Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia out Loud. What women are actually talking about
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, the twentieth of August. My name is Hollywayne Wright.
Speaker 1: I'm Jesse Stevens and I'm Stacy Higgs.
Speaker 2: Welcome to out Loud.
Speaker 1: Stacey so much.
Speaker 2: It's very exciting to have you here.
Speaker 1: I'm come dressed as a taller version of Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 1: You are in the same shirt.
Speaker 2: Tell the people who you are in case they don't know.
Speaker 1: So I am MoMA me as deputy editor. And you
Speaker 1: might have heard me on Parenting out Loud and you
Speaker 1: will hear more about that next week.
Speaker 3: And we should say, yes, Stacey and I are wearing
Speaker 3: the same shirt.
Speaker 2: Okay, isn't this shirt viral or something?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, I have it in three colors, and I forget
Speaker 1: what I wore before. I have it shirt in two.
Speaker 2: I really like it. Shit, I need to get it,
Speaker 2: But then I'm just like then we could all be
Speaker 2: wearing it.
Speaker 3: The thing about this shirt is every time we wear
Speaker 3: it to work, we run into three other people who
Speaker 3: have it the Abasa recently for something and they stopped me.
Speaker 4: They said, you've got the viral shirt and I was like,
Speaker 4: that's something no one's ever said to me. This shirt.
Speaker 4: It has sleeves and stripes.
Speaker 3: I cannot express how there is nothing interesting or exceptional
Speaker 3: about this shirt, but the hold it has on the
Speaker 3: culture needs to be acknowledged.
Speaker 4: Is Lioness Yep, it's sixty bucks.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's forty bucks.
Speaker 2: At the moment, Geez, I need to call mea Friedman,
Speaker 2: our friend and find out how many of those she owns.
Speaker 1: Because it's just something that she likes. It's a viral
Speaker 1: item of clothing. It's weird that Jesse and I are
Speaker 1: early adopters. That never happens in my experience. Don't know
Speaker 1: how that happened.
Speaker 2: But here we are. Okay, back to business. Things that
Speaker 2: made our agenda today, Stacey.
Speaker 1: There's a new Netflix documentary that will make you rethink
Speaker 1: one of the biggest reality shows that we all watched.
Speaker 3: There's also a very important roundtable taking place in Canberra
Speaker 3: and we are going to elbow our way in and
Speaker 3: offer some suggestions, very.
Speaker 2: Helpful suggestion and how kitchen cabinets brought one of the
Speaker 2: biggest self help gurus in the world to her knees. Yes,
Speaker 2: we're talking about Meil Robbins. But first, what if you
Speaker 2: didn't have to vote? What if you didn't have to
Speaker 2: bother your pretty little head about complicated issues like human rights,
Speaker 2: environmental issues, defense, education, and health spending. Well, there's someone
Speaker 2: pretty high up in the Trump administration who's got some
Speaker 2: good news for you.
Speaker 4: He's pat new on your little head. He's saying, don't
Speaker 4: you worry, a little lady, don't you worry.
Speaker 1: Don't have to think about this stuff.
Speaker 2: Something called head of the household voting is being floated
Speaker 2: as a jolly good idea by the US Secretary of
Speaker 2: Defense Pete Hegseth. He recently made a far right Christian
Speaker 2: fringe belief seem pretty mainstream when he shared a video
Speaker 2: to his ex feed. In this video, right, there's this
Speaker 2: controversial pastor called Doug Wilson, and he, for a very
Speaker 2: long time has been founding his own little empire of
Speaker 2: very conservative Christian churches in the Midwest of America. And
Speaker 2: recently they have got more and more popular, and their
Speaker 2: spreading and spreading and spreading and He's just opened one
Speaker 2: in Washington, DC, and devotees of this church have the
Speaker 2: ear of the Trump presidency, as evidenced by the fact
Speaker 2: that heg Seth retweeted this video in which the pastor
Speaker 2: expressed that ideally every household should get one vote, and
Speaker 2: I bet you can't get who in the household gets
Speaker 2: the Is it a dog, it is the man? Assuming that,
Speaker 2: of course there is a man in.
Speaker 4: Every Apparently a woman can get the vote if she's widowed.
Speaker 2: Would this be a relief to us friends, if the
Speaker 2: men took care of all that messy having opinions?
Speaker 4: Shit, Look, I have some feelings.
Speaker 3: Firstly, I just I read this and I went not
Speaker 3: all Christians. I'm just I'm horrified, and I feel as
Speaker 3: though it's got to be put in the context of
Speaker 3: heg Seth. This isn't just an idea he's playing with.
Speaker 3: He has outstoed multiple senior women from roles in the
Speaker 3: military since he has been appointed this role. He went
Speaker 3: through the Pentagon's Women Peace and Security program, took out
Speaker 3: a whole lot of female roles because he said that
Speaker 3: they were woke and that they were prioritizing feminism.
Speaker 4: So oh, look, it's am I laughing.
Speaker 3: It feels pretty horrific. But I actually heard Hannah Rosen
Speaker 3: speak last week at this conference, and she wrote a
Speaker 3: book thirteen years ago called The End of Men, and
Speaker 3: she made a prediction in that that said, and her
Speaker 3: argument was basically that women college graduates going through the
Speaker 3: roof women were making more money. Women's roles are plastic
Speaker 3: and malleable, whereas men are cardboard.
Speaker 4: It feels like they're.
Speaker 3: Unable to evolve from a very traditional role and there
Speaker 3: are some issues there. She wasn't celebrating the end of men.
Speaker 3: She was just saying, we're seeing a cultural shift. She
Speaker 3: had two predictions. She said, one of two things is
Speaker 3: going to happen. The first is gender roles become more
Speaker 3: flexible and we just all evolve and mix and at
Speaker 3: this great utopia.
Speaker 2: I vote for that version.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: The other option was that men can't handle it and
Speaker 3: all hell breaks loose. That was her second prediction.
Speaker 4: And I have a terrible feeling that her second prediction
Speaker 4: came true.
Speaker 1: Definitely sounds more familiar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of not all Christians. So Jesse, did you
Speaker 2: know there's only one country in the entire world where
Speaker 2: women are not allowed to vote. Do you know what
Speaker 2: it is where that in can City?
Speaker 4: Is it really?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: It is. Obviously there's some complexities in that. Not all
Speaker 2: countries in the world have democratic voting systems. Yes, but
Speaker 2: universal suffrage everywhere except for the seat of Catholicism. I'll
Speaker 2: just leave that.
Speaker 4: We were not looking for people who were overweight and happy.
Speaker 5: I'm a secret leader.
Speaker 4: We were looking for people who were overweight and unhappy.
Speaker 2: Needi, you would fix my marriage, maybe always fix me,
Speaker 2: do anything to be on your show.
Speaker 5: They were really reinforcing the stereotypes people like making fun
Speaker 5: of bad people, and producers love that.
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to quit. I'm not well.
Speaker 2: They do it, Joel, Stop saying all these words. Quit talking.
Speaker 4: I'm second, just words words words talk talk talk, Shut
Speaker 4: the un just do it.
Speaker 1: This week, one of the most confronting documentaries I've ever
Speaker 1: watched tit Netflix, and it wasn't about a brutal crime
Speaker 1: or a multimillion dollar love scam. It's called Fit for TV,
Speaker 1: the Reality of Biggest Loser, and it focuses on the
Speaker 1: phenomenon that was the weight loss reality show The Biggest Loser.
