0:03
It's the daily Talk Show Episode 104 special guests Phoebe Parsons is joining us. Welcome mate.

0:13
Thank you for having me.

0:15
So you are from Confessions of a train wreck? How many episodes have you done now?

0:21
Oh, putting me on the spot I think. Full Episodes. I think we're up to about 123 now, and then I jump into bonus episodes when I feel like it.

0:31
Half episodes 1500

0:37
the limit does not exist.

0:39
We're just talking off air. If you're watching this video, Phoebe has a very impressive headset on and it's what dreams are made of To be honest, yeah, we're very impressed.

0:50
If anyone has a customer service team and their work has been stood down, I suggest you go and rack the desks now because the things that you find in those drawers.

0:58
It's such a great idea. The the podcasts, the types of things that you're covering, I could imagine that sometimes you go too far Have there been any times where you've had to cut something or you've regrettably put something out into the world.

1:16
The only time I've had to do that was when my mom became a religious listener. And I had told a story about having a pregnancy scare as a lot of females do. And then I realised I wasn't pregnant. I was just fat. When my mom heard that story, she called me and said, baby, you cannot be putting out this kind of content, what will people think of you? So instead of be remaking my content, I just renamed my mom from

1:43
subscribing to my podcast. I love that. I love that. I mean, I've had blow ups with my mom. I've gotten full arguments before about the content that I put out. Mostly it's positive, but you know, sometimes your mom doesn't know everything

1:54
was it was actually about TJ his mom contacted him. about talking about the psychologist he started going to seeing a psych I remember that one specifically, you talk about mental health stuff. Like Have you found that you've got like a filter? Or are there certain things that you still like to keep private?

2:16
Well, I think because of podcasting, because you're not doing it in front of an audience, you kind of forget that they're there sometimes until an episode comes out and you start getting messages and you're like, Oh, God, I did say that deny.

2:28
Yeah, it's it's always the case and then it's it's on the internet forever because some jerk if you actually say something will screenshot it or rip it off YouTube, it gets real pesty I mean, look, have you seen some of those clips that have meant to be pulled down that people who is that person

2:46
what like just like screw I definitely scraped if I say something having a meltdown on Facebook. And I think it could be taken down I'm definitely screen right you want to you want me to

2:56
grab 100% You know, what I found it really bad on at the moment is on iTunes. And you can't remove those comments that people write about your podcast on iTunes or whatever Apple podcast reviews. And I find it's like a pile on culture. So one person out of 500 comments are negative, but then the next 10 I just spitballing off this negative person. You're like, Listen, are you just joining in the conversation because you want event something?

3:24
I mean, the best thing about having a podcast for a while is you give people enough time to say I used to be a fan, but now I hate the person. It's the favourite thing in Apple podcasts. You can but you can sort of tie it back to I saw when everyone's you know, so now it's getting a little bit like whether they know it or not. They're getting a bit angry. Are they getting a bit sad? Where are you in the spectrum right now in the COVID mindset and mental health perspective,

3:52
to be honest, not great, but only because of a fault of my own. Last night, I thought it was smart to watch contagion yeah that's that's not ideal.

4:01
So this is a full and it's very closely linked to Coronavirus. Yeah. Well, it's it's it is a movie. So it's not real but I've heard something very, very not and I mean, this is you know, I did I hear you don't watch movies usually faby

4:19
that, you know, I can't sell for that long. Oh, it's it's very hard for me actually to watch a movie but I will try to compromise with my boyfriend last night and he thought it would be a good idea to watch it too then neither of us slept and all I could think about was washing my hands.

4:32
No, I mean, I just touched I went to get a coffee before and I stupidly touch the bin when lifting it but I would never have thought about that back in the day. Side note though. This is a cafe Phoebe, I go to a bit and I'm just actually going to stop going there later in the day because they're the type that is so generous, that they'll give you a doughnut and a muffin as you walk out the door without paying for it and I just heard him whispered and I was like you I don't need that and i don't i don't need those calories but it's fat. And so

5:06
the day and it's trying to get rid of it,

5:09
okay, yeah, but it's annoying because I didn't like yesterday Josh and I spoke at length about not drinking my issue with drinking in that says Josh's issue with food and it links exactly to that it's like everything's against you when you're trying to stop drinking somebody would like that you want to fucking be I've got 20 for free and next minute I got muffins and

5:31
what's the radio industry stuff to every single time I remember working at a radio station anytime that Master Chef had a new season out this ending cupcakes, it feels like instead it like there are a few of those industries. I mean, is they're working at like a health club day to day that like a people really dialled in, in regards to the food that's around the place.

5:53
You know what you'd think so but if someone brings out a healthy cake in the office for your birthday, it's on their face. No one wants a BB We do get a lot of like new supplements and stuff. So we get a lot of like new pre workouts and things like that that are going to be sold in the retail section of the clubs, which is sometimes fun to try but then sometimes you sitting at a desk at 4pm and you've just nicked like two serves with a pre workout all of a sudden you can hear colours and you're like whoa, I've

6:18
never had a pre workout stuff so like I feel like a bad idea for me. I can imagine I'm not the kind of guy to be an emergency say my chest hurts. Like what's the what does it actually do to your baby?

6:31
Well, I have it every morning so I go to the gym every morning at five o'clock and it's the first thing that I put in my body when I wake up like as much as I wish I was one of those calm people who wakes up in the morning has your warm lemon water and writes a gratitude list. I'm not I get up I checked my phone straightaway. I have some pre workout and I'm in the car on the way to the gym and it's like

6:53
going through red lights literally

6:57
is a energy drink that It is it's almost comical now it's called bang and there is a heap of influencers online log in and it's like they've tapped into that sort of female influencer high amount of followers it's like I'm drinking a bang again but it's just it's ridiculous but it's it's coming on what

7:18
are what what are they putting in

7:20
yet high amounts of caffeine or sugar heat like a fructose or whatever the glucose here it's a whole bunch of stuff. It's a prime ingredients for you to shoot yourself to be honest.

7:32
Well, it just reminds me too much of a member when you were first at energy drink pulse, lecture energy drink with printed and you would be you would be trying to go to sleep when you got home and you'd be having heart palpitations but you couldn't sit still. You couldn't close your eyes. The room was spinning. You didn't know what was going on.

