Human Cogs

New episode of @human.cogs with @jacintaparsons - LISTEN NOW ▶️🎧 What if ageing wasn’t something to fear but something to finally - fiercely - embrace? Jacinta Parsons is an @abcinmelbourne broadcaster, writer, public speaker and newly minted Doctor 👩🏼‍🎓. She has lived with Crohn’s disease for decades, navigated divorce, faced chronic illness and devastating loss, and has now come through the other side, not diminished but radically empowered. For her latest book, ‘A Wisdom of Age’, Jacinta interviewed women across Australia about the experience of ageing, and captured what we can learn from them to boldly rewrite the story of the second half of our lives. In this episode of @human.cogs podcast we talk with Jacinta about the hardwon learnings and unbridled freedoms that can come with ageing: the shedding of “good girl” rules, the cultivation of our wilder versions of self and how life’s fractures and fragilities can also be surprising openings to new identities and big opportunities in the world. We talk about internalised ageism and the stories women are told about their bodies. We talk about what chronic illness teaches you about control, surrender and what actually matters. We talk about the difference between loneliness and solitude, and why learning to be happily alone with yourself might be one of the most important things you can do. And mostly we talk about WISDOM - what it really means, how you cultivate it, and why the most interesting chapters of your life might be the ones you haven’t written yet. So pour yourself a cuppa or take a long walk under the bright sun or stars or lie your good self down and listen to this absolute wisdom of age from the delightful Jacinta Parsons.🤗 GUEST: Jacinta Parsons Co-hosts @abcinmelbourne ‘The Friday Revue’ with @briannankervis and presents ABC ‘Victorian Saturday Mornings’. BOOK: A Wisdom Of Age @harpercollinsaustralia WEBSITE: JacintaParsons.com HOSTS: @madeleinegrummet and @sabinaread PRODUCER: Audio wizard @darylmissen LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via LINK IN BIO 👆🏽or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧

It’s day one after the year just done. A year that held extraordinary triumphs and unimaginable tragedies, daring feats and tiny joys, global conflicts and grieving communities, unbridled laughter and deepest loss. We started @human.cogs podcast to capture all of this - to sit with remarkable people sharing raw and powerful stories about what it means to be human, to lean right into the candid conversations we all need to have, to explore universal human truths, and to get way beneath the skin of things. This Summer (in Australia at least!) - that glorious pocket of the year where life slows just enough for you to finally take stock and catch your breath 🙏🏼- to keep you company, we’ve curated a Summer Encore Series of some of our favourite #HumanCogs episodes: conversations with guests we love, and hope you will too. Across the Series you’ll hear from inspiring, entertaining humans full of heart and soul, exploring everything from health, relationships, separation, leadership and change, to business, deep listening, ADHD, infidelity and mental health. Some are household names like Grace Tame, Sarah Wilson, Stan Grant, Hugh Sheridan, Bernard Salt and Tarang Chawla. Others are “extraordinary ordinaries” whose stories and insights might just leave you thinking (and feeling) a little differently about life and how to human well … we are all works in progress.▶️ So settle in, stretch out on your banana lounge, sink into the bath or take us along on your meandering sandy walks and holiday drives.🏝️ Wherever you’re listening from, we hope these conversations offer you real connection, ignite your curiosity and give you a moment of human nourishment this Summer.☀️ All @human.cogs Summer Series episodes will feature in our stories every day so keep an eye out😊 And as always, we love all your feedback and we especially love you sharing selfies of you listening to your fave Human Cogs conversations! ▶️ 🎧☀️ Happy holidays all - here’s to more tiny acts of kindness and to humaning well in this wide world.🙏🏼🌏 Mads + Sabina ❌❌

