Speaker 1: What are you doing right now? I can guarantee there
Speaker 1: is one thing that we're all doing in this moment,
Speaker 1: breathing in and breathing out. It's something that is part
Speaker 1: of our whole day every day, but it's definitely not
Speaker 1: something I'm ever thinking about. Christian O'Connell thinks a lot
Speaker 1: about breathing, and a week long retreat in breathwork became
Speaker 1: an absolute game changer. Now. If you're not familiar with Christian,
Speaker 1: he was Britain's best known and most awarded breakfast radio presenter,
Speaker 1: hosting his own top rating national breakfast shows and collecting
Speaker 1: more industry awards than any other presenter, and even becoming
Speaker 1: the youngest radio presenter ever inducted into the UK Radio
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. But then he moved to Australia, where
Speaker 1: nobody knew him. The Australian Radio network took a punt
Speaker 1: on him, bringing him to Melbourne's Gold FM, a move
Speaker 1: that has worked out incredibly well. Now, my chat with
Speaker 1: Christian has been one of my favorite interviews this year.
Speaker 1: I can't think of a time that I had someone
Speaker 1: on the show who was just so raw and open
Speaker 1: and honest about work and life and the stuff that
Speaker 1: can make life really challenging at times. So we talk
Speaker 1: about the biggest lessons that Christian has learned in therapy
Speaker 1: and how he managed to overcome panic attacks that were
Speaker 1: crippling him literally straight before he was due to go
Speaker 1: live to air, and I even become Christian's very first
Speaker 1: breath work client during this chat. My name is doctor
Speaker 1: Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of
Speaker 1: Behavioral science Consultancy in Ventium, and this is how I
Speaker 1: work about how to help you do your best work.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to know what's it like to have
Speaker 1: to be full of energy at six am in the
Speaker 1: morning every morning when Christian hosts his daily breakfast show
Speaker 1: on Gold one oh four.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't have to be full of energy. I
Speaker 2: don't think people want to turn their radio on in
Speaker 2: the morning and sort of have that fake nervous, desperate energy,
Speaker 2: you know, like someone trying to do an infomercial. I'm
Speaker 2: more like a dimmer switch. I am talkative at six
Speaker 2: am like this, but then who I don't need to
Speaker 2: be yelling. So I learned that it had to learn
Speaker 2: that lesson to be honest, because otherwise it puts you
Speaker 2: on just terrible fake this kind of pressure. You know,
Speaker 2: it's too hard to live up to that. You can't
Speaker 2: do that. What do they actually need from me? They
Speaker 2: need me to be present and they do need to
Speaker 2: be energized. But the more I'm dialed into beforehand, and
Speaker 2: these are things I've learned the hard way through getting
Speaker 2: it wrong. I've a dim breakfast radio for twenty three years,
Speaker 2: and it's only the last couple of years I've actually
Speaker 2: learned to have some a bit more healthy rituals before
Speaker 2: a show, to check in with my intention, and when
Speaker 2: I pay attention to that, I always have a better show.
Speaker 2: When I struggle, it doesn't quite work, or I'm having
Speaker 2: a tough time or too much self critical thought. Is
Speaker 2: when I've got locked into that this isn't going well enough.
Speaker 2: I need to put more energy into it. I need
Speaker 2: to be ten out of ten. I'm letting myself down,
Speaker 2: letting the show down. Oh my god. And you know
Speaker 2: you know where that goes.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now, can you talk me through your pre show rituals?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you'll have a film day with this,
Speaker 2: but they work for me, and so the work works.
Speaker 2: Now the alarm goes off in the morning, and that's
Speaker 2: for twenty seven. And I hope you might think, why
Speaker 2: does he set off at four twenty seven am? Any
Speaker 2: extra minute I can be in bed, I would be,
Speaker 2: so why wouldn't you so? Yet? Four twenty seven? The
Speaker 2: first thing I'll do for about five minutes is I
Speaker 2: will do some breathing energizing techniques that I've learned the
Speaker 2: last couple of years, and they really really help. They vary.
Speaker 2: I try not to do the same thing every day,
Speaker 2: as you'll probably realize the more we get into this conversation.
Speaker 2: I need I need that spontaneity. It's very important to me,
Speaker 2: and so if it was to the same every day,
Speaker 2: I'd get bored of it and stop doing it. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I do something for five minutes, but a breathing kind
Speaker 2: of thing to get me going and energize, jump in
Speaker 2: the shower, and then head to work. And here's where
Speaker 2: it all starts. Actually, I guess the first thing is
Speaker 2: the would be the breathing stuff, like five minutes. Then
Speaker 2: that time in the car twenty five minutes to get
Speaker 2: into the radio station. I would always listen to something
Speaker 2: that tunes me into my heart, and either it would
Speaker 2: be something funny or it might be a interesting podcast,
Speaker 2: just something which kind of I guess on trying to
Speaker 2: train myself to to find that part of me. You
Speaker 2: know that I want to come forward to do the show,
Speaker 2: and so I use that twenty five minutes. I actually
Speaker 2: look forward to it. It's a time when I can
Speaker 2: just sign at my mind down before like six am,
Speaker 2: because when the show starts, things move quite quickly, and
Speaker 2: I move quite quickly on and off air. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I do that for twenty five minutes. When I get
Speaker 2: into the building, I say a lot to the team.
Speaker 2: Then I'd like to be in my studio alone by
Speaker 2: myself for fifteen to twenty minutes. I will force myself
Speaker 2: to I'll start with a blank piece of paper and
Speaker 2: I just write down a word. I think what I
Speaker 2: actually want, what I want the story today's show to be.
Speaker 2: So it might be joyful, it might be honest, it
Speaker 2: might be connected, whatever it is. I just I won't
Speaker 2: try and find the word. I just let it come
Speaker 2: through and then I kind of like I dial into
Speaker 2: my intentions. I'm here to have fun, to be honest.
