Podcasts about weipa

On episode 196- The highly anticipated tale of young Voltzy in Cape York on safari with the legendary Fish's Fly and Sportfishing operating out of Weipa. Recently, Voltz was on a camping trip with 2 other keen fisho's up on the very rugged and untouched fisherman's paradise... Cape York QLD. Tales of rare exotic species, near alcohol poisoning and hair dye are all on the table here.  Also, we have a discussion about destination angling versus ruling your local waters and how that impacts your skills as an angler.  This show is brought to you by Nervous Water, Kettafly, Power Pole, Beast Brushes and Flats Craft. 

Latest show is up and running and what a ripper it is , big barra specialist and YouTuber Dean Silvester joins us for a chat. Deans video's have become super popular with the amount of XXXL barra he has been getting , both for himself and his clients. Dave Donald from Weipa joins us to chat about the recent gill net closures in the Gulf Of Carpinteria , Dave has campaigned for 27 years and has finally seen some light at the end of the tunnel. Very well known in Queensland, Dave's , writing and guiding career puts him in the legend of NTH Queensland fishing circles with many anglers.   Snakes are out and about so we catch up with Jeremy from Jeremy's Reptile Relocation joins us to chat about the huge Taipan he recently tangled with , also what to do if you encounter a snake whilst fishing. So sit back grab a coldie and enjoy 3 hours of fishing tips , tricks and fun with the NQ Fishing Show

Aine Cima Abella, born and raised in the Philippines and now living in Weipa, Australia, is a talented artist and entrepreneur. As a member of the girl group "Sorority" in The Voice Generation Philippines, she mesmerizes audiences with her soulful voice. In Weipa, she runs a successful Filipino food trailer, blending her cultural heritage with her entrepreneurial spirit. Aine embodies the fusion of Filipino and Australian cultures, enriching communities through music and culinary delights. Connect With Aine! instagram.com/aine.cimaabella tiktok.com/@ainecimaabella CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Introduction 02:58 - Meet Aine Cima Abella 05:11 - Aine on Operating Her Filipino Food Truck 09:23 - What Makes Aine's Food Stall Unique Compared to Others 10:51 - Aine's Social Media Presence 12:09 - Operating Her Food Truck During Covid 13:13 - Aine on Living in Weipa, Australia 15:22 - How Do People in Mining Sites Buy Food? 17:07 - Why Is Australia Called the "Land of No"? 17:43 - Aine on Her Plan to Move to Cairns, Australia 18:16 - Aine's Family's Role in Managing Her Food Trailer 20:25 - Aine on Living and Studying in Australia 23:48 - How Hot Is It in Weipa While Selling Food at 40 Degrees? 24:54 - How Did Aine Get Fired Multiple Times from Her Job? 26:51 - Aine on Joining The Voice Generation Philippines 28:57 - Is Aine Still Performing? 30:51 - Aine on Her First Food Trailer and Franchising Plans 32:31 - Aine's Advice for People Starting a Business 35:11 - Managing a Food Business in Sydney, Australia 39:07 - What Gives Aine's Food Business a Unique Edge? 40:27 - Aine's Current Business Plan 41:50 - Aine's Favorite Book: Overcoming Procrastination 46:08 - Andy's Experience with Locals from Cairns 47:22 - What Does Weipa Look Like? 48:48 - Aine's Experience with Aboriginals and Aboriginal Funerals 52:10 - Aine on Aboriginal Sacred Land and Aboriginal Elders' Funerals 55:42 - Weipa, Australia: Minesite 58:13 - How Does Mining Affect Local Aboriginals? 59:41 - Do People Know Each Other in Weipa? 01:00:53 - Aine's Family's Decision to Choose Weipa, Cost of Living 01:03:26 - Aine Reflects on Her Personal Growth 01:04:50 - Aine's Desire to Live in Sydney 01:06:17 - Aine's Recent Life Discoveries: "Atomic Habits" Book 01:07:07 - Aine's Plans for the Next 6 Months 01:08:00 - Property and Business Investment Goals 01:10:46 - Connect with Aine! 01:11:33 - Outro

On Episode 178, we chat to Captain Kurt Rowlands of Fish's Fly and Sportfishing. On this sort of Australia day special episode, we thought you couldn't get more of an Aussie Fly Fishing dream than giving up everything moving to Weipa and working with one of the oldest and most respected guide outfits in Australia. Kurt, a former Hervey Bay Guide, had the universe show him that it was time to bail and head to Weipa, that was over a year ago now and we catch up with Kurt to talk about this huge life change. Yep, we defiantly still talk about the fishing, we also talk about the changes in the scene up there and finally, someone with common sense talks about stepping in the water in probably one of the most dangerous places on earth do so.  Fish's Fly and Sportfishing is loved by the local community, all the guides live there full time and in a place where everyone knows everyone, that makes for a very seamless operation that the punters benefit from. If your heading to Cape York Australia, you'd be crazy as a dedicated flyfisho to look at any other operation other than the oldest flyfishing operation in Cape York that is staffed by absolute wizards on the floppy stick. Also on this show, we bring up Australia enterprise, and some of our contributions to fly-fishing products world wide. We have a lot to be proud of regarding our Fly fishing product exports, we urge you to support those building us up, and look to not support those attempting to tear it down... that rising tide definitely lists all ships... support Australian based companies along with Aussie made and happy Australia Day!!

We set off from Cooktown and travel to Archer River Roadhouse, getting our first taste of the dirt roads, dust and corrugations, and meet up with our mate Tony who runs tag-along tours to the Cape. For the next 15 days we'll be hanging out with Tony and his tour group as we ‘tag-along' to the tip and take in all the highlights including Iron Range National Park, Weipa, Bramwell Station, the Old Telegraph Track, Gunshot, Palm Creek, the Jardine River Crossing, Seisia, Thursday Island, and of course the Tip of Australia! If you're dreaming of tackling Cape York and towing your caravan to the tip of Australia, this series will show you how to get yourself and your equipment up and back safely without damage or breaking anything! There's so much more to this incredible part of Australian than epic 4WD tracks and crazy river crossings, and we're excited to share the beauty of Cape York with you!   Get your hands on our new The Red Centre eBook and start planning your road trip to Uluru and Central Australia - https://thefeelgoodfamily.com/product/the-red-centre-ebook-the-ultimate-road-trip-to-uluru/ This episode is proudly brought to you by our mates at Stratus Outdoors, Protect The Adventure.  Keeping plastic bottles out of landfill by turning them into quality camp gear. Take advantage of our 15% Discount - https://www.stratusoutdoors.com.au/ (ENTER FEELGOOD DISCOUNT CODE) Listen to our Feel Good Road Trip Spotify playlist here -https://open.spotify.com/playlist/47S2LkmpBxztMEH8sw6Frt?fbclid=IwAR0Xk2BwpoAhbk5Xvl1cwadO2FzPVl2PHboIWNDPmtzW_F-1-4fKfw4AalU Be sure to Subscribe and join us for all of the road trip adventures! Check out the footage from our latest episodes on our Family Travel Australia YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/@TheFeelGoodFamily Subscribe to Jasperoo - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCceGx3esRSQBYZfWvf4KVtw Our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/thefeelgoodfamily has a new destination video every Sunday night at 6.30pm (AEST). We would love to connect with you on Facebook, Instagram and our website www.thefeelgoodfamily.com  Our Family Travel Australia Podcast is now LIVE and available on all podcast platforms, with a new episode aired every Friday night 8:30pm [AEST].

Weipa boy Denzel talks about the squads return to his hometown and talks about the impact of Ty Williams coaching announcement.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After the Weipa trip the boys are hitting a bye round to prep for a fight against 2nd place. We catch up with a big consistent 2023 performer.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lorraine Woods, Far North Queensland Midwife and recipient of the 2022 Ray Wyeth Early to Remote Practice Award shares her passion for remote health and some advice for entering “a field of lifelong learning”. In this episode, she deep dives into the role of a clinically endorsed midwife; what it's like in Weipa; the launch of the Weipa Birthing Project; and some tips and encouragement for those considering a remote midwifery career.

Weipa is definitely a land of opportunity for sportfishers. Barra may well be the first species that comes to mind, or maybe permit, threadfin, fingermark...... there are so many. But unless you've been keeping an eye on this northern destination, billfish may or may not make the list. The Gulf of Carpentaria offers some exceptional opportunities to chase billfish, and sailfish in particular. Weipa sportfishing guide Ben "Notso" Bright is super keen on targeting sails, whether it's with clients or on his days off. He reckons the key is recent intel, meaning the more boats on the water chasing them the more everyone will catch. So as you'd imagine, Notso is more than happy to share some tips! ______________________ Keen to take your lure fishing to the next level? Why not support the Australian Lure Fishing Podcast by joining Team Doc Lures? Members get tons of extra help, like members only episodes, ALF Plus extended interviews, tools and resources, audio masterclass, eBooks and more! Check it out at https://team.doclures.com ______________________ Show notes for today's episode: https://doclures.com/weipa-sailfish-with-ben-notso-bright/

Another 40 minute peek into 1977 directly from Tembagapura, Indonesia. The recording made for Helen Mae and Clarence Henry Adolph, Sr. Neighbor, friend and Indonesian Joyce Harsono makes a brief appearance. Some moderate comedy throughout including ten-year-old Deron giving eight-year-old me a geography lesson (that Weipa is not in Cairns) and both Deron and me having an apparent problem with three-year-old Josh playing with legos. Marilyn talks directly to some of her sisters and goes off about Aunt Wendy Fitzgerald having a boy (Brian Scott Fitzgerald) instead of a girl. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jason-scarabin/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jason-scarabin/support

On Episode 131 we have a very special show, a guy both of us have watched and admired for a long time, Mark Bargenquast. Mark or Bargy as he is known has been a saltwater guide for many years, starting his operation in Hervey Bay where his skill out shone a lot of the guiding available there at the time. Bargy also featured in Taz Jefferies film Black Torpedos where he caught the first Hervey Bay Permit caught on film, amongst the other iconic species that Hervey bay has to offer. Bargy recently took over the iconic saltwater guiding operation from Allan Philiskirk in Weipa known as Fish's Fly and Sportfishing. We chat to Bargy about his old stomping ground in Hervey Bay and reflect on the changes in the area over a lifetime. We also chat about his operation, hunting, his boats and some advice for those fishing with guides. Bargy is a guides guide, a well known personality and an all round top block who lives and works in what is arguably one of the worlds best Saltwater Flyfishing destinations in the world.  Checkout Bargy's website here - Weipaflyfish.com.au This show is brought to you by Nervous Water, Kettafly Apparel and Beast Brushes

This week we meet Diabetic Educator and Nurse Practitioner Tracy Sekac from Weipa. Tracy talks about her initial hesitancy to go remote and then her love of culture after deciding to fully immerse herself and her young family in remote island living. Tracy also has a cheeky plug and recruitment to her facilities. If you are interested in more information or sharing your story and being a guest on future podcasts, contact me anurseoutwhere@outlook.com Don't forget to follow for more episodes and updates on social media: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/anurseoutwhere Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/anurseoutwhere Website: https://anurseoutwhere.com.au

The Tropical Low moving over Queensland has dumped hundreds of millimetres of rain on parts of Western Cape York including at Watson River Station south east of Weipa where Luke Quartermaine says they've had some huge downpours but nothing out of the ordinary for the wet season and moderate flooding is still continuing at Mungindi and with the Barwon River is slowly receding the town is no longer isolated but local agronomist Jo Weir says some paddocks are still underwater and a number of levee banks haven't held.

Today, I look in detail at the SpIRIT cubesat being developed in Melbourne, and why the ASA granted them almost $4M. Then there's more big news for Myriota and launch services across Australia.More about SpIRIT:Project home pageHow HERMES locates gamma ray burstsTheMIS thermal management systemSimon Barraclough's presentation for the SAA (video, 46m)Space defence news:Myriota's DIH contractLaunch services news:Space Centre Australia planned in Weipa, QLDSouthern Launch VS01 updatesNASA staff arrive at Arnhem Space CentreAbout the show:Visit our website for show notes and all our episodes: aussiespacecast.com.My work on this podcast is listener-supported, so please consider supporting the show. Thanks very much to all our patrons for their support!Intro music is Afronauts by Crowander.Chapter images are copyright for their respective organisations.You can follow @AussieSpaceCast on Twitter or on LinkedIn.Please send any corrections, feedback or suggestions to matt@aussiespacecast.com.Thanks for listening!

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 29 September 2021: Dr Chris Boshuizen, a former NASA engineer at the Ames Research Centre and co-founder of Planet Labs (now Planet), is set to become only the third Australian to go to space when he launches aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard 18 suborbital mission, which is scheduled for October 14. Soyuz MS-19 crewed mission to the International Space Station is scheduled for October 5. The three-person crew will include director Klim Shipenko, actor Yulia Peresild and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, hoping to be the first feature film to shoot scenes in space. Construction of the launch pads at Equatorial Launch Australia's Arnhem Space Centre has begun with formwork and concrete pours completed recently. Meanwhile, a NASA contingent has arrived at the Arnhem Space Centre in preparation for a historic sounding rocket launch campaign from the site next year. SpaceOz Pty Ltd has announced the development of the Space Centre Australia launch facility at Weipa, in far north Queensland, with initial construction expected in Q1 of 2022. If successful, Space Centre Australia will join Southern Launch's Whalers Way Orbital Launch Facility in South Australia, Equatorial Launch Australia's Arnhem Space Centre at Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory and the Queensland Government's proposal for a launch facility at Abbot's Point in Queensland, as sovereign space launch facilities in Australia. Round 3 of the Australian Government's Moon to Mars Supply Chain Capability Improvement grants have been awarded to four local companies — Gilmour Space Technologies (Qld), Crytalaid Manufacture (Qld), Black Sky Aerospace (Qld) and Inovor Technologies (SA) — to improve their technical capabilities and help them enter new national and international markets. Space Machines Company and the CSIRO have partnered to test an innovative Australian printable solar cell technology in space. Microsoft to build a set of satellite ground stations in Australia. Chinese satellite, Shiyan-10, fails in orbit after a successful launch but not before causing a great “UFO” mystery to unfold in the skies above parts of northern and eastern Australia. Planet Earth Episode 21: NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey successfully launch the next Earth observation satellite in the series — Landsat 9

Weipa is an amazing fishing destination for a massive range of species from fingermark to billfish, but none are more popular than the iconic barramundi. Todays guest is "Notso" Bright, who has a decade or so of guiding experience out of Weipa in his own business and for another operators. This was one very cool conversation. _________________________ Enjoying the ALF Podcast? That's Great! But maybe you'd like to support the show AND get a little extra? If so, please consider joining Team Doc Lures! Find out more here: https://team.doclures.com _________________________ Show notes for today's episode are available at https://doclures.com/weipa-barramundi-notso-bright/

