Speaker 1: Have you ever been online and wanted to get involved
Speaker 1: in a discussion. Maybe you comment and click post without
Speaker 1: even thinking about it. For the next morning, you wake
Speaker 1: up to a barrage of responses. Things have gotten totally.
Speaker 2: Out of hand.
Speaker 1: Should you jump in there and start defending yourself? Or
Speaker 1: maybe you could have spent more time considering what you're
Speaker 1: going to say before you posted.
Speaker 2: Or is no response the best response?
Speaker 1: The comedian, podcast and radio host and writer Michelle Laurie
Speaker 1: this just.
Speaker 2: Used to be part of her job.
Speaker 1: One night, she would make a comment on TV and
Speaker 1: then afterwards deal with the fallout on social media, sometimes
Speaker 1: for weeks. Not long ago, Michelle decided to walk away
Speaker 1: from this side of being in the media and totally
Speaker 1: changed her online presence. Michelle is also a long term
Speaker 1: devotee of Buddhism, which informs a lot of her work
Speaker 1: and life practices. So what are some of the most
Speaker 1: impactful practices from Buddhism that Michelle uses and how can
Speaker 1: Buddhism give you a happier life? And how has Michelle
Speaker 1: mastered the art of making new friends as an adult.
Speaker 1: I'm doctor Amantha Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
Speaker 1: founder of behavioral Science consultancy invent him and this is
Speaker 1: how I work a show about how to help you
Speaker 1: do your best work. Michelle now spends a lot of
Speaker 1: her time elbow deep in true crime stories and running
Speaker 1: her own production.
Speaker 2: Company, Smart Fella.
Speaker 3: So, after so.
Speaker 1: Many years on air with all the big broadcasters, how
Speaker 1: did Michelle approach starting Smart Fella?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I asked other people how to do that. That's sort
Speaker 4: of my modus operande. I always just ask other people
Speaker 4: who seem to be doing it well, or I try,
Speaker 4: and you know, at least watch other people who seem
Speaker 4: to be doing something well when I'm trying something new.
Speaker 3: And I have some friends, some young.
Speaker 4: Women who were producers on the project who have since
Speaker 4: left there and started their own production company.
Speaker 3: Their company is.
Speaker 4: Called Clothesline, and yeah, I went and asked them, how
Speaker 4: do you do that? And they said, oh, well, this
Speaker 4: is how we did it, and I sort of followed
Speaker 4: their lead and it's working.
Speaker 3: And I work with them now a lot as well.
Speaker 4: We sort of work together on different things because they
Speaker 4: mainly do visuals and I mainly do audio.
Speaker 3: So we work it out.
Speaker 1: And what made you decide to take the planet, Because
Speaker 1: that can be a really scary thing to do.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: The thing with me is I'm sort of always waiting
Speaker 4: for somebody else to do the hard stuff for me,
Speaker 4: and it never happens. It's just the story of my life,
Speaker 4: and I end up having to do it myself. And
Speaker 4: I for years have thought, well, I'm obviously really good
Speaker 4: at podcasting and making a podcast, because this podcast, Australian
Speaker 4: True Crime in particular, is really successful and it's been
Speaker 4: consistently one of the most downloaded podcasts in the country
Speaker 4: since twenty seventeen. And I just make it myself, like
Speaker 4: I don't have a radio network behind me or a
Speaker 4: newspaper or anything like that. And if you look at
Speaker 4: like the top ten podcasts, all the others are made
Speaker 4: by huge corporations, you know.
Speaker 3: And I kept.
Speaker 4: Thinking over the years, somebody's got offer me a job. Surely,
Speaker 4: like all these networks kept popping up, and I thought,
Speaker 4: surely one of them's going to say you should come
Speaker 4: and work for us, because you're obviously really good at this.
Speaker 4: And the reason, honestly that I'm good at it is
Speaker 4: because I've worked for networks. I've worked for the biggest
Speaker 4: radio networks in the country for a long time, so
Speaker 4: I've learned from the best people.
Speaker 3: It's not that I'm an.
