Speaker 1: My Boris and this is straight Talk the Center Price
Speaker 1: welcome straight Talk.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I actually follow you on Instagram.
Speaker 2: I saw when you followed me. I thought, I've got
Speaker 2: to get on this podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you. And and of
Speaker 1: course one of the things I got to know where
Speaker 1: his name Frooms comes from, Like, tell me about the
Speaker 1: name for rooms? What the hell does that mean?
Speaker 2: What does it mean? Yeah, it's my mum's maiden name.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, so you so you just go away
Speaker 1: your mum's maiden.
Speaker 2: Name pretty much. But I thought, who has a made
Speaker 2: a name like that when I was growing up? The name?
Speaker 1: Boy, you use it enough? I mean it's a it's
Speaker 1: Froome's world, of course. But one of the things I
Speaker 1: want to talk about is your book, so I will.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to start there, though hopefully we'll evolve
Speaker 1: down there, because you know, these conversations you can go anywhere.
Speaker 1: What are you drinking? Match it to you? Are you?
Speaker 2: Yes? I have had one.
Speaker 1: I have had match it But it's a bit bitter
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: You can get used to it.
Speaker 1: Is that a hell thing?
Speaker 2: You get? The slow police caffeine?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I went through a phrase of not drinking coffee, which
Speaker 2: is very unlike me. I given to all of my vices.
Speaker 2: But I thought that's kind of something different and it's nice.
Speaker 1: Yep, did you get the next door there? Make match
Speaker 1: of two next door. I'm going to try it. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely gonna try it because I was reading about it.
Speaker 1: How you know, it's just from a health point of view,
Speaker 1: it's better for you instead of drinking coffee. Like I'm
Speaker 1: a coffee I drink too many coffees. I drink like
Speaker 1: three or four coffee is a day easy. My first
Speaker 1: one is about quarter to five in the morning. Oh really,
Speaker 1: and that's at home. Yeah, So like literally when I
Speaker 1: first wake up, like within ten minutes, I'm jamming a
Speaker 1: little like espresso down my gob and I know it's
Speaker 1: so good for me, but like otherwise, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't see, I can't walk, I can't move, and you
Speaker 1: know it's good off to me. So it was slightly
Speaker 1: off topic, but nonetheless, so I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: What I want to talk about is the origins of
Speaker 1: why you wrote the book. But before we talk about
Speaker 1: the book, can we go and also the book's title?
Speaker 1: Before we go there, let's just go back a little bit.
Speaker 1: What happened in your life that made you feel as
Speaker 1: though you should write a book?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Like and what are those events?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well I always wanted to write a book, and
Speaker 2: I've said before I think it's like part of being
Speaker 2: someone who likes to express themselves. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people have this desire or this kind of dream
Speaker 2: to write a book. It's lucky that I have worked
Speaker 2: as a writer for ten years, so I had the
Speaker 2: skills to be able to.
Speaker 1: Do it in what capacity? Were you working as a
Speaker 1: writer for ten years?
Speaker 2: Always online? So the first thing I ever wrote was
Speaker 2: for a friend's website that she created, and it was
Speaker 2: pretty much just her and I that would write articles.
Speaker 2: The first thing I ever wrote was about my dad,
Speaker 2: like going down the street on a rollie chair from
Speaker 2: hard Rubbish. So I've always kind.
Speaker 1: Of watched what is that from herd rubbish? What is
Speaker 1: hard rubbish?
Speaker 2: You know what heart rubbish is?
Speaker 1: No, what's hard rubbish?
Speaker 2: Oh that's what we call like when you put the
Speaker 2: junk cat from your house?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you call it? I don't know? Junk?
Speaker 1: I have done it? Yeah, no, I totally have. But like,
Speaker 1: because you see the people driving around especially right picking
Speaker 1: up good bits of it, a good piece of furniture,
Speaker 1: and I iced to think, Oh, that's called the people
Speaker 1: are going to get sort of recycled, et cetera, or
Speaker 1: reuse it. It's called hard rubbish. So your dad is
Speaker 1: at some stage, Is it a real deal? Your dad
Speaker 1: at some stages founded a chair with rolls on it
Speaker 1: or something and roll down the hill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I remember it's so yeah, he features in
Speaker 2: a lot of my content. Maybe not as much anymore
Speaker 2: because he's down in Victoria, but I just never never forget,
Speaker 2: like he was on this roller cheat and all these
Speaker 2: kids from the neighborhood were running down this big, long
Speaker 2: street with him. But it's one of those things where
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm remembering it correctly or embellishing it.
Speaker 1: But you wrote a story about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I guess my point being, I've always written,
Speaker 2: I've always kind of weaved personal stories into the things
Speaker 2: that I've written, not so much much to talk about
Speaker 2: myself all the time, though people might think that I
Speaker 2: do that. It's more to I guess connect with people,
Speaker 2: and yeah, maybe retaining it is.
Speaker 1: Let's just take that one story is the purpose of
Speaker 1: that though is to tell the story about what you
Speaker 1: saw your dad doing, Like, actually I'm storytelling in your case?
Speaker 1: Or is it to build a connection between the people
Speaker 1: you want to tell a story to.
Speaker 2: It's probably a bit of both. I'd honestly say it's
Speaker 2: more of Colin May. I've always just wanted to entertain.
Speaker 2: I want to I want you to read something and
Speaker 2: enjoy it and enjoy yourself. And part of that is
Speaker 2: like learning how to get into a story quickly and
Speaker 2: keep people's attention. For me, anything I ever do is
Speaker 2: about grabbing someone's attention and maintaining it for as long
Speaker 2: as I can.
Speaker 1: Here you, I mean, I look at yourself on instagramers.
Speaker 1: As you said a moment ago, on social media, you
Speaker 1: are a pretty expressy person naturally. Even when you walk
Speaker 1: in this room, like you know, you can sort of
Speaker 1: feel an energy as you sat down, there's an energy there.
Speaker 1: Is your expressiveness? Is your outlet in relation to your
Speaker 1: expressiveness social media and all your writing? Or is your
Speaker 1: expressiveness your brand?
Speaker 2: Oh well, I guess it's always. I've always had an
Speaker 2: expressive face from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: I can tell look at because that's the way you look,
Speaker 1: the way you move your face, your eyes, everything about you.
Speaker 1: I can just there's you're like an actress.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, I'm lying all the time. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess that's just in built into my personalities to
Speaker 2: be I guess enthusiastic is what I would call it
Speaker 2: an expressive and you're part of the expression. I think
Speaker 2: the one that I find the most rewarding because you
Speaker 2: have to use skill for it, is the writing, Whereas
Speaker 2: I think social media just the way that those platforms
Speaker 2: are designed, creativity isn't always at the forefront of that.
Speaker 2: How do you mean, For instance, on Instagram, I'm a
Speaker 2: lot more strategic than when I write. When I write,
Speaker 2: I can kind of go a bit more.
Speaker 1: On Tangent, you can wander around a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Whereas Instagram it's all very visual. To keep people's
Speaker 2: attention with the algorithm you kind of have to put
Speaker 2: on your story, for instance, a photo where you look
Speaker 2: pretty and then a photo from far away and then
Speaker 2: some text, but you have to wrap the text in photos.
Speaker 2: It's a whole.
Speaker 1: Different beast, much more strategic then.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So writing then, to some extent, is nearly a little
Speaker 1: bit of an escape because you know, like being on
Speaker 1: social media, like you are, and you're there a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, you work it pretty hard, which is and
Speaker 1: it's always got to be on brand or what people
Speaker 1: expect of you. As to your brand is quite constraining,
Speaker 1: whereas writing by the sound of things, it allows you
Speaker 1: to escape. Yeah, you know, it's a bit more relax
Speaker 1: You can just move and move and manove yourself around
Speaker 1: the place. So is your book an escape for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely. Because of the format, it was a challenge
Speaker 2: because I couldn't use photos. I didn't want to do listicles.
