Hunger & Heart with Kaila Colbin

Nobody is born good at hard conversations. Not even the people who teach them. I’ve spent years running Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead™ programme. I built the Courageous Communication™ programme specifically around the skills of having hard conversations. But teaching it and living it are two different things. In this episode I sit down with my colleague Hannah Hudson to talk honestly about what it's...

⚠️ Please note: this conversation talks about depression and mental health. If you or someone you know is struggling, free help is available through Lifeline - call 0508 TAUTOKO, that's 0508 828 865. Sir John Kirwan is one of New Zealand's greatest All Blacks — but, while he lived the life of a champion, his mental health suffered. He's since become one of the country's greatest wellbeing advocate...

Dame Farah Palmer wasn't the most talented athlete in the room. She was nearly invisible at her first university orientation week. And then… someone from the rugby club noticed her. In this conversation, Kaila Colbin sits down with one of New Zealand's most decorated sportswomen: three-time Black Ferns World Cup captain, Dame Companion, first woman elected to the New Zealand Rugby board, and one o...

What does it take to hold professional athletes to the highest standards - without ever raising your voice? Maggie Cogger-Orr is one of New Zealand's top rugby referees and the current Referee of the Year. Originally from Canada, she grew up playing gridiron football before falling in love with rugby - and after two ACL injuries ended her playing ambitions, she went all-in on refereeing. She's now...

Rob Hamill is one of New Zealand's most storied and decorated rowers - a silver at the World Championships in 1994, the winner of the first ever Atlantic Rowing Race in '97, and a man who has lived a life most people couldn't imagine. But beneath the athletic achievements is a story that shaped everything. When Rob was 14, his older brother Kerry went missing while sailing through Southeast Asia o...

He lost his dad to suicide, surfed for 40 hours straight and built one of Australia's most powerful mental health movements — one wave at a time. Blake Johnston is a World Record holder, mental health advocate, Director of Cronulla Surfing Academy, and the man behind the world's largest paddle out. But before any of that, he was a kid from Cronulla who loved the ocean more than anything — and had...

Sarah Kessans came to New Zealand for a two-year postdoc. Thirteen years later she's still here - an Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury working across synthetic biology, space research, and agricultural climate science. But before all of that, she was a 20-year-old from Indiana with $500, no ocean experience, and an idea she'd read about on a plane. In this episode, Sarah tells th...

Few All Blacks have ever been as loved as Andrew Mehrtens. Ask him why, and he'll tell you he was just the kid next door who got a winner wish. Growing up bilingual in the small North Canterbury community of Tuahiwi, Mehrts wasn't the biggest, the fastest, or the strongest. What he had was something harder to define - and harder to hold onto. In this conversation, Mehrts opens up about the confron...

What do you do when Sir Edmund Hillary tells you your ambition isn't big enough? For Jamie Fitzgerald, that question led to one of the most remarkable expeditions in New Zealand history - becoming the first Kiwis to reach the South Pole unsupported on foot. But before Antarctica, there was the Atlantic. In 2003, Jamie set the world record for rowing 5,000 kilometres across the ocean - with three w...

This week, no new Hunger & Heart episode. We’ve paused for renovations and will be back next week, bigger, brighter, and bolder than ever. See you then! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachel Taulelei became a Trade Commissioner for New Zealand at just 25. She's built companies, represented New Zealand at international trade forums, and co-owns the Tokomanawa Queens, a championship-winning team in the Tauihi Women's Basketball League. In this conversation, Rachel opens up about: why she was thrilled when her D1 basketball-playing daughter transferred colleges, even though it mea...

Wesley Clarke led the Manawatū Women's Sevens to back-to-back national finals, claiming the title in 2016. He stepped onto the international stage as assistant coach of the Black Ferns from 2015 to 2022, delivering World Cup victories in 2017 and 2022.  He’s now head coach of the Manawatū Turbos in the National Provincial Championship — a team that once fired him. In this conversation, Kaila...

Craig White has spent more than three decades coaching at the highest levels of professional sport, including international rugby, professional football, and elite club environments. He's coached with the British and Irish Lions, worked in the English Premier League, and guided international rugby teams across five Rugby World Cups.  Over the last decade, he's worked as a leadership mentor, s...

