**BEST OF 2021** Before you click ‘add’ on another vaguely familiar face on LinkedIn - not so fast! But the larger your social or professional network, the larger your influence, right? Organisational psychologist Marissa King says… not always. A professor of organisational behaviour at the Yale School of Management, Marissa has studied social networks, social influence and team dynamics for the past fifteen years. She’s developed a deep understanding of how they evolve and why it’s so important...
Jan 26, 2022•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? A great piece of advice can be life changing. It can set you on a whole new trajectory, land you a new job, or even prompt you to make a big career change. Group Managing Director of Coca-Cola Amatil, and self-described overachiever Alison Watkins shares how to make sure the advice you receive is right for you. Global leader in innovation Scott D Anthony wants you to flirt with possible career moves through advice and curiosity. Organ...
Jan 24, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** It’s 4:27AM. That’s right. Not 4:25, not 4:30, but exactly 4:27. When you’re a veteran breakfast radio host like Christian O’Connell, you calculate your latest possible wakeup time to the second. Once he’s out the door, it’s a 20 to 30-minute commute, but it’s one he really enjoys. It’s the only time in a pretty hectic workday he has completely to himself. After that, it’s 15 minutes of solitude and total silence in the studio so Christian can focus on the one word that’s going ...
Jan 19, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** Are you looking for ways to save time?There are plenty of tools out there to help streamline your work processes, but how do you know which ones work best? Find out what websites are causing you too many minutes of distraction, and learn how to batch check your emails rather than becoming a slave to the inbox. Website time tracker Rooster, time calculator Erik Rood, and email client Tempo are the three tools that help me get more out of my week. I’ll explain how I use them and h...
Jan 17, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** A tip just for you - you’re doing too much, friend. You’re probably conditioned to think the harder you work, the better the results... And you might have even hit burnout once or twice along the way. Leadership and business strategist Greg McKeown wants you to fight against that conditioning. Instead of wondering “How can I work harder to get more done?”, Greg wants you to ask yourself “How can I make this easier AND get the best results?”. But can you genuinely take fewer step...
Jan 12, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** Do you want to improve your writing? Writing is one of the fundamental ways we persuade people to take up our ideas, meet with us, or buy the thing we are selling. Want a snappier headline or to make sure you are communicating to the right audience. Want to find those pesky grammatical errors before you send your email? What if you see a nice font you like, but don’t know how to find out which one it is? Text analyser Hemingway, writing assistant Grammarly, headline improver CoS...
Jan 10, 2022•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** Gretchen Rubin has dedicated the last ten years to researching and exploring how to be happier. And she’s discovered just how debilitating distraction can be - for both productivity and joy. Gretchen has self-tested every habit under the sun, and shares which practices to incorporate into your workflow to bolster that joy… and crucially, gives insight into which ones don’t work for her. She also shares how we can help our kids create better habits. She’s also created her own Twe...
Jan 05, 2022•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** I place a huge value on my health. It’s my number one priority. If you’re not healthy, chances are you’re less productive. Using these tools helps me incorporate physical activity into my day, understand my health patterns so I know where I can make improvements, and trains my brain. I use the Apple Smart Rope to count reps when I’m skipping. The rope connects to an app on my phone and lets me know when I have reached my goal. Smart Rope: https://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/HL...
Jan 03, 2022•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** Hear me out - what if you stopped trying so hard to be productive? Most of us only get a total of four thousand weeks on this earth. Do you really want to spend them answering emails? Oliver Burkeman is a “recovering productivity geek” and he wants you to make peace with the reality that you'll never get everything done. He says once you’ve accepted that hard truth, you’ll finally be free to focus on what’s truly important. Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and the author of The A...
Dec 29, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** ‘Should’ is one of the most problematic words when it comes to self-talk. I should go to the gym. I should accept this event invitation. I should call this friend and see how she's going, I should spend less time on social media. Shoulds are very unhelpful. They have the double whammy of making us feel guilty AND they don’t actually help us change our behaviour. I’m going to give you two alternative words or phrases to replace the shoulds in your life.This will help you make bet...
Dec 27, 2021•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** Do you hate email? Are you sick of being a slave to your inbox? Are you like the “average” knowledge worker and check your email or chat messages every six minutes? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, I think you will love today’s show. Cal Newport is a Computer Science Professor at Georgetown University and also the bestselling author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and most recently, A World Without Email. And Cal has been thinking a lot about how to overcome wh...
