As a listener of how I work.
You've hopefully picked up a few tips on this show to help you work better?
But do you want more? And maybe in a book form, because let's face it, books are the most awesome thing on the planet.
Well, now you can. In my new book, time Wise, I uncover a wealth of proven strategies that anyone can use to improve their productivity, work, and lifestyle. Time Wise brings together all of the gems that I've learned from conversations with the world's greatest thinkers, including Adam Grant, Dan Pink, Mia Friedman, and Turia.
Pitt and many many others. Time Wise is launching on.
July five, but you can pre order it now from Amantha dot com. And if you pre order time Wise, I have a couple of bonuses for you. First, you'll receive an ebook that details my top twenty favorite apps and software for being time wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading,
cooking ideas, and more. You will also get a complementary spot in a webinar that I'm running on June twenty nine, where I will be sharing the tactics from time Wise that I use most often, and also some bonus ones that are not in the book that I use and love. Hop onto Amantha dot com to pre order now. As a podcast makeup, I try to have an active and diverse podcast diet. I'll cycle through everything from true crime
to current affairs to comedy. But if some strange rule came into being and I was only allowed to listen to just one podcast, it would be MoMA Mia out Loud. I started listening to it during the pandemic and I never stopped. It's like listening to three really insightful and articulate girlfriends talk about stuff that's going.
On in the world. It's like a guilty pleasure without the guilt.
So really it's just a pleasure and I'm definitely not alone as I'm recording this introduction. Mumma MEA Out Loud is the fifth most popular show on the Apple podcast charts here in Australia, and their most recent episode is sitting at number two in the episode charts, and another recent episode is at number six, and there's another one at number twenty four. So basically, Mumma MEA Out Loud is one of the most popular and most consistently popular
podcasts running. Part of the appeal is that the show comes out three times a week, which sounds like an ungodly amount of work, especially because the hosts are three incredibly busy women. Mia Friedman's the co founder of the Muma Mea women's media company, Holly Wayne writes the head of content at mumma Mia, and Jesse Stevens is Muma MEA's executive editor. All three of my guests also host other podcasts across the Mumamea network, and all three are
best selling authors. So how do three of the busiest people on the player to pull themselves together to record three episodes about loud per week plus two for subscribers. How do they decide what they're going to talk about each time and what goes on behind the scenes of one of Australia's favorite podcasts.
My name is doctor Amantha Immer.
I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work, a show
about how to help you do your best work. It's easy to think that all a podcast involves is just sitting in a studio talking for the length of the episode, say forty minutes, and then posting the sound files up onto the podcast app that you are listening to this on right now, but it's so much more than that, and I wanted to know how do Maya, Holly and Jesse, three incredibly busy women, manage to prep for and record three episodes of Mama Miya out Loud every week, along
with two additional episodes every week that are just for Mother and mea subscribers.
On the day that we are releasing the show, we get together and plan. Before that, we will have already exchanged several ideas digitally, so we know broadly what the producer is going to bring to us and say we should do this. So three times a week we sit down in the studio or as we are today, remotely
from home and record the shows. So we record the subscriber episodes usually on either a Monday or a Wednesday in a block, but it depends because sometimes something exciting will happen and we need to talk about it, so will jump in and put that on the back of another episode. But generally speaking, on out loud days, that's our priority in our calendars to put aside the time to plan, prep and record.
So, Mia, how do you decide on the topics because, like some of the topics are very much front and center in the news, whereas others seem to be random articles that you guys have read. So how does that topic selection happen?
I suppose the ultimate filter for us is the same the same filter that mumum the website has, which is what women are talking about today. And of course women aren't just talking about the news, you know, And I think that's something that we've always understood and really leaned into. So women might be talking about a conversation, they've had a celebrity story, the election, or manner of things, and so it has to be something that either we feel like we want to talk about. I mean, that has
to be the first thing. At least one of us has to be really excited about talking about it. There are certain things that everyone expects us to talk about if there's a story that's massively in the news, but we always say, what can we bring to it because we're not a news podcast, that's not what we do. So we don't do explainers of what's happening in Ukraine.
