Uncommon Courage - let's get this party started

Uncommon Courage, the podcast, what's it all about? Well here's a quick overview of my plans for this podcast, interviewed by my husband, Steve Johnson. We discuss the name and where it came from, as well as why it took so long to launch. Then it's digging into the wide-array of topics the podcast will cover, and what I hope to achieve by sharing this message with the world, and with so many very fine guests too. It's definitely never going to be boring, we're going to talk about hard issues, because it is time for that which is uncommon to become common #UncommonCourage #PodcastLaunch 

To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards

My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage

My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar

Transcript

This is AI automated and may be imperfect

Hello and welcome to the podcast Uncommon Courage. I'm your host, Andrea Edwards and we'll be having conversations on the issues that matter in today's world, with people from all around the world. And of course, it will be uncensored. For my first podcast, my husband, Steve Johnson will be interviewing me. So I can talk about what I aim to do with these podcasts and why it really matters to me. So over to you, Steve.

Alright, righty, dropping in started running. So some would say I know you're better than any other person on the planet. So I'm absolutely stoked that you've chosen me as one of your first podcast buddies, I know probably won’t be the best. But we'll give it a go. So Uncommon Courage the book. And now I'll come and Uncommon Courage the podcast. I know that you've been talking, thinking about wanting this for a long, long time. Why? Why has that taken so long? Usually, you're a person of action, will go to something quite quickly. But you've been sitting on this for a while. So just tell me a little bit why that's taking you a little while to the grantees.

There's three probably key areas. Although it's not that I haven't taken action. It's always about taking the right action. And so the first thing is coming up with the name. So the book has got the name, the podcast too, but trying to work out what is the name that can encapsulate everything that I want to share. That's really so went through history, all of the names of Warships back to ancient Greek times I, I needed to find an idea that I could hang my message on that sort of captures everything. So I don't actually even know where Uncommon Courage came from. But I know that it was part of extensive research. And it could have been a comment on a podcast, it could have been, it could have been in history, but I don't actually remember where it came from. But I just know that it's sort of when I sat with it, that was the right name.

So I remember that. Yeah, I spend more time with you than most people. Right. So do you remember where it came from? Because I can't remember where we were. I remember where we were when we when we landed on it. And we both kind of went? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. took a long time. Right? It's it is it's hard because I mean, Uncommon Courage encapsulates so many things, from climate crisis, to count road events to just general mindfulness and just being a nice person, put simply. So it kind of fitted. I guess, my question was, why is it taken so long? To get to this point with a podcast? Because I mean, I know how long it took. So I'm just looking at a few 100 of your books here. So I know, I know how long it took to get your brain dump down from your head to your paper. I'm just wondering why it's taken you, us so long to actually get into the verbal on the podcast? Well,

I suppose so the other thing is the message, what is the message? What do I want to talk about? And, you know, people know me as The Digital Conversationalist and they know me as someone who talks about social leadership. But it's only just one small part of what I do, right. There's so many other parts of what I do. So that's why the name was important because the name is an umbrella for all of the different topics that I want to talk about. And, you know, I come from a communications marketing background where the message is important and being tight with your message is about the most important thing that's always important to me, especially from a content marketing perspective, is whatever I put out there into the world has to be worth my audience's time. People have got so many options right now for information. There's so many new podcasts coming online, there's so much really content, video content, like everyone's creating content, right? And content marketing is my background as well. So for me, it was whatever I do, it has to be worth my audience's time. And I might put something out there that's not well thought out. I won't put something out there that isn't packaged up package sounds horrible, like a horrible way of describing it.

It's a great No, it's because it's not just the words. It's where they come from. And it's the data that backs it up. So packaging is exactly the right word. So let me ask you a slightly different question. If I if it was non COVID times we were going out tonight and say, for example, we wander into a restaurant or a bar and meet some of the guards. So, so what are the topic that’s going to cover and in Uncommon Courage, during this podcast, so how, what are the topics that you've managed to cover? 

