Khanh Ong Isn't Happy & There's One Big Reason Why

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Mama Me. I acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

And I thought tic tik tik tik tik, being like, oh my god, this is amazing. I've got my first actual travel TV show and this is amazing. And all I could remember is sitting there going why do I look so overweight? What is going on with my skin? What is going on with my hair? Why I'm a mannerisms like that? Is this why I'm single?

Hello, and welcome to But Are You Happy? The podcast that asks the questions you've always wanted to know from the people who appear to have it all. Karnong is an immensely talented chef and media personality who you may have seen on shows like Master Chef, Survivor and more recently on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here. But Karan's life began in an Indonesian refugee camp. His parents made the journey to Australia by boat, where they were attacked by pirates and had propellers break in shark

He found out a year and a half before we found out, but he thought that there is no time to deal with this. I have a year and a half, two years, three years to build a business strong enough so that my family will be fine.

We talk about how even in the moments where you get at all, things don't necessarily feel right. The truth is, if you're not okay because of your mental health or a breakup or low self esteem, you don't suddenly become confident just because the country adores you. Here's my chat with Khanong. Khanong, you're one of Australia's most adored TV personalities. You're a cook and an author, and you've appeared on

Firstly, can you tell how awkward I got when you were reading that I am not a words of affirmation kind of person.

That is not my love language. I just like become like, ah, thank you so much. And I do not know how to deal with people telling me things that I've done. The reality is that everything is a lot of work.

I feel as though people look at my socials and they're like, all he does is cook and he's smiling and he's happy.

But it's like schedules.

It's all schedules, and it's like every single bit of my life is down to half an hour blocks, which I love because I like to stay busy. That's my whole thing. I've grown up with parents that are they work very hard. So for me, I'm like, if I'm not doing something, I'm not working. Like if I'm staying still right now, I'm not working. And I need to be working because my mom and dad like came over here to give me opportunities for me to like better my life.

I need to better my life.

I think that's such a good point to make that when you are a person of your profile and who is leaning in to so many opportunities, it's not all fun and it is a whole lot of work that people don't see.

But you can't talk about it and you can't complain about it, and you can't say anything. It's fun, yeah, because it's like, well, I'm sorry that you get to you know, fly everywhere and film like content and like see new things or like do I'm a celeb or like you get to meet these amazing people you can't complain and I'm like, yeah, but it's also like really.

Stressful sometimes and sometimes I'm tired.

Yeah, And I'm sorry that I'm like, but I feel like everyone's allowed to complain because if you've I feel a certain way, no one can take that away.

From you, right exactly. And you were just in the jungle, Well, I'm a celebrity and you were with reality stars and actors and TV presenters and sports people and comedians. Tell me about the experience of being in the jungle.

Let's just say I loved it so much, and it's my favorite show that I've been on. Like I loved Master Chef because it gave me a career survivor I was a fan of, so I really wanted to do it. I'm a celeb was a totally different beast where I met all these people and I learned so much about their lives, their families, but mostly it's a program where

Because you don't have a phone, you don't have any of the distractions of modern life. I mean, I look at it and I couldn't do any of the challenges. I'd be absolutely hopeless. But there is something actually quite profound about in this day and age going to the jungle yep, only socially interacting with people in real life, not having any of the busyness that usually gets us through the day. How did you come out feeling?

First of all, I think that you could do the challenges, because I thought that I couldn't do the challenges, the trials, But I feel like when you're in a space like that, you just have to do it because you don't want to let anyone down.

When I came out of the jungle, I felt really refreshed.

It wasn't the lack of phone or emails or friends, family like work. But it was the idea that I had time to really think about what my career looked like, what I wanted it to be, and how I wanted to change it so that I can do multiple things at the same time, but also have more time to myself. Because I found that being in the jungle, I realized that I do need a lot more downtime then I

It's currently eight fifteen in the morning.

And was there anybody that you met in jungle who was very different to what you expected?

Candice Wuna?

How was she different?

Candace Wuner is portrayed in the Australian media as this hard exterior, this woman. She's an iron woman live, She's super strong, she is nurturing, she loves her kids so much. She only cares about her family. I was able to have full conversations with her where she was really motherly towards me and I really clicked with her From day three or four where I went, oh my god, I

And I went to the talking cried for half an hour.

