Letting life unfold as it will…

What will happen, will happen and we can do nothing about it because we don’t have any control despite the illusion that we do.

This, to my understanding is the way of life. We live an illusion that we make decisions about all manner of things but the reality is every decision we make is based on the sum total of experiences that we’ve had in our life. At the most fundamental level we are our genetics and our totality of experiences, nothing more. And those two criteria are all that we are and every decision is based on those things. We make our decisions based on this criteria but who are we, if not our genetics and our experiences which drive our decisions?

Todays Your Story Addendum episode is from the departure gate just prior to boarding my flight to Europe.

I’m off on a trip to Europe for 2.5 months. Initially I’ll be in Megève in the French Alps as a guest of my sister and her family then I’ll be heading north to spend a couple of months in Berlin.

Did I make the decision to go?

On My Way to Europe

Well, I may think and feel like I did but the reality is I simply reacted to the situations as they presented themselves with the final upshot being I’m now on my way as I write this somewhere over Indonesia. But more to the point this trip is about creating situations that could provoke opportunity.

In my everyday life I have a routine of situations and people who are a constant with little variation and without breaking away from the status quo I’ll continue to have the same opportunities.

It’s crunch time!

For five years now I’ve been working on Your Story and Create Your Life Story, to learn the skills and develop the sites to where they may be able viable as more than just hobbies. I’ve tried a few things to develop them but to date these things haven’t worked and it’s time to see if there may be some other opportunities that I haven’t considered.

Staying in my home environment will maintain a similar situation to what’s been the case for these last five years but travelling to Europe may, just may, create an environment that is different and present opportunities that I couldn’t find at home.

Everyone who’s had any level of success will be the first to credit the good fortune in their lives that has lead to them becoming who they are (actually that’s the same for all of us, good and bad), and that good fortune could turn up anywhere. It’s just that if you get around, meet more people and be in different situations there is a greater chance of that good fortune turning up.

It isn’t choosing anything!

For me this is just about putting myself out there where opportunity may arise and allowing things to unfold. When we think about it, that’s how life is for all of us.

I don’t know or can’t imagine what may come of this trip. Maybe something, maybe nothing but as I said when I started on this adventure of learning how to podcast I’d rather give a red hot go, than stay in the certainty of routine.

What may come.

I’ve a few ideas for content for Your Story. We may get to revisit some past stories to see how they’ve developed over the last few years and I’m sure we’ll discover a few new stories. I’m hoping to produce both video and audio content and I’ll be putting it out in all the usual channels.

Since my last trip social networks have continued to develop and with the power of my new iPhone 4S along with the video, photo, audio sharing networks there is an opportunity for me to put out a variety of content through multiple channels.

If you want to find all the major social channels that I use go to About.me/IanKath where you can link across to see all that I produce over the next many weeks.

If you have any ideas for people to meet of place to visit in Berlin please let me know using the contacts above.

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by giving it a Digg or Stumble from the links under the heading for this episode or writing a review on iTunes

 

Some people have a passion for food that goes beyond what most of us have.

Click to share on Twitter

Do you love food?
I mean really love it, in all the different ways that it can mean. The history, the preparation, the eating, the sharing! Or do you just eat food because you have to, as the cooking is more of a task that has to be put up with in order to eat.

Charmaine O'Brien

For some people food is more than just simple sustenance and for Charmaine O’Brien food is far more than just that!

We all eat but it’s rare to find someone who embodies food in more than just the simplest body nurturing way. Occasionally I come across someone who eats, breathes and sleeps food, and recently at the Oral History Association of Australia conference in Melbourne, I had the good fortune to meet and ask Charmaine to come onto the show and tell us about her interest in food, based on the stimulating presentation and menu she prepared for the dinner.

What’s on the menu? – 100 years ago!

It’s not often that we get to taste a historical menu from post colonial, Australian cookbooks and discover that food reproduced from 100+ years ago is not just boiled mutton and lard with damper.