Well, there are a lot of topics that I'm planning to cover, Steven, I know you're mum is the only one who calls you that. But anyway, putting that out there. I have a couple of our friends grab that one. Obviously, the climate crisis has to be a big focus of the conversations moving forward, as well as the waste crisis. You know, we live in Phuket, and we see firsthand what the world's waste looks like when it when it sits in nature. human dignity is something that's really important to me, you know, the way that we have built our world, you know, capitalism at the center of it, we do not acknowledge the suffering that it causes, not just to humanity, but also to the natural world. So the future of work is a big part of it, you know, what, what is it going to look like Next, you know, topics like universal basic income, how do we get ready for, you know, I've been in the technology industry for a long time, but I'm not a technologist with things like robotics, artificial intelligence, how is it going to change work? And so what should we be getting ready for, for the future of work, equality and diversity, and I think women's progress has slipped back by a generation since this pandemic, began, not a decade of generation. And, you know, we don't have daughters, we're raising boys. But if I if I had a daughter right now, I'd be so concerned about what's her future looks like, I'm so sick of talking about topics like that. I'm so sick of standing up every International Women's Day, saying the same thing year after year. If we're going to do this, we're going to do this. 

But you know, so the, the overarching thing that I'm looking at doing is, how do we step up as a human society? How do we elevate the world? Every time we go through a major World War, the world advances? You know, in spiritual language, people would say, our consciousness rises. And that's what we need to do, we need to rise, raise our consciousness. So where the attention goes, energy flows, and we're all focused on this darkness that is rising in the world. And we need to say, okay, that's not going to go away. But screaming and raging and carrying on isn't going to change it. 

So how do we change it, we look to the future that we want for the world, we envision it and we get  enough of us together, to move forward to create that future. And so that's, that's the fundamental message that I want to get out there in the world, but in everyday language sort of way so that we can, hopefully reach more people. We're going to reach people that are going to be very aggressive and anti and we're going to get trolled. But I don't really care about that. I care about the future and where we're going. 

So going back to the time side of it, why? Why do you think it's important right now? Because I know, I know how busy and busy you are. And I know, I see people approaching you for professional help, and also personal help. But why do you think why are you dead set determined.

Now is the right time to do it. Because when my boys look in my eyes and tell me their dreams for the future, I don't know if their dreams are possible. And that breaks my heart. All over the world, there are children with dreams for a future that might not be possible. And I want to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that those dreams are possible to some extent. You know, so somebody on Twitter the other day goes the climate crisis isn't inevitable, we can change it. And I'm like, No, no, no, it is inevitable. It's already started, what we can do is we can make it less destructive, by the actions that we take. Now we do not have time for the children to grow up. And the children, listen to them, what they know what they're aware of, they're very switched on, we don't have time for them to grow up. We need to do this work. We're in a fractured world. We're in the middle of a pandemic, which seems to be getting worse and worse and worse. And the only reason it's getting worse is because people don't seem to want to understand what a virus does. But the other thing is the lack of trust, and we have to get trust back as well. So we've got a lot of work to do. But we've got to heal a fractured world, it's never going to be perfect. There's always going to be ugly parts of it. But we have to do everything that we can to move forward so that we can create a future that is as good as possible for the majority of people on this planet, as well as for all living things on this planet.

Right. So the time is now basically right? Yeah, it's now or never. Yeah.

And you know, and you know, I'd rather sit at home and not do much. You know that I want to do that but But I,I get it, I get I mean, I see you consuming vast amounts of information from many different sources, some of them sources that I know that you like, and respect, it's important for you to get a balanced perspective on, on so many things. So you will go to so many different places, so to use to quote one of your quickfire questions. So what is the new story that has got your attention today? Wednesday, the 18th of August, is on your mind, what did you wake up? Thinking about?

Now we're going to work out how quickly I can get this thing going. I know the answer to this, by the way. But we're also going to show how quickly I can get this published, based on my technology limitations, which I'm hoping to solve today, which is another reason why I haven't launched his podcast, yet. This week is being really consumed by what's going on in Afghanistan. Again, reading all the different angles, there are glimmers of hope in the mix. You know, that hope being crushed would not surprise me. I'm very anxious. Like, I think a lot of people today, especially younger people, they don't really remember how bad it was in Afghanistan. Before the Allies because I'm Australian, and I have friends and members of my extended family who've gone into this war. It was always pointless but it's also sort of, but it's also quite a personal thing for us as well, because it kind of kicked off around about the time that you and I met. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And weighed on that. Well, we celebrated 18 years together this year. And it's, you know, it's a 20 year war. So yeah, I mean, I get that. I mean, we sit outside some evenings, and we watch various and some of the various sort of bits of news feed some of the footage from Afghanistan, people trying to escape hanging onto planes or trying to take off on the horror rageous that it does it but for me, it's the it's the it's the female story. 

