0:00

Whoever said curiosity killed the cat

0:03

was probably a person that just wanted

0:05

to control cats. Don't ask too

0:07

many questions, you cats. Because

0:09

for me, curiosity is one of the

0:12

most powerful things that I can cultivate,

0:14

kind of like working on

0:16

cultivating gratitude, making my brain see possibility

0:18

in things rather than negativity in things.

0:20

It's a thing you can work on

0:22

and it's something that can transform difficulty

0:25

into possibility. It can transform sadness

0:27

into joy. I wanted to chat

0:29

a bit about that, but I am

0:32

currently curious about how my mortgage repayments

0:34

are going, so let's play some

0:36

ads to help out

0:39

with that. And I'll

0:41

be back after the brain. Tired

0:44

of ads interfering with your favorite

0:46

sports podcasts? Good news. Ad-free

0:49

listening is available on Amazon Music

0:51

for all the music plus top

0:53

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0:55

Stay ahead of the game by

0:57

downloading the Amazon Music app for

0:59

free or go to amazon.com/Sports Ad

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2:28

G'day, this is Better Than Yesterday helping

2:30

you make today better than yesterday since

2:34

My name is Oshie Ginsburg. I am a

2:36

podcaster, a best-selling author, a husband,

2:38

a dad, a stepdad, a

2:40

bicycle bound jackhammer locator. And

2:43

I'm very glad you're here. You may be

2:45

able to. There's a massive frickin' jackhammer in

2:48

the background digging through the

2:51

Sydney sandstone near our home.

2:54

And this morning, our youngest, Wolfie,

2:56

he's four and a bit. We

2:58

can hear it. And you know, he's four

3:00

and a bit. Diggers and jackhammers are pretty

3:02

exciting. Wolfie's got a

3:04

pair of kid-sized PPE ear protector

3:06

things that he puts on whenever

3:08

I'm doing a leaf blowing or

3:11

working with a saw or something around the house.

3:13

And so we put

3:16

a cap on, we put these things on. And he and I,

3:18

we walked around the neighbourhood and we went to a building site

3:20

down the street. Because we live in a

3:22

fairly dense neighbourhood. We went to a

3:25

building site down the street, saw some tradies walking out. Excuse

3:27

me, guys, have you seen the jackhammer? No,

3:29

man. Sorry, I haven't found it. Wolf says,

3:31

thank you. And we kept walking around, kept

3:33

walking around, couldn't find it. So

3:35

we walked back to our house. We walked around the whole

3:37

block. We couldn't find it. We walked

3:39

back to our house. And I said,

3:41

hey, mate, I think we might need

3:44

to get on our bicycle to ride around a bit because

3:46

it's so loud. It's echoing around the neighbourhood.

3:49

So it's making it a little bit hard to find, but on a

3:51

bicycle, I reckon we could find it well quick. He

3:53

said, you got it. So it's

3:56

a trade of their hats, their sun

3:58

hats for our bike helmets. the bicycle we went

4:01

and sure enough was a few streets away

4:04

and we found it. This massive big

4:06

yellow jackhammer digging through the Sydney

4:08

sandstone and it was really fun and he

4:11

said let's take a photo and send it back to mum

4:13

because we told mum we're off to go find the jackhammer.

4:16

It was fun half an hour. Something

4:19

to do while Audrey was having a coffee in peace. Now

4:22

what he and I did this morning

4:24

is something that I have kind

4:26

of always done. Something that I learned off my parents. I

4:29

just like to know. Sometimes I

4:32

can get a bit too curious but

4:34

I've learned how to figure that line

4:37

out. I'll talk to you about that in a bit. My

4:40

parents are both very curious people and

4:43

I've kind of got that as

4:45

well. I'm just a curious person. Both

4:48

my parents were doctors, alright? And

4:51

as a doctor it's really important. You've got to

4:53

be curious. You've got to wonder like what is

4:55

this? What could it be? What

4:57

else could it be? Why is this like that? When

5:01

we were kids, sometimes

5:04

after my folks split up, Dad would take us on the

5:06

weekends as it happens. This

5:09

is before the

5:11

docks had changed down in Brisbane but on

5:13

the river there where the Gateway Bridge

5:15

is now, I was little. I

5:18

don't know, maybe 9 or 10. It

5:20

was actually docks where

5:22

ships would pull up. Not

5:26

container ships but ships that had other stuff in them. I

5:28

don't know. And

5:30

we were walking down the docks and Dad was

5:32

fascinated by these huge, huge boats. And

5:35

we were at the end of one gangplank one Sunday. It

5:37

was a cold Brisbane day so I don't know, 23 degrees.