Dec 22, 2021•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast **BEST OF 2021** How are you coping with this whole global pandemic thing? I feel like I'm more reliant on my devices than ever before - it's like a window to the outside world. But I have a feeling that checking ABC news 10 times a day isn't very good for my mental health. So in today's show, I have an alternative to share. Try out Amantha's favourite calendar software here: usemotion.io Check out Lisa Leong's ABC podcast This Working Life . Connect with Lisa Leong on Linkedin Connect with me o...
Dec 20, 2021•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Even after a long day at work, or at the end of a tough week, when you pop the TV on and hear that familiar “BA-DUNK” as the big red N flashes onto your screen… do you feel a little guilty? Even when I know I don’t need to be working, it’s hard to shake the feeling that TV somehow isn’t as ‘worthwhile’ as other activities - like reading, for example. But media executive Chris Oliver-Taylor disagrees. It’s the age of prestige TV, and the format has been elevated to an art form. But what do you wa...
Dec 15, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s the year 2000, and Steve Jobs wants Apple computers to be able to burn DVDs, but there’s a problem. A big problem. At the time, DVD burners cost tens of thousands of dollars, and they’re incredibly difficult to use. Neither of those features fit the Apple MO. Jobs’ solution was revolutionary, but not just for the world of computing, or even the world of business. Author Greg McKeown uses the lesson in this illustrative anecdote to radically simplify his work and his life, and it all starts ...
Dec 13, 2021•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast When I was in my early twenties, I won an award for a scriptwriting competition run by the Fellowship of Australian Writers, and involved in that process was one of my favourite playwrights - David Williamson. I wrote David a fan letter, and to my great surprise, he replied! That was my first taste of how deeply David respects his audience, and our interview was no different. As the most produced playwright in Australian Theatre’s history, David is extremely productive. Part of this, he says, is...
Dec 08, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Budgeting is… boring, right? It’s all spreadsheets, hard maths, and a hundred reasons you shouldn’t go out for brunch anymore. Try telling that to She’s on the Money founder Victoria Devine! Victoria wants you to let go of the idea that budgets are purely a “restriction” tool. Instead, she treats budgeting as an extension of her personality: if you can align your values with your income and your spending, your budget starts to become a pretty important, creative tool. That also means you need to...
Dec 06, 2021•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast It wouldn’t work to try to tell the Michael Bungay Stanier story - if anyone’s a collection of stories, it’s MBS. He finished law school being sued for defamation by his professor, he was a Rhodes Scholar in his early 20s, and he’s coached Brene Brown on her own podcast. A life and career with so many twists, turns and new directions brings with it an equally eclectic and overflowing bag of tips, tricks and mindset shifts, and Michael shares them generously. Michael covers everything from how to...
Dec 01, 2021•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast At Inventium, we default to asynchronous communication, and it’s been really effective. But… it’s not without some drawbacks. The time saved cutting back on in-person or virtual meetings can sometimes get pushed into writing detailed, thoughtful emails, and you end up back at square one. I’ve tried to combat that by sending shorter, straight-to-the-point messages, but they can occasionally come across as abrupt, or even cold. My solution has been to send audio messages instead. I can get a messa...
Nov 29, 2021•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you ask Marissa King how she’s doing today, she’ll tell you the truth - the good, the bad and the ugly. And her research shows that when she does, you’ll be much more likely to reciprocate that honestly. All of a sudden, you’ve made quite the connection. Marissa calls this “mutually reciprocal self-disclosure”. For those of us who aren’t the professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management, that’s a fancy way of saying: people tend to meet you where you are. That’s why Ma...
Nov 22, 2021•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s 9:30, and you’ve got just under an hour before your next Zoom meeting. There’s already just a bit too much caffeine buzzing around your brain, and your eyes are half-crossed from the last video call. So how do you recharge and show up refreshed for that next one? If you’re Evernote and mmhmm co-founder Phil Libin, you swim laps. Thanks to the “distributed” nature of mmhmm’s workforce, he can punctuate his work days with distinctly not-work activities. Some days, it’s laps between meetings, ...