As we discuss on this episode of Your Story, the meal was a wonderful blend of different ingredients that we no longer think of using and a surprise to realise how well the people of Victorian Australia ate, despite the challenges of preparing food without all the modern appliances that we now take for granted.

Presentation @OHAA

Charmaine opened my eyes to how well they ate in the 19th century and some of the reasons for how things have changed over the last 120 years.

Her website is CharmaineObrien.com
Her email is Charmaine@CharmaineObrien.com

When have you meet someone or done something that goes beyond the norm of what most people think of food?

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.

If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

Music is from

← If you want to record the Life Stories of others, listen to my other podcast at Create Your Life Story.com or on iTunes.
…Or have a look at some other great shows available at LifeStyle Pod Network→

Music is from

Argy
“Peace Of Me feat. POSH! The Prince” (mp3)
from “Fundamentals”
(Ibadan Records)
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

David Starfire
“Indian Fever” (mp3)
from “Bombay Beatz”
(Six Degrees Records)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Tycho
“Hours” (mp3)
from “Dive”
(Ghostly International)

Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

 

I’m not big into self promotion so I’ll let Adam do it for me!

I like to let the work that I do here at Your Story and over at Create Your Life Story speak for itself. But the way the internet works is that you need to be noticed, shared and recommended or else you disappear into the mire.

Fortunately for me there are people out there who appreciate what I’m attempting and are happy to blow the trumpet for me. One of these is Adam Daniel Mezei who we’ve heard from on Episode 25 and Episode 58 who I regard as a good friend but recently he produced this unprompted video that I thought I’d share with you. Yes it is a huge compliment that I appreciate and am humbled by his comments and if what he is saying is true it only means that I’m producing content of the standard that I strive for. But still I know that I continue to learn and improve

Thanks Adam

 

Every generation thinks that it’s all new and then you see something that comes from the past in the case of this from 1940 reminding us that nothing changes and the same issues are around today as have been part of civilisation for a long time.

**Start and play both videos together, Chaplin video starts 54 seconds in.**

Although The Great Dictator was a film of it’s time this closing speech by Charlie Chaplin is still relevant today as we deal with the infernal War on Terror.

 

Using their pleasure for tango to help others who desperately need it

Click to share on Twitter

We’ve all had the experience where we’ve gained so much value from people or an activity that we feel a need to return something. It called reciprocity  – the desire to do something in return.

Cheryl & John

In this episode of  Your Story we talk to John and Cheryl Lowry about how they have fulfilled this desire in themselves for all the pleasure that they’ve had from being involved in learning and dancing tango. They’ve returned the favour not to the greater tango community but by using that communities desire to dance tango socially as a means of generating income to support disadvantaged children in Argentina by setting up Para Los Niños children’s charity.

Internationally supported

The charity is supported internationally to enable income to be generated through milongas (tango dances) which is then used in Argentina to support many desperately in need children to have what we would call the necessities of life.

Here is an example of one of the Milongas that has been orginised in aid of Para Los Niños.

The charity website for Para Los Niños is paralosninos.net

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

.

Music is from

Che Papusa
“La Milonga” (mp3)
from “Buenos Aires Tango Dance”
(Suramusic S.R.L)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

Juanjo Hermida and Gabriel Merlino
“Sauvage” (mp3)
from “Tangos En Duo”
(Suramusic S.R.L)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

 

This is how to tell a good story?

Click to share on Twitter

Daryll Bellingham

Many people live a life in the arts. Sometimes it’s through choice or circumstances but it’s always a life that is lived independent of many of the norms of Western Society, using their resources to work in a variety of fields within the art that is their choice. The performing arts are much like this. In today’s Episode 61 of Your Story we talk to Daryll Bellingham about his life as a professional storyteller.

Through examples, Daryll shares with us some of his personal life stories of how he expresses himself using his skills as well as some of the advantages for adults in communicating better with family and colleagues using these storytelling skills. Daryll mentions how the use of storytelling has given his community and himself some of the greatest gifts that people can give each other – the sharing of stories.

Daryll has a huge understanding of both sides of the storytelling world both as performer and teacher of storytelling as a communication tool for individuals and corporates, as well as being an oral historian and digital storyteller of other people’s lives.

