Speaker 1: As a listener of how I work.
Speaker 2: You've hopefully picked up a few tips on this show
Speaker 2: to help you work better?
Speaker 1: But do you want more? And maybe in a book form,
Speaker 1: because let's face it, books are the most awesome thing
Speaker 1: on the planet.
Speaker 2: Well, now you can. In my new book, time Wise,
Speaker 2: I uncover a wealth of proven strategies that anyone can
Speaker 2: use to improve their productivity, work, and lifestyle. Time Wise
Speaker 2: brings together all of the gems that I've learned from
Speaker 2: conversations with the world's greatest thinkers, including Adam Grant, Dan Pink,
Speaker 2: Mia Friedman, and Turia.
Speaker 1: Pitt and many many others. Time Wise is launching on.
Speaker 2: July five, but you can pre order it now from
Speaker 2: Amantha dot com. And if you pre order time Wise,
Speaker 2: I have a couple of bonuses for you. First, you'll
Speaker 2: receive an ebook that details my top twenty favorite apps
Speaker 2: and software for being time wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading,
Speaker 2: cooking ideas, and more. You will also get a complementary
Speaker 2: spot in a webinar that I'm running on June twenty nine,
Speaker 2: where I will be sharing the tactics from time Wise
Speaker 2: that I use most often, and also some bonus ones
Speaker 2: that are not in the book that I use and love.
Speaker 2: Hop onto Amantha dot com to pre order now. As
Speaker 2: a podcast makeup, I try to have an active and
Speaker 2: diverse podcast diet. I'll cycle through everything from true crime
Speaker 2: to current affairs to comedy. But if some strange rule
Speaker 2: came into being and I was only allowed to listen
Speaker 2: to just one podcast, it would be MoMA Mia out Loud.
Speaker 2: I started listening to it during the pandemic and I
Speaker 2: never stopped. It's like listening to three really insightful and
Speaker 2: articulate girlfriends talk about stuff that's going.
Speaker 1: On in the world. It's like a guilty pleasure without
Speaker 1: the guilt.
Speaker 2: So really it's just a pleasure and I'm definitely not
Speaker 2: alone as I'm recording this introduction. Mumma MEA Out Loud
Speaker 2: is the fifth most popular show on the Apple podcast
Speaker 2: charts here in Australia, and their most recent episode is
Speaker 2: sitting at number two in the episode charts, and another
Speaker 2: recent episode is at number six, and there's another one
Speaker 2: at number twenty four. So basically, Mumma MEA Out Loud
Speaker 2: is one of the most popular and most consistently popular
Speaker 2: podcasts running. Part of the appeal is that the show
Speaker 2: comes out three times a week, which sounds like an
Speaker 2: ungodly amount of work, especially because the hosts are three
Speaker 2: incredibly busy women. Mia Friedman's the co founder of the
Speaker 2: Muma Mea women's media company, Holly Wayne writes the head
Speaker 2: of content at mumma Mia, and Jesse Stevens is Muma
Speaker 2: MEA's executive editor. All three of my guests also host
Speaker 2: other podcasts across the Mumamea network, and all three are
Speaker 2: best selling authors. So how do three of the busiest
Speaker 2: people on the player to pull themselves together to record
Speaker 2: three episodes about loud per week plus two for subscribers.
Speaker 2: How do they decide what they're going to talk about
Speaker 2: each time and what goes on behind the scenes of
Speaker 2: one of Australia's favorite podcasts.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Amantha Immer.
Speaker 2: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 2: consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work, a show
Speaker 2: about how to help you do your best work. It's
Speaker 2: easy to think that all a podcast involves is just
Speaker 2: sitting in a studio talking for the length of the episode,
Speaker 2: say forty minutes, and then posting the sound files up
Speaker 2: onto the podcast app that you are listening to this
Speaker 2: on right now, but it's so much more than that,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to know how do Maya, Holly and Jesse,
Speaker 2: three incredibly busy women, manage to prep for and record
Speaker 2: three episodes of Mama Miya out Loud every week, along
Speaker 2: with two additional episodes every week that are just for
Speaker 2: Mother and mea subscribers.
Speaker 3: On the day that we are releasing the show, we
Speaker 3: get together and plan. Before that, we will have already
Speaker 3: exchanged several ideas digitally, so we know broadly what the
Speaker 3: producer is going to bring to us and say we
Speaker 3: should do this. So three times a week we sit
Speaker 3: down in the studio or as we are today, remotely
Speaker 3: from home and record the shows. So we record the
Speaker 3: subscriber episodes usually on either a Monday or a Wednesday
Speaker 3: in a block, but it depends because sometimes something exciting
Speaker 3: will happen and we need to talk about it, so
Speaker 3: will jump in and put that on the back of
Speaker 3: another episode. But generally speaking, on out loud days, that's
Speaker 3: our priority in our calendars to put aside the time
Speaker 3: to plan, prep and record.
Speaker 2: So, Mia, how do you decide on the topics because,
Speaker 2: like some of the topics are very much front and
Speaker 2: center in the news, whereas others seem to be random
Speaker 2: articles that you guys have read. So how does that
Speaker 2: topic selection happen?
Speaker 4: I suppose the ultimate filter for us is the same
Speaker 4: the same filter that mumum the website has, which is
Speaker 4: what women are talking about today. And of course women
Speaker 4: aren't just talking about the news, you know, And I
Speaker 4: think that's something that we've always understood and really leaned into.
Speaker 4: So women might be talking about a conversation, they've had
Speaker 4: a celebrity story, the election, or manner of things, and
Speaker 4: so it has to be something that either we feel
Speaker 4: like we want to talk about. I mean, that has
Speaker 4: to be the first thing. At least one of us
Speaker 4: has to be really excited about talking about it. There
Speaker 4: are certain things that everyone expects us to talk about
Speaker 4: if there's a story that's massively in the news, but
Speaker 4: we always say, what can we bring to it because
Speaker 4: we're not a news podcast, that's not what we do.
