Whether you are a child, have a child or have ever met a child, you will undoubtedly know of The Wiggles and not just at home here in Australia - they have also captured the hearts of families around the world since their beginning back in 1991. Speaking of capturing hearts though, in their latest evolution with eight wonderful members, one particular Wiggle has shot to global fame as the "sexy wiggle" (or officially, Big Strong John) and we’re lucky to have him here with us today.

Like many of our guests, you’ll probably have seen John Pearce many times (either with The Wiggles or on his very busy socials) before hearing him today without knowing much of what came before his chapter in the purple suit. My favourite part of the show is getting to know the person behind the scenes and you may not have known that John was a member of The Justice Crew beforehand creating a very different kind of a music, that he was a member alongside his TWIN brother - one of 7 siblings, that his original ambitions were in sport and nutrition with a previous appearance on Australian Ninja Warrior and career in PT AND that he is about to become a father for the first time (in fact, any day now!) 

I had read so much about him but knew nothing about his upbringing either and the amazing journey from commission housing to global superstar while keeping such a level humble head on his shoulders. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

LINKS

You can follow John's personal page here.
You can follow John's Wiggles page here.
You can follow The Wiggles here. 
You can find out more about Hello Fresh and their Climate Superstars resources here.

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Our first #yaysofourlives episode in a while and our last for a while as Ang has some big news!!!

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You all know I find every single guest amazing in their own way and use a lot of superlatives to convey that, but every now and then a conversation leaves me almost speechless (which is very rare) and this was one of them. I recorded this one at Producey Studios who - shout out to the team - have been incredible for our return to in-person interviews since maternity leave, but it also meant we had a producer in the room who could validate my reaction so I knew I wasn't imagining how special this was - the minute John Kim left the room, both of us just stared at each other open-mouthed and in awe! And this chat isn’t just special because of its timing with the new Cruel Intentions series premiering which stars John in one of the lead roles OR because he was also just announced as part of the cast of the live-action feature Voltron along the likes of Rita Ora... I mean, he's absolutely SMASHING it over in Hollywood... It’s also special because - as you’ll hear - it came at a pivotal time in his life with a lot of reflection and change AND happens to be the first podcast he’s ever done. What. An. Honour. John's been friends with Nic through our dear mutual friend, Dave Higgs, for years and I’ve wanted to share his story for a long time covering his incredible rise from the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne to Hollywood. But I didn’t expect the privilege of catching him at this particularly pivotal moment in time and to be able to share his vulnerability, humility and eloquence to a podcast audience for the first time. I hope you are as awe struck and enjoy this as much as I did!

LINKS

You can follow John here.

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My first blood relative arrived when I gave birth to my son Teddy.

Growing up, I always knew I was adopted; brought to Australia from South Korea at just five months old, it was never a secret.

But even after finding out you're adopted there are so many other questions, some of which people may choose to never find answers for. 

As Adoption Awareness Month comes to a close, find out what life growing up adopted in Australia is really like. 

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GET IN TOUCH

Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice note or email us at [email protected]

CREDITS

Host: Claire Murphy

With thanks to: Sarah Davidson, host of Seize The Yay podcast

Executive Producer: Taylah Strano 

Audio Producers: Tegan Sadler 

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This week, we have a voice in your ears that needs no introduction - his music has been a formative part of so many of our lives and I’m pinching myself to have him here for you today. I’m talking of course about multiplatinum-selling singer and songwriter, Pete Murray. My husband, Nic, doesn’t fangirl many people (if anyone) but as an OG follower who had Pete’s very first original independent EP, the only person more excited about this interview than me was him and that's rare! Pete's incredible career selling over 1.2 million albums, releasing three ARIA chart-topping albums and amassing 17 ARIA nominations is no secret, but perhaps even more so than any guest we’ve had on before, it’s what came before that’s so powerful in reminding us all that not only does nothing happen overnight, some magic strikes later in life than you’d expect. While the tender age of 21 years isn’t old by any normal standards, I would never have guessed that this was the FIRST TIME Pete picked up a guitar after his earlier years showing every indication of a career in sport. I loved learning about his younger years, his process for writing, his fascinating combination of self-doubt and self-belief and everything in between. With fresh new music (check out his first new independent single in 20 years, Wouldn't It Be Good, here) and a new tour on the horizon we had so much to chat about and I hope you enjoy!