They didn't, but I was just like this woman, Like she just looks so strong, but there's all of these things that she's gone through that people don't even know about because all they see is like this hard exterior.

It must be really fascinating to get to know the human being behind the image, because all of those people in the jungle you know to some extent. And what I've always found fascinating is that sometimes it's the people you think you'll get along with that you don't necessarily, and the people that you think you'll have nothing in common with that you weirdly bond with.

It's so odd and Pete as well, like Pete's like an AFL legend. Yeah, Like and I was like Okay, well we're going to talk about like there's a generational gap here, and also you're like AFL and like I know nothing. Yeah, but again it was a family connection where we spoke about like his family, his kids, his partner. And it's those moments that I went, no one cares about the Korea cares, No one cares about what you do for a living. It all comes down to everyone

And it's also a good reminder that you're right, it's not what anybody cares about or talks about in actual life.

Yeah.

It's weird that I think, because we're often so obsessed with just having a really shiny version of ourselves that the world sees when you connect with another human being, you're never talking about the superficial stuff. Yeah.

It's also I find that it's this like label that everyone gets given. You get smashed with a label and everyone goes, that is you, that is who you are. But there's also like forty five million layers behind that that no one talks about because it's too hard to because it's like, well, no, if you're not the aofl legend.

Who are you?

Yeah, it's a lot more complicated to get your head around. We often ask on this show about a time the world told you you'd be happy and you weren't, And one of those times for you is actually right now.

Yes, I am very happy. Yes I've got a lot of things going on in my life. But when I was in the jungle, when I was talking to everyone, I was like, I really want kids, and I've always really want kids, but I think it's kind of right now that I'm thinking I need to start that process now, Like, if I really do want kids, I need to start that process now. And the idea that scares me and makes me really upset is that I possibly might not have them.

You're so right the thing about kids, because I have just had a little question and it's a weirdly intentional decision. It's for some reason. I think when you're growing up you think it will just happen, But even woman heterosexual relationship, it's really intentional. There's a moment where you have to be like, oh, we have to decide that we want to do this thing that we know is going to change our lives. And for you, obviously it's thinking about how we go about that. Am I going to do

Yeah, I am feeling a sense of urgency.

I'm at an age where, look, I probably still have five or six years before it becomes very, very urgent. But it's that idea of possibly ever having them that is really scaring me right now. I always grew up picturing myself with the farm, with the chickens and with the kids, and you're completely right in your mind as a child, you think it's just going to happen. And I'm like, I don't know how that it's going to happen right now, And I don't even know who that's

It is a thirty We cannot cry in the morning.

When I was thinking about that, I was like, it's the one thing that constantly is now in the back of my mind, and it's like, when are you going to do this?

You don't have time to write your next book.

The kids are a massive one, Like you have to sit down and actually really think about this, so right now is the moment that I should be happy. But there's this little thing in the back that is just constantly there.

There's so much honesty to that, and it's such a reminder that from the outside it can look like someone has everything, but there can be something really quiet that they secretly wish that they had.

Yeah.

A lot of my friends have just had children. Sarah Holloway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, she just had a baby.

Yes, she had a baby an hour before I went into the jungle. No after I went into the jungle, and she was looking after my social she's my best friend. Yeah yeah, and she's like calmed, you handed your phone over, And then the.

Baby came and I just didn't know what to do. I was like, oh my god, I missed the birthy literally like an hour.

Yeah.

But like I see kids now, and I see babies and they just make me smile y. Yeah, Like I just get really really happy with seeing Europe this potato that does nothing all day.

They're so funny. It's really hard to explain it. My partner and I have said it reminds us of the Matrix and like the Red pill and the Blue pill, and once you have a kid. It's a bit like you've chosen to take whichever the pill is that shows you reality. Yeah, and you can't explain it to anybody else. It's just a feeling, yeah, and like a knowing that there's this amazing sense of meaning and that's it's not for everyone. And actually having a child has made me realize, Yeah,

I want to make them dinners that they won't want to eat.

I want them to I want to take them places and they're just going to shut tantrums and just really test me, like I want. I get jealous to see all of the things that my friends have to go through, which look painful, but to me, I'm.