Speaker 4: So we don't do explainers of what's happening in Ukraine.
Speaker 4: So we find we'll find a way into talking about Ukraine,
Speaker 4: and of course we will acknowledge it because women are
Speaker 4: talking about it, but we won't try to keep everybody
Speaker 4: across all the top stories of the day. We've got
Speaker 4: another podcast called The Quiki that does that twice a day.
Speaker 4: It's our news podcast. And yeah, because we've been working
Speaker 4: together for a really long time, we're all very good
Speaker 4: at self editing as we go. Without wanting to compare
Speaker 4: us to Oprah. I was once watching Oprah Live when
Speaker 4: she was in Australia. I was in the audience and
Speaker 4: watched Oprah Live and she wasn't I was in the audience.
Speaker 4: She wasn't broadcasting live. It was for a pre recorded show,
Speaker 4: but it was fascinating to watch her because you could
Speaker 4: see her there was not a lot of fat. You
Speaker 4: could see her editing as she spoke. She was thinking
Speaker 4: about how it was going to be, how the package
Speaker 4: was going to be. She would speak, just tell that
Speaker 4: she was kind of self editing as she went. And
Speaker 4: I think because the three of us are also editors,
Speaker 4: we're not just writers, we know how to do that.
Speaker 4: So whether it's editing our own thoughts, making sure we
Speaker 4: give you our wonderful producer Emma.
Speaker 5: A good end line.
Speaker 4: We haven't always been good at this, but we're better
Speaker 4: and better at it, so it requires less and less editing.
Speaker 5: We would like to think it's.
Speaker 2: Interesting what Mia was saying around how you're all editors
Speaker 2: and you're kind of like you're working in your podcast
Speaker 2: with sort of segments that seem to be maybe between
Speaker 2: about sort of six to eight minutes, and I guess,
Speaker 2: how do you pace yourselves in terms of knowing how
Speaker 2: quickly to get in and then how to get out
Speaker 2: in time?
Speaker 5: Where it's a work in progress.
Speaker 4: Holly and I have a habit of saying the same
Speaker 4: thing a few times. We're better at it now, but
Speaker 4: in a slightly different way. So it's like we all
Speaker 4: thought of a better way to say exactly, whereas Jesse
Speaker 4: is much better at just being concise about what she
Speaker 4: thinks and then moving on. So our producer will always
Speaker 4: when we can sometimes get to a point in a
Speaker 4: topic where we'll just be talking around and we'll all
Speaker 4: just be repeating ourselves, and that's where she'll wind us up.
Speaker 4: But we sort of naturally feel how long a segment
Speaker 4: is now.
Speaker 6: And it's really awkward at the end of a segment
Speaker 6: to Holly will say something and then we all know
Speaker 6: that we need to take a beat where we just
Speaker 6: awkwardly look at each other and let the silence fall.
Speaker 6: A lot of people think the podcast is just having
Speaker 6: a prolonged conversation.
Speaker 7: It isn't.
Speaker 6: No one wants to hear you meander, No one wants
Speaker 6: to hear you sort of bumble through something. I think
Speaker 6: they do want to hear you think. But at the
Speaker 6: same time, we're very aware of when something's beginning to
Speaker 6: lose steam and you've just got to go okay. Me
Speaker 6: as having the last line on that, we can hear
Speaker 6: the ending coming and we'll all just look at each
Speaker 6: other and go silent. And that's not something we could
Speaker 6: five four or five years ago. But I think through
Speaker 6: practice we've gotten much better.
Speaker 3: We're not actually super strict on exactly how long every
Speaker 3: segment needs to be, because, as both me and Jesse
Speaker 3: were just saying, when you can feel the steam going
Speaker 3: out of it, you pull away. But equally, when it's
Speaker 3: great and it's getting more momentum and you can tell
Speaker 3: this is a really good conversation, one of the beautiful
Speaker 3: things about podcasts is we can lean into that and
Speaker 3: let it go. It's not breakfast radio where you have
Speaker 3: to explain something complicated in three minutes all you're out.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's one of the things we really want
Speaker 3: to be able to do is to be able to
Speaker 3: pick apart things and lean into them when they're needed.
Speaker 3: So it's like in real time we kind of have
Speaker 3: to gauge how good we are.
Speaker 1: And like, how do you do that?
Speaker 2: Sounds like a stupid question, but like, how do you
Speaker 2: know are how good are you? Like, well, how do
Speaker 2: you know in all serious how do you know if
Speaker 2: a segment's going well? And you should be like, you know,
Speaker 2: continuing to like go down that route, Jessie, I.
Speaker 6: Think we are very honest with each other, and we
Speaker 6: also protect each other, which has been a real gift
Speaker 6: of the podcast. Something will slip out of one of
Speaker 6: our mouth and we'll go careful with that phrase, careful
Speaker 6: with that word, which can feel quite sometimes you can
Speaker 6: feel very defensive at the time because that's not how
Speaker 6: you meant it. But because we are editors and writers,
Speaker 6: one shoe is that you're in the podcast speaking, and
Speaker 6: the other foot is in another shoe, which is the listener,
Speaker 6: And so we're listening as we go. We're getting incredible
Speaker 6: feedback from an amazing producer who's saying that was interesting.
Speaker 7: That wasn't.
Speaker 6: We take feedback really seriously. We get emails, we get reviews.
Speaker 6: We have the out Louders group. They'll tell us when
Speaker 6: we're crap, when we're not on our game, we will
Speaker 6: get tenn email saying you're not on your game, Jesse,
Speaker 6: you were flat mea terrible argument there, Holly, you're rambling,
Speaker 6: they tell us, which is just fabulous. Yeah, but we
Speaker 6: must say I think we've left it in a few
Speaker 6: times where we'll finish a segment, we'll go, we're so.