7:49
Yeah, I mean, that's just for 25 year olds, it becomes cocaine at that point. This is Yeah, this is the channel I

8:01
remember at Viking there was a there was a chocolate bar called the Viking bar which I remember is a key that looked like a Mazda but it had like energy like it had the the stuff that makes you go a bit sort of hyper.

8:16
kind of remember that I remember the packaging.

8:18
Yeah, I really wanted one. But it was just like I was I was the type of kid who you didn't want to give read coil to or things like oh my god.

8:26
Some people

8:28
are super sensitive like they could never have a pre workout. Is there anything you're sensitive to like your body sensitive to Phoebe?

8:37
Well water

8:42
I can't drink it. I have pre workout first and I like my coffee then I've just never liked the taste of water. So if I'm trying to stay hydrated without caffeine, I'll put like coffee or something in it because I just cannot stand the taste of water.

8:54
I'm glad we've got you here because I've always said that. I anyone who says They don't like the taste of water have missed the point. What is it like as a person that doesn't like the taste of water? What do you what do you think water was gonna do? And he was just pissing butter at this point.

9:11
Well, it's strange because like I love zucchinis and that's basically like hardened water.

9:19
Just like me. I would put it up put money. Most people I reckon would think zucchini tastes worse than water is water almost offers zero taste what is what are you tasting when you're drinking? What's the pushback?

9:33
I think it's probably the inconvenience of having to pay so regularly by being completely honest. But also maybe I just don't know what it feels like to be hydrated because I do a lot of exercise in the day and I'm not hydrating myself with anything that's not caffeinated. Ouch,

9:46
got sugar in it. Did you find that? How long were you in ISO like so being in Brisbane? In Victoria here? It's fact where it was sort of basically locked down. I really? Yeah. What is it? What was it like? And then what is it like now?

10:04
Oh in Brisbane we went in it for too long I think it was only about five or six weeks that we had to stay completely at home for but we were still allowed to go out and exercise for nowadays so go to the supermarket still go I think to the chemist and whatever but the thing is shopping centres never closed nothing ever actually closed. So there was still the people who were you know, going out to you know, buy your emergency shoes or whatever it was that you needed to buy. I actually didn't find it too bad. I moved in with my boyfriend four weeks before lockdown. So I got stood down from both of my jobs so I thought that it was gonna be a really good time. I always said to Tony would be my year. So I in my head I was like well, this is gonna make or break us really fast. But luckily for me, he didn't lose his job. He was still going to work in the office every day and we got through it.

10:57
So you actually employed now you just in the office. still go to the water.

11:06
You don't drink it anyway. So it'd be fun.

11:12
I was listening to any of your podcasts about something happened at your house with your boyfriend and the key issue snapping off in the lock, and then you're not wanting to. So can you just explain what you did to fix this problem?

11:28
That you're talking about the trip to Bunnings

11:30
Yeah, the trick I mean, trip to Bunnings

11:33
way

11:35
that well, just to get the lock get to, from what I took from it is you took it upon yourself before actually having to pay big money to have your lock fixed because you snap the key in so you tried to give yourself right.

11:46
Well, so within a very old apartment and the key unlocks both the front and back, balcony doors. And one night after a couple of I think I probably had a couple of wines on a house party. One night, and I slammed the door shot and the key snapped off and got stuck in the door of the apartment. And both the doors were shot. The washer was on the line, everything was outside. So I tried to get it out myself with a pair of tweezers, which didn't work. So then we ended up going to Bunnings which is somewhere I'd never been in my life before I met my boyfriend and now I feel like we're there every weekend and I spent $60 on buying equipment. I bought needlepoint pliers, Wd 40, little like wire things to push in there and pull it out and I was prepared to pay for a locksmith but luckily, needlepoint pliers cannot recommend them highly enough.

12:43
My when something happens to me I immediately go off fuck we're in for big money here like to actually get the real person out to fix it. So I had a big marriage incident. This is going to shoot we talked about on our podcast, we my wife reversed into a garage door took it off the hinge and completely buckled it

13:02
or you didn't say stop it now

13:07
all of a sudden the garage stopped working you didn't say that Amy smashed

13:10
garage door no no no that's not why no no two stories two different nights a big arc the garage door is a big piece of this podcast. So we hit so me reversed into it. Luckily it didn't smash the back window. The garage door came off worse and somehow it still worked. But then for maybe a week and a half ago in the garage door snaps it's spring so wouldn't open. I was I was like on are they gonna see the injury to the door and then we're gonna have to pay even more. turned out they might so lucky. The guy came today. He fixed the the the rail that had been knocked out from the car and he fixed the door. So we've got away with not spending a cent trying to fix this door. And now no one knows. So we're going to get out of here with our bond locking pathway.

14:00
That was my next question. I was gonna say do you own that place or you're renting?

14:04
Oh, absolutely not renting just renting. I mean, it's renting which is why I was more worried if it was mine, I probably would have been like, if I could just sit and chill

14:13
about it. I mean, it's like if you have a scratch on your car, you're sort of secretly hoping someone like a very small collision no one gets hurt, but someone heats that bit of the car so you can get that replaced, right?

14:27
I was just gonna say that but for me it was the other side. So with mild cause someone hit one side but I couldn't even afford my own inch like my own insurance claim. So I just hoped someone would hit the other side so at least it was symmetrical and they did

14:41
today Really? Like what do you think that because I have a theory that people that have you know dents or scratches on their cat like they are a liability like if I see someone in a car park doing that I back down because it's almost like next to them. Yeah, cuz you know They're a bit fucking tweaked and so how, how far between your initial car injury and then getting it to a point where it needs to get fixed out? How many months was it?

15:14
I mean, I just want you to know that this car was so cursed it had no hubcaps the glove box had fallen off somewhere melted off like I think it must have been glued on for whoever owned it previously to I did. I don't remember ever hearing the hubcaps dropping off so either someone stole them or my music was up so loud that I didn't hear them falling off when

15:32
I was driving talk because I've heard that green cars have cursed.

