Creation of any kind is so complex - even when we do it ourselves, we sometimes wonder how it even happened. So if creation is so tricky, where do we even start with re -creation? For comedy legend Wil Anderson, the re-creation process is almost the more important one. After all, he only needs to write a show from scratch once, but he needs to recreate that show every single time he steps onto stage. Wil shares how his processes have evolved since his career began 25 years ago, and breaks down w...
Nov 23, 2022•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s the difference between goals and dreams? For O2E Brands founder and CEO Brian Scudamore, there isn’t one. After entering the hyper-competitive world of entrepreneurship, Brian was disillusioned - he couldn’t help but compare himself to his new peers, who had bigger, more successful businesses. Struggling to stay motivated or excited about the future, Brian turned to his imagination. Debating whether or not to just pack it in and give up, Brian started painting a picture - he wrote feveris...
Nov 21, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is your life too complicated? Sure, work’s always a bit hectic and keeping family life running smoothly is as challenging as ever - but have you noticed that even the ‘good’ stuff can get a bit overwhelming sometimes? Was picking a movie to watch after work on a Friday night always this difficult? Was your closet always so stuffed with items you can’t even remember buying? This is part of what Leo Babauta calls the cycle of expanding and narrowing our focus. When we develop new interests or hobb...
Nov 16, 2022•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Want to improve the quality of your thinking? Well, then you need to improve the quality of your writing… Need proof? Look no further than Frances Frei, an author, TED speaker and Professor of Technology and Informations Management at Harvard Business School. Clearly an excellent thinker - but it doesn’t happen by accident. Frances believes writing is the key to unlocking and improving our thinking, and she takes it seriously. She writes draft after draft after draft, continuously shedding flabb...
Nov 14, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sarah Wilson’s work gives new meaning to the word ‘holistic’. She’s widely known for founding the I Quit Sugar movement, but is also an author, podcaster, keynote speaker, philanthropist and climate change advisor. And somehow - every job’s connected. One of the threads linking everything Sarah does is anxiety. Whether it’s nixing sugar from her diet to promote better mental health, or advocating for more walking, Sarah’s constantly exploring methods for living (and thriving) with anxiety. She s...
Nov 09, 2022•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do you need to reset? Whether you’re starting at a new company, starting a new position, or just starting a new season in your work-life, an effective reset is the key to hitting the ground running at a new, more efficient pace. For the execs at Google, this is absolutely critical - that’s why they listen to Laura Mae Martin, Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor. Step one: don’t just do what you did last time! When it’s time to reset her calendar, Laura employs a “zero-based” approach, one th...
Nov 07, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast You’ve got big ideas… Big dreams for your company… Maybe even for the world! But how do you keep those big dreams and ideas alive on a day-to-day basis? Daniel Flynn knows a thing or two about keeping big ideas alive. He founded thankyou with hopes of ending poverty, and they’re still making moves on this front, more than a decade on. And Daniel says the key is to make time and space for big-picture thinking, even when it feels like your workload wants you to do otherwise. Daniel sets aside one ...
Nov 02, 2022•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast What do your Mondays look like? Or more importantly, what do they feel like? You might be demolishing your to-do list and running meeting after meeting, but do you feel energised? Do you feel enthusiastic about what you’re doing? If you don’t, it probably doesn’t matter how many items get ticked off your list, because you’re going to run out of steam before you get the meaningful work done. So, what’s the solution? Anthony Zaccaria’s Mondays are sacred - he’s wary of “busy work”, and sets aside ...
Oct 31, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast You think you’ve got a procrastination problem? TIm Urban, the man behind the sensationally popular blog Wait But Why reckons he might have you covered. He’s so well-acquainted with procrastination, in fact, that he gave a TED talk on the topic… And finalised it at the last minute. However, for a self-proclaimed master procrastinator, Tim sure gets a lot done. And thankfully, among the many, many articles he’s written are some antidotes for the serial procrastinator. Tim shares his process for r...
Oct 26, 2022•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast We all have that ONE friend - that friend who somehow manages to get into the gym every morning, crush her workday, hang out with her family, and read the kinds of books you’ve had on your “to-read” list for years. All without breaking a sweat. How do they do it? Well, that’s exactly the question author, economist and Wharton professor Katy Milkman wants you to ask. Research shows that when we tackle the same projects or goals alongside a friend or colleague, we’re more likely to succeed. And if...