Speaker 4: Incredible prodigy, like I've just like really experienced and I've
Speaker 4: learned from great people. In the end, I just I
Speaker 4: guess I just had that COVID moment that I think
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of us had where I
Speaker 4: felt like, why not do something extreme when I do
Speaker 4: something crazy? And I think it was that in the end,
Speaker 4: I just wanted to break out last year and just
Speaker 4: do something.
Speaker 3: It seemed like the time.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Now I know that Buddhism plays a big role in
Speaker 1: your life, and I want to know what practical ways
Speaker 1: have you changed your life to focus on Buddhism.
Speaker 4: Well, everything I do, hopefully the way I do everything
Speaker 4: is influenced by Buddhism. And that's just about trying to
Speaker 4: take a moment before I do everything and not react
Speaker 4: out of emotion, and yeah, try to take a moment
Speaker 4: to think about why I'm doing what I'm doing and
Speaker 4: not react out of anger or greed or jealousy or
Speaker 4: any of those sort of negative emotions, and try to
Speaker 4: be acting always for a good reason, a sense of reason,
Speaker 4: or I mean, obviously I don't achieve that all the time.
Speaker 4: But that's the aim, yeah, is to be doing what
Speaker 4: I'm doing for a good reason and not just because
Speaker 4: of my ego or you know something like that.
Speaker 3: So that's the aim.
Speaker 4: Don't start a production company because I'm my ego is
Speaker 4: bruised because I haven't been hired to run podcast one
Speaker 4: or something.
Speaker 1: So what are it like some of the rituals or
Speaker 1: habits that you've taken on, Like as a result of
Speaker 1: studying Buddhism.
Speaker 4: I chant in moments when I need to to center myself,
Speaker 4: calm myself, meditation, try to meditate every day.
Speaker 2: And what does meditation look like for you?
Speaker 1: Because I know, like there's so many different types and
Speaker 1: ways of doing it.
Speaker 3: Buddh's meditation is pretty straightforward.
Speaker 4: It's about sitting still and allowing thoughts to move in
Speaker 4: and out of your mind without judgment, is the way
Speaker 4: we describe it. So allowing thoughts, I mean, ideally you
Speaker 4: want to try and keep your mind free from thoughts,
Speaker 4: but when they pop into your mind when I'm sitting
Speaker 4: still and concentrating on my breathing or whatever, when a
Speaker 4: thought pops into my mind, when I suddenly think.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's right, I'm supposed to be speaking to a mansa.
Speaker 4: Ideally I will not have an opinion about that.
Speaker 2: And how do you do that? That sounds so hard
Speaker 2: your practice?
Speaker 3: And that's you know, we have a cute saying.
Speaker 4: That's why it's called a practice and not a perfect
Speaker 4: you know, I have a meditation practice. So it's just practice.
Speaker 4: It's just it's just starting a habit. It's a habit.
Speaker 4: And it's like, you know, you you can develop a
Speaker 4: habit to drink eight glasses of water a day, Well,
Speaker 4: that takes time. You have to work at a habit
Speaker 4: of meditating. It's hard, it takes practice, you get better
Speaker 4: at it. And also, no one's perfect at it. I
Speaker 4: think the problem with meditation is a lot of people
Speaker 4: think everyone else is doing it really well, everyone.
Speaker 3: Else is better at it. No, that's what meditation is
Speaker 3: is failing at it constantly. That's what it is. You know,
Speaker 3: monks fail at it.
Speaker 4: If you listen to two monks talk about their training,
Speaker 4: it's all about that.
Speaker 3: It's all about getting in trouble for being bad at meditation,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: I find that so encouraging.
Speaker 1: I've tried to develop a meditation have it numerous times,
Speaker 1: like I feel I feel like I should given a
Speaker 1: host of podcast about work and productivity.
Speaker 2: But I've just failed miserably every time.
Speaker 3: That's it. You weren't you weren't failing, you were meditating.
Speaker 3: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: I've had that One of the first Buddhist teachings you
Speaker 1: put into practice was the idea of letting other people
Speaker 1: go first. Can you tell me about that, like what
Speaker 1: that means and how that in practice?