So we find we'll find a way into talking about Ukraine, and of course we will acknowledge it because women are talking about it, but we won't try to keep everybody across all the top stories of the day. We've got another podcast called The Quiki that does that twice a day. It's our news podcast. And yeah, because we've been working together for a really long time, we're all very good at self editing as we go. Without wanting to compare us to Oprah. I was once watching Oprah Live when
she was in Australia. I was in the audience and watched Oprah Live and she wasn't I was in the audience. She wasn't broadcasting live. It was for a pre recorded show, but it was fascinating to watch her because you could see her there was not a lot of fat. You could see her editing as she spoke. She was thinking about how it was going to be, how the package was going to be. She would speak, just tell that
she was kind of self editing as she went. And I think because the three of us are also editors, we're not just writers, we know how to do that. So whether it's editing our own thoughts, making sure we give you our wonderful producer Emma.
A good end line.
We haven't always been good at this, but we're better and better at it, so it requires less and less editing.
We would like to think it's.
Interesting what Mia was saying around how you're all editors and you're kind of like you're working in your podcast with sort of segments that seem to be maybe between about sort of six to eight minutes, and I guess, how do you pace yourselves in terms of knowing how quickly to get in and then how to get out in time?
Where it's a work in progress.
Holly and I have a habit of saying the same thing a few times. We're better at it now, but in a slightly different way. So it's like we all thought of a better way to say exactly, whereas Jesse is much better at just being concise about what she thinks and then moving on. So our producer will always when we can sometimes get to a point in a topic where we'll just be talking around and we'll all just be repeating ourselves, and that's where she'll wind us up.
But we sort of naturally feel how long a segment is now.
And it's really awkward at the end of a segment to Holly will say something and then we all know that we need to take a beat where we just awkwardly look at each other and let the silence fall. A lot of people think the podcast is just having a prolonged conversation.
It isn't.
No one wants to hear you meander, No one wants to hear you sort of bumble through something. I think they do want to hear you think. But at the same time, we're very aware of when something's beginning to lose steam and you've just got to go okay. Me as having the last line on that, we can hear the ending coming and we'll all just look at each other and go silent. And that's not something we could five four or five years ago. But I think through practice we've gotten much better.
We're not actually super strict on exactly how long every segment needs to be, because, as both me and Jesse were just saying, when you can feel the steam going out of it, you pull away. But equally, when it's great and it's getting more momentum and you can tell this is a really good conversation, one of the beautiful things about podcasts is we can lean into that and let it go. It's not breakfast radio where you have to explain something complicated in three minutes all you're out.
I mean, that's one of the things we really want to be able to do is to be able to pick apart things and lean into them when they're needed. So it's like in real time we kind of have to gauge how good we are.
And like, how do you do that?
Sounds like a stupid question, but like, how do you know are how good are you? Like, well, how do you know in all serious how do you know if a segment's going well? And you should be like, you know, continuing to like go down that route, Jessie, I.
Think we are very honest with each other, and we also protect each other, which has been a real gift of the podcast. Something will slip out of one of our mouth and we'll go careful with that phrase, careful with that word, which can feel quite sometimes you can feel very defensive at the time because that's not how you meant it. But because we are editors and writers, one shoe is that you're in the podcast speaking, and the other foot is in another shoe, which is the listener,
And so we're listening as we go. We're getting incredible feedback from an amazing producer who's saying that was interesting.
That wasn't.
We take feedback really seriously. We get emails, we get reviews. We have the out Louders group. They'll tell us when we're crap, when we're not on our game, we will get tenn email saying you're not on your game, Jesse, you were flat mea terrible argument there, Holly, you're rambling, they tell us, which is just fabulous. Yeah, but we must say I think we've left it in a few times where we'll finish a segment, we'll go, we're so.