Speaker 1: For those who might not remember it. The US version
Speaker 1: first aired in two thousand and six and the Australian
Speaker 1: format followed pretty soon after that same year, where overweight
Speaker 1: and obese people could sign up for what was essentially
Speaker 1: a televised fat camp. They were made to exercise for
Speaker 1: hours on end, consumer as little as eight hundred calories
Speaker 1: a day, and they were screamed at by the trainers
Speaker 1: in the name of entertainment. The contestants competed to win
Speaker 1: up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the US,
Speaker 1: it was almost the same here about two hundred k,
Speaker 1: with Danny Cahill breaking the US record by losing fifty
Speaker 1: five percent of his original body weight, so to put
Speaker 1: that into perspective, he lost one hundred and ninety five
Speaker 1: kilos in six months during the course of the show.
Speaker 1: And in this doco former contestants, even one of the trainers,
Speaker 1: Bob Harper, and the executive producers of the show talk
Speaker 1: about the toll the show, talk on the contestants and
Speaker 1: the subsequent fallout for them, And I think the reason
Speaker 1: it's so confronting for so many women is thoughts about
Speaker 1: weight play as a constant monologue in our heads. They
Speaker 1: definitely do in mind, and many of us know the
Speaker 1: calories of everything we consume. We're always kind of feeling
Speaker 1: like we should be taking up less space and punishing
Speaker 1: ourselves with exercise. So this show has a lot to
Speaker 1: answer for in the role that that played in driving
Speaker 1: that messaging home. But I think it's easy to lose
Speaker 1: sight of the fact that as straight sized women, we
Speaker 1: can't even begin to imagine the toll this show took
Speaker 1: on overweight or obese people watching and seeing that messaging reinforce,
Speaker 1: even through the name of the show being so negatively coded.
Speaker 1: We had a conversation this smaller and producer Ruth shared
Speaker 1: some deeply personal feelings about this documentary, and we're going
Speaker 1: to share what she said in her words with you now.
Speaker 2: I am fat.
Speaker 6: Three little words, that's all they were. But as I
Speaker 6: said them, I could feel my throat constrict and a
Speaker 6: wave of tears pushing against the back of my eyeballs.
Speaker 6: How embarrassing, How bloody embarrassing. This was me, producer Ruth,
Speaker 6: who's supposed to be in charge of things on out loud,
Speaker 6: crying in our planning meeting this morning, a meeting we
Speaker 6: have before every episode of the show out loud, as
Speaker 6: it wasn't the best start to the day.
Speaker 1: Look, there is context to this.
Speaker 6: I don't normally blurt out things about myself which frankly,
Speaker 6: are patently obvious to anyone with eyeballs, because yes, while
Speaker 6: I'm here, I might as well go the whole hog
Speaker 6: and tell you that I'm not just fat as in
Speaker 6: I could lose a few I'm not just a bit
Speaker 6: curvy or voluptuous or plus size. I'm actually morbidly obese,
Speaker 6: and yes, it is a fucker. The reason I was
Speaker 6: saying I am fat was because we were discussing talking
Speaker 6: about the Biggest Loser doco on the show, and I
Speaker 6: had things to say about it. There's no doubt in
Speaker 6: my mind that you don't have to be a beast
Speaker 6: to talk about this doco. That goes for any topic
Speaker 6: in my book. You want to talk about something, go
Speaker 6: ahead and talk about it. It's just that on this day,
Speaker 6: on this morning, in this meeting, I was the only
Speaker 6: fat person at the table and had a perspective that
Speaker 6: might be different to my straight size colleagues. I'm also
Speaker 6: really aware that this is my perspective, a mine alone.
Speaker 6: I don't pretend, for one minute to speak for every
Speaker 6: fat person out there. I watched the Biggest Loser documentary
Speaker 6: like someone rubbernecking at a car crash. You don't want
Speaker 6: to look, but you can't stop, and when you do look,
Speaker 6: you're both horrified at what happened and ashamed at the
Speaker 6: part of you that enjoyed the spectacle in the first place.
Speaker 6: That's what the show always was for me. Fat people
Speaker 6: paraded around for the entertainment of the thin, with a
Speaker 6: side order of inspiration, so the cruelty could be passed
Speaker 6: off as kindness. What I liked about the documentary was
Speaker 6: the honesty. Finally someone said what should have been obvious
Speaker 6: all along. Those transformations weren't success stories. They were trauma responses.
Speaker 6: Starve anyone scream at them long enough on national TV.
Speaker 6: Deprive them of sleep, and they'll shed kilos hell even
Speaker 6: I would. It's not discipline, it's desperation. You could see
Speaker 6: it in their faces, those dead eyed weigh ins, bodies
Speaker 6: shaking on treadmills. Those contestants were being punished for being fat.
Speaker 6: The network made money out of it, the audience were entertained.
Speaker 6: That's how TV works. Hearing that honesty felt good, like
Speaker 6: a weird kind of justice, too little, too late, but
Speaker 6: something at least. But then came the other part, the hatred,
Speaker 6: because the documentary was also a mirror, and mirrors aren't
Speaker 6: kind to people like me. I won't look in one.
Speaker 6: A compact is the largest mirror in which I'll ever
Speaker 6: allow myself to see my reflection. Watching those old clips
Speaker 6: spliced with present day regret, I realized I used to
Speaker 6: sit there inwardly cheering. I wanted to believe in the
Speaker 6: punishment self loathing fatty that I am. I wanted to
Speaker 6: believe fatness could be beaten out of us them me
Speaker 6: like a demon. And if you didn't win, it was
Speaker 6: because you lacked the moral fiber. And that's the real
Speaker 6: rot at the center of The Biggest Loser.
Speaker 1: It taught us that.
Speaker 6: Fat isn't just a body, it's a character flaw. The
Speaker 6: doco showed the scars, the ruined metabolisms, destroyed mental health
Speaker 6: people yeo yoing their way into permanent damage. But here's
Speaker 6: what they didn't quite say. Those scars aren't just on
Speaker 6: the contestants. They're on everyone who watched, everyone who learned
Speaker 6: to hate their own reflection because the culture told us
Speaker 6: our worth could be read off a bathroom scale. It's
Speaker 6: not just that the contestants were abused, it's that the
Speaker 6: rest of us were trained to see that abuse is deserved.
Speaker 6: What I hated most was how familiar it all felt.
Speaker 6: The fake cheering, the brutal cuts to tears and sweat,
Speaker 6: the public weigh ins where people shamed were served up
Speaker 6: as family entertainment. I grew up marinating in that message.
Speaker 6: If you're fat, you're disgusting. If you're thin, you're safe
Speaker 6: for now. The show wasn't a diet program. It was
Speaker 6: a morality play, and we all bought tickets.
Speaker 1: So yes, the.
Speaker 6: Documentary told the truth. But truth doesn't undo the damage.
Speaker 6: It doesn't erase the nights I went to bed hungry,
Speaker 6: convinced that pain was proof of virtue. The days I
Speaker 6: spend trying to make myself that little bit smaller, that
Speaker 6: little bit less, so I don't take up quite as
Speaker 6: much room in the world for fear of someone calling
Speaker 6: me out as fat, lazy, stupid, smelly. It doesn't quiet
Speaker 6: the voice in my head that's all measures my worth
Speaker 6: in Kilo's decades later, watching it was like seeing my
Speaker 6: abuser finally unmasked. Satisfying but also sickening because it reminded
Speaker 6: me of how willingly I played along. I loved it,
Speaker 6: I hated it. Mostly I mourned it because while the
Speaker 6: circus has left town, the scars it left are permanent.
Speaker 3: The way that you put words around how that felt.
Speaker 3: I think people should probably know that Ruth is a writer.
Speaker 2: And any surprise to anyone who heard that that she's
Speaker 2: a stunning writer.
