Big Stuff With Danielle Colley

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text She was four years old when she told her mum that the man up the road had died in the night — She was right. Chezzi Denyer spent the next four decades becoming the most logical, credible, provable version of herself she could manage. She built a career in television. She worked at Sunrise. She was a journalist. And she pushed that other part of...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text What if the fight you keep having with your partner was never actually about the washing (or whatever your recurring thing is?) Channel and energy healer, Sarah McGahan, has worked with over 700 women in private healing sessions all over the world, and across all of those sessions, the same three relationship patterns kept showing up, again and...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Sophie Bretag came on this show to talk about kindness. But what she really gave us was something far more important — a front-row seat to what happens when everything you've built your identity around is taken from you, and what you discover in the silence that follows.  Two years ago, Sophie had surgery for tongue cancer — a rare diagnosi...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Six months ago, Danielle stepped back from the daily grind of running a business and gave herself something she'd never given herself before: time.  Not because she didn't know what was coming — she did — but because she decided to meet it with open hands instead of a full calendar. What followed was two books, a body of paintings, and...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text I’ve always thought of myself as someone who cannot lie. I’m a compulsive truth teller — ask anyone who knows me. But today’s guest made me realise something uncomfortable: that’s also a lie. Everyone lies. The question is whether you know when you’re doing it. And why. Dominic Thurbon is a behavioural change expert, co-founder of Alchemy Labs,...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Kate Purcell has spent much of her life in a battle with anorexia — hospitalised ten times, including seven months at a residential clinic in Perth. She has since navigated a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, survived a psychotic episode, written two books, and built a life she genuinely loves. But this is not a neat before-and-after story....

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text She had the wardrobe, the fancy car, the career leading teams across multiple markets. From the outside, Fleur Marks had built the life. And if you'd asked her how she was doing, she would have told you she was fine. She was not fine. Fleur is a globally recognised leadership strategist, speaker, and author of the brand new book The Overach...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Did you know there are over 48 symptoms of perimenopause — and the average woman is experiencing more than five of them at once, without realising any of them are hormonal? In this episode, Danielle gets into the weird, the unexpected, and the frankly baffling symptoms that can show up years before you'd ever think to look at your hormones....

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Ursula Kohler has spent 30 years being the woman behind the power. The one in the room holding it all together while everyone else loses the plot.  Through her businesses Capital EA and Bear Consulting, she has trained, supported and recruited the executive assistants and operators that keep some of Australia's most high-profile leaders fun...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Most of us walk around cataloguing what's missing. The goal we haven't hit, the body that isn't enough, the life that doesn't quite measure up yet. Kerryn Harvey woke up from a ten-day coma with one arm and saw a miracle. In 2013, Kerryn contracted necrotising fasciitis — flesh-eating bacteria — from a minor cycling accident....

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text “I love what I do… but am I limiting myself financially?” This How Are You Really? episode is inspired by a listener question that hits closer to home than most of us would like to admit. What happens when you’re motivated by meaning, impact, and being genuinely helpful… but struggle to ask for money, raise your prices, or advocate for your wort...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text We’ve never known more about relationships. Attachment styles. Red flags. Narcissism. Trauma bonds. We can diagnose a relationship in under 60 seconds… or at least we think we can. But what if all this information isn’t actually helping? In this episode, I’m joined by clinical psychologist Dr Michelle Olathe to unpack what’s really going on when...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Have you ever walked into a room — a meeting, a new job, a boardroom — and felt that quiet, creeping sense that someone is about to find you out? That somehow you've tricked your way in and it's only a matter of time before everyone works that out? That feeling has a name: imposter syndrome. And in this How Are You Really? episode, Dan...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Melinda Schneider has been on stage since she was three years old. She's released fourteen albums, won six Golden Guitars, sold out the Sydney Opera House more than once, and just debuted at number one on the ARIA charts. By every measure, she is a success story. But in this conversation, Melinda shares what was quietly happening behind all...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text What if the clutter in your home isn't just stuff — it's a story you're still telling about yourself? In this episode, Danielle sits down with Cindy Kavanagh, former fashion photographer turned Swedish Death Cleaning practitioner, for a conversation about identity, letting go, and what's left when you strip it all back. Cindy...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Have you ever completely lost your cool with your kid and then spent the next hour feeling like the worst parent alive? Family therapist and author of The Perfect Parent Trap, Lisa Taylor, has spent 25 years sitting across from families in crisis — and what she'll tell you is that in almost every single case, the child is not the problem. I...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text In this episode, Danielle sits down with double ARIA Award-winning musician, Elana Stone, to explore what it really means to build a sustainable creative life when the entire economic system has shifted underneath you.  Twenty years into a career what looks successful from the outside - international tours, collaborations with incredible artists...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text What happens when a Muay Thai champion decides the real fight isn't in the ring—it's saving boys from the stereotypes that are killing them? Richie Hardcore knows exactly what happens when boys grow up watching men solve problems with fists and bottles. His father's severe alcoholism and the family violence that came with it could...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text What happens when a tipsy joke about not being fun anymore cracks a marriage wide open? A few weeks ago, I sat across from my husband at a café and told him he could leave. Not in anger - in complete pragmatic calm. These are my kids, this is my circus, you don't have to be here. If you want long lunches, freedom, a life without constant te...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Looking for love makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability? That's where shame lives. Kylee Dennis knows this better than most. When her mum got love scammed after 25 years of being single, the thing that hurt more than the money lost was watching her carry the shame of it—too embarrassed to ask for help, too mortified to admit she'd wan...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Your body's keeping secrets from you. Not because it wants to hide things, but because you've been taught to ignore, shove down, and repress experiences, thoughts, and feelings you haven't had the time or resources to handle. That knot in your stomach when you say yes but mean no? Your body remembers. The exhaustion you can't...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text "Everything happens for a reason" - sometimes those words feel like a punch in the gut when you're drowning in grief, fear, or anger. But what if there's a different way to look at life's hardest moments that doesn't feel like toxic positivity? In this Big Stuff summer series episode, host Danielle Colley weaves tog...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text A listener wrote in feeling completely torn apart by the weight of expectations. Family expectations, societal expectations, and the brutal “shoulds” we place on ourselves. In this How Are You Really? episode of Big Stuff , Danielle unpacks what it costs us when we say yes to someone else’s vision… and no to our own. Whether your dream is travel...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text Jordana Borensztajn, a comedian, communication expert and mentalist, joins the show to share how her most humiliating moments became the fuel for her career. From bombing so badly on a cruise ship that an elderly passenger told her to get off while she was still at sea, to being escorted off Facebook’s campus in a giant Like costume, Jordana rev...

Enjoyed this and want to let us know? Drop us a text In this deeply personal episode recorded only weeks after her mother’s death through voluntary assisted dying, Danielle shares the raw reality of grief, far beyond the familiar sadness people expect. She opens up about dissociation at work events, emotional numbness, and the biological impact of loss on the brain and body, from the amygdala to t...