LINKS
You can follow Pete here.
You can see the tour dates and get tickets here.
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We are back with a guest episode and I’m thrilled to have one of Australia’s most known and loved voices on the show this week, Jessie Stephens. Many of you will probably recognise Jessie as one of the hosts of Mamamia Out Loud (among many other shows in the prolific Mamamia network of which she is also an executive editor and which we are so excited to have joined in a new chapter for the show). While now she is dominating the airwaves (and has authored two books), you may not know she actually began as junior burger editorial assistant a decade ago and worked her way up the ranks to become one of the few people who can say they’ve been in the one workplace for ten years - an example that you don’t have to leave your job to grow and find new yays. And one of the coolest parts? Jessie is an executive editor alongside her twin sister, Clare Stephens, who after studying different things but both doing their Masters of Research left academia to BOTH become newbie editorial assistants and they’ve worked their way up in different but parallel ways. And the two also have twin brothers, so it was fascinating to learn about such a uniquely special facet to her pathyay. She is also a little bit ahead of me as a working mum and a great source of inspiration having lent her wisdom to a chapter of The Juggle by my friend and manager Genevieve Day who you heard from a few episodes backs. Despite having many mutual friends, I’d never chatted to Jessie before but you’d never know she’s such a great conversationalist and I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

LINKS You can follow Jessie here. 
You can buy her books and more here.
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We are back with our third episode of Seize the Bébé on a topic that’s definitely been the most requested in my DMs and that I personally found sparked a level of desperation in me for information that I’ve never experienced before. We are talking, of course, about the elusive and emotionally charged topic of sleep and more particularly the dreaded "sleep regression" or (regressions as supposedly there are several). Even within parenthood where most topics are already a bit emotional or judgy, sleep seems especially sensitive, often because you’re usually only talking about it if you’re not getting enough, which is never anyone’s best version of themselves. So, as with all these episodes, a big disclaimer to start - this is all anecdotal and not an exhaustive fully researched guide. I have no professional experience or scientific backing, just answering your questions about what we did and there are many sleep specialists who you can turn to for actual advice. I actually found this one quite hard to write as not only there an infinite amount of variables when choosing sleep techniques, every baby and family is different (perhaps moreso in this area than any) plus even what worked for us this time might not work next time. Having said that, I didn’t care when I was in the depths of it - I still wanted to know what everyone else did just to get ideas or guidance even on where to start. So I’ll lay out what we ended up doing (which, to reassure anyone out there in the thick of it, did work wonderfully and quicker than I expected) and how we decided on that pathway, but just reminding you this area is VERY specific to you. For context, I’m talking about our experience getting through the so-called four month regression which is the first major one that gets talked about. Teddy was born two weeks early and this hit almost exactly at 4 months and two weeks - he’s punctual that boy. I'm sure we'll be back again with new and different views and answers for regressions in future! But for now, I hope even parts of this are useful!

LINKS

More info on Dr Golly's guides are here.
You can follow Dr Golly on instagram here.
More info on Baby Spa's sleep consultations here. 
You can follow Baby Spa on instgaram here.

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As promised, here is part two of what could easily snowball into an 825-part series with my dear friend Dr Matt Agnew. Even still, there is so much we didn’t get to about this fascinating human being and that’s all without really touching on the Bachelor at all. For his proper intro and bio, go back to the first episode - we pick up here right where we left off which, as it turns out, wasn’t very far into his pathYAY in the end. And there’s so much more ahead, so who knows - part 3 could still come at you in the future but in the meantime I hope you enjoy!

If this conversation raises any emotional distress for you, please reach out to someone, or call Lifeline for 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention services on 13 11 14.

MATT'S BOOKS

Dr Matt's Guide to Life in Space

Is My Phone Reading my Mind? The real facts about Artificial Intelligence

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We are back with a guest episode for you and one that has been a long time coming. I’m so excited to have finally sat down with a dear friend of mine Matt Agnew who much of Australia may know as “Matt from the bachelor” but who I met outside of that context completely.

I think this was the first time I admitted I never actually watched his season (you guys know I’m a true crime girly not a reality girly) and I deliberately didn’t catch up on it because I wanted to focus on Matt NOT from the Bachie which hasn’t been as exhaustively covered everywhere else (the link to Abbie's latest ep we discus is here). With all our guests I love to show a side people know a bit less about and even more so with a friend but then the great challenge is squeezing that all in to an hour when you want to showcase every single thing you think is great about them...

