Speaker 1: When you hop on the internet looking for health advice,
Speaker 1: you often find conflicting information. One day coffee is good
Speaker 1: for you, the next day it's going to give you cancer.
Speaker 1: You should be adding more of this than you should
Speaker 1: be fasting longer. I mean, it could all get very confusing,
Speaker 1: So thank goodness for people like doctor Norman. Swan Norman
Speaker 1: is an award winning producer and broadcaster whose career began
Speaker 1: in medicine, and since his arrival in Australia, he's been
Speaker 1: keeping the Australian public informed with the latest information on
Speaker 1: health and medical research. He's been a presenter on the
Speaker 1: ABC's Catalyst and Quantum programs, as well as occasionally reporting
Speaker 1: for The seven thirty Report and four Corners. He has
Speaker 1: won four Walkley Awards, most recently for Corona Cast, a
Speaker 1: daily podcast that he hosts with science journalist Tiggan Taylor,
Speaker 1: which breaks down the latest news and answers questions about coronavirus.
Speaker 1: And I'm personally a big fan of Corona Cast. So
Speaker 1: how does Norman communicate complicated medical research to such a
Speaker 1: broad audience and how does he stay on top of
Speaker 1: the latest news and science on the topic of COVID
Speaker 1: and with health in general. What are the habits and
Speaker 1: behaviors that Norman swears by. My name is doctor Amantha Imbert.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy invent Him, and this is how I work a
Speaker 1: show about how to help you do your best work.
Speaker 1: When we recorded.
Speaker 2: This interview, Norman was in about week ten or eleven
Speaker 2: of Sydney's lockdown, so I wanted to know what on
Speaker 2: earth was getting him through a.
Speaker 3: Lot of denial.
Speaker 4: What's getting be through lockdown is just creeping from day
Speaker 4: to day, moment to moment, hour to our task to task,
Speaker 4: and trying not to think too far ahead. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm being paid to think far ahead, so people are
Speaker 4: asking me for my opinions all the time, so it's
Speaker 4: pretty hard to escape that. But in terms of my
Speaker 4: own world, I really have a near term focus.
Speaker 1: How do your health retains change during lockdown?
Speaker 4: Pre lockdown, pre New South Wales outbreak. I would go
Speaker 4: to the gym most days, and probably most days well,
Speaker 4: I prefer to go to the gym early evening, but
Speaker 4: I find that my daily schedule is so irregular that
Speaker 4: early evening often means I don't end up doing it,
Speaker 4: So I usually end up going to the gym first
Speaker 4: thing in the morning before work, so early at six am,
Speaker 4: sometimes five thirty am, and do the gym. Then I
Speaker 4: don't enjoy it as much, don't feel as good as
Speaker 4: it after it, but I need to get it done.
Speaker 4: Post outbreak, I still try to do forty five minutes
Speaker 4: most days of the week, and depending on the day,
Speaker 4: I would probably mostly end up doing stairs and then
Speaker 4: some seven minute workouts combination of seven seven minute workouts.
Speaker 4: And for the first time in my life, I've bought
Speaker 4: myself a yoga mat so I can do that outside.
Speaker 1: That sounds very nice. And what other health through teens
Speaker 1: change for you in terms of eating and drinking and
Speaker 1: like what you're consuming.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm an overeater and with poor appetite control, and
Speaker 4: therefore it's a constant struggle for me to control eating.
Speaker 4: And when you're indoors all the time. I'll tell you
Speaker 4: in a nycdote that tells you everything, probably about me
Speaker 4: is I was once house hunting, went to see a
Speaker 4: house on display, or went to visit the house that
Speaker 4: was open for inspection, and the agent came up to
Speaker 4: me at one point and said excuse me. I was
Speaker 4: in the kitchen and I'd actually opened the fridge.
Speaker 3: And was kid was casing.
Speaker 4: Into the fridge, and I hadn't realized that actually doing
Speaker 4: that I was.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 4: That wasn't during COVID. That was for covered with Glinton
Speaker 4: Went's eye. But I guess you were saying sort of thing.
Speaker 4: And so when I go to a party, and remember
Speaker 4: when used to go to parties and there's finger food,
Speaker 4: remember you know, I've actually got to engage about fifty
Speaker 4: percent of my brain in not picking up the finger food,
Speaker 4: and then I've only got fifty percent of my brain
Speaker 4: left for the conversation in the chat. So that gives
Speaker 4: you a sense of when I'm in the indoors for
Speaker 4: a lot of the time in lockdown, food becomes part
Speaker 4: of the entertainment.
Speaker 3: So I'm cooking more elaborate meals.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of people, I'm addicted to the New
Speaker 4: York Times cookbook or cooking website.
Speaker 3: It's just really reliable. It's for busy people.
