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Legendary Hollywood screenwriting teacher Joan Scheckel shares her insights about the true value of meaningful storytelling. Joan has refined a creative process called The Technique – a deep storytelling discipline so deep and profound, you dare not do it if you're not 100 per cent committed to your craft. Joan has worked on hundreds of films: from Little Miss Sunshine to Whale Rider to Transparent. Talking with Joan, we are in the presence of a true master.

This week’s conversation is between Berry and Canadian culture activist Stephen Jenkinson. His work is really hard to classify. You may have read his conversation with Pierz Newton-John in issue 54 of Dumbo Feather magazine. Stephen has worked extensively with people who are dying, and their families. He’s worked in medical care, agriculture, and he’s also a canoe builder and sculptor. Stephen’s the author of Come of Age and Die Wise. He travels the world performing the Nights of Grief and Mystery Tour, coming to Australia in late 2023.

This is episode 2 of our mini-series with Nate Hagens, where he and Berry explore the role of energy in our lives and in our economies, and how our short-term thinking around energy in the past two centuries in particular is bringing and will continue to bring huge implications. They wrestle with our collective behaviours and thinking, and unpack some of the adaptive solutions and opportunities available for us to work with the circumstances we are in. You can dive deeper into the work of Nate Hagens through his podcast and programs, “The Great Simplification". You can also explore more in our work over at smallgiants.com.au

Gabor Mate is a Hungarian-Canadian physician who specialises in addiction and childhood development. His most recent book, a must read, is The Myth of Normal, all about trauma, illness and healing in a toxic culture. We apologise for the rough audio in this chat, but hope you'll still be able to take in many of the gems it harbours.

Introducing our new mini-series with Dumbo Feather favourite, Nate Hagens! You may remember our conversation with Nate from a couple of episodes back, where he gave us a big picture overview of the various interlocking crises of this moment, or what he calls "the human predicament." We are going deeper into this with a mini-series that unpacks a range of issues and asks the question, "What can our collective future look like?" In this episode, Berry and Nate explore the topic of human behaviour, and why that is critical to addressing many of the systemic challenges we face. If you haven’t listened to our first chat with Nate, go back now to The Good Society #1.

Dr Julia Kim is the Program Director of the Gross National Happiness Centre in Bhutan. Long time readers and listeners of Dumbo Feather will be familiar with the GNH framework, which many organisations, cities and communities around the world have implemented to shape a more sustainable and holistic vision of their success. Julia shares more on that and why Bhutan is such a rich place for leadership exploration in this chat with Small Giants Academy head of programs, Tamsin Jones. You can learn more about the Gross National Happiness Centre over at gnhcentrebhutan.org Join Small Giants Academy on an Impact Safari to Bhutan in 2023. Visit impactsafari.com for more

It's the brilliant, joyful and wise Esther Perel! Esther is the foremost expert on human relationships and sexuality right now on the planet, and author of the New York Times bestseller Mating in Captivity, which shook the ground beneath us with the concept of erotic intelligence. She is a cultural force & global icon, creator of two outstanding podcasts series: Where Should We Begin, which takes us into the therapy room as she counsels real couples through their conflicts, and How's Work? about the invisible forces that shape workplace dynamics. Esther joined us for an intimate event in Melbourne in November 2022 to launch her new game, Where Should we Begin, and her chat with our editor-in-chief Berry was a celebration of everything that brings us alive.

In this episode, Kirsty chats with Frances Haugen, the woman who leaked internal documents that demonstrated a lack of empathy and care from Facebook executives about the impact that its products were having, particularly on young women and girls. Facebook has since changed its name to Meta, but its suite of products is the same: Facebook, instagram and WhatsApp are visited by billions of people globally, every day. Frances is a big thinker: she wants to be part of the story that changes the narrative around social media to a more inclusive, positive digital environment for everyone. If you want to know more about her plans for social media that’s good for humanity, head to franceshaugen.com

For the past couple of months, we’ve been exploring what the good society is all about, how we can create systems and communities that support people and planet to thrive. On this episode, we have a slightly different take on the topic. Dumbo Feather’s editor Kirsty de Garis is speaking with someone who had made her way into just about every kitchen in Australia with her gorgeous cookbooks – Hetty McKinnon. Hetty is a Chinese-Australian cook who established Arthur Street Kitchen in Sydney’s Surry Hills in 2011, and not long after released her first cook book, Community, which shared the much-loved vegetable recipes she was serving. Since then, many a fine cook books have followed, including her most recent: Tenderheart, a book about vegetables and unbreakable family bonds. Hetty spoke with Kirsty in September 2022.

Hi friends! This is our third episode in our Good Society series, where we unpack the current systems we live, work and play within and ask how they can do better and be better for people and planet. This week, Berry talks with Oliver Burkeman, a long-time columnist for The Guardian, where he wrote a column about productivity that ultimately lead to his latest book, 4000 Weeks - Time Management for Mortals. First, Oliver says, we need to accept that we can't do everything. Given that reality, what truly great options should we say no to - and grieve - while simultaneously building a good life?