Like, I want that. After the break, Khan opens up about his childhood, including his mom's unexpected reaction when he came out to her. He also talks about losing his dad and the secret his dad kept from their family. You were born in an Indonesian refugee camp, and you spent the first two years of your life there. Tell me what you know about what your parents' lives looked like at that time.

So mom and Dad went to Indonesia. That's where the refugee camp was via boat. I think they got caught by authorities in Malaysian waters and were then escorted to Indonesia. But I think the whole idea behind leaving Vietnam was not to make it to Australia or make it anywhere, but it was just to be caught outside of Vietnamese

Oh wow.

It's an island that had mostly Vino Meis refugees that were being processed for Germany, the US, Canada, Australia, and there were thousands and thousands there at the same time. I don't think it's the same way that people think of refugee camps now. It's not so much prison line. It's an island with like houses and uts and things like that. Everyone kind of had like jobs within the community.

You were like exchanging skills and things like that.

There's photos that I've seen of them with like friends they traveled with and stuff like that.

That were Yeah, but they were there for four years.

Then basically it's a system where once you get processed, you go to a country. That system is really once you have enough money to get processed, you go to a country where it's like you have like you got to pay for the paperwork, you got to pay for certain things, but it's really the money that gets you somewhere. So it did require a lot of our extended family chipping in to get them processed to come to Australia.

The butcher shop.

They would work, They were workhorses. We didn't spend a lot of time together, which is not their fault. They worked and the time that I would spend with Mum and Dad would be after hours in the kitchen where they would do brief about their day and I remember sitting on the kitchen counter like that's just what I did.

And as you started to grow up in Australia, do you remember that as being a happy childhood.

I do.

I think it's because I grew up in Swing Vale, which is a very Vitnamese area, Like everyone was pretty much Vitamise, where I went to a primary school and it wasn't until like I went to high school that I even knew that I was potentially a little bit different. In high school, there were little things like it's a name that like we shorten as Australians, but I didn't even think about it. It was like probably like Nathaniel

So it was like Daniel and Dan, I was like I never understood that.

Or like William and Billy. Yeah, never understood It's like what but yeah, it's only through that being in your family or whatever that actually starts to make sure.

Yeah, and my parents don't speak English.

Mum speaks English Ish now, so I didn't grow up with all like these nuances of like language and things that would make sense to me. And there was even other little things that made me feel different where I remember, in just seven, we were playing cricket or we were being taught how to play cricket, and I just didn't know if once I hit the wall, I had to run or not, and just like and it's like little things like that where no one explains that to.

You, but the others will have just had it on the background on the TV for their whole childhood. Yeah, and so it goes without saying to them, Yeah, what you do? I mean, I actually don't know if i'd run on, but yeah, I can imagine there's a little boy You're like, hold on.

A second, yeah, And I have no idea, And then like I feel embarrassed to usk like we would be like playing football and I'm like, okay, cool, so you kick the ball, you handle the ball, you can't throw the ball. Why can't you throw the ball? Like, I just don't understand any of these rules. And these are the little things that I feel like immigrants go through that no one ever even talks about. Like it's these little tiny things that makes me feel like an idiot.

Yeah, and as you're growing up, you're getting this sense that there's something different and then you start to come to terms with this textuality. So what age were you when you start to think about that?

There were multiple times. The first time.

Was year eight, Yeah, year eight where I went to a Hailarbry, a parallel education where boys go to boys classes, girls go to girls classes. We spend recess and lunches together. So I felt really comfortable at that school. Came out all good friends, no problems. Changed schools. Went to Melbourne High. It's a very Vinamese family thing where they want you to go to Melbourne High School because it's a selective school.

But it's pretty incredible to come from not speaking English at home to then getting into a really competitive selective school. Like that's some natural intelligence, but that's also bloody hard work.

Okay, so I'm going to let you in on a little secret. My mum and dad they know exactly how to work me. Mum still knows how to work me. And basically it was like, Okay, if you get into this school, you can go to Vietnam every year, I don't know, holiday during school holidays. And I was like, oh yeah, cool, done. So it was like always little rewards for me.