Speaker 4: And if you want to roast a duck and roasted
Speaker 4: simply and it doesn't feel or turkey or things like that,
Speaker 4: they've just got all these recipes that work and so
Speaker 4: I've been doing much more cooking moites, not reverting to
Speaker 4: take away and.
Speaker 1: What are some tricks or hacks that work for you
Speaker 1: in terms of not constantly using food as entertainment. I
Speaker 1: guess during lockdown because I can imagine that there are
Speaker 1: so many people that are struggling with that.
Speaker 4: What works for you, well, what works for you doesn't
Speaker 4: necessarily apply to a lot of other people. So last
Speaker 4: year I wrote a book, So you think you know
Speaker 4: what's good for you? And that was occupational therapy, and
Speaker 4: that also provided so essentially I used work as a distraction.
Speaker 4: I mean the problem with broadcasting work is that it's unpredictable. Yes,
Speaker 4: I've got my We've got Chrona casts every single day,
Speaker 4: every day of the week apart from Friday and Saturday,
Speaker 4: so Sunday through Thursday, and I've got the health report,
Speaker 4: but there aren't very many other fixed points, and so
Speaker 4: people phone you.
Speaker 3: Like today for example my diari.
Speaker 4: Look it's about gaps, and then I'm booked up to
Speaker 4: do on air things and so that's unpredictable. But doing
Speaker 4: a book gave me that I knew I had to
Speaker 4: achieve a couple of thousand words a day. I set
Speaker 4: aside that time and sat down and there was nothing
Speaker 4: else there. My email went off, So it was almost
Speaker 4: importantly meditative doing that, and that's what brought me through.
Speaker 4: And I'm about to start a second book in the
Speaker 4: same vein. I'm thinking, well, work last year, hopefully will
Speaker 4: worked this year.
Speaker 1: To ask with the book, which I must say I loved.
Speaker 1: It's quite a tomb of a book. It's like just
Speaker 1: over four hundred pages. I've got it here in front
Speaker 1: of me, and the reference list is mighty long. There's
Speaker 1: so much advice in the book and it's great and
Speaker 1: I want to know, like for you after you know,
Speaker 1: all these years of giving health advice and there's so
Speaker 1: much content in the book and so much advice, like,
Speaker 1: what are the top things that you really apply in
Speaker 1: your own world?
Speaker 4: Well, the first thing, the first rule that you learn
Speaker 4: when you do mention is do as I say, but
Speaker 4: not as I do.
Speaker 3: And whilst there's you know, the blurb on the book
Speaker 3: says you're a health guide, health advice that sort of.
Speaker 4: Thing you won't actually find if you're looking for health advice,
Speaker 4: not by this book. It's really it's in your syncratic
Speaker 4: in the sense that I've always wanted to write a
Speaker 4: kind of antidote to health books, and because the thing
Speaker 4: that's missing.
Speaker 3: From most books about health is.
Speaker 4: Personal agency, so the recognizing that you're making decisions for
Speaker 4: yourself and your own circumstances.
Speaker 3: You've got choices to make.
Speaker 4: And often health books are really judgmental, and I just
Speaker 4: wanted to give non judgmental information. And you pick and choose,
Speaker 4: so you don't find very much advice in this, but
Speaker 4: you'll find issues dealt with that you've wondered about, in
Speaker 4: terms of nutrition, in terms of exercise, in terms of
Speaker 4: what's bullshit and what's not. And I try and call
Speaker 4: out bullshit, and it's up to you. I don't offer
Speaker 4: actually any advice. I just suggest here's the evidence. If
Speaker 4: you want to do X, you're not necessarily going to
Speaker 4: do yourself any harm. You might not do yourself any
Speaker 4: good either, but you know, and go for it. But
Speaker 4: if you want to do why, you've got to think
Speaker 4: three times about that, because you could do yourself some harm.
Speaker 1: For people that I guess, you know, they're in lockdown
Speaker 1: maybe or you know, if they're lucky, they're not in lockdown,
Speaker 1: but they're looking to I guess incorporate a couple of
Speaker 1: healthy habits into their daily routine, like what what are
Speaker 1: a couple that give you the biggest bang for your
Speaker 1: back if you.
Speaker 4: Like well, I talked about the seven minute workout earlier there.
Speaker 4: When I'm talking about exercise routine. You don't actually have
Speaker 4: to exercise, Tomas. Only why you're exercising, you're excising to
Speaker 4: lose weight and intend your wait. You probably do need
Speaker 4: to do quite a lot each day, but if what
Speaker 4: you're wanting is aerobic fitness, then you can actually go
Speaker 4: for short spurts of exercise.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 4: Like the New York Times seven minute workout, So it's
Speaker 4: very intense, it's short exercises, a remuscle group strengthens them
Speaker 4: and I probably and I do two different versions of
Speaker 4: it each day. So I'll do the general one and
Speaker 4: I'll do the abs or they are so that sort
Speaker 4: of thing, and fifteen minutes, if I haven't got much time,
Speaker 4: I'm done and dusted.