Speaker 2: I wanted to challenge myself to write something as if
Speaker 2: I'm someone who studied writing, but I started I started
Speaker 2: writing on the internet, so obviously when I started, you
Speaker 2: can add photos and videos and gifts and emojis, whereas
Speaker 2: with a book. The whole time, with the expressiveness, I
Speaker 2: wanted to put emojis in there, but you couldn't. So
Speaker 2: I had to find a way to express myself in
Speaker 2: the way that emojis would be used. I'm a massive
Speaker 2: emoji fan. In the book, no, but in words, in
Speaker 2: words intense. You should see my text there Aladdin, because
Speaker 2: I find it quite funny and I like that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the writing is definitely an escape in the
Speaker 2: sense that you don't have that pressure to be on
Speaker 2: and play by the social media platforms rules because every
Speaker 2: single one has a different rule. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, and most people don't realize that. I think most
Speaker 1: people who look at social media who aren't in social
Speaker 1: media but as opposed to more an observer of social media,
Speaker 1: they're not looking at They're just looking at what appeals
Speaker 1: to them. And of course social media works out what
Speaker 1: appeals to you and starts feeding it the same stuff
Speaker 1: that like in over my social media, my Instagram page,
Speaker 1: and the guys who run it in one of them
Speaker 1: sitting over here must wander to themselves when my feed
Speaker 1: is always jiu jitsu stuff like I get like so
Speaker 1: many has worked out I like jiu jitsu stuff, and
Speaker 1: it just keep feeding me this stuff time after time
Speaker 1: after And I know the guys are probably thinking, so,
Speaker 1: what's Mark looking at it all the time, but that
Speaker 1: it's very it's very clever. So you have to be
Speaker 1: clever too in terms of building your presence, and is
Speaker 1: your presence on social media? Is that a business decision?
Speaker 1: Is there a business around that for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think when I started I started my Instagram
Speaker 2: when I was working as a journalist at a young
Speaker 2: media company, and so my Instagram was purely an outlet.
Speaker 2: I would sometimes post work videos, but mostly it was
Speaker 2: just this kind of place to be silly and post
Speaker 2: whatever I wanted and be really absurdest. Whereas when I
Speaker 2: lost my job at this youth platform, I didn't have
Speaker 2: a website. I mean, I got a sub stack, which
Speaker 2: is where I have my newsletter, which is kind of
Speaker 2: where the books began, but I didn't really have an
Speaker 2: alternate platform. So now my Instagram is definitely the one
Speaker 2: place on the Internet where I put the most stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm promoting my book, I'm promoting like paid partnerships, but
Speaker 2: I'm also maintaining things that I'm passionate about. But I'm
Speaker 2: also very strategic with what I don't put there because
Speaker 2: I think it's very easy to start treating it like
Speaker 2: a diary, which I don't want to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's interesting. So you know you have paid
Speaker 1: partnerships as basically what you're saying, there's money involved, which
Speaker 1: is important. You've got to make money because otherwise, specially
Speaker 1: if you're spending all the amount of time you spend
Speaker 1: on social media and social media takes a lot longer
Speaker 1: than everybody knows, and it's just much more sort of intense,
Speaker 1: just the preparation, the editing, the whole thing. Therefore, we
Speaker 1: have to make a dollar out of it because your
Speaker 1: time you're putting into it. If you're in your sense,
Speaker 1: in your terms, you're telling us about what though on
Speaker 1: your social media. So what are you trying to build
Speaker 1: your audience off the back of, Because you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't have an audience going to you don't have
Speaker 1: any commerce involved with you. If you don't, if you
Speaker 1: know one looks at your stuff, then the agencies will
Speaker 1: pay your money to do partnerships. They won't give you
Speaker 1: any money. Tough, Like, you've haven't got a big enough
Speaker 1: audience to build an audience, you've got to have a message.
Speaker 1: So what is your message or what are your messages?
Speaker 1: What are they sort of fit around?
Speaker 2: Yes, my message always is so simple. It's to entertain.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any higher, like higher idea at play.
Speaker 2: I don't want to pontificate. I'm not here to teach
Speaker 2: you a lesson. I'm here as like an escape and
Speaker 2: I try and make things that I find funny. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of what that's a contribution that I bring
Speaker 2: and it suits me. That's what I got into it force.
Speaker 2: I knows when I'm feeling a bit uninspired or it's
Speaker 2: feeling a bit laborious, and I think, oh, why did
Speaker 2: I get Instagram in the first place. I didn't have
Speaker 2: social media before I started doing this job. Like, I
Speaker 2: didn't have Instagram in year twelve in UNI, mostly because
Speaker 2: I was like too worried about the following count, Like
Speaker 2: I didn't want to follow more people than followed me
Speaker 2: because I was kind of been like.
Speaker 1: The top of the profile. Yeah, yeah, you follow ten thousand,
Speaker 1: you have you follow ten thousand, you have three thousand
Speaker 1: following you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't be doing that. So social media before
Speaker 2: I began creating on it was a source of anxiety,
Speaker 2: and to be honest, oh.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, I think so you got anxious about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I've yeah, I kind of get anxious or
Speaker 2: do it Does it look like I've got enough friends?
Speaker 2: This that always kind of been very cognizant of where
Speaker 2: I stand in the social peaking order, which is part
Speaker 2: of the book as well. But yeah, I try and
Speaker 2: remind myself I didn't get into this to swipe I'm
Speaker 2: just here to create things, and that's mostly what I do.
Speaker 1: One of the things I thought you might have been
Speaker 1: doing is using comedy to talk about issues because you
Speaker 1: are you are a comedian, I mean you are. You
Speaker 1: are naturally a funny person, and you you do you
Speaker 1: do stand up comedy?
Speaker 2: No, I don't do stand up. I'll do sometimes like
Speaker 2: a cabaret sull performance. Yeah, and I'm open to doing it,
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't do like open mic or getting up
Speaker 2: every night. I tend to do a set.
Speaker 1: It's not my But you are naturally comedic in what
Speaker 1: you do. You like to take the piss out of
Speaker 1: things and sort of be funny. In fact, you take
Speaker 1: the piss out yourself a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't mind sort of using yourself as that
Speaker 1: you're the medium through which other people might have a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah? Or does that ever sort of put are you
Speaker 1: putting yourself down?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: I don't understand that, Like, I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: people do it. Don't get it wrong, But how does
Speaker 1: that feel like putting yourself down?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't see it as putting myself down.
Speaker 1: I think we're making yourself the subject of the piss take.
Speaker 1: Some people might see it that way.
Speaker 2: I think typically the things that I'm taking the piss
Speaker 2: out of a thoughts that I've had, not so much.
Speaker 2: I don't beerate myself or make myself smaller on social media.
Speaker 2: I don't find that funny. I don't find self conscious
Speaker 2: kind of humor. It's not really my style. I always
Speaker 2: the way that I approach it is like And whether
Speaker 2: or not I'm doing this right now, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Because book promotion has taken precedence and probably everyone's probably
Speaker 2: like sick of it, But I have a book to promote.
Speaker 1: Where is your book? By the way, did you bring
Speaker 1: it in?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't see what I mean, I've been too
Speaker 2: focused on my social media.
Speaker 1: We will talk about it and we'll bring it. We'll
Speaker 1: get someone bring the book in a second. You bring
Speaker 1: one along? No, you didn't bring a book? Wrong?
Speaker 2: I know. Look, I had a whole launch in Melbourne
Speaker 2: with just family and friends, but.
Speaker 1: There's a Sydney.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying is I always figured to bring
Speaker 2: it but with us. Yeah, I'm wearing yellow. That's part
Speaker 2: of the covert's yellow.
Speaker 1: The cover's yellow. But because I was going to just
Speaker 1: flash up there in front of the camera say buy
Speaker 1: this book. And I don't get you to sign up
Speaker 1: if you don't mind sending me a sign one please
Speaker 1: because because clearly the book's important part of your party life.
Speaker 1: And I want to talk to and I did talk
Speaker 1: to you about it a moment ago about and I
Speaker 1: did Ashmoga, And you haven't quite answered me yet. What
Speaker 1: are the things that happened in your life that you
Speaker 1: inspired you either that or motivated you to put into
Speaker 1: this book? So they body image for example, those sorts
Speaker 1: of things, Yes, talk to me about that.