Speaker 7: Smart, and then we look at each other going.
Speaker 3: Oh, that was so good, especially if we probably enjoyed it,
Speaker 3: because we do genuinely love talking to each other. That
Speaker 3: sounds really cheesy, but if the three of us are
Speaker 3: in the back of a number or having dinner, will
Speaker 3: we can't stop ourselves from going on about whatever. Sometimes
Speaker 3: you know we'll be really feeling the enjoyment of that conversation,
Speaker 3: and so we do just go that was great. And
Speaker 3: sometimes you look at mspace, our producer, and it's like,
Speaker 3: was it.
Speaker 6: Though we're also very very data led, so our views
Speaker 6: of whether something is working is a trajectory of a
Speaker 6: podcast should always be you're accumulating more listeners, and if
Speaker 6: you are losing listeners, they didn't get something from the
Speaker 6: last episode they wanted. That's very clear. We look at
Speaker 6: first day listens, we look a second day listens, we look.
Speaker 7: At week months. We're so stuck in the.
Speaker 6: Data that I think we can tell, oh, you know what,
Speaker 6: We've actually done too much election, We've done too much COVID.
Speaker 6: And after this episode on the third of April, people
Speaker 6: started to go, I'm going to give it a break.
Speaker 6: And we've got you an incredible team that helps us
Speaker 6: interpret that data. But we're very wedded to that and metrics.
Speaker 6: I think they're really helpful.
Speaker 2: Something I'm always like, I always get quite excited about
Speaker 2: when I listened to Mama Mia out loud. Just the
Speaker 2: interesting articles that you guys find from all over the world.
Speaker 1: I'd love to know me or where, Like where are
Speaker 1: your go to.
Speaker 2: Sources for finding great content that you then explore on
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 5: That's a great question.
Speaker 4: We're all just voraciously curious. I think that's something that
Speaker 4: we share. And we're also when I say widely read,
Speaker 4: I mean widely read, like we all cast our nets
Speaker 4: very wide in terms of what we're interested in. And
Speaker 4: the different places that will go. I can't speak for
Speaker 4: Holly and Jesse, but I just follow my nose, follow
Speaker 4: my curiosity. Obviously, I subscribe to IDM, I subscribe to dms,
Speaker 4: I visit homepages. I don't get my content from social media,
Speaker 4: because well, I do occasionally, but I just find that
Speaker 4: the algorithm is too limiting, and I don't want to outsource.
Speaker 5: My news or my content to meta.
Speaker 4: I would prefer to go hunt for it rather than
Speaker 4: sit there and passively have an algorithm serve it to me.
Speaker 1: Which edms are your must read ones than Maya?
Speaker 4: The New York Times has a really great personalization feature,
Speaker 4: which is an algorithm in itself. So listen to my hypocrisy,
Speaker 4: But I find that it surfaces a good, you.
Speaker 5: Know, variety of content.
Speaker 4: I also follow a number of different substacks just by
Speaker 4: individual writers, and I try to make sure I again
Speaker 4: cast it wide, so some of them will be political,
Speaker 4: some of them will be sort of social justice minded,
Speaker 4: some of them will be gossip minded. You know, we're
Speaker 4: all very content agnostic in the content that we consume.
Speaker 1: How about you, Holly, do you have any favorite places?
Speaker 3: I'm much more low brow than Jesse and a like
Speaker 3: MEAs straddles both sides of the low and high. So
Speaker 3: I'm often looking at I mean, obviously I follow EDMS too,
Speaker 3: and I've got various that I love, but I also
Speaker 3: will I will always also just look at the sort
Speaker 3: of more tabloid news sites to see what the conversation
Speaker 3: is in terms of what the things are that people
Speaker 3: are seeing and talking about. I will also, for that
Speaker 3: same reason, usually have a bit of an ear about
Speaker 3: what are people talking about on commercial radio, what are
Speaker 3: people talking about on breakfast television. Jesse's more Twitter, so
Speaker 3: she can often bring that perspective. But I think it's
Speaker 3: important we want that mix of bringing these really interesting
Speaker 3: gems that we do, but also kind of really understanding
Speaker 3: what people are thinking and saying or hearing elsewhere about
Speaker 3: a particular topic that we can maybe show another side to.
Speaker 3: So I've always said, back from my journalism training days,
Speaker 3: they used to be this. We had this great tutor
Speaker 3: that I loved, and he used to tell us every day,
Speaker 3: read a tabloid and a broadsheet, read a newspaper that
Speaker 3: you disagree with and one that you agree with. And
Speaker 3: obviously that's very much evolved from newspapers, but I still
Speaker 3: very much whole that standard. There's no news source that's
Speaker 3: beneath me. I've got the obviously, I've got the context
Speaker 3: to know what's nonsense and what's not. But I think
Speaker 3: it's really important to be consuming media that you don't
Speaker 3: necessarily agree with or you don't even necessarily respect that much,
Speaker 3: just to really understand what the diet is that's out
Speaker 3: there that you can then help digest to torture metaphor.
Speaker 1: So Jesse, you're the highbrow one.
Speaker 2: I assume you're just like hopping on Harvard Business Review
Speaker 2: every day and checking out Journal of Applied Psychology and
Speaker 2: the lives.
Speaker 7: Exactly right, Maya as always.
