Straight Talk with Mark Bouris

Paul Gallen has had 19 professional fights, captained the NSW Blues in State of Origin and played 32 Tests for Australia. Now, at 45, he’s stepping back into the ring against a man 15 years younger, 30 kilos heavier and 8 inches taller. This is a raw conversation about where that toughness actually comes from: growing up in Western Sydney, being kicked out of home at 13, and building a life...

Mark Nawaqanitawase stood on Bronte Road as a fan in 2019, looking up at the Roosters on the Leagues Club balcony. 7 years later he was up there with the premiership. Mark sits down with Mark Bouris to talk about the grand final, his journey to league, his childhood growing up in Burwood, where he gets his skills from, why he’s heading to Japan, and the choice ahead of him for next year&rsqu...

Before the luxury cars, multimillion-dollar properties and headline-making giveaways, Adrian Portelli was broke and determined to succeed. Growing up in Melbourne's western suburbs, Adrian refused to take a conventional job, spent years building businesses and sacrificed almost everything in pursuit of success. Now one of Australia's most recognisable entrepreneurs, Adrian sits down with Mark Bour...

Four months ago, Leah Stewart went for a swim at Coogee Beach and woke up from an 11-day coma missing an arm. She was attacked by a great white shark in the middle of the day, close to shore, doing everything right. This is the full, unfiltered account — what it felt like to be dragged underwater, how she fought back, the near-death experience that almost took her, and the one thing that pul...

In this episode of Straight Talk, I sit down with economist Chris Joye for round five, a frank conversation about government spending, immigration, productivity and Australia’s economic future. Chris argues that Australia’s challenges run deeper than events in the Middle East. He examineswhat he describes as $660 billion in additional government debt since 2022, the pressure population...

Australian house prices are down 7% from their national peak — and according to SQM Research’s Louis Christopher, there’s an 80% probability they’ll fall another 5–10% over the next six months. In this Straight Talk roundtable, Mark Bouris sits down with Louis and auctioneer Tom Panos to unpack what’s happening in Australia’s property market, why buyers ar...

Adam Gilchrist built one of the greatest cricket careers Australia has ever seen — and almost nobody knows how close he came to losing it. In this episode of Straight Talk, Mark Bouris sits down with Gilly to unpack the mindset behind elite performance: what it's like to get booed onto the field at 22, how a single email from a mate mid-Test-match changed the way he thinks forever, and why t...

Australian rugby has a massive opportunity ahead of it. A home World Cup in 2027, a new Wallabies coach and a chance to rebuild one of the great sporting teams in the country. Les Kiss is the new head coach of the Wallabies, a former Queensland State of Origin player and one of the few coaches to have worked at the highest level across both rugby league and rugby union. In this episode of Straight...

Alex Volkanovski walked into Mark's studio years ago with no idea what his brand was. Now he's a former UFC featherweight world champion, part-owner of a fight gear company, building a media presence through Cooking with Volk, and defending his belt at 38 — by choice, not necessity. This is a conversation about identity, purpose, and what happens when elite athletes build something that last...

Johnathan Thurston didn't make the Broncos academy as a kid — and that rejection lit a fire that carried him to four Dally M Medals, three Golden Boots, and the most iconic grand final moment in NRL history. But this conversation goes well beyond football. JT breaks down the chess match inside rugby league in a way you've never heard before — body language reads, defensive line manipul...

Two journalists from The Australian spent years digging into the real story behind tech giant Atlassian, and turned it into a book. It traces how two UNSW graduates built a global software company from a Glebe share house into a NASDAQ listed giant worth more than $100 billion at its peak. Along the way, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar became best men at each other's weddings and eventually...

James Tedesco has won grand finals, captained his state and country, and collected more Jack Gibson Medals than anyone in Roosters history. But what drives a man who's already achieved everything rugby league has to offer? In this episode of Straight Talk, Teddy discusses the self-doubt that never goes away, the mindset work he's done since 2015, and the brutal discipline of consistency that separ...