Living and working in remote areas can appear daunting at first, but it's stories like Anna Drum's that give glowing insight into what it's really like working in a rural space in the allied health sector. As a Myotherapist and the Founding Director of Capability Health, Anna opens up on the newest episode of the PPMP podcast about working in Weipa - a small town in Queensland, Australia.  She bears many hats - from Myotherapist, to business owner, to recruiter, to finance officer - and shares what a typical day looks like for her while tackling everything on her plate. Whether you work in a rural area or not, all allied health business owners can get something out of Anna's story on the podcast.  She explores how and why her team works so brilliantly, her process developing front-of-house through building the right systems, and how they maintain a sense of community. I think many of you can agree that managing time as a business owner is no easy feat - and Anna's insights into how she does it efficiently and productively are valuable to say the least. Part of that is about knowing when to ask for help. Are you asking for enough help when you need it? It may seem obvious, but it's easy for us to forget that when more help is around, the more we can achieve things. As Anna put so well, “Sometimes when you've got less time, you actually get more done.”   Nacre Links:  Website LinkedIn Twitter Facebook Instagram Pinterest See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 94 - On this episode we call into tropical Cape York and chat to a guy who is living the dream!! The guys I am referring to is Dean Pateman.  Dean is a professional fishing guide working for Fish's Fly and Sportfishing. On this show we chat about Weipa a fair bit, but also we get to know the guy we see holding all these glam species up and what series of events lead him to this stage of his life. Also we chat about some new tying products, a couple of shoutouts and we talk about finalising the Dan Frasier Book buy. This show brought to you by Manic Tackle and Beast Brushes 