15:36
It was blue. It was a little blueness in Minecraft but I crushed it the day that I got it. So what the day that I bought I moved into a new apartment and the parking space was super tight. And I pulled in and smashed the mirror off and scratched all the panels down the hall right hand side of the car. So from day one, that car was cursed and then to really just put the cherry on top of the end of that car. I decided to grow up one day after driving That car round for four years and it was pretty much deranged from the day that I got it. Obviously I crushed it the first day, I decided to trade it in and had it value to only be receiving like $2,500 for the trade. And I was like, whatever I that's more than I thought anyway. And the day that I was going to pick up the new car, I reversed this car out of my garage, which was a different apartment, hit a Ranger, shattered my whole back windscreen and the car just decompress like it wasn't legal to drive it to the dealership. And do you know how much they gave me to still give my car? I had to pay for a tow truck. They gave me $100

16:42
That's so funny. Oh god. I mean are you someone who like are you a neat person like inside your car? Are you someone with heaps of water bottles and stuff or not water bottles? You don't drink? Yeah, do you? Do you run a tight ship? Inside your car, or is it a bit messy?

17:02
It's very strange. I run a very tight shape inside my kitchen and my lounge room and I'm always very on top of the laundry. My bathroom is filthy and so is my car. And I can't figure out what the roadblocks are to me not being able to clean the bathroom on my car, but they're there and they're not going away.

17:21
What do you think? What's the telltale sign of a dirty bathroom? I want is it like a hair thing? Is it like what's the

17:28
No it's not. I mean, to me, it's not that bad, but other people will disagree with I say that. It's more like the shower has some watermark stains on it because I don't squeegee it down. I don't ever mop the floor and I use a lot of dry shampoo on the tile so the floors kind of like a white matte colour. It's not the black shiny tiles anymore. My column is like 100 gym towels in there, like 200 different like merchandise, water bottles. There's just crap everywhere.

17:59
You said you move Didn't with you, your boy for weeks before locked down? What? How's that experience been? I mean living with someone for the first time.

18:07
Yeah, it was it's really good. Now I was That's a lot. It was never bad. It was just a confronting experience, I think and he thought I was gonna be a lot messier than I actually turned out to be. I'm the one now who you know, always does the kitchen and the dishwasher and the laundry and things like that. It's just the bathroom. I will not cut any up. But we've got a place with two bathrooms. So we have one age and I think, straightaway, that just negated, you know, or mitigated any kind of fight that could erupt about the state of my bathroom.

18:34
It's legit could save a relationship.

18:36
Yeah. No, no, never.

18:42
The I saw a video where you deconstructed how much peanut butter you're actually allowed to consume in those like, recommended intake serving, serving sizes. What

18:56
I don't know I don't know if I want to hear this. I don't know why. Because I eat so much peanut butter and so does my son who's free

19:04
yeah and so I mean are you measuring during ISO did like did those things go out the window Do you just cuz I feel like peanut butter if you were to if you ate something it's not the worst thing in the world this worship than peanut butter

19:17
no exactly it's more in so it's more the drinking that went up I have a rule that I don't drink during the week normally locked down different story especially the first two weeks when it was kind of like a novelty and you just be able to house party call or zoom call every single night with a different group of friends. You'd be getting super super drunk but I still I think because my alcohol consumption went up I was still quite careful about what I was eating.

19:42
How much pain about it can you actually it What does it look like just visually

19:48
it very sad visually so if you if you weighed that record, I made this peanut butter it's very simple. It's like you know peak so like the natural peanut butter. 20 grammes is one so So if you can imagine 20 grammes of peanut butter is like probably half a teaspoon of peanut butter. And then you think about how much peanut butter you'd put on two pieces of toast is probably 200 grammes.

20:11
Yeah, I mean, it's not ideal. I mean better than a teller, I still still think the drinking thing TJ was talking about. So he's completely getting rid of booze. He did it last year, then went hard this year. How much of your like, you've spoken a bit about mental health and all that sort of thing. How much of mental health is tied up into the drinking stuff for you?

20:38
Um, not a whole Hape for me to be honest, because I think that I do control myself with drinking quite well in that I don't. For me, that's not my kind of escape. At the end of the day, I'd rather have ice cream or chocolate or something like that. And I think I have alcoholism in my family. So I've always been very conscious not to fall back on alcohol unless I'm at a party or Something like that that's always kind of been something in the back of my head. Although it's I've never found it a problem, if that makes sense for me personally, I've never found myself drinking alone or when I was sad or you know, obviously have a stressful day at work, but you come home when you and your partner have like, you know, a beer together or whatever it may be. But for me personally, I have my history of mental health is more about the eating stuff, which then probably goes back to the serving sizes and the you know, the restriction around that stuff.

21:27
Yeah, I mean, ice cream is a big one. It's so easy to, to consume. And like is since Uber raids, and getting like ice cream delivered to your house like, I it's been so long, but it feels like I'm in the 90s like, I remember being a kid and like, after dinner, I needed something sweet and it needed dessert. And now, I feel like I'm doing that but it's like, Oh, I bet a Uber Eats some ice cream. It's like, Man, it's cheaper if we get the big tub. It's gonna do us for a couple of days. It's just like a nightmare. I mean, what what was your You go to like, your big delivery a sound like you're getting stuff delivered.

22:05
I'm, look, it's again difficult moving in with my boyfriend because I am very fussy when it comes to what I eat. So we only have two things that we can agree on eating off overeats and that is Vietnamese food or a pokey bowl place up the road from us and Vietnamese food normally wins because it's one of those like Asian fusion places. So there's like, Thai food, Chinese food, Vietnamese food on there. I'm not huge on overeats but also I live very inner city. So there are a lot of places I could just walk to outside of my apartment to get food. But once I also hung over then I got coffee. Uber Eats to my house up into my apartment level and it was like $14 50 that's it was the laziest thing I think I've ever done in my life, but it was worth every dollar.

22:54
So you're the picky eater then.

22:57
God Yeah, absolutely.

22:59
Like Mexican food.

23:01
I love Mexican food

23:02
law so your boyfriend doesn't like Mexican food then

23:05
he loves Mexican food. But he has that a lot. He works in the city so he doesn't meal prep like I do. So he often has Guzman for lunch because that's like, you know, the easy cheap, semi healthy Mexican. So I love Guzman too, but he's usually had it for lunch so well for dinner. I mean, the other day, we got a box of hellofresh but I was very fussy about the way that I wanted mine. So the poor guy had to cook two separate versions of this one meal. It took him about four hours, but also I'm not the cooker. I hate cooking. And I'm terrible at it. So that's on him.

23:35
I think all relationships have like a middle ground for food. You said it's the pokey balls or Vietnamese. For me it's it's Thai food. So like a What do you call it like a curry? Tiger or curry or like a Thai green curry or a what's the other one the

23:53
red just carrying

23:54
on? is like a, an egg.

