Wild Hope: An Unexpected Odyssey, with Claire Scobie

Claire Scobie was a successful professional at the top of her game - award-winning author and journalist, and founder of Wordstruck, a narrative-based consultancy working with prominent companies globally – when a single moment cracked something open, and she found herself in a ‘devastated place’. There began the deeply personal odyssey told in her new book Wild Hope: Stories of living and leading in uncertain times.

The blurb reads:

As old certainties fall away, Claire and her husband move to Gumbaynggirr Country on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, where he is from. From there she meets filmmakers, farmers, CEOs, Elders and shopkeepers everywhere who are asking, what now? 

From the push to make rivers swimmable again, to people-owned power, and children speaking Gumbaynggirr in a Coffs Harbour school hall as if the language never left, she learns what happens when people stop waiting for perfect solutions. Together, they are living proof that, beneath the radar, thousands of people and communities are changing things from the ground up.

And that’s not the half of what Claire found along the way, as she and her husband, prominent Gumbaynggirr man and former Australian Senator, Aden Ridgeway, unexpectedly found themselves entwined in this journey together, back on Aden’s Country, striving to understand what lies at the heart of regeneration. 

If you’d like to go straight to a particular part of our conversation, you can navigate via the chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 19 August 2026.

You can pre-order the book now, with a 20% discount direct from NewSouth books.

Launch events and other info.

Claire’s Substack. Including a piece she wrote about our conversation.

Music: 

Desert Horizon, by Nolan Nova (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Transcript

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Meet Claire And The Book

Claire 0:02

We'd often drive at night, and there was this moment when I noticed that there was something that had shifted, and it was almost like I describe it as a like a change in pressure, like someone changing a valve. And I turned to Aidan and I said, I said oh, I felt something changed, and he just said simply, we're on country now.

AJ 0:39

G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, featuring the stories that are changing the story, enabling the regeneration of this living planet. Claire Scobie was a successful professional at the top of her game, award-winning author and journalist, and founder of WordStruck, a consultancy working with prominent companies globally, when a single moment cracked something open, and she found herself in a devastated place. There began the deeply personal Odyssey told in her new book, Wild Hope: Stories of Living and Leading in Uncertain Times. The blurb reads: As old certainties fall away, Claire and her husband move to Gumbaynggir Country on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, where he is from. From there, she meets filmmakers, farmers, CEOs, elders, and shopkeepers everywhere who are asking, what now? From the push to make rivers swimmable again to people-owned power and children speaking Gumbania in a Coffs Harbour school hall as if the language never left. Claire learns what happens when people stop waiting for perfect solutions. Together, they are living proof that beneath the radar, thousands of people and communities are changing things from the ground up. And that's not the half of what Claire found along the way, as she and her husband, prominent Gumbaynggir man and former Australian Senator Aidan Ridgway, unexpectedly found themselves entwined in this journey together. Back on Aiden's country, striving to understand what lies at the heart of regeneration. Claire joins me from back home in Sydney. G'day, Claire. It's great to speak to you again. Hi.

Claire 2:25

Hi, lovely to see you again.

AJ 2:27

How are you going?

Claire 2:28

I'm really well.

AJ 2:29

We spoke a few years ago for the book, which you've now got and you've got a handy product placement behind you. I see. I do. Well done.

Claire 2:36

Yes. I've been I'm being very bossily guided, if there's a word by my friends who keep telling me I have to do things. And the latest one was, you need a banner. It's like, no, I don't need a banner. You need a banner. Okay, so I'm running to office work, it's getting the banner, getting the banner set up. So yes, thanks for noticing, AJ.

AJ 2:58

Yes, no, it's good. No point hiding. Hey, you put all the the work in.

Claire 3:02

Yes.

AJ 3:02

Speaking of the book, then, from our conversation a few years ago, the title nearly spawned, but it was pipped at the post.

Naming Hope Without Denial

AJ 3:10

Let's lead off with that. What's the story of the title?