5:41

I remember wearing a jacket. And

5:44

Dad saw a bloke walking down

5:47

the gangplank. It wasn't a massive container ship but

5:49

it wasn't small. I

5:51

don't know what was in there but it might have been

5:53

grain or shit. And

5:56

Dad said hello to the guy and the

5:58

guy spoke back. He must have had a bit of an accident. I

6:00

think dad threw some Polish at

6:02

him because dad grew up in Prague. So he

6:04

had a bit of Russian bit of Polish bit

6:06

of German and the guys like I'll

6:08

shoot you it off and to

6:11

my horror because I'm a kid and you

6:13

know, when you're a kid, you're embarrassed by your parents to

6:15

my horror dad asked with

6:17

his kind of broken Polish or bit

6:20

of English quick. I'm inside and have

6:22

a look and this sailor

6:24

this salty sea dog this merchant Seaman

6:26

kind of guy. He was probably in his early 30s.

6:29

We had a mustache and a beanie. He's

6:31

like, yeah, and he was just stoked. I come on in

6:34

and so up the gangplank we went and I'm terrified.

6:37

I'm a lot better now. I think it's called

6:39

lassophobia, but I used to be scared of the

6:41

water underneath the docks where

6:43

it was kind of dark in the pylons

6:45

went down below where I couldn't see since

6:48

I've been a snorkeler and a scuba diver.

6:50

I'm much I'm caught with it now.

6:52

But at the time I was horrified that we're walking over

6:54

this gangplank. It was so far down. I remember the edge

6:56

of the boat was really far down and

7:00

we went inside and

7:02

you know, I'm terrified. I was like, oh dad, no, no,

7:04

no. And this him and dad were chatting away this bloke.

7:06

The sailor and dad were chatting away and

7:08

he took us on the deck and big three

7:10

is huge big metal doors. And next

7:13

thing you know, we're below decks. I

7:15

don't think I'd ever been anywhere that

7:17

wasn't in some way able

7:20

to see natural light. I don't think I've ever been in

7:23

a room that didn't have a window and I'll

7:25

never forget the smell. All right. Because

7:27

you know, when you're on a boat like

7:29

that, there's not a lot of space. And so

7:31

the kitchen and the living quarters are all very

7:33

close, you know, towards the bridge. I

7:36

remember the smell of the cooking. It's

7:39

like someone was

7:41

if you've ever watched someone cook dinner, like by

7:43

putting a can of

7:45

food on a fire in

7:48

a campsite. It smelled like that.

7:50

It's not just stewed things. Thick,

7:53

the air was thick and you know, light

7:55

was artificial. It

7:58

was wild. But that's the kind

8:00

of person my dad was. He was a rheumatologist. They have

8:02

to be every club of those ones

8:05

because it's kind of weird. Rheumatic disorders are odd.

8:07

But yeah, whoever said, whoever said

8:09

curiosity killed the cat is probably someone who's trying

8:12

to control cats as far as I'm concerned.

8:15

That's pointless. Come on. Cats cannot be

8:17

heard. We have proved that. It's science.

8:19

You can't argue with it. The

8:21

curiosity is one of the more

8:24

powerful ways that you can

8:26

transform a situation that is difficult or

8:29

uncomfortable. It starts by just sitting

8:32

with whatever feeling that you've got, noticing

8:35

it, and then asking, what's

8:39

going on there? Why do I

8:41

feel angry? Oh, I'm feeling

8:43

angry. I'm feeling agitated. Why is that?

8:46

What happened? What's my

8:48

part in that? Now, my part in

8:50

that could be, oh,

8:53

someone said something fairly benign to

8:55

me, but I'm very, very sensitive to any kind of criticism.

8:59

So rather than be with my

9:02

inability to handle criticism, I am kind of projecting

9:05

and now insisting

9:07

that other people speak to me differently. All

9:10

right. I have a part in this. What can I do about

9:12

it? What's

9:15

another way to look at this? When

9:17

I'm teaching Wolfie, when I'm teaching Wolfie how to,

9:21

like we're building Lego or stuff

9:23

like that, and he can't get

9:25

something in this way, I

9:27

tell him, flip it around, look at it the other

9:29

way. And we turn the Lego model

9:31

upside down. And sure enough, when you

9:33

look at the problem from the other direction, you're

9:36

able to fix it a lot easier because suddenly you've

9:38

got the same solution in mind, but you're looking at

9:40

it from a completely different starting point. So

9:44

yeah, what's another way to look at this? Just

9:46

because I'm seeing it this way

9:48

and my feelings are because of

9:50

the way I'm seeing it. What's another way that

9:52

I could see it? Now,

9:55

it fits to do with another person, for

9:57

example, which for me is very useful. be

10:00

curious. Why would that person speak

10:02

to me like that? Why would that person

10:04

do this thing? What's going

10:06

on in their life that makes

10:08

this particular thing that is a

10:10

bit much, you know, what's

10:14

going on in their life that makes that the

10:16

best idea they have right now? I

10:19

don't know, maybe someone shouted at a co-worker

10:21

or, you know, someone's being

10:23

a complete asshole in public, like what's going

10:25

on in their life that the best thing

10:27

that they can think to do is that.