How do you make a living as a professional storyteller? By being as skilled as Daryll Bellingham is, in many aspects of this oral art form.

Daryll’s  website is Storytell.com.au
His email is mail@Storytell.com.au

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

Music is from

Das Kamileon

“Detroit Taxi” (mp3)
from “Lovn Cruzn”
(e.y.e. Label)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Swanken
“Lose The Man” (mp3)
from “Break Out”
(Musical Missionary)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic Delivery
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Helios
“South Tree” (mp3)
from “Unleft”
(Circle Into Square Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Mint
“Personal Spaces” (mp3)
from “Glued, Stapled, Remixed”
(Boltfish Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

 

One of the best Episodes Re-Published

It’s a rare world that we live in. I don’t mean you… I’m thinking of a few rare people that I meet from time to time and myself.

Stories of Our City

Most people are worried about what I call the noise of life. You know what I mean… All the stuff that is out there that we’re told to be afraid of or we need to be entertained by. Look at the news channels and reality TV, it’s all there… The Noise of life.

But there are a few of us who look for the substance of more important things. The stories that are real and live in everyone. “But normal people are boring”, I hear you say. NO! You’re the normal people and you have amazing stories. We all just need to take the time to turn off the damn idiot box and listen to the real stories that live in everyone around us.

That’s what I’m doing here on Your Story and what I’m encouraging others to do on Create Your Life Story. Get into real stories, not the media beat up that we’re familuar with.

It’s rare that I meet someone who has similar ideals in this regard. Sure, many people pay lip service to it but few (and I mean very few), actually do something about it. But there are a few…!

…and she has the personality to match the smile

Recently one of the previous episodes was picked up by another podcast. To my joy Stories of Our City has republished an edited version of the Episode 48 : Tiffany. Infidelity Investigator. It’s a brief example of what we’re doing here at Your Story and I encourage you to see what Katy is doing with Stories of Our City and listen to some of the other stories that she has published maybe even on iTunes, they’re eye opening to the life that she observes in the middle east.

Katy is one of us dear reader/listener. She knows the power of stories and how sharing them makes all of us much better to the greater world.

 

What is a Producer of Marketing and Distribution? – PMD

Welcome back everyone!

…And welcome back to Adam Daniel Mezei who we last heard of back in Episode 25 while mid-way through his 5 year European sojourn, living in Prague. I had decided to take up his invitation and drop in on this crazy Canuck who I meet on Twitter while I was spending a couple months in Europe back in 2008.

Adam at Toronto International Film Festival

As I mentioned back then, I had a wonderful three days with Adam as he showed me around the sights of Prague, looking after my every need as a tourist wanting to understand the city but also to understand this Canadian ex-pat making a go of it in the Czech Republic.

We’ve stayed in touch over the last 2.5 years since I was there through Twitter and Facebook and I knew he had returned to his home city of Toronto to chase down his new dream as a PMD for Hire, helping film industry professionals to grasp the dynamics of marketing and distributing films in this new era where the old systems aren’t holding up to the dynamic flux being created by the internet.

This is the same skill-set that Adam used in Prague, in a trivial way, to organise me to settle immediately and get to see the sights of the Golden City. The same skills he had been honing in networking to satisfy the desires of other ex-pats as clients who wanted to do business in The Czech Republic and didn’t know where to start. These skills of creating a network is what he’s bringing to film makers who don’t know the new playing field of marketing and distributing their films.

Bringing a new marketing skill set to Film Makers

Adam is the “Mr Wolf from Pulp Fiction“, who is called in to sort out the Marketing Issues for movie makers overwhelmed by the demand to be noticed amongst the white noise generated by many great movies that are never noticed and simply fade away to the discount bins where they can never return their funding.

In this Episode 58 of Your Story, Adam and I catch up (sadly not in person but on Skype) about what he’s been up to, why he left Europe and how he’s resettled into Toronto. We chat about the importance of family to him and the advantages of being in North America for his PMD work and what he can do for clients.

