Work and Wellness

What does it actually cost to be ambitious and is it worth it?

In this episode, I sit down with Kelly Barrett, founder of Underwear for Humanity, to talk about one of the most honest conversations I've had on this show. Kelly grew up in commission housing, moving every six months, hiding from real estate agents. That instability built a tenacity that would take her to the London College of Fashion, through corporate life, two business closures and ultimately to one of Australia's most quietly radical purpose-led brands.

This is a conversation about ambition, identity, burnout and what it really means to build a successful life, not by society's definition, but your own. Kelly doesn't have everything figured out. She oscillates between trust and panic, between hustle and rest, between the woman she wants to be and the workaholic she knows she can become. And that honesty is exactly what makes this episode worth listening to.

Key Topics
How growing up with financial instability shaped Kelly's ambition and resilience
Why closing Silent Arrow, a business deeply tied to her identity, was both heartbreaking and clarifying
The kookaburra moment in Byron Bay that became the beginning of Underwear for Humanity
Why martyrdom in business is not a virtue and what it actually costs you
How Kelly reckons with being a hard worker when that hard work has come at a personal cost

About Kelly
Kelly Barrett is the founder of Underwear for Humanity, a purpose-led underwear brand embedding social and environmental responsibility into every part of its business model. With over 20 years designing underwear and bras, Kelly co-founded Starcorp in 2009 which became the second largest supplier to one of Australia's largest retailers. She then founded feminist lingerie brand Silent Arrow before launching Underwear for Humanity, where every purchase provides a free pair of underwear to someone in need. A multiple award winner including Banksia and Planet Arc, Kelly is proving that business can be both commercially viable and genuinely good.

Connect with Kelly
Website: underwearforhumanity.com.au
Instagram: @underwearforhumanity

Keywords: ambition, entrepreneurship, burnout, purpose, identity, impact business, sustainability, resilience, women in business, success

What if happiness isn't something you find — it's something you build?

In this episode, I sit down with Declan Edwards, happiness researcher, TEDx speaker, author of How to Be Happy and founder of BU Happiness College, to completely reframe how we think about happiness. Because most of us are chasing it the wrong way, waiting for the right achievement, the right milestone, the right moment, when the research tells us something completely different.

Declan has spent over a decade studying the science of happiness and translating it into practical skills anyone can learn. We get into what happiness actually is beyond joy and excitement, why the arrival fallacy is keeping so many high achievers stuck, what the 80-year Harvard study found about what actually makes a good life, and the three free practices that Declan believes would change the world if everyone did them.

This one is warm, deeply human and full of things that will shift the way you think about your own life.

Key Topics
Why happiness is not just joy and the slower deeper forms we chronically undervalue
The arrival fallacy — why "I'll be happy when" is keeping so many high achievers stuck
What the 80-year Harvard study found is the single biggest predictor of a happy life
Three free practices under five minutes a day that Declan says would change the world
Why happiness is measurably contagious up to three degrees of separation

About Declan
Declan Edwards is a happiness researcher, TEDx speaker, author and founder of BU Happiness College — built on the belief that happiness is a skill anyone can learn. He has spoken at the United Nations and the Red Cross, and his work has been featured in Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today. He is the host of the How to Be Happy podcast and author of the book of the same name.

Connect with Declan
Socials: The Happiness Guy
BU Happiness College
Podcast: How to Be Happy at Work
Happiness Scorecard and Burnout Scorecard

When did you last let your brain be bored?

In this episode, I get into something that I think is one of the most underrated reasons why so many of us feel mentally exhausted — and it has nothing to do with how hard we're working. It's how constantly connected we are.

We have eliminated boredom from our lives almost entirely. We scroll while we wait, listen while we walk, check emails while we eat and reach for our phones before we've even gotten out of bed. And our brains are paying the price.

This episode is packed with research on what constant connectivity is actually doing to our attention, our sleep, our mental health and our performance and five practical experiments you can run this week to give your brain the space it's desperately craving.

Key Topics
Why our brains are exhausted and why constant connectivity is the culprit
The myth of multitasking — what your brain is actually doing and why it costs you
Why even notifications you don't answer are draining your cognitive capacity
The brain drain effect — why your phone doesn't need to be in your hand to be distracting
Workplace telepressure — the invisible pressure to always be reachable and what it costs
What a 2025 study found when people blocked mobile internet for two weeks
Five practical experiments to become more intentional about your technology use

Keywords
phone addiction, focus, attention, burnout, mental health, productivity, sleep, social media, wellbeing, digital boundaries

What if getting more done isn’t about finding more hours in the day?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr Amantha Imber — organisational psychologist, bestselling author and founder of Inventium — to talk about her latest book, The Energy Game, and why managing our energy could be far more important than managing our time.

Amantha burnt out in 2024 despite being one of Australia’s leading experts on productivity. That experience led her to rethink the way we approach productivity and ultimately became the basis for her most personal book yet — a science-backed look at how to boost, rest and protect your energy so you can perform at your best without running yourself into the ground.

We also talk about AI, why it isn’t delivering the productivity gains many organisations expected, what we risk when we outsource too much of our thinking, and the one experiment Amantha challenges every listener to try this week.

Key Topics
Why time management alone won’t save you from burnout — and what to focus on instead
The three categories of energy strategies: boost, rest and protect, and when to use each
Why most of us are doing “fake rest” and what real rest actually looks like
The minimum viable dose of cold water immersion and why you don’t need an ice bath
How AI could be making us cognitively lazy and what we risk losing if we outsource our thinking
Why AI isn’t delivering the productivity gains many organisations expected
The silent walk — one of Amantha’s favourite strategies and why it works

About Amantha
Dr Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist, bestselling author and founder of the award-winning behaviour change consultancy Inventium. In 2021, she became the first Australian to win the prestigious Thinkers50 Innovation Award, described by the Financial Times as the “Oscars of Management Thinking”. In 2025, she was named AI Consultant of the Year at the Australian AI Awards.

She is the host of the number-one-ranking business podcast How I Work, with more than six million downloads, and her work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Forbes and Fast Company. Her latest book, The Energy Game, explores the science of how to better protect, restore and use your energy.

Connect with Amantha
⁠Book: The Energy Game⁠
⁠Substack: One Percent Better⁠
⁠How I Work podcast

We all have them. The colleague who drives you absolutely crazy. The leader who says something that leaves you speechless. The person you genuinely cannot figure out.

In this episode, I get into one of the most requested topics I've had — how to work with difficult people without losing your mind or your professionalism. Because not everyone who feels difficult actually is difficult. Sometimes it's a personality clash, sometimes it's a values difference, and sometimes yes — it really is just them.

I break down the three categories every difficult situation falls into, why understanding someone's motivation changes everything, and the exact phrases I use when someone says something completely out of line. This one is practical, honest and full of things you can use immediately.

Key Topics
The difference between a personality clash, workplace friction and genuinely dysfunctional behaviour and why each one needs a different response
Why understanding what motivates someone changes how you work with them completely
The question every team should ask before starting a project together and almost never does
What to say in the moment when someone says something wildly out of line
When to document behaviour, when to escalate it and when to make a decision about your environment
How to have the awkward but necessary conversation about working better together
Coming back to self awareness before deciding someone else is the problem

Keywords: Difficult people, workplace conflict, communication, leadership, boundaries, self awareness, team culture, performance, mental health, wellbeing