Speaker 2: And then I'll go through the emails that have come
Speaker 2: through since the show ended. I read all the emails, good, bad,
Speaker 2: and everything, because there's always there might be something I
Speaker 2: can use in them. Even if it's a story which
Speaker 2: isn't that good, there might be a fine line at
Speaker 2: the end of it. Or I always I always have
Speaker 2: a look at everyone's job ties at the end of
Speaker 2: their emails. I think there might be something in that.
Speaker 2: I like going through all the emails. It feels like
Speaker 2: I'm connected to where they're at. And then Jack and
Speaker 2: Rio come into the studio. Rio is one of my
Speaker 2: producers and Jack is my sidekick. And then for fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes we sort of I will say, oh, here's what's
Speaker 2: happened to me. Here's a couple of ideas I've got.
Speaker 2: Jack shares here's and we start to roughly a very
Speaker 2: pencil blueprint for that day show. Now there'd be some
Speaker 2: ideas that we already know that we might do on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday or a Thursday. But yeah, we start to
Speaker 2: just plot. I don't like to have too much in.
Speaker 2: If I see a show where there's everything planned in,
Speaker 2: I don't want to do that show. I can't stand
Speaker 2: the thought of that. I like there to be some
Speaker 2: gaps for the spontaneity, for the magic for the unpredictable
Speaker 2: to show up and do the show with us as well.
Speaker 1: That's that's quite the ritual in terms of how you've
Speaker 1: mapped that out. I find that really fascinating. I do
Speaker 1: want to ask more about a few things there. I
Speaker 1: want to get into breath work. And I remember when
Speaker 1: when I read your book, no one listens to your
Speaker 1: Dad's show, which I must say I loved, and it
Speaker 1: was actually because of it sounds it sounds a bit weird,
Speaker 1: but it was actually because of that book that I
Speaker 1: was so keen to have you on the show, because yeah,
Speaker 1: i'd heard you on the radio a little bit, but
Speaker 1: not a lot. And your publisher sent me the book
Speaker 1: and I thought, this looks interesting. And I try to
Speaker 1: read at least the first chapter of books that i'm sent,
Speaker 1: but yours just scripted me, and I read it, you know,
Speaker 1: over a few days, and I'm like, I have to
Speaker 1: talk to this man. And then finally enough, when I
Speaker 1: mentioned the interview to my mom, who doesn't listen to
Speaker 1: a great deal of radio, she said, oh, yes, Christian O'Connell,
Speaker 1: I've heard him, and I've always thought he sounds like
Speaker 1: a very intelligent man.
Speaker 2: I don't get that a lot. I'll take that from you, mum,
Speaker 2: and please thank her. She must have just heard a
Speaker 2: very very small slip of the show one day where
Speaker 2: I might actually get somewhere near sounding intelligent.
Speaker 1: But the seriously, I loved your book, and you do
Speaker 1: talk about your breath work in the book and for
Speaker 1: a memory you actually mentioned I think your breath work
Speaker 1: teacher in the acknowledgments. Can you tell me what led
Speaker 1: you to learning breath work?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess like most of the stuff that we
Speaker 2: do as adults to try and bring us comfort, we'll
Speaker 2: try and steady us because it's when you think about it,
Speaker 2: just being a human on this strange planet, having our
Speaker 2: strange existence. It's a lot, isn't it. As you get older,
Speaker 2: you realize life is really odd, just being a human
Speaker 2: just getting through the day. It's really odd sometimes, isn't it.
Speaker 2: And I'm very lucky, isn't entitled? You know guy, that
Speaker 2: I have a very good life. And so about seven
Speaker 2: or eight years ago I had some very very severe
Speaker 2: panic attacks and they only came right before my job
Speaker 2: doing a live radio show, and my last show in
Speaker 2: the UK that I had for twelve years was now
Speaker 2: went all around the UK, and I had two and
Speaker 2: a half million listeners, never had any fear about radio
Speaker 2: or stand up or live TV. Suddenly, out of nowhere,
Speaker 2: really severe panic attacks about twenty minutes before going on air,
Speaker 2: and I guess i'd call it it was a mini breakdown.
Speaker 2: When I look back now, it was the best thing,
Speaker 2: one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Speaker 2: It made me go and get help, even though that
Speaker 2: was reluctant at first. I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2: I remember going to see this therapist and even being
Speaker 2: embarrassed that I'd had to go and see a therapist
Speaker 2: that I somehow screwed up myself and my life. And
Speaker 2: I said, I just want the panic cut out. I
Speaker 2: remember him just laughing, like, oh, this guy is going
Speaker 2: to be a field day unpacked. This guy he wants
Speaker 2: the panic cut out, and he went, where is it?
Speaker 2: I'll do it now. And so through that I also
Speaker 2: learned breath work because I needed to, and I realized
Speaker 2: how how with panic or anxiety or anything, focus or anything,
Speaker 2: our breath is everything. It's the first thing we did
Speaker 2: when we're born, and we start our life to be
Speaker 2: the very last thing we do, and we don't breathe
Speaker 2: very well. We don't know much about it. But I've
Speaker 2: learned through learning breath work is just how much it
Speaker 2: can change your mental, physical, your zest for life. I've
Speaker 2: learned how to regulate myself ever get stressed or if
Speaker 2: I'm tired and I need a bit of energy rather
Speaker 2: than having caffeine. So yeah, I went away in a
Speaker 2: week long retreat, a breath work retreat. I loved it
Speaker 2: so much, went back the following year, did another week
Speaker 2: and you'll love this. I'm currently doing a course. It
Speaker 2: will take me about another four or five months to
Speaker 2: be a breath work master so that I can actually
Speaker 2: teach it. I would love to be teaching it next year.