Speaker 3: I think that really speaks to the heart of this
Speaker 3: story and actually like the trauma of people who grew
Speaker 3: up with this, because you can remember what this did
Speaker 3: to the culture, that it was the time when everyone
Speaker 3: knew every calorie count and gyms were full of people
Speaker 3: who understood this to be punishment, and that show just
Speaker 3: reinforced that.
Speaker 1: And this wasn't a quick moment in time like this
Speaker 1: run for eleven seasons in Australia and I think even
Speaker 1: longer in the US, so this really did have a
Speaker 1: lasting impact on generations of people.
Speaker 2: After listening to Ruth's unbelievable perspective there, like, I don't
Speaker 2: have very much to add at all. I watched this
Speaker 2: documentary and I felt astounded because it's most it's about
Speaker 2: the American Biggest Loser for clarity, and at that show's peak,
Speaker 2: eleven million Americans were watching that show, and hundreds and
Speaker 2: thousands of people wanted to be on that show. And
Speaker 2: I think all the complexity of those facts are reflected
Speaker 2: in what Ruth just said and to what you said
Speaker 2: in the intro Stacey, where I think for a lot
Speaker 2: of women in particular, like the stats say that right
Speaker 2: now about sixty percent of Australians are actively trying to
Speaker 2: lose weight, not just women, just Australians are actively trying
Speaker 2: to lose weight. So a very large percentage of the
Speaker 2: population can relate on some level to feeling like their
Speaker 2: body is wrong right, and that women in particular are
Speaker 2: constantly being told that there is something wrong with our
Speaker 2: bodies and no matter what size, no matter what the
Speaker 2: number on the scales, that we have a piece in
Speaker 2: this shame around being too greedy and wanting too much
Speaker 2: and eating the wrong things and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: And that's all true. And I think that's why there
Speaker 2: was almost like a safety that people could watch The
Speaker 2: Biggest Loser, and whether they admit this to themselves or not,
Speaker 2: they could go.
Speaker 4: But I'm not those people do you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: and that had mentioned in the documentary.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think that the thing is is that
Speaker 2: so we can all relate to a piece of it.
Speaker 2: But I think what Ruth's unbelievable piece of writing that
Speaker 2: she just delivered says that we can relate to a
Speaker 2: piece of it, but we can't relate to that entire experience,
Speaker 2: and we shouldn't try and own any of that.
Speaker 3: My twin sister Claire did her post grad studies on
Speaker 3: the relationship between obesity and eating disorders. There was a movement,
Speaker 3: and it's interestingly sort of lost a bit of momentum,
Speaker 3: but it was about health at any size, and how
Speaker 3: the experience of shame, according to every psychological study ever conducted,
Speaker 3: does not change behavior. In fact, shame around weight causes
Speaker 3: more issues than it prevents. The idea that shaming these
Speaker 3: people on a national platform would somehow lead to a
Speaker 3: revolution in people's relationship with their health was so misguided,
Speaker 3: and I think we can see that now, and it
Speaker 3: was steeped in all of these assumptions that we did
Speaker 3: see at the time. But I suppose with a step back,
Speaker 3: there's even more clarity. Like I remember Claire and I
Speaker 3: would write these recaps of the Biggest Loser, and it
Speaker 3: was through analysis and kind of going, let's just unpack
Speaker 3: that assumption, the assumption that everyone on that show had
Speaker 3: to admit that they were sad and that their lives
Speaker 3: had been a tragedy up until the point, and that
Speaker 3: the only way that they would be worthy mothers, worthy
Speaker 3: to their partners would be if they lost this weight.
Speaker 3: And that was also sending it back, like there was
Speaker 3: one where this this man, I'll never forget it. He
Speaker 3: stood up and he said, I'm not going to tell
Speaker 3: you I'm sad and depressed.
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 3: And one of the trainers looked at him. This was
Speaker 3: in Australia and said, honestly, and it was like they
Speaker 3: all stood there until you admit, you admit that.
Speaker 4: You are a failure.
Speaker 3: I also want to just take a minute to look
Speaker 3: at the decline of this show in the context of Australia,
Speaker 3: because I remembered that it ended with a bit of
Speaker 3: a whimper, and I went what happened? Because I remember
Speaker 3: there were all these iterations, there were children on it, There.
Speaker 4: Was this a town.
Speaker 2: Remember it was like Australia's fattest town.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And there was all of this ground swell of criticism.
Speaker 3: So I think we tell ourselves the culture changed, the
Speaker 3: culture moved on. It's actually not what happened. What happened
Speaker 3: was the format of the show changed. The last season,
Speaker 3: they had a psychologist come in and they would have
Speaker 3: like weekly sessions with a psychologist. They changed the challenges.
Speaker 3: There was no more temptation where they basically encouraged and
Speaker 3: rewarded binge eating. They didn't make the people roll around
Speaker 3: in mud anymore. What they did was they went, can
Speaker 3: you cook a healthy meal for a family for twenty
Speaker 3: five bucks? What's the healthiest way you can cook?
Speaker 1: Check?
Speaker 4: They made it like that, and it became people went, oh, well.
Speaker 2: Now it's well, here's an interesting question. And we talked
Speaker 2: about this a little bit with the Jerry Springer documentary
Speaker 2: that came up, because we seem to be in a
Speaker 2: bit of a moment where we are revising our view
Speaker 2: of big cultural moments in terms of our current lens.
Speaker 2: On this documentary, they interview you know, the EPs, the
Speaker 2: creators of this show, and the argument is very similar
Speaker 2: to the Jerry Springer producer's argument, which is people love
Speaker 2: this shit. You know, everyone in media, there is a saying, really,
Speaker 2: do you give people more of what they want or
Speaker 2: less of what they want? And it is framed as
Speaker 2: a very a question that isn't a question, right, a
Speaker 2: rhetorical question, And so the defense of this kind of
Speaker 2: television has always been but people love it, people are
Speaker 2: like getting inspired, but also they are you really going
Speaker 2: to tell people what they should watch and what they
Speaker 2: shouldn't watch on TV? And that's a really interesting point
Speaker 2: around because we were talking before about which shows of
Speaker 2: now we would look back on, And I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to draw a parallel because I think as roots amazing
Speaker 2: essay has made it clear there are some very very
Speaker 2: deep cuts here. But it's will we look back on
Speaker 2: marrit at First Sight and all these awful dating shows
Speaker 2: that we're watching with the trauma lens in ten to
Speaker 2: twenty years.
Speaker 4: I think we will.
Speaker 3: I think that now we hear of something called duty
Speaker 3: of care which didn't exist prior, and I think that
Speaker 3: the power dynamics have changed. But I do think looking
Speaker 3: back because there was a documentary last year on America's
Speaker 3: Next Top Model, it wasn't as widely distributed. I actually
Speaker 3: haven't seen it, but that was also overdue that analyzed it,
Speaker 3: and part of me goes, we were all swimming in
Speaker 3: the same culture. Is Tyra Banks any more culpable than
Speaker 3: I am because I sat down and watch every week?
Speaker 3: So there is a flaw in using the standards of
Speaker 3: the present to look back at a cultural moment and
Speaker 3: blame all the players.
Speaker 4: What I will say about.
Speaker 3: Watching this is that I looked at the producers and
Speaker 3: the trainers and I went, you're lacking some self awareness.
Speaker 3: You're lacking a little bit of understanding of what you
Speaker 3: did and how it impacted me.
Speaker 1: That was the overriding thing for me that stood out
Speaker 1: from watching it was they had Bob Harper on there,
Speaker 1: one of the original trainers. They didn't have Jillian Michaels.
