Curveball

Astrid Jorgensen was on the verge of becoming an air traffic controller when a school called with an offer: run their choir on measly pay, for 500 teenagers who didn’t care. Not exactly a dream job, but she said yes anyway.   Staring down that sea of bored teenagers, Astrid realised she knew&n...

When Kate Reid was a child, her car enthusiast father used to take her to watch Formula One. By the time she was in her 20s, Reid was working as an F1 aerospace engineer for  Team Williams in London.  It was her dream gig, even if she was the only female engineer working there. “There was no female toilet in the building... so  Sir Frank (Williams) and I would s...

On Australia Day 2012, Cate McGregor stood at Adelaide Oval, publicly recognised with the prestigious Order of Australia. It should have been the proudest day of her life. But behind that honour, Cate was planning to end her own life.  Across a distinguished career spanning the military, sport, and media, Cate McGregor has commanded respect and influence. But behind the uniform she’s fo...

It’s the early 2000s and a young Aussie engineer named Saul Griffith has made his way to the prestigious MIT in the United States. He launches several startups, including one that develops the technology that eventually powers the Kindle, he even consults to NASA and the US Department of Defence.  But at the same time, the climate crisis is looming larger. Saul tells his wife that perha...

Benjamin Law grew up by the beach in 1990s Queensland. He was queer, Chinese-Australian, and didn’t seeing himself reflected in the world around him. So he picked up a pen and changed that.  From memoirist to screenwriter, commentator to Survivor contestant, Benjamin has built a career by leaning into identity, humour, and personal truth. But a recent diagnosis he didn’t see comin...

For 20 years, Alexandra Smart poured her heart into fashion label Ginger & Smart. She and her sister Genevieve built a beloved brand, a loyal community, and a legacy she was proud of.  And then, almost overnight, it all changed. But Alexandra didn’t crumble, she pivoted.  “You don’t always get time to reflect or recover,” she says. “You just have to keep...

Across a jet-setting, decades-long career setting iron ore pricing for Rio Tinto, Mark Berridge faced lots of challenges. But it was a weekend bike ride with mates much closer to home that changed his life forever.    “I never, ever expected to hear the word spinal cord injury.”  Mark had to adapt to the unexpected, learning to walk again one step at a time. So he applie...

Jim Rogers is a go getter. He married early, started a family quickly, moved up the career ladder rapidly. He was quick to leave his small British town, bound for adventure.  But then things took a devastating turn for his young family. “It was just somebody smashing the entire world up,” Jim recalls of his wife’s unexpected death. “I had three young children who were...

Plans. We make them for the life we want, the partner we hope to have, the career we’re keen to chase. But what happens when your plan doesn’t, well, go to plan?  In Season 5 of Curveball , host Kellie Riordan explores what happens when everything changes, and the path forward is anything but clear. You’ll meet:  👗 A fashion powerhouse on the brink of global success, u...

“Giving anaesthetic in a muddy cave kilometres underground and under water? I never thought that was a good idea.”    Experienced cave diver and doctor Dr Richard ‘Harry’ Harris is no stranger to extreme dives in pitch-black, cramped conditions. But when a call came for him to assist retrieving 12 teens and their coach from treacherous conditions inside a cave in Thailand during monsoonal rains? W...

Jack Manning Bancroft was 17 when he walked into Australia’s most prestigious college at Sydney University. Think sandstone buildings, young men wearing suits and gowns to the dining hall each evening.   Jack, a talented athlete and student and a Bundjalung man, had been awarded a scholarship to St Paul’s College.  The level of privilege he was surrounded by made him angry, but it wasn’t long befo...

“We bought computers that had never been connected to the internet. Phones were taken out of the room and I unplugged everything, including televisions and fridges. At one point the cabinet secretary pointed out through my window to a block of flats across the water and said, ‘You realise the Chinese will be in there and they’ll have a laser on that tumbler of water, and they’ll have turned it int...

“I love that moment on the blocks. It’s the most high pressure moment. You can feel your heart beating. Your palms are all sweaty. Often when I’m going down onto the block and they say ‘take your marks’ my hands and legs are shaking. It’s a place of great failure and great success. They’re both possible in that very same moment”.  Bronte Campbell could be the second best 100-metre sprint swimmer o...