Speaker 2: Not full time. I didn't expect, but it's only because
Speaker 2: it's helped me so much, so much, and I use
Speaker 2: it every day and it makes a big difference in
Speaker 2: my life. I'm like, I'd really like to be able
Speaker 2: to share this with people. I've struggled so hard to meditate.
Speaker 2: This feels like this is something I can do. Whether
Speaker 2: it's five or ten minutes, you don't need any more
Speaker 2: than that. It's not just that it's it's portable. I
Speaker 2: can do it in the car. You know, I'm trying
Speaker 2: to teaching my teenage daughters to help them, but they
Speaker 2: are that age fifteen and seventeen when they're just resistant
Speaker 2: to anything that comes to mom and dad, you know,
Speaker 2: to want to go the other way. So I've got
Speaker 2: to let them come to it their own way. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm such a big fan of it. It's free, it's
Speaker 2: very easy to learn, and they're all kinds of different
Speaker 2: breathing techniques you can do to help bring about different changes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do it regularly during the radio show before the
Speaker 2: show in the car back, I said I loved it
Speaker 2: better for it. So yeah, I'm currently I'm actually learning.
Speaker 2: You know, I have to go on these calls once
Speaker 2: a week. I get up even earlier and at half
Speaker 2: three am I'm on a call for an hour and
Speaker 2: a half with an instructor and mentor for that week's
Speaker 2: homework and how I've got on and teaching him online
Speaker 2: how I should teach somebody to do it. And I
Speaker 2: love all that. It's really nice learning something new that's
Speaker 2: nothing to do with what I do for a living.
Speaker 2: Maybe a part time thing for me next year. I
Speaker 2: don't know how it's online or in person, but that
Speaker 2: excites me doing that. I'm like, that's something new, that's
Speaker 2: something which isn't about me or trying to be funny
Speaker 2: or you know, sell something. It's just me trying to
Speaker 2: share something which really really has helped me through a
Speaker 2: really really tough time. And anxiety and panic attacks aren't
Speaker 2: something that go away. The panic attacks I don't have
Speaker 2: so much anymore now, but low level anxiety is something
Speaker 2: which has still be around in my life. Hasn't defined me,
Speaker 2: but I know the breathing really really really helps. And
Speaker 2: a lot of people since the book came out, like
Speaker 2: you have said, oh I've panic attacks, what helped? Getting help,
Speaker 2: going to see a therapist really helped massively. And the
Speaker 2: breathing thing that was a big difference to me and
Speaker 2: will always be.
Speaker 1: So let's just say I'm preparing to do a podcast interview,
Speaker 1: and like, even if I've been doing it for a
Speaker 1: few years now, I still get nervous before some interviews,
Speaker 1: particularly where I'm going to be speaking to someone who's
Speaker 1: been a hero of mine for years, And can you
Speaker 1: give me something that I can do, Like in the
Speaker 1: five or ten minutes before I'm live, what can I do.
Speaker 2: First of all, why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: Why am I doing this? Well, firstly, I'm doing it
Speaker 1: to learn, and secondly, I'm doing it as a way
Speaker 1: to I guess, like scale the impact that I can have.
Speaker 1: So I'm very motivated by unpacking complex science and putting
Speaker 1: that into simple strategies that people can use to improve
Speaker 1: the way that they work. And for me, the podcast
Speaker 1: came out of a natural curiosity around how did the
Speaker 1: world's most successful people work? But also as a channel,
Speaker 1: I mean, podcasting is so brilliant for reaching lots of
Speaker 1: people with their strategies and impacting as many lives as possible.
Speaker 1: So that's why I do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I can understand right, all that big brain stuff.
Speaker 2: What feelings when it goes well or afterwards when you
Speaker 2: go that is a groat? I really enjoyed that. What
Speaker 2: is that feeling? If you had to give it a
Speaker 2: value a couple of words, what is that when it's
Speaker 2: going well? What is that? What does it do to
Speaker 2: you on a physical level? What does it do? Does
Speaker 2: it make you feel happy? What would you say?
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I'm so energized, I'm pumped up, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of on a high. Like you know when I
Speaker 1: learned some really cool stuff, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to share that.
Speaker 2: Right, So, now you've got that, Now you're in touch
Speaker 2: with why you really do it. Okay, Now close your
Speaker 2: eyes and think about the last chat you did where
Speaker 2: you really felt that you know, your words, energized, connected,
Speaker 2: and breathe in. Just close your eyes, breathe in three
Speaker 2: and three your nose. It's count of five. Don't have
Speaker 2: to be big breath, but just and then just hold
Speaker 2: it and then breathe out slowly againto the count of five,
Speaker 2: three your nose again, and then breathe again through your nose,
Speaker 2: acount of five. So wait a bit and slowly out
Speaker 2: through the nose again. Look out a five, four, three
Speaker 2: two one one more round of this in through the nose,
Speaker 2: look at the five one two, three four five, Have
Speaker 2: a gentle smile with your mouth that's closed, and then
Speaker 2: breathe out again. Look out of five through the nose,
Speaker 2: count down five or three two one. Feel that warm,
Speaker 2: energized glow and open your eyes And how do you
Speaker 2: feel now?
Speaker 1: Ah, so so good and come and just different. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've shifted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's like thirty seconds. Anyone could do that.
Speaker 2: Now you understand why I like it. It's quick, it's instant.
Speaker 2: You don't even have to get into the woo woo
Speaker 2: of what's happening there, don't even try to analyze it.
Speaker 2: It's that's all in us. And now, if you were
Speaker 2: to go and do a chat now, whether it's this one,
Speaker 2: you will do it differently. You would enjoy it more
Speaker 2: and you'll be more connected to yourself. And there you're
Speaker 2: also be more engaged and connected to what you're actually
Speaker 2: trying to do as well, rather than the strategy. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I get I understand about networking and what it can
Speaker 2: do for you, but that isn't really why you're doing it.