Speaker 1: And even while we were recording this, Jillian Michaels has
Speaker 1: actually put the documentary on blast and come through with
Speaker 1: receipts refuting a lot of the claims. She did decline
Speaker 1: being there, or she just wanted to separate herself from
Speaker 1: what she'd done. They didn't seem to understand the plart
Speaker 1: they had played in making us all believe this cliche
Speaker 1: that has been around for so long. And I think
Speaker 1: the overriding feeling I had watching this was shame, shame
Speaker 1: that I'd watched it and felt like it was okay.
Speaker 1: Watched it with my parents was seen as a show.
Speaker 1: But also you can feel the shame of those contestants
Speaker 1: that they were so hopeful that this would work for them,
Speaker 1: even though they were seeing how contestants were traded on
Speaker 1: previous seasons, that they were willing to put themselves through
Speaker 1: being shamed even more in the hope that it would work.
Speaker 2: The thing is about is that we have moved on
Speaker 2: from that, but we are still an intensely fat phobic culture,
Speaker 2: as anybody knows. And it's interesting because our own Jillian
Speaker 2: Michaels Michelle bridge Is has never outwardly condemned the Australian
Speaker 2: Biggest Loser, and she still has a weight loss company
Speaker 2: and it's noticeable that her messaging now is all strong,
Speaker 2: not skinny. That's what we're all about these days, right,
Speaker 2: But it's still the diet culture of it all is
Speaker 2: still very sellable. And when I worked in magazines, diets
Speaker 2: sold every time. You had to have a diet on
Speaker 2: the cover, bullshit diet that someone had made up, usually,
Speaker 2: but and celebrity body transformations. And now we see it
Speaker 2: on Instagram and see it on skinny Talk, and that
Speaker 2: it's just moved platforms. It's just morphed. And now it's
Speaker 2: all about weight loss medication and we call it medical
Speaker 2: weight loss, and it's all still there. It's just like
Speaker 2: a shape shifter.
Speaker 3: And I watched this and I think it's almost impossible
Speaker 3: to watch this documentary not through the prism of weight
Speaker 3: loss drugs, which have become quite quite ubiquitous. And I thought,
Speaker 3: I wonder if the criticism of weight loss drugs is
Speaker 3: partly to do with our strong belief that you ought
Speaker 3: to be punished and that weight loss ought to be
Speaker 3: on the other side of hard, hard work. It's just
Speaker 3: colorI colories out exactly and some simplified version. I think
Speaker 3: that anyone who knows anything about weight knows how deeply
Speaker 3: deeply psychological it is.
Speaker 4: But that show aims to prove it's simple.
Speaker 3: All we have to do is this, and it lent
Speaker 3: into what makes in Vert Coomma's great television, which is
Speaker 3: it was visual. It was we saw the paint, we
Speaker 3: saw the vomit, we saw the image of the punishment,
Speaker 3: and then we saw the transformation at the end, it
Speaker 3: was all visual, even though that is not what a
Speaker 3: journey like that looks like for most people. In a moment,
Speaker 3: We've got some helpful advice for the Productivity Commission.
Speaker 4: Ladies.
Speaker 3: While we sit at this round table, there is another
Speaker 3: fancy around table happening in Canberra.
Speaker 2: I bet their snacks are better.
Speaker 4: I bet there's someone who comes takes their coffee orders.
Speaker 1: And the cups are full. Yes, I.
Speaker 4: Fall bullshit conditions. I've complaints.
Speaker 3: Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the point of the three day
Speaker 3: Economic Reform round table is to make our economy more
Speaker 3: productive over time.
Speaker 4: And guys, I have a confession.
Speaker 3: I came in this morning and I said, friends, I
Speaker 3: don't know what productivity is.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I keep reading it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said it because I don't understand.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you how it feels.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It feels like there's a meeting in Canberra right now
Speaker 3: about how lazy we all are. And I, for one,
Speaker 3: do not appreciate it. I know somewhere in my brain
Speaker 3: that that's not what productivity means. But on behalf of
Speaker 3: me and our listeners, Jim Charmers, we are doing our
Speaker 3: bes we are, but actually trying really hard.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think that is what's happening
Speaker 2: in there. It's just like all just bitching about how
Speaker 2: lazy we all are. And Gina ryan Hart's in there
Speaker 2: and she's got a whip brack in and like it's
Speaker 2: all just like get your asses up and work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it she feels like that, And like I didn't
Speaker 3: want to say this, but a three day meeting, like
Speaker 3: you know, who's not having a three day meeting with us?
Speaker 4: Who's got time for three day meeting? Have been an
Speaker 4: email exactly.
Speaker 3: I googled productivity to try and save face because I
Speaker 3: thought you can't go and say you don't know what
Speaker 3: it means. And it said productivity means how good we
Speaker 3: are as a nation at producing output, and factors that
Speaker 3: impact productivity include tech improvements. So they always talk about
Speaker 3: like AI, how we can make AI make us more
Speaker 3: productive without putting in longer hours, economies of scale. I
Speaker 3: don't really understand that scope, don't understand that workforce skills,
Speaker 3: competitive pressures, la la, la la la.
Speaker 4: This meeting sounds so boring.
Speaker 2: I can't down god, and it's.
Speaker 3: Three days, three days, Oh my god. So I figured that,
Speaker 3: given we're also having a meeting, albeit in another state,
Speaker 3: we'd come up with some ideas. Because we're being productive,
Speaker 3: we could help. We work very, very very hard. We
Speaker 3: make a lot of podcasts, which Charmers has not mentioned,
Speaker 3: not even once, and he's found table.
Speaker 4: You know he's productive.
Speaker 3: Those bitches they do five episodes a week. We're working
Speaker 3: right there, exactly exactly right. I'll start free diet coke
Speaker 3: at three pm. I think as a nation it's great
Speaker 3: for an afternoon pick me up. We know that not
Speaker 3: great things sometimes happen after three pm, so I feel
Speaker 3: as though we could just all kind of just get
Speaker 3: that pick me up and just go through to the
Speaker 3: end of the afternoon. Holly, you're wise used to manage people.
Speaker 3: What did you do other than get out your whip?
Speaker 2: I like you, I need a three pm pick Anyone
Speaker 2: who's ever been in a meeting with me that goes
Speaker 2: towards three pm? I get very twitchy about coffee. I'm
Speaker 2: very twitchy about coffee, So I would like it implemented
Speaker 2: that I need a coffee delivered to me at two
Speaker 2: or I'm literally fall asleep in my day. But generally
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this I think Albow maybe needs
Speaker 2: to go further with his TikTok band because since I've yes,
Speaker 2: he's banning it for people under sixty. But I can
Speaker 2: only speak for myself. But since I've discovered gardening talk,
Speaker 2: my productivity in my actual garden has decreased significantly. Maybe
Speaker 2: the TikTok band does not go far enough. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think there's that. I think that single tasking should be outlawed,
Speaker 2: particularly for midlife men who like to watch every iteration
Speaker 2: of Star Wars on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, Like,
Speaker 2: that's not my life? Is that your life? Like sitting
Speaker 2: around not doing anything?
Speaker 3: Maybe my dad finds time for on a Saturday afternoon
Speaker 3: to watch all afternoon, and it's like, do something with
Speaker 3: your hand.
Speaker 1: Washing. I've never watched a single show without my hands
Speaker 1: doing at least two other.
Speaker 2: Times, he's not peak productivity when he's rewatching Rocky four,
Speaker 2: banning bosses from saying can I have a quick word,
Speaker 2: and then telling you about their weekends for twelve minutes
Speaker 2: when you would really rather be talking about your weekend
Speaker 2: with your work wife in the kitchen. These are just
Speaker 2: some of my do you hey?