Speaker 2: So I never thought that I would write anything personal.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I'm here to entertain. I want to
Speaker 2: make it about my internal thought process is that people
Speaker 2: have also experienced. That's when I'm funniest, I think is
Speaker 2: when I'm writing about something that I think, oh, maybe
Speaker 2: no one else thinks like that. Turns out everyone thinks
Speaker 2: the same. So the book is kind of an extension
Speaker 2: of that. But I focused on my experience of an
Speaker 2: eating disorder and cosmetic surgery.
Speaker 1: You had an eating disorder, yes, in which way you
Speaker 1: ate too much, you ate not enough.
Speaker 2: What they kind of see nowadays is it kind of
Speaker 2: both to be honest, but it really became a problem
Speaker 2: when I was anorexic or I had anorexia. Rah, you
Speaker 2: won't call someone an anorexic. And that was when it
Speaker 2: tipped over. And that's because of processes where if you
Speaker 2: get too hungry, your brain stops working. So that kind
Speaker 2: of eating disorder, I think gets a lot of attention
Speaker 2: because of that reason and because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: physical changes. But then I went into I had believe
Speaker 2: in before that, So.
Speaker 1: That's often difference between the two. Believe is the one
Speaker 1: where you go with pure gup all the time after
Speaker 1: you eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or you can do other and I won't get
Speaker 2: into them, but you can do other kind of purging behaviors.
Speaker 2: Exercise a lot, do things some mitigate eating, and it's
Speaker 2: often not necessary and it's very cyclic. You stay in
Speaker 2: a cycle.
Speaker 1: And when you were anorexic, do you mean you were
Speaker 1: anorexic looking or you were just underweight? I mean how
Speaker 1: slim or skinny did you get?
Speaker 2: So to speak, the way that they diagnose it. Part
Speaker 2: of the reason they diagnose it is when you're b
Speaker 2: and I as a certain level, but now there are
Speaker 2: you can be a higher weight and you could be
Speaker 2: the way that I am now and be classified as anorexic.
Speaker 2: It's definitely broadened because not everyone looks the same. I
Speaker 2: think we've got this very specific idea of what someone
Speaker 2: with anorexia looks, and then heats, people go undiagnosed and
Speaker 2: it goes up and down. But yeah, I was definitely. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was unwell and it was visible and physical, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to write about that because it was very
Speaker 2: obvious and it should have been very obvious to people,
Speaker 2: But it wasn't obvious to psychologists that I saw, or
Speaker 2: doctors psychiatrists even that I.
Speaker 1: Saw during anorexic period, or you were seeing them not
Speaker 1: as an anorexia patient but as just another patient. You're
Speaker 1: seeing it for some other reason, like a mental health reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, because I was depressed and I thought that
Speaker 2: in my mind, I thought I've got the perfect body.
Speaker 2: Now I was very aware of how you know, I was,
Speaker 2: but I thought I look great. But I feel so depressed.
Speaker 2: I feel so hollow and like I don't want to
Speaker 2: do anything. Nothing means anything. I don't have friends, I'm
Speaker 2: spending so much time alone. This can't be related to
Speaker 2: the fact I'm not eating enough food. It's just something
Speaker 2: else is going on.
Speaker 1: Can you just like it helped me out here, because
Speaker 1: I like, I love my food, so I just can't
Speaker 1: sort of imagine what's going on? What? What? What? What? What?
Speaker 1: What starts off this? Let's call it this anorexic period.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean becoming anorexic like at the end
Speaker 1: of it. But what starts off this process of not
Speaker 1: eating enough nutrition for example in a broad sense. But
Speaker 1: is it an event in your life? What was it
Speaker 1: an event? Or you thought you're watching social media, thought
Speaker 1: I'm not skinny enough, or were you unhealthily overweight? What
Speaker 1: was it?
Speaker 2: No? I was always like straight size. I was never
Speaker 2: teased for my weight. I never had an issue with
Speaker 2: eating or food prior to being kind of twenty or
Speaker 2: twenty one. It started when I moved to Sydney. So
Speaker 2: I moved from Melbourne to Sydney for work.
Speaker 1: Sydney can do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that was part of it, to be honest.
Speaker 2: It was this beautiful city, lots of hills. I lived
Speaker 2: alone for the first time without my parents, so I
Speaker 2: had to learn how to cook myself food. And I
Speaker 2: had this idea that when I'm in Sydney. I'm a
Speaker 2: whole new woman. I'm old now, I'm an adult.
Speaker 1: I won did you say yeah?
Speaker 2: I was twenty three by the time I moved to Sydney,
Speaker 2: and I felt so adult. I guess it tipped into
Speaker 2: something that would be diagnosable. Kind of the way that
Speaker 2: I describe it, there's not one event. You kind of
Speaker 2: slide in to it, and then you start sliding, and
Speaker 2: then the slide goes faster and faster and faster, and
Speaker 2: it hits a point when you aren't eating enough that
Speaker 2: your brain clicks over. It's kind of how.
Speaker 1: They describe it when you say clicks over it like
Speaker 1: stops working properly or that.
Speaker 2: But it's more you kind of tip into. So prior
Speaker 2: to developing full on anorexia, I was boalimix. I would
Speaker 2: do what we were describing yep, and that had a
Speaker 2: different contour because I was still getting kind of enough nutrients,
Speaker 2: whereas when I didn't get enough nutrients with the anorexia,
Speaker 2: it's just like a self fulfilling prophecy. You don't get
Speaker 2: hungry anymore because when you're not eating enough, you're like
Speaker 2: there's a particular hormone that I can't. No, it's not serotonin,
Speaker 2: but it's one of the kind of big ones that
Speaker 2: isn't thought of. Yes, yes, somewhat. So with the dope,
Speaker 2: I meane, when you're not eating enough, you eat spikes,
Speaker 2: so then when you start eating more, it actually goes down.
Speaker 2: And that's why they speak of the hunger high and.
Speaker 1: Feel like hunger high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like runners high. It's kind of a similar
Speaker 2: sensation in my experience. This is going to definitely need a.
Speaker 1: Trigger warning, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's kind of a funny thing. And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people don't understand. How could you?
Speaker 2: Aren't you hungry all the time? I thought, no, no,
Speaker 2: if I eat, it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's sort of that was That is actually my question.
Speaker 1: We weren't you hungry? And then and what would compel
Speaker 1: you not to eat? But what you're saying is your
Speaker 1: own body actually stopped you from meeting because you got
Speaker 1: to high from it, so rewarded you for not eating.
Speaker 2: Yep. And I thought that I wasn't hungry, and I
Speaker 2: took a lot of pride in that I go home
Speaker 2: with my parents and they'd be eating normal food, and
Speaker 2: I think, oh, I'm not even hungry, and I kind
Speaker 2: of felt really upmore and asks about it.
Speaker 1: But how could they be eating I'm not even hungry. Like,
Speaker 1: I can control myself exactly.
Speaker 2: I can control myself. I thought I was better than people.
Speaker 2: I thought I'd unlocked this cheek code. I thought, Oh,
Speaker 2: back when I was eating a normal amount of food,
Speaker 2: what a mess? I was.
Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, that's matt like. And what did your parents
Speaker 1: say when they saw you not eating or actually diminishing
Speaker 1: in front of them?
Speaker 2: In terms of physical I think at the start they
Speaker 2: didn't think much of it. I think they just thowt
Speaker 2: all lucinders in Sydney now. And I had lost weight
Speaker 2: before that, like, for instance, when I was seventeen, my
Speaker 2: boyfriend broke up with me and I just was so
Speaker 2: sad that I couldn't eat. So they were used to
Speaker 2: my body fluctuating somewhat within a certain range. But I
Speaker 2: remember there was an instance where I came home and
Speaker 2: Mum picked me up from the airport, and the way home,
Speaker 2: I took my jump off and she just went ooh,
Speaker 2: you're not losing too much weight, are you. And she
Speaker 2: had never commented on my weight before. She's very, very
Speaker 2: careful not to do that, I later learned just because
Speaker 2: she had experience in eating disorder throughout her whole twenties
Speaker 2: and the way that it went away. She would just
Speaker 2: say to me, something clicked and I didn't have it anymore.
