Category Archives: People

How can you get your family on board with a slower life? How do we engage with our community and make a difference in the world? How can we better spend our time with family and friends? And why does it matter?

Top 10 of 2019

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And just like that, we arrive at the final episode of 2019. It’s been quite the ride folks, and in the last hostful of the year, Ben and I look back over what has been a massively transformative year for both of us.

We talk about the sometimes bumpy transition between travelling and putting down roots, end of year burnout and our thoughts on the future as a new year (and a new decade) peeks around the corner.

If you’ve been listening to the show for a while you might remember that we did a Top 10 hostful at the end of 2017, where we listed some of the most fun and memorable experiences of the year. We bring that back in today’s episode, not only because it’s a light-hearted way to think back on what we’ve done, where we’ve been and some of the experiences we’ve had, but it’s also a really fun lens through which to view the year that was.

We talk through our individual favourite:

  • TV show
  • small detail
  • movie
  • new destination
  • book
  • discovery
  • album
  • new podcast
  • meal
  • experience

We also use it as an opportunity to reflect on bigger lessons at the same time, which leads me to talk about my conflicted relationship with travel at the moment, book plans for 2020 and a little of what you can expect from the podcast next year too.

Before I sign off for the year I just wanted to thank you all for listening to the show, for submitting such excellent questions, for offering feedback and encouragement and for being our crew. It’s wonderfully buoying to know that I’m not the lone weirdo in the room anymore, that there are loads of people who want to slow down and live more intentionally. And that’s honestly such a gift, so thank you!

Also, if you’re worried about pogpast withdrawal symptoms over the January break, fear not! The annual Summer Series/Winter Warmies (where we share some of our favourite past episodes) will be in your earholes all through the holidays, with the first episode dropping on Jan 2.

Until then, have a wonderful, safe, peaceful holiday season and I’ll catch you next decade.

Brooke xx

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Or you can listen to the show directly, simply by hitting the Play button above. Enjoy!

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As always, thank you for listening and have a wonderful break!

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When slow becomes fast and no is hard to say

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Today we have another wonderful listener conversation for you (I can’t believe we’re more than halfway through this season already!) and it features the delightfully intentional Sara.

Sara has found herself in a place many of us can relate to: she has gradually reduced the commitments in her life in order to do more of what lights her up but has found other requests and demands on her time sneaking in and is finding it difficult to create boundaries and say no.

We talk a lot about values and how service is one of the major motivations in Sara’s life, and why that might be creating tension as she looks to spend more time focusing on other areas of life.

Sara is trying to transition to retirement and is finding it difficult to recalibrate her values so we also look at how she might create some boundaries around her value of service in order to hold space for other parts of her life that are equally important.

We also talk about the role of ego in our desire to say yes and feel needed, as well as the feelings of guilt that arise when Sara – who has always put service of others ahead of her own needs – chooses to create and honour boundaries around her time, energy and other values.

I’m then joined by Cark Honore, who talks about our innate desire to feel relevant as we get older, and how to move through the fear of losing our identity when letting go of work, relationships or activities that used to help define us. We also have an interesting discussion on the trajectory of slow living and how it’s come to reflect different things now that it’s a mainstream idea.

If you’ve ever found yourself questioning how to establish stronger boundaries or how to more evenly weight the scales across all your values, this is a really thoughtful conversation. Plus, if you’re anything like me, you’ll feel all kinds of inspired listening to Sara talk about the work she does and the many different ways she serves her community. She’s an absolute gem.

Enjoy!

Head over to iTunes to subscribe to the show and play the episode.

Or you can listen to the show directly, simply by hitting the Play button above. Enjoy!

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Things to Check Out After Today’s Episode:

As always, thank you for listening!

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How to make a difference

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When we look around and see the myriad environmental crises facing the world it can be easy to slip in to despair, as we wonder, “What difference can I make? I’m only one person.”

In today’s episode we meet Georgi, who has made massive strides in changing the way she lives as an individual but is now looking at the bigger picture and wants to know:

“What are some bigger things I can do, outside my own home, to make a real impact?”

What follows is a really wide-ranging chat where Georgi and I look at both the highly practical changes we can make in our personal attempts to live a more sustainable life, as well as the broader issue of how to work out what we have to offer our community and how to begin delivering it.

A big part of this conversation is about acknowledging that we, as individuals, cannot fix every problem, and to constantly berate ourselves about that fact is a disservice to what we can offer. Georgi and I use this as a jumping off point to talk about the importance of hope and vision – of taking the time to visualise a better version of our community – and to use that as motivation for change.

We also look at the different ways we can make change in our communities. We can, of course, create new programs or services or conversations ourselves, but we can also lend our skills and gifts to those that already exist by way of financial support, volunteering, facilitation and spreading the word. Community isn’t just a place or a group of people, it’s also a way of connecting with those around us and coming together for a common purpose – we don’t need to go it alone.

After farewelling Georgi (hopefully armed with a whole heap of questions and ideas that will help bring her clarity on what comes next), I’m joined by another wonderful special guest. This week it’s Sarah Wilson, author of First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, who talks about the importance of starting where you are and using what you’ve got in order to make change.