Speaker 4: It's a great one. It's that simple. Just just let
Speaker 4: other people go first. I mean everywhere in traffic, when
Speaker 4: you're walking through doors, everywhere you go, when you're getting
Speaker 4: on an escalator, when you're getting in a lift, just
Speaker 4: the simple act of standing back and gesturing for other
Speaker 4: people to go in front of you is a really
Speaker 4: great exercising humility and it just makes people happy. It's
Speaker 4: a great habit to get into putting other people first.
Speaker 4: It's just a good practice, I think, and it kind
Speaker 4: of sets you up, sets up your intention, and I
Speaker 4: think it carries through in other parts of your life.
Speaker 4: And it's a simple. I mean, as I say, every
Speaker 4: habit's tricky to start to remember, but it's a good
Speaker 4: one too that you can implement every day and you
Speaker 4: can get practicing really really quickly easily.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: One of the hats that you wear is as a columnist,
Speaker 1: and I got to say, I love the column that
Speaker 1: you write for Sunday Life when you are in there,
Speaker 1: which is every few weeks.
Speaker 4: I am very well behind at the moment, but yees.
Speaker 1: You, well, please catch up because I love reading what
Speaker 1: you write.
Speaker 2: I want to know where where do you get your
Speaker 2: ideas from?
Speaker 3: Well, it's uh.
Speaker 4: Now that I'm not in breakfast radio, it should be easier,
Speaker 4: but no, I'm behind. I just try to think about
Speaker 4: life in its very simplest state, try not to get
Speaker 4: too complicated about it. Try to think about the minutia,
Speaker 4: you know. I think that's where it's sort of at
Speaker 4: its most fun and at its most relatable. And I
Speaker 4: think that's where it's at its most joyful is when
Speaker 4: you can really read a column and go oh gosh,
Speaker 4: yes and feel like, yeah, you get it, you know it,
Speaker 4: and maybe you hadn't thought of it that way, or
Speaker 4: maybe you hadn't thought of it that deeply, or you know.
Speaker 3: They're my favorite things to read about.
Speaker 4: And even that emotional Openness column was about I felt like, oh,
Speaker 4: maybe you are that personal.
Speaker 3: Maybe you know a person like that, or maybe you're going.
Speaker 4: To read it and go, oh my god, what a
Speaker 4: freaks she is, or you know, like just But also
Speaker 4: that column was about making friends as an adult, and
Speaker 4: I wanted to because a lot of adults say it's
Speaker 4: it's impossible, and there's a lot of loneliness around, and
Speaker 4: I wanted to just encourage people to not think that way,
Speaker 4: to just be more open.
Speaker 1: I must say, I do love the idea of making
Speaker 1: new friends as adults, because it's something that so many
Speaker 1: people struggle with. So what are you consciously or even
Speaker 1: unconsciously doing when you're forming new friends as an adult
Speaker 1: saying yes?
Speaker 2: Tell me about that?
Speaker 4: Just saying yes. I just say yes. I say yes
Speaker 4: to invitations, I say yes to I just I'm out
Speaker 4: and about and having kids and having my kids go
Speaker 4: start their little lives, their little social lives was such
Speaker 4: a great experience for me. And I must say that
Speaker 4: when they were first born, I was I said to
Speaker 4: another lady, oh God, I'm not looking forward to them
Speaker 4: going to school and having to hang out with the other.
Speaker 3: Moms and and she said to me, Nah, you don't
Speaker 3: get it.
Speaker 4: Those women will save your life so often, and I
Speaker 4: didn't get it because from the minute they went to daycare,
Speaker 4: like three year old kinder and I met this group
Speaker 4: of mums and then my kids are now almost twelve,
Speaker 4: and it's the same group of mums and they are
Speaker 4: my life. They are my everything. It is so much
Speaker 4: about just saying yes and just being open to it.
Speaker 4: And you know, you meet people who parrot those Seinfeld
Speaker 4: lines all the time, like I'm not looking for friends
Speaker 4: and I have no vacancies and all that, and I'm
Speaker 4: like god like that.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't be like that.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's so many great people, and I meet
Speaker 4: great people who are so much younger than me every day,
Speaker 4: so much older than me.
