This interview got a lot of (shocked!) feedback, so I figured I’d run it again as we start thinking about heading back to work. Again. And contemplating “what it’s all about”. British writer Oliver Burkeman has investigated pretty much every productivity hack, mindfulness trick, list-making system and happiness boost we've ever been fed. He concludes, almost none work. Ha! I followed Oliver's column in The Guardian, which he wrote from his home in Brooklyn, New York, for about 10 years and he is...
Jan 17, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 80
I discovered Jill's story in her viral TED Talk from 2008 (it became the most-watched TED talk ever!) in which the brain scientist describes watching the left side of her brain deteriorate over the course of four hours on the morning of her stroke and how she used her right brain to stay present and get help. I was transfixed. Ever since I've wondered, whatever happened to Jill Bolte Taylor? Did she go back to normal? Is she still living in her right brain and able to experience the “oneness” th...
Jan 10, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 79
He was the captain of the Wallabies, the only Australian player to be included in World Rugby's team of the decade, but - wildly – retired at the height of his career to devote his life to climate activist projects here in Australia and in Africa. I recorded this interview shortly after David quit rugby and several months before he decided to run as an independent Senator in the Australian Parliament. He won the ticket and has gone on to become an extremely powerful and highly regarded political...
Jan 03, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 78
Sia is one of the most gifted and wild creatives on the planet, best known for the hundreds of hit pop songs she's written for herself, Beyonce, Rihanna and Kanye West, and for being notoriously private, rarely doing interviews. This is why I remain so damn chuffed that she agreed to be my FIRST guest here on Wild. I recall being soooo nervous and out of my depth. But also thoroughly enjoying this incredible human’s quirky company. In this chat, Sia gets intimate with me about fostering, why she...
Dec 27, 2022•33 min•Ep. 77
I share a glorious, wild, life-affirming story in this special episode. Some of you might have read my book This One Wild and Precious Life and remember the bit where I wind up in Mammoth in the Sierra Nevada and rant at a young guy sitting in a vegan smoothie café about his single-use plastic cups (he was drinking several vegan beverages). He takes it well and asks to read a few pages of the book (I was working on the draft of the climate chapter as we spoke). "Wow! Can you put that mind-blasti...
Dec 20, 2022•39 min•Ep. 76
How to find peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in one podcast episode? Ha! You 210% can’t. But if there is someone who can provide a vision for it, it’s Palestinian peace broker Aziz Abu Sarah. Aziz grew up in East Jerusalem and lost a brother to the conflict when he was nine when the Israeli military stormed his home in the middle of the night. At 18, however, he turned his hatred around and today Aziz is one of the world's most powerful and connected peacebuilders and cultural educators...
Dec 13, 2022•55 min•Ep. 75
Seth Godin never does anything the normal way. The prolific marketing guru and disrupter joins us here on Wild for a second time to chat about what he describes as the most important project of his life, a crowd-created Climate Almanac, created by a 300-person army of scientists, artists and teachers from 41 countries who turned around the 97000-word book in 120 days. The wild idea we wrestle with in this episode is the very act of not doing climate activism the normal way. We talk about ditchin...
Dec 06, 2022•49 min•Ep. 75
This week’s guest will “shock you into noticing the world differently.” The glorious Bayo Akomolafe is a Nigerian-born Yoruba poet, author and teacher at universities and institutions across the UK, the US, Canada and India. He has also won the 2021 New Thought Walden Award which honours empowering spiritual ideas and philosophies that change lives and make our planet a better place. Bayo uses “trickster philosophy” and intense metaphors to present truly wild – but intuitively sound - ways to co...
Nov 29, 2022•49 min•Ep. 74
This episode continues the fascinating-slash-frightening journey I’ve been on with you, to understand what we should prioritise as we face potential existential end times. Today’s guest, Harvard researcher and philanthropist Holden Karnofsky, brings the AI, effective altruism, longtermism and anti-growth debates together with the clarion call: “This is our moment, this century is make-or-break, pay attention people!” It’s not an idle or hysterical call, it’s one that Holden has researched extens...
Nov 22, 2022•53 min•Ep. 73
The fashion industry produces 20% of global wastewater and more carbon emissions than ALL international flights and ALL maritime shipping COMBINED. If nothing changes, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget. Ex-Vogue journalist and founder of The Wardrobe Crisis (the book, podcast and academy) Clare Press joins me to wrestle the quandaries: Is vegan leather ethical? Are recycled plastic leggings green? What labels are legit carbon neutral? Does the stuff ...