I am a mentor for the Notion Advanced track of Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain, Cohort 12. This is the cleaned up audio of the third of 5 mentorship sessions with Q&A at the end. You can catch Week 1 and 2 in the previous 2 weekend episodes. This week we cut out the intro and just go straight into content. For visuals you can follow along the Week 3 Slide Deck and the recorded video (don't share this!)There are 2 weeks left in this series and I'll write a recap blogpost at the end of it.References Week 3 Slide Deck Alex West's Part Time Creator story Eugene Yan's Guide to Zettelkasten Friendcatchers 10 Years of Professional Blogging Two Words Visualizing Adam Grant vs Scott Kaufmann Three Strikes Rule for Blogging Guy Margalith's Mindfulness Engine Why You Should Presell Timestamps Week 3 Recap - Distill [00:00:00] Q&A: Calendar as Todo List [00:09:10] Q&A: Zettlekasten vs PARA [00:12:55] Q&A: Time Blocking [00:16:05] Visual Structure in Notes [00:24:12] Producing in Reverse [00:26:44] Two Words [00:29:07]  Forcing Function [00:30:45] Q&A: Two Hours A Day [00:34:02] Three Strikes Rule [00:35:35]  Guy Takes Over [00:38:39] Once a week Newsletter [00:50:51] Q&A: Publication Approval Process [00:56:55]  Q&A: Publishing on Big Platforms vs Building your own [01:00:05] TranscriptWeek 3 Recap - Distill [00:00:00]swyx: [00:00:00] So this week was about distilling. I thought this was one of the more interesting slides. Cause I think Tiago just likes the cooking metaphors. last week he also used the cooking metaphor. Basically your notes should be about getting the best ingredients for you to cook with when your, the time comes to eventually produce.And it's not so much about how you rearrange your kitchen. It's not so much about the hierarchy of the notes. It's just about getting the best quality ingredients each time. And they just really nailing the quality of the ingredient. So that's the way that I interpret his emphasis on note first knowledge management.So he also had this really interesting duality. Let me turn off my discord because this is really distracting right now. Give me one second. I have this beeping in the background, which I always have tuned out, but I know it's distracting on zoom. Okay. So most people notes are like this, but our notes are going to be like this.And the difference is the gradients, right? In, in understanding like where we are pretty shallow on and where we're pretty deep on, if you'd advert the mountain metaphor in terms of the amount of work that we've done and being able to see in a single glance, like the highs and the lows.Stepping away from an undifferentiated mass with just random notes towards putting different degrees of work based on how often we use them, how well we use them. So that's kinda how I pitch the importance of this progressive summarization approach. He used to actually have a much uglier chart than this in the previous cohorts, but I like this metaphor.Okay. This is a example that I thought was really helpful. The perfect note taking that he exemplifies where we really use some structure. Seven habits is easily breaks yourself down bolding heightened and just a really light sprinkled highlighting. The key is to be able to zoom in and out.While preserving the same context of the notes which you were connected to. Okay. You gave, he also gave 4 guidelines. I think, I don't think I did a very good job with these slides. I just took some screenshots. I don't know. So the first one is used resonance. So literally notes are very personal.I think every one of us should be able to look at the same documents and come away with different notes because it really just matters what resonates with you. Not about trying to produce something objective right answer what it means. The second one is to really be very sparing in terms of how we, how much we highlight To keep it glanceable as they say, really.I think I liked his metric of being able to grasp what you summarized in 30 seconds. I think that's a really nice hard limit. And there's only so much you can fit in 30 seconds cause that's how you make your notes consumable in the future like that your notes are only as useful as they are consumable in the future.The dial-in number three is spending as only as much attention as it's needed. So your notes don't have to be the same length or same level of detail every single time you can come back and expand upon it if you need to. And sometimes if it's just like a, one-off a couple of sentences here that's okay, too.And then the last guideline is that you should distill when you have an use of mine. So sometimes if you don't even have a use case, you can just leave them notes in raw capture form, like this without all the, with all of the bolding and highlighting. And that's totally fine. When you have a use case, it's much better to have a purpose.That's what the projects in the areas of for and to me, a lot of that use cases just blogging. Like how will this show up in a future blog posts that I need to do or talk, okay. We also finally talked about the convergence and divergence process. The divergence is something that we're all trained to do very well.Because we love exploring ideas and there's an infinite number of different, interesting ideas, but convergence is what we essentially get paid to do. Or the it's the final output that people actually see. So we need to practice this more. The way I also think about it is that this line between divergence and convergence is moveable.And a lot of us for a lot of us, the divert this line is all the way up here. And sometimes it's beyond the delivery point to the point that we never ship. So we need to move it back. We need to move this divergence convergence line back all the way towards something closer here so that we just force ourselves to produce more.I think that's something that motivates a lot of people. Okay. I also like this table because it compares and contrasts attitude, focus, approach principles. It's really weird because you have to be the same person. But these qualities are super different and you have to do that switch and almost inhabit a different personality when you approach convergence.And that's what we are starting to be about today. We're going to continue this next week, but I think it's a skill that we have to train and get good at because it's so fun to diverge, but Hey we need to make converging fund as well. And love to chat about that with you. Fun fact.So this is a diamond chart. I think it's pretty famous among like knowledge management people. I have a friend who actually made an alternative so he actually made a circular chart and check out this animation. I'll drop the link in the chat. So it's some dots that's spinning out from the divergence points and then bouncing off of both framing and liminality, or I guess the short term need to produce something and then converging towards a single point as well.So I think it's point here is that we're not just, we're not just like doing that with thing in, in the diamond we're also using, we will also get to shape what constraints we want around how we structure our whole research and production process. So I think it's a really interesting way to think about this.And also just like the animation. I just want to offer that up to you because it's creative, it's provocative. I don't know what it means. Thanks, Joyce. Joyce says that is really nice. And Glen says it's a neat animation and I agree. He's an artist and a coder, Speaker 1: [00:05:40] he works like that.swyx: [00:05:41] Okay. Let's keep going. So feature quotes. I like to pull out some of these quotes there's a whole section in the BSB circle where you can actually drop some quotes. I highly recommend it because it helps you distill it helps you practice this settling. So here I'm actually taking notes from the original lectures, right?So I highly encourage that you do that as well. So I have four quotes. First is it's time to start spending more of a time of engaging with the substance of the knowledge that we are capturing, not organizing. I think para ironically is the maximum organization that you should do. I think Tiago is essentially a very anti organization, but you do need some, so the minimum is like literally four categories.That's it. And. Trust in search and the algo gods to do the rest. Second quote, at some point you have to stop collecting new things and start compressing your ideas down into a usable form. I think the emphasis on usable is really. You useful for me because I think a lot of us I'll call myself as an information hoarder or an info war.I just hoard stuff. Like I might need this in the future. I don't know. That's not super helpful. And actually that creates a lot of background anxiety, and I think. If we spend more time or just consciously biased ourselves towards compressing more towards some form of usability. That's something that we all agree we want to do, right?It's you can hoard up a giant database of stuff that nobody ever sees and you can, you yourself can never use, and that's not very helpful. So I stopped doing that. The third quote, when you remove the parts that are merely good, then they no longer tell you the parts that are truly great. So this is more like a, there is some amount of fluff in every single blog, post or book or talk.And if you can remove the parts that are merely good, then you zero in that a little bit more. Me personally, I struggle with this because I love the details. I love people elaborating. Once you make a point, you tell me a story, you give me an example that reinforces the original point and you could remove all of that and just go tell me the original point, but I'm missing all the context and sometimes that's good as well.I don't have a, I don't have a really strong opinion about this apart from I know that I have to distill things and there's a part of me that always fights it. And if you have that instinct as well, then you're not alone. The final quotes, most people's notes are like a dense jungle.What we're doing by distilling is revealing your personal knowledge landscape. So again, this is the visual that we had earlier where most people's notes are just an underappreciated, massive just stuff. And then when we have a personalized knowledge landscape, we have parts of our notes that are very highly developed and others, which are just very shallow.And it's a lot clearer what what we know well and what we don't. Okay. Those are my feature quotes. I don't know if anyone else has any feel free to pop in and chat if you do. I also thought that this week secondary and volt stuff was was a pretty interesting idea. I've grabbed this from this screenshot.This is pretty poor quality screenshot and sorry. By like seeing examples, right? Like we learned by looking at other people. So how do I encourage you to check out there the second revolt, if you haven't, I guess this is just a wealth of information. I like that second, the second brain course has layers itself, right?You could just do the lectures, but if you had the extra time, you could actually go further and deeper and there's so much depth to the amount of content that's available. So highly recommend it. Okay, so we're gonna, we're going to pause a little bit. That's my little 10 minute recap.15 minute recap of week three three's content. I was just wondering Is there anything that people wanted to ask about or discuss? Q&A: Calendar as Todo List [00:09:10]Speaker 1: [00:09:10] Yeah.swyx: [00:09:10] Oh, hang on. Someone's talking, but ah, there we go. You don't know your name? Is it Dennis?Yeah, sorry. I think I clapped my hands instead of raising my hand. I'm sorry, under reactions, but last week, this is an about the stealing. It's about what you mentioned last week about don't have to do lists, just have a calendar. And I don't think we covered that necessarily, that piece of philosophy.Can we put that on the list to cover this week? To be clear that it's not part of the second brain course, that's just, Speaker 1: [00:09:40] yeah, swyx: [00:09:40] that was one of your Speaker 1: [00:09:41] things. swyx: [00:09:42] My personal take on organizing for those who wants the week two slides it's here there we go. Yeah. What about it? I'm not saying, I'm not saying like never have a to-do list.I'm just saying, I think there's a level above to do lists that is scheduling it, putting it on the calendar. Cause that's the only your calendar is the only thing only to do lists that is, has a guarantee of a hundred percent completion. So if you don't book time with yourself, then when are you prioritizing this?I don't actually know when I mentioned this. Did I mention in the first week or second week it was last week. It was the second Speaker 2: [00:10:13] week. swyx: [00:10:13] Yeah. Okay. I don't remember when I mentioned Speaker 2: [00:10:17] it in swyx: [00:10:17] the beginning, but you didn't have a slide for it. And then we asked for questions at the end, but then I forgot I wrote it down because yeah.So I should probably turn this into a blog post. It's basically this idea called time block planning that you sh whenever you do something to do lists have basically have no constraints, right? Like you can just add on a bullet point after bullet points, and then pretty soon, you're just want to stuff.So forcing yourself to not only place it on the calendar forces versus forcing yourself to estimate them all the time that you're going to spend doing the task, but then also prioritize it like what comes first. And when you look at your calendar and everything's filled up, then you have to start saying no, and that's I think a key part of why a to-do list you're using your calendar as your, to do this really helps you don't have to finish everything.Let's say if like your time goes over, you can move stuff in your calendar around, but just blocking off time. So you don't over commit yourself in the future because like present day. That you today, it's very easy for you to promise your own future time because that's a different person and then do that all the time.And then when you get there, you just look back and you go Chris, what was I thinking? That's really, it. That's my para for time. So this course though, I found it really, I it's been something I've been struggling with is I've been inputting projects and I start putting things with them.Speaker 2: [00:11:40] I'm like, ah, it becomes like this wave of overwhelm around how much I haven't I guess it explains what's going on in my head, I guess how much I have been done. But yeah it's a nice discipline. There, there are a lot of other authors. Yeah. There are a lot of other authors that do this.swyx: [00:11:57] It helps you to focus as well. So like bigger chunks and yeah. I recommend reading up more about it. I'm just getting into it and stuff. That's why I think I probably didn't put a slide on it just because I'm still forming my thoughts on it, but the more I explain it, the more I think about it, I'm like, this is the only way to have any sanity on. Speaker 2: [00:12:14] Can you place that Twitter thread in the chat? swyx: [00:12:18] Thank you. But thank you for asking about it because it helps to reinforce that. Speaker 2: [00:12:23] Yeah. It's helping me with that dip effect. Cause I'm definitely been dipping and around different items around this this methodology, but yeah. Okay. Thank you.swyx: [00:12:33] Glen and Peter in the chat say that was a helpful question as well. I think when you have a question a lot, sometimes a lot of other people may have the same question. So it's always helpful to just ask, if it's on your mind, especially cause we're wow. We're 50 people now.So not that small group, but a lot of people will tend to keep to themselves. And I, I appreciate people who ask questions. Okay. There was someone else with the hand up, Q&A: Zettlekasten vs PARA [00:12:55]Speaker 2: [00:12:55] it was bomb Barnard, swyx: [00:12:56] Bob. Did I answer your question or Nope, I have a different one. That's Speaker 1: [00:13:01] on topic. So swyx: [00:13:02] what's the difference Speaker 1: [00:13:04] between the swyx: [00:13:05] process that Tiago talks about in the design casting idea of permanent notes and literary notes and all of that.Because they obviously seem different. I don't know what this does anyone, so I'm not very familiar with the zero Casta method. I just have seen some blog posts about it. Does anyone have any thoughts on that? How does toggles method comparable to stochasticthis one literature notes. They build graphical notes, permanent notes. I just haven't used this at all. So I can't speak to it. Does anyone else have thoughts on okay.Speaker 2: [00:13:39] Just just in blog posts? I don't use swyx: [00:13:45] it. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's all right. Like the thing. Oh, sure. Who was that?Hey, Dave,Speaker 3: [00:13:53] the big difference settle custom is about creating small comic blocks of content. So the idea is instead of just progressively summarizing, the idea is to take whatever you read until eventually end up with something that is completely yours, but it stands alone as a concept. It's not just related to the book or article or whatever else you may have read.What it means then is that instead of, let's say writing a blog post or a book in isolation, you would piece it together from all of your zettabytes from all your small kind of atomic blocks. They can all come together. Then, with new ideas, they're all interlinked to one another as well, complimentary.And they the more of these you get, the more they build in the morning, because each one is complimentary. You begin to get that kind of loyalty of your own unique content.swyx: [00:14:45] yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm actually reminded of I've read, I have read this post. This was a very popular post on digital Castin and taking an atomic box and linking it. I think that's why people really like roam research so much because it's really structured around the two-way linking of ideas.And yeah, I can look, it can look pretty complex, but I liked the sentiment of it. I think there, I don't think there are diff I don't think they're necessarily different because you could easily think about this kind of complementary. Exactly. Yeah. You could link, oh, Speaker 3: [00:15:15] you progressively summarize forced.And then all I do, what's called them page Q and a, which is hello, question and answer that Jamie mills does. And then if the answer is suitable, I may turn that into a settle at the end.swyx: [00:15:30] Yeah. There you go. I hope that was helpful bug but quick question.  So there are a couple other comments in the chat. Now, Ryan lavender says it's largely time-based para has more structure and is simpler. And David Schneider says there's a strong connection between stochastic permanent notes and what Tiago calls, intermediate packets part of next week's topic.So we'll talk about next week. I'm not sure it's still there actually. So he's been moving out, moving the content around, so I'm not sure what's going to be covered next week. Okay. And then I think there's one more from TM. Okay. Ramdas alt. Yep. Okay. All right. Q&A: Time Blocking [00:16:05]So that was about Zelle Casta, and I think we have one more from how do I call you IP?Sure does. Yeah it's just IP IP. Hey. Speaker 4: [00:16:14] All right. Amen. So I've got a question regarding time blocking. So I've been trying to time block for quite some time now and So there are certain things which I want to do throughout my day regarding like the projects I want to work on. And then I have to, I've got a day job.And so when I try to time block after my day job I'm working on a company at the site, I've got a remote working company, so I need to manage that. So I need to time block stuff, but sometimes when I come back from work, like the energy level is not there, so I need to move those time blocks to a different part of the day.So it's not consistent. Those time blocks, I continuously have to keep shuffling them around. So how would you recommend I Is there like a better approach to time blocking based on energy? Should I make my blocks based on my mood emotion or I don't know. It just getting a little bit because they keep shifting.Sometimes I need to postpone and to discover the day. So I don't know. I think I'm still confused, Speaker 1: [00:17:22] right? swyx: [00:17:23] I think so. First of all, I think that's pretty normal that you move stuff around because we often don't have an estimate of how much time we're going to spend on something, or how much energy we have.So it's silly to try to preschedule everything. Just that, that just means you think, everything in advance. But also it's probably as a sign that you may be over-committing yourself and not leaving any time to rest. Okay. So maybe you need to time block some just chill time, like rest chill time.Yeah. And stop committing so much to your day. And I, it's probably a muscle as well. So when you're getting into this and getting more into deep work maybe you have the energy or the focus to, or the stamina to time block only for one hour a day. And then you build up to two and then, gradually you build that up to 10.I prob and there's probably a limit to how much you can do beyond that. Because we all need some unstructured time. Speaker 4: [00:18:15] Absolutely. Currently I've been using this app called forest. I currently try to plant at least three, three trees in a day. So I try to get 25 minutes of deep Speaker 1: [00:18:27] books.swyx: [00:18:28] Yeah. My sister used this one does that there's two actual trees get planted. Speaker 4: [00:18:32] It's just the app. It's just the app. It's like additional forest. So you can keep track of how big a forest guest. So it's cute. That was awesome. Thank you so much. I'll try to I think, should I more chill time into my routine?I think that swyx: [00:18:45] might be it. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Maker, Manager, Master [00:18:47] We have a couple of comments as well. Dave Meyer, I like this one. Dave says I time block based on roles, Meeker manager and master. What does master Dave. Speaker 1: [00:18:55] And master is Speaker 3: [00:18:57] getting better at your craft. So a maker is what you do for the job.So I design for a living, so I need to create, but I have responsibilities. So master shouldn't have responsibilities. You need kind of room to experiment and to make mistakes and to not be Holden to deadlines and stuff like that. So I would even say things like when, when we're reading and taking a lot of notes and stuff like that, or mastering some sort of craft as well, but it's good to distinguish those roles to say, I may want two hours to experiment, but it's okay if we don't produce anything, but where does the maker I have to produce something for somebody or how I'm responsible to other people.swyx: [00:19:35] That's a brilliant one. I've only heard of maker manager, but masters, a new one. I read Speaker 3: [00:19:40] a lot about mega manager. No, that's mine. Oh, wow. Okay. swyx: [00:19:44] Hey, that's something that you should Speaker 3: [00:19:45] Put a TM, Dave at the end of it there. swyx: [00:19:50] Yeah, I do TM. I do ironic TMS. I love that. So the shortcut is alt two on the Mac keyboard.So I love teaming everything a day, job TM. I love it. No, but seriously, when you come up with something like this and it's so useful because it's very clear that you need time to not be a maker manager and you call it a master. And it's very clear. I like it. I think Speaker 3: [00:20:12] I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm still pulling that information into my second brand at swyx: [00:20:19] the moment.Dennis wants you to NFC this Dave, you need to immediately blog about this. So you own the publicSpeaker 3: [00:20:29] next week. swyx: [00:20:29] Make it, it can be a, it can be a very short thing. So for example I have something there's someone pretty famous on Twitter who always talks about Fran catchers Speaker 1: [00:20:37] catchers. swyx: [00:20:38] And, it's a pretty popular concept for him that the people that he likes to refer to a lot I think yeah, Patrick, but he's never written about it. So I just I noticed it and it's, it was after like three years of waiting for him to blog about it and he never did. So I did it. And I now own the top result for it. Speaker 3: [00:20:54] It's funny you say that, because until today I didn't have this in my notes to blog about, so they weren't going to put it in because last week, and I mentioned panning for gold when it comes to actually distilling information and looking at it, and a lot of people said, oh, you have to write something about that.So that was last week's notes that I've started really in about planning for golf, but make our manager, our master, or you already have that. That's going to build into what I do when I've already run some stuff about that. Shouldn't be difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I'm more than happy if anybody wants to connect outside, there's more than happy to share it on the ground.So any questions on it? swyx: [00:21:31] Yeah. You want to put your link to your contact details in the chat. Speaker 1: [00:21:34] Yeah, swyx: [00:21:35] Dennis says, we're building Dave's to do this. This is great. I think that's something that, when you're panning for gold it's help helpless to have a sieve serve. Sometimes the filter is other people right now.People like us all at the same mindset. It's very helpful. Speaker 3: [00:21:49] Yeah. Look, I think even we're time blocking and stuff like that. I think what LEP was saying about Warframe and my engineer and what energy level you have for me, that's good because of all you have a heavy morning where, the maker doesn't mean to just create a maker means I can only focus on that one thing.And that gets all of my energy. So could be, a meeting with somebody for two hours, but I'm drained after that. So I become a manager and the manager can juggle multiple things. Not at once. Cause that's impossible, but. And manager can flip between stuff. So I can email, I can call people. I can send the invoices and I can do lots of stuff that doesn't take a whole new level of brain activity that I can stop and start.So it's really good for when you're drained afterwards. swyx: [00:22:30] Perfect. What's the manager Speaker 3: [00:22:32] tell Joseph that's the hardest thing. Speaker 1: [00:22:35] Sorry. Speaker 3: [00:22:35] I was just, I just sent a comment from Joseph Barry. Give me a happy fifth birthday.swyx: [00:22:39] Yeah, that's nice. Nice backgrounds. That's your kid. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 3: [00:22:44] Yeah, some sort of Benjamin button or something like that, maybe. swyx: [00:22:48] So you only asked for some clarification thank you, Yani. I'm sure you're not the only one trying to try to clarify this idea. So maybe we just turn this into a mini a workshopping session.So for me maker manager, maker versus manager is a very well-known concept. So that's actually wind back for people who haven't heard of it. Maker's schedule ministry schedule. I think this is a pretty popular essay about this. So I'm just going to drop that in here where you have to basically do the thing, but then also spend time deciding what things to do.And those are two very different modes of operation. I think the innovation here is that the master or whatever you choose to call it. Needs like it's just basic R and D like exploring things that you have no idea what could come up. And that's also a key inputs into your future process. I like hard on ourselves, Speaker 3: [00:23:32] Even in what we're doing with second brain, everybody's obsessing about the details and how do you use this app and what database you use and, worrying about what's going to happen.If it's not prayer for you, instead of saying I'm going to try this for a week and I'm going to try something else next week. And that's where that gonna master mindset could be helpful as well. They're going to be happy to discuss it still for, to be happy to make mistakes swyx: [00:23:53] as well. Absolutely.Absolutely. Great. Yeah, David, if you want to leave some info on, I don't know your blog where some contact details with people want to follow up. You've already listed. Okay. Wow. That's a great discussion. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause it for a bit and then give my own comments on this week's content.And then we'll come back to a second round of questions and discussion.Visual Structure in Notes [00:24:12]Okay. I'm going to show you my notes for this week's lectures. So I take my lectures, I take my notes and notion. I've got week one, two and three here and is literally bullet points.I definitely think a lot in bullet points. If you think, if you look at the way that Tiago does his note taking it's very much like he takes the raw content because I think he uses Instapaper or read wise. I don't have that workflow. I literally skip the. Copy and paste part. And I only do the bullet points.So each character here is written by me. I feel like that helps me internalize a little bit better. I don't know. But I have a bit more emphasis on. Bullet points. Like I'll try to bullet point everything because it's being able to see the visual structure helps me to collapse and expand upon things.One of the things that he talks about here is distilling by like the ways that you can enrich the original source content, with tags they created and modified bold title originally and get highlights. I think so. I think he didn't talk about enough is bullet points.That's why I want to make sure, because visual structure, that's the easiest way to give bullet point to, to give. A visual structure. And I think that's something that maybe he doesn't do enough in his notes compared to what my preferences mnemonics, it's always a hard word to spell, but giving yourself a way to remember things in the future by making some sort of acronym code is an acronym, right?C O D E we're in D of the four weeks of Cod, but just giving yourself a way to, to remember that it's super helpful and then visualizing it's something that if, especially if you have a more visual brain or I think people with synesthesia actually do really well out of this, but when you hear about a concept, it's helpful to just draw what they just talked about.So here I've listened to a podcast and then I drew it out. I drew what Adam Grant's and Scott, Barry Kaufman I drew them. I drew the main functions of their disagreements. And when you visualize something that really sticks in there, pretty much better than a bunch of notes.To me, it's like a higher level than highlighting. So if you can do a two by two, we can do a chart. If you can do something I do a lot is like just categorize things, put them in order. It's one way to just condense a lot of information into a single image. And I think that's, to me, that's the highest level of distilling a, we should visualize something.So I think you I haven't I have a pretty ironic blog post, which is basically how to thought lead, which is just like a collection of all these ways to to distill things because it turns out that the best distillers are the thought leaders. Okay. These are just like extensions of what Tiago already said.Producing in Reverse [00:26:44]Then I think the other thing that we should think about as well is when we produce, we should think about producing in reverse the way that we summarize things progressively from structuring out the paragraph to improving the title to so these are all points that he said in his original lecture.So building the most important points and then highlighting. So these are like level five, level four level three level, two level one, and then top level, we should maybe do that in reverse. Actually let me,I just I liked the image so much. This is the original image she seems to have got rid of it because maybe it was too confusing or ugly or whatever. But I like this because it shows the landscape. And it shows the personal knowledge. Management landscape and saying like your base level is notes, second levels building their levels, highlighting for summarizing and remixing by combining across different pieces.I think that's a really good idea, but maybe when we write, so when we produce, we do it the opposite way, we start with the mini summary and then we expanded out, noting, spent the passages folder and then we have the full text of the blog post. So I think that's food for thought in terms of what we can do when we distill and reverse the order.That's definitely a lot of how I do things. Although I will tell you that there are there are okay. 10 years Speaker 1: [00:27:55] professional blogging. swyx: [00:27:56] They're prominent people who tell you not to write the title first. So I definitely think about, I do a title driven development. So I'll think about the title and then I'll flesh it out.And if it's not a compelling title, I won't even work on it. But Andrew Chen, who is a very good blogger in and of itself. Oh, what happened to his site? Oh, no, that can't be right. Why is it down? Jesus. Okay. When it's back up, go read this, go read his post because he says you should write the whole post first and then decide on a title and come up with a few different options.So this is definitely not a fact, but I definitely do. This is what I do. I decide on the title and do the bullet points. And then when, because you haven't written it. So let me show you my blog was ideas list. Literally I'll decide on the title first. How to talk to your developer. Second next syndrome, deputy API, and then I'll do bullet points.It's cheaper to reorganize my blog posts. When I see okay, this doesn't work. I need to cut this here. A new chapter here, you section here, and then put it in here. It's much easier to be organized when it's just in bullet points before you write the whole thing out. So I just want to give you some inspiration.Thank you. So Glenn actually posted in the zoom chat and archive version. I don't know what happened to his site. I think he doesn't care anymore. Cause he blogged his way to the top of Silicon valley. Two Words [00:29:07] Okay. Finally, I wanted to give you this concept of this two word distillation. I think the pinnacle of distilling an idea is to distill it into two words.So second brain is a two word distillation of. It sells itself. If you like one brain, how about two brains? Like it's sells itself atomic habits Hey, you liked habits, but Hey, the twist, my twist on atomic habits is that it should be atomic, right? And that's a best seller, same for candor and radical candor.It's gotta be radical. That, that, that's what makes us stand out. Seth Godin purple power. You can still get to see your cows and it embeds the story. He can tell the story in a, in a five minute version or give a whole talk. But I do have this explanation of the tour principle, if you want to check it out.Because I think it's a really key idea. That's what people really come away with after a whole lecture, a whole Ted talk. They may just come away with two words. And if you can find the right two words, you can compress so much in there. So I have a list of digital nomad, indie hacker, open source.Growth hacker. These are all just two word descriptions. And I think that if you can con condense an idea to that level and find something that you have a personal relationship with that can really help to define your identity as well. So I really like it. I'll tell you my tour thing later Speaker 1: [00:30:24] looks closely on slides.Okay. swyx: [00:30:27] All right. Keep going because I have 15 minutes left. Where am I? Where the hell am I? Okay. The contrast is so low here. Benjamin advocate for cases. The number of syllables matters to Glenn says generalizing specialists. Interesting. Okay. All right. So the second point I wanted to meet, so that was my first point.Forcing Function [00:30:45]Distillation is creation. The second point is the importance of a forcing function. I feel like Tiago did not focus enough on how to force yourself to converge. We were pretty sold on okay, we re we're going to revisit our notes a couple of times, we have some guidelines as to keep it glanceable and distill it.We have a use of mind, but how do we force ourselves to do it because it's work. And a lot of it just doesn't get done. I think it's a, this is an important piece. I have three ideas, so first is time. When I look at a lot of professional, like high-performing creators, they dedicate a fair amount of time to that's to their job.And these are like side jobs when they start out. So I'm talking Tim urban from Weipa. Why? James Claire, when he started out all the up dog was another mentor here, but like when he started out, he was just a student and then he did his YouTube thing on the side. And pretty consistently all of them do two hours a day or 10 hours a week, which is weekends.That means that may be very high for you, especially if you have a family, but some amount of dedicated time set aside to create, to converge to say okay, enough with the adding of notes, that's turned the notes into something useful. That is pretty important. I think so really just make the time commitment.And I think another phrase that really resonates with me is that we don't find time. We make time So it's up to us. Like it's very easy to let 10 years go by and not prioritize and just end up with a problem. They'll say you never use. So we have to make the time. Okay. Second piece, which I like is also that some amount of consistency.Th the developers in the room probably have heard of the a hundred days of code. And that's something where you just commit publicly to posting or learning about how to code for a hundred days. And people do two, three rounds of this thing. So that's pretty, it's pretty nice. Another one that's gotten quite some steam recently is shipped 30 for 30, which is a writing group that's, you break the ice by shipping a small essay every single day for 30 days.Some amount of commitment for me, what I really like is a weekly newsletter. I love seeing updates from people because it's essentially your personal board of directors that you're saying like, okay out of this week that I've just lived out of the limited weeks I have left this is what I've done and here's my personal update.And you hold yourself accountable to that. I think that's a really great way to say to structure everything that happens outside of them writing a newsletter towards okay, how is this going to show up in my weekly update? Podcasting is also a really good one. I think that just the regular cadence of Hey, let's get together talking about news.Talk about a topic of the week. I just think that it just. Builds up over time and it's this consistency really helps of Hey, I, it's that time of the day, again, that time of the week, again, I gotta make something, force yourself to do it. Finally social pressure.If doing things alone, it's easy to just drop it because you think nobody notices, but if people are expecting you to ship and you see other people shipping as well, that you have to shift as well. So a circled Twitter, discord mastermind. Now these days not uncommon. I have, I do run my own for developers.But this group is a mastermind or a discord inner circle, I don't know. But you may have like your own group chat. There's a telegram chat. This is one from makers. If anyone's interested this started as a telegram group and now, you can just post updates on what you're shipping.And these are the hot streaks that people have of like continuous 888 days of shipping. Something like. That's just super motivating to me here. I know you'll be a success if you just keep at it. It's. It's the people that give up that don't go anywhere. So having a forcing function, just however way you do it is I'm sure there's more categories you can think of.Q&A: Two Hours A Day [00:34:02]Just think about it. Okay. There's some questions in the chat for reap. Sean says a question two hours a day includes weekends. No, actually, so those people who do two hours a day, it's actually weekdays before work, because if you do it after work, you're more likely to not do it. So if you were serious about this towards the day before work that's where I've seen a lot of successful side hustles.Let me be concrete.  