founder of Naked Harvest, founder of Rise and Conquer, and one of Australia's most followed entrepreneurs — to talk about the concept that sits at the heart of everything she has built. That you don't manifest what you want. You manifest who you are.

Georgie unpacks what manifestation actually means beneath the vision boards and the hype, why your self-concept shapes your reality more than any goal-setting tool ever will, and how she has done the inner work to completely rewrite who she believes herself to be — multiple times.

We also get into the dark 18 months postpartum that forced her to question everything, what she has learned about identity and worth as a founder, and why coming back to self is the most practical thing any of us can do.

This one is honest, grounded and will change the way you think about what you're actually creating.

Key Topics

• Why manifestation is about identity, not intention and what most people get completely wrong
• How your self-concept shapes your reality more than your vision board ever will
• The postpartum ego death that completely redefined Georgie's definition of success
• How to separate your worth and identity from your work when your personal brand is your business
• The limiting belief Georgie has worked hardest to overcome and why hustle culture makes it worse
• What wellbeing actually looks like for Georgie in this season and why simplicity wins
• Why curating your online experience is just as important as curating your real one

About Georgie

Georgie Stevenson is an entrepreneur, investor, content creator and mum, best known as co-founder of Naked Harvest and founder of the Rise and Conquer brand. With a community of more than 400,000 people, Georgie has built a loyal following by openly sharing the realities of business ownership, motherhood, health, wellness and personal growth. A qualified life coach and host of the Rise and Conquer podcast, she is passionate about helping women step into their potential and create lives aligned with their goals, values and vision.

Connect with Georgie

Instagram: @georgiestevenson / @riseandconquer /@nakedharvestsupps

https://www.nakedharvestsupplements.com/

Keywords: Manifestation, identity, self concept, mindset, entrepreneurship, burnout, motherhood, wellbeing, limiting beliefs, personal growth

Have you ever felt stuck but couldn't quite explain why — or felt like you were doing all the right things but still felt deeply unsatisfied?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr Emily Musgrove, clinical psychologist, author and resident psychologist on The Imperfects podcast, to explore the psychology behind why we feel stuck, what we're really searching for beneath the surface, and what it actually takes to build a life that feels meaningful rather than just successful.

Emily brings over 15 years of clinical experience and a refreshingly honest perspective — including her own experience of a breast cancer diagnosis that completely reframed how she thinks about resilience.

We get into the difference between belonging and fitting in, why people pleasing quietly costs us our identity over time, what the research says about meaning versus purpose, and the one psychological skill Emily believes every leader needs above all else.

Key Topics

• What resilience actually means and why it has nothing to do with holding it together
• The difference between belonging and fitting in and why fitting in is exhausting
• How people pleasing quietly erodes your sense of self over time
• Why feeling stuck is not a problem to fix, it's a signal to pay attention to
• The difference between meaning and purpose and why purpose doesn't have to come from work
• The one psychological skill Emily says every leader needs: curiosity

Show Notes 

Emily's Book is Unstuck: A Guide to Finding Your Way Forward to Live the Life You Want to Live — ⁠available here. ⁠

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dremilymusgrove/ 

Join Emily's ⁠mailing list⁠ to be the first to hear about her upcoming membership community focused on finding meaning and purpose in midlife.