Finding Nature

Nathan Robertson-Ball
  • 4.6 (17)
  • BUSINESS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Find inspiration and guidance for the change you want to create and learn how others have achieved it in their life and work in pursuit of a more just, safe and healthier future. Nourishment for the change making class.

  1. Collective Intelligence or Collective Stupidity - The Choice is Ours, With Sir Geoff Mulgan

    1 DAY AGO

    Collective Intelligence or Collective Stupidity - The Choice is Ours, With Sir Geoff Mulgan

    Today’s guest is someone who’s seen just about everything though, and is also the first person on the show with a knighthood - Sir Geoff Mulgan. Geoff is one of those people who’s seemingly done it all across government, academia, the public sector and the private sector. His knighthood was awarded for services to the creative economy, which downplays the significance and influence of his work over the last four decades. From defining the UK government’s leading climate reduction strategy 25 years ago to running Nesta and building a lexicon and discipline around social innovation to funds management and investment to publishing book after book after book. I spent a lot of time engaging with Geoff’s thinking and work back in my own social innovation days and what he did and delivered with Nesta was and remains a lighthouse of practice and ambition I still pursue and apply on a daily basis. Beyond the roles and achievements, Geoff describes himself as someone who’s curious about how the world works and works to improve it. Geoff’s breadth of expertise and the significance of the roles he’s had gives him what I think is a legitimate and timely perspective on what seems to be the most pressing need our society faces - re-aligning the value drivers, incentives and ultimately actions of what he calls the poetry, prose and plumbing of how our world works. As I said at the top, what isn’t a wicked problem and progressively degrading issue at the moment? The thread is us, the structures and systems we engage in everyday, the mis-alignment of incentives, of timeframes, and ultimately, an inability to imagine better futures where we feel like we are acting as custodians in a chain of time. We cover everything from collective intelligence to a digital right to truth, what good strategy is and how connecting to a deeper meaning of existence is a necessary component of addressing everything, everywhere all at once. Support for the show comes from: Reposit Power - get $500 off your installationFor all things Finding Nature, check us out.  Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 12m
  2. Steve Martin on How Influence Works and Change Really Happens

    3 MAR

    Steve Martin on How Influence Works and Change Really Happens

    Steve Martin is one of the world’s foremost experts on influence, persuasion and how change happens. Maybe I could have just read his research and books and acted on them instead of this elaborate rous, but that wouldn’t have been as fun. Steve’s books have sold over 1.5 million copies, he’s a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller and his work has been featured in publications like the Harvard Business Review, Financial Times and New York Times. He’s a titan in the field of behavioural science where he is a Visiting Professor at Colombia University and guest lecturer at the London School of Economics and Harvard. At a time when much change is needed - from action on climate change to mens attitudes to women to systems of democratic governance - Steve’s expertise is invaluable. I’ve come to believe that the role of the sustainability manager is first and foremost chief influencer. Knowledge and expertise on the array of topics our work attempts to address is a necessity to get in the door for a role in the first place - well, it should be anyway. Beyond the subject matter expertise though lies applying its relevance in myriad organisational contexts is what leads to value creation. To work out not only the idea and put it in a powerpoint with some graphs and figures and tables, but then to smooth the way with other people to bring it to life. Sounds so simple in practice, but as I’m sure every person listening out there knows, it rarely goes that way. Steve’s work has shone a light on the well meaning but ultimately flawed approaches I’ve taken to change management - and of course they are, I've never been trained in change management, in influence, in stakeholder management. But when it’s the most vital part of my job, and likely yours too, where do we turn to for expertise? Well, Steve is about the best in the world at helping us all to start building this capability. We cover lots in this chat - from the vocabulary of influence, persuasion and change, to examples from his life where tactics have been successful, the limitations of nudging for real change, communicating in an information saturated environment and probably the most valuable insight I took from his work - that to encourage change in others is ultimately a request to give something up, to lose something, and how our perception of loss and aversion to sacrifice are enormous blockers in the pursuit of the outcomes we’re looking for either as individuals on a daily basis through to large organisations with the power and prestige to make a real difference. Support for the show comes from: Reposit Power - get $500 off your installationFor all things Finding Nature, check us out.  Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 21m
  3. Providing Sanctuary - Nicole Yade On Supporting Women During Australia's Men's Violence Perpetration Crisis

    24 FEB

    Providing Sanctuary - Nicole Yade On Supporting Women During Australia's Men's Violence Perpetration Crisis