Nov 15, 2022•50 min•Ep. 72
There’s a young Australian human rights lawyer and barrister who has been at the centre of the most era-defining legal cases in the world. She has represented Julian Assange since 2010. She led the Amber Heard case. She worked on the case against the CIA’s drone strikes in Pakistan and a case against the Catholic Church over child sex abuse. She was also a legal adviser to The New York Times in the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal and regularly fronts up to the International Court of Justice and va...
Nov 08, 2022•48 min•Ep. 71
We crave adventure to break up the ho-hum of our everyday lives. But busting ruts doesn’t have to be all about conquering Everest or ticking off bucket list challenges. We can get the same result as a “backyard adventurer”. Beau Miles, a Patagonia and Outward Bound ambassador, author and YouTube star, used to be a mad explorer – he’s indeed conquered Everest base camp, became the first person to run 650kms across the Australian Alps, kayaked Bass Strait and the rest. But a few years back he made...
Nov 01, 2022•48 min•Ep. 70
Life is hard. And yet so much of contemporary life compels us to fight this fundamental reality. We are meant to be happy! We are meant to live our best, most #blissful, potential-stacked life! But I talk with Kieran Setiya, a professor of philosophy at MIT, who argues we should #NotLiveOurBestLife. It’s better to aspire to a life that is, well, good enough. Kieran has appeared on Sam Harris’ podcast, written for the New York Times, the London Review of Books etc bringing a philosophical argumen...
Oct 25, 2022•54 min•Ep. 69
He is regarded as the greatest science fiction writer alive and his most recent book, set in the climate catastrophe-wracked near future, The Ministry for the Future, is recommended widely by Barack Obama and Ezra Klein and such is the accuracy of his futuristic depictions Kim Stanley Robinson is now called upon to consult on climate solutions by the Pentagon and at COP26. But Kim is also a mad hiker and his latest book The High Sierra: A Love Story is a hiking guidebook-slash-meditation-slash-d...
Oct 18, 2022•59 min•Ep. 68
Do you listen to Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, Russell Brand or maybe a bit of Lex Freidman? They are the biggest names in podcasting (and beyond) and they started out as progressive voices, robustly questioning the status quo and challenging dominant interests and often bringing alternative spiritual or psychological perspectives to the big debates. But a trend has emerged among this crew of “bro-casters”. My guest in this episode, Australian psychology academic Matt Browne, argues th...
Oct 11, 2022•58 min•Ep. 67
There is a massive “authority gap” that exists in the world today, where women are taken way less seriously than men and still treated as less competent. They are interrupted four times as often as men and are overlooked for not being as confident as a bloke (while studies show that men’s perceived additional confidence is mostly “bullshitting”). And, yet, as my guest London-based journalist and broadcaster Mary Ann Sieghart explains, there are only wins to be had by closing this authority gap. ...
Oct 04, 2022•47 min•Ep. 66
What if we could bioengineer our bodies to live forever, would we and should we? What if we could avoid all the awkward bits of sex and just neatly copulate with a robot? And what if we never had to go through the bother and pain of pregnancy and could instead use artificial external wombs? Would we? And should we? Transhumanists say these are moot questions because the superhuman or post-human train has well and truly left the station. We’re only decades from these altered, souped up realities....
Sep 27, 2022•56 min•Ep. 65
You know the latest IPCC* Assessment Report? The one that came out at the end of 2021 that the UN secretary general dubbed “Code Red for humanity”? Australian climate scientist Joëlle Gergis was one of its lead authors responsible for its 3 million words of truly stark wake-up-call content. This episode I catch up with her at the Byron Writer’s Festival (where she was launching her new book on climate grief) and volley her with questions compiled by my Substack membership community. What does th...
Sep 20, 2022•49 min•Ep. 64
Right, we’re doing something different this episode. Uber-talented radio/TV/podcast host and contrarian Josh Szeps has me on his Uncomfortable Conversations podcast to chat sugar, cannonau wine, class wars, woke-speak, ethics, the decline of innovation in wealthy countries, how men around the world behave on dating apps and the perils of looking like could be on an insurance ad. For some context: Josh is currently the host of afternoons on ABC Radio Sydney and you might also have heard him hosti...
Sep 13, 2022•58 min•Ep. 63
If only we all learned to think more we might solve the problems of the world. This is a thesis British philosopher A.C. Grayling has devoted much of his life to via his 40-odd books, the philosophy college he founded in London and his engagement in global debates on euthanasia, the existence God, Brexit and beyond. In his latest book, For the Good of the World, he applies it to the challenge of achieving global agreement to solve the various global catastrophes we have created. In this fun chat...
