Humans, being. with Lael Stone

I started this episode thinking about endings, the ones I'm walking towards in my own life right now, and somehow that musing turned into one of the most life-affirming, funniest conversations about death I have ever had.
I’ve spent years sitting with families through birth, and I’ve always felt that birth and death are close cousins, both thresholds, both asking something of us we rarely feel ready for. So when Dr Hannah Gould, cultural anthropologist, death studies scholar and author of How to Die in the 21st Century, sat down across from me, it felt like coming home to a conversation I’ve wanted to have for a long time.
We explore:
Why most of us have never been modelled a healthy ending, and what that does to our relationship with death
The coffin catalogue moment that sent Hannah down the path to a PhD in death studies, after losing her dad in her early twenties
The "pornography of death" theory, and why we have sex education but no death education
What voluntary assisted dying actually involves, and the genuinely thorny open question of VAD and dementia
The hidden toll on death care workers, and why Hannah believes the crematorium operator she worked alongside deserves Australian of the Year (Shoutout, Shane)
What a glorious death looks like, for a woman who has spent her career studying exactly that
Hannah left me with so much to sit with, but the thing I keep coming back to is how unafraid she is to laugh about all of it. I love how she puts it: "we're all going to die, so don't really sweat the small stuff."
[Recorded May 2026]
About Dr Hannah Gould:
Dr Hannah Gould is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Melbourne, where she studies death, Buddhism and material culture across Australia and East Asia, and a Fellow with the DeathTech Research Team. Her academic monograph, When Death Falls Apart (University of Chicago Press), won the 2025 F. Hilary Conroy First Book Prize, and her latest book, How to Die in the 21st Century (Thames and Hudson), brings a decade of research on death and dying to a general readership. She is also President of the Australian Death Studies Society.
Connect with Dr Hannah:
Website: hannahgould.com
Instagram: @hrhgould
Mentioned: @thelasthurrahfunerals

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Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.

Teresa Palmer has five children, a two-decade film career, a podcast, a supplement brand, and at the time of recording, she was filming God of War in Vancouver - playing the goddess of fertility, which feels exactly right. Through all of it, she’s doing the same quiet work the rest of us are: healing the little parts of herself that didn't get what they needed, so she can show up with her heart forward for the people she loves most.
In this chat, we talk about birth and all its complexities, we talk about parts work and reparenting, and what it takes to meet your children's big feelings when your own inner child is still waiting to be seen. And we talk about spirituality - how Teresa moved from thirteen years of Catholic school to building her own quiet relationship with something she cannot name, but absolutely feels.
We explore:
The story Teresa told herself for twelve years about not needing help - and what finally shifted at 40
How reading Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery changed everything
The surprising parallel between surrendering in birth and surrendering on a film set
Parts work - how Teresa tends to the younger versions of herself that still need nurturing
Teresa says something so beautiful… that home "is each other. Not a place, not a house in Byron Bay or Vancouver or Adelaide. Each other". Teresa reminded me that what shapes us most is who we keep choosing to come home to.
[Recorded Online May 2026]
About Teresa Palmer:
Teresa Palmer is an Adelaide-born actress, author, wellness entrepreneur and mama of five (plus bonus mum to one more). She co-hosts The Mother Daze podcast with Sarah Wright Olsen and co-founded the parenting platform Your Zen Mama. She also runs Lovewell, an organic plant-based supplement brand for mothers and children.
Connect with Teresa:
Instagram: @teresapalmer
Instagram & YouTube: @themotherdaze
Mark's YouTube: @markfromtheheart

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Facebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Threads: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
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Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.

This episode starts with dreaming and ends with dreaming - and in between, Luke Bateman takes us through everything that happens when you stop letting yourself do it.
Luke played professional rugby league for the Canberra Raiders - 71 first-grade games, thousands of hours of training camps and hotel rooms and locker rooms - and in almost all of that time, he kept his love of fantasy fiction completely hidden. The shame of it, he says, was shaped by a very specific idea of what it meant to be a man. And unpacking that idea has been the work of the last several years.
His whole life, it turns out, has been a dreamer's journey. He just had to go through a lot to get back to it.
We explore:
The specific culture of professional rugby league and what it meant for his sense of self, his gambling addiction, and his mental health
The inner child and parts work that was central to his recovery - including making peace with the version of himself he'd been most ashamed of
What it means to call men in, rather than calling them out
The men who went silent during his crisis, and what that silence told him about being a man.
His two favourite books - and the one that brought him home to himself after rehab
[Recorded Online April 2026]
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About Luke Bateman:
Luke Bateman grew up in Miles, western Queensland, where rugby league was the dominant culture. He played 71 NRL first-grade games as a lock for the Canberra Raiders before a chronic knee injury ended his career at 24. After leaving the game, he returned to rural Queensland, began posting book reviews to TikTok from a tractor in 2025, and within months had signed a two-book fantasy series deal with Atria Books Australia (Simon & Schuster). He now hosts his own podcast, In the Good Books, appeared on I'm A Celebrity Australia in early 2026, and is writing his debut fantasy novel, due in 2027.
Connect with Luke:
Instagram: @lukebateman_
TikTok: @lukesreads
Podcast: In the Good Books on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Facebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Threads: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
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YouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone

Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.