Speaker 2: It's something else.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. H that's good. Oh, I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like I've just had a shift and we're on to
Speaker 1: like act too.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, You've just become my first ever
Speaker 2: what do they call them clients?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've just been my first time protege. Let's say
Speaker 1: prank you. Now. You mentioned therapy and you write a
Speaker 1: lot about that in the book and your experience, and
Speaker 1: I feel like it's something that I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've ever talked about therapy with the guest
Speaker 1: on the show, and I'm a huge fan of therapy.
Speaker 1: I'm a psychologist myself, and I've spent years in therapy
Speaker 1: and I currently see a psychologist every fortnight. And I
Speaker 1: want to know for you, what have been the biggest
Speaker 1: lessons or things that you've taken out of the therapy
Speaker 1: that you've done.
Speaker 2: Great question. Like I said, I was so reluctant. I've
Speaker 2: don't know if it's a man thing. I think it predominantly.
Speaker 2: Is that a bit embarrassed about having to ask for help.
Speaker 2: We're really good at giving other people help. We're terrible
Speaker 2: at asking for help, aren't we. I tell her what
Speaker 2: I got from it really was compassion. When I went
Speaker 2: in saying I'm having panic attacks, I can't do my job.
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna you know, I can't work with
Speaker 2: any mortgage. I don't know if I can ever do
Speaker 2: it again. It was that bad. It was about understanding
Speaker 2: that it's not it. It's a part of me that's scared,
Speaker 2: and that part of me needs to be given. I
Speaker 2: guess compassion, listen to it and work out what is
Speaker 2: what's worrying at the moment. If it had a voice.
Speaker 2: What is it trying to say? And Darling, is that
Speaker 2: because a lot of our critical self talk is so
Speaker 2: judgmental and so mean, it's like an inner heckla, you
Speaker 2: would never speak to someone in your life. I loved
Speaker 2: one a colleague the way you talk to yourself in
Speaker 2: the mirror. And it's learning about that and just watching that.
Speaker 2: And that's a day to day, rest of my life thing.
Speaker 2: But that I had to sum up the two years
Speaker 2: I did, that would be the biggest takeaway for me
Speaker 2: that I still use every day. Use it when I'm
Speaker 2: talking to my daughters as well, is that you know
Speaker 2: when they go, I'm feeling this, it's remind ourselves part
Speaker 2: of you is angry right now, part of you is
Speaker 2: really pissed off. And then understands you have to separate
Speaker 2: that because there are many different parts of us, you know,
Speaker 2: we all have different parts. And then actually to separate
Speaker 2: from that and just go, Okay, I am angry, which
Speaker 2: part of me is angry and why? And then you
Speaker 2: can have hopefully a better dialogue with yourself and that
Speaker 2: that and changes everything.
Speaker 1: But then you're in an unusual situation where you're also
Speaker 1: like you're drowning in feedback from listeners and people who
Speaker 1: maybe have just listened for a few minutes, Well, see.
Speaker 2: Even that isn't that interesting to use the imagery of drowning.
Speaker 2: If I thought of it like that, I'd have a
Speaker 2: flipp and panic attack. I can. I've learned to swim,
Speaker 2: and sometimes the waves crash over me, and other times
Speaker 2: I can surf on it, and yeah, I can turn
Speaker 2: that on and off. On a bad day, your ego
Speaker 2: gets a bit of a din because someone shoots you
Speaker 2: an email and like hate this show, they need to
Speaker 2: fire you, and you like, Then you have to remind
Speaker 2: yourself that's more about them. That's someone who's having a
Speaker 2: tough time moment they thought the best choice for them
Speaker 2: in that morning is to find my email address, type
Speaker 2: out an email, check it the spelling mistakes, click send,
Speaker 2: and that is more about them. And actually, at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, other people's opinions of me really
Speaker 2: aren't my business. When it comes to a video show,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't want the show to be for everyone.
Speaker 2: I'd make a very different kind of show. I hope
Speaker 2: it's some people that I like me and I put
Speaker 2: it out there, and I hope it finds the right people,
Speaker 2: and the right people find it. So yeah, I've got
Speaker 2: a lot of a healthier attitude towards feedback, should we
Speaker 2: call it than I used to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to know more about that, because in
Speaker 1: in your book you paint a really vivid image of
Speaker 1: what it was like packing up your bags from the UK,
Speaker 1: where you'd had this twenty year super successful radio career
Speaker 1: and deciding to move your whole family to Melvin, where
Speaker 1: you know, you really didn't know anyone except for a
Speaker 1: handful of people in the industry, and things are really
Speaker 1: tough when you started on air here and people were
Speaker 1: really resistant to someone not from Melbourne doing a local
Speaker 1: radio show. So what strategies did you use to cope,
Speaker 1: particularly in those early days.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I wish I could have an intelligent answer. Red
Speaker 2: wine and spoiler alert it doesn't always help that strategy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I might as well say what I
Speaker 2: am English in Australia. Suddenly, as someone in the early
Speaker 2: days emailed me, no one invited you. I felt like
Speaker 2: that uninvited and had I just rocked up here and
Speaker 2: just put myself on a breakfast show and people like no,
Speaker 2: so who I'd an English guy. We don't know him.
Speaker 2: You're not from here. You don't know about AFL, you
Speaker 2: don't know about John Farnham, you don't know about barn Zy,
Speaker 2: you don't know about Vida Crumble. And radio is built
Speaker 2: around intimacy. Intimacy is built around connection and shared experience,
Speaker 2: isn't it? And suddenly my accent everything didn't have that,
Speaker 2: and so there was a bit of a disconnect. However,
Speaker 2: looking back now, the single most exciting thing I've ever
Speaker 2: done in my radio careers come here, because it really
Speaker 2: really humbled me, stripped me of everything that I'd built
Speaker 2: up over a career. When you've got a following on TV,
Speaker 2: on radio, whatever, they're your people and they follow you
Speaker 2: from a radio station to a radio station and there
Speaker 2: you've got them, and that is amazing. I didn't have
Speaker 2: that here. Suddenly it felt like I was starting all
Speaker 2: over again, and I actually I needed that. I had
Speaker 2: to start all over again, but differently, and that learning
Speaker 2: that first year of never ending trials in my two worlds,
Speaker 2: which was at home personal life and then at work
Speaker 2: as well doing a radio show as an outsider. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: really hard here. But I came for a reason and
Speaker 2: it changed my life in bigger ways and just about
Speaker 2: a radio show, and that I'll always be grateful for
Speaker 2: every single one of those hate emails. I'll always be
Speaker 2: thankful for I will.