Alex West.Okay. So this guy he's now he's not quit to go full-time but he, for three years, probably three years, he was doing two hours a day before towards, yeah, towards the day before work and he's, these are all his, monthly revenue updates. And I just, the more I talk to people with dedicated successful side hustles that's the amount of time could be a minute.It takes to produce something. Obviously two hours is a lot, like I, I'm not saying this is for everyone. I'm just saying this is a pretty consistent number. And when patterns like that emerge from creators let's talk about Tim Barbin. When he talks about his own journey and creating Wait But Why he also talks about, and you can see this numbers emerge again and again and again. He also did it on a somewhat regular basis at two hours a day. And it's just like a really recurring pattern.There's nothing special about the two hours. I just think that people converse there because that's the trade off of okay. Amount of time spent to create something substantial, but then I have other things in my life that need to go do so take of it, what you will. Okay. Then one more question from IP.I always want it to wake up early from work sessions, 6:30 AM shifts and waking up at 5:00 AM. Forcing function is really helpful. Okay. Yeah, I agree. Basically I just want you to know that like this, these notes don't just happen. From just cause you feel cause just cause the yoga says, so like you need some kind of commitment to make them happen.I probably beat the dead horse already. Three Strikes Rule [00:35:35] Okay. A couple final points. This is my three strikes rule. So one way to get you to move that diamond from all the way to the right. All the way to the left. So we're talking about this where you're spending a lot of time diverging and researching and reading and note-taking and not really converging.Enough. So how do you move yourself from right. All the way till after, how do you move this trade-off point where you stop diverging and start converging? For me, this is as left as I will let myself do it. So the first strike is when you first heard about an idea, first read an article first, listened to a podcast.The second strike is when you recommend it to someone else, right? Because then you have to put it in your own words and summarize it to other persons because you're not going to repeat verbatim. Like you're going to actually try to re explain the article and you're probably going to get it wrong.The emphasis for this for me was I read this really good blog post, right? The four kinds of luck. And this is, this will probably happen to you as well. So I read this article from mark and Jason and they said, okay blah, blah, blah. All right. So this is the whole blog post, and it's not very well summarized, right?Because so Four kinds are chance. One is blah, blah, blah, chance to blah, blah, blah chance, three blah, blah, blah, chance for blah, blah, blah. All right. So I was trying, I read this blog post was very inspired by it. And I was trying to tell a friend and I could not remember what two of the four war.So that was strike two for me. And strike three was when I had to reference it again and I was like, okay time is time has gone well past when, like I need to write it down. So I started to write it down and blog about it. So that's how I, and because I do the visualization thing I made the two by two.And that's that's anytime you see like a, we'll have four, you make a two by two and you're like, okay, now I have it in my mind now. Or you can do a little bit more if you want. So I just want to bring home that, that idea that having some sort of three strikes rule, some trigger where you don't give yourself a choice of okay, time to stop diverging.And I have this backlog of things I need to write down now and making incentives as far left as possible. I think that, that makes a lot of sense. Speaker 1: [00:37:33] Cool. swyx: [00:37:33] Thanks, Peter. Okay. Learning in Public [00:37:35] And then finally, I think this idea of learning public is something I'm very well known for.It's my top read essay. I highly recommend it. And this is where we start learning in public with our second brain, when we started distilling things for others to consume. It's, it feeds that feedback cycle, right? Because when the first time we summarize something, when we share it, we're going to get feedback on it.And it said that loads the trigger for the next time. We'll be going back and summarizing and again I think this is a very fundamental feedback loop that everyone needs to have in their lives. And there are many ways to get this done. I'm happy to talk about it more. But yeah, that's my reflection on the descending idea that we need to have we need to think about how we distill for creation when we need to have a forcing function.We, I like the three strikes rule and I like the new public, so yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to leave it there. Cause we're almost out of time. We have five minutes left. I have a question that they want us to follow up. Cool. Peter brace wants the link to. Speaker 1: [00:38:26] Yeah, the cough, then we go that's Peter swyx: [00:38:30] and Peter, you can find a link to that podcast as well, but like now I don't, I don't need to listen to the podcast.Cause this is essentially what the mats out in there in their one hour. Thanks, Danny. Guy Takes Over [00:38:39]Okay. So yeah, who's got questions or discussions that you want to talk about or you can email me. Maybe I'll call upon guy because guy you're also a mentor. What do you think you covered what's covered in distilled that really resonated with you? Or what do you normally cover in your sessions? Guy Margalith: [00:38:52] I actually go into the nuts and bolts of how to do this in notion specifically which you didn't cover today.But I think that's fantastic because frankly I took. Awesome notes from your presentation today, which was great. I think the key emphasis from the lecture is that when that it's really hard to do, but when you distill something down, you make it better. And it's, there's constant resistance to this, at least in my line of work, in informed policy, we, we come across volumes of information and we think that, there's every little bit of nugget of of information is useful and could make a difference in a life and death scenario.But in truth, if no one's going to read it, it doesn't matter. And the only way you make it readable is if you compress it. And I think that's what resonated from this week's lecture for me. And you've hit on it very well as well here site. I swyx: [00:39:38] appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Do you want to, so there's some people who wanted to attend your sessions, but they're at the wrong time zone.Do you actually want to briefly show you the notion? Just to give a quick hit. Guy Margalith: [00:39:48] Yes, I'm not it's not really ready for prime time. If you don't, if folks don't mind that I'm going to late, I could show them around my cut. It's like letting someone into your bedroom in the middle of a party before you've swyx: [00:39:57] cleaned it up.It's more realistic.Guy Margalith: [00:39:58] Sure. Let me just see where I am here.Actually. It's good because I can preview a, just for how much time you want. Do you want me to go for it? Two, three swyx: [00:40:07] minutes? Yeah. Yeah. Five minutes, 15 minutes. You know where we're at? We're already at time, but I typically go over another 30 minutes for people who can stick around so we can talk about stuff.Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I love it because now you get two mentors for the present one.Guy Margalith: [00:40:25] Yeah. Your approach is so analytical, so interesting. You put so much stuff out there in public, which I cannot do because of my line of work. So I admire it. So for me, my, my notion set up is designed to do the things that I can do best, which is internal. And I use my I use the concepts of building a second brain to focus on my journaling and on my habits and on driving personal change, because that puts me in the right frame of mind to, to focus on my work, which has to be very private and very segmented in a way.Basically, I summarize progressively summarize my journals and entries, which I do daily. I combine them with a habit tracker. So what folks are seeing here is just the common view that I have every day when I open it up. And I think the innovation that I've used for notion, which is something, not something I made up, but Marie pullin does this in her setup is she rolls stuff up into higher level databases.So for example, this is the journal entry that's already precooked for May 24th for tomorrow. Nothing is in it yet. I'll input this tomorrow I do it in the morning and I look backwards for what happened in the previous day. I track all the habits that I want to track such as some, whether I stretched, I moved, did I meditate?Did I connect with someone? I track health indicators am I sleeping? Do I have in my taking any medication? If I stretched, I linked to databases that document the stretch. I tag the day with a master tags database too, so I can see themes that emerge. I like to capture food that I eat restaurants, that I go to, anything that I watched so that I can refer to it later.I typing what happened today. I give myself a 20 minute timer to do so otherwise I could go for hours probably. And then I go through a series of startup tasks. After I do this for an entire week, I have a weekly review and the weekly review. I can show you the one that I just did. I do them on Sundays and I use, I roll up the information from the prior week.So for example every day I put in a daily three daily themes, and then I force myself to distill those themes these themes from the entire weekend to just three words that represent the entire week. And this is my choice. So this is my perspective. Notion just feeds me the raw data and I choose same for what's an example here things that I put that I need to improve on.I then. Forcing myself to distill that into whatever I perceived to be the issue for that week. I do the same thing for the good things that happen. I asked myself a series of questions, which roll up later, I'll show you. And then I also roll up those health features that I showed earlier. So that's swyx: [00:43:08] a sample.This is amazing. And Speaker 2: [00:43:09] then just very quickly the, I can go into a monthly view, which rolls up the data from the weekly reviews. Again, the exact same thing. I do this at the end of the month. Here's the top words. And then from the, from each weekly review, I choose three. Again, what did I learn?And then I wrote down my monthly knowledge what was I effective? So on and so forth. Here's the entire week's happy highs or happy moments. And then I summarize it down, distill it down to the monthly wins and then zooming out even further. You guys are getting the picture, I think, in the quarterly review I like to put in a photo, I choose one photo from the quarter that means a lot to me.That's me with my niece. Again, just showing the three words, those are the monthly words. Again, I've summarized down to three words. Same thing I keep distilling down and then I get all the way to the year. And I've only done one of these because I only started doing this a year ago, but In December and January, I did a yearly review, which actually was really fun.Cause I, all he did was distill the information that I had from my three quarters. Here's my 12 word for the entire year and those were my three words for the entire year and eventually I'll get a decade. I'm pretty sure. That's a preview. And if you guys go to the circle group in the advanced notion group and also the beginner notion group, I've put in a link to my dashboard.And if you like, I have a shareable template that I call a mindfulness engine that just reproduces what I showed. So feel free to to copy paste and enjoy swyx: [00:44:42] yeah. Share it with us. And I think that's so generous and that's amazing part of why we put in the link. Yeah. I I actually was very.Afraid to be put in the advanced category because I'm not an advanced notion user at all. When I look at your setup, I'm like, okay. Yeah, that's an advanced lotion set up. Speaker 2: [00:44:58] I have the, I had the exact same thought about your set up, even though I didn't see it. I'm like, oh my gosh, this isn't set up. I swyx: [00:45:04] have so much to learn.My only thing I had to clean the famous, I made a book out of my book and the book has sold six figures. So that's, I think people went to different elements that I really enjoy. I'm really glad I asked you this. I had no plans, but, and then thank you for stepping up that was awesome. I, I P as a follow up question how long do these things take?Because they probably take awhile. It takes a while. Speaker 2: [00:45:27] And Tiago in his course on habit formation talks about how the goal as you work through your habits is to tighten the loop. You have to make it so that the habits that you have instead of adding more and more habits, Once you learn how to build a habit.That's easy. The hard part is tightening it. How do you make it faster? And that's why I have to give myself a timer. Otherwise I lose track of time and I could go on forever. So it takes me about right now, it's about 20 to 30 minutes a day. I don't have a job that requires an early start like IP.So I have that luxury, but as soon I will, I'll have a very early start. And so I'm going to have to figure out a way to get it down to probably five or 10 minutes, which makes me a little nervous. But that's the challenge.swyx: [00:46:10] Yeah that, that's amazing. For those people who might've missed the chat, he actually dropped his template in the zoom chat. So make sure to check that out and I'm also pasting it inside of the presentation so people can catch up on it. But this is really great. Wow. What about note taking though?So you have a lot of reflection stuff. Do you. Do you also use notion for note taking? Speaker 2: [00:46:28] I do. And I'm still refining it. I took a building a second brain the first time at the same time you did. So it's I believe you took it a year ago, so it's it's about, it's very new to me. I didn't take any notes before in my life.It's a very new concept. So for me, I use where did it go? That's down here. I have a. Notes database. And when I want to find a note or to create a project, I go into the space, I call my neocortex and I S I drag and drop interesting notes, and I'm still learning to deal with it, but I could, for example, search by a specific para.So in my notion mentor session, last week, I showed how you would create a project for hosting a food extravaganza by dragging notes on that topic. When I summarize in notes, I add a tag to it. As an example, Speaker 1: [00:47:22] that's a good example. Speaker 1: [00:47:23] Here's a food one. So I track the, if I drink something that's good, favorite alcohol, I'll keep a database, a running list of beers or wines or things that are cool.I'm at a restaurant and I give this a progressive summarization level. So this one's pretty high up because I made my own, this is my own unique perspective on alcohol. No one else has it. So it's my own remixed work. But when I clipped something, I maybe it's just the key excerpts as I bolded, I'll give it this a bolded key points.And then what I can do is filter for notes that have that level two and above that are that either have a highlight and above. So it's a more limited number of notes. I also put in the notion for each note, a summary if I, if it resonates with me, this is from building a second brain. I took a note on how to, from the circle group, how to measure success in areas.Here's the actual note that I copied and pasted, but I bolded things that appealed to me. And then I put in my own my word summary, and that gives it extra oomph when I searched for stuff with that summary. Cause not every note has it. And I even give it a score, which is using a notion formula that basically it gives it points for whether there's a takeaway, whether I've set a review frequency for it and whether I've given it the trophy, which means it's it's really cool.So if if all those three things are checked, then it gets a 10, which is a high score. And I can even filter for those. I don't know if I filtered for scores in the neocortex. Yes I did. So these are high scores notes with high scores. Every single note with a high score. I think the filter is set for more than six, I guess it's not working right now, but eventually if I went in there and fix it, that's what it would do.So yes, that's right. I'm still working on it. It's not, I'm not able to produce as easily as you can for public use. And so that's where I struggle at the moment. swyx: [00:49:17] You can, you don't have to produce about your work stuff. There are definitely other areas of your life. Like the alcohol notes.Speaker 2: [00:49:24] Everyone thinks I'm an alcoholic, but, swyx: [00:49:25] No they're definitely elements of your life, which are not. National security related. So I think that part is okay. But no, that's, this isn't really awesome. Yeah I worry a bit about being too tied into notion which is why I tend to keep my things relatively low fi, but it's so nice to see your weekly and monthly collections that that makes sense.It makes sense. Yeah. Great. Document your decade. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, there, there are a bunch of the people that people bring up in the chat. I feel like this is a really good ad. People should go check out your session when you're in your sessions and just join the your group, it is Speaker 2: [00:49:57] two in the morning, Eastern time on Mondays.Sorry, on Tuesdays. Sorry for the late hours, for those of you who are sleeping it's great for those folks in the India, Pacific ocean Asia area. Okay. swyx: [00:50:09] Got it. But yeah, people can catch up on the circle, I guess. Speaker 2: [00:50:13] Yes. Feel free to talk to me in circle. I haven't recorded anything yet.I'll. I plan to start since I've had quite a few people ask. swyx: [00:50:20] Yeah. I think I think that this piece was really great. Okay. We have we have about 15 more minutes of people. If you want to go, we're already over time. So thank you for coming. We'll see you next week on we for, but I usually stay to answer questions.Guy, if you have stuff to do that on the weekends, thank you so much. You've already I should have asked you to join anyway, but thank you so much invited me to present. It was Speaker 2: [00:50:43] a lot of fun. I'll stick Speaker 1: [00:50:44] around. I'm swyx: [00:50:44] still learning. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone else has other topics they want to talk about now, it's the open bar session.Once a week Newsletter [00:50:51]I'll tell you, I'll tell you my, my I definitely feel like more unstructured and I feel like the habits of keeping to a regular publishing schedule, like once a week, a newsletter plus a daily audio clips, podcasts that I do that just keeps me full already. I feel like everything else emanates from there, all the note taking that I do, because I always have an outcome that I want in mind and I have a mental timer of okay, if this thing ages too much, then I either have to get rid of it or I just have to ship what I have today.That's it like, I know I'm not happy with it. It's not my best work, but I'm shipping it. And sometimes people like that. So Speaker 1: [00:51:31] let's just start just on that.Private Journaling [00:51:32]swyx: [00:51:32] So John Harker says, I like how Thiago shows, how he uses Evernote for all this internal stuff, then move things into notion when he wants to share. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So have a public side and the public private side. I think that makes a lot of sense because, and sometimes you want to air gap it by different apps.So my journal wasn't one note where no one else uses and it's a password on it. I think one node has the best password solution that I tried. I'm not sure how other apps lock it up. I don't think notion even does a password on. Yeah. So I recommend for journals at least to put it in one node.Book Writing Process [00:52:05]Dave Meyer says I struggled, outlining going from small standalone ideas to a fully formed publication, like an article. Dave, I don't know if you were here. Were you here last week? So I gave a little, okay. So I the people were here last week. I gave a, those screen-share into how I wrote the book.So I wrote it and get help cause I'm a nerd like that. And when I wrote the book, I essentially planned out my structure. I planned out the ideas that I had, these are all black bullet points. I should probably be, turn this into a theme. Speaker 1: [00:52:33] Okay, swyx: [00:52:34] sorry. I know people like just prefer live alone.I went, when I wrote the book, I wrote all these chapters and then these are all black originally, and then I turned them blue into links of the actual Speaker 1: [00:52:43] final products. swyx: [00:52:44] And then Speaker 1: [00:52:45] it's like the chapters. Okay. Sorry. It's Speaker 3: [00:52:49] we would find downloading chapters and stuff like that. Okay. It's the individual chapter itself then of that kind of content, that kind of all the body swyx: [00:53:00] in there.Let me show you. So this is, these are all just like literal brainstorm of everything that every point that I wanted to make and then I took this and then use this as my starting points for writing the essay, which I knocked out in probably like three, four hours. I don't know if this helps or not, but it literally is bunch of topics.And I don't necessarily know the end point that I want to get to. I just know things that are interesting to talk about and I just list them out. And part of the writing process is rearranging them into some kind of order sequence. That makes sense. And then the final output, Speaker 1: [00:53:33] you don't see, you don't see a lot of the swyx: [00:53:35] final of, but let me show you the correspondence.I don't think it's, I don't think it's very high. So here's the draft and then here's the final output. So I would say, I had a section called dealing with the mob and I thought that mom might not be PC. So I said, dealing with haters and literally like four bullet points.Like that would be three, four pages like that. And just having some amount of separation between deciding what you're going to write about and then actually sitting down to write the thing. I think Speaker 3: [00:54:00] that helps. I can see that there's a lack of perfectionism there, which is, I think.I think that's the issue I have there. swyx: [00:54:07] Yeah. I'm literally like a lot of my writing. I actually often say that I do it while running. When I was writing, so I wrote for 600 hours every day before I would write, I would go for a run and doing a run might still be active. So I would just be like organizing things to my brain.And when I thought of something, I would actually just get on my phone and rearrange and add point bullet points to this. Speaker 3: [00:54:30] Anything before a real soda it's front and center your mind? No. And was this already the main focus of what you swyx: [00:54:36] were working on? No, I would just be working on three or four different topics simultaneously.I had all these in my kind of on board. And yeah, I was, I w I would have. I think I had it up next section that had three or four chapters and then some which some, which were just said idea stage, which I think I seem to have got rid of it, but yeah, then I would just be working on these and now move them over to the complete section.And then I'll promote other things to do the writing section. And I would just be working on four or five of simultaneously, but my book had 40 chapters there's a lot of content just everywhere. And then there are some, I just threw away as well. I don't know. It's a messy process.Embrace it. And I think the organizing structure of chapters is really helpful because that's a self-contained unit. It gets tricky when chapters interlink, which I also did. And and that's a path that I think you best I would recommend doing after you've finished the book. Speaker 1: [00:55:24] Yeah.swyx: [00:55:24] Yeah, that's the book writing process now.  Don't know if it helps. Speaker 1: [00:55:26] Thanks. swyx: [00:55:27] Definitely some community helps as well and also writing in public, right? For those planning to write a book or to sell their writing in any way having some kind of focus group, which is either a Twitter for Twitter, for me,

