Finding Nature

Nathan Robertson-Ball

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. Defiance And Discomfort - Bob Brown On Life Outside The Orthodoxy

    3D AGO

    Defiance And Discomfort - Bob Brown On Life Outside The Orthodoxy

    This week’s guest is an icon of Australia’s environmental movement and someone I was both thrilled and daunted getting to spend some time with recently. Bob Brown is on the show and he is someone who needs little introduction. Politician, environmentalist, doctor, activist - few in this country have done as much to protect and preserve wild places, to advocate for same sex rights and challenge political orthodoxy over the last 50 years. Bob is a legend to me. He entered my consciousness in high school modern history along with Jack Mundy and their respective campaigns to prevent the damming of the Franklin River in the 1980s and the Green Bans in Sydney in the late 1970s respectively. Both represented efforts to avoid the destruction of natural beauty and cultural heritage. At the time of my schooling, Bob was a Senator in the Australian Parliament and leader of the Greens Party. His writings and speeches spoke to me - a kid who grew up confused by ecological destruction and determined to play a role in the injustice of human behaviour on landscape and other species. When the opportunity to chat with Bob came up and even though he only had 30 minutes, I had to say yes. If this endeavour has taught me anything, it’s to say yes to what is daunting as on the other side of that fear and insecurity lies an experience both memorable and meaningful. Meeting one of my heroes was exactly that. We chat about Bob’s latest book - Defiance - as well as his history activating others, interrupting the US President in the Australian Parliament and what the campaign to save the Franklin Dam and what seemed like a near-hopeless effort teaches us in this moment. So Bob Brown. This was an honour that I know will stay with me for a long time. I hope it resonates with you too. Support for today's show comes from Altiorem - use code FindingNature25 for 25% off an annual plan. Support for today's show comes from Jamberoo Mountain Tiny Home - add Finding Nature to the comments in your booking to receive the hot tub sunset package added for free.  Thanks to Leah Mazzone for website, brand and social media assets and Rob Rogers for theme song.  For all things Finding Nature, go to our website.  Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    39 min
  2. A Love of Life - Amanda Sturgeon Is Making The Wild Available

    DEC 2

    A Love of Life - Amanda Sturgeon Is Making The Wild Available

    Welcome to or welcome back to the Finding Nature podcast. My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and this is my show where each week I go longer form with the people who are on the vanguard of driving and delivering work that matters in pursuit of safer, healthier and more just futures. This show is about examining and exploring our inner nature, our relationships to others and our place in the world as custodians of the future to come and the ancestors we follow. I love getting to do this, having conversations with and learning from brilliant people every week, and sharing their stories and successes, mindsets and mistakes as part of our collective desire to be the change we want to see in the world. Amanda Sturgeon is today’s guest. She is the CEO of the Biomimicry Institute, as well as a Ted speaker, book author and one of the world’s foremost experts and practitioners on biophilic design and biomimicry. Amanda describes her mission as to connect people with nature, and over the course of her career as an architect and then as the CEO of multiple not-for-profit organisations looking to scale the integration of nature and natural systems into the urban landscape, she has and continues to grow her influence and the impact of her work. It’s easy to talk about ideas and concepts like natural capital or circularity, and the proliferation of reports and talks and consulting services offering to help you and whoever else will listen how their latest series of boxes and arrows and speculative economic forecasts are a panacea to environmental degradation and offer commercial booms. I’m not opposed to legitimate win-win propositions, and today Amanda and I get into the deep scientific and R&D processes that are often needed to re-define or even revolutionise an entire supply chain - from fashion to building materials to how we organise systems of collaboration and information sharing. The work required to re-naturalise assets, communities and entire regions doesn’t sit on the pages of documents but in the real and challenging work of investigation, applying the scientific method and the process of bringing a new technology to market. Amanda and I talk at length about that today and the enormous source of inspiration and wisdom the non human world holds for how we live, and what’s possible if we appreciate nature as both guide and teacher. We cover a lot of ground in this chat, from Amanda’s quest in her early 20s to explore Australia and the profound effects that’s had on her life since, the remarkable breakthroughs that are possible when we learn from nature’s three plus billion years of evolution, the emerging ecosystem of investment in biophilic design and how all of us need and benefit from re-connecting with nature, each other and ourselves. Amanda’s work fundamentally is about encouraging us to appreciate our place in the world, our relationships to others and the ways we want to live and be. I hope you enjoy the conversation. Support for today's show comes from Altiorem - use code FindingNature25 for 25% off an annual plan. Support for today's show comes from Jamberoo Mountain Tiny Home - add Finding Nature to the comments in your booking to receive the hot tub sunset package added for free.  Thanks to Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 31m
  3. Art and Science - James O’Hanlon Looks For What Mother Nature Hides