Speaker 3: And feel really good.
Speaker 4: So today it's a good example. Chooses are busy day,
Speaker 4: very very busy days for me, and I'm on air
Speaker 4: early morning, so I get up early and I do
Speaker 4: two seven minute sessions. Certain sessions and fifteen minutes later,
Speaker 4: I feel pretty good, and I feel tired and my
Speaker 4: muscles are sore. It can't beat exercise as being the
Speaker 4: medicine that you need to lift your mood to make
Speaker 4: you feel better and actually to have physical benefits during
Speaker 4: the psychological and physical benefits. And it really is hard,
Speaker 4: and if you're not that fit, you do these exercises
Speaker 4: at your own pace and build up from there, but
Speaker 4: it's going to be you've got to push yourself. So
Speaker 4: the idea while social contacts really important, and social support
Speaker 4: and having people around you, particularly during lockdown, which is
Speaker 4: hard to do when you do something like exercise, you
Speaker 4: should it's not a casual what we're friends, it's actually
Speaker 4: something you'll do the casual what we're friends on top,
Speaker 4: but do the intense exercise that is actually going to
Speaker 4: have huge benefits for you.
Speaker 1: Now, your workday is sound very full on, particularly with
Speaker 1: early starts, and then especially if at the other end
Speaker 1: of the day you're doing some kind of a TV spot.
Speaker 1: How do you manage your energy during the day aside
Speaker 1: from your exercise routine.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a very good question, and it depends on
Speaker 4: how well I slept the night before. Often how I
Speaker 4: feel and whether I've started with exercise. So starting with exercise,
Speaker 4: intense exercise guess me through a lot of the day,
Speaker 4: to be honest, even if I've had not a very
Speaker 4: good night's sleep. So that's the first thing is exercise
Speaker 4: doesn't wear me out, doesn't tire me.
Speaker 3: It actually invigorates me for the rest of the day.
Speaker 3: So a lot of people don't.
Speaker 4: Do because they think we're going to be knackered, and
Speaker 4: in fact the opposite occurs. The second thing is I
Speaker 4: do use coffee, so I probably have two or three
Speaker 4: shots in the morning. Criticize me for that, but I do.
Speaker 4: That's probably more of our psychological series. If you're really tired,
Speaker 4: it doesn't help you because you've just got the sort
Speaker 4: of anxious kind of stimulation on top of the tiredness
Speaker 4: because the coffee gives you. Coffee is best when you're
Speaker 4: feeling pretty good and you just get that little extra fillip.
Speaker 4: And if I'm feeling really tired midday, I nap. I'll
Speaker 4: just have a five ten I'll find a corner on
Speaker 4: a five ten minute nap.
Speaker 3: I used to do it a lot.
Speaker 4: I don't do it that much anymore, but I am
Speaker 4: known within the ABC as an Olympic napper.
Speaker 1: That's great, and so why only five to ten minutes
Speaker 1: with the napping, So I.
Speaker 4: Need I just I just think piece and quiet and
Speaker 4: shut my eyes and just get a restorative.
Speaker 3: Nap, and I'm good.
Speaker 4: And in fact, even if I were, even if I'm
Speaker 4: on holiday and I have an afternoon, an't not for
Speaker 4: very long or.
Speaker 3: Not for half an hour. I just don't.
Speaker 4: I don't find that. I just don't sleep very long
Speaker 4: during the day. But if I need to sleep, I'll
Speaker 4: get it. But it's short and I'm refreshing, so I'll
Speaker 4: just add something to the sleeping thing, because it's never
Speaker 4: just one thing. In order to get to sleep in
Speaker 4: a busy environment like an office, I practice a kind
Speaker 4: of mindfulness meditation.
Speaker 3: It's very amateur mindfulness meditation.
Speaker 4: It's not the sort of entering your mind and thinking
Speaker 4: through the things that come into your mind, which is
Speaker 4: more of the psychodynamic aspect of mindfulness, which helps your
Speaker 4: psychological well being. It's more focusing on a noise or
Speaker 4: a sound or a thing in the environment, and that's
Speaker 4: the only thing that you think about, and that sends
Speaker 4: me to sleep very quickly.
Speaker 1: Now back to coffee, because I do remember when I
Speaker 1: read so you think you know what's good for you.