Speaker 1: My first one? I think it'll be a crowdpleaser. I
Speaker 1: think it'll get through straight away. We've got to bring
Speaker 1: back siestas. Have we ever had them to bring?
Speaker 4: How last is a siesta allowed.
Speaker 1: For I would ideally like an hour, but I'll take
Speaker 1: twenty minutes at around three pm or you two are
Speaker 1: having your cokes here and your coffee. I just want
Speaker 1: to lay.
Speaker 2: Down for twenty minutes. A little bad under the day.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is not a single mattress in this office,
Speaker 1: and that's just absurd. I would love to have a
Speaker 1: little kip. Yep, that's my first one. Second one maybe
Speaker 1: a bit more controversial. Less toilets.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no more toilets. But I have things
Speaker 2: to tell you about to I have never worked.
Speaker 1: Faster than when I need to peek. If I need
Speaker 1: to peek and can't go and pee, I will get
Speaker 1: through so much. Don't you feel like you're in a
Speaker 1: race against time?
Speaker 4: Yess, that's such a good you know what. We all
Speaker 4: need a little bit more urgency, yes, and.
Speaker 2: That'll crank it up.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 4: I love that. There was suggestions.
Speaker 3: I asked some people in the office and they said
Speaker 3: that maybe a little electric shock from your mouth, And
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, it's actually a torture method. And
Speaker 3: then other people said Margarita on tap, and I was like, no,
Speaker 3: you just want Margarita on tap. That's not going to
Speaker 3: help with your activity.
Speaker 1: Mouth tape. I could do with some mouth tape. I
Speaker 1: yap a lot.
Speaker 4: I also think mouthtape.
Speaker 3: I have a lot of male friends that are talking
Speaker 3: about the three hour podcast interviews.
Speaker 4: They watch it work and they're like, oh, I just
Speaker 4: have it up while I'm doing work.
Speaker 2: Nah, No atap on Joe Rogan, Yes.
Speaker 3: Exactly, maybe a little bit of a YouTube band there.
Speaker 3: We go at work, along with your TikTok and your Instagram.
Speaker 2: But you wouldn't remember this because you were still at school.
Speaker 2: But when I first worked in offices, when social media
Speaker 2: had been invented, and this was in magazines, when we
Speaker 2: had to actually know about things on the world, our
Speaker 2: computers were blocked from having Facebook on them between nine
Speaker 2: and twelve and then one and six or whatever, because
Speaker 2: you were not allowed because in those days it was like, oh, Facebook,
Speaker 2: so tantalizing. What if I'd rather be talking to my
Speaker 2: high school boyfriend doing my job and they'd be like no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you would have missed some in this office in particular,
Speaker 2: if we ban social well actually we couldn't do our jobs.
Speaker 2: But if we ban social media during the work day.
Speaker 4: I know bad things.
Speaker 2: Speaking about toilets and office toilets in particular, I have
Speaker 2: a really important question for the group. Yes, do you
Speaker 2: have a favorite toilet in a line of six cubicles?
Speaker 2: Because if you walk into the toilets, whether they're at
Speaker 2: work or in another public space, and there are like
Speaker 2: five toilets, six toilets, do you always choose the same one?
Speaker 2: And which one do you choose?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Which one the end? You are on track for your gender?
Speaker 2: What about you? Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 3: It depends on how much I need to wait. Sometimes
Speaker 3: I really need to wear I don't get to the
Speaker 3: end because so I go to the first one.
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this a lot, about which one
Speaker 2: would be the best to use, right, Yeah, because in
Speaker 2: that old office we had a private toilet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like one.
Speaker 2: Toilet that was on its own.
Speaker 4: It was really good.
Speaker 2: Those are the days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's real, that's what it was.
Speaker 2: We don't have that anymore. We have a cubicle anyway. Statistically,
Speaker 2: in a line of six toilets, the most popular one
Speaker 2: is the middle one.
Speaker 4: Always, right, Yeah, I'd probably go middle.
Speaker 2: They have done studies where they see which ones go
Speaker 2: through the most toilet paper in time, and it is
Speaker 2: the middle one always. But there is a gender divide.
Speaker 2: Women go to the end. But if you are worried
Speaker 2: about hygiene, you should always pick the first because it
Speaker 2: is it is the least us.
Speaker 4: Oh, that is so interesting.
Speaker 2: Do you have an emotional attachment to the cubicle you
Speaker 2: always see?
Speaker 1: I actually will revise my answer out and say that
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll go from the second from the end, just
Speaker 1: so you don't look like you're in there doing what
Speaker 1: you don't want they want to think you're in there.
Speaker 3: Doing I'm going to add just another point to it.
Speaker 3: So I walk in and let's say, Stacy, you're in
Speaker 3: the last one.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: And let's say, Holy you're in the first one.
Speaker 1: Oh. Yeah.
Speaker 3: You always go to the cubicle that is furthest from
Speaker 3: the other people in it out of respect.
Speaker 2: Kind of psychost The next year, when there are three free.
Speaker 3: I hear them go in and I'm like, can we
Speaker 3: just get a little bit of privacy? And then the
Speaker 3: conversation continues, be like, how's your day been? Much? Can
Speaker 3: I add another fun toilet fact. I had a friend
Speaker 3: who went to Glastonbury recently. Did you know that the
Speaker 3: toilets are glaston Brie They only really cover your private
Speaker 3: parts and the rest of you is on full display
Speaker 3: to discourage drug use because a lot.
Speaker 2: Of people working.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that people aren't going and snorting and sniffing
Speaker 3: and whatever. Can you imagine though you're going to the
Speaker 3: toilet and I'm just looking in the eye.
Speaker 1: I would not be peeing for five days as a
Speaker 1: tall person. That is so much of my body to
Speaker 1: the world of you.
Speaker 2: After the break, the biggest self help grew in the
Speaker 2: world wants had a complete meltdown about kitchen cabinet and
Speaker 2: there is a life lesson in this.
Speaker 3: Every Tuesday and Thursday we drop new segments of mummy
Speaker 3: AA out Loud just for Mummy A subscribers. Follow the
Speaker 3: link in the show notes to get your daily dose
Speaker 3: of out Loud And a big thank you to all
Speaker 3: our current subscribers.
Speaker 2: Friends. I don't think I need to introduce mel Robins
Speaker 2: to you at this moment, do I Like she is
Speaker 2: pretty ubiquitous in the culture. She is the biggest self
Speaker 2: help guru in the world right now. She is the
Speaker 2: creator of the Let Them Theory, She has the number
Speaker 2: one podcast, She's everywhere, and this week she was on
Speaker 2: No Filter with our very own Kate Langbrook. She said,
Speaker 2: lots of stuff, It was all very useful, but there's
Speaker 2: one thing I want to talk about, and it is
Speaker 2: kitchen cabinets. Take it away, my Robins jealous.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I literally, like, I literally wanted to die. Like,
Speaker 5: have you ever had a friend who all of a
Speaker 5: sudden they moved to like the fancy your town, or
Speaker 5: they move from renting an apartment to this like brownstone
Speaker 5: that they buy, and then they invite you over for dinner,
Speaker 5: and as you're driving up the long driveway, you're thinking.
Speaker 1: How the hell do they have this much money?
Speaker 5: And then they open up the door and you're happy
Speaker 5: for your friend because your friend works hard and your
Speaker 5: friend deserves to be happy, but you're just not happy
Speaker 5: for yourself because as you're gripping the wine glass and
Speaker 5: you're grinning your teeth trying to smile Thatt like freak smile,
Speaker 5: and every single corner of their house looks like a
Speaker 5: display on Pinterest. And then you turn the corner and
Speaker 5: there is your dream kitchen. And she's got the white
Speaker 5: cab that's and the marble countertops, and you're like, you bitch,
Speaker 5: I shouldn't have shown you by Pinterest boards.