We’ve got episode two of our Good Society Series, where we’re unpacking the current systems we live, work and play within, and ask how they can be better for people and planet. What does it mean for us to thrive within our planetary bounds? What structures are getting in the way of that? Throughout this series, we look at who we want to be as a society & how we can use our heads, hearts and hands to get there. In this episode, Berry sits down with professor Dan Ariely, one of the world’s leading thinkers in behavioural economics. Dan’s a founding member of the Centre for Advanced Hindsight, which does all kinds of fascinating empirical research into human behaviour – particularly when it comes to money, health and the planet – and uses it to tackle complex socio-economic problems. Dan is particularly interested in irrationality, and how it is present in so much of the everyday decisions we make. He believes that with the right structures and systems in place, we can eliminate some of the opportunity to do things that we know aren’t good for us or the world. Dan serves as a Professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University and is one of the faculty members on the Small Giants Academy Mastery of Business and Empathy. Some of his books include Predictably Irrational, Dollars and Sense and the Honest Truth about Dishonesty. You can also read our conversation with him in issue 55 of Dumbo Feather magazine, Creating the Next Economy. Learn more about Dan’s work over at danariely.com.

We are excited to share the first in our 6-part series on the The Good Society, where we’re unpacking the current systems we live, work and play within, and ask how they can do better and be better for people and planet. What does it mean for us to thrive with another within our planetary bounds? What structures are currently getting in the way of that? What are the stories we need to be telling to get there? Throughout this series, we look at who we need and want to be as a society, and how we can use our heads, hearts and hands to get there.   First cab of the ranks is the brilliant Nate Hagens, a speaker, educator & thought leader from the US, who tackles the big picture issues facing human society and our planet. Nate is Director of the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future – an organisation focussed on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. His podcast The Great Simplification, like much of his work, explores money, energy, the economy, and the environment – and brings in world leaders on these subjects to unpack how everything fits together, and where we go from here.   Nate spoke with Berry about sense-making and the systems science underpinning many of the crises we currently face, and we loved it so much that we’re bringing him back for more! Stay tuned for Berry’s series with Nate which will go deeper into many more of the issues they chat about in his episode.

You might have noticed a recent run of incredible female leaders on the show – well, they keep coming! This episode Berry sits with one of the world’s leading teachers of mindfulness meditation – Sylvia Boorstein. Sylvia is one of the people who literally brought buddhism to the West in the 1970s, and like many of them is Jewish. She is a mother, a grandmother, a psychotherapist, and a founding teacher of Spirit Rock, a world-renowned Buddhist meditation centre in Woodacre, California. The titles of Sylvia’s books are telling of her good humour and simple wisdom, among them including “Happiness is an inside job,” Road Sage, It’s Easier than you think, “That’s funny, You Don’t look Buddhist,” and our favourite, “Don’t just do something, sit there.” It was an honour for us to have this time with Sylvia, and to hear her reflections and hopes in the latter stages of her life. Sylvia will feature in our upcoming issue of Dumbo Feather magazine, if you’re not already a subscriber, go to dumbofeather.com and soak up more goodness like this in print.

Gayle is co-founder of Melbourne-based Global Leadership Foundation, and she works with boards and senior leaders all over the world in raising emotional health, building resilience, and transforming leaders and organisations. Gayle is one of our guest facilitators on the Small Giants Academy Mastery of Business and Empathy program, which is currently open for 2023 expressions of interest.

Kemi Nekvapil is one of Australia’s leading coaches for female executives and entrepreneurs, as well as an author and a highly sought-after international speaker. Her latest book is Power: a woman’s guide to living and leading without apology, and in this chat with our editor Kirsty, she talks about some of the stories and ideas behind writing it.

Jamie Wheal is the founder of the Flow Genome Project and an expert in the neurophysiology of human performance. His latest book is "Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind." In this conversation with Berry, he posits solutions for the crisis of meaning many of us face today, and guides us towards a new (old) frontier that he calls "Meaning 3.0".

In celebration of Issue 70 of Dumbo Feather magazine, all about a Meaningful Life, Berry sat down with one of the greatest living thinkers of our time: Professor A C Grayling.

This week we’re sharing a conversation we had with waste queen Veena Sahajwalla as part of Vivid Festival 2022. Veena is a trailblazer in the field of recycling science. She heads up the SMaRT Centre at UNSW, and among her epic scientific breakthroughs include perfecting a technique that brings together waste tyres and waste plastic in the production of steel, and waste textiles and waste glass in the manufacturing of ceramics. We love Veena's story and ability to offer very practical solutions to the waste crisis. Her work leads us away from the current take-make-waste industrial towards more circular economies. Big thanks to Vivid for hosting this conversation.

Our much-loved contributor Lydia Fairhall sits down with a hero of hers, the Worimi storyteller, Paul Callaghan. Paul is an author and consultant who specialises in leadership development and wellbeing. In his mid-30s, he encountered a period of depression, after realising the success he had been striving for didn’t match up with his internal measure. Drawing on a variety of tools, including Indigenous teachings, he was able to navigate his way to a truer, more whole embodiment of himself. In 2022, Paul released a book with his friend Uncle Paul Gordon, entitled, The Dreaming Path: Indigenous Thinking to Change your Life.

Peter Garrett is a member of one of Australia's most successful bands, Midnight Oil. He’s also served as environment minister in the Rudd-Labor government, and been a long-time advocate and campaigner on a range of issues, including human rights and climate change. In this chat with contributor Myke Bartlett, he talked about the role of culture and the arts in enacting change, and how we can infuse our systems with integrity.