Speaker 1: We will be back very soon with Christian talking about
Speaker 1: how he got to know Melbourne through Uber Drivers, how
Speaker 1: he gets on stuck when he has a bit of
Speaker 1: writer's block, and we'll be talking about life quakes and
Speaker 1: how to deal with them and the impact that they
Speaker 1: have on our relationships with those around us. Now, if
Speaker 1: you are not connected with me on the socials today,
Speaker 1: you might beg the day to do so, because I
Speaker 1: share a lot of really interesting content through a couple
Speaker 1: of my social networks. So firstly, you can find me
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn just search for my name amount the YMBA
Speaker 1: and say hi that you found me through the show.
Speaker 1: Or you can find me on Instagram at Amantha Ie.
Speaker 1: You right about getting to know Melbourne through Uber Drivers.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me how you did that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, obviously I had no car when we
Speaker 2: moved here, my wife and I and so I had
Speaker 2: to get to work every day and around the city,
Speaker 2: and so I'd use Uber a lot. And the great
Speaker 2: thing is those people are driving around a city all
Speaker 2: the time, they know all the suburbs, and so most
Speaker 2: people don't ever talk to them. They're staring down at
Speaker 2: their phones. I'm suddenly wide eyed. I was a sponge.
Speaker 2: I really wanted to get to know the city. The
Speaker 2: more I got to know it, the more I could.
Speaker 2: You have a better life on air and off air.
Speaker 2: You know what areas to go and take my kids
Speaker 2: to do I'm a wife to go and eat, or
Speaker 2: let's go over here. There's supposed to be a great
Speaker 2: Italian restaurant. This is where all the Italian community is about.
Speaker 2: The food here is amazing. There's the Greek one, the
Speaker 2: uber drivers. I would constantly say, what's this area, what's
Speaker 2: this area called, what's it known for? Where do you
Speaker 2: not like going? Where do you like going? Why do
Speaker 2: you think this monument? What do you think of that?
Speaker 2: What's the most popular place at the weekend? All this stuff,
Speaker 2: And I was constantly just taking it all on board,
Speaker 2: loaning the shorthand of a city in the UK. I
Speaker 2: just I'd had that I know the burroughs and the
Speaker 2: suburbs to make a joke about. In London, there's almost
Speaker 2: like a punchline. I didn't have that here, and I
Speaker 2: had to learn it as quickly as possible. And the
Speaker 2: Uber drivers will always be very, very grateful for they're
Speaker 2: up my spies. I've been spying on us all these years.
Speaker 1: I love that. Now I want to talk about creativity,
Speaker 1: and I want to know for you, how do you
Speaker 1: get your creative juices flowing?
Speaker 2: I do you know what I actually I hope you
Speaker 2: will find this interesting. I don't know, but I love
Speaker 2: talking about creativity because creativity isn't limited to someone like
Speaker 2: me who writes or talks or you know, stuff like
Speaker 2: that for a living, or comes up with ideas. It's
Speaker 2: actually creativity. Like a friend of mine is a carpenter,
Speaker 2: and he once made these friends of ours as a
Speaker 2: wedding present a four poster bed. He made that from
Speaker 2: wood and carved it all and bit by bit I
Speaker 2: would go around his garage and workshop and just see
Speaker 2: it looked like to me he hadn't made much progress,
Speaker 2: And then suddenly there was a bed, and I was
Speaker 2: genuinely right in all of his creativity, his focus, his craft.
Speaker 2: He's had to learn and master, get wrong, still get right,
Speaker 2: and that is creativity doing that, you know, It's like
Speaker 2: my plumber came round and I thought I would need
Speaker 2: a really big part that was going to cost thousands.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the last thing we need
Speaker 2: this year. I was like, now I know I can do.
Speaker 2: I can do an improvise. That's creativity. I think sometimes
Speaker 2: we overemphasize the sort of creative fields, you know, of
Speaker 2: writing and talking and comedy and stuff like that, and storytelling,
Speaker 2: and actually creativity is in bars. You hear it at barbecues.
Speaker 2: If there's a neighbor. A neighbor mind told me a
Speaker 2: funny story the other day. He told it so well
Speaker 2: in that exchange with the two of us creativity, that
Speaker 2: the choice and the words he had without maybe realizing
Speaker 2: it always just instinctive storyteller. So I enjoy finding creativity everywhere.
Speaker 2: You see it in nature. It's all around us. It
Speaker 2: is our nature. Everyone is creative.
Speaker 1: So what do you do like, Because you must experience
Speaker 1: times where you do get stuck or you've got the
Speaker 1: you know, metaphorical writer's block, what do you do to
Speaker 1: get unstuck?
Speaker 2: Stop looking directly at a blank piece of paper. It's
Speaker 2: too intimidating. I'll go for a walk. Then it's out
Speaker 2: of view. It's there, but it's out of view. The
Speaker 2: amount of I get a lot of ideas just going
Speaker 2: to walk in my dog, I talk to myself, you know,
Speaker 2: and our write down idea. I got a small team.
Speaker 2: I like working in a small team. I bounce off
Speaker 2: them Jack and Pats who do the show with me.