23:58
No, it's like a thick one. Fuck off. Go on. It's good. Have my head beef

24:00
like a muscleman love?

24:03
Yeah, yeah.

24:04
really gets in your teeth.

24:06
But if we're ever getting if we're ever going to order stuff and I say to my wife, what do you want? And she'll always say that and so that is that the for me I'm probably I'm going burgers or pizza or something so she probably yeah but yeah I know all relationships have it for you what Josh I don't know what it is because I feel like you probably get this say Ah,

24:26
well no no I think Britney and I just very aligned I'm not some sort of dictator but yeah for us. I mean, yeah, Mexican is great. Mexicans great I think too if you want to be healthy because you can get a burrito bowl or do something like that. But yeah, I mean, pizza.

24:45
Always. There's always one in the relationship though. That's probably cares more about one one thing, like I reckon I would push harder for what I wanted in most occasions. Sure,

24:55
sure. What's the deal with that OSI cables in Queensland, so I feel like every time I go to Queensland, it's like the OSI state. How often is it balls?

25:08
I was eating them a lot when they were new. It was like my favourite thing to eat in a week. I'd have one for dinner if they were open at dinner time. I was obsessed with them. But they've kind of tainted out. I haven't seen you know, food goes through these massive like cyclical phases. So for a while there was cake stores everywhere. Yeah. Then there was fro yo everywhere. Then there was a sigh places everywhere. And now it seems to be croissant places everywhere. That's like the new thing that I've noticed everywhere.

25:37
I tell you what it was. I think it was just a matter of time before people caught on that they aren't good for you. What do

25:43
you mean psi?

25:45
psi balls a fucking

25:48
dude, it was made with fruit juice and fro yo.

25:56
But that was silly, wasn't it

26:00
Yes, exactly. I mean, this is gonna pay off background knew all about that route. Yeah, that's right. What have you learned about working in PR and then studying podcasts where you know you, it's all about comms, isn't it?

26:19
Kind of like, should I even say this? I've never told this to anybody in a public platform, but like, I've caught the Daily Mail myself before to get my

26:29
work. And then you repost it, you're like, ah, pigs at The Daily Mail.

26:34
Little did they know that I made a fake email address and a fake name an actor is my own publicist, but like you got to do what you got to do.

26:42
What sort of headlines Did you give him?

26:45
Oh, this was? Yeah, a couple of times. Actually. The first time was I was actually really bored one weekend and I was home alone for like three days this would have been probably around this time last year, and Cadbury had just released a limited addition, pineapple lumps inspired block, and I love pineapple lumps and I was like, right this weekend I'm going to make it my mission. I've got nothing else to do. I'm going to find this chocolate. It's, you know, I'm dedicated to it. Went to a couple of Kohl's couple of Woolworths started posting a few casual things about it on my Instagram story. And then people started getting really involved like I love pineapple lumps. I saw them here. I saw them here and I was basically in a rat race around Brisbane trying to find this chocolate. And so I decided I'm just going to commit to this. I'm going to start tagging Cadbury in the post I'm going to do like polls and just keep this treasure hunt going anyway. The Cadbury media team, atrocious I just I'm just going to put that on the record. They're horrible and the way they communicate to you they've obviously just got some stock standard templated response to anybody who contacts them ended up what happened then drove to a couple of places everybody was reposting it everyone was on this mission with Bay and then I it turned out they only sold it in two that never actually came to Australia. It turned into this big hoax anyway called the Daily Mail about that under this fake email address. And when I woke up the next day, it was on the global news because my sister listed him and she got this notification on her daily mount news site that said Australian woman goes on mammoth hunt to find chocolate that's only available in New Zealand and it just turned into this like this epic thing and I ended up doing obviously said like radio content breaks about and podcast episode about it. And anyway, Cadbury sent me one block in the mail with no note.

28:33
Christian how so annoying.

28:36
He lived across the road from me.

28:39
Surely? Yeah, sure. Do you say how many had the I mean your your podcast Confessions of a train wreck? It's had like a huge amount of growth. How do you actually grow a podcast? Like I don't have How have you done it for you?

28:57
It's a good question. I wish I knew the answer.

29:01
I think when I started my podcast, it was kind of by fluke. So I'm a journalist, like that's my background. And I love to write. And so, before I started my podcast, I had kind of come up with this train wreck concept, but I wanted it to be a book. And then in a classic case of life, intimidating art, the USB that it was saved on snapped in off one day, and I hadn't backed it up anyway,

29:22
was it in Mexico?

29:26
Smash. So I thought I'll just, you know, save stuff out loud is so much easier. I'm just gonna do a podcast about this. And somehow I ended up winning a competition with Nova to do five episodes. And I thought, that's all it was gonna be just, you know, this prize, I'll do five episodes. It's a cool story that I'll move on with my life. And then somehow it ended up number 23 on iTunes in the second week that it was out and they ended up resigning me and I thought, How did this happen? Like what is going on? And then you just realise that people love to hate the truth. And I thought that I'd get condemned for finally coming. With like, how hard it is to be in your 20s and trying to grow up and things like that. But it turns out, that's what people like to hear. So that is how to get more momentum. You have to, I guess, think a bit more actually about the kind of guests that you're bringing on. And sometimes you think, you know, do they have a big audience? And are they aligned with, you know, what I want to talk about. And then I started doing two episodes a week, not one, and then I had a breakdown. So I went back to one and now it's kind of going back to two, and it's ever evolving. And then the live show thing was cool, which is obviously not a thing anymore. But I ended up doing a live podcast show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival last year. And I've done a couple since then, as well, which is another really cool way just to do things a bit differently. And it's really cool doing things in front of a live audience. Because I think when you do a podcast, the only validation that you get from your listeners is when they message you about something. Whereas when you do it live and you say something funny, and they laugh, you're like, Oh, you will actually listen to this

30:53
when it comes to the guests stuff. I mean, one one thing that we've found challenging is the Ask asking people Hey, Can you post like it? And your general manager, Jess was like, hey, you've had all these guests, like who's posted that? It's like, most people don't. We don't it's like, oh, do you ask them to? It's like are we sort of do a very soft sell? Because we don't want to feel like we're leveraging people. And we just want to have great guests on Have you worked out the balance in how to do that ask?