Speaker 4: You stole my kitchen.
Speaker 5: And then you're and you literally, you know if you're
Speaker 5: anything like me at the time, because this happened to me,
Speaker 5: this particular story, when we're still really struggling financially, you
Speaker 5: hold it together, and then when you get in the
Speaker 5: car and you go to drive away, you turn to
Speaker 5: your poor partner and you're like, why couldn't you have
Speaker 5: been in finance? Why did you have to be a
Speaker 5: nice person, Why couldn't you be funny like you just
Speaker 5: like aim it at them? Oh my god, it was
Speaker 5: so bad.
Speaker 2: So champagne problems. Right, we could say fancy houses and
Speaker 2: kitchen renovations are not everybody's jealousy trigger. But what Robins
Speaker 2: went on to say about jealousy, which was that for
Speaker 2: her at the time, it was a motivator that made
Speaker 2: her want to own her own damn kitchen. And we
Speaker 2: can only assume that now she's worth tens of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars, her cabinets are pretty specky. But she also
Speaker 2: went on to say that you only ever envy things
Speaker 2: you really really want, and that's why sometimes listening to
Speaker 2: your jealousy is a very good way to measure what
Speaker 2: matters to you. She said, for example, she's not jealous
Speaker 2: of the dude with a yellow Lamborghini because she's genuinely
Speaker 2: not interested in having a yellow Lamborghini, even if you've
Speaker 2: got all the money in the world. And then she said,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no finite number of fancy kitchens, podcasts,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, And she did her whole very
Speaker 2: mele robins go out and get it, you know, go
Speaker 2: out and work for it, which ignores a lot of
Speaker 2: very deep seen in structural inequalities that we won't get
Speaker 2: into today. That's for another time. But what it did
Speaker 2: make me want to ask is what are you too
Speaker 2: jealous of? And what does it tell you about what
Speaker 2: matters to you.
Speaker 1: I am jealous of people who counter on the weekends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am jealous of people who don't have bags under
Speaker 1: their eyes. I am jealous of people who can not
Speaker 1: tuck their shirt in and look cool because I still
Speaker 1: have to do the millennial tough. Yeah. Yeah, Like there's
Speaker 1: lots of things that I would like.
Speaker 2: So those first things. Also that you're jealous of people
Speaker 2: who have more leisure time than you because you're in it.
Speaker 2: You've got a young child.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's right, and in the early motherhood season.
Speaker 1: And I think that is the thing that mel is
Speaker 1: failing to realize, is that sometimes you're jealous of things
Speaker 1: you can't get, and they might be things you already
Speaker 1: had once upon a time. What about you, Yes, do
Speaker 1: you feel that?
Speaker 3: Do you feel envy for like things that you once
Speaker 3: had that you don't have any more?
Speaker 1: Yes, And I think it doesn't mean that couldn't come
Speaker 1: back to me, But I definitely do feel jealousy when
Speaker 1: I look at people on the European holidays or when
Speaker 1: they're hiking the in Contrail. I don't want to hike
Speaker 1: the in Contrail, but I'd like the option to go
Speaker 1: and hike the in Contrail this week if I want to. So,
Speaker 1: I definitely do feel like I am jealous of the
Speaker 1: freedom that I knew once that you don't have as
Speaker 1: much when you're raising little kids. And I wouldn't change
Speaker 1: the fact that I don't have that as much now
Speaker 1: because I love raising my little kid, but it definitely
Speaker 1: is something that no amount of jealousy and no amount
Speaker 1: of inspiration is going to get back for me at
Speaker 1: this moment. I so deeply related to the example that
Speaker 1: Mel used because I had this exact circumstance with friends.
Speaker 1: We went to our friend's beautiful new house that they'd built.
Speaker 1: They've worked very hard to earn this house. I would
Speaker 1: have thought that I would be perfectly fine and not
Speaker 1: at all jealous, and when I got in the car,
Speaker 1: I completely crushed out after we saw how beautiful their
Speaker 1: house was, to my husband saying, we're both so stupid
Speaker 1: for marrying for love Black why did we marry each other.
Speaker 1: We're both journalists. We're never going to have that house.
Speaker 1: And I hated myself for that, to the point where
Speaker 1: my best friend, who had also been at the house,
Speaker 1: sent me a text knows me very well and said,
Speaker 1: I know you're crushing out about that house. Don't spiral.
Speaker 1: It's okay. You will get to that if that's what
Speaker 1: you want. And I think that's kind of the floor
Speaker 1: in Mel's argument is that some of us realistically might
Speaker 1: not get to that. I'm not going to get that house,
Speaker 1: and that's okay, but that does clarify Okay, well, that's
Speaker 1: something I can be working towards. Maybe I do want
Speaker 1: the fancy white cabinets like Mel Robbins does.
Speaker 3: I have some really specific exams pools of jealousy, and
Speaker 3: I'm with you about the European Holiday. I think that
Speaker 3: there's something about that image at the moment that feels
Speaker 3: like that's not something I'm going to experience in the
Speaker 3: way I want to experience it for a lot of years.
Speaker 3: And that's really hard to see. And I do feel
Speaker 3: jealous because I want that. But there was I think
Speaker 3: just in the last forty eight hours, I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: Zara previously worked on Man and she firstly is in Europe.
Speaker 3: So I went, oh, Caramel, so she's in Europe. But
Speaker 3: she posted this carousel of what she wore in Europe. Oh,
Speaker 3: outfits worse stunning, And I looked at it and I went, oh,
Speaker 3: I can feel the jealousy rising. And then I went,
Speaker 3: Jesse Stevens, I thought, you didn't care.
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 3: I thought I didn't care about and so I then went,
Speaker 3: why am I feeling jealous right now? And I thought,
Speaker 3: I'm feeling jealous because of how good it must feel
Speaker 3: to put an outfit together like that, know how great
Speaker 3: it looks, and walk out into the world, and I
Speaker 3: went confidence. There was something about that that I went into.
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe you do need to think more about clothes,
Speaker 4: and maybe you'd feel a bit happier if you look
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe we need to stop wearing the shirt every day
Speaker 1: in some effort.
Speaker 2: That is interesting because maybe it's the confidence to know
Speaker 2: because if.
Speaker 3: We're jealous of her skill at putting together those outdoors,
Speaker 3: but I know I don't have it and I don't
Speaker 3: know how to get it.
Speaker 2: If we're working on the theory that your jealousy tells
Speaker 2: you something about where you should be or you should
Speaker 2: be putting your energy, that tays to me, that's about confidence.
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 3: And I also wondered I actually disagree with a point
Speaker 3: of mel Robbins's theory because there is a man in
Speaker 3: my life that I know who is very, very values
Speaker 3: driven and doesn't care about money. That's been a feature
Speaker 3: of his personality. Doesn't care about money, and every choice
Speaker 3: from job to house to whatever, he just goes.
Speaker 4: That's not what I value.
Speaker 3: These are my values. I don't care about money. He
Speaker 3: is the first person to notice the fancy car. He's
Speaker 3: the first person to notice the house that someone's moved into.
Speaker 2: But noticing isn't the same as being envious of it.