Oct 24, 2022•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Imagine trying to hold the attention of a child for a full, uninterrupted hour. Now imagine trying to hold the attention of a whole theatre full of them! If it seems impossible, comedy duo Richard Higgins and Matt Kelly (AKA The Listies) have proven the opposite. And they’ve managed to do it while keeping adults equally entertained. Rich and Matt share their process for bringing a full show to life, from inception to performance, as well as their philosophy for making art for kids. They also rec...
Oct 19, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast How do you talk about big issues, on the internet, without getting cancelled? In our modern information age, most of our most heated and important debates happen online, whether it’s through blogs, comment sections, YouTube videos or podcasts. While this unprecedented level of access to almost anyone’s opinions might’ve sounded like a dream to the tech-heads of yesteryear… Well, you probably know it’s not quite the dream we thought it might be. Sadly, all that access has a downside. Whether it’s...
Oct 17, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Most people who can hire EA’s or personal assistants struggle with the decision - especially if you’ve never had one before, it can feel like a luxury more than a necessity. That is, until you take the plunge, and see how much more you can get done with the right assistant on your team! But what if you’re not in a position to hire someone? Well, it turns out you don’t have to miss out on the productivity boost - you just need to learn the lesser-known features of your digital calendar, and make ...
Oct 12, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast How much deep work do you get done on the average work day? And I mean DEEP work - completely focused, distraction-free work… An hour? Two? Author Eric Barker does five. Yep, five - every single day. But how does he know for sure? Eric uses a simple countdown timer every day to track his most important work: the kind of work that doesn’t allow for a quick email check or a scroll through Instagram. When he gets up to go to the bathroom, he pauses the timer. When he needs to check email, he pauses...
Oct 10, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Stability might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the priorities of a working actor. But for Ada Nicodemou, she’s sought out and found exactly that in Home & Away. As a mother, the stereotypically chaotic and categorically un stable life of an actor has never been the right fit for Ada. Thankfully, though, her now two-decade tenure on Home & Away has provided her with a sense of security and routine almost impossible to find elsewhere in the industry. So what do...
Oct 05, 2022•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast You’ve heard it a million times by now: you need to start meditating. Maybe you’ve tried, like I have, but it just won’t stick. Maybe you can’t sit still for longer than five minutes, or maybe the whole thing feels a bit too woo-woo. If the latter is true, “Morning Pages” might sound like more of the same. But listening to Brian Koppelman break down his morning rituals, “woo-woo” definitely doesn’t come to mind. After beginning his career in the music industry before becoming an enormously succe...
Oct 03, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Picture this: you’ve been invited to pop icon Bjork’s Big Day Out afterparty. You rock up to her trailer and dance music’s pumping. You step inside and everyone’s having a grand old time, including Bjork herself, who’s posted up behind a set of turntables, grooving to the music. You figure you should congratulate her on a great set, but when you get closer, you notice… She’s got black gaff tape across her mouth? It’s a bit weird, sure, but according to one of Australia’s most successful music ex...
Sep 28, 2022•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s the first question you ask yourself or your team when you need to make a big decision? Do you double-check your processes, weigh out the pros and cons? Meetup CEO David Siegel wants you to ask one question before any others when it comes to important decisions: ask yourself, ‘is this a trapdoor decision?’ Trapdoor decisions are irreversible - once you’ve made the call, it can’t be unmade. Scary stuff! But David believes trapdoor decisions are far, far less common than most of us realise. ...
Sep 26, 2022•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast You know what it’s like when you move house – you’re tripping over boxes for weeks, eating takeout on the floor while you wait for that new dining table to arrive, and lamenting that the rest of the world – including work – doesn’t take a pause while you get your life in order. We’ve all been there, but have you ever used that moment of chaos as the trigger to start writing a book? It sounds insane – and as someone who’s been working on a new book for some time now, I feel certified to call it t...
Sep 21, 2022•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast You value your time pretty highly, right? That’s part of why you listen to How I Work - you’re trying to get the most out of what precious time you have, whether it’s a matter of getting more done when you’re in the office, or freeing yourself from distraction when you’re with your family. So you’d hope others value your time just as much - and therefore, you need to show others how much you value their time, especially if you’re hoping to use some of it. This is the underlying principle in all ...