His website is PMDforhire.com

Email is info@pmdforhire.com

Here is a video of Adam with a little bit of philosophy on life…

ADM Videoblog #188 — “Don’t Bring Yesterday’s Garbage Into Today” from Adam Daniel Mezei | ADMTV on Vimeo.

…and if you want an opinionated Adam as a PMD about the importance of using more than just Facebook and Twitter:

ADM Videoblog #210 — “A Facebook page and a Twitter handle is not a marketing strategy!” from Adam Daniel Mezei | ADMTV on Vimeo.

…or watch the videos on his blog

Ian and Adam in Prague in 2008

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

Music is from

Heyoka

“Micron” (mp3)

from “Marklar”

(Muti Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Buy at Amazon MP3

More On This Album

Panik

“Their Unforgetable Things” (mp3)

from “Panik #5 Instrumentals”

(Molemen Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Stream from Rhapsody

Buy at Amazon MP3

More On This Album

 

I’ve been a Tad Busy with a Flood

I want to bring you up to speed in this episode 26 of Your Story Addendum to help you understand what’s been happening, particularly in the last three weeks with the flooding of the Brisbane River and it’s impacted on me.

This Episode 26 Recorded Here in the Foreground

If you would like to understand my experience I’ve written a post about the Brisbane Flood 2011, on my personal blog about what it was like to prepare and make the most of a community flood but in this episode I just want to explain and remind you that all is still good and I’m still here although maybe a little busy dealing with my other podcast Create Your Life Story and a few of the issues that come up from time to time

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”
Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by giving it a Digg or Stumble from the links under the heading for this episode or writing a review on iTunes

 

If all the information is available, how do we understand it?

We have concerns with information, for some it others having information about us that we don’t necessarily want to share but for everyone it’s also having so much information thrown at us through the various different mediums, particularly the Internet, that it’s easy to be completely overwhelmed. So how do we deal with it? If everything is available as information how do we make any sense of it.

Ladies and Gentlemen the man who introduced me to the TED talks with the first TED Talk I ever watched and the joy and new understanding of statistics primarily through his enthusiasm, Professor Hans Rosling

 

Back on Episode 50 with Kate Foy I used a track from Nick Hollywood. I was just poking around the web and I found a few other tracks  that you may find interesting. Here they are:

This track is from Swing Republic just in time for Christmas Boogie Woogie Santa

SWING REPUBLIC – BOOGIE WOOGIE SANTA by FreshlySqueezed

 

Talent, hard work and good fortune this is what made the success for John Birmingham

Sometimes we can read a book that has a significant impact on our understanding of things. To come to an understanding of what Sydney is… it’s history and personality, I needed to read Leviathan : The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney and get under it’s hem stained skirt to really understand just what Sydney was really like and how it got to be like that. Leviathan then gave me a whole new understand of this city by the harbour as I live there back in 2001.

John Birmingham

Leviathan was my introduction to John Birmingham and his writing style. A style that is entertaining while still immensely informative, pulling no punches from telling it as it is but with humour all the way, albeit sometimes a very dark humour. John is a local Brisbane lad, who grew up in Ipswich after migrating from the UK with his family in the ’70′s. He’s one of the  better known writers in Australia initially for his 1994 share house exposé, He Died with a Felafel in His Hand that later went onto stage shows and a film but now his notoriety is for his columns and articles in numerous publications including Brisbane Times and an ever extending long list of published novels and researched non-fiction.

In recent years he’s written the Axis of Time trilogy and is now two books into the Without Warning trilogy with the final book in the series due for publication in 2011. He’s currently rewriting a 10 anniversary update of Leviathan and is working on numerous other publications.

This man is a writing machine with a work ethic setting a constant budget of 2000 words a day five days a week all year. One book, one started,  columns and articles. If you want to understand how to write this is how you do it. You write!

His website is CheeseburgerGothic,com

He writes for Brisbane Times

Give his books a go, they’re a bloody good read Here is a link to his Amazon Page.

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Check out my other podcast Create Your Life Story about how easy it is to record yourself or someone you know.