Speaker 3: Every day.
Speaker 4: I have friends, you know, ranging from the early twenties
Speaker 4: to their eighties.
Speaker 3: Like, don't be like that. You're missing out on incredible
Speaker 3: people and experience and knowledge, wisdom, you know.
Speaker 1: Now, I want to talk about social media and what's
Speaker 1: your relationship with social media?
Speaker 4: Like these days, Oh, I don't participate much. I love
Speaker 4: a bit of Insta and I just sort of crept
Speaker 4: back onto Insta not long ago. But then I was
Speaker 4: going to say I had a bit of drama this morning.
Speaker 4: But I think I've smoothed it over. But it's like
Speaker 4: the thing is, you know, we all look at the
Speaker 4: same thing, but we see it differently, right, So you
Speaker 4: know we can you know, I can make a joke
Speaker 4: about a post and then sure enough some women.
Speaker 3: Will go, oh, Michelle, I wish you wouldn't be man
Speaker 3: because and it's like a year joking like how is that?
Speaker 3: Oh my god? I mean that's that's where it's really dull.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't like social media at all, and I think unfortunately,
Speaker 4: I think the problem with it is that it's really
Speaker 4: stifling for creatives, for actual creatives and performers. And what
Speaker 4: I find is that young performers in particular, who've just
Speaker 4: grown up with it, just just factor it in all
Speaker 4: the time in their creative decisions, which is really sad
Speaker 4: because they're always saying to me things like, oh, I'd
Speaker 4: better not do that, because then they'll say this, and
Speaker 4: they'll say that, and they'll accuse me of this, and
Speaker 4: they'll accuse me of that. And when they say they
Speaker 4: they mean people on social media, they mean people on Twitter,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh god, can you just forget about
Speaker 4: that for one minute and just write the show, Like,
Speaker 4: just can we just get through the creative process?
Speaker 3: Can we just write it?
Speaker 4: Can we just you know, think about what it is
Speaker 4: you trying to create without thinking about these voices coming
Speaker 4: out of your phone that may or may not happen.
Speaker 4: It's very stifling creatively.
Speaker 3: So you know, I don't read it. I'm not on it.
Speaker 4: I'm just back to creating what I create. I make podcasts,
Speaker 4: I write books, and I don't ever go anywhere to
Speaker 4: find out what anyone.
Speaker 3: Thinks about it.
Speaker 4: Basically, I'm creating like it's nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: So there.
Speaker 1: We will be back with Michelle soon where she's going
Speaker 1: to share some surprising parenting hacks and how she finds
Speaker 1: the stories to cover in her top ranking true crime podcast.
Speaker 2: But before we get.
Speaker 1: To that, if you're not following me on some of
Speaker 1: the social channels, why not start because I post a
Speaker 1: lot of other content through them. So you can find
Speaker 1: me on LinkedIn to search Amantha Inver and you can
Speaker 1: find me there and let me know that you found
Speaker 1: me through the podcast, or you can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Amantha and also on Instagram at Amantha. I.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about true crime, and I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: how do you find the stories that you want to
Speaker 1: explore and report on.
Speaker 3: They mostly come to us now.
Speaker 4: They are through Facebook or through the website. It's mostly
Speaker 4: people either listeners or they're all listeners, but either people saying,
Speaker 4: I'm really interested in this case, could you I'd like
Speaker 4: to know more about that. So we'll normally get like
Speaker 4: a lot of listeners saying that they want to know
Speaker 4: more about a certain case, or it's people saying, this
Speaker 4: is my case and I would like to talk to
Speaker 4: you about it.
Speaker 3: This has happened in my family. Oh, this happened to me.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's how they mostly come now, which is
Speaker 4: great for many reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about in the early days where that wasn't happening.
Speaker 3: Well, then it was.