Speaker 2: So she had kind of somewhat of an understanding of
Speaker 2: what my brain was going through, but she was at
Speaker 2: a loss as to what to do about it.
Speaker 1: So what break broke the cycle? Was it your something?
Speaker 2: It was a confluence of a lot of things. I
Speaker 2: think it stops. I started getting better.
Speaker 1: When I was twenty five or that many years.
Speaker 2: Two years, yeah, probably three two or three years. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But I think the real eating issues started probably when
Speaker 2: I was twenty so probably five years then at a
Speaker 2: couple of years. I probably didn't fully recover until I
Speaker 2: was twenty eight. I turned twenty five, and your prefrontal
Speaker 2: core tex developing is a really big part of it.
Speaker 2: So maturation is something that can help a lot of
Speaker 2: people get out of eating disorders and disordered eating. Funnily enough,
Speaker 2: I think it was having a really great relationship with
Speaker 2: someone who I knew liked me, not because of my body,
Speaker 2: and he was a friend of mine first, and I'd
Speaker 2: never kind of experienced that. I think I'd always had
Speaker 2: relationships that we had a very power dynamic that was
Speaker 2: typically male female, whereas this kind of felt like an
Speaker 2: equal partnership and I felt like this person liked me
Speaker 2: because I was funny. We had a lot of fun together.
Speaker 2: So that helped me kind of get out of my body.
Speaker 1: Did previous relationships that were based on physicality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so yeah, looking back, I think so yeah.
Speaker 2: My early twenties and my teenage years right about that
Speaker 2: somewhat in the book, but I don't get too much
Speaker 2: into it. So maturation, having a really beautiful relationship that
Speaker 2: wasn't about the way I looked COVID, and having a
Speaker 2: lot of time to spend with my friends, and pulling
Speaker 2: back a bit off work because for me, the eating
Speaker 2: disorder was very much related to working in the media
Speaker 2: and thinking I had to be a certain way to
Speaker 2: be taken seriously or listened to as a woman. And
Speaker 2: I still think that there is part of it that
Speaker 2: I'm sure it helped, because for a lot of people,
Speaker 2: the thin ideal is so interlocked with being successful, and
Speaker 2: people see you as very thin. Again, they say your willpower,
Speaker 2: people say, look your wheel power.
Speaker 1: How do you do it in chocolate or whatever? We're
Speaker 1: all going to eat cross ons for because I'm in
Speaker 1: the kitchen, especially in especially in media. Yeah, but you're not.
Speaker 1: How come you're so strong? That's and that's a reward
Speaker 1: in itself, yep, because it's sort of confirms or affirms
Speaker 1: in your own brain. And I'm doing the right thing
Speaker 1: here because everybody else is socializing. Everyone's telling me the answer.
Speaker 1: Telling me this now because I noticed it in the
Speaker 1: brief that you work with Flex. Yes, yeah, he's also
Speaker 1: been on the show Flex. Mummy is mommy Flex my
Speaker 1: good friend. She went to Melbourne a couple years ago.
Speaker 1: She still know Melbourne. Yeah, yeah, so we're doing a
Speaker 1: radio show. What were you doing with them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were doing a radio show and a podcast.
Speaker 2: By the time we did that, I was very much
Speaker 2: on the way to recovering and probably had already recovered.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're still going ab with a dude, the guy.
Speaker 1: So like, I just don't know how you like, I
Speaker 1: can imagine. I can't imagine and how someone could change
Speaker 1: the eating strategies, For example, I could not change meeting
Speaker 1: strategy from where I am now right, and whether it's
Speaker 1: to eat more or eat less. I just got an
Speaker 1: eating strategy, if you're eating strategies, is to eat less
Speaker 1: and not eat hardly at all. I would imagine it's
Speaker 1: extremely hard to turn your brain around, get your brain
Speaker 1: to make that change, especially when, as you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, but you were getting rewarded with
Speaker 1: various Horner releases in the brain, sort of getting rewarded
Speaker 1: for not eating. How do you go about you going
Speaker 1: to see psychiatrists? Does your mum help you? I mean,
Speaker 1: what's the process who grabs you by the hand and says,
Speaker 1: come on, let's go down this way and we'll sort
Speaker 1: of the.
Speaker 2: Only person who can grab your hand is yourself. That's
Speaker 2: not to diminish the help that psychologists and psychiatrists can
Speaker 2: give you. However, I do think that a lot of
Speaker 2: the experts that I saw didn't understand eating disorders. That's
Speaker 2: a problem across the board. There are specialists. I worked
Speaker 2: very closely with the Inside Out Institute, which is specifically
Speaker 2: for eating disorders, and I think for people who are
Speaker 2: experiencing disordered eating or stuck in some sort of cycle,
Speaker 2: it's so important that you see an expert who understands it.
Speaker 2: So for instance, when I started eating more and it
Speaker 2: tipped and it went the other way, I saw a
Speaker 2: psychiatrist because I thought, oh, I don't want to do this.
Speaker 2: This must be related to something else that isn't to
Speaker 2: do with the eating disorder. And you put me on
Speaker 2: an appetite suppressant, which is the appetite appetite suppressant, yeah, medication, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so stuff like that that it can be. You can
Speaker 2: be led down the garden path by so many people.
Speaker 2: And when you when you have an eating disorder, in
Speaker 2: my experience, you're so sensitive to what people say. People
Speaker 2: will say you look really healthy. It's number one thing
Speaker 2: never to say to someone who's recovering from an eating disorder,
Speaker 2: to someone who is recovering from an eating disorder, or anyone, yeah,
Speaker 2: anyone who's experienced dysregulation with food. I think because people
Speaker 2: tie food to the way you look so much, and
Speaker 2: we equate looking healthy with being fat, I think, especially
Speaker 2: if you've come out of a restrictive eating disorder.
Speaker 1: So when someone is let's call it, use the word,
Speaker 1: say the word fat, there's an association with that being healthy.
Speaker 1: Do you think.
Speaker 2: After being underweight, when you become a quote unquote regular
Speaker 2: weight and people start saying that you're healthy. It's just
Speaker 2: the number one thing you shouldn't say, because in your brain,
Speaker 2: even though you are say a regular size again quote unquote,
Speaker 2: because you know and he sucks me regular for you,
Speaker 2: it makes you You were already so hyper vigilant of
Speaker 2: the way that you look, when you're reminded by other people,
Speaker 2: it confirms this bias in your head that you have,
Speaker 2: that everyone is noticing and everyone cares. And to be honest,
Speaker 2: the first time I wrote about my eating disorder online
Speaker 2: was because I was gaining weight and I was so
Speaker 2: worried that people were looking and thinking, Oh, she's failing.
Speaker 2: She mustn't care about work anymore. Look, she's, you know,
Speaker 2: getting fat. And that's why I wrote about it. I
Speaker 2: didn't write about it to help anyone. I wrote about
Speaker 2: it because I was ashamed and I felt like I
Speaker 2: needed to get ahead of some narrative.
Speaker 1: Well, so now it's a good time to tell us
Speaker 1: the name of your book, And why did you call
Speaker 1: it that?
Speaker 2: Yes, so the name of my book. We'll just pretend
Speaker 2: it's yeah. Is all I ever wanted was to be hot?
Speaker 2: And I call it kind of part memoir, part manifesto
Speaker 2: about my experience of an eating disorder and cosmetic surgery.
Speaker 2: How I felt when those when those were really big
Speaker 2: parts of my life, and then reflecting on it as
Speaker 2: someone who's nearing thirty and having kind of a lot
Speaker 2: more life experience than when those things started.
Speaker 1: And are you taking the pierce when you say I
Speaker 1: always wanted to be hot? And if not, what do
Speaker 1: you mean by that? Like a and what is hot? Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean it's the social environment, of social media environment,
Speaker 1: what looks, what is considered to be hot? What is hot?
Speaker 2: So the title maybe go back and kind of explain it.
Speaker 2: When I started writing the book, it was first about
Speaker 2: my disordered eating and then I thought I also needed
Speaker 2: to talk about it.
