Show Notes
You'll spend around 90,000 hours of your life working, so why do four in five people say they don't actually like their jobs? Checked out, numb, or quietly done. This episode is about finding real meaning in your work before your life in the wrong job! Hans Rosinek is a work researcher and bestselling author. He's spent years untangling what actually makes work feel worth it and right for you! In this episode, he explains: ■ The Meaning Pressure: Work has become “the last religion,” and expecting it to deliver your deepest purpose makes you easier to manipulate and harder to leave. Why a side project can make you more resilient. ■ The Four Kinds of Work: Paid work, care work, self work and political work all matter, and why only valuing wage labour ends up undermining wage labour itself. ■ The Laptop Worker Problem: Why people who never see the results of their work feel alienated, why they take up pottery on weekends, and how constant interruptions fragment our focus. ■ The Negotiation Trick: A simple reframe that turns your opponent’s reflexive “no” into your “yes” in salary talks, plus what to ask in interviews and how to spot red flags like “we’re a family.” ■ Gen Z and AI: Why the “lazy Gen Z” story is mostly a myth, why AI used only for speed leads to an efficiency trap and “workslop,” and why mediocrity has less and less room. 00:00 Intro 00:57 From Radio Presenter to Work Researcher 04:33 Can You Really “Do What You Love”? 06:03 The Dignity of “Dirty Jobs” 07:49 Which Jobs Are the Happiest? 10:58 Why Happiness Is the Wrong Goal 12:10 Laptop Workers and the Risk of Alienation 15:16 Why So Many People Are Disengaged 17:29 Home Office and the Junior Talent Pipeline 23:12 What Is “Meaning Pressure”? 26:02 The Four Kinds of Work 35:18 What Actually Motivates People? 38:18 Why Quiet Quitting Happens 42:19 What Makes a Good (and Bad) Manager? 49:19 Interview Red Flags for Young Workers 52:00 The Salary Negotiation Trick 57:55 Advice for Your First Years of Work 01:02:13 The Surfing Analogy for Your Career 01:05:12 Is Gen Z Really Lazy? 01:14:52 Are Entry-Level Jobs Disappearing? 01:17:42 If AI Is the Answer, What Is the Question? 01:21:56 Should We Have a Four-Day Week? 01:22:45 What To Do If You’re Lost at 20-Something 01:24:52 The Biggest Lies About Work Questions asked in this episode (for reference): Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got here? Is “do what you love” smart advice, or a privileged way of thinking? Have you found a job that is consistently happy? What happens psychologically to people who never see the output of their work? Is that why so many people are disengaged at work? Is home office good or bad for productivity? Does working from home put entry-level workers behind? What do you mean by “meaning pressure”? Isn’t a side hustle a privileged way of thinking? Should we all have a bit of each type of work? Are there factors that predict satisfaction and meaning at work? Why do more people engage in quiet quitting? What makes a manager good? What are three quick bad traits of a manager? If a company says “we’re a family,” should alarm bells go off? What other red flags should young workers look for? Is there any other tip for people just starting out? Is it true that Gen Z is lazy? Are entry-level jobs suffering the most right now? What do you mean by “if AI is the answer, what is the question?” Is a four-day work week a good thing? (yes or no) What tip would you give a 20-something who’s completely lost? What’s the biggest lie told to people about work?