31:22
Look, I am a very sensitive person. And oftentimes, even when I asked people to come onto my podcast, for some reason, I feel like it's gonna be a burden to them. So I think I'm a bit too sensitive in the other way, but usually, I'll just post something about them being on it and just cross my fingers and hope that they reshare it. And if not, that's cool. I'll just cry by myself.

31:47
What's been the biggest win in regards to like, what, where you've actually seen the growth of it. Has there been any specific episodes or shares or?

31:57
Yeah, I think when your podcast gets fixed on the homepage of iTunes, you see these massive, massive spikes in the numbers? And then obviously the subscribe rate goes up from there. And then you see, do you track yours like that? Do you go and look at the analytics of kind of the long life of your podcast? And you see, obviously, when you have your breaks, they go right down, and then they come back up and think that but I'm a very competitive person. So if I see my numbers dropping, I think right, what can I do? What PR Can I get? What can I do now? What can I do? Which is, you know, it's a good and a bad thing. I think sometimes you just need to chill out, but I think definitely getting featured on the homepage of iTunes is a good thing. But then that also opens you up. You have to be prepared as well to get the people that don't like you as well. We'll find you on there. And then

32:42
how did you get on the homepage of iTunes? Is it that same email address that you sent to the Daily Mail? Are you using them?

32:52
It's a good question. I tunes are like the most secret company I think you could possibly work for I don't know how it works. I've never pitched myself to get on. I think that's something that was done through Nova. I actually don't know how you get on. But I've been on there twice, I think, which has been nice.

33:11
What about when it comes to the content and sort of evolving with the podcast? Have you thought about ways that you can create it so that you can evolve and make it what you want it to be?

33:24
I think a big huddle I had to overcome was I my podcast used to be called Confessions of a 20 something train wreck. But then in October, I turned 30. And for some reason, in my head, I had this idea that I would wake up on my 30th birthday, and somehow, all of my shit would just be together. Turns out, life does not work like that. So someone just scratched the 20 something off the front cover of my podcast and we just continued as Confessions of a train wreck. But I think as obviously, if you do have longevity in a podcast and then a character or a brand or Whatever it is that you've created, you do have to think of ways that you can evolve it because you do change. But I think the cool thing about train wreck has been that my listeners have kind of grown with me. So they've also been on this core kind of journey too. And I guess you can't, you can't stay where you, you know where you started. And no one stays like that you think about even like artists who bring out albums, like look at what Taylor Swift's just gone and done again in this last like, couple of days, and you think back to her first album, and she's, like, constantly changing and I'm not very resistant to change. So I'm not very good at changing, but I think I've changed. I think I changed a little bit too far. And I tried to be this really like inspirational, like, you know, podcast and then I was like, check yourself go, no one's coming to you for like education or inspiration. They're coming to you to feel better about themselves. Is that someone

34:51
did someone say something or is that you realise internally.

34:56
I think I got a bit of feedback that that was like You're not funny anymore. And I was like, okay, sorry. But I think that I just got super interested in kind of figuring out the premise for the podcast when I started it was, I would like, say a problem. So my very first episode was I hadn't done a tax return in six years. So the original idea was, I'm going to interview an accountant about this to find out like how serious it really is, could I go to jail? Is there a fine, but

35:25
this is a free way to be able to get an accounting like get an appointment.

35:31
A sponsorship? Yeah, no, I'm kidding. No, definitely no sponsorship. But then it ended up going in a bit of a different direction, whereby I just chat to my friends about that stuff. So it was like people listening in on these conversations. So then in the last couple of, I guess probably the last six months when I have kind of gotten a lot of that stuff together like I do do my tax well. I haven't done it for two years, but you know, I do I get my car service. No, I don't get my car service, but a lot of the things that I wasn't doing at the start have changed now. So now I've kind of gone down this path where I want to talk to professionals about, you know, I had the story. So let's start, which could be, for example, I've got an episode coming out actually today about sustainable menstrual cycles and how there are so many alternatives now. So I interviewed a sustainability specialist about that. But we both had these funny stories about, you know, trying to use period underwear and menstrual cups and things like that for the first time. So there still is the element of the funny raw, authentic trainwreck stuff, but I'd still want there to be some kind of message or takeaway, so it's kind of like, Do what I say not what I did, if that makes sense. Yeah,

36:39
so it's like, I've made here's my floor, but I'm trying to work on it. You might learn to I love Yeah, yes. Thank you. It's, it's great. I mean, there's a love the the YouTube channels that are like that, you know, tried this for 30 days or try this for three months. Is there anyone you love on YouTube that you follow that you're inspired By for your own content.

37:04
I don't watch a whole lot of YouTube anymore I do for the fitness side of stuff. So I did get into right into, you know, Sarah's day and Whitney Simmons and the big kind of this is another really weird thing about me. I love watching mukbangs on YouTube, what did you explain a million with mukbangs? Well, so basically mukbang is, yeah, mukbang it sounds are right. And it's not it's very g rated. So it's where a couple of people get like a feast. So mukbang is a I think it's a Korean term and it means broadcasting, ageing, so they just get this huge spread of food, and they just chat to each other and eat it all. Which is I don't know. It's probably means I'm fundamentally unwell. But I get so much pleasure out of watching people do this and you can even take it one step further. There are ASMR mukbangs, where it's like they eating this crazy food with microphones just super close to the food. I find it really cathartic. experience, but that's about what I watch on YouTube these days.

38:06
So I am, I remember when I was on a diet once watching candy reviews, and it like I felt like that was my dessert. It's probably it's probably a bit dark but now I remembered spiral,

38:19
too. Yeah, I remember being on an eight way challenge and watching where your calorie consumption is something ridiculous like 1200 calories a day. And there was this trend going around YouTube for a while that was called the 10,000 calorie challenge, but people have to try and get to 10,000 calories in a day. So well, surprisingly, the success rate was quite low like to consume 10,000 calories. It's quite a hard thing to do in a day, but I get what you mean. Like I felt like I was so hungry that I had to watch other people eating just so I could sleep at night.

38:54
What are you worrying about?

38:57
Oh, everything. I've got hectic anxiety. I'm on an antidepressant sense to try and squash that everything. Last night I was convinced convinced there was an intruder in my home when I was trying to go to sleep. So I made my boyfriend Get up, get a knife and go through every room and every cupboard in the house to prove to me that there was nobody there. There was nobody there. But I slept terribly because every noise that I had, I was on God,

39:20
you know, and what it would lead you to think that there was someone in the house.