Speaker 1: You do describe your cat been intake, and do you
Speaker 1: love your coffee. But I'm intrigued by what you said
Speaker 1: that coffee won't help when you're really, really tired. So
Speaker 1: how can we use coffee strategically?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 4: I think it's a mistake to think that you can
Speaker 4: use coffee terribly strategically, which is why I focus on
Speaker 4: ticket in the morning and I try not to have
Speaker 4: a coffee after about eleven o'clock in the morning, just
Speaker 4: because I don't want my evening sleep to be affected.
Speaker 4: And I find that even a coffee in the afternoon
Speaker 4: can stuff up my evening sleep, and I don't want
Speaker 4: that to be the case, so I don't I don't
Speaker 4: think that you if strategically you want to be awake
Speaker 4: and up, I think the nap is the better idea
Speaker 4: than coffee. You know, I'm probably addicted to caffeine and that,
Speaker 4: you know, you get a bit of a headache if
Speaker 4: I don't have coffee caffeine in the morning, So that's
Speaker 4: part of what's going on there. So you're that's and
Speaker 4: that's the devil the devil coffee, which is that you
Speaker 4: can feel a bit lousy in the morning and it's
Speaker 4: actually your caffeine deficit, and then once you've had your coffee,
Speaker 4: you feel good, and that's a sign of dependency as well.
Speaker 4: So I'm not sure how. I'm not sure that you.
Speaker 4: I think it's overstating the use of coffee, that you
Speaker 4: can use it strategically. And I'm kind of strongly against
Speaker 4: the idea of using drugs, which caffeine is a drug
Speaker 4: to fix up another problem. You should not use drugs
Speaker 4: in that way. You should not be smoking or drinking
Speaker 4: or taking coffee. If you're feeling lousy about the world,
Speaker 4: you've got to do something about that. Exercise is probably
Speaker 4: more strategic having a nap. But if you've got unremitting
Speaker 4: gloom and you're really not feeling like, you're not feeling
Speaker 4: that so you enjoy things the way you used to,
Speaker 4: you don't want to get up and do stuff that
Speaker 4: a lot of people are feeling that way during lockdown,
Speaker 4: then you've actually got to seek help and talk to
Speaker 4: somebody about it.
Speaker 1: Now, when I think about your schedule, like pre pandemic,
Speaker 1: I imagine it was very, very busy, But I can't
Speaker 1: even begin to imagine how many requests you would receive
Speaker 1: on your time and for your expertise every day, like
Speaker 1: since you know February March twenty twenty, and I want
Speaker 1: to know, like what's your process for deciding what to
Speaker 1: say yes to and what to say no to?
Speaker 4: Like a lot of people, I'm bad at saying no,
Speaker 4: So with the media media requests, if it's internal to
Speaker 4: the ABC, I feel obliged to help and do something.
Speaker 3: So most of my media are sorry, most of my.
Speaker 4: Media things or booking not bookings. Most of the things
Speaker 4: I do on the media are within the ABC, So
Speaker 4: consider that part of my job and doing that. And
Speaker 4: I'll only say no if I've got something else on
Speaker 4: at the same time, or I'll say no if I
Speaker 4: don't know enough about it and I'm man follow myself,
Speaker 4: which I probably we can follow myself more often than
Speaker 4: I should do. But that's a fairly easy one. I
Speaker 4: get a lot of external requests, and sometimes it's somebody
Speaker 4: who's done me a favor and I return in the favor.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's a good cause and I'll get involved there,
Speaker 4: and sometimes it's a fairly venal decision. Is part of
Speaker 4: what I do for a living, is I do public
Speaker 4: speaking and facilitating, and then it's fielded through my agent,
Speaker 4: and then it's almost a commercial decision and making sure
Speaker 4: that it doesn't contravene my contract with the ABC.
Speaker 1: Something I mentioned before we started recording is that I'm
Speaker 1: a long term and very loyal listener of Corona Cast
Speaker 1: and your daily podcast, and I'm just like, I'm so
Speaker 1: impressed with how you just seem to know everything that's
Speaker 1: going on, Norman, in amongst your very busy, busy life
Speaker 1: and all these commitments that you have. So curiously, how
Speaker 1: do you keep up with the daily news cycle? What
Speaker 1: are your rituals or routines around that.
Speaker 4: Well, I wake up, you generally wake up early, and
Speaker 4: by the time I get out of bed, I've usually
Speaker 4: read the Financial Times, the New York Times, City Morning Herald,
Speaker 4: and the ABC's news feed, and I also would read
Speaker 4: The New Yorker on a weekly basis, so that's my
Speaker 4: general news current affairs, and I watch a bit of
Speaker 4: news and current affairs each evening, and then I scan
Speaker 4: the journals, so i'm each week I would read the
Speaker 4: New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, the British Medical Journal,
Speaker 4: Medical Journal of Australia when it comes out, and I
Speaker 4: also look at a few feeds on coronavirus information and
Speaker 4: that takes up quite a lot of the day that
Speaker 4: you're not spent in meetings and talking to people.