Speaker 2: They give me ideas. They might tell me story or
Speaker 2: just like I had an argument the other day about
Speaker 2: this or what is it in the supermarket? When you
Speaker 2: do that and I'm like, go, oh, I know what
Speaker 2: we can do with that. Oh, I've got it reminds
Speaker 2: me of so and so we could do this with it.
Speaker 2: So a very reactive, very reactive as well. Like I
Speaker 2: said about going through the listeners' emails, my job really
Speaker 2: is to pay attention. That's it. It literally is what
Speaker 2: we should all be doing. But I pay attention. So
Speaker 2: even if that's me yesterday and being crushed when I
Speaker 2: try and bond with my fifteen year old daughter and
Speaker 2: I mentioned a song that i'd heard was a really
Speaker 2: big hit on TikTok, and she just raised her eyebrows
Speaker 2: because teenagers are not there to validate you, and she
Speaker 2: just went, oh God, that came out like last year
Speaker 2: and I was shot down. She gave me nothing, and
Speaker 2: that again, I just got to pay attention to that.
Speaker 2: What is it you feel? I feel embarrassed, you know,
Speaker 2: I tried to bond with a teenager. It's so hard.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's to pay attention.
Speaker 1: After I read your book and I've you know, followed
Speaker 1: you on social media and you share a lot of
Speaker 1: personal stuff about yourself, which you know, particularly I think
Speaker 1: for a man, is fairly unusual. And you know, I
Speaker 1: was reflecting on just you know, the idea of how
Speaker 1: much we share about ourselves in the last twenty four
Speaker 1: hours because I'm doing this campaign with LinkedIn at the moment,
Speaker 1: called change Makers, and they emailed me yesterday and they said, hey,
Speaker 1: I know this wasn't on the on the kind of
Speaker 1: list of deliberables, but would you mind just writing a
Speaker 1: post for are You Okay? Day? Which is today? And
Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, yeah, sure, I'm so happy to do that.
Speaker 1: And I so sat down to write it yesterday afternoon
Speaker 1: and I'm like, like, I didn't want it to be
Speaker 1: you know, some generic like you know, ask someone if
Speaker 1: they're okay today. You know, the world doesn't need more
Speaker 1: of those posts. And I thought well, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I think the thing that I was thinking about is
Speaker 1: the last couple of years of my life have been
Speaker 1: quite quite challenging and stressful. So I separated from my
Speaker 1: husband two years ago by choice and became a single parent,
Speaker 1: and that has all sorts of challenges, and I sort
Speaker 1: of I was always very conscious in terms of who
Speaker 1: I bring to work. I try to be very open
Speaker 1: and you know, transparent and vulnerable with my team. But
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, like with some of
Speaker 1: the stresses I've had to deal with over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, it's like, well, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: need to treat them as a dumping ground for my stress,
Speaker 1: so i'd withhold a lot of the time. And so
Speaker 1: I sort of I wrote the post about you know,
Speaker 1: I guess I kind of, you know, part of me
Speaker 1: regrets maybe not being you know, more open and more
Speaker 1: vulnerable during the really tough times where I kind of
Speaker 1: chose not to share because I thought that's going to
Speaker 1: have a negative impact on the people around me. But
Speaker 1: instead I think maybe it created more distance. And I
Speaker 1: think about like the choices that you've made in terms
Speaker 1: of how much you share about yourself, and I want
Speaker 1: to know, how do you decide what's okay to share?
Speaker 1: And perhaps you know what you don't share.
Speaker 2: Yeah, once more, a brilliant question. And I would just
Speaker 2: say to you, just thank you for sharing. What you
Speaker 2: just did. Is that often when we're going through a
Speaker 2: really tough time, and that is I had this great
Speaker 2: phrase recently, life quake, an earthquake in our lives and
Speaker 2: that lovely life quake. Our lives will give us life quakes.
Speaker 2: They just will. That's just inevitable, what that is. We've
Speaker 2: all felt those already. You don't get to have a
Speaker 2: life without life quakes. And you've had a couple there after.
Speaker 2: When we're right in that, when we're right in it,
Speaker 2: we don't know we're in the middle of it. We
Speaker 2: don't know if we're near the end of it. And
Speaker 2: actually we don't have a very good connection to ourselves,
Speaker 2: do we. So it's really hard. If you haven't got
Speaker 2: a good connection to yourself and a good ongoing conversation,
Speaker 2: a kind one with yourself, there's no way you can
Speaker 2: have it with somebody else. So you were just struggling
Speaker 2: to get yourself of the day, let allowing it. Knowing
Speaker 2: how to open up a conversation with somebody, and you know,
Speaker 2: I get this at work as well. I used to
Speaker 2: think that being a team leader, which I am of
Speaker 2: my team, was about being superhuman and actually bringing you
Speaker 2: know the right time when it's appropriate. But vulnerability and
Speaker 2: honesty actually connect you to your team on a much
Speaker 2: deeper level than let's do this, let's do that. Here's
Speaker 2: the next big thing we're going to do. That's far
Speaker 2: more important. So yeah, those life quakes when you're in them,
Speaker 2: But in terms of what to share and how much
Speaker 2: I think sometimes, I mean, I did share in the
Speaker 2: book about the panic attacks and therapy, just so you understand,
Speaker 2: I'd never told anyone other than my wife about No
Speaker 2: one knew about that. My mom and dad didn't know.
Speaker 2: I had to tell them a week before the book
Speaker 2: came out. I hadn't told anyone in eight years. My
Speaker 2: best friend when he read the book, rang me in tears,
Speaker 2: going I knew we were hanging out. Then you could
Speaker 2: have said something I could have done. I could have done,
Speaker 2: but like you, in that moment, that life quake, I
Speaker 2: was terrified. I was gripping onto everything. And as a man,
Speaker 2: you know, no sex, no gender, has it easy in life.