Speaker 1: We had a title.
Speaker 2: Before I had a title, Yeah, the title was originally
Speaker 2: something else, and I was writing with this other title
Speaker 2: in my mind. And funny thing happens when you're writing
Speaker 2: a book. I feel like when you have the title first,
Speaker 2: you kind of arrange the words around that kind of
Speaker 2: expression or that kind of idea. Probably got sixty percent
Speaker 2: into writing it. And I started writing about the cosmetic surgery,
Speaker 2: and I thought, no, that the guiding star through my
Speaker 2: whole life, and the reason I made so many decisions
Speaker 2: was because I wanted to be hot. And to me,
Speaker 2: hot is about being desirable and desirable to people who
Speaker 2: have a very specific idea of what a desirable woman
Speaker 2: looks like. And to me, it was what I imagined
Speaker 2: a thirteen year old boy would think he is a
Speaker 2: hot woman, so to be in demand, to be popular,
Speaker 2: to be the kind of person who would look like
Speaker 2: they fit in on TV as a news presenter.
Speaker 1: Since so it's we're not talking about the bikini model
Speaker 1: hot type of.
Speaker 2: Thing or no, But I mean that'd be nice too,
Speaker 2: But it's more hotness has power. To me, hotness is
Speaker 2: a woman's power, and it's the way that she gets noticed.
Speaker 2: And I always felt like I always felt that I
Speaker 2: had a lot to offer. I felt that I could
Speaker 2: be entertaining, I could keep people's attention, but in order
Speaker 2: to get it and to not be mocked, I couldn't
Speaker 2: be fat, I couldn't be ugly, and I couldn't also
Speaker 2: look like I was trying too hard. So for me,
Speaker 2: if the cosmetic surgery was definitely swept under the rock
Speaker 2: for so many years, and if I started dating someone
Speaker 2: would take me ages to tell them that I'd had
Speaker 2: a rhinoplasty, for instance, because I I'm like a no
Speaker 2: shob no job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, is that the cos Many surgery you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's one of I've had.
Speaker 1: Just listen the off Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Please, because I'm curious, totally curious.
Speaker 2: So to rhinoplasty. When I was seventeen, fresh out of school,
Speaker 2: just got off the plane on school. Is I had
Speaker 2: a brestle went when I was nineteen.
Speaker 1: Augmentation yep, boob job job, yep.
Speaker 2: I had a second runer past you. When I was
Speaker 2: twenty one, I started getting botox. I think when I
Speaker 2: was twenty three, got lip filler for the first time,
Speaker 2: around the same time as the breast implants. And yeah,
Speaker 2: that's kind of And then I add on top. I
Speaker 2: think things like hair extensions. I'd bleach blonde hair for
Speaker 2: fifteen years, faate tan, fake tan, machine lashes, everything, everything
Speaker 2: you could think of that enhances your appearance. I've thought
Speaker 2: about it or done it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So and when you're doing that, that's mad that list.
Speaker 1: But when you're doing when you're sort of going through
Speaker 1: the process, is it more process or is it actually
Speaker 1: your strategy you think you hang on, I've got to
Speaker 1: get a boob job, I've got to get my lips fuller.
Speaker 1: And it's for these reasons like full lips look more
Speaker 1: attractive to or is it because everyone else is doing it?
Speaker 1: And when I compare myself to everybody else on TV
Speaker 1: or wherever the case may be, on my teeth white enough,
Speaker 1: Like when you watch television, everyone's got some of the
Speaker 1: times their teeth are so bright they jump out at you.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you when you first walked in, you asked
Speaker 1: about the lighting, and so you're still conscious of this
Speaker 1: stuff you were well aware of it. Is it was
Speaker 1: that your hyper awareness of what looks what you supposed
Speaker 1: to look like, for example, in the media as a
Speaker 1: power person. Yeah, for sure, that's what hot meant to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And did you have icons of somebody who was a
Speaker 1: proxy to that? Did you say that person there, I
Speaker 1: want to look like her.
Speaker 2: Oh, not necessarily. It's all been very insular. For instance,
Speaker 2: when I had a RUNO plus seat, I didn't know
Speaker 2: many people who had had it, and celebrities didn't really
Speaker 2: admit to them. So there were people that were before
Speaker 2: and afters that you could find on the Internet, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't kind of talked about as often as it
Speaker 2: is now. I love Sandra Sully, which is quite random.
Speaker 1: Is a newsreader.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved watching her growing up. So yeah, for
Speaker 2: a long time when I was a kid, I wanted
Speaker 2: to be a newsreader. And they're very quaieft and perfect.
Speaker 2: But in terms of social media, for instance, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: look at pictures of women in their bikinis. I never
Speaker 2: put them on my wall like a lot of women did.
Speaker 2: I was very much thinking of it, like you say,
Speaker 2: as a strategy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, but the reason you didn't put well, they
Speaker 1: less pick. The Kardashians, for example, is just one I
Speaker 1: know of. You know, they're all very curvy, and they
Speaker 1: have this straight hair and there's a look, it's a look, okay,
Speaker 1: And I see a lot of women here in Sydney,
Speaker 1: at least young women who look like a Kardashian to
Speaker 1: me when I look at it. How were you ever
Speaker 1: around that territory? Do you ever think to yourself, that's
Speaker 1: that's my icon, that's my proxy.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: No, So when you say hot, then you're not looking
Speaker 1: because you know a lot of guys who would say
Speaker 1: that's hot. That's probably not what guys are thinking that's hot.
Speaker 1: It's hot is more in relation to what you wanted
Speaker 1: to do in a career sense. Who's my icon in
Speaker 1: my territory?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be someone like a Channel B presenter.
Speaker 2: So I always had short hair, like all through my
Speaker 2: eating disorder, I had a shaved head, or I had
Speaker 2: very shaved head, yeah, or like a little fringe kind
Speaker 2: of like very anti male gaze. Not for any reason.
Speaker 2: I just loved that aesthetic, And honestly, I thought you
Speaker 2: had to be a certain.
Speaker 1: Anti would you say anti male gaze?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't. I wasn't doing it to try and
Speaker 2: like push men away. I was still definitely interested in
Speaker 2: being having attention. But I also had this kind of
Speaker 2: like my friend calls it terminal uniqueness, where you want
Speaker 2: to be different to other people. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be like regular girls. They also call them pick mesha.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of that? No?
Speaker 1: Tell me does that?
Speaker 2: Pick mesha? So they call certain people pick me. It
Speaker 2: can be any gender where you want to be different
Speaker 2: to everyone else, and then pick Mesha is like the
Speaker 2: name for that person.
Speaker 1: Yes, So, because because when you say I always want
Speaker 1: to be hot like it's actually a little bit more
Speaker 1: obverse and than what the tie actually says, because hotness,
Speaker 1: I guess, is in the holder. Everyone's got a different
Speaker 1: view on it, but you've got a specific view of
Speaker 1: what it meant for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess it doesn't matter though in terms of what
Speaker 1: the book's outcome is, because given that everyone's got a
Speaker 1: different view and they all go about it, maybe perhaps
Speaker 1: in the wrong way, they've got to be careful that
Speaker 1: they don't go down the same slippery slope that you
Speaker 1: went down. Yeah, and is that the objective of the
Speaker 1: book somewhat? What were you trying to do or are
Speaker 1: you just having a yarn? No?
Speaker 2: I definitely this is one thing that I did have
Speaker 2: a strategy to try. And maybe I don't want to
Speaker 2: go as far as help people because I think some
Speaker 2: people would read it and just be entertained. But for me,
Speaker 2: things that I'm passionate about are having more regulation in
Speaker 2: the cosmetic surgery industry.
Speaker 1: And regulation in that who can go and get it?
Speaker 2: Probably who can get going? No, not so much that,
Speaker 2: because I think people should be able to make their
Speaker 2: own decisions for their body. But I think there are
Speaker 2: certain safeguards that would be helpful. I regret getting a
Speaker 2: breast oumentation. When I was nineteen. I didn't know what.
Speaker 2: I didn't think about in ten years time, which is now.
Speaker 2: I didn't think, oh, you know, they have like ten
Speaker 2: to fifteen year limits.