In the mix, there's a danger with digging into so much information sometimes. You know, it's not all roses, there's not always, very rarely Is there a happy ending? How do you? How do you balance that? How do you not let that bleed into your, your own personality in your psyche? and answer truthfully, because Exactly. 

No, I am I, I regularly crash. But not not regularly. It's like a, you know, sort of every few months, I'll crash. And it can be a day, a couple of days, it can be a week, it could be longer, where the news and the information and my despair at what's happening in the world overwhelms me. And I've learned to feel it, to take it on board. And then to when I'm ready to come back out. And face it again, I have an ability to detach from the information that I'm reading. So I don't always read it from my heart when I'm reading I read it with my brain. And that helps. It's something I advise to people who find information overwhelming.

But you know, when we looked at your piece of advice, actually, because if you take every single thing, every single thing to heart, you take the world on your shoulders, and I already see you doing that so much already. Yeah. So it can be exhausting for you as a husband, but it's it is who I am. And I appreciate you letting me do it. 

But just one quick thing about the Afghanistan situation that I really wanted to highlight. When this all happened, I think the piece of news that really disturbed me the most and upset me the most was not what happened. It was the stories of the women who were running from university or from their offices and running home. It was their stories of the men on the streets and not the Taliban, just the men on the street. So their neighbors, the people that they walk past every day, those people, those men are going year run home, you can't leave the house anymore gunpoint you've got what you build around, you know, and that real idea of that deep hatred In our society for women even worse. Well, I don't know. It's just hatred. By the way, that reversal at the front door is Gary is still stuck outside the front door. I can't get him to let me waving up with his mask on. All right,

let's wrap it up. So Gary's the one that's going to teach me how to use technology to get these podcasts published, which is another reason I've been delayed. But how do you feel about these kids? You know, like, being a husband of somebody who does this? It's I know that there's a burden on you as well. And I'm very aware of that. And then I try not to put too much pressure on you, but I think burden is the right word. 

There is a cost that comes with it. We lose you a couple of hours, or literally for a day or so but things get really bad So you've kind of taken this on, it's not a burden. My concern always is, when you put yourself out in the public, there are some horrible, horrible people out there. So that's my concern with this. But it's no different to write a book. And it's no different to blogging or what you the things that you've been doing for the last so many years. So, I mean, I feel great about doing it. If it's another audience, people consume information in different ways. And it's another demographic, I think it's really, really important. But I'll always be concerned with you in the public eye. attracting the horrible people, there will always be arseholes My darling. But you know, but at the same time, you know,

you know, I've been doing it for a long time, I'm not I'm not so worried about those people anymore. I very much focus on Look, I'm not in this for my ego, I mean, is to drive a better future for all of humanity. And when I think when you know what your purpose is, and you're driven by your purpose, and you're very intentional in what you do, I think, you know, you don't, you don't worry about that so much anymore. I mean, I've obviously got lots of experience being trolled. So, it's but it's still not us. So thank you, everyone, for joining us. This is the beginning of a new chapter. Uncommon Courage podcast. Thanks, Steve. Steve and I are going to be doing regular little conversations on things that matter to us, including funny stuff. Get ready. He's got his own theme song. Yes. Did you know those? Good job babe. 

Thanks so much for tuning in to my very first podcast. I promise I'll get better at it. Especially the editing. So a big shout out to Gary Crause of legend music recording studio. 

https://www.facebook.com/legendmusicphuket 

https://legendmusic.net/?fbclid=IwAR3-PPHQWh6oYdc5qP5XcYLmSKY09bO45_7eHqP540y7aW_Gkj-tXc-mCLM 

Not only did he come over today and help me work out how to navigate this audio recording equipment. He was also the one who produced the original music in the podcast. So Gary is a legend. 

And finally, I'd say to Steve Johnson, my lovely husband. Thanks for doing this with me. I know we'll do many. You're an absolute legend when it comes to supporting me through these so just want you to know I love you and I appreciate you too. 

End