Speaker 6: I remember us having an intervention in editorial years ago
Speaker 6: where Mea said that we were all fishing from the
Speaker 6: same pond. Every single person was checking the same three
Speaker 6: websites every day, and our views were far too limited. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and our ideas went original. So and there's a lot
Speaker 6: you can do about that, which is hiring, you know,
Speaker 6: a more diverse workforce. And that's not just about you know,
Speaker 6: whether it's it's gender or race or sexuality. It's also
Speaker 6: about class. It's also about political positions. And having a
Speaker 6: lot of people come in from different contexts has helped
Speaker 6: with that I've had since I started. I have a
Speaker 6: thing on I like star websites that I really like,
Speaker 6: and so my scan is very I will do the
Speaker 6: same scan every day of say fifteen websites, and that
Speaker 6: might be The Atlantic and the cart and I don't
Speaker 6: know Business Insider or the Australian, which again, there are
Speaker 6: lots of things that I don't agree with.
Speaker 7: But I like having a sense of that. I've jump
Speaker 7: on Twitter.
Speaker 6: The most recent one where I'm getting the best content
Speaker 6: from is Bloody TikTok. I get on TikTok. Yeah, the
Speaker 6: stuff that will give you is really helpful. But I
Speaker 6: also and I've thought about this a lot. I used
Speaker 6: to walk to work and as I walked, I would
Speaker 6: listen to things and I would read things. But I
Speaker 6: realized that it often the best ideas I had. Well, when
Speaker 6: I put my phone away, I thought for ten minutes
Speaker 6: about what people are talking about. What's the what's the
Speaker 6: broader thing we talk about a helicopter bird's eye view, Like, yeah,
Speaker 6: everyone's talking about the intricacies of amber heard, but what's
Speaker 6: the real conversation. There's that, and then there's also walking
Speaker 6: to work or waiting for your coffee and taking your
Speaker 6: headphones out, and you will get a sense within ten
Speaker 6: seconds of what the conversation is. Yeah, and that's actually
Speaker 6: where the best ideas come from, is that you know
Speaker 6: it'll be about like, oh, what do I do?
Speaker 7: You know? This is very specific to today, But.
Speaker 6: The biggest conversation is, hang on if I get COVID
Speaker 6: before Saturday, what am I going to do? And with
Speaker 6: voting or whatever? I mean, that's the story and leaning
Speaker 6: into what people are talking about is the thing that
Speaker 6: has served us best.
Speaker 7: I think it's.
Speaker 2: Interesting what you're saying, Jesse, in terms of giving yourself
Speaker 2: just that space and time to think about what you
Speaker 2: think about something. And you guys mentioned earlier the Holy Jesse.
Speaker 2: You guys do a bit of prep in before recording.
Speaker 2: Mia not so much. So I'd love to know like
Speaker 2: all your processes, Mia, Yours sounds very scary to me.
Speaker 1: How like have you? Have you always been like that?
Speaker 1: Just sort of flying.
Speaker 5: Possibly go wrong?
Speaker 4: Yes, lucky, I've never ever made a mistake of television before.
Speaker 4: Why do I do so little prep? I'd love to
Speaker 4: say it's because I'm better than them. But it's because
Speaker 4: I'm lazy.
Speaker 6: You know what you do do Mia, and I'm going
Speaker 6: to come in and defend you. Is it just then
Speaker 6: when I was saying that we all that it's good
Speaker 6: to have a think from what you'll do is is
Speaker 6: reflect a bit on it, and you'll come up with
Speaker 6: a really interesting perspective. And it's because you actually haven't
Speaker 6: consumed eleven things and you don't get stuck in the weeds.
Speaker 6: And I think that's why you're often able to articulate
Speaker 6: the sentiment of something because you reflect on it.
Speaker 7: That's your prep thank you.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's that's the reason.
Speaker 4: It's a little bit similar to how I prep for
Speaker 4: No Filter, where I just absorb things and then I
Speaker 4: need to metabolize them. And I find that my worst
Speaker 4: interviews and my worst shows are the ones where I
Speaker 4: prep too much for because it does something to my
Speaker 4: brain where it becomes I don't know, it loses some
Speaker 4: magic for me.
Speaker 5: So I prefer to.
Speaker 4: Be able to react off Jesse and Holly, so I'll
Speaker 4: always be the one in the planning meeting. They will
Speaker 4: often like to get into an issue a little bit,
Speaker 4: just to make sure that it's an interesting enough topic
Speaker 4: for us to talk about, whereas I'll just go, h,
Speaker 4: stop kills the magic. And that's actually something I learned
Speaker 4: from doing morning television or doing the project or because
Speaker 4: they're very much not so much of the project, but
Speaker 4: they very much try to stop that. Because when you
Speaker 4: work with comedians, they don't like to be prepared. They
Speaker 4: like to have that banter.
Speaker 2: Jesse, You're the opposite on the prep front, is that right?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 6: Which is funny because MEA and I are both anxious,
Speaker 6: but our anxiety manifests in very different ways. I need
Speaker 6: to be prepared, and in fact, this has been my
Speaker 6: fault that I've had to work back from, I think,
Speaker 6: which is that over preparation kills spontaneity and kills podcasts.
Speaker 6: But I have also believed very strongly, which is something
Speaker 6: that's drilled into you at Mummia, not to waste her time.
Speaker 7: And I want to make sure this.
Speaker 6: Is the best advice I got about podcasting was like,
Speaker 6: don't come in with eleven points, come in with one
Speaker 6: or two and just know them know your position on it.
Speaker 4: Have said, just to be clear that her you're talking
Speaker 4: about is not don't waste my time, it's don't waste
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, good clarification.
Speaker 5: My time is available to be wasted. I waste everybody's
Speaker 5: time by being not prepared.