    NOV 25

    Art and Science - James O’Hanlon Looks For What Mother Nature Hides

    Today on the show is James O’Hanlon, an author, artist and scientist whose career includes painting building-scale murals, several kids stories and now multiple fascinating and fun adult books. His latest book Liars, Cheats and Copycats; Trickery and Deception in Nature is one mind blowing story after another of how species above and under water are able to camouflage, hide, mimic and dazzle others, including humans. From the extraordinary ways by which cephalopods can change colour at the speed of their thought to the role of tone and photoreceptors that keep tigers out of sight to their prey, to the feather legged assassin bug that dupes and consumes insects on tree trunks. This book is a story of awe, wonder and the remarkable nature of nature that is always all around us. In this episode we chat about those and many more incredible species, but also the mechanics and dynamics that enable camouflage - from the difference in species photoreceptors and the extent of their eye sight, the evolutionary history of species to be where we are now, spiders and why our cultural fear of a species that no-one has died from in Australia since the 1970s is so persistent, as well as his experience as artist and science communicator. All of us out there are interested in creating change and telling better stories, and James’ perspective on his own approach and the way by which his artistry meets the rigours and robustness of the scientific method is unique. Support for today's show comes from Altiorem - use code FindingNature25 for 25% off an annual plan. Support for today's show comes from Jamberoo Mountain Tiny Home - add Finding Nature to the comments in your booking to receive the hot tub sunset package added for free.  Thanks to Leah Mazzone for website, brand and social media assets and Rob Rogers for theme song.  For all things Finding Nature, go to our website Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 30m
  4. Why Things Feel F*cked - Andrew Sloan Will Help You Get Unstuck

    NOV 18

    Why Things Feel F*cked - Andrew Sloan Will Help You Get Unstuck

    I’ve learnt the hard way over the years that I need help. And not just help in a way that lightens my to do list or makes things slightly easier on a day to day basis, but the help from those around me in being able to withstand the part terrifying part invigorating approach to re-building my life over the last three years. From holding me when I needed support to sharing insights about my behaviour I couldn’t see to being of service and supporting this enterprise in ways large and small, I know that I need help, and usually much more than I realise. And in a day to day professional context working on climate risk and the science of how the atmospheric conditions of our planet have shifted to what our species have never encountered before and all the volatility that entails, as well as being a father to a small boy and the uncertainty and fear I have as to what the future looks like, I can find it easy to slip into nihilism or cynicism. All of that is to say today’s guest, Andrew Sloan, has written the book I needed to read - Why Things Feel Fucked; Your Practical Guide to Getting Unstuck. Andrew’s personal experience as a gay man and advocate against outdated and insane conversion practices as well as his career as a psychotherapist has left him perfectly placed to combine the best tools that all of us can use to live more calm, connected and curious lives, while explaining that many of the institutional systems in place today play a huge role in our experiences when we’re languishing or despairing or overwhelmed. It not you, it’s the systems. When it’s easy to buy into the idea that it’s up to us - and us alone - to rise above the productivity trap, to always be climbing onto the next tier on the ladder of status, to be in a perpetual pursuit of doing more to be more, it can leave many of us, me included, feeling like a rat in a maze. It’s simple, be everything to everyone, all the time, and look effortless doing it. Put a sick cell onto a Petri dish with healthy cells and it becomes healthy. Put a healthy cell onto a Petri dish with sick cells, and it too becomes diseased. In Why Things Feel Fucked Andrew offers a different perspective on the reasons for how we end up feeling stuck, the science of how our nervous system is degraded by the chronic stress of all that doing and pursuing, and what we can all do - individually and together - to change our own and collective narratives for the types of lives we want to live. We chat about a million things in this conversation - his own experiences in getting stuck and the progressive process of becoming unstuck, nervous system science, institutional systems, self leadership, strengths, shame, healing, connection, fear and the components of healthy relationships. Support for today's show comes from Altiorem - use code FindingNature25 for 25% off an annual plan. Support for today's show comes from Jamberoo Mountain Tiny Home - add Finding Nature to the comments in your booking to receive the hot tub sunset package added for free.  Thanks to Leah Mazzone for website, brand and social media assets and Rob Rogers for theme song.  For all things Finding Nature, go to our website Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 45m
  5. To Be Or Not To Be - Darryl Jones Knows The Answer Is Always To Be Wilder