Speaker 1: And in terms of the life of the implant, the implant, yeah,
Speaker 1: so what happens at the end of the ten years.
Speaker 2: Two things, You can get them out because they can rupture.
Speaker 2: So a lot of people realize it's time to get
Speaker 2: them out because they rupture in your body. There's no
Speaker 2: it's not it's not fun, or or you can just
Speaker 2: get them out because you know you might need a
Speaker 2: lift or this or that because they like stretched the skin.
Speaker 2: But I went and got a I had an appointment
Speaker 2: a month ago to try and talk about getting them out.
Speaker 2: I thought, now that I've written a book, I'm like,
Speaker 2: you've had money to get my breast implants out. I
Speaker 2: think it'd be three thousand dollars. It's going to be
Speaker 2: at least twenty thousand dollars. Yeah. And when I was nineteen,
Speaker 2: I thought, oh, no, no, no, I'm to be I'm
Speaker 2: going to be married by the time I'm thirty with
Speaker 2: a house imports here and I'm probably gonna have like
Speaker 2: three kids. You know, you have such a different idea
Speaker 2: of what your perfect life looks like when you're thirty
Speaker 2: and it creeps up and you real quick and what
Speaker 2: you want that's not at all what I see for myself.
Speaker 1: So when I mean, I guess lots of women get
Speaker 1: breast in plants, But when do you think it's a
Speaker 1: good idea to get cosmetic surgery? Or like, what advice
Speaker 1: would you give to some person who's a younger person
Speaker 1: in particular who's thinking about doing this? I mean, because
Speaker 1: I have wondered what happens when if a woman hasn't
Speaker 1: eight kids? So what happens when you've got breast implants
Speaker 1: when you're pregnant, assuming you want to breastfeed? They don't
Speaker 1: want to get that? But what would you say to people?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of younger people getting all sorts of
Speaker 1: things done at a very young age, like nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: and your case that was you, what do you say
Speaker 1: to them? Get where do they get advice from? But
Speaker 1: what are the guardrails that need to be put around this?
Speaker 2: There are guardrails that are now in place, very very
Speaker 2: recently where people who are seeing a cosmetics urgent then
Speaker 2: have to go and get mental health check in with
Speaker 2: a doctor, right, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of their own doctor or a
Speaker 1: doctor a doctor like a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to just get a read on why they're doing it,
Speaker 2: what are your expectations, because often what can happen if
Speaker 2: you're someone with body dysmorphic disorder, for instance, you can
Speaker 2: just keep going back. It's not perfect, it's not good enough,
Speaker 2: you get revision rhinoplasty. After revision rhinoplasty, that's where you
Speaker 2: see the overfiller is because you stop realizing what you
Speaker 2: actually look like. That's part of body dysmorphia. You can't
Speaker 2: actually see yourself for what you look like. So to me,
Speaker 2: when I look back, I had anxiety depression from a
Speaker 2: really young age and that was on my record. But
Speaker 2: you know, cosmetic surgeons aren't.
Speaker 1: Did you realize that? Did you realize that you had
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression? Yeah, but nobody asked you the question.
Speaker 2: No, not when I was getting cosmetic surgery. And for me,
Speaker 2: I totally I thought that's a mind thing, this is
Speaker 2: a body thing. I'm doing this as a strategy. As
Speaker 2: you say said, but yeah, the breast implants for me
Speaker 2: as well, so the rhinoplasty, I don't regret because I
Speaker 2: don't see that as related to sexuality. For instance, with
Speaker 2: the breast implants, as a nineteen year old, I'm not
Speaker 2: thinking about breast I'm not thinking about breastfeeding. I'm thinking
Speaker 2: what can I do to my body to make it
Speaker 2: the most appealing. And it's not so much for a
Speaker 2: random person, but it's rather because I felt like they're
Speaker 2: not perfect. I can never be naked in front of
Speaker 2: someone again.
Speaker 1: And when I had them done, before you had it done,
Speaker 1: you thought.
Speaker 2: That before I had it done, Yeah, I'd only slept
Speaker 2: with one person before I had them done, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to sleep with I'm never going to
Speaker 2: take my clothes off in front of anyone else before
Speaker 2: I get them fixed. They went lopsided because I'd lost weight,
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh, as a nineteen year old, the
Speaker 2: only thing I have is my body. I don't know
Speaker 2: the job about it. Should I have the job, but
Speaker 2: you know, I don't have anything else going for me.
Speaker 2: If I'm going to find someone, I need to be
Speaker 2: as perfect as I can be.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So and as an easy fix. I just go
Speaker 1: along to the plastic surgeon order the top of people
Speaker 1: do this stuff. Just choose the shape and the size
Speaker 1: that I want, pay for it and it's all sorted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in which case I don't have to put weight back on.
Speaker 1: I can stay on my current trajectory, which is just
Speaker 1: no good no.
Speaker 2: But I would never tell a woman or young girl.
Speaker 2: I'd never and I tried to do this in the book,
Speaker 2: and I mentioned this in the book. I never want
Speaker 2: to be the twenty nine year old who goes and
Speaker 2: tells a nineteen year old what they shouldn't shouldn't do
Speaker 2: for their body or you know, be aware of this,
Speaker 2: because when people my age now were telling me that,
Speaker 2: I thought, oh, you're just dried up. You know, you
Speaker 2: can't get through to someone if you're telling them how
Speaker 2: to think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's an interesting point because when you're twenty nine,
Speaker 1: you don't think you're very old, but a nineteen year
Speaker 1: old looking at twenty nine year old thinks she is old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I see it in the rugby league world and
Speaker 1: I know you're from or you've been up here for
Speaker 1: a while now, but I know that like young footy
Speaker 1: players went to the club at nineteen, and they look
Speaker 1: at the guys in the twenty nine year old girls
Speaker 1: and the same team, and they think they're all guys
Speaker 1: like they And to me, look and look at all them,
Speaker 1: I think they're all the same age and there's not
Speaker 1: a there's only respect in terms of skills and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But don't tell me how to relieve my life,
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't have any understanding about how I leave
Speaker 1: my life at nineteen. How do you weave comedy into
Speaker 1: your book? Because this conversation so far has been fairly serious,
Speaker 1: and you know, and you're writing a book, so you
Speaker 1: can't look friendly, and you know, you have a natural
Speaker 1: thank me wrong, funny face. You look like you're funny,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and you smile big and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. So I can I get
Speaker 1: a different aura from you when you're talking about the
Speaker 1: side of your subject in your body language everything. But
Speaker 1: you don't do You're not going to give that to
Speaker 1: me in a book because there's which is words text.
Speaker 2: Well, this is the beauty of writing, Mark, And this
Speaker 2: is the biggest compliment anyone can ever give me, and
Speaker 2: it's that I write the same as I sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how do you do that? How do you
Speaker 1: bring that out? I mean, what's what's your what's your stick? Like?
Speaker 1: Do you use words? Is it language or is it
Speaker 1: a rhythm or is it like nearly in verse like
Speaker 1: I'm reading home or something like that? How do you
Speaker 1: how the hell do you do it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How do you write colorful and energetic and enthusiastic and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, like the way you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all just a skill. It's just a learned skill,
Speaker 2: and I guess it's also I think writing as well.
Speaker 2: I think it's something you can learn, but it's also
Speaker 2: some people just have a certain tone that you can't emulate.
Speaker 2: And that's what I think, like to think I have.
Speaker 2: I'm very confident in my writing skill if anything, And
Speaker 2: I guess it's just I had a lot of training
Speaker 2: working The original place that I worked was a youth
Speaker 2: news publication, and their whole tone was very trying to
Speaker 2: make jokes and trying to be funny. So I learned
Speaker 2: the kind of craft there. But it's just about trying
Speaker 2: to write in a way that you're not trying to
Speaker 2: sound too smart. You're also not trying to try to
Speaker 2: dumb yourself down or think, oh, this I'm going to
Speaker 2: I'm going to get the most amount of people are
Speaker 2: going to understand this, because people understand a lot more
Speaker 2: than you think. I often find when in entertainment, and
Speaker 2: so it's just about finding a funny way of writing something.