Speaker 3: The way he taught has made me feel like, why
Speaker 3: are you so obsessed with these things if you don't
Speaker 3: want them? And I was speaking to another friend recently
Speaker 3: and we said, I wonder sometimes if we're all just
Speaker 3: so cognizant of markers of success, and we go, I
Speaker 3: don't necessarily want that. But if you don't interrogate your
Speaker 3: jealousy enough, sometimes I think you get confused and you
Speaker 3: fixate on those things. I reckon if this guy sat
Speaker 3: down with himself and went, why am I jealous? Why
Speaker 3: am I noticing this? Then he'd go, you actually don't
Speaker 3: want it. You're just noticing it because you know it's
Speaker 3: what society values. I think I've had the same thing,
Speaker 3: probably with beauty, with looking at women that are stunning
Speaker 3: and I go, I wish my face looked like that.
Speaker 3: I wish it was easier, Like she doesn't even have
Speaker 3: to wear makeup, and look at her beautiful hair, and
Speaker 3: then you kind of drill down, you go, it's not
Speaker 3: what I want, and you're able to kind of leave
Speaker 3: it and move forward. I think that happens as your age, Holly,
Speaker 3: what do you feel jealous?
Speaker 2: I think that's true. I think you can learn to
Speaker 2: deal with I think some of us are more prone
Speaker 2: to jealousy than others, right, And I am not very
Speaker 2: jealous person in general. And I've spoken about this on
Speaker 2: the podcast before, and Jesse knows this story. But a
Speaker 2: few years ago I was absolutely devastated by jealousy towards you, right,
Speaker 2: remember why it was when Jesse sold her first book
Speaker 2: in America.
Speaker 3: I think that Holly started liking me again when my
Speaker 3: second book did not.
Speaker 4: That is not true.
Speaker 2: It's great, I promised that isn't true. What it was
Speaker 2: was I go around my life going, I'm not a
Speaker 2: jealous person. I'm happy for other people's successes, right, like,
Speaker 2: and generally speaking, that is true, right, I'm not. I
Speaker 2: don't tie myself up with it. So I was really
Speaker 2: flawed by this feeling I had at that time. It
Speaker 2: was Jesse's first book and it was very successful. And
Speaker 2: the thing that was funny, and we have told this
Speaker 2: story before, so bear with me, long time out louders,
Speaker 2: but the thing that was really funny for me and
Speaker 2: I is that we were giving Jesse all this advice
Speaker 2: about our first book, and we were like, keep your
Speaker 2: expectations low. Nobody makes any money writing books and you
Speaker 2: probably won't sell very much and your advance wab me whatever,
Speaker 2: and like we were being like the wise Aunties, right,
Speaker 2: and then Jesse's brilliant Heartsick, which is genuinely brilliant and
Speaker 2: you only had to read it to be like flawed
Speaker 2: by how clever and smart and beautiful it was. But anyway,
Speaker 2: was the subject of a bidding war in the US
Speaker 2: changed in anything. Me and me were like, oh okay.
Speaker 2: But the thing that surprised me, and again I've told
Speaker 2: Jesse this before, so it's not like is that I
Speaker 2: was like, I literally couldn't sleep, like I was consumed
Speaker 2: by it. And it really knocked me around because it's
Speaker 2: not what I'm like right usually at all. And so
Speaker 2: I had to interrogate it, and we talked about it,
Speaker 2: and I owned up to it and everything. And the
Speaker 2: thing is, I have genuinely moved past that, like I
Speaker 2: genuinely have like I have no jealous feelings towards Jesse
Speaker 2: or and I've got I'm friends with lots of very
Speaker 2: successful authors or I know that makes me sound very
Speaker 2: like that. I know, I know lots of successful authors.
Speaker 2: I've not caught up with jealousy about with them, about
Speaker 2: like Sally Hepworth, who's a friend of ours, who is
Speaker 2: enormously successful New York Times bestseller and all those things.
Speaker 2: I've worked through it. But what that taught me was
Speaker 2: it was a very deep wake up about the recognition
Speaker 2: and success that I clearly really wanted. Yeah, where I
Speaker 2: was very much kind of going at that time in
Speaker 2: my life, well, I'm just happy to be here. And
Speaker 2: I've always sort of told myself that I'm just happy
Speaker 2: to be here. And clearly there was something about that
Speaker 2: moment that really rocked me on the inside. Maybe your baby,
Speaker 2: you're not just happy to be here, you want that,
Speaker 2: and that's okay, Like it's okay to want that because
Speaker 2: and mel Robbins, even though, as I said, I think
Speaker 2: she's very much oversimplifying the idea that anyone can get
Speaker 2: what they want and all that it's nonsense, it's not true.
Speaker 2: But it is true that Jesse's success or anyone else's
Speaker 2: success does not take away from mine. And that is
Speaker 2: a lesson that sounds like bullshit, but when you actually
Speaker 2: really learn it. It's true there is not a finite
Speaker 2: number of successful books or whatever it might be. So
Speaker 2: I think I have learned a lot about jealousy. But
Speaker 2: I think it's true that it points you where two
Speaker 2: things that really matter at the moment. For example, definitely
Speaker 2: jealous of people with financial security. It's not about big
Speaker 2: houses and cars. It's because I'm at the point in
Speaker 2: my life where I feel like I can see a
Speaker 2: finite number of earning years ahead of me, and like
Speaker 2: everyone else in Australia and the world, you're likeck, how
Speaker 2: do I do the rest of my life with this mortgage? Still? Like,
Speaker 2: so when I see people, that brings out that the
Speaker 2: voice in you that's like must be nice, there must
Speaker 2: be nice voice comes out for me when I'm like,
Speaker 2: you don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've definitely and that's real.
Speaker 2: And I'm also jealous of people whose parents because again
Speaker 2: it's all about your phase of life the same way,
Speaker 2: who are are parents who are healthy and available to them?
Speaker 4: Like I definitely have that.
Speaker 2: So I think it is interesting. I think it tells
Speaker 2: you a lot about your life stage, but also can
Speaker 2: be a real like not a motivator in like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go out there and crush you know.
Speaker 3: I think it's clarifying. It's really clarifying to go, this
Speaker 3: is what's coming up. I think that at that stage, too,
Speaker 3: you were suppressing your competitiveness. I've always thought you're competitive,
Speaker 3: but there's something about your upbringing or something where you
Speaker 3: don't I don't declare, you don't lean into it, and
Speaker 3: it's like you're allowed to feel that. And I remember
Speaker 3: seeing an image of Elizabeth Day, the podcaster, in front
Speaker 3: of a big billboard of a podcast, and I was like, well, I.
Speaker 1: Want a billboard.
Speaker 3: You know. You just have these moments where you're like
Speaker 3: and I think that not suppressing that, probably saying it
Speaker 3: out loud is really good for you and means that
Speaker 3: you're not resenting.
Speaker 4: I mean. Another example of jealousy actually would be around fertility.
Speaker 4: I've had that.
Speaker 3: Enormously over the last period of my life, where you
Speaker 3: feel as though you desperately want a baby and someone
Speaker 3: posts it they're pregnant, and it is like an attack
Speaker 3: and you know that it's not and you know that
Speaker 3: that jealousy won't exist in five years or ten years
Speaker 3: or whatever. But in the moment you feel it, and
Speaker 3: that's exactly it.
Speaker 2: That you go.
Speaker 4: I want that to be my announcement, and that's like
Speaker 4: a deeply human thing.
Speaker 2: I think you'll be happy to hear that. Kate pointed
Speaker 2: out to mel As, I'm sure like lots of people
Speaker 2: who are hearing us talk about all the things we're
Speaker 2: talking about will be like, lots of people are jealous
Speaker 2: of you, right, Kate said that to Mail Robbins, lots
Speaker 2: of people must be jealous of you. Mail Robins, You're
Speaker 2: worth tens of millions of dollars. Look at you. I'm
Speaker 2: sure your kitchen cabinets, as I said, are very nice.
