Uncomfortable Is Ok Podcast

Today is episode 48 and I’m chatting with Rebecca Stewart the General Manager and co-founder of Pomegranate Kitchen. Pomegranate kitchen is a Wellington based Social Enterprise and registered charity. They provide group catering and individual lunch delivery to Wellingtonians. Their food is fresh, fun interesting and healthy. But probably the most fascinating point is that it’s influenced by a variety of different cultures, the reason for this is that all the cooks are from a refugee background. Rebecca and I discuss how the concept for Pomegranate came about, how the journey so far has been, and as always we get stuck into some of the challenging uncomfortable bits. Today we talk about breast cancer, social enterprise, the challenge of everyone being the boss, using her privilege and expertise to assist the community, and never knowing if it’s the right idea or not. It’s a very honest chat, some of which Rebecca told me she hadn’t talked about before so I was pretty honoured to be able to share that with her

Today is episode 47 and I’m chatting with Anna Dawson. Anna has just finished a three month long cycle the length of the Philippines, for her quest, Plastic Free Philippines. Besides cycling this also involved local clean ups, education sessions, and getting communities involved. Today I chat with Anna about this trip, about that time she sailed from New Zealand to the Philippines, and about figuring out what her purpose is on this planet. We talk about her happiness with simplicity, becoming a Mum, following those little thoughts that tell you to do something and the drive to be able to look her son in the eyes and tell him that she did her best. Our audio connection was a bit dodgy at times, so there is a word missing here and there but the conversation still flows and makes sense so hopefully you don’t have any trouble following along. Thanks for sharing your time with us today, thanks to those of you who have shared out episodes or left comments and reviews, they’re much appreciated. Most of all, thanks f

Today is episode 46 and I’m chatting with Craig Harper. I’m fascinated by human capability and when I was at a birthday party last weekend and Craig and his latest accomplishment came up in conversation, I said to my wife, “He would be awesome to talk to”. Thankfully he responded when I flicked him a message and we managed to have a chat a couple of days ago. Craig has just broken the record for riding a bike from Cape Reinga to Bluff, here in New Zealand. For the Kiwi’s you’ll understand what that means in terms of geography, but for the listeners elsewhere, and at last count we had downloads in over 60 countries, the ride is about 2100km, and New Zealand isn’t exactly flat. Craig knocked this off in four days, 9 hours and 45 minutes, and even managed to squeeze a whopping 5 and a half hour of sleep in there. Today is a bit of an insight into that journey. We hear about what led Craig to taking on this challenge, why he enjoys looking out for new challenges and how he loves the unknown aspects of them. Why t

Today is episode 45 and I’m chatting with Bart De Vries. Bart and I have known each other slightly through for a wee while now so I’ve been able to follow along with some of the stuff he has been up to on social media. I’ve always been fascinated by his path so I was pretty stoked to be able to record a chat with him. It is a shorter conversation than what it could have been, traffic was atrocious when I was trying to get to him, and Bart was off the next day to help out with the New Zealand Golf Open so needed to finish sorting somethings out. Nevertheless we managed to have what I felt was a pretty interesting conversation. We get a bit of background on Bart, his interest in the human body growing up, playing some professional Hockey, going and playing gold every day for four months with his mates, how he got into business and learnt by giving it a go as well as surrounding himself with some good mentors. We also chat about, embracing vulnerability and the unknown, continuously challenging biases and assump

This is episode 44 and today's guest is Ged Robinson. Ged has been a professional rugby player over the past decade. You might have seen him turn out in Super Rugby for the Hurricanes, The Rebels, the Highlanders, and the Crusaders.  Ged is transitioning away from professional rugby and moving on to new ventures. It isn't an easy transition and Ged was gracious enough to speak with me about his experiences. We also talk about how it felt when he signed his first contract, how having a growth mindset has helped in his career and life, what he does to keep him on track, and his new venture "Fed by Ged". Cheers for getting uncomfortable with us today. Guest: Ged Robinson Fed by Ged Fed by Ged Instagram Host: Chris Desmond Facebook Instagram Twitter Music:Jeremy Desmond