Speaker 2: But as a man, I think we can all agree
Speaker 2: we're not raised to trust our emotions and to know
Speaker 2: how to share them. You're actually taught not to do that.
Speaker 2: It's dangerous. You can't you trust people with your emotions.
Speaker 2: They might use it against you, techning Mickey out of you,
Speaker 2: shame you and make you feel ashamed. So suddenly, when
Speaker 2: you do have a life quake, you actually haven't got
Speaker 2: a lot of the skills. You don't know. You feel
Speaker 2: like you're weak. I did. That's why I resisted going
Speaker 2: to therapy and actually getting help. And so the book
Speaker 2: came out. Really of my daughters start to have tough times,
Speaker 2: and my wife said, why don't you tell them, you know,
Speaker 2: about your panic attacks? And I, oh, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think they need to know that
Speaker 2: their dad's weak. And they went, well, what you're trying
Speaker 2: to tell them at the moment? You keep trying to
Speaker 2: tell them that it's human to struggle, which is what
Speaker 2: they were doing. And one day I was trying to
Speaker 2: connect with my daughters who was having a really tough
Speaker 2: time settling into a new school in here in Australia,
Speaker 2: and I was going, you know, it's and I was
Speaker 2: giving her the lecture and she just looked at the
Speaker 2: eye and said, what do you know? And so I
Speaker 2: should have said, I do know about my own, but
Speaker 2: my own story with this, it's not yours, but here's
Speaker 2: my I didn't. I kick quiet, and that's and I thought,
Speaker 2: do you know what I'm going to tell the story now?
Speaker 2: I'm not going to have in the shadows anymore. I
Speaker 2: need to share this with my kids. And it came
Speaker 2: through the conversations and what that brought us. That's when
Speaker 2: I start to think, well, maybe I'd been asking a
Speaker 2: couple of times, you should write a book about what
Speaker 2: it was like to come to Australia the side of
Speaker 2: the world, and start again, what do you write? And
Speaker 2: I'd resisted it because it felt pretty boring. That story,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it doesn't interest me. Now I had that, Oh,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to tell that story, I've got to
Speaker 2: take them back eight years to ha them panic attacks,
Speaker 2: because if I didn't have them, didn't get help, didn't
Speaker 2: pay attention to what was really going on, I'd lost
Speaker 2: my mojo and start asking questions, why have I lost
Speaker 2: my mojo? What would get it back? What am I
Speaker 2: really needing right now in my life, I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: come to Australia. And so that's why I wrote the book.
Speaker 2: I wanted to share it, and I was terrified about
Speaker 2: sharing it, and several times I said to my life,
Speaker 2: I can't. I'm not going to put the book out there.
Speaker 2: I really think I'm over sharing. I'm talking about therapy.
Speaker 2: I think the listeners are going to think I'm weak,
Speaker 2: you know. And I remember the week before the book
Speaker 2: came out, there was a profile in the newspaper on
Speaker 2: me and it mentioned anxiety in the headline, and I
Speaker 2: remember it was a Sunday. I remember throwing the newspaper
Speaker 2: at the floor and I started to cry. I was
Speaker 2: I felt ashamed. I'd used to seeing a picture of
Speaker 2: myself in the newspaper along the words with success or
Speaker 2: you know, something like that. I didn't want to. I
Speaker 2: couldn't see myself like that was Oh God, what have
Speaker 2: I done? And she was forty eight hours before the
Speaker 2: book coming out, and my wife looked to me like,
Speaker 2: this is the start of it. The book yet strap
Speaker 2: in and I remember, I, you know, almost starting to
Speaker 2: have a full blown panic attack. And I had to
Speaker 2: go back and do my breathing and paying attention. You're
Speaker 2: sharing the story. You can't control how it's going to
Speaker 2: be received. And I remember I found the first couple
Speaker 2: of interviews, it's all what anyone want to talk about.
Speaker 2: You've read that. It's only about ten percent of the
Speaker 2: book about the panic attacks at the beginning, and then
Speaker 2: we'd go on to the rest of it. But it's
Speaker 2: all anyone want to talk about, and it kept almost
Speaker 2: bringing them on going back into it. But then something
Speaker 2: really life changing happened, and I would get the I
Speaker 2: was getting these emails and people who were stunned that
Speaker 2: I'd been that honest in it. And all I was
Speaker 2: getting from men and women was I had no idea,
Speaker 2: here's my story or thank you for saying that. I
Speaker 2: just presume that people like you don't get it. You know.
Speaker 2: It was a story of hope mine and I guess
Speaker 2: we need that in the world, don't we. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I was terrified of sharing that. I'm used to sharing
Speaker 2: stories where I can control where people laugh. This is
Speaker 2: one I couldn't and that really that was a radical,
Speaker 2: massive shift for me. I was, ah, yeah, so I
Speaker 2: do know what it's like to risk yourself and sometimes
Speaker 2: when we risk ourselves, what actually comes back is it's
Speaker 2: greater connection, far greater connection. And actually, I think we
Speaker 2: connect to each other when we hear stories of overcoming
Speaker 2: tough stuff and even just being honest about it and
Speaker 2: saying I went through this, because all people really feel
Speaker 2: is I, oh you too. Everyone struggling in their own
Speaker 2: different way, in some shape or form. It's what it
Speaker 2: is to be a human, to be honest. So it's
Speaker 2: been life changing, really has in small ways, you know,
Speaker 2: But those are the important ways, aren't they? In life?
Speaker 2: The small ways.
Speaker 1: Something that caught my attention in your book that just
Speaker 1: popped back into my mind is the death watch. You
Speaker 1: were a death watch for three days, and I have
Speaker 1: to ask you about, like why and what happened.
Speaker 2: Yes, death watch is a watch and you are put
Speaker 2: into it your age, your your activity levels, and it
Speaker 2: crunches an algorithm and lets you know roughly when you're
Speaker 2: going to die, and it then starts counting down backwards
Speaker 2: until your death. And so you look at it and
Speaker 2: you go, oh my god, time sticking away. I already
Speaker 2: lost five minutes doing this. I thought it would make
Speaker 2: me stop wasting time and be a wake up call.