Side note, where in Vietnam where you from originally?

So It is the southern tip of Vietnam, a town called Gamau Fishing Village, really small. Grammar and granddads still live there. I've still got some uncles and aunties there. I do visit from time to time. It is really beautiful on the Mekong Delta, about eight hours drive south of Hochimun City.

Oh gorgeous.

Yeah.

I love Vitnam.

Then Mum and dad said, do you know what if you want to go back to Haylarbury, it's one way you can do it, and you just have to make the schooling equal, so like the cost has to.

Be the same. And I was like, how the hell am I going to do that?

So I started applying for different scholarships at Halearbury and I got a general Excellence and then that wasn't enough, so I sat academic exam and that got me the rest of it, and so my schooling became free. Yeah, and so Mum and Dad allowed me to come back to Halebury and it was the best thing ever because I feel so at home at that school. I am obsessed with the school, I'm obsessed with the alumni. I

When you do start thinking about your sexuality, do you think about having to share it publicly or are you trying to work it out privately.

So I came out when in your eight, went back in the closet when I went to almaheen ' nine. Came back out at the end of nine because I went back to Hillary. But it wasn't really something that I had to share with the public. It was just like something that I was exploring with my friends at school to be like, oh, yeah, I'm interested in these guys, blah blah blah blah blah whatever. It never became a big thing until it came to the point where I

I didn't deal with it.

I basically just didn't deal with dad dying, and so I took it out on mom, and I took out our mom for a couple of years. When I was eighteen, towards the end of year twelve, I remember I was sitting in the car with her and she was like, I started hanging out with someone. I was like, I don't want to talk about it. She's like, oh, what

Oh my gosh, I am horrific. Like I was a horrific teenager.

I mean, you were going through a lot at the same time, but that is a scary thing to do. Yeah.

I literally was like, I would rather roll out of this movie car than continue to have this conversation with you. Anyway, totally regretted that because I had to walk home for three kilometers. So I'm walking home and but that really just changed our relationship where Mum didn't feel comfortable speaking to me anymore. I just didn't want to talk to her anymore. I hadn't come out of that point to my family, and I ran away, not from home, but.

Like I ran away in the senses. I moved to London to study fashion.

Just before I decided that I'm going going to run to London and like run away from my mother, I thought that I would weaponize my sexuality.

Oh wow, Yeah.

Which is like insane and like not the normal coming out story where I just literally sat in front of her. I'm like, okay, I want another fight, and I reckon that if I come out now, there will be a fight.

I've never heard someone say that, but that is such a authentically teenage thing to do.

Yeah, And like I did struggle with ever talking about this because it makes me fucking sound like the worst person ever. That I literally sat there and was like, I'm going to weaponize coming out. So I sat down and I said I wasn't even like very calm about it. I was like, hey, yes, I have something to tell you. I'm gay, like guys, And I just like watched her for a bit and she was.

Like, how do you feel about going to vi Nam? And I was like, what.

A separate question?

Yeah?

In my mind, I was like, okay, so she's going to send me to like some kind of camp where they rehabilitate me into not being gay. Instead, my mom goes the community is very big in Vietnam. You can probably make a really good career there. You might become quite famous.

And I'm like, excuse.

Me, It's like you were meant to be angry.

Yeah, you were meant to be angry. You were meant to be like sad. You were meant to do something that would cause me to fight you. Instead, I'm laughing. I'm like, I'm sorry. So your answer to me being a homosexual is that you would like me to go to Vietnam and try and become famous. I love it, and I literally I love her like I love like. My mom and I are really close now. But I've like because after that, I was like, Okay, well, I can't really do anything wrong.

My mom loves me, damn it. Yeah.

Wow, my coming out story wasn't a sad one. No, She's always been really supportive. But I flew to London to do my UNI there at Saint Martin's and it was hell for me.

I couldn't afford to do anything.

I was making like five pound an hour working like minimum els because you can't even work for time there as a student, So I couldn't pay for rent, I couldn't pay for food, and I couldn't pay to do anything, and I couldn't pay for my schooling. I think Mum was helping with the schooling at the time, but still it was not enough money to do anything. So I decided that I was going to come back and try and do fashion school here. But to come back, I was like, hey, Mom, I don't think I can live

When you're looking at a parent, I can see how you think, no, no, your only job is to be my mom.