39:25
I think I was just in a really bad mental state because I just watched contagion. So I was just, I was just spiralling I wasn't in a good place last night.

39:33
What does the antidepressants do to?

39:37
Ah, thanks. I'm on a very, I won't say which one because I find that can be a bit triggering to people who might be going through different things, but I didn't get any negative side effects, but it is a it's trial and error. So I tried a couple before I settled on what I'm on now, but I had terrible crippling anxiety that started to manifest itself very physically. So I last period I was covered in psoriasis I couldn't sleep like it was it was bad I had all these gut issues going on that I went to hospital but everything was inconclusive and there was nothing You know, there was no medical test could show those anything actually wrong with me. So I ended up going back to my beautiful GP who'd said this 12 months prior, but in my head I was like anxiety. Everyone's got anxiety everyone talks about how anxious they are and this and that, and I think it's just such a frivolously used term in our culture at the moment that I think it's causing a lot of people to kind of go undiagnosed if you are suffering from quite serious anxiety that you do need for example to say be medicated for that I just kind of shrugged it off and thought I was just stressed without doing live a very stressful life but I like it that way. So I ended up yet going back to that same doctor and it was a kind of I told you so situation.

40:52
Did you find that they that you were you recognise that you actually had anxiety beforehand. Like a threat your whole life? And is there a clear like I've heard sort of anxieties worrying about the future depressions. Looking back in the past, can you like, talk about how you how it sort of reconciles for you?

41:15
Well, I think it was kind of like a series of light bulb moments once I kind of got diagnosed with this anxiety disorder. When I was in my early 20s, I had an eating disorder for a while, and I was quite resistant to get help for it. But my mom kind of dragged me to a clinic and against my will and I just ticked all the boxes, I was the perfect patient because I just wanted to get out go home. And they never kind of got to the root of the cause, like they just dealt with the problem at present. And I never really found out why but I'm a very big white person loves Simon Sinek huge Simon Sinek fan. And so when my current doctor was going back to all my medical records, he was like, this would have been your anxiety. And that's how my anxiety manifests a lot of the time. It's the controller and food and things like that. So Once he said that it was like, the last 12 years of my life, everything just kind of clicked. And I was like, Ah, that's why.

42:08
So is it? Is it a realisation you that you have it now you have a term for it and are able to then identify when it was and moving forward, you know when it will be or when you're in it?

42:22
I think so. Sometimes, I think you slowly kind of begin to learn what your triggers are. So for me, I do like exercises. It sounds so cliche but I am such a big fan of exercise I have to start every single day with a huge workout because it just makes me feel really energised and so much clarity and just puts me in a good headspace and that's really good for my head. And I know that there are you know, you can see yourself when you are in triggering situations which sometimes you can avoid like global pandemics, losing your job losing all your income and things like that. I did start to see myself slipping back into some kind of habits around food and things like that, but I think that When you are, you know, seeing a therapist and you are on medication and things like that you are able to kind of call yourself out on those behaviours a lot faster than you would have been able to do previously, so you can stop them from getting as bad as they might have been before.

43:16
So having a podcast and creating content, I feel like I talk about things being stick like I have stick, and sometimes I don't know if I'm doing stick or if I'm actually like, in trouble. How do you know when you're doing stick like when you like, Hey, get the knife and like go check the house versus like a full blown meltdown.

43:39
You know, one of the weirdest things was I have the best listeners ever. And a lot of them were messaging me This is when I was going through the kind of process of getting diagnosed with anxiety just last year, and a lot of them were saying, Are you okay? Like you just sound a little bit different to what you have previously and you do sound a bit sad. And defeated and, you know, a bit more stress than usual. And I love them like they would though just trying to help. But a lot of them would try to be like Dr. Google and like, I think it might be this or this or you know, things like that. But I think that having people that you haven't even met, being able to detect or realise that there's something wrong with you, was a very powerful thing. That made sense. So the fact that even my work had been not I wouldn't say suffering, but, you know, people had cottoned on to the fact that I probably wasn't in the best mental state, but it wasn't just that it wasn't the context of the content of that makes sense. So it wasn't the stories. It was my delivery of what was going on, which is also what, you know, make them realise, which I think is really cool,

44:46
huh? So self awareness, then like, do you think you're someone who is self aware?

44:54
Yes, painfully self aware, sometimes too self aware.

44:58
What does that mean?

45:01
I think maybe it's maybe again, this is a bit of social anxiety. I'm a very social person. I have a lot of groups of friends and I think I'm quite extroverted. But I love being around people. But then you know, sometimes when you're in a new situation, and you're looking around and you're like, oh, does that person like me? Did I say the wrong thing just then and you kind of just overanalyze everything going off in your head, oh, he doesn't want to just get a bit of an intuition. And you're like, oh, that person is not responding to me in the way that I would

45:31
write my head. Isn't that that's fucked up. It is. It's like, because I feel like I'm the same way. It's like, I've got a good intuition. I can send things and then sometimes you're right. And so it creates this self fulfilling prophecy or whatever, or like you're looking for certain signs. And so you get all the boxes ticked, and it's like, Yeah, I was right. But how do you know when to distinguish between anxiety and actual reality?

46:02
I don't think I do. I honestly, I probably don't think I do. And sometimes it is hard to tell if you're having a stressful, a stressful day or a stressful week or if you are just feeling very anxious. So I know for example, I have when I'm in an anxious period or an anxious state, I have a lot of trouble sleeping and I'll be at home intrusion thing is this weird thing that has popped up sometimes. And I think it is when I'm, when I'm anxious and you're kind of maybe it's an excuse not to go to sleep or to not good is it like that? And I said, this morning, when I was leaving, I said, Oh, I just feel a bit. You know, a bit weird in my chest today and a bit. I'm just overthinking all the things at the moment, and I think it is just a bit of anxiety and not there's nothing stressful in my life happening whatsoever at the moment. So I think that that's when you can take a step back but then on the other hand, sometimes when you have anxiety, and you're you then pass off stress, no sorry. The other way around. So it's like vice versa.

47:03
So you see stress and anxiety is different things.

47:06
Yes, I think so. But then sometimes you confuse them. Mm hmm. Yeah. And that's still very hard to decipher.