Nov 17, 2021•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bestselling author and happiness guru Gretchen Rubin isn’t Type A. She’s Type A+, so she knows her way around a well-ordered pros and cons list. But when she and her family were deciding whether or not get a dog, that kind of hyperlogical thinking didn’t feel quite right, and ultimately had her going around in circles. Instead, she asked herself, ‘What’s the bigger life?’ When it comes to major life decisions, breaking things down into tiny details doesn’t reflect the bigness of the decision. So...
Nov 15, 2021•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast It doesn’t matter if you’re not a professional writer - as a professional anything, you’re going to need to do a lot of writing. According to best-selling author Jamila Rizvi, this is a good thing, because your writing skills are like a muscle and therefore need constant training. She teaches you how to improve your writing no matter what field you’re in, and shares some tips for building momentum and staying focused during lockdown. Jamila also gives tips on how to edit your own work if you don...
Nov 10, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gary Mehigan had just opened his first restaurant, and was confident that he’d mastered the art of cooking. However, he’d soon realise he was yet to master the business of cooking. So, he hired a business coach, and everything changed. The most important thing Gary learned from that coach? The one-page “reset.” Every night, over a cup of tea, Gary writes one page of reflections, questions and goals, and he swears by the process. He believes that whenever he lets this practice slide for too long,...
Nov 08, 2021•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast You’ve crushed it in a meeting - everyone seems to be listening intently, excited about your ideas, and when you ask for feedback at the end, you get nothing but praise. So why then, two weeks down the line, do you find out that a few people didn’t agree with a word you said, and there’s a slew of things you could’ve done better? Peakon CEO and co-founder Phil Chambers says it might be because data’s a lot more honest than the people it comes from. Phil shares what he learned from starting a com...
Nov 03, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast You need to be in the office at nine, and if you want to be performing at your best, you’ll need to get in a quick workout and a nutritious breakfast. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for trying to pull an outfit together, so you’ll also need to sort that out the night before. Oh, and you need to make sure your kids have eaten a healthy breakfast, put their school uniforms on, brushed their teeth, packed their bags, and not started an all-out war with one another before getting in the car for dr...
Nov 01, 2021•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Radek Sali’s working in a cinema - his first job out of school - when he realises that encouraging his team to up-sell popcorn and make more choc-tops might be more valuable than what he’s learning at university. It’s then that Radek decides to treat his career like that of a professional athlete: he accepts that it will be a long, tiring journey full of sacrifice, but worth it for a life of passion and excitement. It’s safe to say Radek made the right call - since then, he’s been a leading figu...
Oct 27, 2021•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast I was a competitive kid, and some classroom rivalries pushed me to better grades than I might have achieved otherwise. However, I was also a perfectionist, and any “A”s that came without a “+” beside them started to feel less like an almost-perfect achievement and more like a glaring signal that I’d missed the mark. I hated failing, and when you combine that with believing anything less than the top spot is a loss, you have a recipe for disaster. I hid my failures, refusing to talk about them, t...
Oct 25, 2021•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yes, even Liane Moriarty, author of smash-hit novels like Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers is prone to “doom-scrolling” from time to time. Liane was the first Australian writer to ever debut a novel at #1 on the New York Times’ bestsellers list. The HBO adaptation of Big Little Lies, starring Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, was nominated for an astonishing 21 Emmys and won eight. And yet, just like the rest of us, she still struggles with distractions, negative self-talk, and find...
Oct 20, 2021•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Working can be hard work… obviously. But that doesn’t mean it should only be hard work. Studies show we laugh and smile less as we enter our 20s - which is when most of us enter the full-time workforce. Given how much of our lives we spend at work, we all want to make it a bit more fun. But the good news for the boss is - laughing more often at work makes us better at our jobs! So the question is: how do we become funnier? Naomi Bagdonas teaches humour at Stanford University (yes, that’s a real ...
Oct 18, 2021•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s 4:27AM. That’s right. Not 4:25, not 4:30, but exactly 4:27. When you’re a veteran breakfast radio host like Christian O’Connell, you calculate your latest possible wakeup time to the second. Once he’s out the door, it’s a 20 to 30-minute commute, but it’s one he really enjoys. It’s the only time in a pretty hectic workday he has completely to himself. After that, it’s 15 minutes of solitude and total silence in the studio so Christian can focus on the one word that’s going to guide this mor...
Oct 13, 2021•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