Yeah.

Yeah, And so I was just like, that was a ridiculous reaction of me to have about you dating.

And since then.

We've been really, really good. I try to see my mom. Over the past ten years, I try to see her every week. Over the past three years, it has become every second week because it's been a little bit busier, but I speak to her pretty much two three times a week.

I love how you tried to be rejected by your mother. She's like, I accept you. So you were in year ten when your dad passed away. Yes, he was sick. Yeah, And is it true that he didn't tell dad.

My father had started the butcher shop.

My father had hap bee from Vietnam, just like from being like in poverty. He had hep B, which then changed to liver cancer. Yeah, progress it became liver cancer. He found out about a year and a half before we found out. He found out about it, but he thought that there is no time to deal with this. I have a year and a half, two years, three years to build a business strong enough so that my family will be fine.

Oh there's nothing more self like heartbreaking.

It's so ridiculous, Like I don't think I could do something like that, but yeah, I remember when I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and he had passed away. I think the reason why I wasn't dealing with it was I was kind of pissed off as well that my father literally kept

Yeah yeah, yeah, and not sharing it meant there was less time for everyone to just be aware of it and spend as a family. I know, yeah, and know that this was potentially the end.

Yeah, But the crazy thing is if dad didn't do that, Mum wouldn't have the life that she currently has. And so I'm like, Okay, that's horrific and like a horrible, like just a shit thing to do. But at the same time, I kind of see why you did it, because this is exactly what he wanted.

Yeah, And what was it like to actually lose him? Were you in the room?

Yeah?

I was in the room.

Were in the My mom, once she had found out, decided that she would do everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything to try and fix it, like that was her thing where it was like modern medicine wasn't working, Western medicine wasn't working. We're gonna see witch doctors. Dad was so against it. He was like, I'm weak, blah blah blah. I don't want to die and be dumb,

M yeah, I'm not leaving, like I'm not doing this.

It happened also fast, but also so slow that I was just like I didn't even know that he was actually dying.

Like it was like I think he went into a hahjack from it.

And then we called the ambulance they came blah blah blah, but he was gone. But I didn't even really register to me that my dad wasn't there anymore. That it was like I'm like, no, no, Like you watch this on TV. The ambulance comes, they take them away and.

Then they end up in hospital. Yeah. Yeah, and that was just it. But literally that was the last moment.

Wow, looking back at your dad's life, do you think your dad was happy?

Dad was definitely happy.

Mom and Dad have a relationship that I really looked up to, not part where he didn't tell her that was dying and not the heart, the part where they did everything in their power to be together. Like they left Vietnam together even though my grandma and my grandma's on both sides were totally against it. They didn't want my parents to be here together. They came to Australia. They build a family together, they build business together. They were so madly in love and they just wanted this family.

When you asked me that, I was like, ah, so that's where that comes from.

Yea, yeah, because even now, like Mom dates like she's having boyfriends and things before. But when I asked her, does it get more like serious in this that you think of getting me married? Because she goes, no, I had the love of my life. It's gone now like this is just more of a companion thing.

Up next, we chat about the impact that being cheated on had on Calm self esteem, the experience of watching yourself on television and hating how you look, and why can't thinks that even successful people don't always find more happiness when they get what they want. Calm, there's another time in your life when the world told you you'd be happy and you weren't. When was that?

A little bit of a background on this when you come off Master Chef right, and there are things that you want as a contestant. You want restaurants, or you want cookbooks, or you want TV shows, or you just want to like write for a publication, whatever it is.

A lot of people get none of them. It's a certain type of person who has stood out and who Australia has fallen in love with that gets those opportunities.

You're like, who, thank you. Yeah. So I was on Conan's Wild Food.

I was watching the pilot and I was going through a breakup at the time, and I remember being like, oh my god, this is amazing. I've got my first like actual travel TV show, and this is amazing. And all I could remember is sitting there going why do I look so overweight? What is going on with my skin? What is going on with my hair? Why I'm a

Wow, because I reckon a lot of people get those sort of opportunities, whether it's like a photo shoot or you're doing an ad or something like that, and it looks so flash and so exciting, and no one prepares you for the fact that you might look at it and think, my hell, look shit, and everybody's looking at it, and it's this visceral feeling of I feel yuck, and I feel like that's going to be there forever ever, and I feel like I don't look my best and that makes me feel like shit.