Join the Your Story Facebook group .

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

Music is from

The Black Seeds
“Sometimes Enough” (mp3)
from “Into the Dojo”
(LOOP)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kalpataru Tree
“Elliptical Sequence” (mp3)
from “Preverberations From The Infinite Future”
(Cyberset Music)

More On This Album

 

What is needed to make it in music?

Sarah Collyer

How may people are performing, working their craft, doing all they can to be seen and heard, to make it in this world as an artist? How do they get noticed amongst all the noise and what do they have to do in the mean time until it’s their turn, if they ever have the chance?

Today on Your Story we chat with Sara Collyer about her world as a jazz singer. How she studied music and voice and her motivations along the way. We talk about what she has to do to be noticed and what she does between performances and her music.

Take the time to check out her website at SarahCollyer.com where you can listen to some of the music and purchase her EP This Way or on iTunes.

I reckon it great (just my biased opinion)

Cover Art – This Way

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Join the Your Story Facebook group.
Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

If you enjoy Your Story please comment on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

 

After watching Matt Ridley’s talk, How Ideas Have Sex on TED, I’ve been thinking just how interdependent we are.

I remember when the first Gulf War started in 1990 I thought “OhOh here it is, Armageddon, nuclear war, WW3, what ever” and I started to wonder if it was possible to run somewhere and go 100% self sufficient. What would we take with us?   I composed a long list of what I thought was important and contemplated that for a while.   Fortunately it never came to pass and we all went merrily on our way.

But this talk has just made me realise that I was completely fooling myself.  There is no way I would have been 100% self sufficient.  I was taking society with me and eventually if we were the only community(for argument sake) we would have consumed and exhausted what resources we had taken with us.

Matt mentions that today no one knows how to make anything.  Bold statement I thought.  I know many people who know how to make things, I include myself amongst them, then I got thinking…

Take a piece of timber furniture.  Sure I know how to build a stool but do I know how to cut the tree or mill the timber?  What about the tools that I would use to cut, mill and dress the timber?  What about the chisels and hammer for cutting the joints and that is assuming that I don’t use any fixings or glue.

Try and think of one thing in our society that we can make 100% ourselves, without the input of someone else.  Anything that you do think of will be using the technologies of the stone age.  Spear, bowl, stone axe, that sort of thing.  Grow something and make a stone age meal sure but no more – fascinating!

I’ve heard it said that civilisation started with the advent of agriculture but this talk has made me realise that agriculture came about due to the exchange of ideas and that it was the trade of those ideas that was the start of civilisation.

Just today I heard of a new lost tribe living in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.  Hunter gathers from the stone age.  I’m not sure if they have traded from outside of their society but the limitation of exchange of their ideas has definitely maintained their existence in the stone age.  This is exactly what we would be like today without the huge interdependency that we have around us and our society.

Causes me to appreciate the web of influence that we all share.  Thanks

 

It’s funny how people who have similar interests keep revolving around each other and are constantly mixing in the same circles.  Even if they don’t necessarily know that they each exist.

Andrew and Trash Video

When I started Your Story on 2007 I modelled myself on Australian Story and Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope but before too long I started hearing about Richard Fidler’s Conversation Hour on Brisbane’s 612ABC radio. To my surprise I discovered that Richard and I are doing basically the same thing, conversations with people about their lives.

I have only listened to a few of his shows but I know that we happen to have had some of the same people on our shows.  Frankly with the resources of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation including a producer to help it’s not surprising that he has harvested all the interesting people who live in our city.  To that end, as I poke around to find some of the interesting people with my limited resources we are going to cover the same territory.  Today is one of those situations.

As I write this I am listening to Richard interview Andrew Leavold from one of the most enjoyable episodes that I’ve had the pleasure to produce.  You may remember Andrew as the passionate, hyperactive cult film video store owner, Trash Video here in West End where I live.

If you want to listen to my podcast with Andrew this is the episode and if you want to listen to Richard’s interview with him it is here on the ABC site.

 

It’s been a long time but welcome to Episode 25 of Your Story Addendum.