We also talk about the current duality of online communities (ie you’re either with us or against us) and the problem with imagining that same division to be present in to our day-to-day conversations. Sarah also brings up the importance of hope, and reminds us that while our individual voice might not feel like it matters much, change can only happen when we join our voice to those around us to make a noisy, beautiful chorus.

Enjoy!

Head over to iTunes to subscribe to the show and play the episode.

Or you can listen to the show directly, simply by hitting the Play button above. Enjoy!

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Things to Check Out After Today’s Episode:

As always, thank you for listening!

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Does slow living rob us of ambition?

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Welcome to Season 4 of the poggie!

As we spoke about in the sneak peek episode a couple of weeks ago, this season sees a pretty significant shake-up to the podcast format and I can’t wait to dive in to it with you.

We start with a question from Kate, who wants to know whether slow living and some of its adjacent elements – mindfulness, self-care, noticing, increased peace and patience – can actually rob us of ambition.

Kate is an author (an exceptionally brilliant author – you’ve probably heard me sing the praises of her debut novel Skylarking on the podcast before) who also has a passion for teaching and podcasting. Kate fears that if she slows down enough to focus solely on her writing, she’d be robbing herself of the opportunity to not only do some of the things that fill her up, but also to live on the ‘edges of life’, where so many of the highs and lows are experienced and, as a result, seeds of ideas for her books are harvested.

Can I tell you – recording this episode was such a treat for me. Not only did I get to have a conversation with the author of one of my favourite books of the past few years (I think about the characters and setting of Skylarking a LOT), but we also get to go deep in to fear, mental health, the importance of looking at our intentions when taking (or not taking) certain actions, and the stories we tell ourselves about pain and discomfort and creativity. It’s a great conversation and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

The second half of the episode features a chat with the delightful Tsh Oxenreider – who is also an author, teacher, podcaster and wearer of many and varied hats, just like Kate. Tsh and I discuss Kate’s questions and the constant recalibration of life’s priorities and joys, and we also talk about the important process of getting to know oneself – why we do things, why we struggle with other things, what our strengths and weaknesses and preferences are.

I’m so glad to be back in the podcasting seat, and hope you enjoy this episode as a taster of things to come this season.

Head over to iTunes to subscribe to the show and play the episode.

Or you can listen to the show directly, simply by hitting the Play button above. Enjoy!

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Things to Check Out After Today’s Episode:

As always, thank you for listening!

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Sheri Salata on embracing the beauty of No

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“I’m dedicating myself to really inhabiting slow.”

Sheri Salata

One of the many, many highlights of hosting the poggie is that I have the opportunity to regularly talk with passionate, intentional, conscious, self-aware people. People who have decided to go deep in to their own lives and really do the head and heart work of figuring out what’s important to them, then digging deeper to work out how they’re going to create a life with more space for those important things.

I’m so thrilled to bring you this week’s episode, where I chat with the utterly delightful human that is Sheri Salata who has done just that – digging deep in to her own life and doing the work of reprioritising – despite working for one of the most high-profile and well-loved brands in the world in a high-pressure, high-stress (and maybe even high-ego) job.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Sheri in person when we were in LA on the book tour last year and am so excited we finally got the opportunity to chat on the poggie because while not all of us get the opportunity to work with Oprah, we do all get the opportunity to slow down and really consider what’s important to us as individuals. And we also get the opportunity to gradually start putting those things at the centre of our lives by letting go, saying no, making space and getting clear on our why.

Sheri was the executive producer of the final five seasons of Oprah and Co-President of OWN before she decided to walk away in 2016 and pursue a simpler, more values-aligned life and, hoo boy, friends, does she have some knowledge nugs to drop on us this week – specifically on how to embrace the beauty of “no” both given and received, and how we can choose to view those “no’s” as obstacles or invitations.

Sheri is someone I admire a lot, because she has this incredible ability to strip things down to their very core and chooses to make her life decisions based on what she finds there, regardless of if it makes her uncomfortable or not. In today’s episode we discuss why she decided to walk away from her job with Oprah, how she knew it was time to listen to her inner-voice and what that first day of unemployment felt like after a career of high pressure work.

We also look at the role ego plays in our constant stories of busy-ness, how to get comfortable with discomfort, whether it’s necessary to reach a crisis point before making positive changes, her approach to living a spiritual life (and what it’s like to have Deepak Chopra on speed dial!) as well as her philosophy on living a full and glorious life in to her fifties and beyond. Particularly in a world that likes to make women believe that once we hit fifty we become irrelevant.

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and hope you enjoy Sheri’s story as much as I did.

Questions featured in this episode:

  1. You’ve changed your life significantly over the past few years – what was the catalyst for those changes?
  2. You talk about going through a process of ‘reckoning’. What did your reckoning look like?
  3. How do you balance finding joy in the present moment and working towards the next thing?
  4. Do you think we need to reach a crisis point in order to reevaluate our lives? Or is there a way of manufacturing that awakening without hitting rock bottom?
  5. How did you learn to make ‘no’ a part of your vocabulary?
  6. What can people do to start their own process of reevaluation, excavation and reinvention?

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Head over to iTunes to subscribe to the show and play the episode.

Or you can listen to the show directly, simply by hitting the Play button above. Enjoy!

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Things to Check Out After Today’s Episode:

As always, thank you for listening!

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