It's like I know that, like it's a very superficial thing to feel, but at the time, I remember just going, this is the reason I currently don't have love in my life.

And to weave those two things together, yeah, is so I'm human but unhealthy and so arbitrary. So you were feeling rejected.

I was feeling rejected.

I was thinking like, maybe I'm just like super annoying, or my laugh is blah blah blah. I know that we don't fatciate, but I'm like, in my mind, maybe I'm.

Just fat You start with the self talk, yeah, and that.

Was what I was feeling.

And then I was watching like these little edits of my own TV show, and that was running through my mind. I'm like, is that conversation I'm having with that person annoying? Like will the viewer look at that and go, oh god, he's just hit his on again? Or like it was just ridiculous that it was a TV show that was so proud to have as my own, but yet there was this constant stream of negativeativity that just made me really upset.

Yeah, even though if you had looked at it, you know, years in the past, if you had told yourself, I'm mean to have my own TV show, you would have thought I am the happiest I've ever been.

Yeah.

So you've also talked about having been cheated on and how that kind of changed your idea of relationships. What was that experience?

Like, Okay, so the cheating he is a really funny one. Being cheated on it it's not funny. But I was seeing this guy and everything was fine. We were no monogamous, We had other partners whatever. We were in bed one night and he goes, have you been sleeping with anyone else? I was like, no, not really for the last month or so.

I was like have you guys? No, not really, and then I was like okay. He goes, do you want to just not? And I'm like, yeah, I would like that.

Fast forward a month find out that he slept with someone that night, Like, I'm like, why did we have this conversation?

Why did you It's like he wanted it to be cheated because it's like he put the rule in so he could break.

Yeahs odd, But it's so weird because it was like we were fine, like we were sleeping with other people.

Yeah, we hadn't been actively doing it, but like that was allowed. And also like I was totally fine with you sleeping with someone else. It was honest. It was just so insane to me. Anyway.

From that moment, I kind of changed the way I thought about relationships and I'm like, so I don't care about the sex thing, Like I don't care if my partner sleeps with someone else. What I cared about in that moment was the lie of it all. So I am currently hanging out seeing someone there is a special man in my life.

He wrote you a letter.

Yeah, I'm just to put that out. He's not my boyfriend, but like in the Jungle, they put boyfriend. And I was mortified when I came out because I read it and I went, oh, my gosh, we've been labeled. We'd have literally just gone away together and everything's fine. We are in a situation.

GYP non monogamous.

And the reason behind that is I think personally it's not for everyone, but I think that the act of cheating or sleeping with someone isn't the thing that is the most hurtful part. The most hurtful part is the betrayal is the lie. And if you can have an open conversation with your partner about what your needs are.

Do you generally in relationships? Do you not believe in monogamy?

I always called myself monogamish, being that like, if my partner needed me to be monogamous, then it's something that we would speak about and I would probably be totally okay with it and we'll do it. But we've had a lot of conversations where we're both monogamish, where it's if we found ourselves living in the same city, living in the same home, totally yeah, like that makes sense, Like we want a family, we want kids, Like that

That's very true, very true.

It's like like I obviously don't have any status behind that, so like, don't come.

Out, no, it just from my own life, I know that that's what happens. And it's also harder to trust somebody because you're just not with them every night. You can't see what they're doing.

Yeah, and like I travel a lot.

The person I'm hanging out with, we're gonna call him Rhino. That's because that's what I called him all through the jungle. So Rhino travels a lot. I travel a lot.

And do you think a relationship now is something you factor into your idea of a happy life?

Yep.

Oh, I was like, whoa, Yeah, this actually happened in the jungle where I was like, I really miss this person.

I really want to be with this person.

I also really want now to not care as much about my career, not in the sense that I still don't want to be working a lot, but I think now there's time to kind of give that other side of my life a little bit of love. I am thirty now, so I'm starting to think about what that kind of looks like, what my future looks like, what my family life looks like.