I was chatting to you from by the river.

I thought it was time to get you up to speed on what I’ve been up to with Your Story and the new podcast Create Your Life Story.  This is 18 minutes of me filling you in on developments over the last couple of months so you know that I haven’t abandoned Your Story and what I’m hoping to achieve in the next few months.

Create Your Life Story

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story” or subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by giving it a Digg or Stumble from the links underneath and writing a review on iTunes

 

Over the last few weeks there have been quite a buzz in the skydiving community of Australia with the 50th Anniversary of the Australian Parachute Federation(APF) and Newcastle Sport Parachute Club(NSPC).

The latest APF National Conference is underway and a few weeks back NSPC had a huge week end of celebrations for their 50th.

Podcast Episode with Claude Gillard

Last night I was looking at a lot of images on the Facebook fan page for the APF and was reminded of the podcast episode I did with Claude Gillard two years ago. Claude was one of the early pioneers in parachuting in the late 50′s and president of the APF for 30 odd years.

If your interested in some stories of the early days of Australian parachuting when skydiving was a truly dangerous activity please go to the post and listen to what Claude has to say.

I’ve always had a huge respect for the early pioneers in all fields and as skydiving was once one of my great passions in life I have read a great deal of those early days. Today many people entering the sport or doing recreational tandems jumps don’t realise the grand adventure that was parachuting in the late 50′s and 60′s.

I encourage you to go and listen to one of the great story tellers of Australian Skydiving talk of those days.

Remember you can comment below.

 

Inspired from Your Story a New Podcast is now Online.

I’ve been very quiet these many months here on Your Story.  I’ve been busy putting a few things in place, starting a new podcast and site.  I have been a little bit head down getting everything done so to speak.

I mentioned that I recently spent some time with my uncle, Bill Kath where I recorded our conversations and published them on his own site to share his Life Story with our family and anyone who may come along from the greater community.

This inspired me to start a new podcast to help explain how the average person can now record, edit and publish an audio Life Story, then share that story with family and the world if they choose.

I have always said that Your Story is a personal passion and I would love, one day to travel a lot more and record stories from around the world.  For three years now I have been learning and developing the skills needed to converse and produce audio while slowly going backwards financially.  With Create Your Life Story I hope to create a podcast to allow me to develop an income that will give me the ability to continue to produce Your Story while helping others to gain some of the amazing benefits that I have seen from sharing personal Life Stories.

The premise of Create Your Life Story is simple.  There are people who want to capture the Life Story of someone they know or there are people who wish to record their own personal Life Story.  These stories are interesting initially for family but also for the greater community, if only they can be recorded and made available, before they are lost, as has happened for all of human history.

I now have the knowledge from producing Your Story and several other versions of audio Life Stories to share with anyone who is interested in learning how easy and available it is for them to do the same.

It’s very early days but I have already produced a considerable amount of content to share that will give a lot of people a good start.  I have even produced a free e-Book to help you get started.

Please come over to Create Your Life Story and if you know of anyone who may be interested in learning to record and share a life story, either their own or someone else’s, please share this information.

 

Welcome To Episode 51 of Your Story.

Why do we have to live our life the way people and society says? Why can’t we make our own rules and if we’re happy with the results of our decisions isn’t that all that matters?

Ian Pettet has decided to live an unorthodox lifestyle. Not only is he studying Electrical Engineering at Queensland University of Technology in his 50′s but he has also chosen to live on a side street to the City Gardens that adjoin the Uni sleeping on his motorbike and living with his dog out of the trailer attached to the rear of the bike. Not what is normally thought of as student accommodation. This is the life style that Ian has chosen for the freedom that he gets from not requiring a high income and responsibilities that most of us feel that we can’t do without.

Most people would find this lifestyle challenging but Ian embraces it and with happiness and joy leaving me wondering if maybe there are some lessons here about what makes some of us truly happy.

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Join the Your Story Facebook group.