Sep 06, 2022•51 min•Ep. 62
This episode is an intense one. It’s with multi-Walkley Award-winning Australian photographer Andrew Quilty who has spent the past eight years living and working in the Afghanistan capital Kabul, documenting the conflict for publications around the world. We talk about the details of the decades-long occupation and go into the story of that day - one year ago - when the Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul as the allied forces and tens of thousands of Afghans tried to flee in scenes of chaos an...
Aug 30, 2022•46 min•Ep. 61
In exclusive pockets around the world rich, white (mostly) men are prepping for end times. They are hoarding resources and building bunkers, putting billions into funding their place on Mars. They could be funding renewable energy projects, or putting their efforts into restoring political stability, you know, finding ways for humanity to survive on our beloved Earth. But no. Irish author and journalist Mark O’Connell conducted something of a perverse pilgrimage of these pockets for his book Not...
Aug 23, 2022•44 min•Ep. 60
Our existential risk – the probability that we could wipe ourselves out due to AI, bio-engineering, nuclear war, climate change, etc. in the next 100 years – currently sits at 1 in 6. Let that sink in! Would you get on a plane if there was a 17% chance it would crash? Would you do everything you could to prevent a calamity if you were presented with those odds? My chat today covers a wild idea that could – and should - better our chances of existing as a species…and lead to a human flourishing I...
Aug 16, 2022•52 min•Ep. 59
The wealthy elite once signalled their status with expensive handbags and super yachts. Now they do it with what Rob Henderson calls “luxury beliefs” - so-called politically correct pronouncements that, in reality, only the rich can afford to live by and thusly differentiate them from the rest of us. We’re talking about such wokenesses as “defund the police” and calls for drug legalisation, death to marriage and putting “polyamorous” on your dating profile. Of course, defunding the police is all...
Aug 09, 2022•51 min•Ep. 58
Breaking things up a bit this episode with an AMA from London where I'm staying with my good friend Melissa Hemsley, cookbook author, sustainable food advocate and humanitarian. Mel kindly reads out a bunch of juicy questions: Do you have botox? How do we stay hopeful in the climate crisis when giving up and just enjoying the few remaining "normal years" is easier? Should 16 year-olds be allowed to vote? What about trying mushrooms for anxiety? How do you make friends as an adult? Much of the ch...
Aug 02, 2022•41 min•Ep. 57
Wintering is the process of resting and withdrawing in dark, or fallow, periods, respecting the rhythm of the cycles of nature and the role of winter. A lost art in a summer-based culture. British author Katherine May writes: “There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them to somewhere else..into a sad and lonely and isolated place." These gaps may open from the loss of a loved one, difficult childbirth, illness, the loss of a job, failure ...
Jul 26, 2022•47 min•Ep. 56
We can’t make sense of the world anymore, right? How can we when our leaders lie, the media publishes non-truths, conspiracies spread faster than facts and the algorithms favour bullshit? Recently, I’ve started following a “Sensemaking movement” of philosophers, renegades, sociologists and psychologists who are trying to return the world to truthfulness. And it excites me no end! Sensemaking is a very fun and dynamic set of theories and techniques for sorting truth from lies and also for ensurin...
Jul 19, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 55
He famously wrote the New York magazine essay that told us “it is worse, much worse than you think” and painted an apocalyptic picture of an “Uninhabitable Earth” by 2100. The essay, which became the #1 New York Times bestseller 'The Uninhabitable Earth', singlehandedly shook the world into “OK, we’re officially freaked out” mode. But five years on, is the climate emergency as bad as David Wallace-Wells initially portrayed? Will Manhattan be underwater? Will there be half as much food, twice as ...
Jul 12, 2022•54 min•Ep. 54
She spent two years and three months in a brutal Iranian prison. In solitary confinement for half of it. For a crime that was entirely made up. The Melbourne University lecturer was attending a conference in Iran when she was randomly captured at the airport and charged with “espionage” based on zero evidence. How do you survive such horror? How do you cope with living in a cell with nothing but a scrap of carpet for a year? Not knowing if anyone knows your whereabouts, waiting to be hanged? Wha...
Jul 05, 2022•51 min•Ep. 53
I really love the wild theory we explore in this episode. About 1500 years ago some obscure Catholic pope declared we probably shouldn’t marry our cousin. And from here the “West” was born. A psychologically peculiar subset of humanity then rose to dominate the planet, namely western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic folk. You know, WEIRD people. You and I. Joseph Henrich is a Harvard professor in evolutionary biology who took 10 years to research this truly Zeitgeist-shifting theor...
Jun 30, 2022•38 min•Ep. 52