    NOV 11

    To Be Or Not To Be - Darryl Jones Knows The Answer Is Always To Be Wilder

    As a kid I was obsessed with two things - the Balmain Tigers rugby league team and animals. When I was about seven or eight years old I was gifted a big hardcover book with a tiger on the front cover. The book was hundreds of pages in length, covering every continent and what must have been thousands of species. Nearly 35 years later I vividly remember the look and feel and weight of this book, and I’ve got no doubt that it played a significant role in everything that’s come for me since in trying to commit my working life to ecosystem and species conservation. At university I did my best to never finish my undergrad degree, but that meant I got to enjoy moving my way through degrees - first science then education then environmental management then climate science and finally environmental economics. I got to properly study landscapes and species and what feels now like the early days of climate science. Action was needed, time was still somewhat on our side. All these years later and through this endeavour speaking to renowned scientists and environmentalists like Lesley Hughes and Macro Lambertini, I can see now that my education and everything that I’ve learnt is because of the giants who’ve come before me, before all of us. Today’s guest is one of these giants, Darryl Jones. Darryl is a behavioural ecologist - that is, someone who studies the behaviours of non human species and since the late 1970s Darryl has travelled across this continent and right around the globe to capture and record the habits and sociologies and experiences of hundreds of species. Everything that he’s seen, I can’t comprehend it. From the high Arctic to the still untouched jungles of Borneo to completing a PhD on the maligned Australian brush turkey. Darryl’s life is truly extraordinary, but very much one of the esteemed scientist - always working, always testing, always refining, almost always out of the limelight. Beyond his scientific work, Darryl is also an author and he’s on the show today to talk about his latest - Be(Wilder); Journeys In Nature. Every chapter of this book follows a different adventure and experience he’s had over the years - from avoiding charging elephants in Asia to warring birdwatchers in the US to the efforts of conservationist farmers in Australia. It’s a beautiful book, part travelogue, part behavioural ecology journal, part personal manifesto, part a-life-well lived guide. In this chat we get into different aspects of the book and its stories, his own life changing experience of spending time surveying wildlife in Sudan in the late 1970s, how he’s seen the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it ebb and flow over time, and how, after all these years, he is still powering forward carrying a message of strength with answers to our environmental crises - but more importantly, how we relate to the rest of the world as a species - must and can be shifted. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 20m
  6. Telling Stories and Changing Track - Tim and Tristan Kenyon Capture The Human Spirit

    NOV 4

    Telling Stories and Changing Track - Tim and Tristan Kenyon Capture The Human Spirit

    Today I’m joined by two film makers - Tim and Tristan Kenyon - to talk about their remarkable and emotional documentary, Changing Track. Tim and Tristan are brothers whose lives and careers to date make them unlikely track cycling Paralympic story tellers, but the film is all the better for their lack of cycling knowledge and avoidance of stereotypes of lycra men constantly checking their power output data. Changing Track follows three Paralympic athletes - Korey Boddington, Emily Petricola and Kane Perriss, plus Kane’s tandem pilot Luke Zaccaria, in their pursuit of greatness at the 2024 Paris Games. I saw the trailer for Changing Track and knew immediately I wanted to chat about it on this show as I know personally how powerful and memorable sport and athletics can be as a platform to tell stories about the human spirit and experience. I’ve been fortunate to participate in sports teams and experience glimpses into environments where elite performers perform, and have some understanding into what it takes to create something meaningful and successful. What Tim and Tristan do with Changing Track is not only a documentary about Korey, Emily and Kane’s extraordinary lives, but highlights themes of resilience, adversity, unity, camaraderie, perseverance and the indomitability of the human psyche once the heart is clear on what it wants. I also wanted to chat with Tim and Tristan about their craft and how that relates to the work of change makers. For many of us, our daily lives involve efforts to convince, influence, coerce, negotiate, compromise in pursuit of the change we want in the world - all of that requires the ability to communicate clearly and persuasively. Changing Track offered me and I think it will you the ability to re-think or refine how you go about speaking with others and the ways that you tell stories. As a story telling species, this is an essential skill. In this conversation we talk about the film itself, the extraordinary stories of regular people, the art and craft of story, Tim and Tristan’s relationship to hardship and suffering, and how all of us have and will again inevitability deal with our own serious challenges and the need to overcome. Sport isn’t for everyone, I appreciate that. What Tim and Tristan have created with Changing Track is more than a story of sport and athletic pursuit though, but one of how the human spirit can soar - yours and mine.  Get $500 off your solar battery installation with Reposit Power.  Get 25% off your annual plan with Altiorem using the code FindingNature25.  Find everything Finding Nature at findingnature.com.au and get in contact via info@findingnature.com.au  Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 19m
  7. The Cost of Not Caring - Abby Bloom On What's Required For The Fabric of a Healthy Society