Claire 3:12

So, as you know, you inspired my original title. So, for listeners, I interviewed many extraordinary people leading the regeneration, including Anthony James of the podcast. And you said this line to me about it doesn't matter what we get right, if we get transport right, we'll still be up the creek. If we get uh renewable energy right, we'll still be up the creek. It's all about living, functioning ecosystem. And I loved that line, up the creek. I'm really lousy at titles. My husband Aidan is much better, and I always bribe my family to help me with book titles. And he actually came up with Up the Shit Without a Creek.

AJ 4:06

We were getting better. What happened?

Claire 4:08

Well, exactly. So for a long time it was that. Then it became Up the Creek. The publisher said, Okay, up the Creek. So I wrote the book with that in mind. And in the copy edit, in fact, it happened before the copy edit. So the publisher read the manuscript late last year, and she said, Claire, this is a really positive book. It's really uplifting. There's a beautiful arc. And I want people to know that as soon as they pick it up. I want them to feel hope and a sense of optimism. And the title, we're worried about the title. And I humped and, you know, stamped my feet a bit because I really loved the title. I went away, came up with a million titles, it seemed, including World Hope, and they loved it. And then I fought it because two reasons, AJ. One is I was concerned that I didn't want to be too hopeful because we know what we're up against. And the second reason was because I'm an author and it's really hard to kill your darlings as an author. And if you've got very attached to some words, it's hard to let them go. But as I was going through the copy edit, I realized actually, this is what the book is about. It's about all these extraordinary people around the world, in Australia, in the UK, who are building a new future. They have that sense of wildness. They're not waiting for permission. They're thinking about the living world around us. And they also have a sense of hope. And it's not a Pollyanna-ish hope. It's a this is realistic and we can still be optimistic. And together, I reckon a really radical act right now is maintaining hope.

AJ 5:54

That's so interesting. I my wife will be laughing right now because I go to her for title advice on every single episode. So I relate to your process in her cases every week, poor thing. But anyway. But I've also been accused of being Pollyanna. So it's it's actually fascinating to hear what you just said. And, you know, it reminds me of Kel Flynn, a Scottish guest I had on maybe a month ago, who'd written a book called The Savage Landscape, How We Made the Wilderness, something like that. Anyway, she she was accused of the same thing after her journeys by her friends, by friends, even people she, you know, is close to. And I brought that up and she laughed because she said, Yeah, my if the if there's any reason why I've gone to sort of um some of the uh would be apocalyptic places over my journey and then been surprised by the regeneration there. But if there's any reason I've gone there, it's because of my melancholic disposition. And yet she came out getting accused of being polyanuist. So it says something, no, about the reality. This this this is real hope.

Claire 7:03

Yes, it does. And it also I really related to that interview with Cal, actually. I listened to it, it was a fantastic interview, and I would say, and I think Aidan, my husband, would agree, I'm more of a glass half-empty person by disposition. And certainly at the start of the book, I was in a devastated place. We can talk about why that was, but and yet through the book, through meeting all of these people, through hearing what's already happening under the radar in communities around the world, it's like I've been regenerated. It's cooked me in a positive way, it's marinated me, and I've come through with that sense, new sense of hopefulness. And and sometimes we can't even see it. It's almost like we have to get out of our own way to feel it and to own it and to be okay and say, for what everyone's saying, there is still there is absolutely hope is everywhere. And let's throw some wildness in, because that's the fun and the joy and the zesty and the and the maverick in there too.

AJ 8:20

Yeah, and I would add, I mean, per my old mentor, really, who he uh he had what became a famous saying, uh save the wilderness within. And and then his sort of his adjunct to that was not to not wilderness as in anger or rage, but wilderness as in being unexpected, not being a machine, you know, in this age of AI. Uh it's sort of more acute what he was and and uh apparent what he was talking about. It's to just don't be the machine yourself. That that's the task. And so as a teacher, as a professor, he was saying the more unpredictable you become to me out of whatever we do together, the better. Don't don't assume what I who I am and what I do. So wildness in that sense too, in the unexpected, and you found so much of that on your journey, that was so inherent to your journey too, and was so amazing to read. You didn't expect to find this hope.