Konrad Benjamin is the creator of Punters Politics, one of Australia's fastest-growing independent political commentary channels, and a former economics and PE teacher who taught across Victoria, New South Wales and China. In this episode, he sits down with me to dissect the incentive structures that shape Australian politics, corporate power and the housing crisis. The conversation moves from cla...

Charlie Gearside co-founded a $1.6 billion telehealth empire from scratch. No medical background, no blueprint, just a bet that Australians deserved better access to healthcare. But now he's turned his attention to something bigger, a cultural movement to remind Australia how to take risks again. This episode covers how Eucalyptus went from a $2 million Blackbird raise to a US acquisition, why Aus...

Mark Webber is 1 of only 5 Australians to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix and a 9-time race winner who competed at the highest level of motorsport for over a decade alongside Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, and Lewis Hamilton. In this episode, Mark traces his journey from being a ball boy for the Canberra Raiders in Queanbeyan to holding up that 1st-place trophy on the infamous Monaco podium... t...

Peter V'landys is the Executive Chairman of the NRL and one of Australia's most decorated sports administrators, having previously led Racing NSW through a comparable transformation. In this episode, he joins me to break down how he turned a financially fragile NRL, two months from insolvency during COVID, into a $500 million asset base backed by a record $5.3 billion broadcast deal. The conversat...

Most coaches talk about culture. Michael Cheika has actually built it — across five countries, two codes, and some of the hardest turnaround jobs in world rugby. In this live podcast at the Sydney Roosters Business Club, MB sits down with Cheika to unpack what real alignment looks like from the inside, why pressure is an illusion, and what it actually takes to build a team that knows how to...

It’s all very serious today, so it was refreshing to have a funny conversation. Nikki Osborne didn’t just get the Prime Minister on her podcast. She DMed him, turned up at the Lodge in Canberra wearing a pith helmet, and got him talking about things you’d never hear in a press conference. In this episode of Straight Talk, I sit down with the comedian behind Bush Barbie to find ou...

David Pocock is a former Wallabies captain turned independent Senator for the ACT. Born on a farm in Zimbabwe, he arrived in Australia at 14 after his family lost their land in the seizures of the late 1990s, found his feet through sport, and went on to represent the Wallabies before swapping the ruck for the red benches of the Senate. I sat down with David for an honest conversation about where h...

Steve Baxter is a former Shark Tank investor, ex-Army guided weapons technician, and founder of Beaten Zone Venture Partners, a fund backing Australian defence startups and pushing them into the US market where the real money is. In this conversation, Steve takes us from growing up in outback Queensland and joining the army at 15, through building and selling one of Australia's biggest dial-up int...

Gerard Rennick, founder of the People First Party and former Queensland senator, joined me to discuss his journey from rural Queensland to politics and why he believes Australia needs more leaders with real-world experience. Drawing on his background in finance and a Master’s in Tax Law, Rennick shared his views on the economy, housing, taxation, productivity and capital markets. He has...

Former Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth joins me for a wide-ranging conversation on leadership, healthcare, and the future of Australia. Drawing on his experiences in humanitarian medicine, the COVID pandemic, and the health system, Dr Coatsworth shares his perspectives on public policy, economic challenges, and what Australia needs to do to build a stronger future. It’s a tho...

Most people think self-doubt is the problem. Dr. Shadé Zahrai says it's not... it's what's underneath it. In this episode we sit down with communication expert and PhD researcher Dr. Shadé Zahrai to unpack the four psychological drivers that either fuel your self-doubt or build what she calls "Big Trust." This isn't therapy-speak, it's research-backed, practical, and built for people...

Dr Stacy Sims is one of the world's leading exercise physiologists specialising in women's health, and she joins Project 100 to explain why the science women have been given is largely based on male data and what that means for how women should actually train, eat, and protect their healthspan. From the cellular differences between the sexes, to perimenopause, creatine, protein timing, Alzheimer's...

Jim Jefferies has done 6 Netflix specials, more than any comedian on earth. But this conversation goes well beyond comedy. Jim opens up about his nephew Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, one of four soldiers killed in the Whitsundays helicopter crash, and why he believes both Liberal and Labor governments closed ranks to bury the truth. From ICE raids to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's joke scandal, Oz...