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

Music is from

Music is Bye Bye Blackbird From Music Ninja

 

A few years ago I was introduced to John Perkins‘ book Confessions of an Economic Hitman and was duly shocked by it and it’s revelations of corruption and manipulations of the economic elite to strip mine any and everything for their gain. Then his follow up book The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption, which took the story of corporate geed for the American Empire deeper down the rabbit hole.

Here is an interview with Perkins about writing the book and the revelations in it:

Then when I was in Germany in 2008 I was introduced to Naomi Klein‘s book The Shock Doctrine where I learnt of the systematic  manipulation of disasters, created or natural, for the benefit of the same elite.

This learning lead me onto the rage I feel from understanding the incompetence and corruption that is the CIA revealed in Tim Weiner‘s book Legacy of Ashes.

If you have not read or heard of all these books, I encourage you to consider the information, as it will round out your knowledge and understanding. Tonight I came across this 2 hour documentary that will both educate and demoralise you as you realise (if you aren’t already aware) that the whole system is rotten right to the core. This sums up many, though not all of the points outlined in the books but it is a good addition to them.

Trouble is with this knowledge it’s not possible to unlearn it and once learnt it’s a scary thing to have.

 

I was watching this TED talk and I couldn’t help but reflect on Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. Perkins describes the behind the scenes manoeuvrings of the very real corruption that Peter Eigen has been battling against. This video is how the corruption has been curtailed, at least somewhat. How to Expose the Corrupt is the title but the symptoms are addressed rather than the underlying intent and manipulations of the organisations that start the very corruption that he is battling.

As Perkins reveals in Hitman and his follow up book The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men. Jackals and the Truth about Global Corruption this is not necessarily all about good companies being forced to corruption and bribery simply in order to level the playing field. “Everyone is doing it, so we have to also bribe” is I’m sure being said in board rooms around the world.

These large corporations and the governments that they control, willfully and purposefully manipulate third world countries for their specific gains, using corruption and bribery of officials, as a tool of Empire, with full knowledge of what they are doing. They create the corrupt situations that other “good” companies  are forced to accept in order to compete. If the “good” companies were simply to stop, and it seems in some cases this has worked, the large corporations have shown that they would simply go in anyway and continue to pillage in order to feed the empire.

The corruption is at the top of the tree and the rot simply migrates all the way down.

 

Welcome To Episode 48 of Your Story.

What would you do if you had suspicions of your partner having an affair? Could you confront them and have a discussion? Even then how would you know that what you were being told is the truth? What if you were told that nothing was happening but despite that reassurances you still had it eating away inside of you saying something wasn’t right? Would it be good to find out for certain one way or other, or are you just being insecure?

Tiffany Bond has discovered that not only is there still a demand for infidelity investigation but business is booming as the times may change but people don’t and there is a constant stream of husbands and wives contacting her, seeking information and advice to settle their concerns and suspicion of their partner having an affair.

Tiffany’s talent revealed itself when she used her training with her own relationship, leading her friends to suggest that she could help others, as she was helped, by finding the truth and slaying her own demons.  Starting her private investigation business the Detection Group she has added to previous experiences to tell many more stories written about in her first book Confessions of a Female Private Investigator.

The book is really a series of short stories of her adventures as a debt collector, police officer and private investigator and the experiences that she and her clients find themselves in with suspicion, discovery and resolution of some of the more disappointing aspects of peoples relationships. It’s actually a bit of a page turner in it’s simple short format story telling style forcing me to drag myself away to get this episode published rather than while away the day indulging in the voyeurism of peoples behaviours.

This is not all about the grime and the sordid underbelly of society but much like Episode 40 Grace. Prostitution – More than you Think, in that, in this story we find someone who is driven to help others to take responsibility, heal and move on by finding out the information that has been eating away at them with suspicion. It’s more than just catching people out, it’s about helping people who’s relationships have devolved and aiding them to move their relationships forward.

Tiffany’s Contacts are:

Phone:

• 1300 780 833
• +61(0)458 600 638

Website:

• DetectionGroup.com.au
• TiffanyBond.com.au

Email:

• enquiry@DetectionGroup.com.au

Social:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Linked In

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Join the Your Story Facebook group.