50 years and still going strong. Shorty started cleaning in 1971 and shortly after introducing his wife to be Delia. The couple started in Perth, moved to Sydney, then Weipa, and has now settled in Cairns providing Cairns with a great deal of experience and knowledge in the cleaning, and specialised fields of carpet and upholstery cleaning, leather cleaning, and spot dying. Shorty and Delia have just only started to slow down reaching their 50-year anniversary in the cleaning industry this year. Shorty, just turning 76 is looking to revamp their business and just specialise in specialty work. Not saying this will be the case with the number of loyal clients he has. I had known shorty when I first entered the cleaning and restoration industry back in 1997 as the “Guru” of encapsulation. A new method of cleaning and for the sceptics, not a professional cleaning method. This has now shown to be one of the goes to methods of carpet and upholstery cleaning in 2021. Welcome Shorty to the Podcast

Rural and remote teaching - Brittany Nolan, Weipa

The western coastline of Cape York is a magical fishing destination and one of the standout species to target is of course the mighty barramundi. In episode 248 I talk to local fishing gun and outdoors videographer Bryce Coxall about his strategies for barra fishing in the Weipa area. Full show notes available at: https://doclures.com/weipa-barramundi-bryce-coxall/

It was a steaming hot March afternoon in Weipa, a mining town on the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia. At a safety course, 28-year-old mine worker Todd Bairstow couldn’t wait to knock off, treat himself to an ice-cold beer and go fishing. But, finishing up and trudging down to the creek with his little puppy running alongside him, they weren't completely alone. See, crocodiles lurked in the murky waters...*Thinking of you all, and hope you're staying safe and well in spite of everything Covid-19 is throwing at us. Lots of love from the HIS team. xInterview/script/host: Beth YoungProducer: Jake Taylor See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seldom do you come across mining maintenance managers with as many years of service, and as much variety of experience as our guest today. Leigh Gould, a semi-retired mining maintenance manager with well over 30 years experience and roles spanning nearly every continent in the world, discusses his vast know-how with Gerard in this episode. His career in maintenance management began alongside the introduction of computers in the early 1980s in Weipa, and he became heavily involved in the development of programmed maintenance. Over the years, he has enjoyed time in gold, copper, aluminium, iron and coal mining representing a rarely seen multi-elemental maintenance manager. Join Leigh and Gerard in their discussion of mining maintenance across all the elements, failure mode effect analysis and reliability centred maintenance, maintenance scheduling in the era of computational expanse, and dealing with resource-intensive root cause analysis.   LINKS: Leigh Gould on LinkedIn Bluefield 30 in 30 podcast website

"Barra Dave" Donald isn't just one of the gentlemen of fishing, he's also one of the pioneers of the Cape York Fishery, with decades of guiding experience in that area. He's also had more than 40 years of writing about fishing Cape York and continues to author articles even in his retirement. As a fishing destination, Weipa is in the heartland. On offer are species too numerous to mention, along with a ruggedly beautiful and relatively untouched wilderness. Of course, barramundi are one of the most popular targets and are abundant in the area. In this episode, Barra Dave shares his tips for anglers chasing the Weipa Barramundi experience. Dave dishes out plenty of advice on the loaction, best tides and conditions, tackle and lures for tangling with the big silver fish around Weipa. Barra Dave's show notes are available at : https://doclures.com/weipa-barramundi-barra-dave-donald/

The humble fingermark bream is a species with a lot going for it in the sport fishing stakes. They can be found in close proximity to the boat ramp, pull hard, look and taste fantastic and are schooling fish that can turn on the action once you've located them. Nathan Reardon's business Outside Edge Adventures is a fishing travel company that has enabled Nathan to fish all over the world. But weipa is a place he keeps coming back to and fingermark are a species he loves to target.  Listen to this episode for all the tips on the tackle, lures and techniques Nathan employs to ensure he can always get onto the fingermark. Download Nathan's show notes at our website here: https://doclures.com/weipa-fingermark-bream-nathan-reardon/

The parkrun adventurers are playing the long game with our adventures this week. It's like old times as podcast fave Ian Hay returns with Facts in a Haystack. And roving reports are in from Steve Marston who visited Far North Qld's Weipa parkrun, Gary Murphy was adventuring at home and Melissa Ellis who ventured to the opposite end of the country to snaffle a Compass Point and join the Stayin' Alive Club at Geeveston parkrun.

Will started on diggers when he was 16 up in Weipa, Qld. Stories of his mining journey and tips for newbies are gold. He’s a real character and I am sure you will enjoy this insight into the mining lifestyle as much as MM did. What ah-ha moment did Mad Mumzie have about a dream the night before? Freaky!  Show Notes Page (with time stamps): https://www.madmumzie.com/beers52 Are you looking for a job in the mines but don't know where to start? Head to https://www.madmumzie.com/noexperience/ Thanks to Bantacs Accounting Group Sponsor for this episode https://madmumzie.com/money for more details

Hear Paddy and Red discuss Weipa, QLD.

We speak to Australian running legend and Indigenous Marathon Foundation Founder Rob de Castella. And we go for the W with Roving Reports from Wimmera River, Horsham and Weipa parkrun.