Claire 9:25

No, that's true, and I loved your quote actually from your mentor, and I was trying to find ways to weave it in because it it it is that sense of the unexpected and the the the what's really within us.

AJ 9:41

Yeah, that's it.

Claire 9:41

So yeah, so that's that sense too. So there were so many unexpected things to start with the fact that regeneration is happening all around us in places that most of us aren't looking. People on your podcast are, and you're very aware of them, but that is unexpected, it's not what we see or hear on the nightly news. No, then very much the surprise around how personal the book became. And I didn't expect that. And lastly, I'd say the the incredible work that's happening to reimagine what our futures can actually look like. People have been doing it for decades and we're all at different stages. So the unexpected is also saying, if you don't know where to start, just start where you are because that's wild in itself. Just saying not asking for mission for permission.

AJ 10:48

Even waiting for funding. I remember Tyson Younger Porter saying that if you're getting funding, it's not it. Which of course isn't absolute, but yes, to your point though. And you talk about the personal, obviously, I found similar. And when you go through a journey like yours, it's almost of course it, of course it is. And that becomes more, of course, it is the more this podcast goes on, even uh as you heard with Cal, obviously, as a case in point two, we're tracing the ancestry that had uh overlaps here. But let's backtrack a little bit to what you alluded to briefly before around your that moment that triggered this whole thing.

The Extinction That Broke Denial

AJ 11:26

That was a despairing moment. And I I guess give us a little overview of the journey back to where your surprise. Like how how did it evolve from this utter heartbreak moment through to that?

Claire 11:40

So 2019, I was living a bit of the high life, I think. It's fair to say. I thought, oh, this is it. I'm I'm being sent to Hong Kong. Well, I created the opportunity through my business, but I was running this big strategic storytelling workshop for a client there who I really connected with. And I was doing all I could, I'll be honest, to not think about what was happening to the state of the world. So I was in active denial. I understand now. I didn't understand it at the time. And sitting on the plane, about to fly back to Sydney, doom scrolling, as you do on the news feed, and I suddenly came across this story about the Bramble K Melamis, which is a tiny little marsupial that for who knows how long had lived on the Torres Strait, on a tiny coral K off the Torres Strait, and it had vanished. And it didn't vanish without anyone knowing. Scientists had been going there for several years because they knew the numbers were dwindling, and they'd set out a lot of cameras and trying to find it, and and it had been probably washed away because of rising sea levels. And I remember reading this, and there was this one line in the article, and it said, This was our responsibility, and we failed. And it was like that was spoken to me as I read it, and I thought, yes, my species, humans, are responsible for this. I am responsible for this. And it what's different about this particular extinction, because sadly we know there are many, is that this was seen as the first human-induced extinction because of climate change. And to this day, I don't know why it touched me like it did, but before I knew it, I was in tears, and the rest of the plane trip back was a blur. Aidan, my husband, met me at the airport. Initially he looked quite concerned until I started to explain why, and then he looked confused. And when I was still talking about the Bramble K Melamis, which in all truth is a little rodent, it's not a furry koala, it's not something that people think, oh, that's cute. This is a critter. And when I'm still talking about it 48 hours later, he's sort of said something like, pull yourself together. But I couldn't let it go because the mantra kept going through my head, what will be next? Who will be next? And there was something in that that broke me open. And all these things that I'd probably kept at bay, it was the same time as Greta Thunberg talking to the UN, there were the school strikes, so there was this whole wave of movement and activism out in the world, and it was like what happened in me met that. And then I went into a bit of a whole climate of dis despair, and then the bushfires happened. So there was a lot of compounding, compounding elements to it, and it was one of those moments about a year later. By this time we'd moved up the coast to where Aidan's from, about six hours north of Sydney, and I was awake at 3 a.m. I walked out of the house, stood on the grass, and it was one of those moments, and you might have had it when you just look up for answers. You just say, What can I do here? I turned to Google, and I started Googling and started looking for what other people were saying, and I came across this phrase called be a gorilla gardener. And so metaphorically, just start where you are, and it included the word regenerative and regeneration, and that's what led me on the path, which has eventually become the stories of wild hope.