And yeah, so I would like to meet a person and have kids and have a farm.

And when you think about how you define happiness, you're so young now, But if you think about being an old man and looking back and thinking I had a happy life, what do you think that looked like.

In the jungle, A few people figured it out. They're like, you really just want to cook. I honestly just want to cook, Like I want to watch people eat and enjoy my food, or cook for themselves and tell me that my kids really like this dish.

Like that is happiness.

That is actually, if we got rid of everything else and we just had people cooking my food and enjoying it, that is happiness.

And why do you think that is? What is it about that act and about food? Is it mindfulness? Is it actually being in the moment and taking time to learn about the things.

As I was growing up, I said that I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my mom and my dad. We cooked a lot together, and I remember it being a time where I was really really happy because I was spending time with my parents. And I think that's where my love of food comes from.

For one exactly, So a challenge that people have when you're living on your own. Anything, Oh, I won't cook because they'll just be so much waste. Yeah, it's such a good idea.

Yeah, well, I currently live alone, so I'm like, yes, I have this, and then I packed the other leftover into a lunch box and I have it for lunch.

I don't really give it to my concierge, but I have it for lunch.

So I wanted to ask finally about what you think about the relationship between success and happiness from a humble background in terms of a refugee camp, coming to Australia, your family, starting a life again, and now you have the kind of success I'm sure you and your family

We definitely say the same.

We definitely say the same because I feel like the happiest signs that I remember are my childhood, with my family, with my sister.

I'm sitting on the counter with my mom cooking.

But do you think when you look at your life and you think about the things that you've really wanted and then getting them, Yeah, have you noticed that there's complexity there?

I have mentioned her like twenty four times for Sarah and I have these very in depth conversations where we've gone walks and we just talk about our entire life. We complain about things that we're not supposed to complain about, but we can to each other. Yeah, And one of the complaints are that it's kind of ridiculous that we've gone to a stage in our life where we have goals. We have these goals that are huge goals that we might have told each other two years, three years before,

Yep.

It's just a treadmill of just yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, and then your baseline changes of what it feels like you need in order to feel satisfied.

This is why I think what I really want is that family, that life, because I'm like, right now, I am only just kicking these goals because I am searching for something, like I can't get what I really want, so instead I'm like, yeah, I don't need anything.

I'm just going to become like a multi millionaire and travel.

The world and just like eat food and like wear nice clothes and be tanned all the time.

But if you got all those things, would you feel empty? Would there be something missing?

I reckon you would, yeah, because I think that, Like, I just want to cook for my family every single meal, every breakfast, every lunch and every dinner, and be sad when my kids tell me that they don't want something that would make them for lunch.

That's all about Yeah, Khan, You're loved by the Australian public. You've built a career I'm sure you could have only dreamed of when you're a kid, and it feels like you truly get to do what you love and your passion is palpable. But are you happy?

I am happy to an extent Like this whole time I've spoken, you can tell that I'm a pretty happy person. I'm very happy. I'm very fortunate. I'm very thankful for everything I have. The only thing that's missing for me are the kids. Yeah, I think, But I don't think I'm at that stage of my life yet where that is going to rip my soul apart right now. It's

It's not just going to happen. I'm not going to just feel pregnant. You never know.

This was such an enlightening conversation because you can see in Karn a human experience that's universal. The stuff he struggles with is both the big stuff and the little stuff. It's being a kid and not feeling like you fit in because you don't have a cultural context that matches your peers, because you weren't born in a hospital in the next suburb, but in a refugee camp. And it's also second guessing everything about yourself because you were cheated on.

And Matt was in the kitchen with Marley, and I was sitting on the side of the bed and you know, he like massive pads and you want a pillow, booms her everything. You're just like, haven't slept in two days. The emotions really hit you. And she was in the little bassinet next to the bed, and I remember sitting there looking at her and I was like, we have ruined our lives.

On last week's episode, I spoke with media personality, youth worker, podcaster, and author Brook Blurton about processing trauma, balancing the pursuit of individual happiness with the needs and struggles of your community, and the moment you found love on national television and received news of a personal tragedy at the same time. There's a link in the show notes to listen to that episode. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us