More from We Think We Know
Do you think you’d notice if a partner was controlling you? Most of us do, and most of us are wrong. Sam explains how coercive control starts with attention that feels like love and slowly takes away your money, your friends, your family, and your freedom. She also explains why “just leave” is never that simple. Sam is a coercive control survivor, a mum, and one of Australia’s most prominent voices educating women about controlling relationships. After leaving, she gave evidence that helped send her ex-partner to prison, then turned her experience into a social media platform with millions of views. She now helps women recognise the warning signs, find the language for what they’re living through, and support the people they love. In this episode, she explains: * The Slow Squeeze: Coercive control is a pattern of small incidents that quietly strips away your autonomy until you’re managing someone else’s moods instead of living your own life. * The Red Flags That Look Like Love: Constant texting, sudden jealousy, and deleting male friends “as a boundary” are easy to read as devotion in the first weeks. * Why You Don’t See It: The boiling frog effect, isolation, gaslighting, minimising, self-blame and trauma bonding all work to keep victims from recognising what’s happening. * The Money Trap: How economic abuse works in real life, from drained credit cards and locked accounts to being questioned over a coffee. * Why Couples Counselling Can Backfire: What Sam learned about getting therapy, and why individual support matters before and after you leave. * How to Really Help Someone: Why pressuring a friend to leave can push them further away, and what to do instead. Follow Sammie: Instagram: @sammieejade0 TikTok: @sammieejade0
We were told psychedelics would fry your brain. Today, in clinical trials, they're being used to help people with depression, PTSD, and anxiety heal from what happened to them. DrEsme Dark is a clinical psychologist and somatic psychotherapist who spent a decade working with trauma survivors and refugees. She now guides people through psilocybin- and MDMA-assisted therapy in Australia, one of the leading countries in the field, and is involved in a first-of-its-kind trial using psilocybin for concussion. She also hosts the podcast Beyond the Trip. In this episode, she explains: ■ From Trauma Work to Psychedelics: How her work with trauma survivors led her to the research, and why the most surprising thing she has learned is that you never know where a person’s journey will go. ■ The Snow Globe Effect: How psychedelics change the way the brain communicates, why she compares the experience to shaking a snow globe, and how that can loosen the rigid thought patterns that keep people stuck. ■ MDMA Is Not a Classic Psychedelic: What makes it different, why it can help people work through trauma, and the surprising history of where it started. ■ What Therapy Actually Looks Like: The preparation sessions, what happens on dose day, and why the integration afterwards matters most. The medicine supports the therapy, not the other way around. ■ Is It Real? Why she says science and mystery both belong in this conversation, how traditional cultures have used these medicines for thousands of years, and why the feeling of an experience can matter even when the content isn’t literal. ■ Myth or True: A quick-fire round on addiction, brain damage, getting “stuck” on a trip, and whether you can reach a similar state without a drug. This episode discusses trauma and mental health. It is educational and not medical advice. In Australia, psychedelic-assisted therapy is only available through authorised clinicians and approved trials.
Dating doesn't have to be this hard; we've just been doing it wrong, and it's costing us years. How to stop being single, date successfully, and find the person who's actually right for you. We cover dating rules, red flags, confidence, ghosting, and what the apps are doing to us.
You'd know a dangerous person if you met one. Wouldn't you? Gary Jubelin spent over 20 years as a homicide detective. He's interviewed murderers and men he calls pure evil. What he learned is uncomfortable: the difference between the people who kill and the rest of us is smaller and more circumstantial than we like to think. In this episode: the red flags that come before violence and why police dismissed them for years. The two tells that give away a liar and why prison makes most people worse. In this episode, he explains: ■ The Gut Feeling Trap: A detective’s “instinct” is really years of accumulated experience. It can point you in a direction, but you can’t create the facts to suit it. ■ Prison Without the Monsters: Why a maximum-security prison built on respect, education and a no-violence rule changed his mind about rehabilitation. He also explains why he believes most prisoners can be steered away from reoffending, and a minority never should be released. ■ How People Fall Into Crime: From gang glamour to the search for brotherhood, he explains why role models, boundaries and a sense of belonging can decide which path a young person takes. ■ The Red Flags Before a Murder: Why stalking, breached restraining orders and prior strangulation worry him most, and why he thinks tracking devices could save lives. ■ How to Spot a Liar: Selective memory loss, too much detail, and the power of sitting in silence during an interview. 