Dame Susan Devoy dominated international squash through the 1980s: world number one for nearly a decade, four-time world champion, eight-time British Open winner, and the most decorated player in New Zealand squash history. Her achievements were recognised with numerous honours, and she went on to serve in prominent leadership roles — including five years as New Zealand's Race Relations Commission...

Kieran Read is rugby royalty: former Crusaders captain, former All Blacks captain, one of the most capped players of all time, and the fifth most capped All Black in history. He played 127 Tests, scored 26 international tries, and is one of only 45 players worldwide to have won multiple men’s Rugby World Cups. In this conversation, Kaila and Kieran explore: the specific techniques the Crusaders us...

Marina Erakovic spent a decade ranked inside the world's top 100 tennis players. She competed in 36 Grand Slams, reached a career-high ranking of 39, and won 9 WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) and 18 ITF (International Tennis Federation) titles. Marina represented New Zealand at two Olympic Games and one Commonwealth Games, and played more than 600 main draw singles matches, including 44 at Grand...

Hugo Inglis is a four-time Olympian who represented New Zealand in field hockey, earning more than 250 caps for the national team and winning both silver and bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games. He's also the co-founder of High Impact Athletes.   In this conversation, Hugo and Kaila talk about: how his competitiveness with his brother led him into elite hockey,  his move from measuring su...

Alice Soper has been playing rugby in Wellington women’s teams since she was 13 years old; she’s played Sevens and 15s and she’s also played in England.  She’s a freelance journalist, a content creator, and a staunch advocate for getting women over the advantage line. In this conversation, we talk about: the fact that the All Blacks are NOT the winningest team of all time,  the differenc...

Last episode, Kaila spoke with Don Tricker, who said something that caught her attention: the only reason to have process-driven goals is in service of an ambitious outcome. In fact, focusing on process while excluding outcome may be a cop-out. Goal-setting is something Kaila and Boma educational designer Hannah Hudson have talked about for years, but Kaila’s conversation with Don sparked a new ex...

Don Tricker was a former player and coach of the Black Sox, New Zealand's national softball team.  Don worked in IT for a number of years before joining Sport and Recreation New Zealand. After playing a crucial role in the analysis of New Zealand's disappointing performance at the 2007 Men's Rugby World Cup, he was appointed by New Zealand Rugby as High Performance Manager in 2010.  In 2...

The legendary Shane Fletcher — or “Fletch” is the High Performance Campaign Manager for the Black Ferns, both the XV and the Sevens. He was the team manager for the Crusaders for 8 years; his tenure there included their 7-in-a-row championship run. Fletch is also one of the extraordinary teaching assistants on the Crusaders Leadership Programme™ , so someone we get the privilege of working with on...

Shane Bond is a legend of New Zealand cricket, widely accepted as one of the greatest fast bowlers of his era. Currently, he has the second best bowling strike rate of all time in test match cricket. He played for the New Zealand Black Caps in Test, One Day International and T20. To this day, he is the fastest New Zealander to take a hundred wickets in One Day Internationals, achieving that feat i...

Known as the Mountain Warrior, Shane Cameron was the Commonwealth cruiserweight champion and held the WBO Oriental, WBO Asia-Pacific and IBF Pan-Pacific titles. Today, he’s a businessman, with ventures including the Shane Cameron Fitness gym and the Counterpunch boxing range. In today’s episode, Shane talks about: his rural upbringing and how he felt like — in his words — the “dumbest kid in schoo...

Todd Astle is a former professional cricketer; playing Test, ODI, and T20 cricket for the New Zealand Black Caps. In 2023, alongside his brother Ryan and his mate Ged Robinson, Todd co-founded BetterMan, a not-for-profit delivering BYC — betterment, yarns and competition — for men in Christchurch. In this episode, Todd talks about: what it was like to get four ducks in a row (of the cricketing var...

Karameli Faaee is one of the most successful international rugby players in US history. As captain of the USA Women’s Eagles, she led the team to fourth place in the 2017 Rugby World Cup, their first time making it to the semifinals in nearly 20 years. She then went into coaching and became the first-ever women’s coach of a US professional men’s rugby team, Rugby United New York. In this episode,...