Smart, and then we look at each other going.
Oh, that was so good, especially if we probably enjoyed it, because we do genuinely love talking to each other. That sounds really cheesy, but if the three of us are in the back of a number or having dinner, will we can't stop ourselves from going on about whatever. Sometimes you know we'll be really feeling the enjoyment of that conversation, and so we do just go that was great. And sometimes you look at mspace, our producer, and it's like, was it.
Though we're also very very data led, so our views of whether something is working is a trajectory of a podcast should always be you're accumulating more listeners, and if you are losing listeners, they didn't get something from the last episode they wanted. That's very clear. We look at first day listens, we look a second day listens, we look.
At week months. We're so stuck in the.
Data that I think we can tell, oh, you know what, We've actually done too much election, We've done too much COVID. And after this episode on the third of April, people started to go, I'm going to give it a break. And we've got you an incredible team that helps us interpret that data. But we're very wedded to that and metrics. I think they're really helpful.
Something I'm always like, I always get quite excited about when I listened to Mama Mia out loud. Just the interesting articles that you guys find from all over the world.
I'd love to know me or where, Like where are your go to.
Sources for finding great content that you then explore on the show.
That's a great question.
We're all just voraciously curious. I think that's something that we share. And we're also when I say widely read, I mean widely read, like we all cast our nets very wide in terms of what we're interested in. And the different places that will go. I can't speak for Holly and Jesse, but I just follow my nose, follow my curiosity. Obviously, I subscribe to IDM, I subscribe to dms,
I visit homepages. I don't get my content from social media, because well, I do occasionally, but I just find that the algorithm is too limiting, and I don't want to outsource.
My news or my content to meta.
I would prefer to go hunt for it rather than sit there and passively have an algorithm serve it to me.
Which edms are your must read ones than Maya?
The New York Times has a really great personalization feature, which is an algorithm in itself. So listen to my hypocrisy, But I find that it surfaces a good, you.
Know, variety of content.
I also follow a number of different substacks just by individual writers, and I try to make sure I again cast it wide, so some of them will be political, some of them will be sort of social justice minded, some of them will be gossip minded. You know, we're all very content agnostic in the content that we consume.
How about you, Holly, do you have any favorite places?
I'm much more low brow than Jesse and a like MEAs straddles both sides of the low and high. So I'm often looking at I mean, obviously I follow EDMS too, and I've got various that I love, but I also will I will always also just look at the sort of more tabloid news sites to see what the conversation is in terms of what the things are that people
are seeing and talking about. I will also, for that same reason, usually have a bit of an ear about what are people talking about on commercial radio, what are people talking about on breakfast television. Jesse's more Twitter, so
she can often bring that perspective. But I think it's important we want that mix of bringing these really interesting gems that we do, but also kind of really understanding what people are thinking and saying or hearing elsewhere about a particular topic that we can maybe show another side to. So I've always said, back from my journalism training days,
they used to be this. We had this great tutor that I loved, and he used to tell us every day, read a tabloid and a broadsheet, read a newspaper that you disagree with and one that you agree with. And obviously that's very much evolved from newspapers, but I still very much whole that standard. There's no news source that's beneath me. I've got the obviously, I've got the context
to know what's nonsense and what's not. But I think it's really important to be consuming media that you don't necessarily agree with or you don't even necessarily respect that much, just to really understand what the diet is that's out there that you can then help digest to torture metaphor.
So Jesse, you're the highbrow one.
I assume you're just like hopping on Harvard Business Review every day and checking out Journal of Applied Psychology and the lives.
Exactly right, Maya as always.