    Today’s guest is Nicole Yade and this episode is about another crisis in Australia - the perpetration of violence, abuse and coercion by men towards women. Nicole is the CEO of the Women’s and Girls Emergency Centre - a literal refuge for those getting away from dangerous and hostile home environments in search of support, safety and sanctuary. The statistics and situation for what girls and women experience in their homes from their partners, fathers, brothers and other loved ones is shocking and sickening. In this country 1 in 4 girls and women over 15 have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner. A woman is killed every five days by a partner in this country. And unless it’s a very concentrated group of men who are committing this across multiple relationships, it’s fair to assume the rate of men perpetrating this violence is high too. I spent six months working on a large corporates domestic violence and financial abuse strategy back in 2018, and to this day remains the most harrowing professional experience that I’ve had. Nicole does this everyday, as does her team and as do hundreds and thousands of other people - mostly women - to offer the abused and coerced and traumatised support in a society that chronically under funds appropriate responses and simple refuses to undertake common sense and necessary reforms. Just from this one conversation it was entirely apparent how remarkable Nicole is, not only for the work she does, yet that is a large part of it, but for her own story, her own life transitions and the way she has supported those traumatised by violence over her 30 year career. We cover a lot in this conversation, and I think it’s essential listening. Women probably don’t need to hear much of what Nicole shares here, but men do. I know there a lot of good men out there who listen to this, and my ask with this episode is to get through it despite the awkwardness, the discomfort or because of a ‘it’s not me’ perpetrating violence. To heal men and to drastically reduce the harms our gender is responsible for, we need you, we need more men to hear Nicole, to hear her story and to take up a baton of responsibility to not just know about the problem but to do something about it in our lives. Responsibility starts and ends with us, each of us everyday. What’s been attempted and what governments are offering is inadequate, and I think it’s our duty to step up and do more where we can and how we can to make a difference. Support for the show comes from: Reposit Power - get $500 off your installationAltiorem - get 25% off your annual subscription with code findingnature25Jamberoo Mountain Farm Tiny Home - get Hot Tub Sunset Package for free when you add Finding Nature to booking comments.Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 45m
  4. Without Reality It Falls To Pieces - Nina Jankowicz On The Path From Disinformation To Autocracy

    17 FEB

    Without Reality It Falls To Pieces - Nina Jankowicz On The Path From Disinformation To Autocracy

    Hi out there, how goes it? My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and welcome to the finding nature podcast. Today is a huge episode and one I’ve been excited to share with this audience for months. Nina Jankowicz is one of the world’s leading authorities on disinformation and democratisation - and what a time to be having this conversation. Nina was recently in Australia and after having the privilege to speak with her for the first time in 2024 getting to do so again was a thrill. Nina’s own career charts well beyond this moment of political, social, moral and cultural crisis we seem happy to slip further and further into. As a Fulbright Scholar her work and research focussed on how Russia organised and deployed mis and disinformation across many parts of Europe through the late 2000s and early 2010s, before undertaking a huge operation in the lead up to the 2016 US election. Her first book - How to Lose The Information War is both one of the best and worst books I’ve ever read - I no longer see the world the same way having read it - simply, it pierced the trust and confidence I had in what was real. And when everything could be fake to me, and when everything could be fake to you, and my truth is this and your truth is that, how do we do anything together? At a time when we’re bombarded with the impacts of simultaneous crises occurring now, how are we meant to address any of them if none of us have a shared set of facts and a common understanding of reality? The answer - what’s happening here and around the world every day. It’s hard not to feel dispirited about a tonne of different issues and challenges right now. Both here in Australia where mainstream media institutions seem intent on platforming anti-reality and far right politicians on a daily basis, where protest has been met with unprecedented police violence, where coal mines keep getting approved, and to where a lot of this chat focuses - the USA, which is difficult to comprehend and sad to observe from afar. Nina is a valiant. Courageous and wise beyond her years. What she knows, we all need to know. Links to check out and support Nina's work: American Sunlight ProjectThe Wayfinder - Nina's SubstackAmerican Sunlight Project SubstackHow to Lose The Information War - Russia, Fake News, and the Future of ConflictHow to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment and How to Fight BackSupport for the show comes from: Reposit Power - get $500 off your installationAltiorem - get 25% off your annual subscription with code findingnature25Jamberoo Mountain Farm Tiny Home - get Hot Tub Sunset Package for free when you add Finding Nature to booking comments.Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 49m
  5. Quit Now - Dr Nick Talley On How All Our Lives Depend On It