Today is episode 43 and I’m chatting with Dr Sarb Johal. Sarb is a clinical psychologist and health psychologist. He holds two doctoral degrees. One from the University of Cardiff and one from the University of London. Sarb is also the Associate professor in Disaster Mental Health at Massey University. He has over 20 years’ experience working as a psychologist in various realms. Sarb is also into a whole lot of other things but today we focus mainly on the psychology aspects so I’ll have to get him back again to chat about all the other stuff. I first met up with Sarb towards the end of last year as he was starting out his own podcast, “Who cares? What’s the point?” and thankfully got to chat with him about podcasting. Sarb is a real nice guy and I thought that he would be able to teach me a lot and hopefully you guys too. Today we have a chat about how Sarb became a psychologist, including the uncomfortable path of going against expectations and traditions to do so. We talk about the overarching themes of ps

Welcome to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast, I’m your host Chris Desmond. Today is episode 42 and I’m having a conversation with Sabrina Martin. Today’s show with Sabrina. It was a bit of good fortune that we got to chat, I was in the process of organising a chat with a future guest of the podcast who pointed me in Sabrina’s direction and told me that she would be a great fit for the show. Sabrina is a performance artist based here in Wellington. She is about to put on a show in the Fringe festival called, May contain Sex Scenes. MAY CONTAIN SEX SCENES is a vibrant, mischievous, liberating physical breakdown of our social taboos around discussions of female sexual experience. I’m heading along to the show this Sunday and am nervously looking forward to it. Today we take a dive into the artistic process, I find out what it takes to put on a show with specific regard to a solo show in this instance. We discuss exploring and taking back the female sexual experience, well Sabrina does and I try and ask appropriate

Today's episode is a bit different. The interview I had scheduled this week fell through and I didn't have any others in the bank. I wasn't even sure I'd put out an episode. Until I read this article warning-no-swimming-wellingtons-beaches-weekend. It made me pretty frustrated at the attitude taken to this situation. It also reinforced how much we should be caring for our country and asking questions of those in power about how they are caring for it. With that in mind, I've taken some excerpts from an episode I did earlier last year with my friend Nick Morrison along with a bit of a chat from me about this topic. Hopefully you'll find it interesting and reasonably insightful. Thanks for getting uncomfortable with us today. Host: Chris Desmond Facebook Instagram Twitter Music: Jeremy Desmond Music Guest: Nick Morrison Mentioned in the episode Innocent Packaging

Today’s guests are Marie Fitzpatrick and Nic Murray from Good Bitches Baking. About two years ago they decide to try and make the world a little less shitty by baking treats for people having a tough time, and Good Bitches Baking was born, they’ve grown from what they initially envisioned as a couple of people in Wellington helping out to having over 1000 volunteers across many parts of New Zealand and it really has been the case of having the tiger by the tail for most of the time. If you hadn’t realised from the charity name Nic and Marie are pretty hard case so there is a bit of hilarity in the episode. If you also hadn’t realised by the name, Nic and Marie are also a bit sweary, they describe themselves as the sweariest people they know, so just bear that in mind while you’re listening to the episode. They’re also occasionally awesome. Today in our chat you’ll hear about; the desire to not feel helpless and what to do about it, how little moments of kindness can have massive influences, realising that you

Because of the awesomness off the guests which have been on the show so far, and the enjoyment of last week's episode there is a second installment of a cool bits. In this episode's potpourri of excerpts we have Shiffy Lal, Dave Woolfe, Erin Todd, Elizabeth Connor, Katie Smith, Megha Jolly, Angela McCamish, and Alex Asher. Thanks to these guys for sharing their time with us, and thanks to you guys for tuning in. Host: Chris Desmond Facebook Instagram Twitter uncomfortableisok@gmail.com