I remember us having an intervention in editorial years ago where Mea said that we were all fishing from the same pond. Every single person was checking the same three websites every day, and our views were far too limited. Yeah, and our ideas went original. So and there's a lot you can do about that, which is hiring, you know, a more diverse workforce. And that's not just about you know, whether it's it's gender or race or sexuality. It's also
about class. It's also about political positions. And having a lot of people come in from different contexts has helped with that I've had since I started. I have a thing on I like star websites that I really like, and so my scan is very I will do the same scan every day of say fifteen websites, and that might be The Atlantic and the cart and I don't know Business Insider or the Australian, which again, there are lots of things that I don't agree with.
But I like having a sense of that. I've jump on Twitter.
The most recent one where I'm getting the best content from is Bloody TikTok. I get on TikTok. Yeah, the stuff that will give you is really helpful. But I also and I've thought about this a lot. I used to walk to work and as I walked, I would listen to things and I would read things. But I realized that it often the best ideas I had. Well, when I put my phone away, I thought for ten minutes
about what people are talking about. What's the what's the broader thing we talk about a helicopter bird's eye view, Like, yeah, everyone's talking about the intricacies of amber heard, but what's the real conversation. There's that, and then there's also walking to work or waiting for your coffee and taking your headphones out, and you will get a sense within ten
seconds of what the conversation is. Yeah, and that's actually where the best ideas come from, is that you know it'll be about like, oh, what do I do?
You know? This is very specific to today, But.
The biggest conversation is, hang on if I get COVID before Saturday, what am I going to do? And with voting or whatever? I mean, that's the story and leaning into what people are talking about is the thing that has served us best.
I think it's.
Interesting what you're saying, Jesse, in terms of giving yourself just that space and time to think about what you think about something. And you guys mentioned earlier the Holy Jesse. You guys do a bit of prep in before recording. Mia not so much. So I'd love to know like all your processes, Mia, Yours sounds very scary to me.
How like have you? Have you always been like that? Just sort of flying.
Possibly go wrong?
Yes, lucky, I've never ever made a mistake of television before. Why do I do so little prep? I'd love to say it's because I'm better than them. But it's because I'm lazy.
You know what you do do Mia, and I'm going to come in and defend you. Is it just then when I was saying that we all that it's good to have a think from what you'll do is is reflect a bit on it, and you'll come up with a really interesting perspective. And it's because you actually haven't consumed eleven things and you don't get stuck in the weeds. And I think that's why you're often able to articulate the sentiment of something because you reflect on it.
That's your prep thank you.
Yes, it's that's the reason.
It's a little bit similar to how I prep for No Filter, where I just absorb things and then I need to metabolize them. And I find that my worst interviews and my worst shows are the ones where I prep too much for because it does something to my brain where it becomes I don't know, it loses some magic for me.
So I prefer to.
Be able to react off Jesse and Holly, so I'll always be the one in the planning meeting. They will often like to get into an issue a little bit, just to make sure that it's an interesting enough topic for us to talk about, whereas I'll just go, h, stop kills the magic. And that's actually something I learned from doing morning television or doing the project or because they're very much not so much of the project, but they very much try to stop that. Because when you
work with comedians, they don't like to be prepared. They like to have that banter.
Jesse, You're the opposite on the prep front, is that right?
Yes?
Which is funny because MEA and I are both anxious, but our anxiety manifests in very different ways. I need to be prepared, and in fact, this has been my fault that I've had to work back from, I think, which is that over preparation kills spontaneity and kills podcasts. But I have also believed very strongly, which is something that's drilled into you at Mummia, not to waste her time.
And I want to make sure this.
Is the best advice I got about podcasting was like, don't come in with eleven points, come in with one or two and just know them know your position on it.
Have said, just to be clear that her you're talking about is not don't waste my time, it's don't waste the time.
Yes, yes, good clarification.
My time is available to be wasted. I waste everybody's time by being not prepared.