WHICH obviously I didn’t manage to do so heads up that this is part one of a two parter where we set the scene around the early days of Matt’s way to yay - you really should read his LinkedIn to understand why it’s reductive to only refer to his TV stint rather than the FIVE DEGREES in hectic maths and science that he’s amassed including an actual pHd on space… plus two wonderful books, an amazing new business Pash, a stint on Sharktank… hopefully you get a dose of a Matt you might not already know but I think astrophysics, AI, dating and both of our experiences with sobriety deserve more time so you’ll hear those in part two.

Perhaps it’s fitting that a lot of part 1 was spent on what Matt calls his "salad of mental heatlh issues" about which he speaks so vulnerablty and powerfully as we move into Movember and a sharper focus on men’s health (for reference the Jess Rowe episode we mention is here). So a content warning that we do briefly touch on suicide and similar in this episode - please take care while listening and see Lifeline's number below. Otherwise this was above all a chat between firends and I hope you enjoy!

If this conversation raises any emotional distress for you, please reach out to someone, or call Lifeline for 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention services on 13 11 14.

MATT'S BOOKS:

Dr Matt's Guide to Life in Space

Is My Phone Reading my Mind? The real facts about Artificial Intelligence

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Welcome to our second episode of Seize the Bébé, thank you all so much for the lovely feedback on our debut episode with Gen covering the juggle - I’m so glad it was as reassuring for you guys as it was for me. We’re going back to back just for this week - firstly, because I’ve owed you answers on travelling with a baby since Italy which is now MONTHS ago and, secondly, because we’re freshly back from more travel with Teddy to Sydney then are going overseas again tomorrow so it seemed timely.

For those of you who aren’t interested in the parenthood content, we’ll be back next week with a regular interview episode and those will then keep dropping fortnightly. For today though, I thought the easiest way to set this one out was to give you the top twenty tips I’ve found useful travelling with Teddy so far.

I must add a disclaimer quickly for this segment that my inner A type is so tempted to try and make this a neutral and comprehensive layout of the entire landscape on each topic, but the juggle episode will tell you there's simply not enough time. These episodes are simply me answering your questions from my personal anecdotal experiences based on yes, a lot of research, but also our personal choices, the fact that I often was recommended something by a friend and didn’t bother trying anything else, Teddy’s age at the time, etc.

So I’m sure I’ll miss many other great options or tips on these subjects, but just keep in mind every baby and family is different (and my own answers will probably differ in future chapters of our life). For context, our biggest trip was with Teddy at four months before solids or crawling so of course that’s relevant too.

LINKS

The IG post where I shared some of the items we took (pre Italy) is here.
The shopping list of the items I've mentioned is here.
If you'd like my packing list, send me a DM!

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As promised, welcome to the very first episode of our new motherhood segment - Seize the Bébé (I know, I couldn't help myself). This all came about when I realised I'd been screenshotting my own TED Talk length answers about adjusting to mum life on socials to hundreds of different people wanting to make sure I answer as thoroughly as possible and felt those fuller answers needed somewhere better to live… plus I wanted to signal more clearly to those who aren’t as interested in this content what’s heavily parent related and what isn’t.

The most hotly asked questions so far have been around sleep, breastfeeding and the juggle as a working Mum, but I’m starting with the latter because it’s particularly timely for two reasons. Firstly, I personally feel my management of the juggle has taken a very steep dive over the past few weeks so it’s very close to home right now. And secondly - one of the mum role models I turn to often and incidentally, my manager, Genevieve Day, who is a huge part of how I maintain any kind of juggle, just released her new book CALLED The Juggle featuring interviews with some of our very own past guests on the topic so a conversation on this topic was meant to be.

One thing I've really had to grapple with is letting go of perfectionism at work now there’s less time to play with, so sadly you don’t get the nice new intro I was hoping to organise to accompany the new segment because you’d be waiting all year for these episodes otherwise. I also feel like I got so distracted by Gen’s wisdom that we kind of venture into sleep and feeding anyway and I’m not sure I delinate clearly enough how Nic and I juggle working with parenting but hopefully you can gather most of it amidst what was otherwise such a cathartic and validating conversation.

I hope you guys enjoy and please let me know your thoughts on the segment! Next up will likely be sleep and travelling with a baby…. Stay tuned!

GET THE JUGGLE HERE.

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