Speaker 4: It was really a matter of us just talking about
Speaker 4: In those days, Emily and I spent a lot more
Speaker 4: time together and we just talked about things that had
Speaker 4: always fascinated us, and one thing would lead to another,
Speaker 4: and yeah, we'd just kick around ideas, or we'd read
Speaker 4: a book, or there'd be a new book out or
Speaker 4: something like that. You know, we seem to have this
Speaker 4: backlog in our minds of stories that we'd always been
Speaker 4: really fascinated by. Yeah, but I mean that was twenty
Speaker 4: seventeen when we started, and it's a weekly podcast, so yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of I think we're up to like
Speaker 4: two hundred episode two hundred and seventeen or something that
Speaker 4: I just uploaded. So yeah, that was not time ago,
Speaker 4: but so luckily people are coming to us now. But yeah,
Speaker 4: you do get on a bit of a jag where suddenly,
Speaker 4: like at the moment, we're on a bit of a
Speaker 4: cybercrime jag.
Speaker 3: We're sort of one thing.
Speaker 4: Leads to another and it sparks ideas and different people
Speaker 4: pop up from it from that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and how do you find information on the cases?
Speaker 4: Well, usually, you know, the case comes first, the idea,
Speaker 4: and then we go researching. We'll read coroner's findings, we'll
Speaker 4: read sentencing remarks, we read a lot of court documents.
Speaker 4: We actually go and get those those documents. We've got
Speaker 4: a lot of good contacts now, so we we might
Speaker 4: talk to the investigating officer and oftentimes they'll still have
Speaker 4: some good documents, they might have their brief of evidence. Still,
Speaker 4: you'd be amazed what they keep. The homicide detectives, they
Speaker 4: keep a lot of their documents from back in the day.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: We tend to rather than just read media reports, we
Speaker 4: tend to actually go and get the official documentation and
Speaker 4: read that for ourselves. Family members send amazing things. I've
Speaker 4: had family members send me autopsy reports.
Speaker 1: What makes a true crime story like the right kind
Speaker 1: of story to delve into?
Speaker 4: For me personally, I'm always fascinated by systems that have failed,
Speaker 4: like social systems. I'm always fascinated by a story in
Speaker 4: which you know, the offender has slipped through the net
Speaker 4: of let's say, the mental health system or the family
Speaker 4: court system, or you know. We have in Australia very
Speaker 4: clear how do I describe it? We have really clear
Speaker 4: data that shows how young men in particular can move
Speaker 4: through a set of institutions in Australia and become increasingly
Speaker 4: disconnected from society. They can move through the sort of
Speaker 4: family court system. They can be the kinds of kids
Speaker 4: who are in homes that are very dangerous homes where
Speaker 4: they're subjected to violence and neglect at home, where they
Speaker 4: come to the attention of the Department of Human Services
Speaker 4: when they're really little. And these are the sorts of
Speaker 4: kids who may or may not be even taken out
Speaker 4: of their family home, but are monitored very closely, and
Speaker 4: then those kids can oftentimes end up in juvenile detention,
Speaker 4: so they can go from being the kids that we're
Speaker 4: most worried about to being the kids that we're most
Speaker 4: afraid of really really quickly, and then from that point
Speaker 4: they can end up in adult detention in prison, and
Speaker 4: there are some really clear like physiological issues associated with
Speaker 4: that in terms of brain development. So you know, those
Speaker 4: are the cases that I'm really interested and that's always
Speaker 4: been the case.
Speaker 3: If you look back at the really.
Speaker 4: Violent offenders from the seventies and eighties, like the Chopper
Speaker 4: Reads and the Mister Renter kills and all of those
Speaker 4: those guys, those hit men from back in the day,
Speaker 4: they all went through youth detention as well, and they
Speaker 4: all came through very similar conditions as well.
Speaker 3: So there's nothing new about that now.
Speaker 1: The final thing I want to talk about is parenting,
Speaker 1: because you've got twins else.
Speaker 2: I remember when my.
Speaker 1: Daughter was three months old and I took her to
Speaker 1: sleep school to teach us both how to sleep really,
Speaker 1: and there was one woman that had twins, and I
Speaker 1: just remember thinking, how is she actually surviving this.
Speaker 2: So I want to know, like, your twins are, how.