And that's my biggest fear is that we all kind of and when I say we, I don't worry about me or and hotly doing it, but I worry that And I've had this recently with having to do things live, that I won't have anything to bring, anything meaningful or important to bring to something, and everyone I'll go what was the point in that. My biggest fear is that I'll go blank, and I'll open my mouth and nothing
will come out. So I'm an over preparer who's constantly putting myself in situations that challenge that and beat that
out of me. And it's also worth noting I'm also the least experienced because I'm the youngest, I've been in the industry for the least so from coming on to this podcast, I probably had a complex that was like, You've got to work twice as hard to sound half as good, which is why I've always I will go into exam mode preparation before a podcast, where all like read or I'll listen to something and I'll make notes and immerse myself and I love working under that pressure.
That kind of lights me up. It's exam mode.
Now, your producer is Emma Gillespie, who is on the line listening to this interview. What does the producer do for a podcast?
Oh, she saves us a lot of the time. So the way that we work these days is that we generally pitch our ideas to Emma and then Emma reflects them back at us and says, you know, you all seem to want to talk about this. I think this is the most interesting bit, and then we push and pull that. So she's curating the ideas. She obviously helps us with preparation to a point as well, so she'll make sure we've got our facts straight and that we've got the audio texture as we call it for a show.
If we need a particular grab and all those things, we'll go and get those. She also edits, She listens, She tells us if we're screwing something up, she tells us if we're going too long, and she also obviously edits. It pulls it all together and makes us all sound shiny and great.
Something that I started doing about a year and a half ago with how I work. When I started working with the wonderful Kelly Reardan as my I guess she's kind of like the executive producer in a way. Is we would do something called an air check or I think that's the term taken from radio, where you'll do the joyful task of well listening to yourself back. Oh, that's a really nice way to spend a morning.
Do you do that with Kelly or just you do it independently and then notes.
I do both, not religiously, but semi regularly. I would say that I do that with Kelly. I do that fairly regularly. So we will meet once a month and we'll talk about the show, and we will pick a section from an interview and we will listen to that together and Kelly, oh my gosh, it's like it's equal parts just horrible and enlightening, because it is amazing to you know, and for those who have no idea who
Kelly Riddan is. She used to head up podcasts at the ABC, and she's incredibly experienced when it comes to podcasts. So it is amazing having someone of Kelly's expertise listen and critique. And I feel like I've grown so much as a host because of Kelly's feedback. Now, I think, Jesse, you mentioned that you'll obviously get feedback from listeners the out louders, but I'm curious what's the feedback process between the three of you and also with your producer Emma.
We do get from producer Emma.
We also have.
A role at the moment that is a lot of air checks and also feedback generally about show structure, maybe ticks.
We have that kind of thing.
And then we have a head of podcasts that's also listening out for a lot of that. So this happens a lot as well at the beginning.
The birth of a show.
So I'm on another podcast called Canceled, which is relatively new, and that's been so amazing to just have a team of people who want that to be as good as it can be and say, hey, the way that that unfolded on Tuesday wasn't quite right, here's why. And I've do exactly the same thing, which has forced myself to
listen back, which can be excruciating. But the things you learn about your own crutches and and sometimes it can be hard because then you get quite self conscious when you go to speak, but you get you get better and better. And I think that it's twofold because you've got to do it and hear what you hear, but you need someone else to also say, hey, you're speaking yourself around in circles. You contradicted yourself in that segment, whatever it is, and it can feel like a real
ego hit. It's a really hard thing to cop. When I was quite early on in out layout, we had the head of podcasts give me a call and basically say here's a list. And it was lovely. It was the kindest thing.
What was on that list?
Oh my god, it was worse when you were saying heteronormative all the time.
Yes, it was using long words.
A lot, Yes, exactly.
And I was everything was problematic.
Everything was problematic.
I was new, I was green, I was trying to impress, and there were things that I was doing that would have been really irritating as a listener. She didn't put it like that, but she also didn't, you know, pretend
she was giving me a compliment. It was the kindest thing she could have possibly done and improved my career exponentially, and it would have been a really uncomfortable conversation for her, and I've just been so grateful for anyone who, you know, has the bravery to sit down with talent and say, if you fix A, B and C, you'll be brilliant.