    10 FEB

    Quit Now - Dr Nick Talley On How All Our Lives Depend On It

    Now imagine receiving a life threatening health diagnosis and not only ignoring it, but speeding up the underlying causes and drivers of what’s making you unwell in the first place? Or imagine subsiding a product with public money that everyone everywhere knows contributes to and worsens that life threatening health diagnosis? Can you imagine getting that diagnosis from 97 to 99% of the doctors on earth and hoping it just works itself out? Well you don’t need to imagine it, do you? We’re doing it - our society - be that the deniers, the stagnant political class, or just all of us as one inter-connected species. 202 years after the greenhouse cycle was first discovered, 170 years after its existence was categorically proven, the first warming scenarios presented 130 years ago, the knowledge of and momentum around understanding the science and impacts of a changing climate only increase. But like the addict committed to just one more hit, here we are - next time, next week, next year. Record emissions, 2025 as the third hottest year on record, the seventh of nine planetary boundary passed. The statistics are extensive and grim. On the show is someone who knows more about the scientific process than just about everybody else in this country and understands deeply the effects of a changing climate on our health - Doctor Nicholas Talley. Nick Talley is a gastroenterologist who’s published more than 1,000 scientific papers over the course of his remarkable career, being part of the pioneering group of experts globally who have sought to understand the complex yet magical world of the human microbiome - our gut health. Nick’s not on the show to chat too much about gut health but is here to speak in his capacity as Chair of Doctors for the Environment Australia - the DEA. For more than 20 years Nick has applied his masterly intellect to better understanding the science of climate change and its effects and risks to the human body and its health systems. Doctors and medical professionals played a critical role in dispelling the many deleterious risks of smoking, many forms of toxic and poisonous chemicals, and products like asbestos, and thousands of doctors here in Australia and around the world have turned their attention to carbon molecules and plastics. Through the medical fraternity - and their individual and collective commitment to doing no harm - a path of potential climate action may be more productive than many others. Taking lessons from other now banned or severely restricted products, perhaps doctors offer a salvation of irrefutable evidence in the battle against the fossil fuel lobby and their commitment to mis and disinformation about their product. What struck me is the commonality between the human health system and our microbiome and that of the world of climate science, climate change and its myriad risks and impacts. A common sense, first principles perspective offers us as individuals and a society a clear path of action - three meals a day with plenty of fresh produce, movement and enough sleep to the act of restricting fossil fuel industry expansion and ultimately hospicing the industry, supporting the transition of affected communities and ending the subsidies they receive ASAP. Maybe it doesn’t need to be as complicated as it always seems to be? Support comes from: Reposit Power - $500 off your installationAltiorem - 25% off your annual subscription with code FINDINGNATURE25Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 16m
  6. Intelligence Systems And Threat Assessment - Miah Hammond-Errey On The Confluence of Chaos, Calamity And Conflict

    3 FEB

    Intelligence Systems And Threat Assessment - Miah Hammond-Errey On The Confluence of Chaos, Calamity And Conflict

    Something I’ve been mulling over a lot the past couple months is this last point - what do we do if we can’t relate to each other? What if our information systems are fundamentally different on a person to person basis? What do we do without a shared set of facts and sense of reality by which to agree upon and then work to address any issue or challenge of concern? To help me better explore this is today’s guest, Miah Hammond-Errey. Miah is an expert in national security, emerging technology and leadership and has built a career to date in the investigation of how intelligence is collected, made sense of and used in decision making in high stakes environments. I wanted to chat with Miah to understand how the best in business do this and how that applies to me and the Finding Nature community to help us all chart a course through mis and disinformation, an overwhelming information and data system, and what do we all need to do more of to focus on the signal and shut out the noise. Miah’s work is not only vital but accessible for the lay person like me, and her podcast, the Technology and Security Podcast is a fantastic examination of how a world that most of relate to through pop culture like movies and books operates on a day to day basis. Bringing fact to dispel the myths helped me appreciate again the necessity for how we can all do a better job of taking the time to remember that all of us are essentially allies on the same team, that being in right relationship is a fundamental necessity to maintain a stable society, and the consequences of what happens when we don’t invest in taking the time and putting in the effort to be curious, open and non-judgemental in trying to appreciate and understand the views and opinions of others - especially those we don’t agree with. We cover plenty in this chat, so settle in and prepare to be further educated on how intelligence agencies and systems apply age-old principles of sense making, how new technology is changing the intelligence game, the already present and future threats to nation states and individuals in this new digital age, and what we can and probably must do to play an active role in shaping the information, privacy and digital landscapes we are all participants in. Support for the show comes from: Reposit Power - get $500 off your installationAltiorem - get 25% off your annual subscription with code findingnature25Jamberoo Mountain Farm Tiny Home - get Hot Tub Sunset Package for free when you add Finding Nature to booking comments.For everything Finding Nature, head to our website.  Get in contact via info@findingnature.com.au Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 46m
  7. Strength in Unity - Reece Proudfoot on Regeneration, Language and Making What's Coming Next

    27 JAN

    Strength in Unity - Reece Proudfoot on Regeneration, Language and Making What's Coming Next