Speaker 3: Old they are? Eleven? Eleven and a.
Speaker 1: Half, eleven and a half, So tell me what a
Speaker 1: sum of the parenting hacks that you have found most
Speaker 1: effective to managing life with twins.
Speaker 4: Oh again, I would not nominate myself as an expert,
Speaker 4: but I think the thing with twins for me is
Speaker 4: that the poor things they just they just don't have
Speaker 4: a choice but to be good.
Speaker 3: There was just no option.
Speaker 4: They could never be spoilt, They could never I mean
Speaker 4: I could never even carry them around really because there
Speaker 4: was always another kid. I could never indulge them because
Speaker 4: there was another kid. They just spent their whole babyhoods
Speaker 4: hearing the word.
Speaker 1: Wait, are there any tricks that you have found effective
Speaker 1: to just taking the pressure off yourself as a mum?
Speaker 3: Well, just taking the pressure off myself.
Speaker 4: As a mum, I mean really that simple. Well that's again,
Speaker 4: that's just the bood is you know, talking is just
Speaker 4: do it. I mean, the only thing that's putting pressure
Speaker 4: on you as you The only thing that's real is
Speaker 4: your reaction to everything. That is the only thing that's
Speaker 4: really happening. There is no pressure. What is the pressure.
Speaker 1: Such such a nice thought to finish on, Michelle, because
Speaker 1: when you say that, you say that's that sounds like
Speaker 1: you're going mm hmmm, nice thoughts Not for.
Speaker 2: Me, No, no, no, I do mean that genuinely. My
Speaker 2: final final.
Speaker 1: Question, Michelle, is for people that want to consume more
Speaker 1: of what you are putting out into the world, what
Speaker 1: is the best way for people to do that?
Speaker 4: Well, now there's the True Crime Australian True Crime podcast,
Speaker 4: and there's well, yes, there is that, And there's a
Speaker 4: book coming out called CSI Told You Lies, which I
Speaker 4: love because it's about the people who do It's about
Speaker 4: forensic pathologists and they do the autopsies and I mean
Speaker 4: they're just the most beautiful people. And I know it
Speaker 4: sounds weird. Everyone always goes, why would you do that
Speaker 4: there's a job. Well, they do it because they can
Speaker 4: and because it's like their public service. And you must
Speaker 4: read it because you'll realize, God, what beautiful people they are.
Speaker 4: And the families of the victims are participated in the
Speaker 4: book as well, so there's some beautiful, beautiful people in
Speaker 4: the book. And there's also some books on Buddhism as well.
Speaker 4: If you're interested Buddhism for breakups seems to be the
Speaker 4: one that everyone likes the most, so you don't even
Speaker 4: have to be breaking up to read that one.
Speaker 3: It's just about.
Speaker 4: Accepting, preventative, accepting that we all change, you know, when
Speaker 4: you go you're not the person I'm married, it's about going, oh,
Speaker 4: that's right, you're not meant to be.
Speaker 3: We're all meant to change. It's okay.
Speaker 1: Basically I haven't read that one, but as a divorcee,
Speaker 1: I feel like I should put it on my book list.
Speaker 3: Perfect. It'll make you stop hating your ex.
Speaker 1: Excellent Well, Michelle, it has been an absolute joy talking
Speaker 1: to you. I will link to all those things in
Speaker 1: the show notes and thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you girl. Bye.
Speaker 1: Hey there, that is it for today's show. Now, if
Speaker 1: you are not following or subscribing to How I Work,
Speaker 1: you might want to hit follow or subscribe wherever you're
Speaker 1: listening to this from because next week I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to share my interview with Oliver Berkman, who is a
Speaker 1: writer and columnist for the Guardian, and he thinks a
Speaker 1: lot about time and time management, and we get into
Speaker 1: a completely different diff to think about time and how
Speaker 1: you manage it in next week's show. How I Work
Speaker 1: is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: The producer for this episode was Jenna Coder, and thank
Speaker 1: you to Martin Nimba who did the audio mix and
Speaker 1: makes everything sound better that it would have otherwise. See
Speaker 1: you next time.