It's terrifying.
I think it's challenging also because Holly and I in particular, we're the bosses, so we are often in charge of the people who were giving us feedback. So the power and balance can feel quite difficult for those people. But Jesse mentioned head of Podcasts Eliza Ratliffe. She's still the executive producer about that, but she used to be our producer and before that she was my EA, so she's got long history with us and I think she, more than anyone else in our business, can give us very.
Unfiltered you know.
She pulls no punches and I love that because I crave that feedback and there aren't enough people who feel comfortable enough in our business to give that to me, and she's probably one of them.
We will be back soon talking about how the team selects guest hosts when one of them is on holiday and how they go about making them seamlessly fit into the show, and we'll also be talking about how they role model, respectful disagreement.
If you're looking.
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something that I always very impressed with. This when you have guest hosts, because you guys are not working fifty two weeks a year, which which is I find quite sad because I really like the combination of you through you have.
To really try work hard to stop me from working fifty two weeks.
Yes, say true fifty three if I could.
Thank God for Byron Bay. But you, I feel like, whenever you've got a guest host, it's really seamless, and I'd love to know, firstly, how do you go about choosing those guest hosts.
We have people that we've put forward that we've worked with for a long time, Susan Carland we've worked with for a long time, and then we'll have like you know, sometimes a wish list, or we'll go we know that our perspectives are limited, so sometimes we'll think it would great, it would be great to have someone on the show who doesn't have kids, or who isn't married, or who's
in a same sex relationship or something. We try really hard with briefing them and letting them know the structure of the show so that they feel safe, and getting the rhythm with them, which is really hard over a screen because sometimes there's a delay and you can feel like you've just not quite got the pace and the understanding and the rapport that you might need. But yeah, we've had a bunch of different hosts and hopefully we do.
You know, we don't think too much about it, but I think that it's a lot about the relationship that's built before you get on the mic, and making them feel really safe and that you're not out to get them, and that this is relatively it's often a lot more loose than what they do regularly, which is radio or television, and we say you've got more time, there's a lot more room for nuance, and our producer and our team have your back, and I think that makes them feel safe.
I was going to ask how you go about building rapport with them, particularly when like the other two of you who were there with the guest host haven't worked with them, you know, when one of you hasn't worked with them before, or both of you haven't worked with them before.
So what does that process look like.
Well, the producer is obviously is in contact with them from an earlier stage about as Jesse said, it will often be somebody that we know in some capacity, or that we've seen and loved their work in some capacity, so em we'll be in touch with them early on to talk about the process and how it is. Because the thing is interesting. I love the fact that you say it sounds so seamless, because it's actually a very difficult thing to do to come into this threesome of them.
And after they're a listener, they're an out louder, so they come in with ideas and thoughts, or they might feel a little bit intimidated or self conscious.
So the two OG hosts that.
Are working with the guest we have to do a lot more heavy lifting than when it's the three of us. Obviously to make them feel comfortable, I.
Would imagine something that is quite scary, or maybe I'm just projecting my own fears here onto like being you know, regularly talking about your opinions on topics and you've got all these out louders who are also very opinionated. Is ending up on Jesse's podcast canceled? Like, how do you deal with that? Me?
Yeah, You've probably had a lot of experience.
Like you know, being canceled.
Yeah, yeah, Like how do you think about that in terms of what you express on the show.