Hey all   Today's episode is a bit different. I've created a smorgasbord of audio bites from a whole raft of different conversations that I've had since the podcast began. Some are short, some are longer but all are insightful and I think add something to the Uncomfortable is OK message. If you like part of what you hear and haven't listened to the full episode yet, make sure you head back to do that. Thanks for getting uncomfortable with me today Host: Chris Desmond Facebook Instagram Twitter uncomfortableisok@gmail.com Music: Jeremy Desmond Music

Konnichi Wa everyone. You’re tuning in to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast. I’m your host Chris Desmond. I’m just back in New Zealand this week after a very cool trip to Hong Kong and Japan, and getting in to the swing of things again. I met some cool people, saw some pretty impressive things, and had a few uncomfortable experiences myself which I’ll tell you more about next week. In today’s episode I have the privilege of sitting down to a conversation with Irene Wakefield, co-founder of PrePair NZ. Through PrePair NZ Irene is helping tackle the issues that young people in New Zealand face about abusive relationships. They have the dream of making New Zealand a country that has no domestic violence. This may seem like a radical idea to some, however as Irene points out, what was once radical is now normal. Irene is an intelligent, insightful, well spoken, courageous young woman and I think you’ll definitely enjoy listening to her. Today we talk relationships. Irene speaks about some of the drivers of abusive

Welcome to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast I’m your host Chris Desmond. Happy 2017 guys, I hope that it’s started awesomely for you all! I’m kicking it in Japan at the moment. This is the first podcast of the year, episode number 36 and I’m chatting with Dave Woolfe. Dave and I were at high school in Hawkes Bay together and now he runs a business called Everyone’s Adventure. This isn’t your typical business model. Everyone’s Adventure has set a financial target to meet for the summer and once they have hit that, outdoor adventure equipment rental is free. This reduces the barriers for those people who struggle to have these experiences otherwise. Dave’s goal is do business in a better way while doing cool things with cool toys. Today’s conversation we chat through a few different things. How Dave has developed a growing awareness of how he operates, taking some time to develop perspective, the challenge of leaving something certain for something uncertain, the importance of keeping you message simple, and how

Hey there, welcome to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast. I’m your host Chris Desmond. I hope everyone had a great celebration of Christmas. This is the podcast all about getting out of your comfort zone. Sometimes we do that through people telling us how they’ve got out of their comfort zone, sometimes its through having conversations about uncomfortable topics. Today has some of both for us. I had the honour of being able to have a conversation with Simonne Butler. Simonne’s name may be familiar to some of you listening. She is the survivor of a brutal samurai sword attack 16 years ago. There is so much more to Simonne than just the attack. She has recently released her book, Double-edged Sword. Double-edged Sword is her story, and so much more than just a story of survival. It is a guidebook for humanity - how to shrug off the oppressors and the obstacles and live your life with the greatest intensity you can muster. It's about conquering the demons and rising like a phoenix from the ashes and learning how to

Hello and welcome to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast I’m your host Chris Desmond. This is the show where we chat to interesting people about getting out of their comfort zones. We see cool people doing cool things and think wow that’s cool, but we don’t talk as much about the challenges these people faced to get there, or the times that they had to push out of their comfort zones to get this good stuff done. These people inspire me to keep pushing out of my comfort zone and to try and be OK with challenges and hard stuff that is inevitable on the journey. Hopefully you guys listening get something out of these chats too, whether this is your first one, or your 34th one. Today we’ve got a bit of a treat for you. I’m having a chat with Marianne Elliott. Marianne is a whole lot of things, she is a writer, a human rights advocate and consultant, a yoga teacher, a teacher of living life, and a collector, crafter and teller of stories. Marianne started out her career as a lawyer who developed a passion for human ri