There's plenty of talk on radio, but with 20twenty you'll find Life, Culture & Current events from a Biblical perspective. Interviews, stories and insight you definately won't hear in the mainstream media. This feed contains selected content from 20twenty, heard every weekday morning. See www.vision.org.au for more details Help Vision to keep 'Connecting Faith to Life': https://vision.org.au/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elizabeth Harris visits Michael Salmon's studio in Kooyong, Melbourne, and learns from the children's author, illustrator, and entertainer of school children, what 50 years in the arts has taught him about -  Learning to trust your instincts about what early readers find funny. The importance of branching out and diversifying if you want to thrive as an author and illustrator in the long term. How your personality and people skills (or lack thereof) can influence your success in the arts. The pleasure of giving back to the community when you've attained a measure of professional success. How did a beloved children's book make it to the centre page of a newspaper, and its main character become 600 kilos of bronze outside a public library in the nation's capital? What's the connection between Michael, Healthy Harold (the Life Education giraffe that visits schools), and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation? Follow Michael as he travels around Australia visiting Indigenous schools and schools with students of diverse ethnicities, backgrounds, and levels of English fluency. Find out more about Michael Salmon's work at MichaelSalmon.com.au. Notes:Robyn Payne is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and audio engineer of 25 years’ experience in the album, film, TV and advertising industries. She composed the music for the theme song 'Victoria Dances', which is featured in host Elizabeth Harris' children's book, Chantelle's Wish, available for sale on Elizabeth's website at ElizabethHarris.net.au. The lyrics for 'Victoria Dances' were written by Elizabeth Harris. FULL TRANSCRIPT  Elizabeth:        Welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris, the global show that connects authors, songwriters and poets with their global audience. So I can continue to bring you high-calibre guests, I invite you to go to iTunes, click Subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends. Today I’m delighted to introduce the highly creative and entertaining children’s author and illustrator, Michael Salmon. Michael Salmon has been involved in graphics, children’s literature, TV and theatre since 1967. He started his career with surfing cartoons, and exhibitions of his psychedelic art, and then joined the famous marionette troupe – The Tintookies – as a trainee set designer stage manager in 1968 (the Elizabethan Theatre Trust, Sydney). Since then his work has been solely for young people, both here in Australia and overseas. His many credits include his Alexander Bunyip Show (ABC TV 1978-1988), pantomimes, fabric and merchandise design, toy and board game invention, writing and illustrating of 176 picture story books – which Michael I’m absolutely flabbergasted and astonished and in wonderment at, and everybody’s laughing at that, or maybe he’s laughing at me, I don’t know. (Laughter) I’ll say it again – 176 picture story books for young readers. Several million copies of his titles have been sold worldwide. Michael has been visiting Australian primary schools for over 40 years. His hour-long sessions are interesting, fun, humorous and entertaining, with the focus on students developing their own creativity, which is just fantastic. Suitable for all years, many of these school visits can be seen on Michael’s website, which I will ask you to repeat later. Michael:          Okay. Elizabeth:        Several trips have been up to the Gulf of Carpentaria Savannah Schools and to the remote Aboriginal community Schools on Cape York Peninsula, as a guest of EDU. EDU – what is that? Michael:          Education Department, Queensland. Elizabeth:        The Australian Government honoured his work in 2004 by printing a 32nd Centenary, special edition of his first book The Monster that ate Canberra – I like that - as a Commonwealth publication … for both residents and visitors to our Capital. Every Federal Politician received a copy. Michael:          Even if they didn’t want it, they got one. (Laughter) Elizabeth: Michael was also the designer of ‘Buddy Bear’ for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation (Port Arthur 1996). The Foundation financially supports Children/Families who are victims of violence/violent crime; they are currently running an anti-bullying campaign in Australian Schools. In 2010 the ACT Government further recognized his work by commissioning a bronze statue of his first book character ‘Alexander Bunyip’. Unveiled in April 2011, it stands next to the new – and I’ll get you to say this, Michael … Michael:          GUN-GAH-LIN. Elizabeth:        Gungahlin Library in our Federal Capital. Thank you for saying that. Michael has presented ‘Bunyip-themed history sessions’ for audiences of School Children at the National Library of Australia since 2011. School touring and book titles continue, which I’m blown away by, because you’ve written and illustrated 176 books! Michael:          Some of those were activity books, to be fair, but they were necessitated – writing, the requirements of children, and illustrations, so they were all lumped in together, basically. Elizabeth:        So Michael Salmon, welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. Michael: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure, and thank you for visiting my studio here in downtown Kooyong, Melbourne. Elizabeth:        We are delighted to be here – Serena Low and I, everybody – Serena being my wonderful tech support. Michael, we have been Facebook friends for some time now, which is a wonderful way to keep in contact with people. But do you think social media has affected children adversely, and stopped them from reading and enjoying children’s literature? Michael:          Do you know, in order to answer some of the questions you asked, I probably pondered this one the most. It’s strange times. I’m 67 years old now. If I go back to when I was a teenager … Elizabeth:        Looking very dapper, I may say. Michael:          Yes, thank you, thank you. (Laughter) It’s amazing what no exercise will do. (Laughter) Things have changed so much. If you go back to the fifties and sixties – which both you ladies will have to look at the old films and see reruns of Gidget and all that kind of stuff – however, the main communication of young people several, several decades ago, socially, would have been the telephone. Invariably, houses only had one line that mums and dads would need. But the girls mostly – and perhaps the boys too – would be on the line talking to their friends and all this kind of stuff. And that was the only direction of communication. Perhaps letters and whatever, but certainly the telephone was the main thing. Now how things have changed these days. Having 12 grandchildren ranging from – what are they now, 2 to 24 – I’ve seen a whole gamut, and I see daily just how much social media – the iPads, tablets and things – are taking up their time and the manners in which they take up their time. Elizabeth:        What a wonderful family to have! Michael:          Well, it’s certainly a bit like a zoo (laughter) – I hope they don’t mind me saying that – and I’m the head monkey, but that’s about it. That’s true. But if you think of a child – and one of the main loves in life is visiting schools, and over the many years in Australia I’ve visited many, many schools – and just see what the teachers are up against these days. And often the teachers are – it’s well-known – surrogate parents on many occasions. Often it’s left to teachers, whether it be librarians or very kind teachers … Elizabeth:        Challenging job. Michael:          … To instill in the children a love of literature and how important reading is. But I think of going back to my youth and my toy soldier collection and making and making balsa wood castles and Ormond keeps and whatever it may be, playing in my room with this fantasy world I had grown up in. Elizabeth:        What an imagination! Michael:          Well, my father read to me – when it first came out, back in the fifties, and I was quite young, but – The Hobbit, C.S. Lewis and the Narnian … – beautiful. I was brought up in those kind of – and he also read most of Dickens to me, as well as Kipling. Quite incredible stuff. So my father was a major player in my love of literature. And I’m not sure that it happens hugely these days, but I grew up in a world of imagination. And it wasn’t any great surprise to my parents that I entered the world I’m in, which is the fantasy world of children, because I never got out of it, basically. 67 years we’re looking at at the moment. I would say mental age is about 8 or 9. (Laughter) Elizabeth:        But you make very good coffee for a 9-year-old, Michael. Michael:          But it did eventuate that sitting in my studio in the early hours of the morning, if I start laughing at a concept or whatever, I know full well through the passage of time that preppies or Grade Ones or Twos or kinders will start laughing at it too. So you get to trust your judgement after a while in the arts. You get to know where your strengths are. But going back to your original question, I have a couple of grandchildren who are absolute whizzes on their tablets. They’ve gone through the Minecraft thing; they’ve gone this, they’ve gone that. Almost an obsessive kind of stuff there. Elizabeth:        It’s an addiction, I think. Michael:          Sometimes, you must take time away from the use of imagination. Because let’s face it, in using our imagination, our creativity – and creativity can be cooking a magnificent meal, it can be keeping a well-balanced house. There’s all kinds of creativity, or it could be the artist creativity, but that’s such an important thing, of finding who we are. Elizabeth:        Yes. Michael:          And to have children taken away to a certain extent Magic Land which is absolutely fine until they become obsessive or addictive, as some of these things are, there’s a great danger that children are – shall we say – not able to evaluate or to progress their natural talents etcetera coming through, especially in the arts. Elizabeth:        I totally agree with you. Michael, you’ve written and illustrated so many books. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, 176. How do you decide what to write about? Michael:          Well, it’s probably – I’ve always written from a cover idea. There’s a book of mine going way back. It’s one of my old favourites, a very simple one, which is called The Pirate Who Wouldn’t Wash. And when I talk to children and they say where do you get your ideas from, I say sometimes you get two ideas that are unrelated and you put them together, and because hopefully my books are rather funny and I was brought up in the fifties on things like The Fabulous Goon Show, Peter Sellers, and Spike Milligan. I loved Monty Python which was a direct sort of baby from The Goon Show. So my love of comedy has always been UK-based. And so that strange juxtaposition of whatever, so I thought, okay, a pirate, and perhaps a person who doesn’t like to wash. And you put them together and you have the pirate who wouldn’t wash. And then you simply – it’s easy if you have a vivid imagination – you list a whole lot of encounters or what could happen to a pirate who wouldn’t wash. Elizabeth:        Could we talk about that? I’d love to talk about that. Michael:          A monster, and then someone who doesn’t like vegetables. Which was one of my stepsons, William, and he was ‘Grunt the Monster’, which was one of my early characters. Refused to eat his vegetables. His teachers went to great lengths to find out how he could eat them, disguise them in milkshakes or whatever it may be. So it was William I was writing about, one of my younger stepsons at that stage. And at university when he went through Architectural course, he was called Grunt, because they knew full well the book was based on him. So it’s good sometimes to disguise – but nonetheless feature things you see around you. Elizabeth:        How did he cope with it? Michael:          He loved it, he loved it, he loved it. Elizabeth:        He got attention? Michael:          He got attention, all that kind of stuff, and he had one of his best mates who let everyone know that he was called ‘Grunt’ – that was sort of his name. But at some stage, I think he uses that – he lectures in Architecture around the country these days. He’s gone and done very well, dear William, and he will sometimes use that as a joke. Elizabeth:        Yes. Icebreaker. Michael:          Icebreaker, exactly. Elizabeth:        Was there a pivotal person who influenced your career? And if so, can you tell us how they inspired you? Michael:          Probably apart from the people I’ve mentioned previously, the Tolkiens and the Hobbits and the Lord of the Rings and the C.S. Lewises and that sort of thing, I’ve always loved the classic British thing like Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. These are very famous books that everyone read at one stage. Back in those early fifties, my father was at Cambridge University so we were hoisted out of New Zealand; we went to live in the UK, and it was such a great time for a child to be in the UK. It’s still suffering war damage from Second World War, and London still roped off sections of it - the Doodlebugs, the flying bombs that the Germans sent over to hit London. So it was a rather strange place, but the television was brilliant. I was a Enid Blyton fan, a foundation member of the Secret Seven Club. Elizabeth:        Were you really. Michael:          Even though based in Cambridge, we looked forward to every month of the Enid Blyton magazines, so I grew up on The Faraway Tree and the Secret Seven and the Famous Five. I had my badges, I had all the merchandise. But also on the television in those days was a show we never got to hear in Australia – Muffin the Mule. There was also Sooty the Sweep, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men. Andy Pandy was another one. Most of those were for kindies and little bubs. Basil Brush was a little bit later on. And British television was always superb, especially for children. Blue Peter and some of those famous shows was a little bit later on. I mention this because I had ten years of my own show on ABC which you’ll learn later on, and used puppets and things which I’d seen being used on British television. Elizabeth:        Can you tell us about that show please? Michael:          The show itself … When Alexander first became a character, it was a Michael 'Smartypants book', a little book I had published in 1972. This is The Monster That Ate Canberra. And this basically the genesis of the television show. I thought I would do a – I wasn’t a university student but it was like a smartypants university student publication, because the bunyip himself was not the Kangaroo – was in fact an oversized pink bunyip, more like a Chinese dragon. However, the monster was the public service, and so it was like a joke about the public service. Because back in those seventies and late sixties, large departments were being taken from Melbourne and Sydney and relocated in Canberra, Melbourne Commonwealth finance and other things, so Canberra was being flooded with the public service. And that was why Canberra was being set up, but anyway, as a youngster back in 1972 when I first wrote that book, I envisaged this large King Kong kind of character over Civic, which was the main principal shopping centre, the oldest shopping centre, going on Northbourne Avenue as you come in from Sydney. There’s this large monster devouring things, but this monster has a problem: he is short-sighted. Anyway, he saw the buildings – the famous, iconic buildings of Canberra as objects of food. So put them into – like the Academy of Science, a gigantic apple pie; the National Library, which was recently built, at that stage and still looks like a gigantic birthday cake; and I had the Carillon looking like a Paddle Pop or something like that, which are all to do with objects of food. And the bunyip devoured them. And the Prime Minister – the original Prime Minister back then was (William) “Billy” McMahon, and when he chucked, we had then changed to Gough Whitlam. So Prime Minsters changed within the reprints of this book. The best thing about this … way way back when Gough Whitlam became our Prime Minister, one of the first things he did was institute an office that had never been there before, called the Department of Women. It was there specially to consider and to aid passage of women in Australia into jobs and a whole range of things that had never been heard before in a male-dominated kind of world. Elizabeth:        I’ve always been a fan of Gough, so I must say … (Laughter) Michael:          Well, Gough appointed a single mum called Elizabeth Reid – Liz Reid – and she was a very famous lady and she really championed the cause of women, you know, equal rights, and these ridiculous things that should have been fixed a long time but hadn’t. So Liz Reid was pictured in the centre page of the Woman’s Weekly, soon after Gough – this was one of his first appointments, Liz Reid. And there was Liz with her little bub – so she was a brand new single mum. Elizabeth:        Oh wow. Which in those days would have been scandalous, wouldn’t it. Michael:          Oh yes, but Gough was famous for that. He already went out specially with the arts. Regardless of how he was considered as a Prime Minister, he was certainly a great patron of the arts, Gough Whitlam. Elizabeth:        As I said, I’m a fan. Michael:          In this picture, centre pages of Woman’s Weekly, double spread, was little bubba. And in little bubba’s hands, supported by his mother, was a copy of The Monster That Ate Canberra. Elizabeth:        Wow! How did you feel? Michael:          I thought, “Fantastic!” I got a call within a week from one of the biggest educational publishers in the world, called McGraw-Hill, asking “Can you tell us a little bit about this? And I was described as this is probably not how I would think, and I said “No, but thank you very much for calling.” So the most unusual thing sort of kicked up, and we were reprinting this book again and again for Canberra, because Canberra was laughing its head off. Elizabeth:        Good on you Ms Reid – and baby. Michael:          So we had a theatrical presentation, pantomimes based on it with the local Canberra youth theatre. ABC then serialized it on radio, and then came to me – this was about 1977 or so – saying, “Would you consider having Alexander Bunyip on television?” Elizabeth:        Wow. Michael:          And I said “Yes please, thank you very much.” And it was through a mate of mine, quite a well-known scriptwriter for Australian films called John Stevens, and also director of plays and whatever around Australia, and he was one of the directors of the young people’s programs in ABC, who were based at that stage in Sydney. Anyway, Alexander got on television through this rather, uh, strange path he led, entertaining the people of Canberra. Elizabeth:        Can I ask you with that, and throughout your life, you have enjoyed such great success, and certainly rightly so. Have you found that there’s been what has been seen as insignificant moments, turn into huge, huge achievements for you? Michael:          Well, (I) try to step away from cliché but sometimes it’s hard to, when I say you make your own luck. But the fact that that for example, one of my main – I love it – the statue of Alexander Bunyip, 600 kilograms of bronze outside the library. Elizabeth:        In that place I can’t pronounce. Michael:          Gungahlin, that’s right, Gungahlin. Elizabeth:        I’ll practise it. Michael:          I’ll tell you how that happened. Sometimes on Google if you’re an artistic person and you’re an author or illustrator, if you just put your name in and see what’s the latest thing, are there any new entries. Sometimes schools put in things in comments or whatever. Sometimes odd things about your life come up – business life, work life. And there was a situation that occurred, when Gungahlin Community Council had discussed whether – because John Stanhope, who was the chief minister of the ACT at that stage was putting up statues left right and centre, because he wanted a lot of edifices in Canberra to entertain people. Elizabeth:        He was a visual. Michael:          Yeah, visual person. And someone said, “Why don’t we have Alexander Bunyip?” and there was general laughter. But that was supported in the Council vote of Hansard, you know, the documented notes taken in that particular Council session, and I saw this online. And so I merely wrote to this person, sent them one of the more recent copies of The Monster That Ate Canberra, and said “That sounds great. Let me know if I can help.” Elizabeth:        Absolutely! Michael:          Gosh, one thing after another happened, and the head of the Council Alan Kirlin, with John Stanhope, got it organized, and within a year there was a brand new statue being launched by John Stanhope, one of the last things he did before he resigned. He’d done some magnificent work in Canberra. So new ministers were appointed etcetera, so John – the statue was launched, and I made a speech which was dedicated to my mum, who had died the year before. She was a Canberra girl, and I thought that would be nice to dedicate, at least mention her. I’m sure if she were around - in ethereal style - she wouldn’t miss out on that one, I can assure you. Elizabeth:        I’m sure. Michael:          But when the statue was dedicated – the statue stands there – Elizabeth:        Can we go back, because I would like to talk about that speech about your mum. Can we talk about that? Michael:          Yes. Well, my mother Judy, as I said who passed on in 2010 – the statue was put up in 2011 – was a very … went bush Port Douglas many years ago, before Christopher Skase was up there. (Laughter) So I used to go up there and visit her. A hurricane holiday house, which is simply a house in Port Douglas without any windows. It was up in the hills towards the Mosman River valley. Elizabeth:        For those who don’t know Christoper Skase, can you please touch on him briefly. Michael:          Christopher Skase was one of our major financial entrepreneurs who died over in a Spanish location owing millions of dollars to many people. He was like a younger brother of Alan Bond. That’s where Christopher Skase fitted in. I don’t think New York or Spain ever really sort of – Elizabeth:        Recovered. Michael:          Recovered from the Australian paparazzi to see whether Skase was in fact dying or whether he was in a wheelchair with breathing apparatus, wheeled out by his ever-loving wife Pixie, who is back safely in the country now. But that’s by the by. (Laughter) Michael:          My mother was a fairly gregarious character. Elizabeth:        Bit like yourself. Michael:          (Laughter) Pushy. Elizabeth:        No, no, no. Delightful, and entertaining. Michael:          Judy was one of the younger daughters of her father, my grandfather, Canon W. Edwards – Bill Edwards. He was a young Anglican curate who’d been badly gassed on the fields of Flanders and the Somme in the First World War. Elizabeth:        Oh dear. Michael:          But he was an educationalist, as well as a very strong Anglican within the church. So he was sent on his return out to Grammar School looking after that in Cooma. When Canberra was designated as the place to have our new capital, the Anglican Church from Sydney said, “Please harness up one of the buggies, and take six of your seniors and go look at four different venues in Canberra that we are looking at to have a brand new school.” Elizabeth:        Wow. Michael:          And they chose the most beautiful place, in a road called Mugga Way just at the bottom of Red Hill, which is Canberra Boys’ Grammar. He was their founding Headmaster. Elizabeth:        Was he! Michael:          But the fact was that they settled on that because they pitched their tents under the gum trees. They woke up with the sound of intense kookaburra noise, and thought this was perfect for a grammar school, or any other school for that matter. Elizabeth:        Oh, beautiful. Michael:          They were all talking and whatever it was. Elizabeth:        Bit like sounding the bell, you know. Michael:          (Laughter) So going back to those days, that was the start of Canberra and my family going back there to the thirties of last century. However, back in those days in the Second World War, my father had graduated from school in New Zealand, and was sent across as one of those New Zealand young soldiers to become an officer at Duntroon, the training college. The Defence Academy they call it now, but good old Duntroon. So when he graduated, it was the end of World War Two, and he was sent up to war crimes trials in Japan, as one of his first things the Aus-New Zealand ANZAC forces when they went up there to look after things for a while. But my mother was quite a brilliant lady, and she would always be the one painting and decorating and doing all this kind of stuff. Always a dynamic kind of person. And apart from loving her very much as a mum, she instilled in me this gregarious, rather exhibitionist kind of thing. Elizabeth:        (Laughter) Thank you Judy. It’s Judy, isn’t it. Thank you Judy. I know you’re here. Michael:          So Judy was responsible for – in younger, thinner days, long hair, beads, not necessarily hippie stuff but just total exhibitionist kind of stuff. Elizabeth:        Oh I’ve seen photographs of this man, everybody. My goodness, what a heartthrob. Michael:          I looked like I could have been another guitarist in Led Zeppelin or something. Elizabeth:        I’m actually just fanning myself with my paper. (Laughter) Michael:          But anyway, it’s all a bit of fun. Elizabeth:        Did you ever sing? Michael:          No, no, no. I was actually a drummer at one of the schools I attended. Elizabeth:        Were you? I like drummers. Michael:          Yes, but not this kind of drummer. In the pipe bands at Scotch College, Sydney. I was a tenor drummer. Elizabeth:        Okay. Michael:          So they have the big, the double bass drum or whatever and the tenor drums and the drumsticks - I forget the name – like the Poi they have in New Zealand. And the tenor drums – you have to have coordination if you want to play the tenor drums as you march along in your dress: the Black Watch dress. Elizabeth:        Isn’t learning music so important, which reflects in other areas? Michael:          It is, it is. Elizabeth:        Can we talk about that? Michael:          Well, I think that – not being musical but having written lyrics in my pantomimes – and down at a very amateur level worked out what a bunyip would sing about, or go back to an early blues song or doo-wop kind of song when Alexander is stuck in a zoo in the pantomime. So I had great fun. So my musical experience – I was lucky to have some very clever people, including one gentleman who until a few years ago was one of the Heads of Tutors at Canberra School of Music called Jim Cotter. Now Jim Cotter and I – he wrote my first music for me, for the pantomimes I used to do way back in the early days. And then Peter Scriven – he was the head of the Tintookies Marionette Theatre, who were all under the auspices of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust in Sydney at Potts Point. And Peter had engaged him to do – I was doing some sets – it was the first show, our first children’s show at the Opera House – and I did the costumes for Tintookies. It was a revamp of what Peter Scriven had been doing back in the fifties. And Jim had some brand new music, and so my musical experience was purely admiring music and talented people who did that, realizing that it was not my forte. Elizabeth:        Aren’t they clever. Michael:          Nonetheless, by writing lyrics and giving some vague, vague “rock ‘n roll and I like it” -like, you know. Not exactly “Stairway to Heaven”, you know what I’m saying? Elizabeth:        (Laughter) Who was your favourite band at that stage? Michael:          Ahh, I grew up in the Sixties. I got myself a hearing aid the other day. You can hardly see it – one of these new things. But essentially, I’ve had to, because I spent a lot of my younger life surfing in the eastern beaches of Sydney. The promotion of bone growth over the ear – there’s some kind of term for it – and they had to cut away the bone if I were to hear properly. And I thought, I don’t want my ear cut, so I’ll just leave it as it is at 67. But also too, I do attribute some of those early groups to my lack of hearing these days, because I did study for my exams with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones. Pretty much one of my favourite groups of all time was a group that spread, with different members going to different other groups, were The Byrds in America. Dylan songs. “Mr Tambourine”. Elizabeth:        Yes. Was it Eric – Eric somebody? Or did I get the wrong group. Michael:          We’re talking about David Crosby, Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn who changed his name and became Roger, or was it the other way round. But they had the Dylan. They came out with “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Elizabeth:        Yes, I know that song. Michael:          Their next one was ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’. Then they went into more Dylan of, “All I Really Want to Do”. And these are hits of the Sixties. Elizabeth:        You could sing a few bars. Michael:          No I couldn’t. Not even Dylan-style. (Laughter) But I love those songs, mainly because - Elizabeth:        They’re