Speaker 3: And I also talk to people, so.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they accused of expressing my own opinion. I almost
Speaker 4: never express my own opinion. I just have a network
Speaker 4: of people that I regularly talk to and benchmark what
Speaker 4: I'm thinking is going on against what they're thinking is
Speaker 4: going on.
Speaker 3: And there are often people that are all about.
Speaker 4: Pretty much all people I trust that I know are
Speaker 4: actually independent.
Speaker 3: And they're.
Speaker 4: Making and if they give me advice, it's selfless advice
Speaker 4: that's really based on the evidence, and or give me
Speaker 4: information and they're all and they're tapped into their networks
Speaker 4: and they'll often contact me when they think something's going on.
Speaker 4: So that is a full time job in itself without
Speaker 4: your varying and for just doing that on a daily basis,
Speaker 4: I could imagine.
Speaker 1: And so when you're reading through the various news publications
Speaker 1: and journal articles and speaking to people, what's your process
Speaker 1: for remembering and organizing all that information?
Speaker 3: I wish if in this listening is quite a good process.
Speaker 4: I'd love to hear from them, because I'll tell you
Speaker 4: naming thought about my organizational skills. In the late eighties,
Speaker 4: I ran Really National and I came into run Really
Speaker 4: National as the head Really National group at a time
Speaker 4: of crisis when Ready National was really disappearing off the
Speaker 4: face of the air of its audience was disappearing, and
Speaker 4: I had quite strong views about what should happen. And
Speaker 4: I came in and I was the person who started
Speaker 4: Really National Breakfast. I brought in Philip Adams to do
Speaker 4: live Gerald didn't do, to do life matters. I changed
Speaker 4: the whole network run down and it was a really
Speaker 4: intense three years and we increased the audience by about
Speaker 4: thirty percent during those years, and those years kind of
Speaker 4: saved Really National. It wasn't just me, it was a
Speaker 4: team of people had around me. Now I was working
Speaker 4: six days a week, twelve fourteen hours a day, and
Speaker 4: one of my senior managers that I'd hired, a woman
Speaker 4: called an Talks. Really fantastic person comes from Western Australia.
Speaker 4: She was an academic, she taught management. She went on
Speaker 4: from Really National. By the way, to run theater company,
Speaker 4: and so she was an experienced senior manager.
Speaker 3: In fact, she was far more experienced than me. So
Speaker 3: she worked for me.
Speaker 4: And I remember when I first went on the first time,
Speaker 4: I took a couple of weeks off. I said, and
Speaker 4: you've got to act for me. Now here's your main task.
Speaker 4: Apart from doing what you've got to do. You're going
Speaker 4: to have to tell me how I can organize my
Speaker 4: life better. I've clearly disorganized in my management style. Tell
Speaker 4: me what I'm doing wrong so that I can work
Speaker 4: twelve hours a day. Around fourteen I get back and
Speaker 4: sort of completely met hurt. And she'd be working fourteen
Speaker 4: hours a day just like me. So maybe there isn't
Speaker 4: a secret. So I I you know, I have a
Speaker 4: file folder in my emails or so for a lot
Speaker 4: of COVID material, I will That's probably the main thing
Speaker 4: that I do. I have bookmarks to links and I
Speaker 4: know that I can go to And I also don't
Speaker 4: ruminate a lot on stuff, so once it's done, it
Speaker 4: moves on so that I'm not cluttered with things that
Speaker 4: I've already dealt with. But it's in a place where
Speaker 4: I know I could go back and look for it
Speaker 4: if I have to.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with Norman soon and we'll be hearing
Speaker 1: about how he communicates such complex health information in such
Speaker 1: a clear and engaging way. But if you are after
Speaker 1: more content, something that I put out once every two
Speaker 1: weeks is a little newsletter with three things that I
Speaker 1: am loving. So if you are keen to hear about
Speaker 1: gadgets or software, I'm trying out interesting research that I'm reading,
Speaker 1: or just general cool stuff that is grabbing my attention,
Speaker 1: hop on to howiwork dot co howiwork dot COO, and
Speaker 1: pop your email in and you can expect to get
Speaker 1: something from me in your inbox shortly. How do you
Speaker 1: avoid not ruminating on things?
Speaker 4: It's hard, but you've just got to move on and
Speaker 4: learn that that's what's done is done, and you've got
Speaker 4: the next task in hand, and you can't get onto
Speaker 4: the next task unless you've just cleared your I call
Speaker 4: it my random access memory. You've just got to clear
Speaker 4: that intermediate memory so that your fort on.