Sep 19, 2022•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Exercising every single day sounds like playing the game of fitness on the hardest mode, doesn’t it? It sounds like the kind of regime only the ultra-disciplined, shredded-to-the-teeth among us can ever truly achieve. But… what if it was actually the easier option? Sam Wood, founder of Australia’s number-one home fitness program, 28, exercises every day. But it’s not because he’s some kind of workout robot - it’s because it’s the simple approach: it’s the decision that eliminates a thousand deci...
Sep 14, 2022•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Whether you’re pitching to your close-knit project team over Zoom, presenting as a keynote speaker to a packed conference hall, or writing an entire book, great stories are at the heart of any effective communication. And no modern non-fiction author spins a better yarn than Dan Pink, the man behind bestsellers like When: The Scientific Secrets of Timing and more recently, The Power of Regret. The psychology of regret and its many incarnations might sound like dense reading, but Dan proves it do...
Sep 12, 2022•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast What do you actually want from life? It seems like a pretty simple question, but if it’s not properly understood, it could lead you and your family down a very complicated path. When parenting expert Justin Coulson asks this question of clients, readers and audiences, he’s always met with the same response. First, he gets blank faces - most of the time, we’re too busy trying to keep the household afloat to sit and ponder our ideals. But when Justin frames the question around parenting specifical...
Sep 07, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast We all want to be successful, and as a How I Work listener, you’re actively looking for tools, tips and tricks that’ll get you there. You’re seeking out the best modern minds and trying to understand what’s made them successful. Good on you! But before you celebrate, you might need to consider the complete opposite approach… Darius Foroux writes books, articles and blog posts for people who want to keep growing wiser and wealthier - so he’s spent a lot of time thinking, reading and writing about...
Sep 05, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you were anything like me as a kid, you had your fair share of idols, and the majority of them spoke to you through the covers of magazines. If you were a little girl, most of those idols were probably fashion models. Beautiful, immaculately dressed and impossibly cool, we’ve all wished at one point or another that we could be just like those models. Lise Carlaw and Sarah Wills, otherwise known as Those Two Girls, or the hosts of the Forty podcast, lived that dream. The only thing is… it wasn...
Aug 31, 2022•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the internet era, there’s an infinite number of opportunities, information, activities and events we could get involved with, which is great… But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and when you say “yes” to anything, you’re also saying “no” to something else. So how do you decide what to say “no” to, and just as crucially, how do you say “no” when it’s really hard? Whether you’re a people-pleaser or you just want to do a bit of everything, turning down an opportunity - even when you know ...
Aug 29, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Three men walk into a bar, and see a huge gap in the market - while wine, whiskey and beer were all receiving the craft treatment, gin was largely being ignored. And even better, these three men lived in Australia, and knew the land down under was the perfect place to create not just great gin, but the world’s best gin. Matt Jones, one of the three co-founders of Four Pillars Gin, is also the Brand Director, and brought to the new company decades of experience in marketing and branding. Matt sha...
Aug 24, 2022•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast What makes a great question? Well, it depends on what you’re trying to figure out. Are you interviewing someone for a job, or on TV? Are you asking someone on a date? Are you trying to learn something? Whatever it is, you probably have an answer, a solution or a direction in mind when you ask a question. That’s great, but it’s not always the path to the best outcome. Zoe Chance, author of Influence is Your Superpower and a professor at the Yale School of Management, prefers to ask a question tha...
Aug 22, 2022•6 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it take to make someone give up on their dream? Which straw breaks the camel’s back? For Hugh Van Cuylenburg, a simple but critical mistake in his calendar almost spelt the end of The Resilience Project before it’d truly begun. But it didn’t. Why not? Where did Hugh find the strength to keep pursuing his goals, even after messing up the best opportunity he’d ever had? Hugh’s a master storyteller, with no shortage of material. He shares which moments in his life turned out to be make-or...
Aug 17, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Where do you go when you need career guidance? Maybe the right book or video or article can help, but what about when your questions are more specific? What about when you’re in a truly unique situation, and you just can’t figure out the next step - the right direction for you ? Well, maybe it’s time to find a mentor! But before you go cold-emailing all the top thinkers in your industry, you might need to check some of your assumptions about mentorship… Enter Dr. Ruth Gotian, leadership expert, ...
Aug 15, 2022•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