great. Michael:          Jim McGuinn had a 12-string guitar, and it was this jingly-jangly feel to their songs that I loved dearly. But another group which I must tell you, because I met up with them in real life, which is one of my favourite groups, is The Seekers. Elizabeth:        Oh! Miss Judith! Michael:          Now Keith Potger is a good mate of mine. We go for gentlemen’s clubs like Savage Club; he’s a member of Savage, enjoy long lunches, and often with some other guests. Elizabeth:        Athol Guy? Michael:          Yes. And Judith Durham – where you’re sitting there – came and sat down there with her manager a few years ago. Elizabeth:        My goodness! Michael:          She’d seen a presentation – Elizabeth:        She’s beautiful. Michael:          Oh, magnificent. And her voice! Elizabeth:        Angel. Michael:          Judith had seen a production by Garry Ginivan, who is one of the principal Australian children’s entrepreneurs for theatrics, theatres. He’s just finished doing Hazel E.’s Hippopotamus on the Roof kind of stuff, and I’m not sure if he’s doing Leigh Hobbs’ Horrible Harriet. Now that’s going to the Opera House. I’m not sure if Garry Ginivan’s doing that for Leigh. He did for Graeme Base. He did My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, and also brought packaged stuff like Noddy and Toyland, Enid Blyton and other stuff like The Faraway Tree. So anyway he was presenting Puff the Magic Dragon – and I’m just looking around the room to find a graphic of the poster, because I’d designed Puff the Magic Dragon. Elizabeth:        Did you? Michael:          And they used that for all the promotional material and stuff there, but it was the puppet that I designed. And Judith went along to see – it was at The Athenaum Theatre here in Melbourne, a few years ago now. Elizabeth:        Lovely theatre. Michael:          And she liked the whole idea of the dragon, and she rang me. And so here was this most beautiful angel on the other line … Anyway, she was round a couple of days with her management. She was at that time – this was before The Seekers got back together and did all that magnificent tours they did over the last five or six years, Andre Rieu included. Judith is a honky-tonk girl; she loves the music of spiritual and going across to honky-tonk, like Scott Joplin, the ragtime, and all this sort of stuff. Elizabeth:        Oh, fun! Michael:          And she had written several things that she wanted the sheet music to be illustrated to sell, as part of the Judith Durham empire. And she did the ‘Banana Rag’. So immediately I did the illustration for her. I didn’t take any payment. I said, “Look, Judith, might I be impertinent and ask you to come to one of my clubs and sing – come to dinner?” She was a very strict vegetarian and looked after herself incredibly well after a terrible accident where she had to look after her whole system and she’s done that magnificently. So there she was singing, and this was when The Seekers had just released one of their LP’s, called “Morning Town Ride to Christmas”, which was for children’s songs, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house of these senior gentlemen at the club I was talking about, one of these good old Melbourne clubs, when she sang “The Carnival’s Over”. Elizabeth:        Oh yes. Michael:          Absolutely superb, so that was more than enough payment for doing some artwork. But since then, I continued … and met the desperate Keith Potger. Elizabeth:        Weren’t you lucky. Weren’t you lucky. Weren’t you lucky to have that gorgeous woman. Michael:          I was lucky. I was lucky. But I had to tell you, Judith - they had an article on her website, and she’s on Facebook as well - had at that time recorded with The Lord Mayor’s Orchestra here in Melbourne. It was called “The Australian Cities Suite”, and she had written a song for every major city in Australia. And I remember she and I were trying to do a book together, a book based on a song that her husband – who passed on through, oh gosh, what was it – the wasting disease, muscular disease … Elizabeth:        MS? Muscular Dystrophy? Michael:          Muscular Dystrophy. I’m sure that must be it. He put in a song called “Billy the Bug and Sylvia Slug”, and so we put that into a book. And I took Judith along to see some of the heads of various publishing firms in Sydney as well as the head of ABC merchandising in their ivory tower down in Haymarket area. Beautiful beautiful premises they have there, ABC Studios. And so Judith was much heralded in both places when I took her as my guest to introduce this book to her. The book didn’t work unfortunately, but she did start singing in the car as we’d arrived early in the carpark of the ABC citadel in Haymarket. She started singing. And we were all sitting there. And she started singing songs again from The Seekers. Elizabeth:        I don’t think I’m ever going to stand up again. Michael:          So here we are in Kooyong, and there’s the beautiful strains of Judith Durham singing songs, and I thought, “It doesn’t get much better than this.” Elizabeth:        Oh wow. Michael:          I don’t think Deborah Harry could have done the same. Elizabeth:        Do you think Judith Durham would speak with me on this podcast? Michael:          Judith is a very accommodating person, and I’m sure that if you ask through her management, Graham her manager would – I’m sure - she would look at that favourably. Elizabeth:        Would I have to wear a ball gown? I have a couple. To meet the Queen. Michael:          Meet the Queen. (Laughter) But anyway, I suppose too, in my business – and Australia is not a huge place really, when it comes to who knows what and we talked before about the degrees of separation. Elizabeth:        Absolutely. Michael:          And so, a lot of my stuff has been … involved with, because of my work, a lot of singers and whatever via The Hat Books. I remember Russell Morris, not in this place but a previous place. Elizabeth:        “The Real Thing”? Michael:          “The Real Thing” Russell Morris. Brilliant, brilliant, and had the two LP’s as well. Elizabeth:        And Molly, Molly is attached to that – he produced it, didn’t he. Michael:          Yeah, but Russell Morris had this concept that he came up with his wife 30 years ago. It was about a toy that was pre-broken and you had to fix it. The whole idea of the toy was that you had to re-glue this broken toy. Elizabeth:        Right. Michael:          It was ceramic, and he was so keen on it, but I just didn’t think it was going to work. He was a man with an incredible imagination – Elizabeth:        Russell Morris? Michael:          Russell Morris. He had this toy concept, but it didn’t work, because I don’t think kids want to sit around re-gluing a toy that has been broken. I don’t know what he was on. Elizabeth:        He was quite resourceful. Michael:          Ah, he is. Look at the way Russell Morris has revived in recent times. And he’ll have to excuse me. I don’t remember, but I’ve certainly listened to his two LP’s – albums as we used to call them, back in the old days – that he did. All bluesy and whatever, and he’s still got a magnificent voice. Elizabeth:        You know, there are so many Australians that are not – what should I say – recognized as they should be, I think. And such talent. Michael:          Ah, yeah. Elizabeth:        And do you think we need to go overseas, like in the old day. I was listening to a program last night, actually, and Brian Cadd was on it. Love Brian Cadd. Beautiful, beautiful music. And he said you know, back in the day you had to go to London. Michael:          Yes, yes. Well, look at Easybeats and stuff like that. Elizabeth:        Do you think people need to go? Michael:          Brian Cadd and The (Bootleg) Family (Band), that’s what he calls his group, they are reappearing at – they are doing an Australian tour this month in February – I saw it on Facebook, actually. Elizabeth:        You know, a friend of mine who’s a pastel artist, highly acclaimed – we were talking about this, and she said in this country, she’s just not recognized and she really needs … She’s working in a boutique! Michael:          It is a problem. You know on Facebook, which is one of the loves of my life, you see a good deal of Australian up-and-coming authors and illustrators, and ones that you dearly wish would … And I do believe that you if you earn it, you deserve a place in the sun – your ten minutes, twelve minutes of fame, all that kind of stuff. And if you’re smart enough, after your time has been, you then start doing things which reinvent yourself. I’m not talking about Madonna-style, but I’m talking about coming up with new things, being aware of new trends and seeing whether you can adapt your talents. Elizabeth:        Being a survivor. Michael:          Being a survivor, absolutely. Because let’s face it, and I’m very grateful – for example, the schools around Australia – 45 years… Elizabeth:        I’m sure they’re grateful to you too. Michael:          I go into the schools and there are teachers there that say, “Look, the last time I saw you Michael, was when I was in Prep or Grade One, and I loved your books then and I still love them." I’m just so thankful. Elizabeth:        How do you feel, other than gratitude? Michael:          Well, this is one of those major things, of feedback you get. And some of them come up and say “I started drawing because of you drawing”. Elizabeth:        You’re inspirational! Michael:          There are just those things there that I … and also entertaining. Doing a bit of stand-up comedy, giving out very silly prizes like Barbie books to Grade Six boys for good behaviour. I know Preppies will never forget those things. Elizabeth:        Can you talk us through – when you present to the school, how do you do that? Michael:          This year I’ve got a ‘Michael Salmon’s Monster Show’ which is talking about more or less the same thing, but some different pictures to ones I’ve been doing before. Essentially what I realized right at the start is if I do some speed cartooning, right in the very first picture I draw there, and do it so quickly in a great show-off manner, you get the kids hooked.  Elizabeth:        It’s magic; it’s in front of us. Michael:          Because the little ones, they say “Look what he did! Look how fast he drew!” And I always knew that that particular facet, if you did it correctly, the little Preppies in the front – because we do try to get mixed grades, with the Grade Sixes at the back – is that you would have their attention if you kept on. So I sort of talked about the way I invented characters and how it happened. Bobo my dog who is not here today – dear Bobo in the book I wrote called Bobo My Super Dog, where I sort of – he saves the world a bit. Elizabeth:        Of course he would. (Laughter) Michael:          Oh, I don’t know. Let’s just go back to the bit about Australia and the people who are trying to make it, and they are doing their very best and you see their brilliant talent. And it’s very evident on Facebook – it’s one of my major purveyors of talent – the ideas that people come up with and all that sort of stuff. I mean, you’ve got some brilliant people here in Australia. You look at Leigh Hobbs for a start. Now he belongs to the Savage Club as I do, so I catch up with him for lunch on occasions. And there he is with his two-year tenure in his position championing children’s books and children’s literature around Australia. His cartoons are very much like Ronald Searle, the famous British cartoonist, who did the original cartoons that accompanied the original published books and also the film versions of St Trinian’s movies, of schoolgirls and things like that – the naughty schoolgirls. And Ronald Searle was a brilliant, brilliant artist, and he had the kind of nuttiness in his cartooning that Leigh Hobbs had. You look at Leigh Hobbs’ stuff – they are very, very sparse, great placement of colour, they are done in a very slapdash manner. It all works together beautifully – from Horrible Harriet, to Old Tom and whatever. And if you’ve got other people – what’s that book by Aaron Blabey – something or other Pug? (Pig the Pug) I bought some books for my very young grandchildren for Christmas, and I thought, “I haven’t seen these books before.” And here he is winning awards and YABBA (Young Australians Best Book Awards) Awards and all this kind of stuff. And so much talent around. And it’s hard in Australia to make a living as an author, because the royalties and stuff, even if you are one of the top ones, may suffice for a while but aren’t continuing. Elizabeth:        And yet Michael you’ve done that – for 50 years – haven’t you. Michael:          Only because of schools. 45 years in schools and 50 years in the arts. But mainly because I branched out and did things like theatre – the television show. You saw when you first entered the merchandise for 'Alexander Bunyip'. Spotlight stores were behind me for fabrics for a decade, and they finished not a huge many years ago. And that had nothing to do with 'Alexander Bunyip'. But the fact of really, of diversifying. Elizabeth:        Okay. Michael:          And the books for me lay a platform. When Mum or Dad read a book at night to their children, and it happens to be one of yours, and it’s something they like, and they happen to be one of the lead buyers of Spotlight stores and they say “We must do something about this guy”, and they came round and sat where you’re sitting, and they said “We’d like to offer you a deal.” And I thought, “Oh thank you. That’s great!” Elizabeth:        But can I interject? The vital part of that is certainly that there is talent and diversification, but it’s also the ability to connect with people - which you are very skilled at. And the warmth that you have … Michael:          Well, thanks to my mother, because she was a people person. Yes, you’re quite right – it does help to be a people person if you’re an artistic person. Of course sometimes it doesn’t flow. Some of the best children’s authors are not people persons. So you can’t expect to do anything. I learned long ago of creating an impact on your audience – start and hold them if you can from then on, and then you can impart any message you want. And the only message I really impart to the children is about developing their creativity, for them to start working on the things they’re good at, or keep drawing or singing or whatever it may be. Elizabeth:        I really want to segue into something from those comments about your work for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. That is so, so pivotal. Can we talk about that? Michael:          Yes. Do you know, in general terms, it’s really good if you’ve had success, I’ve found, especially in the arts, to find venues and areas and avenues to give back to society. I hope that doesn’t sound too corny. Elizabeth:        It sounds beautiful. Michael:          Up here, I’ve got some – when I was one of the patrons of “Life Be In It” for the Victorian – Elizabeth:        Oh yes! Michael:          And I designed – not the vans, those large pantechnicon vans that went around and advertised anti-drugs and – Elizabeth:        It was Norm, wasn’t it. Norm. Michael:          Norm was “Life Be In It”. This was the Life Education Centre, the one started up by Ted Knox at King’s Cross Chapel, but they went to a huge thing. Large pantechnicon trailers filled with the latest kind of things, and all round Australia, but particularly in Victoria – because that’s where my expertise was, helping them design big wheels to go on, painted by local mums and dads. And I also do it to do some fundraising. But Life Education had a Harold Giraffe as their logo, and it’s still going gangbusters. So these things would go to schools, and like the dental van they locked you in that, and they would see these incredible digital displays of bodies and drugs and anti-drugs, things like that. Magnificent, magnificent. That was one thing I was involved in. A good mate of mine, a school librarian called Marie Stanley, who’s since not a school teacher anymore – a school librarian – she rang up soon after 1996 when the horrific Port Arthur thing had occurred. She had been seconded – Walter Mikac, whose wife Nanette and two daughters Alannah and Madeline were shot dead – he knew he had to do something. So he went to see the Victorian Premier at that stage, Steve Bracks, and also saw John Howard. And between them he got funding to set up a St Kilda Road office and start the Alannah and Madeline Foundation which is purely there to help the victims of violent crime – the families, the children – provide them with some kind of accommodation or support or clothing, needs, or toiletries – a whole range of stuff there. So they seconded Marie Stanley from Williamstown North Primary School. Because I’d visited her school many times, she rang me up and said, “Look, Michael, I’m doing this, I’m on salary, but I need your help. Could you help me invent a character?” So I came on board with Alannah and Madeline (Foundation) on a purely voluntary basis, which is my pleasure, and we invented a character called Buddy Bear as a very safe little bear and a spokes figure, whereby – and there are behind me as we speak in this interview – there are Buddy Bear chocolates up there. And they did something like five million chocolates with my name and my design on it through Coles stores and Target stores … Elizabeth:        You know Michael, next time we meet I need a camera. (Laughter) Michael:          That’s just 'Buddy Bear' stuff. And 'Buddy Bear' has gone on strongly and it’s now part of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. But they got involved in a very important … the main focus of anti-bullying. And I was the person – I want to say one thing, because it’s true – I suggested that they should go – violence and all this stuff for families was terrible enough – but if they wanted to go to the bully, they really should get into the heart of the matter. And to me, I said to them once, “Look, please. I’ve seen what we’re doing. We’ve got Buddy Bear as the spokes figure for violence in the home. But we really should be hitting schools and things with something that centers around bullying and have an anti-bullying campaign. And you know, it is one of those things which is said at the right time and the right place. And now we’ve got Princess Mary of Denmark who is the international head of 'Buddy Bear' and they’ve got their own thing over there because of her Australian connection with Tasmania. We have the National Bank who are the sponsors of the 'Buddy Bear' program of the Alannah and Madeline (Foundation), so we have a fully-fledged charity. But the early days of inventing 'Buddy Bear', and a lot of people who gave their time and effort for no cost as I did, and pleasure to get the whole thing going. But it was all through initially Walter Mikac, thinking that with his deceased wife and two little girls, he had to do something. He was a pharmacist by trade and he was a smart man – he is a smart man – and he set the wheels in motion. And so it was a - ‘pleasure’ is not the right word. It was satisfying to be involved with a program that was ultimately going to help children feel better and safe and especially with this bullying thing, of being able to … Elizabeth:        Personally, I love fundraising and I do a lot of it. And actually we have on the agenda this year a fundraiser for another children’s author: Pat Guest. His son Noah, and Noah has Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy, and the family need a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. Michael:          Yes, yes, yes. Elizabeth:        Pat’s a wonderful person. He’s published five books and counting, and has written one about Noah called That’s What Wings Are For. He has actually podcasted with me. So I’m going to put you on the spot now and ask you if you would like to create something – Michael:          Absolutely! Let me know … Elizabeth:        I haven’t even finished my sentence! Michael:          No, no, no, the answer’s yes. The answer’s yes. Elizabeth:        The generosity! Thank you. Michael:          No, no, my pleasure. You talk about the – do you pronounce it ‘Duchenne’? There was a very famous fundraiser with that society up in Cairns several years ago, where various artists and musicians and illustrators were asked to provide – and they said a ukulele – so you had very famous artists and musicians and illustrators creating and painting their own version on this practical ukulele that was sent back to Cairns and auctioned off for charity and raised a whole lot of money. Elizabeth:        You know Pat, I think, would love to meet you. And I know Noah – the whole family are just beautiful people. Michael:          But I’ll have you know, only because of that connection where they contacted me saying “Would you like to …” and I had no knowledge whatever of the disease and the toll it took. Elizabeth:        I’ve nursed a couple of boys with it. Michael:          From my recollection, would it be quite correct to say it’s quite gender-specific? It hits boys more than girls? Elizabeth:        Yes. The two children that I nursed were brothers, and they passed. So we want to focus on the positive side, and this Saturday, actually there’s a trivia night which is sold out – Michael:          Oh good! Good, good. Elizabeth:        And it’s Eighties music which is my thing – I love that – so hopefully I will win, everybody. Don’t bet on me, Michael, but if there was a ticket, I’d invite you. But we’re looking at later in the year and we have some great people. Dave O’Neil wants to do a spot – Michael:          Oh yeah, good, good, good. Elizabeth:        And he podcasted with me. And like yourself, pretty much before I got my sentence out, he said 'yes'. Robyn Payne whom I wrote my song with for my children’s book – she wants to write a song. So we’ve got many … and Robyn Payne was in Hey Hey, It’s Saturday for many years. She was in that band, and Robyn’s incredible – she plays eight instruments. Michael:          Right, right, yes, yes. Elizabeth:        She’s performed at the Grand Final; incredibly talented lady. I just ran into her the other night with Neil, her husband, and Steph who’s a good friend of mine and recently performed with her on stage as well, they’re looking at writing a song for Noah. So it’s taking off. Michael:          One of the best fundraisers I’ve been to is a yearly event – still going – the Alannah and Madeline (Foundation) did. I don’t keep in contact with them directly; it was just a pleasure to work in, but what they did at the Palladium Ballroom – have 'Starry Starry Night'. Now 'Starry Starry Night' would have almost anyone who’s anyone in show business, on television and the media, would be there, from the jockeys at Melbourne Cup who would be singing Village People and whatever. Quite brilliant. And they had a huge host. We’re talking about – and I’m not exaggerating – 50 or so celebrities attended that. Black Night night and it really was a “starry starry night”. I haven’t attended for a long time, but I did my duty and it was a great pleasure to be there and part of it. But that was a brilliant fundraiser, and still continues as a fundraiser for the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. Elizabeth:        Oh, I’m so honoured that you said yes to me before I even finished my sentence. Thank you so much! Talking about stars, I’d like to go to my signature question, and then we’ll say adieu to you. Michael, this is a signature question I ask all my guests: what do you wish for, for the world, and most importantly for yourself? Michael:          Well, as we’re sitting here in early February of 2017, because of all these incredible events that are going on every quarter of the day from the United States there, where the world order seems to be rapidly changing, and oddities occurring there and without going into it too heavily we all know what we’re talking about, I have a hope that the situation in America remedies itself, and that the situations change rapidly, and that America gets back, because as the biggest country in the world for what it is and known as, because we need the stability of America etcetera, so it’s a fairly direct sort of wish that America gets its act together again soon, and maintains something that we can trust in. Because America really is being that main country in the world. Elizabeth:        Do you see a way – does that start one person at a time? Is that how things start to change? Michael:          Gosh, as we’ve evidenced with the Women’s March and a whole range of stuff now that the immigration – oh dear – it just goes on, goes on. And without going into a full-scale discussion of that, my wish is that America gets back together quickly, and maintains and gets someone new in charge. I don’t know how that’s going to happen – impeachment or … but something has to happen, so that the world can feel stable again. And that’s not grandiose, but that’s probably affecting a lot of people in the world. As every new edict or special signatory thing is signed in the White House, the ripples it sends across for instability is quite amazing. We’ve never seen it before, unless you were there during Chamberlain days when Neville Chamberlain was talking to Hitler, and some of those – not grandiose or high-flying stuff, but it does affect especially Aussies who love America dearly, and America loves us. Elizabeth:        But to me your books so beautifully reflect history. Michael:          Some of them do, some of them do. It’s like a Facebook page – I really do love entertaining people and making them laugh. And that’s probably the last part of your question – I really would like every child in the mass audiences I encounter, we’re talking about 500 or so -  I would like to think that every child had an opportunity – not because of anything to do with my talk that may be instrumental , it doesn’t really matter – the children of today can reach their potential, and the energy and the talents they have are recognized. Not squashed, quashed, forgotten, put to one side by society or families, issues, whatever it may be. Elizabeth:        You know, that reminds me of a good friend of mine, Andrew Eggelton. So Andrew Eggelton is an interesting man – he’s a New Zealander actually; he’s a Kiwi – and he believes in the Art of Play. So his wish is that everybody gets to use their God-given talents. Michael:          Ditto, ditto, absolutely. Because you do see the children out there. Just to give you an example: I spoke to close to 12,000 children during a tour that I organized myself – I do have some other agents organizing other states … Elizabeth:        How do you look after your throat? Michael:          Thank goodness I’ve always had a voice that can throw – a loud voice – I was captain of a rugby team in my machismo days. I was in New Zealand, and as a front row forward you don’t usually have a shy, retiring kind of personality. When you go out to tour, and on that tour we toured everything around the Riverina, we did places like West Wyalong, places you normally drive through as you are going up the back roads to Dubbo or some place like that. Then we went to Sydney, the western suburbs schools, and even this morning I had a phone call from one of the agents for a school near Loganlea. The school called and they want a couple of sessions. Most of their students are refugees with English ESL, so English Second Language. I would say English third or fourth language. Elizabeth:        How many children at that school? Michael:          Seven hundred. She said – the agent who rang me – and this is the first one in the tour that’s coming up late July for southeastern Queensland – “The reason no doubt that you’ve been invited to this particular school” which I know well, is because my act is highly visual. You don’t need a lot of language to understand it, because I draw all the cartoons. Or I’m caricaturing children, or getting them to caricature me. It’s almost like – ‘international language’ is not the right phrase – but it’s almost like a human comedy or whatever you call it. Elizabeth:        It’s like smiling. Michael:          It’s like smiling, and the more the merrier. So up there you’ve got the refugee children. You’ve got a lot of – and I really enjoy going to the Tongan or Samoan or Fijian or Maori schools or New Zealand, because I used to play rugby and I played with so many Islanders over the years and I’ve got some good mates there. And especially up there in southern parts of Brisbane, before you hit the Gold Coast, it’s always challenging, and I love to go up there, so it’s great to hear that. And the same thing applies to Indigenous schools up on the Gulf of Carpentaria, they call them, the Gulf Savannah schools up in Cape York, where you go to places like Weipa and stuff like that. And some of the notorious – notorious because of the troubles that have occurred – there’s a couple of places along the Peninsula there – they are trouble spots and have been for many years. Elizabeth:        You know Michael, that just says so much about you, because so many people would not go within cooee of those places, and it reflects your beautiful generosity. So I want to thank you very much for guesting on Writers’ Tête-à-Tête with Elizabeth Harris. And I think we need a Part Two. It’s been an absolute delight and thank you so much. Michael:          Thank you very much, and thank you Serena too. I babbled on a bit, but fifty years – fifty years of working in this country – there’s been a lot of water under the bridge. A lot of people, a lot of children, and I’m just very lucky. I consider myself very lucky to be in that position, to have that rapport with kids, and to just get on with them and entertain them and enjoy them. Elizabeth:        I consider those children and us very, very lucky to have met you today. Thank you so much. Michael:          Thank you guys. Thank you. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]