Speaker 3: The next thing.
Speaker 4: And I just I've always had that ability to just
Speaker 4: I think medicine helps you to do that. By the way,
Speaker 4: So a training in medicine, if you if you ruminate
Speaker 4: on things and get obsessed with things, you don't make
Speaker 4: a good doctor. You've got to be able to deal
Speaker 4: with something. And then the next patient, that's the only
Speaker 4: patient in your life at that moment, and you've got
Speaker 4: to totally focus on that patient's story, get that sorted out.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter how upsetting and difficult the previous patient's
Speaker 4: story was, because at the end of that patient consultation,
Speaker 4: you act on it, so you don't procrastinate. And I
Speaker 4: think that's that's the training I got in medicine, and
Speaker 4: I just apply it to everything else that I do.
Speaker 1: So how did they train you to do that? Because
Speaker 1: that sounds amazing in theory, but how like, what strategies
Speaker 1: did they teach you in practice?
Speaker 4: I think there's a bit of pre selection there is
Speaker 4: that if you're if you're not like that, you'll you'll
Speaker 4: not So, for example, if you're in acute medicine. I
Speaker 4: spent most of my training in acute medicine, pediatrics, surgery
Speaker 4: and things like that, but mostly pediatrics.
Speaker 3: Is that.
Speaker 4: If you're not like that, you probably would not do
Speaker 4: that specialty and you would find something else to do.
Speaker 4: I suppose that's the case, and you're just forced to
Speaker 4: do I mean, and I had a couple of bosses
Speaker 4: who really showed me how to do it as well,
Speaker 4: So it was on the job training rather than medical
Speaker 4: school training.
Speaker 3: If I really think hard about it.
Speaker 1: Now, something that I always find really impressive when I
Speaker 1: listen to you is just how effective you are communicating
Speaker 1: health information that can be quite complex, but doing it
Speaker 1: in a really clear and simple way. And I want
Speaker 1: to know how do you do it? Like what's going
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes when you're thinking about how to
Speaker 1: communicate complex things simply?
Speaker 3: Look, that's taking years to develop when I've.
Speaker 4: So one of the joys of what I'm doing do
Speaker 4: is it's exactly what you say. I mean, I really
Speaker 4: love it. That's what I really love. I loved storytelling,
Speaker 4: and so that's what journalism is is discipline storytelling and
Speaker 4: I and when you're telling a story, you've got to
Speaker 4: work out what the narrative is, how to engage people
Speaker 4: in that narrative, how to stop their minds drifting to
Speaker 4: something else so that they're always there. And I liken
Speaker 4: it to grabbing somebody by the neck, sitting them down.
Speaker 4: Nothing else to think about now, And what's the air
Speaker 4: and flow of the energy of a communication piece as
Speaker 4: well as the content of that. So when I first
Speaker 4: joined the ABC, that's what you know. I already had
Speaker 4: that love of storytelling, and then you had to apply
Speaker 4: it to communicating complex information more complex information. And and
Speaker 4: I had a colleague then, unfortunately, actor young Peter Hunt,
Speaker 4: who we were closely together.
Speaker 3: He was environmental journalist. I was health and health.
Speaker 5: Side, and we used to work together and do that
Speaker 5: task together. He had something that he wanted to communicate
Speaker 5: it till he wanted to communicate. We workshop how we
Speaker 5: did it, and we'd read each other's scripts and give
Speaker 5: people and give each other feedback. And we did that
Speaker 5: for some years. And I think that once you've been
Speaker 5: doing that sort of thing for some years, you kind
Speaker 5: of get what works and what doesn't work. And now
Speaker 5: one of the pleasures I.
Speaker 4: Get is actually working with young incoming broadcasters and working
Speaker 4: on their scripts and showing them ways of changing the story,
Speaker 4: how you might create a metaphor an image something to
Speaker 4: grab onto and get that rhythm right and pass that on.
Speaker 4: But it's just years and years of doing it and
Speaker 4: practicing and getting feedback, and years and years of failure
Speaker 4: as well. And learning from your failures.
Speaker 1: So when you are editing, say a less experienced and script,
Speaker 1: for example, what are some of the things that you're
Speaker 1: looking for or are some of the pieces of advice
Speaker 1: that you find yourself giving often?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the mistake that some people make, and
Speaker 4: it's not just young kids coming in and learning, it's people.
Speaker 4: Something you're doing is that you feel you're on a
Speaker 4: mission to explain. And if you feel you're on a
Speaker 4: mission to explain, you're going to fail before you start.