    Today’s guest is Reece Proudfoot, a co-founder and director at Regen Labs. I’ve known Reece for nearly a decade - and he’s always struck me as someone at the forefront of attempting to organise and reform systems and structures. Across his career in campaigning, not for profit innovation and now at Regen Labs, Reece is someone who believes deeply in the power and potential of collectives of caring, passionate people who are given enough form and structure to identify and grow the opportunities and approaches they want in their lives to allow for them to flourish. It’s challenging work, but at a time when it’s easier to throw stones and detach from others, being the glue that binds is essential. I wanted to chat with Reece because as someone who’s been in and around sustainability for two decades I’m sick and tired of seeing more of the same. More reports, more frameworks, more ESG data platforms, the seemingly forever need for more data to get on with action. Reece over his career and now at Regen Labs is not interested in talking about what’s needed, but finding and surfacing those who are doing it differently. Who are balancing and delivering organisations and economies that seek to contemplate and pay regard to decent and meaningful work, ecological restoration while contributing to society and being a part of something local. It’s hard enough trying to start and run a business in this country - 20% of small businesses fail in their first year and that number rises to 60% over the life of the first five years. Entrepreneurship and innovation are precarious occupations, far from the domain of where most sustainability rhetoric and expectations emanate - large corporates with established products, capital, customers and brands. Regen Labs is seeking to support and lift up the economies of regional places - doing real work with real people in real places for real outcomes. Definitely not easy, far more challenging then the cycles of ESG disclosures and rhythms of planning and thinking about all the work that could get done. I loved this conversation. What I wanted was the inspiration for how it can be different, and Reece gave me that. From the necessity of courage in action - beyond the hollowness of hope in words - to the protocols and methods he and the team work with and offer real help to people and places to evolve and contribute in ways that are necessary and valuable to them. We get into the necessity for faith, patience, tolerance, humility and service. How building connections and bridging divide is possible and what rewards lay on the other side of trying to and actually delivering tangible experiences and optimism for those looking to not read about or think about being the change, but doing it themselves. Support for the show comes from: Reposit Power - get $500 off your installationAltiorem - get 25% off your annual subscription with code findingnature25Jamberoo Mountain Farm Tiny Home - get Hot Tub Sunset Package for free when you add Finding Nature to booking comments.For everything Finding Nature, head to our website.  Get in contact via info@findingnature.com.au Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 27m
  8. State of Inertia - Iain Walker On The Necessity For New Democracy

    20 JAN

    State of Inertia - Iain Walker On The Necessity For New Democracy

    On the show today is Iain Walker, Executive Director at the newDemocracy Foundation, a Sydney-based organisation that works to develop and deliver alternative decision making processes and outcomes that aim to uphold Australia’s and other nations healthy functioning. I’m coming to appreciate that how we relate to each other - or maybe more appropriately how we don’t relate to each other - is one of the most substantial issues this country and many other nations face in not only upholding civil order and long held societal norms, but what are we to do if we can’t come together to participate in ways to address issues both large and small? From local issues around housing supply and planning decisions, to structural shifts like the energy transition, in the organisations that we work in and are trying to evolve some sustainability practice and outcome, to the infamous family get togethers where fear of conflict and tension seems pernicious? If there is just one common theme from doing 100 episodes of this show, it’s that there is a major bottle neck in our democratic system that is holding back the evolution and reform of Australia’s policy settings - from health and housing to climate and environmental protection, gender-based violence and how to regulate artificial intelligence. There’s no doubt there is a growing frustration and despair in the inertia at a system many have lost faith in. Iain’s work for more than 15 years has centred on exactly this - how can deliberative processes create the space to have more rational, respectful and reasonable dialogues on how to make decisions? We cover a fair bit in this chat - from his diagnosis of why inertia now seems the status quo, his stories and evidence of how citizens assemblies drive change, the reasons politicians do and don’t appreciate the idea of these seemingly complimentary structures, and what all of us can do to play an active role in our democracy beyond voting and scrolling through soundbites and election promises. Democracy, trust and having a sense of agency in the society that you live are some of the most vital aspects required to maintain a healthy, functioning group of people, and Iain is someone we can all learn from to protect and promote each of them.  Support for this show comes from Altiorem. Use code findingnature25 to get 25% off your annual plan.  Everything Finding Nature is on our website. Follow on Humanitix, LinkedIn, Instagram and Substack. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 46m
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4.6
out of 5
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About

Find inspiration and guidance for the change you want to create and learn how others have achieved it in their life and work in pursuit of a more just, safe and healthier future. Nourishment for the change making class.

Information

  • Creator
    Nathan Robertson-Ball
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    107
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Finding Nature
  • Show Website
    Finding Nature

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