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing  on iTunes

Music is from iodaPROMONET

Urban Legend
“The World Keeps Spinning (feat. Chana)” (mp3)
from “Tropical Techniques”
(Blind Lemon Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Napster
More On This Album

Eastern Sun
“Northern Vision” (mp3)
from “In Emptiness”
(Ball of Waxx)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at eMusic
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

 

Have you ever noticed how people mask who they really are so they can seem more professional. Sure we do a variety of roll playing in all areas of life, partner, parent, employer or Christmas party clown but some people change profoundly from what they are in their personal life to their professional life, it’s almost like a split personality disorder.

I recently heard the when Oprah was a television news reader she modeled herself on Barbara Walters only to one day loose the persona while news reading, became her true self and the rest is history. This is the first thing that I noticed when I started watching this video but there are a lot more good ideas in this little gem that I found over at Please Feed The Animals. Enjoy

 

While watching Michael Moore’s Sicko tonight on YouTube I discover the name of Tommy Douglas (1904-1986), regarded in 2004 as The Greatest Canadian. Now I don’t care who they are but if a country names a single person, particularly  a politician, The Greatest in that country I think there is something probably going for them and maybe they might have something to teach us. So on digging around I discovered this video animation with Tommy’s voice telling the story of Mouseland.

In many countries as the corporations slowly get hold of the governments to do their bidding and we end up with political duopolies where both parties are a subtle shade variation of their political agendas I think old Tommy may have a timely reminder for us.

Here in Australia after having a Liberal Government making moves into introducing an Internet Filter we now have a Labor Government doing similar despite making moves of moving away from such a ludicrous idea prior to their election.

To my disappointment the Rudd Government has turned out to be just another cat.

Wait for the coalitions

 

Welcome To Episode 46 of Your Story.

As some of you may know I’ve recently been working for a short time on the latest in the The Chronicles of Narnia at the Warner Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast. This next, Episode Three, is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and as it was for the previous two episodes this one is being Executive Produced by Doug Gresham.

As I mention in the introduction, I meet Doug very briefly while I was working on the film but didn’t have a chance to engage with him while working there. However my supervisor mentioned a few of the things that Doug had mentioned to him and I immediately thought, this sounds like an interesting fellow who wouldn’t mind a chat if he has the time.

Doug is the step son of C.S.Lewis and is now responsible for the continuation and is the head of the C.S. Lewis Company. From that wellhead these films have sprung. After a lifetime of wanting to have them produced he is now, for want of a better title the Executive Producer but as he says, he’s the one to blame. We chat about some aspects of the challenges and the joys of film-making and if you listen to Doug you can hear his passion for film-making and particularly the production of these The Chronicle of Narnia.

Quite a bit is published about Doug and his heritage with C.S. Lewis, including his autobiography Lenten Lands of his childhood with his mother Joy Davidman and Lewis which was made into the television film in ’85 Shadowlands and remade as a feature film in ’93. Doug also mentions writing a biography of Lewis Jacks Life: The Life Story of C.S. Lewis published in 2005.

Doug however is not just all about C.S. Lewis and the The Chronicles Narnia, he is also a committed Non-Denominational Christian with strong opinions on his practical views of Christianity that led him to live by his faith, running and caring for people from around the world in Ireland as a psychotherapist, but also to living an independent lifestyle as a Dairy Farmer in Tasmania and an ABC Radio announcer in Perth.

Now living in Malta, Doug has a world view and strong opinions on where our Western Society has gone wrong, even suggesting what, in his view, what we need to do to fix these issues.

Strong, forthright and thought through opinion is what I discovered in meeting Doug Gresham and a personality that is not easily forgotten.

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Join the Your Story Facebook group.

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by giving it a Digg or Stumble or writing a review on iTunes

Sorry about the miss spelling of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as I spelt it Trader :/

Music is from iodaPROMONET

The Homemade Jamz Blues Band
“Penny Waiting On Change” (mp3)
from “Pay Me No Mind”
(Northern Blues)

Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
More On This Album