Speaker 4: That's why I'm talking about storytelling.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: Storytelling is episodic. It has a beginning, a middle, and
Speaker 4: an end, but it also has episodes within it. And
Speaker 4: you don't tell the whole story up front. You've got
Speaker 4: to give people a reason to move on. So the
Speaker 4: common things that I find people do is they give
Speaker 4: away the story at the beginning. All you've got to
Speaker 4: do at the beginning is give people a reason to
Speaker 4: listen because it's going to be a payoff, and make
Speaker 4: sure they do get a payoff.
Speaker 3: It's explaining too much at one time rather than parsing
Speaker 3: up the information.
Speaker 4: So that I'm going to give you a little bit,
Speaker 4: you get a little bit now, consolidate that little bit
Speaker 4: of information. Then I'll take you to the next place,
Speaker 4: and I'm taking you by the hand through the story.
Speaker 4: And you've got to trust me that i will take
Speaker 4: you by the hand and i will not lose you
Speaker 4: during the story.
Speaker 1: That's it's fascinating hearing you talk about that, Like, what
Speaker 1: what else are you finding? You know, potentially common mistakes
Speaker 1: that people make or things that you're you know, other
Speaker 1: pieces of advice that you're that you often give.
Speaker 3: Those are those are the main ones.
Speaker 4: The other problem of this is a radio and television
Speaker 4: thing rather than print journalism, but really intellivision thing is
Speaker 4: that you sometimes get people coming into it who want
Speaker 4: to be stars and don't want to put in the work,
Speaker 4: and that doesn't work. It may work in commercial television
Speaker 4: where you're just there to look nice and you've got
Speaker 4: somebody whispering every word into your ear for you for
Speaker 4: you to say to the audience, but which I'm not
Speaker 4: sure it happens that much commercial television anymore, but it
Speaker 4: used to happen. You know, there's there's no place for
Speaker 4: prima donors. You're not going to become a star just
Speaker 4: because you look good and have a nice voice. There's
Speaker 4: actually got to be substance there and I and the
Speaker 4: other thing is is selecting people for jobs within the media,
Speaker 4: is that really a national We're very firm that we
Speaker 4: go for people's minds and their education. You know, have
Speaker 4: you had a good education, have you.
Speaker 3: Had a good.
Speaker 4: Intellectual training. You know, there are people on this floor
Speaker 4: at Greatly National PhDs and PhDs in German literature and
Speaker 4: so on. It's just, you know, are really we actually
Speaker 4: don't hire that many people with media degrees. We probably
Speaker 4: preferentially go with somebody who's got an English degree, a
Speaker 4: history degree, who's got who's done further education, gone down
Speaker 4: the track a little bit, but also learned how to
Speaker 4: tell stories simply.
Speaker 3: And there's entertaining.
Speaker 4: Often just sit there and interview somebody for a job
Speaker 4: and are they boring me or are they entertaining me?
Speaker 4: And I'd love to have dinner with them? And you know,
Speaker 4: somebody I'd like to have dinner with be entertaining all night.
Speaker 4: Then you're kind of getting there. You're kind of getting
Speaker 4: there now.
Speaker 1: As a health journalist, something that you have to do
Speaker 1: as part of your role is you interview a lot
Speaker 1: of people and I believe that you will often have
Speaker 1: your producer or producers do a pre interview with people
Speaker 1: that you're interviewing, as my producer Jenna did with you,
Speaker 1: And I'd love to know, I mean, you know, particularly
Speaker 1: for people that have no idea what a pre interview is,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your perspective on, you know, what
Speaker 1: is the role of a pre interview, how do you
Speaker 1: use that and then how does that then shape an
Speaker 1: interview that you're conducting.
Speaker 4: So, by and large, I only do pre interviews for
Speaker 4: interviews that are alive because you've got no.
Speaker 3: Margin for error in a live interview.
Speaker 4: So a lot of it is actually to find out
Speaker 4: whether somebody's, what we say, good talent or not.
Speaker 3: So can they express themselves, are they clear? And will
Speaker 3: they keep the.
Speaker 4: Audience engaged for the seven or eight minutes that they
Speaker 4: need to be on air and tell their story clearly,
Speaker 4: as well as finding out what the story is in
Speaker 4: more depth. But it's as much about a screening process,
Speaker 4: because if you've got somebody who is a bad explainer
Speaker 4: or a really boring speaker, you do not want.
Speaker 1: Them on their live Now it's funny, I always feel
Speaker 1: like slightly self conscious when I have guests on the
Speaker 1: show and part of their role is to interview other people,
Speaker 1: and Norman, I'd love to get any feedback that you
Speaker 1: have for me on how this interview is felt for
Speaker 1: you and what I could be doing better as an interviewer.
Speaker 4: No, this is good because you are enthusiastic, You're conversational.
Speaker 4: I know what I said to your producer when I
Speaker 4: got the pre interview, and you're not following the pre interview.