Speaker 2: All it does is it's stain traffic. Looking at it
Speaker 2: going three minutes closer to death. It raised my stress
Speaker 2: was it was bringing me closer to death, closer than
Speaker 2: the countdown. I remember. It became very problematic in my marriage.
Speaker 2: My wife will be talking to me, you know, talk
Speaker 2: about some arguments she'd had with her friend Marie, and
Speaker 2: I'd be looking at a death watch, going this is
Speaker 2: another flip in five minutes until I die, and my
Speaker 2: wife would get really annoyed going that watch, and then
Speaker 2: one day she just stamped on it. She broke it.
Speaker 2: One of the best things, many great things. My wife
Speaker 2: is done when we're breaking that death watch. What a
Speaker 2: crazy idea for someone like me that overthinks anyway.
Speaker 1: Totally, Oh my gosh. Now I did. When I was
Speaker 1: preparing for this interview, like two months ago, because we
Speaker 1: were meant to do it a little hot. I was.
Speaker 1: School was open because we weren't in lockdown in Melbourne
Speaker 1: like we both are now. And when I would drive
Speaker 1: my daughter to school she's seven and a half, I'd
Speaker 1: put on your show, The Christian O'Connell Show on Gold
Speaker 1: one O four and I explained to Frankie, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be interviewing this guy, like what questions do you
Speaker 1: think I should ask him? And at that point in time,
Speaker 1: I think a song from Trolls came on. It might
Speaker 1: have been like a Cyndi law for song that's in Trolls.
Speaker 1: And so Frankie's question for you is do you like
Speaker 1: the movie Trolls?
Speaker 2: I do. I love kids movies. They're beautiful, aren't they?
Speaker 2: The ones we grew up with? And then the ones
Speaker 2: that come along now, the ones that come along now
Speaker 2: are masterful bits of storytelling. I love the movie Trolls.
Speaker 2: I would like to ask your daughter why if she
Speaker 2: had to tell me one line, one sentence why she
Speaker 2: loves that movie, what would she say? I'd love to
Speaker 2: know what it is she really loves about it.
Speaker 1: I will ask Kara and I.
Speaker 2: If you could then report back to me. I do
Speaker 2: like the movie Trills, assure her.
Speaker 1: Now Christian for people that want to consume more of
Speaker 1: what you're doing and get the hands on. No one
Speaker 1: listens to your dad's show, which I cannot recommend highly enough,
Speaker 1: does thank you. It's just it's so brave and inspiring
Speaker 1: and like it's grip. It's a griffing read I was
Speaker 1: just completely enthralled. What is the best way for people
Speaker 1: to do all of that?
Speaker 2: I will say that I also say to you, I
Speaker 2: think that there is a great story and book in you.
Speaker 2: I'll say this to you as a bit of dispersonal advice.
Speaker 2: Whether or not you want to share this is entirely
Speaker 2: up to you that feeling. When you're worried that you're
Speaker 2: over sharing, you're not. You're actually putting into the world
Speaker 2: what's really really needed from you. Often what we are
Speaker 2: worried and think we need to hold back is actually
Speaker 2: a thing that's most it's most magical about us, that
Speaker 2: people really really really need more than any other part
Speaker 2: of us. So I don't know what that might stir
Speaker 2: up in you or nothing, probably, but just hearing your
Speaker 2: story what you've been through, I'd like knowing, Yeah, that's scripping.
Speaker 2: I'd like to know about what how are you balancing
Speaker 2: that and work and what you do Now, that's a
Speaker 2: book I'd love to read where you talked about that.
Speaker 2: That'd be really interesting.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Christian. I will take that. I'm actually working
Speaker 1: on a book for Penguin at the moment. It is
Speaker 1: certainly has nothing to do with that, but maybe that'll
Speaker 1: be the next book. Maybe I'll pitch that to them.
Speaker 1: So Christian back to you. How can people connect with you?
Speaker 2: Oh, you can find me hanging around working around on Instagram,
Speaker 2: mister Christian O'Connell. You can know where you find your
Speaker 2: radio shows or podcast. You can google the book, you
Speaker 2: can buy it in the shops, and you can get
Speaker 2: it online book Topia, Amazon, support your local bookshops, magical places. Yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you very much for the chance to have a chat. Really,
Speaker 2: and just I've really enjoyed talking to you. I loved
Speaker 2: all your questions.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That's high praise coming from you. Well,
Speaker 1: I've just I've love this time to get the Christian.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I'm blessed. It's been the high light of my day.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hello there, I hope you liked my chat with Christian. Now,
Speaker 1: if you know someone else that you think would enjoy it,
Speaker 1: I'll get something out of it. Why not share this
Speaker 1: episode with them? That is one of the ways that
Speaker 1: How I Work has now grown to over two point
Speaker 1: five million downloads.
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 1: If you are someone that has shared How I Work
Speaker 1: with someone else in your life. Now, if you are
Speaker 1: not a subscriber or follower of How I Work, hit
Speaker 1: subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to this, because next
Speaker 1: week I'm so excited to share my interview with Leanne Moriarty,
Speaker 1: the best selling author of Big Little Eyes and Nine
Speaker 1: Perfect Strangers. And as you may or may not know,
Speaker 1: in October, How I Work is focusing on wellness at work,
Speaker 1: and with Leanne, we'll be talking about Tashi deals with
Speaker 1: that voice in her head telling her that she is
Speaker 1: not good enough. How I Work is produced by Inventium
Speaker 1: with production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for
Speaker 1: this episode was Jennakoda, and thank you to Martin Nimba
Speaker 1: who does the audio mix for every episode and makes
Speaker 1: everything sound awesome. See you next time