00:00 Intro 01:48 Life of a Homicide Detective 04:46 Why Are We So Fascinated By True Crime? 07:30 Too Passionate? The Cost of Homicide Work 10:13 Is the Detective’s Gut Feeling Real? 12:41 Can You Sense Evil in a Person? 15:20 Do Prisons Rehabilitate or Create Monsters? 20:26 Nature vs Nurture: What Makes a Violent Offender? 24:15 How Role Models and Gangs Lead People Into Crime 28:23 Substance Abuse and Crime 30:26 Psychopathy, Prison and the Cost of Locking People Up 34:17 The Four Motives Behind Murder 36:40 Why Are Most Offenders Men? 38:34 The Warning Signs: Stalking and Strangulation 42:06 Should Offenders Wear Tracking Devices? 44:03 How Can People Protect Themselves? 46:18 How to Spot Predators Around Children 51:41 What To Do If You Feel You’re Being Followed 54:03 When Detectives Feel Fear 55:57 The Cases That Never Leave Him 59:12 The William Tyrrell Case 01:03:01 How Seeing Evil Changes You 01:05:14 How To Spot a Liar 01:08:06 Why Every Case Needs Humanity Questions asked in this episode (for reference): Could you tell us a little about your career and what got you here? Do people love true crime to learn how to protect themselves, to watch from a safe distance, or for entertainment? Were there cases where you were scared after hours, or too emotionally invested? What’s one thing about being a homicide detective that would surprise people? Is there such a thing as a detective’s gut feeling? Can you feel if someone has evil inside them? Do prisons help people, or make them into monsters? Is it more nurture than nature (e.g. the “warrior gene”)? Beyond that, what other factors increase the likelihood of violent crime? Does substance abuse raise the chance of violence? Wouldn’t offenders with mental health issues be better helped by psychologists? Can you link the reason for a crime to how rehabilitable someone is? Why are most murder offenders men? Are there red flags in behaviour before someone commits murder? How do you make a stalking victim feel safe, and how do people protect themselves now? Is there a tip that people tend to get wrong when they feel in danger? Was there ever a moment in your career when you were really scared? Is there a case that still weighs on you? Have you ever looked at someone and sensed they were “off”? What’s one thing we can look for when someone is lying?
What really shapes the brain biology: trauma, hormones, and the world you grow up in? Oxford-trained neuroscientist Dr Sarah McKay unpacks how the brain works and changes across a lifetime, with a focus on women's brain health. We cover the 80% overlap between male and female brains, how gender equality reshapes the brain, why your phone quietly drains your memory, the teenage brain and risk-taking, hormonal sensitivity, sleep, loneliness, and what actually protects your brain for the long run. In this episode, she explains: ■ Cognitive Load: Why a brain that feels overwhelmed isn’t broken. She uses the example of driving a car to show how constant background demands, including the news cycle, add to the load. ■ Do Male and Female Brains Differ? Why she says that looking at a single scan, you couldn’t tell, why group averages overlap far more than they differ, and why life experience and opportunity shape the brain alongside biology. ■ Teenage Brains, Risk and Belonging: Why adolescence is a sensitive period for social experience, why she calls the “frontal lobes aren’t developed until 25” idea a myth, and why teens weigh social exclusion as a real risk. ■ Hormonal Sensitivity and Early Life: Why some people are more sensitive to hormonal shifts, how early adversity can shape development, and why population patterns don’t predict any one person’s future. ■ Sleep, Loneliness and Brain Health: Why she calls sleep the foundation of brain health, why regular timing may matter as much as the hours, and why being alone and feeling lonely are different things. ■ Fire Round: Brain training apps, reversing the effects of a tough childhood, whether falling in love is a chemical addiction, and the one thing she wishes science could answer. Questions asked in this episode (for reference): If I gave you a brain scan of a woman and a man, is there a difference? Where would the small differences lie? Can you tell us about the study comparing brains in countries with different levels of gender equality? Is that learned behaviour, and does it mean my brain develops less if I don’t practise certain skills? How would you describe how the brain develops in the early years and through puberty? Is that why teenagers take more risks? Why do depression rates rise for girls in adolescence? Why are some people more hormonally sensitive, and what are the trigger factors? What happens in the brain when a young child experiences trauma? Nature or nurture? Why is sleep so important? Is there a link between sleep and Alzheimer’s? What factors help or harm brain health, at different ages? Is there less brain activity when doom scrolling than when asleep? Fire round: Are brain training apps effective or a waste of time? Can you reverse the effects of a difficult childhood on the brain? Is falling in love a chemical addiction? Do people chase excitement outside long-term relationships? If there’s one thing in science you wish you had the answer to, what would it be?