Speaker 3: You are. You're following your gut feel and you're following
Speaker 3: the interview.
Speaker 4: Because that's the other thing, yes, is that an interview
Speaker 4: is a conversation and you certain information you want to
Speaker 4: get out of it.
Speaker 3: But if you so.
Speaker 4: The other thing I tell new people to the game
Speaker 4: is try not to have a list of questions that
Speaker 4: go one to twenty. I tend to have a mud map.
Speaker 4: People are often horror and it goes back to my organization,
Speaker 4: my pro organization. So but I often have a mud map.
Speaker 4: I know there's things I need to hit and there
Speaker 4: might be the right sequence to start. You know, if
Speaker 4: I start here, that's the right way to start. It
Speaker 4: opens it up and then I've got this opportunity and
Speaker 4: I've got that opportunity and so on, but I can't
Speaker 4: remember the last interview I did which worked according to plan.
Speaker 4: Because somebody will say, you've got to know what you
Speaker 4: want to get up, but you've got to know the territory.
Speaker 4: You've got to be well researched, and then you've got
Speaker 4: to know the things that you want to hit. But
Speaker 4: you actually might start at one, and then you jump
Speaker 4: to number twenty in your list, and then you're back
Speaker 4: at fifteen, and then you're at number seven, and then
Speaker 4: you're a one that isn't on your list at all,
Speaker 4: which takes you to an entirely new area. And you've
Speaker 4: got to be prepared to abandon all that hard work
Speaker 4: because this is much more interesting than you ever thought.
Speaker 4: And so you've got to actually enter into the world
Speaker 4: of the person that you're interviewing, whilst retaining the objectivity
Speaker 4: of the interviewer. And it's that So at one point
Speaker 4: I was going to do psychiatry, and it was often
Speaker 4: I was fascinated in psychiatry by the psychiatric interview. And
Speaker 4: that's what the psychiatric interview is that you are trying
Speaker 4: to elicit a person story but being entirely open to
Speaker 4: cues that they're going to give you which take you
Speaker 4: to somewhere that you should not pre judge the interview
Speaker 4: or the history taking. If you like it's going to
Speaker 4: take that you're going to go in a certain direction.
Speaker 4: You've got to be prepare for any direction that's thrown
Speaker 4: at you, and they'll be able to come back to
Speaker 4: what some of the things that you really need to know.
Speaker 4: And I still follow that formula that I was taught
Speaker 4: in psychiatry, particularly for long interviews, which I love doing
Speaker 4: long interviews because it gives you a chance to do that,
Speaker 4: explore areas, go off at a tangent, it might seem
Speaker 4: like a tangent, but find out what it was that
Speaker 4: made that remark.
Speaker 3: And being very tuned into inflections and emotion.
Speaker 4: And mood and stuff that you've not heard by that
Speaker 4: person before.
Speaker 3: That allows you to go for it.
Speaker 1: Now for people that want to get their hands or
Speaker 1: a copy of So you think you know what's good
Speaker 1: for you, and also consume other things, all the other
Speaker 1: amazing things that you are putting out into this world.
Speaker 1: What's the best way for people to do that?
Speaker 3: Well? So you think, so you think you know what's
Speaker 3: good for you?
Speaker 4: Is available from Torpia or Amazon or your local bookshop,
Speaker 4: so that so you get that. There's Corona cast, so
Speaker 4: you can down that wherever you get your podcasts or
Speaker 4: from the ABC Listen app. And the health Support comes
Speaker 4: as a podcast as well as a live broadcast, so
Speaker 4: that's on a half past five live on a Monday
Speaker 4: night and it's repeated on a Tuesday morning at half
Speaker 4: past five in the morning, and it's as bailable as
Speaker 4: a podcast as well from the ABC Listen app or
Speaker 4: wherever you hit your podcasts, so plenty of ways to
Speaker 4: get it.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 1: Norman, thank you so much for sharing some of your
Speaker 1: time with me today, given how busy you are, it's
Speaker 1: just been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 3: And the pleasures all mine. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you
Speaker 1: got some useful stuff from my chat with Norman. Now,
Speaker 1: if you are not a subscriber or follower of How
Speaker 1: I Work, now is the time to hit subscribe or
Speaker 1: follow wherever you're listening to this from, because next week
Speaker 1: I've got Fulbright scholar Holly Ransom talking about why micro
Speaker 1: habits have been the key to her success, and she
Speaker 1: has a hell of a lot of other practical tips
Speaker 1: to share. How I Work is produced by Inventium with
Speaker 1: production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this
Speaker 1: episode was Jenna Coder and thank you tomt Nimba who
Speaker 1: does the audio mix for all episodes and makes everything
Speaker 1: sound better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.