AJ 16:09

Wow. You talk about active denial and that we knew it, like it's a microcosm of a whole. We know, like pretty much everybody knows, and we're taking it into various degrees or not. So you were a case in point, and your story, of course, is so fascinating for that. It's also instructive for me, and I think it's partly where we'll go in this conversation, is to what then makes the difference for people, for us for people to take it on, to take responsibility. And you know, some of your language right there was was akin to Charlie Massey's thinking, which features in the book, of course.

Claire 16:48

Yeah.

AJ 16:48

Virginia Farmer here in Australia wrote Call of the Reed Warbler for those who are newer to the space. And he he would often use the word cracking of the carapace, or the term, you know, cracking of the carapace. And you almost said the same words there that and it came from a hit and then compounding effects as you described it. And as much as we like to, I certainly do, imagine that we don't need to be smacked across the head or have our hearts ripped out like that. To get it, in the majority of cases he found it does. I then come to think, well, we're getting those hits, aren't we? So, okay, that's the way it is. But there's a way to respond. When you crack through, you don't have to fall. There's a way to respond, and your book obviously talks a lot to that. What really stood out to me in your book was when you said you coined the nice term acophony, by the way, which I did like. Oh yes, thanks. You said you had sat on the sidelines for too long as a writer, and this is someone, an established writer, and with this career work on the side, working with companies and narrative and so forth, a a success as you had had been thinking of yourself. But not only that, someone who was concerned your journeys and your writing had been about human rights and the plight of women and all that. So you you'd not for you to say that you had sat sat on the sidelines for too long really hit me. What's the difference then when you were you were broadly a a successful, thoughtful person, but what's the difference? Why do you see that as having been on the sidelines?

Claire 18:21

So just back to echophony, yes. The ecophony was what I described as an ecstatic moment, except instead of an epiphany, it's it broke your heart. And after that, then I was in London, and it was at the set it was at the time of XR, Extinction Rebellion, it was the second big movement, and I'd gone with a friend who had been telling me about it. Again, I'd been ignoring her for the first six months of that year, and it was there sitting on wet tarpaulins, rain coursing down, helicopters above, and hearing people like Robert McFarlane or Allie Smith, uh these great writers and poets. And it was the inaugural writers for Extinction Rebellion. So it was the first time that writers had got together in this way. So that's when I realized yes, I've been sitting on the sidelines, I haven't done enough. And in general, writers haven't done enough. Amitav Ghosh talks about that really beautiful, beautifully, and he talks about how the failure to address the climate crisis is a failure of the imagination. And again, I think as writers, we maybe, well, person speaking for myself, it was something that someone else could fix, it was something out there, it wasn't my path to follow. So back to your question, Anthony, the active denial also comes from as humans, we can only take on so much. And so if you're so for many years, my focus and cause was around Tibet and human rights. And that was enough until it wasn't enough. And that's the point, I think, with what's going on with the planet and the earth and our living world, is it can feel first of all quite abstract, and first of all, and secondly, that it's not nothing we do can make a difference. But that those combination of events meant that I couldn't deny my part in it anymore.

AJ 20:50

Yeah.

Claire 20:50

Yeah. I just want to add, sorry, just there was a there was a great quote by Charles I Eisenstein, and he said something along the lines of you don't have to be working actively on the planet to make a difference. If that's not your thing, don't don't do it because you have to. And for many years I I clung to that. Oh well, he says it. He's a he's a a great thinker, and he wrote this book called Climate, the New Story, among and many others. But then you you sit with it and you go, Well, actually, this is what's calling me, and this is the biggest there isn't anything else to do right now. Yeah.