Speaker 6: And that's my biggest fear is that we all kind
Speaker 6: of and when I say we, I don't worry about
Speaker 6: me or and hotly doing it, but I worry that
Speaker 6: And I've had this recently with having to do things live,
Speaker 6: that I won't have anything to bring, anything meaningful or
Speaker 6: important to bring to something, and everyone I'll go what
Speaker 6: was the point in that. My biggest fear is that
Speaker 6: I'll go blank, and I'll open my mouth and nothing
Speaker 6: will come out. So I'm an over preparer who's constantly
Speaker 6: putting myself in situations that challenge that and beat that
Speaker 6: out of me. And it's also worth noting I'm also
Speaker 6: the least experienced because I'm the youngest, I've been in
Speaker 6: the industry for the least so from coming on to
Speaker 6: this podcast, I probably had a complex that was like,
Speaker 6: You've got to work twice as hard to sound half
Speaker 6: as good, which is why I've always I will go
Speaker 6: into exam mode preparation before a podcast, where all like
Speaker 6: read or I'll listen to something and I'll make notes
Speaker 6: and immerse myself and I love working under that pressure.
Speaker 7: That kind of lights me up. It's exam mode.
Speaker 2: Now, your producer is Emma Gillespie, who is on the
Speaker 2: line listening to this interview. What does the producer do
Speaker 2: for a podcast?
Speaker 3: Oh, she saves us a lot of the time. So
Speaker 3: the way that we work these days is that we
Speaker 3: generally pitch our ideas to Emma and then Emma reflects
Speaker 3: them back at us and says, you know, you all
Speaker 3: seem to want to talk about this. I think this
Speaker 3: is the most interesting bit, and then we push and
Speaker 3: pull that. So she's curating the ideas. She obviously helps
Speaker 3: us with preparation to a point as well, so she'll
Speaker 3: make sure we've got our facts straight and that we've
Speaker 3: got the audio texture as we call it for a show.
Speaker 3: If we need a particular grab and all those things,
Speaker 3: we'll go and get those. She also edits, She listens,
Speaker 3: She tells us if we're screwing something up, she tells
Speaker 3: us if we're going too long, and she also obviously edits.
Speaker 3: It pulls it all together and makes us all sound
Speaker 3: shiny and great.
Speaker 2: Something that I started doing about a year and a
Speaker 2: half ago with how I work. When I started working
Speaker 2: with the wonderful Kelly Reardan as my I guess she's
Speaker 2: kind of like the executive producer in a way. Is
Speaker 2: we would do something called an air check or I
Speaker 2: think that's the term taken from radio, where you'll do
Speaker 2: the joyful task of well listening to yourself back. Oh,
Speaker 2: that's a really nice way to spend a morning.
Speaker 4: Do you do that with Kelly or just you do
Speaker 4: it independently and then notes.
Speaker 2: I do both, not religiously, but semi regularly. I would
Speaker 2: say that I do that with Kelly. I do that
Speaker 2: fairly regularly. So we will meet once a month and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about the show, and we will pick a
Speaker 2: section from an interview and we will listen to that
Speaker 2: together and Kelly, oh my gosh, it's like it's equal
Speaker 2: parts just horrible and enlightening, because it is amazing to
Speaker 2: you know, and for those who have no idea who
Speaker 2: Kelly Riddan is. She used to head up podcasts at
Speaker 2: the ABC, and she's incredibly experienced when it comes to podcasts.
Speaker 2: So it is amazing having someone of Kelly's expertise listen
Speaker 2: and critique. And I feel like I've grown so much
Speaker 2: as a host because of Kelly's feedback. Now, I think, Jesse,
Speaker 2: you mentioned that you'll obviously get feedback from listeners the
Speaker 2: out louders, but I'm curious what's the feedback process between
Speaker 2: the three of you and also with your producer Emma.
Speaker 6: We do get from producer Emma.
Speaker 7: We also have.
Speaker 6: A role at the moment that is a lot of
Speaker 6: air checks and also feedback generally about show structure, maybe ticks.
Speaker 7: We have that kind of thing.
Speaker 6: And then we have a head of podcasts that's also
Speaker 6: listening out for a lot of that. So this happens
Speaker 6: a lot as well at the beginning.
Speaker 7: The birth of a show.
Speaker 6: So I'm on another podcast called Canceled, which is relatively new,
Speaker 6: and that's been so amazing to just have a team
Speaker 6: of people who want that to be as good as
Speaker 6: it can be and say, hey, the way that that
Speaker 6: unfolded on Tuesday wasn't quite right, here's why. And I've
Speaker 6: do exactly the same thing, which has forced myself to
Speaker 6: listen back, which can be excruciating. But the things you
Speaker 6: learn about your own crutches and and sometimes it can
Speaker 6: be hard because then you get quite self conscious when
Speaker 6: you go to speak, but you get you get better
Speaker 6: and better. And I think that it's twofold because you've
Speaker 6: got to do it and hear what you hear, but
Speaker 6: you need someone else to also say, hey, you're speaking
Speaker 6: yourself around in circles. You contradicted yourself in that segment,
Speaker 6: whatever it is, and it can feel like a real
Speaker 6: ego hit. It's a really hard thing to cop. When
Speaker 6: I was quite early on in out layout, we had
Speaker 6: the head of podcasts give me a call and basically
Speaker 6: say here's a list. And it was lovely. It was
Speaker 6: the kindest thing.
Speaker 5: What was on that list?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it was worse when you were saying
Speaker 4: heteronormative all the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was using long words.
Speaker 7: A lot, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 5: And I was everything was problematic.
Speaker 7: Everything was problematic.
Speaker 6: I was new, I was green, I was trying to impress,
Speaker 6: and there were things that I was doing that would
Speaker 6: have been really irritating as a listener. She didn't put
Speaker 6: it like that, but she also didn't, you know, pretend
Speaker 6: she was giving me a compliment. It was the kindest
Speaker 6: thing she could have possibly done and improved my career exponentially,
Speaker 6: and it would have been a really uncomfortable conversation for her,
Speaker 6: and I've just been so grateful for anyone who, you know,
Speaker 6: has the bravery to sit down with talent and say,
Speaker 6: if you fix A, B and C, you'll be brilliant.
Speaker 7: It's terrifying.