Graeme Wood knew his planet was in danger even as a little kid. No one had to tell him: he could tell by how rapidly his fishing hauls on Moreton Bay were diminishing each year. But what was a bored kid in Brisbane going to do about it?   Come 2014, entrepreneur Graeme Wood sells Wotif, his internet travel booking platform, and for the first time he has the potential to enact enormous change. So w...

“It's nothing short of an Australian small business fairy tale that's about to unfurl.”  Poppy King was barely out of high school when she launched her first company in 1991, quickly gaining a cult-like following for her dreamy 1940s Hollywood-inspired matte lipsticks.  By 1995 she was Young Australian of the Year, but not long later the company fell apart amid investor disputes.   The young entre...

“When my friends were all going out and still doing Contiki tours, I was navigating a divorce.”  Growing up in a traditional Fijian-Indian family, Shivani Gopal was given the message that women should be nice, they should serve others, that a woman’s value came from kindness and doing the right thing by others.  So when Shivani fell in love as a teenager and her family arranged for her to be marri...

Best-selling author and journalist Trent Dalton appreciates things most people wouldn’t give a second glance.  Growing up, Trent had no choice but to see the best in people, because if there wasn’t some light in those he loved, the world would be too dark a place to bear.  When he sat down to transform that story into his best-selling debut novel Boy Swallows Universe, little did he know his exper...

The thin timber floorboards and sticky carpet were a thin shield from the noise at the pub downstairs. But a 17-year-old Dee Madigan was trying to drown it all out as she studied for her final high school exams.  The room above a bar hardly qualified as optimum living quarters but moving back to the city on her own to get a good education was Dee’s best shot at getting into university. After years...

One day you can be striding into work in a suit worth thousands of dollars, and the next you can be at home in your pyjamas struggling to connect your laptop to the wifi in time for a job interview well below your pay grade.   Tragedy, failure, loss – they’re all part of life’s ups and downs. Life happens to all of us, no matter how much success you’ve achieved, how fancy your job title is, or how...

Ever wondered how much you could grow your business, if only you could amplify your message?  Now that 40% of Australians regularly listen to podcasts, it’s a great way to communicate to your clients and customers.  Let Deadset Studios help you make a show! We’re a full-service production company and our team’s made many of the country’s most popular podcasts like:  Australia’s most downloaded pod...

“She helped me completely dismantle a media personality I constructed and wasn’t happy with. It was a media personality I constructed to be a television presenter. To be sort of charming, maybe trying to be funny, trying to be a smartass here and there. But it was a struggle because it wasn’t who I really am.”  Richard Fidler’s had more careers than most. He’s best-known as a host of the ABC’s mos...

Legacy can be a bit of a loaded term when it comes to family businesses. If you’re taking over at the helm, how do you honour the legacy of those who came before you? Do you keep things as they were, or should you shake things up?  Buckaroo Belts owner Tanya Van Der Water asked herself exactly these questions when her father fell ill in 2013. Unexpectedly, she was thrust into the CEO role in his p...

There’s sweat flying everywhere at the Alice Springs YMCA as a young instructor cheers the class through their workout. Michelle Bridges is learning how to bring the heat, honing her craft as the motivator-in-chief for people looking to turn their lives around.   Michelle had been teaching fitness classes and entering bodybuilding competitions while she was living in the desert with her then boyfr...

The sun’s setting in the Sydney suburbs, but a young Brandon Jack’s still running his science experiment. Or rather, he’s still pretending to run his science experiment. In reality, he’s just kicking an Aussie Rules football around. But when you’re the son of an NRL legend, you have to come up with a good cover story to even go near other football codes.  Brandon’s talent for side-stepping the tru...

We get it! It’s scary being your real self out there. Being vulnerable. Laying it all on the line when you’re feeling uncertain, not quite sure if you’ve got it right.  We’ve noticed so many Curveball guests have had a moment where they could choose to be the all-knowing tough guy/gal, but instead decide to let their guard down.  It might be emotionally risky, but how can you make vulnerability wo...