This week I have the privilege of sitting down for a chat with Rosie Morrison. Rosie was introduced to me through her brother Nick who appeared back in episode 19, if you haven’t taken the time yet make sure you check that one out. The conversation I have with Rosie hits a variety of experiences. At its heart it is a conversation about following your curiosity, exploring the world and yourself, trying new things, and just bloody doing it. Rosie has fascinating stories about getting robbed in Mexico, buying and selling Kombi Vans in Central America, figuring out her values sitting in a tent by herself for three days in the Marlborough sounds, and cleaning plants. I’ve written pages of notes of takeaway points from this conversation I had with Rosie. I hope you get some gems too. If you want a copy of mine, reach out to me on the Facebook page, or flick me an email at uncomforableisok@gmail.com Thanks everyone for taking the time to get uncomfortable with me and Rosie today. Guest: Rosie Morrison Colour and Bon

In this week's episode we chat with Dr Hamish Wright.  Hamish is a New Zealand trained Doctor who had a dream of getting down to Antarctica. He didn't just want to visit, he wanted to work there. Hamish set about figuring out how to do this. He got knocked back a few times initially but then was appointed as one of the Doctors at the Amundsen-Scott Station, at the South pole, the most Southern place on earth. We get a bit of an insight into Hamish's time down at the station, some of the challenges he has faced, some of the exciting things he has done while there. Guest: Hamish Wright Blog Host: Chris Desmond Facebook Instagram Twitter Music: Jeremy Desmond Music Facebook - Jeremy Desmond Music

Welcome to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast. I’m your host Chris Desmond and today is episode 31. The podcast has been going long enough now that we are starting to get some return guests happening. Today’s conversation is with Richard McChesney, long distance racewalker. Some of you will remember Richard from episode 17 where we had a chat about long distance racewalking, walking round the M25, and walking 100mile races. If you haven’t had a listen to that I suggest you go back and catch it. Richard and I have been chatting over the past few months in the lead up to a 6 day racewalk in Privas, France. We caught up about how his training was going, what he was experiencing at the time in the lead up to the race. Part of the podcast is conversations that Richard and I had while he was walking the race, so you’ll hear him walking, and interacting with support crews and officials. Richard also kept a daily vlog while walking so the audio is interspersed within our conversations as well. You’ll hear Richard refer

Today I’m hanging out with Katie Smith from the Ritual Tea Company. Ritual Tea Company is an organic fair trade company based out of Wellington New Zealand. Katie hand blends the tea and herbal infusions to help people bring the ritual of tea into their days. Today we talk about how Katie went from measuring barcodes in Sydney to importing tea and running her own company. We chat through some of the lessons that she has learnt along the way. How a bit of naivety in the beginning can be a good thing, that it is important not to take rejection personally, and the importance of having awkward conversations. Probably my favourite lesson from today is how Katie learnt that you just take a step at a time and somehow you get there through a weird path that isn’t usually straight or doesn’t go exactly how you imagined but you learn a lot along the way. Thanks for getting uncomfortable with me and Katie today. Guest: Katie Smith Ritual Tea Company Website Facebook Ritual Tea Instagram Ritual Tea Host: Chris Desmond Fa

When your baby is born you can’t help but love it right? Turns out this isn’t always the case. Most people have heard of the post baby blues, but postnatal depression can affect up to 1 in 7 women after childbirth. Unlike the baby blues this isn’t something that goes away on its own relatively quickly. It can last for many weeks or months.  Postnatal depression can affect any woman—women with easy pregnancies or problem pregnancies, first-time mothers and mothers with one or more children, women who are married and women who are not, and regardless of income, age, race or ethnicity, culture or education. Today’s guest is Megha Jolly who I’d like to thank for reaching out to me to chat about this topic. Megha shares her own journey with postnatal depression and is pretty vulnerable. Megha opens up about this topic that no one seems to speak about. For such a common problem you think that there would be a lot more conversation about this. I don’t know what causes the lack of discussion, perhaps it could be the