Speaker 4: I think it's challenging also because Holly and I in particular,
Speaker 4: we're the bosses, so we are often in charge of
Speaker 4: the people who were giving us feedback. So the power
Speaker 4: and balance can feel quite difficult for those people. But
Speaker 4: Jesse mentioned head of Podcasts Eliza Ratliffe. She's still the
Speaker 4: executive producer about that, but she used to be our
Speaker 4: producer and before that she was my EA, so she's
Speaker 4: got long history with us and I think she, more
Speaker 4: than anyone else in our business, can give us very.
Speaker 5: Unfiltered you know.
Speaker 4: She pulls no punches and I love that because I
Speaker 4: crave that feedback and there aren't enough people who feel
Speaker 4: comfortable enough in our business to give that to me,
Speaker 4: and she's probably one of them.
Speaker 2: We will be back soon talking about how the team
Speaker 2: selects guest hosts when one of them is on holiday
Speaker 2: and how they go about making them seamlessly fit into
Speaker 2: the show, and we'll also be talking about how they
Speaker 2: role model, respectful disagreement.
Speaker 1: If you're looking.
Speaker 7: For more tips to improve the way that you.
Speaker 2: Work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three
Speaker 2: cool things that I've discovered that helped me work better,
Speaker 2: ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving through to
Speaker 2: interesting research findings. You can sign up for that at
Speaker 2: Howiwork dot co. That's how I Work dot co. That's
Speaker 2: something that I always very impressed with. This when you
Speaker 2: have guest hosts, because you guys are not working fifty
Speaker 2: two weeks a year, which which is I find quite
Speaker 2: sad because I really like the combination of you through
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 3: To really try work hard to stop me from working
Speaker 3: fifty two weeks.
Speaker 5: Yes, say true fifty three if I could.
Speaker 2: Thank God for Byron Bay. But you, I feel like,
Speaker 2: whenever you've got a guest host, it's really seamless, and
Speaker 2: I'd love to know, firstly, how do you go about
Speaker 2: choosing those guest hosts.
Speaker 6: We have people that we've put forward that we've worked
Speaker 6: with for a long time, Susan Carland we've worked with
Speaker 6: for a long time, and then we'll have like you know,
Speaker 6: sometimes a wish list, or we'll go we know that
Speaker 6: our perspectives are limited, so sometimes we'll think it would great,
Speaker 6: it would be great to have someone on the show
Speaker 6: who doesn't have kids, or who isn't married, or who's
Speaker 6: in a same sex relationship or something. We try really
Speaker 6: hard with briefing them and letting them know the structure
Speaker 6: of the show so that they feel safe, and getting
Speaker 6: the rhythm with them, which is really hard over a
Speaker 6: screen because sometimes there's a delay and you can feel
Speaker 6: like you've just not quite got the pace and the
Speaker 6: understanding and the rapport that you might need. But yeah,
Speaker 6: we've had a bunch of different hosts and hopefully we do.
Speaker 6: You know, we don't think too much about it, but
Speaker 6: I think that it's a lot about the relationship that's
Speaker 6: built before you get on the mic, and making them
Speaker 6: feel really safe and that you're not out to get them,
Speaker 6: and that this is relatively it's often a lot more
Speaker 6: loose than what they do regularly, which is radio or television,
Speaker 6: and we say you've got more time, there's a lot
Speaker 6: more room for nuance, and our producer and our team
Speaker 6: have your back, and I think that makes them feel safe.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask how you go about building
Speaker 2: rapport with them, particularly when like the other two of
Speaker 2: you who were there with the guest host haven't worked
Speaker 2: with them, you know, when one of you hasn't worked
Speaker 2: with them before, or both of you haven't worked with
Speaker 2: them before.
Speaker 1: So what does that process look like.
Speaker 3: Well, the producer is obviously is in contact with them
Speaker 3: from an earlier stage about as Jesse said, it will
Speaker 3: often be somebody that we know in some capacity, or
Speaker 3: that we've seen and loved their work in some capacity,
Speaker 3: so em we'll be in touch with them early on
Speaker 3: to talk about the process and how it is. Because
Speaker 3: the thing is interesting. I love the fact that you
Speaker 3: say it sounds so seamless, because it's actually a very
Speaker 3: difficult thing to do to come into this threesome of them.
Speaker 4: And after they're a listener, they're an out louder, so
Speaker 4: they come in with ideas and thoughts, or they might
Speaker 4: feel a little bit intimidated or self conscious.
Speaker 5: So the two OG hosts that.
Speaker 4: Are working with the guest we have to do a
Speaker 4: lot more heavy lifting than when it's the three of us.
Speaker 4: Obviously to make them feel comfortable, I.
Speaker 2: Would imagine something that is quite scary, or maybe I'm
Speaker 2: just projecting my own fears here onto like being you know,
Speaker 2: regularly talking about your opinions on topics and you've got
Speaker 2: all these out louders who are also very opinionated. Is
Speaker 2: ending up on Jesse's podcast canceled? Like, how do you
Speaker 2: deal with that? Me?
Speaker 1: Yeah, You've probably had a lot of experience.
Speaker 5: Like you know, being canceled.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like how do you think about that in
Speaker 2: terms of what you express on the show.
Speaker 4: So one of the interestingly, I don't write anymore really
Speaker 4: except for Mum and me as subscribers, and I don't
Speaker 4: do any TV anymore at all because of the threat
Speaker 4: of cancelation and because you know, I have a responsibility
Speaker 4: as well. I'm the owner of a business that employs
Speaker 4: more than one hundred women. So if I were to
Speaker 4: say something that was either offensive inadvertently or not, or
Speaker 4: if I was to get into a cancelation situation, that
Speaker 4: could be detrimental to so many people. But what I've
Speaker 4: realized is that people hate watch TV, they hate read,
Speaker 4: but they don't hate listen, and so not always, but
Speaker 4: mostly you have also we have a degree of control
Speaker 4: because it's not live, and we have a producer and
Speaker 4: each other to watch our backs and we're very mindful
Speaker 4: of this every time we put something out, but ultimately
Speaker 4: people are lazy and cancel culture usually comes from someone
Speaker 4: taking something out of context. And one of the most
Speaker 4: difficult things for podcasters is that it's quite hard to
Speaker 4: share a podcast. You can't share a segment of a podcast,
Speaker 4: and that's something that is a curse and a blessing
Speaker 4: because it makes discoverability more difficult, but it means that
Speaker 4: it can't be easily shared on Twitter, which is where
Speaker 4: people get canceled generally.