Speaker 2: I think you saying rhythm and the kind of words
Speaker 2: that you use can be very strategic and funny because
Speaker 2: I think the best comedies when you catch someone by surprise.
Speaker 2: I get that. That's kind of what laughter comes from.
Speaker 2: Is oh yeah, that's funny. I get that. So I
Speaker 2: always want people to read my writing and go, oh,
Speaker 2: I get that. I understand that. And I've had a
Speaker 2: lot of people message with me saying, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I think we're the same person, and to me, I
Speaker 2: think I'm really unique. So I think, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: You're unique and maybe the way you write it, but
Speaker 1: you're the same person the way you express it, because
Speaker 1: they're they're they're obviously relating to it. How hard is
Speaker 1: it to try not to be a lecture? You know? Like,
Speaker 1: I got a friend and obviously you remain names say
Speaker 1: it's a boy or girl for that matter. But Risson
Speaker 1: sent me a note asking me if I can come
Speaker 1: and talk to him, you know, and and told me
Speaker 1: that I would get a bit of a surprise when
Speaker 1: I saw this particular individual, because I hadn't seen this
Speaker 1: particular person for a long time, and this particular person
Speaker 1: put quite a bit of weight on But the at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the text, this individual said to me,
Speaker 1: and when you see me, I don't want a lecture. Interesting, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: don't lecture me, or something along those lines, And I
Speaker 1: wrote back, well, I couldn't give a fuck. I'm just
Speaker 1: happy to see you anyway. How how hard has it
Speaker 1: been not to make this a lecture?
Speaker 2: I don't think hard.
Speaker 1: Well, that's in terms of your intent, But how hard
Speaker 1: is it in the outcome?
Speaker 2: I understand, Yeah, I guess. Yeah. It's pretty easy to
Speaker 2: fall into the do this, don't that, especially when you
Speaker 2: feel passionate about something. And I do really think that
Speaker 2: there is a right way and a wrong way to
Speaker 2: go about eating disorders. Definitely. I think the cosmetic surgery
Speaker 2: is a bit more nuanced. But I definitely feel that
Speaker 2: eating disorders and diet culture is unwell and it shouldn't
Speaker 2: be as normal as it is to speak the way
Speaker 2: that we do about bodies does a lot more harm
Speaker 2: than good. But I make a very conscious effort to
Speaker 2: not lecture people just because I don't like being lectured
Speaker 2: and I don't think you change people's minds by It's
Speaker 2: like leadership. I've had really bad managers. I've had really
Speaker 2: good managers. The ones that are good are the ones
Speaker 2: that look you in the eye and treat you like
Speaker 2: an equal, but then hold you up when you need
Speaker 2: it or kind of give you feedback when you need it.
Speaker 2: But you always feel that it's from a place that
Speaker 2: they're bringing you up.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make you better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they get it. And for me, it's always
Speaker 2: this kind of sounds funny, but it's a looking someone
Speaker 2: in the eye in a warm way and acting like
Speaker 2: you know. I think the last the worst thing. I
Speaker 2: think the worst thing that you can do is treat
Speaker 2: someone like you know better than them, because everyone is
Speaker 2: an expert in their own life, and I think everyone
Speaker 2: thinks that they're doing things the right way.
Speaker 1: It must have been how many pages in a writing
Speaker 1: do you remember?
Speaker 2: I think it's I can tell you how many words.
Speaker 2: I think it was seventy or eighty thousand.
Speaker 1: That's about seven hundred words a page. So you get
Speaker 1: one hundred pages of a couple of hunder pages I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, to seventy pages.
Speaker 1: I'd say it must have been a mission because you've
Speaker 1: got your own guardrails around what you want to do,
Speaker 1: what you don't want to do. Tone, put comedy in there,
Speaker 1: like make it, make it funny, et cetera. But at
Speaker 1: the same time express yourself, but at the same time
Speaker 1: make sure you tell the truth and at the same
Speaker 1: time talk your own story, which in some cases could
Speaker 1: be not shocking a little bit off putting for some
Speaker 1: people that were wrong footing. You also got to be
Speaker 1: careful that you don't trigger anybody. This must be how
Speaker 1: long would take it write the book?
Speaker 2: You're so right. They're the hardest things. They're all the
Speaker 2: things that would stop me from writing. I physically like
Speaker 2: the act of writing. I'll write another book because I
Speaker 2: find it very enjoyable, and I love putting something down
Speaker 2: and then showing someone. I get so much joy out
Speaker 2: of that. But yeah, I would struggle with getting in
Speaker 2: my own way, feeling like, oh I sound like a
Speaker 2: I sound like I know it all, or this isn't funny,
Speaker 2: or this is I sound like I'm complaining. My biggest
Speaker 2: thing was I sound like I'm complaining, Oh way, where
Speaker 2: you had cosmetic surgery and now you're not sure about it,
Speaker 2: like must be nice. So I was always worried that
Speaker 2: people are gonna think of me as really vain and vapid.
Speaker 2: And it's just you're just talking about yourself, which I
Speaker 2: try not to do, even though my whole books about myself.
Speaker 1: You know, I find it. Look, I'm dying to read
Speaker 1: at least the first couple of pages. I just want
Speaker 1: to see the tone and the style and the.
Speaker 2: Rest, see if I have toret myself up or.
Speaker 1: Having to yourself up. But you've you've presented to me
Speaker 1: because I've done a few books myself and I know
Speaker 1: hardess to do it. But you've presented to me the constraints.
Speaker 1: And I couldn't write a book like that because there's
Speaker 1: just too many guardrails. I mean, I just go mental.
Speaker 1: Like when I write books, I just write her or want.
Speaker 1: In your case, I just want to know how you
Speaker 1: hell you navigated your way through that and stayed in
Speaker 1: two and seventy pages, stayed in your lane. It's a
Speaker 1: really tough one, but it's also really important topic too. Like,
Speaker 1: it's a very important topic, quite topical, and I and
Speaker 1: I know because I see other people like Celeste Barber,
Speaker 1: So she's great. She's built social media campaign around taking
Speaker 1: the piss out of herself on this this sort of
Speaker 1: very topic but doesn't very funny. But it's sort of
Speaker 1: quite simple, and it's it's pretty much a it's pretty
Speaker 1: much a repeatable strategy. She just the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over again, and she still
Speaker 1: gets the same amount of laughs and the same amount
Speaker 1: of views, and she's just as popular. Yours is much
Speaker 1: more nuanced. Your book, I'm saying, is much more nuanced,
Speaker 1: and so I'm actually looking forward to reading when you
Speaker 1: send me a copy. Now, I'll buy a copy. Now
Speaker 1: we'll get a copy of the off the exnible. We'll
Speaker 1: post it up on our somewhere, on our primo. I
Speaker 1: do want to talk you before I go. Before you go,
Speaker 1: more importantly, this concept of Froome's world. Once I already
Speaker 1: told you earlier on that I was intrigued by the
Speaker 1: name Frooms came from. Now I know I thought it
Speaker 1: was some name you word you made up, or it
Speaker 1: meant something or rather than I didn't know about but
Speaker 1: now your mum's maid. But what is Froome's world?
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you why I chose her maiden
Speaker 2: name is something. Yeah, like you guess my dad's Alerican.
Speaker 2: We call him Center in my household because everybody call
Speaker 2: him center Center. Everything revolves around him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he thinks it does or it does a
Speaker 1: bit of both, a bit of both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, massive personality.
Speaker 1: Which is name Steve, Steve's world there, so Steve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your house is Stee's world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's cars salesman. Yeah, I use cars salesman. If
Speaker 2: that kind of like paint speecher. Very typical Australian male,
Speaker 2: sixty seven, just on paper, Homer Simpson. My mom is Yeah,
Speaker 2: my mom's opposite. My mom's quiet and considered. Uh. I
Speaker 2: want to say he doesn't have a lot of confidence
Speaker 2: in herself. Maybe in a way or growing up, I
Speaker 2: felt as if she didn't have much confidence because I
Speaker 2: equated she's March. Yeah, probably a bit like March. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but she's I don't want to say she's smarter than dad.