Speaker 2: And her response, guess what it was?
Speaker 1: Let them look the real reason I'm on the show today.
Speaker 1: I went and locked and Vernon and Amelia Lester in
Speaker 1: a meeting room so that I could barge in here
Speaker 1: to talk to you about this, because I needed your thoughts. So,
Speaker 1: after the huge success of Netflix's doco called Beckham in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Folk, It's not good David Beckham. It
Speaker 1: was so good, wasn't it. We ate up every single
Speaker 1: minute of it. So now Netflix is going to release
Speaker 1: a new documentary next month with the very original title
Speaker 1: Victoria Beckham, which is about Victoria Beckham more focused on
Speaker 1: her I know, groundbreaking. Obviously the world has been obsessed
Speaker 1: with this family for decades, so it'll no doubt cover
Speaker 1: you know, her time and the Spice Girls meeting David,
Speaker 1: her fashion career. But what I'm really interested in is
Speaker 1: how they are going to cover their family life when
Speaker 1: they are currently estranged from their eldest son, Brooklyn. So
Speaker 1: to rewind a little bit for people who have lives
Speaker 1: and don't know every single inch of this story like
Speaker 1: I do. David and Victoria most notably weren't at their
Speaker 1: son's vow renewal that he's been married for a whole
Speaker 1: three years. Guys, he had a vow renewal to Nicola
Speaker 1: Peltz Beckham last month, and his family, who have always
Speaker 1: previously been very close with him been in attendance at
Speaker 1: all of these things, weren't there. And then Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: Nikola weren't in attendance at David Beckham's fiftieth birthday, so
Speaker 1: it's very well documented that they're not on speaking.
Speaker 2: It's at this point for while it was scoreless gossip,
Speaker 2: it is actually now unquestionably true.
Speaker 1: Exactly So what I'm interested to know whole is how
Speaker 1: do you think they are going to cover their family
Speaker 1: life and their family situation at the moment when it's
Speaker 1: such a big part of their brand but it is
Speaker 1: very much not ideal at the moment.
Speaker 2: It's very tricky, right because as you said, the thing
Speaker 2: about the Beckhams is being a type. Family is a
Speaker 2: massive part of their brand, and they're all expected to
Speaker 2: support each other all the time and everything they do.
Speaker 2: I think there's like a human answer to this, and
Speaker 2: then there's a Brandham answer to this, right, and that
Speaker 2: human answer to it, in my opinion, is postpone the
Speaker 2: doco if your son isn't speaking to you and you
Speaker 2: are truly a deeply family person, like just this isn't
Speaker 2: the time for vicki b doco And it'll be okay
Speaker 2: next year, mate, because hopefully wounds will heal. Who knows, right,
Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to happen because I think
Speaker 2: there's way too much money on the table, and so
Speaker 2: they've got three choices, and I'd love to know which
Speaker 2: one you think they'll go with if they're going to
Speaker 2: do the doco. They either say something without saying anything
Speaker 2: much so sort of like a statement at some point
Speaker 2: that they'll work in, probably when there's like footage again
Speaker 2: of the ball and a family barbecue and like there
Speaker 2: was in the first one and Brooklyn is notably absent,
Speaker 2: and they could have something like, you know, we really
Speaker 2: miss Brooklyn. We're very sad about what happened. Out of
Speaker 2: respect for his privacy, we're not going to go into it,
Speaker 2: but the door is always open, like just a very
Speaker 2: bland ye, no mention of it at all. Is the
Speaker 2: second option? Just pretend it's not happening, which would be weird.
Speaker 2: And the third option is to spill. They wouldn't do
Speaker 2: that in a million years, I don't think, because it
Speaker 2: is too that will send everything nuclear as soon as
Speaker 2: they start going, well, it was that Nicola. It was
Speaker 2: that Nicola and the wedding dress and her whole family
Speaker 2: don't like our whole family, and they make us feel
Speaker 2: like povos because O yot's really tiny. Like if they
Speaker 2: start doing that, then imagine how nuclear the other side's
Speaker 2: going to go with their billions of dollars. So I
Speaker 2: think they're all difficult choices. Which do you think.
Speaker 3: There's actually a fourth option which has been floated, which
Speaker 3: is that they have a lot of footage from early
Speaker 3: in the documentary filming process of them with Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: And Nicola No mention y.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it is the norm.
Speaker 3: But it's like you kind of use that, you act
Speaker 3: like everything's fine and yeah, you don't acknowledge it.
Speaker 4: What's hard is that.
Speaker 2: You can do that, because then they would come out
Speaker 2: and say they would be legals. They would be like,
Speaker 2: we don't want to be in the documentary, do you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, No, you're right, And it's hard because authenticity
Speaker 3: is so vital to their brand as well. And I
Speaker 3: worry about overexposure because the other Beckham documentary was done
Speaker 3: so recently. But what you don't want is this to
Speaker 3: turn into a Megan and Harry style Yeah, back and forth.
Speaker 4: It just doesn't.
Speaker 3: The UK is too obsessed with these tabloid stories. I
Speaker 3: think it's dangerous. I go with the option of they
Speaker 3: semi acknowledge it and give us absolutely no tea.
Speaker 4: What do you reckon?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what they did with the infidelity in the
Speaker 2: day beyond.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they touched it.
Speaker 2: They showed some headlines, some of which were allegedly altered.
Speaker 2: They showed some headlines to say that it had happened,
Speaker 2: but no t Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they will skirt as far as they can
Speaker 1: skirt around this issue. But I think they're smart enough
Speaker 1: to know that if they can completely erase them, that
Speaker 1: that is almost worse. That is sending a message to
Speaker 1: Brooklyn and Nicola that there's no chance of reconciliation here.
Speaker 1: So I think it will be, as you say, it
Speaker 1: will be a little drop, a little crumb for them
Speaker 1: to pick up enough that we see of Okay, they're
Speaker 1: acknowledging that they're not speaking right now. We weren't going crazy.
Speaker 1: This is true, but they will not comment on it further.
Speaker 1: I think that would be so silly to do that
Speaker 1: out louders.
Speaker 2: Gosh, I hope you've enjoyed this show. I've enjoyed this
Speaker 2: show me too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Funner than that other stupid meeting.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we're not reductivity around table.
Speaker 1: We could have done it an hour. I'm very productive
Speaker 1: how much we covered anyway, I'm so glad they didn't
Speaker 1: invite us.
Speaker 2: Line Stacy, thank you so much for jumping in from
Speaker 2: really today. We so appreciate it, and thank you to
Speaker 2: all of our out louders for being here with us,
Speaker 2: and to our incredible team very much, including our wonderful
Speaker 2: executive producer Ruth Yours and we will see you all tomorrow.
Speaker 3: And if you're looking for something else to listen to,
Speaker 3: then we did a special subscriber episode yesterday all about
Speaker 3: the end of them, just like that at Stacey. If
Speaker 3: you've finished watching that show.
Speaker 1: I bowed out. Okay, season you tried, I really tried.
Speaker 3: I tried, and I went Look, I actually do want
Speaker 3: to know what happened, but I'm going to need you
Speaker 3: to tell me because I'm not going back there.
Speaker 1: So okay, great, that's perfect.
Speaker 3: Amelia and Holly got me across it. They had a
Speaker 3: lot of feelings, a lot of speculation about what happened
Speaker 3: behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: You can go and listen to that. There is a
Speaker 4: link in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Bye by shout out to any Mum and mea subscribers listening.
Speaker 3: If you love the show and you want to support us,
Speaker 3: subscribing to Mum and Mia is the very.
Speaker 4: Best way to do so. There's a link in the
Speaker 4: episode description