Speaker 3: We also, obviously, you know, working in the industries that
Speaker 3: we've all worked in for years now, we're very aware
Speaker 3: of hot button issues, dangerous places to go, topics that
Speaker 3: we really should not we do not have a position
Speaker 3: to discuss. So and also one of the things that
Speaker 3: we all feel deeply is none of us want a
Speaker 3: show that people just shouting outrageous opinions at each other.
Speaker 3: That's not what we're there for. So we work hard
Speaker 3: to make sure that we're representing different viewpoints and that
Speaker 3: we disagree with each other, but respectful disagreement is our obsession,
Speaker 3: and I think you're also setting a certain tone when
Speaker 3: you do that. So as much as we have each
Speaker 3: other's back in terms of, as I think Mia said
Speaker 3: earlier or Jesse said earlier, if you maybe something slipped
Speaker 3: out of your mouth that could be misconstrued. We're all
Speaker 3: very good at catching that, as is our producer, and
Speaker 3: the show goes through two sets of ears before it
Speaker 3: goes out. But we also we're not interested in just
Speaker 3: stirring up culture wars. That's not the opposite of that.
Speaker 5: I'll avoid that if we can.
Speaker 6: I think that the fear for me has become and
Speaker 6: we have this discussion relatively recently, how do you still
Speaker 6: take how do you still take positions on things and
Speaker 6: reflect what women are talking about while not getting yourself canceled.
Speaker 6: If you are too worried about what people think, do
Speaker 6: not get into podcasting, because you can say the most
Speaker 6: innocuous things sometimes and be absolute, really rile people up,
Speaker 6: and you've just got to cop that. And often I'll
Speaker 6: say something and a producer will say, you know, that
Speaker 6: might upset a few people, or that there's a group
Speaker 6: of people who are not going to happy you said that,
Speaker 6: and I'll have a think and go it's worth saying.
Speaker 7: And I think.
Speaker 6: That's a really hard thing to do, because I've seen
Speaker 6: a lot of podcasts where people share opinions and perspectives
Speaker 6: go in the direction of you've actually spent forty minutes
Speaker 6: not saying anything because you're so terrified of what the
Speaker 6: response will be. So that's still important to have those
Speaker 6: those debates. And I think often in the planning meeting
Speaker 6: will go I'll say this, but I think we also
Speaker 6: have to present X opinion in order for this to
Speaker 6: be a well rounded, informative conversation, and we'll carefully produce that.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I'm aware of that that.
Speaker 6: There are some issues that I go, I feel passionately
Speaker 6: about this, I believe in it. If I get one
Speaker 6: hundred hate emails, it will have been worth it.
Speaker 3: But I think that that's the key is is it
Speaker 3: worth it and it's not worth it just so that
Speaker 3: you feel like you said something clever, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? And Jesse is very is smart enough as
Speaker 3: we all are, to kind of being a able to
Speaker 3: self curate those issues to a point where you're like,
Speaker 3: this is, as you say, a conversation worth having. This
Speaker 3: is just poking a bear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Holly, you mentioned respectful disagreement.
Speaker 1: How how do you role model that?
Speaker 3: I think I like to think we do it well.
Speaker 3: There are a few issues that we can be guaranteed
Speaker 3: to disagree about, and the argument will spill from the
Speaker 3: studio to the kitchen, to the uber, to the to
Speaker 3: the to wherever we're going to next, the next meeting.
Speaker 3: We're in some pourts so and so some poor person
Speaker 3: will have to listen that to us continue that argument.
Speaker 3: But I think that the fundamental we all have a
Speaker 3: great deal of respect for each other anyway, so we
Speaker 3: genuinely want to hear each other's points of view. It's
Speaker 3: really essential to us that we can model that you
Speaker 3: can disagree and pick people up on things that you
Speaker 3: disagree with or that they got wrong, or whatever that
Speaker 3: might be, and still walk away friends. It is the
Speaker 3: thing that out louders tell us they like the most.
Speaker 3: But that is very much about not getting personal, not
Speaker 3: playing people instead of issues. And I think also, and
Speaker 3: it was an out louder who pointed this out to me,
Speaker 3: actually is she said, you might disagree about things, but
Speaker 3: you share values. And I think that's true. And I
Speaker 3: know values is something that's just thrown around a lot,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of shades of gray in the
Speaker 3: way we all feel about certain issues, but none of
Speaker 3: us are holding deep Trumpian views about you know, women
Speaker 3: or immigration or whatever it might be. We come from
Speaker 3: a base of shared value, I think, and then we
Speaker 3: dance around on top of that with our disagreements, but
Speaker 3: we all genuinely respect each other's point of view. I
Speaker 3: don't think you can fake that.
Speaker 4: But the irony of this, Amantha, is that that's just
Speaker 4: reflective of real life. It's only on the Internet that
Speaker 4: people say things like I don't agree with everything that
Speaker 4: you say, but I really liked that point you made
Speaker 4: about blah blah. In real life, everybody that we love,
Speaker 4: our friends, our partners, our children, our parents, we have
Speaker 4: loads of things that we disagree with them about, but
Speaker 4: we don't write them off as people or cancel them.