AJ 21:37

Yeah. And there's so much about your journey that was then stitching it all together to hey, and we'll we'll probably talk more about that as we go. But before we do, I want to come sort of draw two threads from what you've said so far around it becoming very personal and that you moved up to Sortel, Aiden's country.

On Country And A Shared Healing

AJ 21:55

Yeah. And it really I almost laughed when. You said it was it became very personal because to me it's akin to a love story. This book, you know, talking about the unexpected. It's I didn't expect that. And I don't know, uh perhaps you didn't either, but a beautiful love story where it this was so much his journey too. This was your journey together, very much as the way it unfolded. And from a you know, unexpected move to Sortel, partly you know, related to COVID and things having been in Sydney, but all these other turns that you've been describing. And then the unexpected that happened when you were there. That that country was so key to not only your journey but his. Could you say regeneration? Would you say that?

Claire 22:40

Uh I think he'd say regeneration now. I think he'd say renewal, maybe. So, yes, the love story is in there, and I didn't I didn't know how that would turn out in terms of writing the book. I've always been quite comfortable doing memoir, so but it's one thing to write about yourself, and it's a really different thing to write about your partner or your marriage. But going up to Sortell, which is Gumbangia country, and Aidan's a saltwater fella, we were living in his late mum's house. So it was this house that has a huge, it's like a container of memory and family and and legacy and ancestry. And we'd visited many times, I'd visited many times, but actually living there, it was a revelation for me. Because all these things that Aidan had talked about, perhaps that I had understood intellectually, I started to feel. And it was that embodiment that often needs to happen in order for deeper change to percolate and to metabolize in the body. It's that that real feeling of of going deep. So while I was going through this experience of clawing my way out of this climate hole, finding regeneration, finding the people leading this, whether it was Paul Hawkin or yourself or Damon Gamow, Rachel Ward, I started channeling my energy into talking to people. Meanwhile, Aidan was having his own experience where there was a lot of past, there was a lot of history in the house. And for both of us, we were both, I think, now processing the fact that he'd had a major heart attack about six years before. And he'd gone back to work, he'd done what we do, we just carry on. Because he was grappling with the legacy of as an Aboriginal man, um all the di all the things that go with that, the the beauty of being so connected to country and the dispossession, the intergenerational trauma, the fact that heart things like heart disease are genetic. So so those are words, but actually to see the person you really love one day just say, I I'm just gonna sit on the sofa and pull the curtains, and actually you don't know when they're gonna get up again. And he was going through burnout, and again, I didn't really have words for it, and I'm not sure he did at the time. So that journey of then coming back to life became so personal for us, and as people can read in the book, it turned out really well through much of it through his own determination to change things around and to rewire himself in so many ways. And yet there were moments when I thought I really need help, and going for that help also connected me with extraordinary humans uh who became part of the story.

AJ 26:30

There's so much about the way you both sensed your way through the story. And I think straight up about your first visit to that country that you described. I think it was your first one, wasn't it, Claire, where you you felt something really shift and you didn't know what.

Claire 26:52

Yes. So often when we drive up to Sortell, which is about six hours north of Sydney, we'd often drive at night, and there was this moment when I I noticed that there was something that had shifted, and it was almost like I describe it as a like a change in pressure, like someone sh changing a valve. And I turned to Aidan and I said I said, Oh, I felt something change, and he just said simply, we're on country now. And we'd just crossed from Dungadi country onto Gumbangia, past Yarahapni, which is the sacred mountain that marks the border. And I felt it, and I started to notice that more and more. And and again, it was something that it was in my it started to become in my bones. But living there it became more accessible almost to me. I became and it's something that I've carried through, and that's definitely one way of the deeper change.