47:14
Yeah, it's, it's interesting one because I, I do meditate each day and like, there's some days where I'm, I get lost in my head where I'm, I start worrying about something, but then I might fuck I'm just worrying about this. And then there is a moment where you can allow yourself to drop that worry. Which doesn't mean it's not real. It just means that there is another option available at some point. Not always. It's very fucking hard, especially when the Yeah, it's hot and right. It's like,

47:49
feels like Well, that's what I teach you in Have you ever done cognitive behavioural therapy?

47:54
No.

47:56
That's what they teach you in cognitive behavioural therapy. So they teach you that It's It's normal to have negative or wide thoughts sometimes. But as long as you don't carry them on too much that they start to disrupt your everyday life, they teach you that if you have a negative thought, or an anxious thought, or a worried thought that kind of comes into your head, to acknowledge the thought, but to also say out loud sometimes that that's just a thought, That's not my reality. And so my psychologist taught me a lot about this a couple of years ago, so the thought comes to you, so whatever the wiring thought might be, could be like, there's a home intruder in my house. And then your rational brain will be like, well, all the doors are shot. you've checked every cupboard, every room, there's no one in there. That's just a thought, thank you thought for trying to keep me safe. But I'm just going to take that thought and remove it. And it's that kind of, you have to train yourself to think like that. And it's very, very hard. What's the difference between sorry, TJ? Yeah,

48:53
I was just gonna say that that is an extreme level of self awareness at that point, if something if an individual can do that, every time it happens. And that's

49:01
absolutely

49:02
the on the eating disorder stuff. How do you separate an eating disorder with a health challenge? So especially someone who's experienced the eating disorder side of things, how do you do a health challenge to make sure that it's not like triggering or setting off those previous habits?

49:25
To be honest, I just don't do it anymore because of that very reason. And I still was doing them up until probably I think I even did one last year, but when I do them, then I feel myself getting very obsessive again, and it's very, very, very easy to slip back into that pattern. So now I've had to retrain myself to not not that I ever train for aesthetics, because even the whole time I was quite unwell. Fitness ended up being the thing that saved me because I wasn't, I didn't have enough energy to do the kind of workouts that I wanted to do. So I had to start fueling my body properly enough to be able to complete these workouts. So now I've had to just read Why the way that I think about working out and I now will have a little snack at five in the morning before I go to the gym, because the way I look at it now is I'm purely working out for performance. So I wear a heart rate monitor, I know in what on what days I want my heart rate to go into what zone and now that's what I try to I don't try and to calories or to, you know, to batted like sorry, what's the word to punish my body for last night's Mexican and dessert or whatever it is. I'm purely training now for performance. So I think that it is very dangerous because I think you'll find a lot of people who do fitness challenges, oh, bikini competitions, kind of have these eating disorders that are just masked and they always have a reason for eating the way they're eating because they can say Oh, it's fine. I want to challenge or it's fine. I'm training for this or or for that, which I spoke on my podcast actually about last week with a friend of mine who did bikini competitions for years and just developed the most unhealthy relationship with food ended up Struggling with binge eating and re fade syndrome and things like that for years after. And it's just it's a very slippery slope, I think.

51:07
Yeah, I mean, there's what's normal what's, what's normal about eating six meals of chicken and rice a day, like at that point, you need to have some kind of obsession over what what the result is for the blandness, obviously but then the other side is what's normal. I almost said normal, but it's it's the normal really hard concept or three meals a day. Is that normal now like look like what you know, what we were talking about with fasting and intuitive eating? Is that not like, I mean, this is where normal it's probably taken off the table because everybody is so it is a weird one that everybody is unique in this respect. Like it's so nuanced. Like, why

51:48
can't we have green cards for breakfast? Isn't that a weird thing? Definitely could.

51:53
pasta. Yeah,

51:55
well, it's I guess it's what's normal for you. Some people love to stock something People hate to stack. So I, for example, love to snack. So I do snack quite a lot throughout the day, but I keep my meals quite small to account for that snacking. Whereas someone like my boyfriend, he hates snacking. So his meals are a lot bigger than mine. But that just works for both of our lifestyles, you know, so I think you just have to stop, not compare yourself to what your favourite Instagram influences eating or, you know, whatever bullshit product they're peddling, you know, and just kind of, really just figure out what works for you and stick to it.

52:28
You look at look at Michael Jordan, the daco the last dance, the obsession that guy had like that, is that healthy, like sports people in general? Like if we're looking to any supreme athlete, it's like, there is a version to get to the success that most people have that requires at a time and obsession. I given this podcast dude. Yeah, we'd like think about how many we've done. This is an obsession to it, is it? I don't know. healthy. We might look back in 10 years and be like, you Yeah, was buddy healthy or not? I don't know, I

53:02
guess that's the grey area. It's like, what's the difference between passion and obsession? Is there a difference? Or is it just the way that you? I don't know, I guess would stress? Me? Yeah. So if you couldn't do a podcast episode, or you know, you could podcast for a week, you'd be would you know what that really really affects you? I guess that's the difference between you know, someone who can take a rest day from the gym and someone who can't take a rest day from the gym. Some people are passionate about exercise, but they can still go on holidays not have to go to the gym, or some people can't do that. So I think that's well that for me would be how I define the difference between passion and obsession.

53:41
If you don't mind talking about it, the going to the place where you went for the eating disorder stuff. What was day one, like when you enter in? What was the experience and what were you like, as an individual when you went in and what did you learn on day one?

53:59
God, it was So long ago, but I think it was quite confronting because there was I was very young and there was a lot of people around. I remember the girl sitting next to me had cut soul down her thighs, and she just looked so young and you just, you have no self awareness at that point. But also you're, you know, you're quite unwell. So you're not there from the mindset of wanting to get better. And when you don't want to base somewhere, you're not going to turn the old way,

54:20
you know, time just

54:23
23 or 24 I can't remember.

54:27
And so was it a specific like it? I guess food is a is an interesting one, right? Like, if there's alcoholism or something like that. It's like you'll imagine the person's drunk or that they've just they've gone crazy on booze and it seems like a very clear a narrative. But is it for you as it's just like, you refuse to wait for the fight, you know, for the last time or your family identified? Was there a trigger point that then led to actually them stepping in?