Speaker 2: Becausedad'll probably listen to this, but she just has kind
Speaker 2: of like a world wisdom that I really appreciate and
Speaker 2: she's a nurse and she's very caring, and I like
Speaker 2: to think I'm a lot. I would be like get
Speaker 2: the get that from her, a bit more considered than say,
Speaker 2: my dad would be. But I always felt like she
Speaker 2: didn't really have a voice because she played a very
Speaker 2: maternal role in my household. And Dad's a like recount her,
Speaker 2: like he's telling all the stories and we're sitting and
Speaker 2: listening to his stories again and again and again. So
Speaker 2: I wanted to use her name because we feel very
Speaker 2: similar and I know that she has stories and she
Speaker 2: never talks about herself, and to me, it was important.
Speaker 1: To do with us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in everyone else exactly. But she is funny, she's
Speaker 2: got a great sense of humor, and she's given me
Speaker 2: so much. She's the reason I'm doing this because she
Speaker 2: would always listen to me and always tell me I
Speaker 2: was creative, and believe in me, pay for me to
Speaker 2: do whatever I wanted, and has supported me the whole time.
Speaker 2: Watches everything I do, listen to everything, just classic mum,
Speaker 2: you know, sounds perfect and she's perfect. And then Froom's World,
Speaker 2: it's like Wayne's World was the inspiration. I love Mike Myers.
Speaker 2: He's probably my favorite funny person ever, And so I
Speaker 2: thought Froome's world, this is my world for whatever I want,
Speaker 2: my newsletters, whatever I want. My Instagram is whatever I want.
Speaker 2: And I think, I know you wanted to talk to
Speaker 2: me about like commerce and doing paid partnerships. Only do
Speaker 2: things that will work within Froom's world, things that I use,
Speaker 2: things that I like. So everything's very strategic. Yeah, do
Speaker 2: you have a do you have a website? Rooms for
Speaker 2: I do frioms dot com of course, and I've registered.
Speaker 2: I'm the pty Ltd. I'm a company. And also I
Speaker 2: didn't realize but I hadn't had the trademark, so I
Speaker 2: just bought the trademark.
Speaker 1: Oh good on you. So if I go to froomswhold
Speaker 1: dot com dot U is it dot you dot com
Speaker 1: dot com? So it's so if I go to frooms
Speaker 1: dot com, what am I going to see there? What
Speaker 1: are you going to What are you going to tell me?
Speaker 1: What's on there? Part from your book being my promo
Speaker 1: or I hope it's on there being promo, But what
Speaker 1: else am we going to see on there? What's your
Speaker 1: content got on there?
Speaker 2: We need to go and get you out in the
Speaker 2: desktop computer. So I can show you it's designed.
Speaker 1: What are you doing to me when when you when
Speaker 1: you're sort of nudging me towards it.
Speaker 2: So for me, it's all about the first impression and
Speaker 2: giving one a taste of kind of what you're in
Speaker 2: for because I don't even know. This is why I
Speaker 2: find it hard to explain what I do or people
Speaker 2: who started following frims. What is this? It's whatever I want?
Speaker 2: And so the website you go on it and it's
Speaker 2: my face. It's designed like a desktop computer. So you
Speaker 2: got all your little files, press writing by my book here,
Speaker 2: click on this random bin and you're going to get
Speaker 2: taken to a YouTube video that I made. So it's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like a screen saver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're doing YouTube, you're.
Speaker 2: Doing some what. But again, I don't do podcasts because
Speaker 2: I know if I do a podcast, I've got to
Speaker 2: treat it like a full time job. And I don't
Speaker 2: like talking that much. But yeah, you're pretty good at it,
Speaker 2: or I'll get if I've got a topic, I could
Speaker 2: talk now, i could talk underwater, But like I always
Speaker 2: want to make sure I'm bringing value, and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if me talking about my life is the best value.
Speaker 1: You're a perfectionist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit, but not in the way that
Speaker 2: gets I never get hindered by it. I love making things.
Speaker 1: How do you mean making things?
Speaker 2: I love writing, I love my videos. I love being creative.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And when you say making videos, you mean like
Speaker 1: video content as in and but as you in it
Speaker 1: talking about some topic. So you're not really an evangelist.
Speaker 1: This book's about evangelism for you know, not getting you know, surgery,
Speaker 1: cosmetic surgery or or it's not an evangelistic book. It's
Speaker 1: sort of the sound was taking us on your journey.
Speaker 2: Taking us on a journey, and it's cultural studies. I
Speaker 2: look at the early two thousands in Australia really some
Speaker 2: history too, A lot of history, yeah, a lot people.
Speaker 2: I look at what your generation grew up with and
Speaker 2: how it's very interesting my generation.
Speaker 1: I'm Homo Simpson too, a little bit old.
Speaker 2: Actually bad dad if you got up at four am.
Speaker 1: I know, like my generationally cosmetic surgery. Well maybe someone
Speaker 1: might have got a nose job or.
Speaker 2: Something, but min Nana had a nose show. Really so
Speaker 2: my dad's mum. That's why my parents let me get it,
Speaker 2: because they yeah, oh there's a hole you got to
Speaker 2: read the book mark.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to read. I'm definitely going to read
Speaker 1: the first couple of pages. I'm dying to see your
Speaker 1: your writing style, you know, like and how you navigate
Speaker 1: your way through this complicated set of guardrails that let's
Speaker 1: just have to be set by you n society through
Speaker 1: something that's a really important topic.
Speaker 2: Message me and tell me is it coming across the
Speaker 2: same as I'm speaking.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. But you know, like, have you
Speaker 1: done an audiobook? Yes, you've done the audiobook. How do
Speaker 1: you feel when you did the audiobook?
Speaker 2: Have you done it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've done that. They drive me crazy when I
Speaker 1: did it, I always kept saying I was reading, Did
Speaker 1: I actually write that? Like my God? And by the way,
Speaker 1: I did my idea book audiobook some years after.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: I had written the book so that some of the
Speaker 1: stuff was actually not even that relevant, but that you
Speaker 1: have to be completely faithful to the book. You have
Speaker 1: to read everything, but just some of it. I've found
Speaker 1: very difficult to read out again. And when you read
Speaker 1: something as opposed to when you speak something, what's your
Speaker 1: rise on me? Not necessarily meant to be read out spoken?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Spoken? Out loud. It's a bit like people who write
Speaker 1: speeches and they don't actually go and read it in
Speaker 1: front of a mirror and on a microphone and listen
Speaker 1: back to it. They write speech and sounds completely terrible.
Speaker 1: When they get up and actually read it in front
Speaker 1: of everybody, that just sounds dreadful. And there are two
Speaker 1: different skills. So when you said to me, I hope
Speaker 1: this is a great skill, I mean, if you can
Speaker 1: do this, if you've achieved it, if I can, you
Speaker 1: want me to tell you if when I read it
Speaker 1: it sounds like the way you're speaking now, if you're
Speaker 1: going to achieve that, that's magnificent, that that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Your book will be around up there with Homer or
Speaker 1: not home Missimo, but actually Homer.
Speaker 2: I prefer homusimoson the trick mark is I read out
Speaker 2: everything that I write after I write it, I.
Speaker 1: Write really Yeah, I read it out a loud.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you're doing the draft, the first first iteration,
Speaker 1: you actually you write a page, you read it back
Speaker 1: to yourself. Yeah, listen to.
Speaker 2: Every chapter is a story, and then it's all one story.
Speaker 2: It's all going to make sense, it's all going to
Speaker 2: be connected together. You can't have it be bitsy. It's
Speaker 2: all one story.
Speaker 1: Well, this book to me sounds to be honestly, sounds
Speaker 1: fascinating in the process and the outcome. The topic is
Speaker 1: very important. It's a critically important topic. And I wish
Speaker 1: you the very best and I'm definitely going to get
Speaker 1: a copy of that book.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mark. I'm sorry to bring one next time.
Speaker 1: No, do you know what in terms of marketing one
Speaker 1: oh one, that's what you should be doing. You're fired, Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: you're fired. No, no, you're hired. I'm going to get
Speaker 1: your book. You like, really nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you too.