New episode of @human.cogs with @alidaddo - LISTEN NOW ▶️🎧 For anyone who grew up in the late 80s and 90s, you will surely know the name Alison Brahe-Daddo! Remember that ‘Dolly’ magazine cover? That smile? The sun-streaked hair? Ali was the quintessential Aussie golden girl we all had pinned up on our bedroom walls and plastered to our school lockers. Fast-forward to today and @alidaddo is a mum of three 🧑‍🧒‍🧒, fitness teacher 🧘🏻‍♂️, birth assistant 👶🏼, co-host of the hit podcast ‘The Heart Of It’ ♥️and is the best-selling author of ‘Queen Menopause: Finding Your Majesty in the Mayhem’.📕 In this episode of @human.cogs Ali opens up about her life’s wild ride: from the brutal world of modelling and people-pleasing to three decades of marriage to @camerondaddo to her raw, real and deeply challenging experience of ‼️MENOPAUSE‼️ - that universal yet profoundly misunderstood and highly stigmatised life change we still don’t talk about nearly enough.  In this conversation, Ali doesn’t hold back about her menopause journey: the crippling anxiety, terrible panic attacks, relentless insomnia, deep depression, blind rage and complete absence of joy that beset her through this stage of life.  But what’s remarkable about Ali’s approach is that she doesn’t just catalog her struggle: she also dispels the myths, destigmatises what it means when a woman’s fertile years end and explores the surprising hidden gifts of #menopause, including the healing power of self-love and self-compassion. The ripple effect of menopause impacts everyone - partners, children, workplaces and society at large - so this conversation isn’t just for women, it’s for all of us. Please listen and share and let us know your thoughts.  And if you’re struggling with menopause right now, we hope Ali’s lived experience and shared wisdom will offer help and reassurance to you as you journey on. LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via LINK IN BIO 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧

New episode of @human.cogs with KELLY DONOUGHER - LISTEN NOW ▶️ 🎧 “How many kids do you have?” It’s a question asked so casually, yet for those who longed for parenthood but find themselves childless, it can land with a heavy blow. This week on Human Cogs, we sit down with @kelly_donougher — successful interior designer, founder of 13 Interiors, and now author of No Fence, No Limits. Behind her professional success lies a deeply personal story: a decade-long journey with infertility, marked by medical interventions, miscarriage, grief and the hard work of piecing life back together. In our conversation, Kelly opens up about: ✨ The tension between society’s expectations and honouring your own truth ✨ The medical system and what it means to feel like “just another number” ✨ Navigating identity beyond parenthood ✨ How grief, while devastating, can also transform and spark new life directions Kelly’s story is about resilience, hope, creativity, and ultimately acceptance. Most of all, it’s a reminder that even when so much feels out of our control, we still hold the power to choose our path. Producer: @darylmissen 🙏🏼✨ LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via LINK IN BIO 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧 #nofencenolimits

New episode of @human.cogs with PETE CONROY - LISTEN NOW ▶️🎧 How often do you think about worst case scenarios? Do you ever contemplate fate or imagine catastrophes or run the gamut of ‘what ifs?’ The reality is that none of us really know what’s coming down the life pipes next … as famed author Joan Didion wrote “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You can sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” For Pete Conroy, that instant came on the most ordinary of ordinary mornings that - with no warning - suddenly turned into the worst day of Pete’s life. This is the story of that day, and what happened next. Guest: Pete Conroy Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet) Producer: @darylmissen 🙏🏼✨ LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via LINK IN BIO 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧

Counting sleeps til @sorrentowritersfestival and @madeleinegrummet can’t wait to join some incredible thinkers in conversation on stage ✨✨✨🎙️🎙️🎙️ The festival will host 200+ speakers over 160+ events and bring together big ideas, sharp minds, daring voices and bold thinkers from across Australia and beyond.💡 Former Prime Minister @juliagillard will deliver the Barry Jones Oration and the program is jam-packed with a smorgasbord of sessions in venues across the magnificent Mornington Peninsula so choose your own adventure! 😊 Check out @sorrentowritersfestival or pop into your local @avenuebookstore for the full program. BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW. But hurry! Lots of sessions selling out fast! 🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏽🏃🏻‍♂️ See you by the sea! @human.cogs podcast is proud to be a @sorrentowritersfestival 2025 Partner. #sorrentowritersfestival2025