So one of the interestingly, I don't write anymore really except for Mum and me as subscribers, and I don't do any TV anymore at all because of the threat of cancelation and because you know, I have a responsibility as well. I'm the owner of a business that employs more than one hundred women. So if I were to say something that was either offensive inadvertently or not, or if I was to get into a cancelation situation, that
could be detrimental to so many people. But what I've realized is that people hate watch TV, they hate read, but they don't hate listen, and so not always, but mostly you have also we have a degree of control because it's not live, and we have a producer and each other to watch our backs and we're very mindful of this every time we put something out, but ultimately people are lazy and cancel culture usually comes from someone
taking something out of context. And one of the most difficult things for podcasters is that it's quite hard to share a podcast. You can't share a segment of a podcast, and that's something that is a curse and a blessing because it makes discoverability more difficult, but it means that it can't be easily shared on Twitter, which is where people get canceled generally.
We also, obviously, you know, working in the industries that we've all worked in for years now, we're very aware of hot button issues, dangerous places to go, topics that we really should not we do not have a position to discuss. So and also one of the things that we all feel deeply is none of us want a show that people just shouting outrageous opinions at each other.
That's not what we're there for. So we work hard to make sure that we're representing different viewpoints and that we disagree with each other, but respectful disagreement is our obsession, and I think you're also setting a certain tone when you do that. So as much as we have each other's back in terms of, as I think Mia said earlier or Jesse said earlier, if you maybe something slipped
out of your mouth that could be misconstrued. We're all very good at catching that, as is our producer, and the show goes through two sets of ears before it goes out. But we also we're not interested in just stirring up culture wars. That's not the opposite of that.
I'll avoid that if we can.
I think that the fear for me has become and we have this discussion relatively recently, how do you still take how do you still take positions on things and reflect what women are talking about while not getting yourself canceled. If you are too worried about what people think, do not get into podcasting, because you can say the most innocuous things sometimes and be absolute, really rile people up,
and you've just got to cop that. And often I'll say something and a producer will say, you know, that might upset a few people, or that there's a group of people who are not going to happy you said that, and I'll have a think and go it's worth saying.
And I think.
That's a really hard thing to do, because I've seen a lot of podcasts where people share opinions and perspectives go in the direction of you've actually spent forty minutes not saying anything because you're so terrified of what the response will be. So that's still important to have those
those debates. And I think often in the planning meeting will go I'll say this, but I think we also have to present X opinion in order for this to be a well rounded, informative conversation, and we'll carefully produce that.
But yeah, I'm aware of that that.
There are some issues that I go, I feel passionately about this, I believe in it. If I get one hundred hate emails, it will have been worth it.
But I think that that's the key is is it worth it and it's not worth it just so that you feel like you said something clever, you know what I mean? And Jesse is very is smart enough as we all are, to kind of being a able to self curate those issues to a point where you're like, this is, as you say, a conversation worth having. This is just poking a bear.
Yeah, Holly, you mentioned respectful disagreement.
How how do you role model that?
I think I like to think we do it well. There are a few issues that we can be guaranteed to disagree about, and the argument will spill from the studio to the kitchen, to the uber, to the to the to wherever we're going to next, the next meeting. We're in some pourts so and so some poor person will have to listen that to us continue that argument. But I think that the fundamental we all have a great deal of respect for each other anyway, so we
genuinely want to hear each other's points of view. It's really essential to us that we can model that you can disagree and pick people up on things that you disagree with or that they got wrong, or whatever that might be, and still walk away friends. It is the thing that out louders tell us they like the most. But that is very much about not getting personal, not
playing people instead of issues. And I think also, and it was an out louder who pointed this out to me, actually is she said, you might disagree about things, but you share values. And I think that's true. And I know values is something that's just thrown around a lot, and there's a lot of shades of gray in the way we all feel about certain issues, but none of us are holding deep Trumpian views about you know, women
or immigration or whatever it might be. We come from a base of shared value, I think, and then we dance around on top of that with our disagreements, but we all genuinely respect each other's point of view. I don't think you can fake that.
But the irony of this, Amantha, is that that's just reflective of real life. It's only on the Internet that people say things like I don't agree with everything that you say, but I really liked that point you made about blah blah. In real life, everybody that we love, our friends, our partners, our children, our parents, we have loads of things that we disagree with them about, but we don't write them off as people or cancel them.