Speaker 4: The only place that happens is the Internet. And I
Speaker 4: think that you know, our Holly is completely right about
Speaker 4: we do share values. But the most interesting times for
Speaker 4: us are the times where there's the grain of sand
Speaker 4: in the oyster, you know, like, for example, j Long
Speaker 4: at the super.
Speaker 3: BOWTL we will never stop arguing.
Speaker 5: I'll take you on now again.
Speaker 4: For around forty five we had very very different views
Speaker 4: about that, and that might seem so small, but really
Speaker 4: they were about much bigger issues around feminism. But that
Speaker 4: just happened to be the lens through which we were
Speaker 4: looking at something was quite different looking at the same
Speaker 4: sort of cultural moment. So yeah, for us, that's what
Speaker 4: keeps it exciting. We love it when we find something
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 3: We do, but it's really but you know that episodes
Speaker 3: I hate the most are the ones where I feel
Speaker 3: like I've lost my call, like sometimes you do you
Speaker 3: get too emotional and I and you know, I'll never
Speaker 3: forget as a mother the argument we had about that
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 5: Now phrase we just pick that up again.
Speaker 7: That's always fun.
Speaker 3: It's the phrase as a mother that Jesse was saying
Speaker 3: that mothers use all the time to then justify why
Speaker 3: they know better about all the things. And I got
Speaker 3: very emotional in that conversation. And every time my voice
Speaker 3: gets screechy and I lose Michael, and then I just
Speaker 3: feel awful for days.
Speaker 5: Like why do you feel awful?
Speaker 3: I loved it. I loved it in the end, but
Speaker 3: I just don't want I just don't like that. I
Speaker 3: don't like that. I loved debate, but I don't like
Speaker 3: debate when it gets like that.
Speaker 6: I think Holly as well. You said about that discussion,
Speaker 6: which is a very fine line that we sometimes toe,
Speaker 6: is that when a woman is giving us forty minutes
Speaker 6: of her time, we don't want her to take her
Speaker 6: headphones out and feel worse about herself.
Speaker 3: No I did.
Speaker 5: That's a good point.
Speaker 6: Did that discussion make a woman who would use that
Speaker 6: term feel like shit or like? We don't want to
Speaker 6: create division for the sake of creating division. And so
Speaker 6: that's why the structure of the show can be important,
Speaker 6: is you can have a discussion like that and then
Speaker 6: come back in the next segment and have a big
Speaker 6: laugh and go, this is an exchange of ideas. This
Speaker 6: isn't pitting people against each other. It's a careful, careful line.
Speaker 2: I think, well, when I listened to MoMA Mia out Loud,
Speaker 2: I definitely.
Speaker 1: Feel better about myself.
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, like, in preparation for this interview,
Speaker 2: like if I like if I don't know, there was
Speaker 2: a spell that was cast on me and I could
Speaker 2: only listen to one podcast like for the rest of
Speaker 2: my life, like or let's just say the next month.
Speaker 1: It would be Mamma Mia out Loud.
Speaker 2: I listened to a lot of different podcasts, But I
Speaker 2: just I feel such joy when I have you three
Speaker 2: in my ears. It's been so just like wonderful to
Speaker 2: speak to you all and understand the process that goes
Speaker 2: on behind it. I normally finish these interviews by asking
Speaker 2: how can people connect with you? Which I will in
Speaker 2: a moment obviously. I mean, you would have just had
Speaker 2: the volume turned down really low to not know that
Speaker 2: we've been talking about Mama Mia out loud. And you
Speaker 2: can get that wherever you listen to your podcast.
Speaker 1: But what is that.
Speaker 3: Cover?
Speaker 7: A back?
Speaker 1: Can you get a.
Speaker 7: Sow?
Speaker 1: How can listeners connect with the three of you?
Speaker 7: Holly?
Speaker 1: How can how can people connect with you?
Speaker 3: Well? Obviously I write and work at Mama Miya, but
Speaker 3: the best, my favorite of the social media platforms is Instagram,
Speaker 3: so you can always find me there at Wayne Wright Holly.
Speaker 3: That's who I am.
Speaker 1: On Jesse how about you?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Instagram as well.
Speaker 6: I'm Jesse Stevens on Instagram, And I've also got another
Speaker 6: Instagram with my twin sister where we do a lot
Speaker 6: of chats about Cancel, the other podcast that we do,
Speaker 6: and my writing is every time I can do it
Speaker 6: on Mama Maya and Maya.
Speaker 4: I'm also on Instagram girl just at MEA Friedman and
Speaker 4: I have got a newsletter that you can subscribe to
Speaker 4: by going to Meafriedman dot com, where you will find my.
Speaker 2: Writing Amazing ladies like I feel like ladies. That sounds
Speaker 2: so old fashioned, but anyway, I feel like I've just
Speaker 2: been talking with three friends, even though we're not like,
Speaker 2: because I feel like you're my friends because I hear
Speaker 2: you every day almost on my headphone.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for spending the time with me.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Amantha, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2: Well this you was such a joy to do, and
Speaker 2: having listened to a couple of episodes after conducting this interview,
Speaker 2: it's been really interesting listening to it with the craft
Speaker 2: that all three women bring to it. In the back
Speaker 2: of my mind, they make it look so easy sharing
Speaker 2: their opinions on all sorts of things going on in
Speaker 2: the world. But that apparent ease, I think, really only
Speaker 2: comes when you have spent years honing your craft.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying how I work.
Speaker 2: Maybe you might want to leave a review for the
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Speaker 1: Click on the stars or write a comment.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful getting feedback from listeners, so thank you in
Speaker 2: advance if you've left feedback, or if you plan to
Speaker 2: do so today. How I Work is produced by Inventing,
Speaker 2: with production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for
Speaker 2: this episode was Liam Riordan, and thank you to Matt
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Speaker 2: makes everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: See you next time.