54:57
Yeah, it was my mom kind of finding out What I had been doing and while she, and she had an idea for a while, I mean, I was living with her, and I thought I was being very secretive. But obviously I wasn't being so secretive. And then she ended up confronting me about it in a car on the freeway, because she knows that I am a very I do not like confrontation, I do not like talking about feelings. I don't like having hard conversations with people. And that was the only way that she could kind of get through to me, which was also it came to the detriment of our relationship at the time, because I didn't want to hear that from her. And I didn't she was basically being the bad guy to me in that respect. So that that was very hard for me and my mom to overcome as well in you know, our relationship with each other, which is obviously a very important one to me. She is my primary parent. So that was probably one of the hardest things about the whole situation if I'm being completely honest, and then you just feel very awkward like people are watching you all the time. And I didn't tell my friends I didn't tell any of my friends like nobody will. my closest friends obviously knew what was going on but I only spoke about it on the podcast for the first time. Probably Two years ago, kind of by fault, it just slipped out when I was having a conversation with somebody else. But I once read an article by a journalist that said, You can't tell a story until you've healed from but you can't tell a story in the hope that telling that story is going to be what heals you. And I think for a long time, I just didn't want to talk about it. But then you kind of get to a point where you realise that, oh, yeah, your words could be someone else's word. So if you can tell them a story, then that kind of gives them hope that they can get through whatever they're going through at the time, and it's a lot more common than you think. It is such a sad thing as well.

56:30
And so then it's a was it like a day sort of clinic or whatever? Are you there? We're there for a period of time. Like, what time of day?

56:39
Yeah, it was the day clinic for me. And it was right around the corner from my work. So I just pop in and out. And my boss was quite understanding because she'd taken on a bit of a big sister role. So she kind of knew that there was stuff going on. And, you know, your patterns and behaviours do change very, very drastically, but you kind of don't see it from that perspective, because you're in such a single minded point of view and mind frame kind of at the time that it and then in hindsight, you're like, Well, of course people knew there was something going on how would you expect to get away with that kind of behaviour and not have the people that you spend five days a week with nine hours a day and not realise What's going on?

57:17
And so someone's listening now, like, what are some of the telltale signs personally, where you identified are like, this is an actual issue now. And so that they could potentially like, not self diagnose, but be self aware enough to ask for help. Yeah.

57:35
I think one of the biggest ones is kind of big changes in in your mood. And for people who are quite extroverted are quite happy they can be you know, your mood can plummet quite quite fast and quite drastically. I think social isolation is huge. If you stop agreeing to kind of go to dinner with your friends or to fit drinks, like I'm a big party girl and I always go out with my girlfriends for dinners and drinks and things like that and I I stopped even saying yes to go into people's birthday parties because the idea of having to be there around food and alcohol and things like that was just too much for me. So I became very isolated from my friends. And then, you know, the ones who kind of, and we will say on at the time, how could I expect them to think there was something more serious going on, but sometimes people would just kind of pass you off and be like, Oh, she's just a bitch. Now, that's who she is. Now, let's just like, leave her and we'll get new friends or things like that. But, you know, often when there are quite drastic changes like that there is something going on,

58:30
from experiencing your mum being that person that sort of steps in and then is you mentioned sort of intervene? What's a and I've heard you mentioned, your podcasts that reach out to, you know, reach out to people send them a message, as little as it might be, can be a huge impact. What is the thing that from the experience of someone intervening and you being in pain? what's the what's the learning from for somebody Not that he's thinking they should intervene with somebody, but it's, it's, it's scary in itself for them. Hmm.

59:08
I think as hard as it is, you just have to do it and everybody has to have at least one person who is looking out for them and who can say something like that. And I think that's been a huge point of conversation, especially in the mental health aspect of a global pandemic and being isolated is if you're worried about somebody, chat to their close friends and family and, and pick a person together, who can kind of go in and be the, I guess the person doing the intervention because you don't you know, it could be too late by the time you get around to it. And yes, it will be uncomfortable, but it's a conversation that completely needs to be had by somebody that they feel comfortable enough with to probably will have an argument with them at the time because they're not going to want to recognise that there's a problem or recognise that you're getting help. And from your perspective, it's, it's embarrassing when someone calls you out on that kind of thing. And there's a lot of shame involved in that, but remember to watch sentence that just is always in my mind is the night that my mom confronted me about it, got home, shut my bedroom door, I was crying and she she knocked on the door and she came in and she gave me a big hug and she was like, you're not broken, you're just a little bit damaged. But we can fix that. And that to me was just like, I get goosebumps now even just thinking about that. And it was just the way that she spoke to me was just, I don't know so much about friendship that I don't think anybody else could have had that conversation with me not even a friend.

1:00:31
Special. Have you? Have you learned anything being in a relationship like with the complexities of of you and your experiences having someone that you're living with? Like, how is that changed? You personally?

1:00:49
A lot. Sorry, I'm not making a robot I'm gonna have to wrap up very late. But it was very hard moving in with him, I think because that was something that I could still always Hide when we did live together, so yes, we would go out to dinner a lot and things like that when we were just dating but living separately, and then you know, I would eat very differently during the day or the other days that I wasn't with him. But then all of a sudden, you're shopping together and cooking your meals together. And you know, due date very different to goals. And especially if you've never been around somebody who does have disordered eating patterns or things like that, you can't hide it when you live with somebody. And I think at the start of lockdown as well, as I mentioned, what I lost all my income and everything was changing very dramatically. And I did kind of hold on to those habits a little bit, and I was being a little bit more controlling about what I was eating. And from his perspective, he was trying to come at it, you know, from a loving place, but we did have a bit of tension at the stop because I don't think he he realised that it was coming from an anxious place. And I think the misconception about people with eating disorders is that it's coming from a place of vanity or aesthetics, that that is the complete opposite to what it actually is. It goes a lot deeper than that. So sometimes you just need to let me control what we're going to have for dinner. And I'll just, I'll just be fueled up a little bit more, I'll put some, you know, some more rice ended or some or whatever it is in it, and you kind of work through that. But again, I think it's just being really honest and open in your communication with each other. And as cliche as it is, like, communication really is the key to any good relationship. And, you know, it's an uncomfortable conversation to have. But you know, the magic does not happen in the comfort zone. So

1:02:28
love that, baby. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast, and congratulations on all the success with Confessions of a train wreck. It's been awesome seeing it grow. And the consistency is amazing, too. So thank you for being on the daily talk show.

1:02:43
Thank you for having me. Congratulations for your 800 episodes. What's that last week?

1:02:47
Yeah, yeah, I was on Friday.

1:02:54
So tomorrow, guys, have a good morning.

1:02:55
Thank you very much. Say guys.