    OCT 28

    The Cost of Not Caring - Abby Bloom On What's Required For The Fabric of a Healthy Society

    Today’s guest is Abby Bloom. I first met Abby in late 2017 and we’ve stayed in close contact since. She’s a remarkable woman and this is her second time on the show, and we get into a lot of her backstory way back in episode three, like being among the first cohort of women at Yale University, and her work designing and implementing healthy systems and programs right around the world. When I met Abby for the first time she was talking then about the impending care, aging and health system failures we were sleep walking into - and as we’ve seen through recent reports and our daily lived experiences the structural and systemic failures in child care, gambling reform and environmental regulation - it feels like we are in the era of progressive degradation of a societal, economic and political operating system that has underpinned many of the reason why we are living for longer, which is core to Abby’s new book, The Cost of Not Caring. The Cost of Not Caring is both primer and instructional on the implications of a society where people are living for longer, and the demographic, cultural, policy and economic shifts this is driving. Abby’s career has and still spans health, government, insurance and innovation, and she’s on the show today to help diagnose the challenges associated with ageing, care and health, what that means for governments, organisation and individuals. She’s also got clarity on what’s required to shift and evolve a complex problem field that requires an injection of bold leadership, new practices and a compelling narrative to galvanise a population around the value and virtue of care. And not care as a service or an experience, but something we live from and care about. In a time when the enshittification of just about everything is only matched by the forcing of de-personalised bug-filled AI into every nook and cranny, we are at risk of losing the fabric that holds and sustains the health of our society and relationships to each other. We cover heaps of ground in this chat - from her own moment of insight at her mother’s 104th birthday in New York, to the strains and stresses of care, the obligation and privilege of caring for those we love, the creaking institutional systems we all rely upon, the four requirements to age well and what we can do as individuals to support our caring efforts and look after ourselves too. Get $500 off your solar battery installation with Reposit Power.  Get 25% off your annual plan with Altiorem using the code FindingNature25.  Find everything Finding Nature at findingnature.com.au and get in contact via info@findingnature.com.au  Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 42m
  8. Making Better Decisions - Ben Newell Knows The Power and Limitations Of Our Cognition

    OCT 21

    Making Better Decisions - Ben Newell Knows The Power and Limitations Of Our Cognition

    All of us want to make better decisions, and lots of us wish the people around us would make decisions that we thought were better. Imagine being able to do this just by understanding the mechanics and mechanisms of our cognition, by re-organinising how information is presented or communicated to improve engagement or action. Cognitive science and behavioural economics has gone through a huge increase in popularity over the last decade, and while it’s been used to tremendous success in contexts like social media and across broader digital experiences, today’s guest - Ben Newell - has been seeking to take his decades of experience as one f the country’s most credential cognitive psychologists and apply it to support meaningful and effective action on climate change. Ben Newell is Professor of Behavioural Science in the School of Psychology at the University of New South Wales, and is also the Director of the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response (ICRR). His research focuses on the cognitive processes underlying judgment, choice and decision-making and the application of this knowledge to environmental, medical, financial and forensic contexts. I’ve wanted to get Ben on for a while so that I could also understand the secrets to mind reading, idea inception and cutting through the seemingly interminable effort of trying to convince people to play a role in creating a safer, healthier and more just world. This was a fascinating conversation - getting into the details of how we make decisions, how our brains make sense of cues and create perceptions that determine judgements, and how variable the process of making and presenting choices is on an everyday basis. We also talk about the ICRR, the vital work this institute is doing as a model we can all learn from, his lessons from working on climate change over the last decade as well as clear advice on how to think about and aim for convincing and influencing others. Check out the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk and Response and Ben's work. Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix. Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Reposit Power. Head to repositpower.com/findingnatureto get $500 off your No Bill system installation. Today's show is delivered with Regenerate Talent. Reference Finding Nature for 10% off their career advisory support program. Today's show is delivered with Econome. Reference Finding Nature for 10% off their climate stream and seed programs. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    1h 44m
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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 - 2025
  • Episodes
    94
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Finding Nature
  • Show Website
    Finding Nature

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