10:30

That they have no other option except to do

10:32

that. It

10:35

helps me very quickly. Curiosity helps me find a

10:37

way not only to self-compassion and finding my own

10:39

responsibility and my own role in the situation, but

10:41

it also helps me find empathy for

10:44

other people. And

10:46

this also, this can also work at work. It

10:48

certainly worked for me. One

10:51

day when I lost my

10:53

last two jobs in the same 18 hours, I

10:57

do want to tell you about that in a moment. So

10:59

take a quick break. I'll be right back. Though.

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free. That's amazon.com/comedy ad free to

11:53

catch up on the latest episodes

11:55

without the ads. Music app for free or go to amazon.com. Thanks

12:04

for being a part of the show talking a bit about

12:06

Curiosity today. For me, Curiosity, I

12:08

mean, Curiosity Show, let's be honest,

12:11

one of the greatest TV shows Australia ever made. Their

12:13

YouTube channel is fantastic. I go and find Curiosity

12:16

show episodes and show them to Wolfgang. I've

12:18

even had Robin Dean on the show, which

12:20

was pretty epic. So yeah, Curiosity,

12:23

that was the only TV show that my

12:25

mum ever recorded for us.

12:27

I think we must have had one

12:29

of the first VHS machines in Adelaide, that's

12:31

for sure. And

12:33

mum would record the Curiosity show because she

12:36

wanted us to watch stuff that was not

12:38

just dumb, falling

12:40

over splat cartoons. She

12:42

wanted us to watch stuff that was engaging and taught us things.

12:45

So we would watch the Curiosity show as kids

12:48

on this one particular VHS tape that we had. I don't

12:50

know. I must have taped over with the Blues

12:52

Brothers or something. Curiosity

12:55

for me is

12:57

something that I've always enjoyed having.

13:00

And I think it's extraordinarily valuable because

13:02

it's also it's a it's

13:04

a rapid shortcut to bypassing judgment or

13:06

bypassing resentment. Now, don't get me wrong.

13:08

I'm not curious first. Okay,

13:11

I feel judgment, resentment, like like soap.

13:14

I mean it. If

13:16

I'm lucky, I could take a breath and go, hang on a sec. What's

13:20

happening? I give you an

13:22

example. When I lost, I lost two jobs in

13:24

one day and then I was functionally unemployed. I'm

13:26

40 years old, got no money, living in another

13:28

country. And

13:30

first was Bondo Rescue. And then I

13:33

lost my radio job, Hot Hits, which is a national radio

13:35

show, which I'd worked really hard to get and really hard

13:37

to keep. But I had

13:39

an idea that I wasn't going to be able to hold on

13:41

to it. And when I got the news that it

13:44

wasn't coming back, my ego roared

13:46

up like that final scene in

13:49

the classic Sylvester Stallone film Over

13:51

the Top, which if you haven't

13:53

seen is simply the greatest film

13:55

ever made about an arm wrestling

13:57

truck driver trying to win back

13:59

the custody. off his son. Alright,

14:02

so my ego is

14:04

like, Noooooo! It's

14:07

a really wild final scene, I'm not going to spoil it

14:09

for you, but they show

14:12

part of the final bits in slow motion,

14:14

but they let the audio play in slow

14:16

motion too, so someone who's going, Yeah, it

14:18

goes, Yeah! They did

14:20

it in a feature film, regardless. My

14:22

ego is not happy, so

14:25

how quickly can I get curious? So,

14:28

what's some questions? How can I be curious

14:30

about this? Why would this particular business do

14:32

this particular thing? Why would this particular business

14:34

let me go right

14:37

now and hire someone else? Is it because they

14:39

don't like me? Probably

14:43

not. That's not an impossibility,

14:45

but there's probably a much stronger business case

14:48

for this move than anything else. So,

14:50

what's the business case for them to let go

14:52

of me? And there's

14:55

a phrase that I always keep

14:57

in front of mind, something I learned in Los Angeles

14:59

that really, really helps me in these moments, it's

15:02

show business, not show friends. So,

15:04

if I don't get a gig, or I'm

15:06

replaced, or the show I'm on gets cancelled,

15:09

I try to remember it's

15:11

business, like that amazing

15:13

moment in Godfather Part 2. I

15:15

never complained because it was business,

15:17

and this is a business we have

15:19

chosen. And when I

15:22

think about why that particular radio company

15:24

made that particular move, which was to let

15:27

me go and hire a much

15:30

younger, much hipper, much more connected

15:32

to the audience

15:34

person, she was amazing.