The only place that happens is the Internet. And I think that you know, our Holly is completely right about we do share values. But the most interesting times for us are the times where there's the grain of sand in the oyster, you know, like, for example, j Long at the super.
BOWTL we will never stop arguing.
I'll take you on now again.
For around forty five we had very very different views about that, and that might seem so small, but really they were about much bigger issues around feminism. But that just happened to be the lens through which we were looking at something was quite different looking at the same sort of cultural moment. So yeah, for us, that's what keeps it exciting. We love it when we find something to do.
We do, but it's really but you know that episodes I hate the most are the ones where I feel like I've lost my call, like sometimes you do you get too emotional and I and you know, I'll never forget as a mother the argument we had about that years ago.
Now phrase we just pick that up again.
That's always fun.
It's the phrase as a mother that Jesse was saying that mothers use all the time to then justify why they know better about all the things. And I got very emotional in that conversation. And every time my voice gets screechy and I lose Michael, and then I just feel awful for days.
Like why do you feel awful?
I loved it. I loved it in the end, but I just don't want I just don't like that. I don't like that. I loved debate, but I don't like debate when it gets like that.
I think Holly as well. You said about that discussion, which is a very fine line that we sometimes toe, is that when a woman is giving us forty minutes of her time, we don't want her to take her headphones out and feel worse about herself.
No I did.
That's a good point.
Did that discussion make a woman who would use that term feel like shit or like? We don't want to create division for the sake of creating division. And so that's why the structure of the show can be important, is you can have a discussion like that and then come back in the next segment and have a big laugh and go, this is an exchange of ideas. This isn't pitting people against each other. It's a careful, careful line.
I think, well, when I listened to MoMA Mia out Loud, I definitely.
Feel better about myself.
And I was thinking, like, in preparation for this interview, like if I like if I don't know, there was a spell that was cast on me and I could only listen to one podcast like for the rest of my life, like or let's just say the next month.
It would be Mamma Mia out Loud.
I listened to a lot of different podcasts, But I just I feel such joy when I have you three in my ears. It's been so just like wonderful to speak to you all and understand the process that goes on behind it. I normally finish these interviews by asking how can people connect with you? Which I will in a moment obviously. I mean, you would have just had the volume turned down really low to not know that
we've been talking about Mama Mia out loud. And you can get that wherever you listen to your podcast.
But what is that.
Cover?
A back?
Can you get a.
Sow?
How can listeners connect with the three of you?
Holly?
How can how can people connect with you?
Well? Obviously I write and work at Mama Miya, but the best, my favorite of the social media platforms is Instagram, so you can always find me there at Wayne Wright Holly. That's who I am.
On Jesse how about you?
Yeah, Instagram as well.
I'm Jesse Stevens on Instagram, And I've also got another Instagram with my twin sister where we do a lot of chats about Cancel, the other podcast that we do, and my writing is every time I can do it on Mama Maya and Maya.
I'm also on Instagram girl just at MEA Friedman and I have got a newsletter that you can subscribe to by going to Meafriedman dot com, where you will find my.
Writing Amazing ladies like I feel like ladies. That sounds so old fashioned, but anyway, I feel like I've just been talking with three friends, even though we're not like, because I feel like you're my friends because I hear you every day almost on my headphone.
So thank you so much for spending the time with me.
Thank you, Amantha, thank you for having us.
Well this you was such a joy to do, and having listened to a couple of episodes after conducting this interview, it's been really interesting listening to it with the craft that all three women bring to it. In the back of my mind, they make it look so easy sharing their opinions on all sorts of things going on in the world. But that apparent ease, I think, really only comes when you have spent years honing your craft.
If you're enjoying how I work.
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It's wonderful getting feedback from listeners, so thank you in advance if you've left feedback, or if you plan to do so today. How I Work is produced by Inventing, with production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this episode was Liam Riordan, and thank you to Matt Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
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