New episode of @human.cogs with DON WATSON - LISTEN NOW ▶️🎧 Don Watson has spent a lifetime listening closely to the language of politics, power, persuasion - and all the slippery spaces in between. A historian, author and master of the written word, he is perhaps best known as the speechwriter behind some of Australia’s most unforgettable words - including the iconic reconciliation Redfern Speech, delivered by then-Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1992. But Don Watson’s work doesn’t stop at politics. Over decades, he’s carved out a formidable legacy as one of our most astute and fearless cultural critics - writing bestselling books, searing Quarterly Essays and brilliantly biting commentaries that strip the varnish from political spin, corporate waffle and the TikTokian digital decay of modern language. In our latest episode of #HumanCogs, Don joins me for a wide-ranging conversation taking aim at Trump’s #Project2025, the rise of performative politics and the weaponisation of words in a post-truth world. But don’t worry - we don’t just talk global geopolitics! We also go back to Don’s childhood on a muddy dairy farm in Gippsland, where his love of language was born amongst the blue gums, and we trace his journey from the paddocks to the political stage, where he learned that real insight is most often hiding in the cracks in the system. What Don reminds us in this conversation is simple but profound: words are not just words. They can shape nations, tear down empires, ignite revolutions, give voice to the voiceless and hold power to account. And in an era of misinformation, disinformation and the white noise of the White House, the way we use language matters now - more than ever. This is a conversation about the power of language but really, it’s about everything. About truth. About history. And about the kind of future world we want to live in - and the words we’ll need to build it. Guest: Don Watson Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet) Producer: @darylmissen 🙏🏼✨ Catch Don Watson and Mads at the Sorrento Writers Festival - April 24-27 2025. LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via link in BIO or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧

New episode of @human.cogs with @msjuliabanks Politics is the stuff of Shakespeare. Acts of revenge, personal sabotage, falls from grace and epic power struggles have always pushed politicians in and out of parties and public favour. And as Australia heads toward a federal #election, we’re seeing the high drama of campaign theatre play out against the backdrop and twisted plot of an increasingly unstable world order. Do you still have faith in our democracy? And what kind of leadership do you want to see in Australia right now? I recently sat down with Julia Banks - former federal MP, corporate lawyer, leadership consultant and author of ‘Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys’ Clubs’. Julia’s story is one of grit, resilience, and a deep commitment to challenging the structures that hold people back. After winning the seat of Chisholm in 2016 as the only #Liberal to take a seat from the Opposition, she made headlines again when she walked away from the party - calling out former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the toxic culture, gendered power plays and systemic bias she experienced firsthand. In this conversation on #HumanCogs, Julia unpacks the realities of #leadership behind closed doors, and the tension between positional power (the authority that comes with a title) and personal power (the strength we each carry within us). But her insights go far beyond Canberra. In boardrooms, workplaces and daily life, women are still labeled as too “ambitious, difficult, or overemotional” - coded language used to diminish their power. And women still remain gravely underrepresented in politics and leadership. At a time like this, in a world like this, Julia Banks’ perspective is sharp, honest, and deeply needed. She reminds us that while the power struggles will continue, we all have a choice - in the leaders we elevate, the values we uphold, and the future we shape through our actions and votes. Guest: @msjuliabanks Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet) Producer: @darylmissen LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via link in BIO or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧

New episode of @human.cogs with @sarahgrynberg Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase that means “horrible year”. It’s the antithesis of annus mirabilis which means “wonderful year”. Of course years don’t exist in those binaries but we all know that some years are better than others: some are defined by greatness, and others we just can’t wait to see the back of. As this episode goes to air, Mads shares what this past year has been like for her, marred by deep grief and a few mortality jolts that have brought into sharp focus what really matters.  This is just ordinary human life, of course, playing out as it ever has with its wonders and horrors in chorus.  But it is true that for most of us, by the time you’ve clocked up a few decades of living, you’ll likely have had a front row seat to witnessing some people you deeply love die, dement, divorce or disappear. How you choose to walk through those human hardships is the only choice you will ultimately have because life will continue to throw curveballs, which means you will need to deliberately choose - again and again - where you will focus your energy, who you will spend your precious time with and who you will need to let go. @SarahGrynberg knows this walk well because she’s had to make some pretty hard personal choices recently to let a few old friends and habits go so she can create more space for serendipity in her life. This has partly been prompted by what Sarah has learned in her professional life, as an internationally acclaimed mindset coach and speaker, and the host of A Life of Greatness podcast which to date has had millions of downloads. Of course, what a life of greatness looks like is very different for each of us. But as Sarah walks us through her own difficult journey to now, we hope you can all take a little tonic of greatness from this conversation. Enjoy.🙏🏼 Guest: Sarah Grynberg, Host of ‘A Life of Greatness Podcast’ and internationally acclaimed Mindset Coach and Speaker Host: @madeleinegrummet Producer: @darylmissen LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via link in BIO or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧

New episode of @human.cogs with STAN GRANT Stan Grant is a man of remarkable intellect, profound story and deep faith. On a late winter’s afternoon recently, Mads meets Stan in a moment when he is on a difficult journey through a kind of lament, deeply contemplating the three big disciplines that have steeled his extraordinary life and work - physics, philosophy and theology. Stan says since the Voice to Parliament Referendum he’s been taking time to take stock, that he’s done too much time plucking the wings off butterflies - and that right now he’d rather write beauty into the world. So he’s been working on a new book that is a meditation on time, on God, on the temporal nature of our being and on the complex state of our modern world. As a journalist and correspondent who covered war for 40 years, Stan has seen the worst of what we can do to each other but he has also seen love endure in the most Godforsaken of places. So he knows first-hand the paradoxical contradictions of what it means to be a human in a world like ours. Stan believes it’s essential we all have something bigger than ourselves to believe in because if the human being is the limit, then we will only see the limits of the human. And in a world so often consumed by the chaos of modernity, ongoing conflicts and the binaries of identity, Stan Grant is keenly focussed these days on kindling what we share rather than what divides us for, as Franz Kafka said, identity is a cage in search of a bird. We’d love you to listen to this episode of @humancogs to meet Stan Grant the mortal, discover what might lie beyond this life, and how we humans can all - somehow - someday - find our place in the untold cosmos. Guest: Stan Grant Award-winning Journalist, Author, Writer, Poet and Vice Chancellor’s Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University. Host: @madeleinegrummet Mads Hanger Producer: @darylmissen LISTEN NOW: @human.cogs via link in BIO or wherever you get your podcasts :) ▶️🎧

New episode of @human.cogs with @damianchaparro in conversation with @sabinaread When you think of a health retreat, I wonder what thoughts and feelings come to mind? Yoga with a monk on a mountain, people healing their deepest wounds, or perhaps it’s images of Nicole Kidman in 9 Perfect Strangers as depicted in the book and movie? I’ve attended countless retreats and every time I have made one or two changes that have catalysed bigger shifts in my life. I believe we need to update our beliefs that retreats are somewhere “broken” people go, and replace them with the idea that retreats provide an environment with all the ideal ingredients that help set us up for tuning into our own innate sense of knowing and wisdom that have the potential to invite us back to a sense of wholeness, rest and repair – emotionally, physically, psychologically and mentally. In 2023, I spent six life changing days at @aroharetreats in the glorious New Zealand mountains near Queenstown. In this episode, we are joined by Aro Hā’s co-founder and glorious human, Damian Chaparro. He shares the philosophy embedded in the program at Aro Hā as well as what a typical week looks like for guests. Damian shares his own younger year experiences of working tirelessly in an IT job with all the financial trappings, and too much alcohol, minus the meaning and fulfillment. And how as a life-long learner he continues to find ways to acknowledge all the parts that show up in him and how he has learned to listen to self and others with curiosity and acceptance. We discuss the benefits of fasting, movement, nature and stillness, and what gets in the way of creating sustainable behaviour changes that we desire, yet so often sabotage. Damian also reveals some entertaining and heartfelt stories of connecting with his 80 year old mum after they both shared the plant-based psychedelic, ayahuasca (not at Aro Hā by the way!) If you’re curious about dialling up wellbeing or if your body, mind and soul is looking for a reset, then this conversation is for you. I deeply believe the world would be a better place if we all had the opportunity to experience the magic of Aro Hā.

Today, on IDAHOBIT Day, we stand together to celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia. It’s a day to honour diversity, promote inclusivity and advocate for the rights and acceptance of LGBTQIA+ individuals worldwide. We’re incredibly grateful for the inspiring conversations we’ve had with our guests on @human.cogs who have shared their unique perspectives and stories: 🌟 Aubrey Blanche 🌟 Hugh Sheridan 🌟 Jason Ball 🌟 Lucy Thomas 🌟 Rachael Neumann 🌟 Rochelle Pattison 🌟 Sam Eade 🌟 Yves Rees Each of these individuals has contributed to the ongoing dialogue about love, identity, respect and equality. Their voices amplify the importance of understanding, acceptance and action. Join us in celebrating and continuing the fight for a world where everyone can live authentically and without fear. #IDAHOBIT #LoveIsLove #EqualityForAll #HumanCogs @adblanche @EastMelbGirl @yves_rees @projectrockit @hugh_sheridan @jasonballau