There's something about a Missy Higgins song that lands in your chest before you've even registered the words. Somehow, she gets to the feeling first - the part of you that you haven't quite found language for yet.
Missy's music has been part of the soundtrack to my life for over twenty years, especially in my mothering years. So sitting across from her, I was a little bit in awe. Missy’s so generous in her honesty about the hard stuff: the writer's block that made her question her whole identity, the divorce that undid the story she thought her life would tell, the ADHD diagnosis that reframed so much of her past, and the slow, deliberate work of learning to live in her body rather than just her head.
We also talk about parenting two neurodiverse kids while navigating your own neurodiversity, the strange alchemy of songwriting (expression first, connection second), and what it feels like to fall in love again in your forties when you finally know what you actually need.
We explore:
The gift of neurodiverse children when you're still learning about your own neurodiversity
Why she started seeing a therapist to help her get out of her head and back into her body
What she hopes her kids carry with them: that they're okay, and that they are worthy of love
Repartnering after divorce - what it means to finally want a partner rather than a project
Missy left me thinking about the stories we carry about ourselves - the ones that keep turning up, the ones we think we've put down for good.
[Recorded May 2026]
About Missy Higgins:
Missy Higgins is a Melbourne-born singer-songwriter whose career spans more than two decades and four consecutive-decade ARIA No. 1 albums. Her debut album, The Sound of White (2004), became one of the best-selling Australian albums of its era, and by 2024 she had accumulated nine ARIA Awards and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Her most recent album, The Second Act, was written in the aftermath of her divorce - largely alone, at night, once the kids were asleep - and debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA chart in 2024.
Connect with Missy:
Website: missyhiggins.com
Instagram: @missyhigginsmusic

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Connect with Humans, being:
Web: humansbeing.au
Instagram: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Facebook: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
Threads: @humansbeingwithlaelstone
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Humans, being. is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.

Amantha calls her AI 'Sunny'. She talks to it on the drive to the gym, like she's chatting to a friend. And it has quietly changed how she works, how she writes, and how she gets the thinking out of her own head.
Dr. Amantha Imber is one of the sharpest, most generous humans I know. An organisational psychologist, the founder of Inventium, host of How I Work, the first Australian to win a Thinkers50 Innovation Award, the author of four bestselling books, and her brand new one, The Energy Game, lands in July.
In this episode, we discuss Amantha's burnout year and the tiny experiments that crawled her back, the ones she calls boosts, rest, and protect. Why "fake rest" (Netflix while you scroll) won't fill the bucket. And we talk about the childhood praise imprint that drives so many of us: what if the goal isn't to be more, but to be okay with being ordinary?
We explore:
The pressure we accept being human and thinking we must do it all
The hit-by-a-bus fantasy and what it tells us about how women carry stress
AI as a thought partner, and how Amantha uses it without losing the human bit
What we want for our daughters, and the thinking skills we don't want to outsource
[Recorded January 2026]
About Amantha Imber:
Dr. Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist and the founder of Inventium, a behaviour-change consultancy that works with companies including Google, Apple and Lego. She also runs Inventium AI, focused on AI capability building inside organisations. Amantha hosts the How I Work podcast (over 6 million downloads) and recently launched a new podcast, How I AI. She is the first Australian to win a Thinkers50 Innovation Award and is the author of four bestselling books, including Time Wise and The Health Habit. Her new book, The Energy Game, is out on 7 July 2026.
Connect with Amantha:
Instagram: @amanthai
Inventium: inventium.com.au
Newsletter: One Percent Better
Podcasts: How I Work, How I AI
Book: The Energy Game (out 7 July 2026)

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Connect with Humans, being™:
Web: humansbeing.au
YouTube: @humansbeingwithlaelstone

Australia’s Kindest Person:
Australia’s Kindest Person is a national campaign created to help shine a light on the people whose kindness has made a real difference in the lives of others. To nominate someone, please visit:
australiaskindestperson.com.au

Humans, being™ is produced on the lands of the Bunurong and Wadawurrung people. We pay respect to their unique and diverse cultures and to elders past, present and future.