15:36

When I think about that, well of course, it

15:39

made good sense. It made good

15:41

business sense. I'm a, at the

15:43

time, I was a 38-year-old divorced man who

15:45

was kind of sad on the inside, and

15:47

you could hear it in my voice, trying

15:50

to talk about Justin Bieber songs to 12-year-olds.

15:53

Nah. And Of course the ratings were suffering.

15:56

of course the quality of the show was suffering, because I

15:58

was the wrong person for the job at that. When

16:00

it on and it my good business

16:02

sense to hire someone who was she

16:04

was twenty two, twenty three. Ah, Thanks!

16:07

Credibly talented, really connected, really in there

16:09

and massive in that demographic. Of course

16:11

it makes good business sense to hide

16:14

and person. I.

16:16

Try to look I try to look at now

16:18

as like a really good blinds Saw it on

16:20

Survivor. Your are you? Got.

16:23

Some no longer in it, But

16:25

then you sit there the jury and

16:27

go full auto. Applaud that at a

16:30

good movies it's a really good move

16:32

while bomb scare have to and. While

16:35

on then filled with the idea on

16:37

that were digital that a good hearted

16:39

okay be curious about that. How true

16:41

is that? Where's. The evidence for

16:43

that. What's. More likely that

16:45

I'll never get hired again. Or.

16:49

That. The. Skill simple of got.

16:53

The talent that I have, the work

16:55

that I know that I can put

16:58

in combined together probably create an opportunity

17:00

for me. More

17:02

likely than anything else. That's

17:04

more likely like it's very likely on

17:06

a to pivot. Have to think about

17:08

something else and a But when I think about. What?

17:12

Else it is that I was at the time. I

17:14

think about what else can I do Happen I had

17:16

belly the people around mates. I'm. The. Opportunities

17:18

in the possibilities of far far, far more

17:21

than have never will again. Be

17:23

curious about that. like that totality thinking and

17:26

like it's black or. Of

17:28

course will keep you keep wanting to ask

17:30

questions because one of the answers makes you

17:32

feel uncomfortable on the inside like a could

17:34

possibly have been fired because I wasn't doing

17:36

the job properly. That has to be a

17:38

cabal of break from snitches he jacked up

17:40

on me. That's only reason that we're thought

17:42

will really. Really? Little

17:45

like not wanting climate change to be reopened.

17:47

settlements just eventually have to get rid of

17:49

you. Peek at your car so clearly must

17:51

be arches. Gotta be hikes like if you

17:54

keep looking. For. Answers

17:56

that would justify your feeling inside.

17:59

You. probably fall. them it's called confirmation bias.

18:02

But when you hit that feeling, that's the

18:04

clue. That's the clue to know, aha, I

18:06

should ask some questions about myself here. Is

18:08

there something about this truth, this reality that

18:10

I'm not prepared to accept? So

18:12

I keep asking questions to find a way that I don't

18:14

have to feel bad on the inside, or I don't have

18:17

to take responsibility or I don't have to change. For

18:20

me, that's the clue. And it goes for

18:22

everything. It goes for science, it goes for relationships,

18:25

it goes for everything. Why do I

18:27

keep looking for answers that protect me

18:29

from feeling uncomfortable, or protect me from

18:31

taking responsibility? Both of

18:34

those things are a part of the human condition. It's

18:36

uncomfortable to take responsibility when you've made a mistake. But

18:39

that's why. Because then we

18:41

learn from it. And then we generally

18:45

slowly over time adjust our behavior. And so we

18:47

don't make mistakes like that. Again, that's wide into

18:49

us. And so is being with uncertainty, it's difficult

18:52

to be with uncertainty, but that's a part of

18:54

life. Like anything, it's important to

18:56

work with that as well. So I'd

18:58

encourage you to be a curious cat. And

19:01

honestly, fuck anyone who said curiosity killed the

19:03

cat. It's like being told if you don't

19:05

know, vote no. Ask

19:08

questions. Stay curious. Ask

19:12

questions, you stay curious. You got

19:14

possibility. Without

19:16

possibility, what do you got? Thanks

19:21

everyone that helped me make the episode today. Thanks

19:23

to Matt Sofo on audio post, Mikey Ward on video

19:25

post, Tohyder who made the music, Monica and Ben for

19:27

keeping the lights on on OG TV. There is a

19:30

mailing list, you can find it in the show notes.

19:32

And if you need to get in touch with me,

19:34

just jump in the DMs on Instagram. That's where

19:36

I normally am. On Wednesday, we're back

19:39

here with Tracy Hall. You may know

19:41

her name. She asked a lot of questions

19:43

about things that didn't feel too right at

19:47

home for her. And boy, oh boy, did she get

19:49

some answers. It is

19:51

an incredible chat. I can't

19:54

wait for you to hear it. See

19:56

you Wednesday. Ever

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