AJ 28:04

Right. But this is so interesting because you felt it, and just by virtue of having Aidan with you, you had an explanation, as it were, that perhaps others are feeling but they don't get. Which is, you know, again it strikes me how much of a how much it's your relationship and this story together is so emblematic of of the whole, of what we all need right now. It to put it glibly, where regeneration meets reconciliation, you know, but that that's glib. But it's to connecting country with those of country for you know settler descendants like myself to be able to come alive in this way.

Claire 28:54

That's a really beautiful perspective, AJ. I hadn't seen that. And yes, you're right. Aidan voiced and gave that name and that in and of itself allowed me to keep nurturing that sense. Yeah.

AJ 29:15

Yeah.

Claire 29:16

I mean, he it's been a our partnership and our connection. There's always been this sense of the the third space, which is that spiritual, that sacred space. And we're very different. We come from really different backgrounds. I'm from the UK, small market town near Oxford. I was brought up, and he'd had lives before me. He was in politics, he was a senator, uh, he had uh family, and those cultural differences have also been really challenging, as you can imagine. They there's always things in relationships where you're trying to find a balance, but where we've always connected is in that deeper sacredness, I'd say. And Aidan comes across as my friends tell me, he comes across as very calm and very n wise, but he keeps a lot of that deeper part of him quite to himself, I suppose. But I see it when we're in the bush or in those quiet moments, and that's and it's a beautiful thing to meet someone there.

AJ 30:34

It sure is. I remember Aiden from those political days, although my time in Guatemala when I left the country for a period of time overlapped with it, so I I came back to find that the party had imploded. But what I remember of Aiden was, as you describe, a decent, thoughtful politician. And I believe the first Aboriginal MP uh senator at the time, or the only one at the time?

Claire 30:59

He was the only one at the time, and he was the second one in a hundred years.

AJ 31:04

Yeah.

Claire 31:04

So when he came to when he came to be elected as senator for New South Wales for the Democrats, as the Democrats remember them. Yes, it was a very it was it was very unusual at the time. And then he was briefly deputy leader for Democrats.

AJ 31:29

Yeah, and I I for particularly in my younger years, being a bit angrier, perhaps, at the system to to think of a politician in that way says a lot for ADM, I think. Uh and the Democrats blessed back then

Ancestry And A Life In Stories

AJ 31:44

as well. So speaking of ancestry, because I mean, having listened to the podcast, Clear, and I guess from our conversation as well, so much points to the, yeah, the power, the certainly the relevance, and I'd like to talk a bit more about you know what played out on country too, but the meaning and and part of connecting with ancestral stories, the ancestors, has in regeneration. Because if it's gonna be if it's gonna be personal, and if we're gonna connect with country, of sort of, again, of course, but for again folk like you and I, we've not really been brought up to think like that. Yet nonetheless, your journey has valued that from what I can- I mean to have written a book with your mother stands out in this light, no? But if you tell tell us a bit about where you came from, where you grew up, and indeed how you end up writing a book with your mum.

Claire 32:41

So I grew up uh in a small market town called Abingdon in the UK, and my parents were great travelers. I I I was always fascinated by journalism. Ever since I can remember, I've been writing stories. I think I launched a local newspaper at the age of 12 and took it to the neighborhood. So that's always been my passion, and I went through quite a conventional career initial career path. I got a job at the UK's Daily Telegraph magazine, which was sort of the equivalent of the Good Weekend over here, and that career path beckoned. But I also had itchy feet, and the idea of moving to India caught me, and I got an opportunity when I was 25 to go to Tibet as a journalist, searching for the rare red lily. So too good to pass by, and I went on that journey, and Tibet really was such an eye-opener for me in so many ways. That was probably another moment of being cracked open, being in that country, and we didn't find the red lily on the first trip because we were scuffered because of the um actions, the Chinese army, we were on a border very close to India and it's a very sensitive military zone. But I was determined to go back, and I went back a few months later, and it was on that trip that I met this wonderful Tibetan nun called Annie, and she she had spent her life on pilgrimage, long dreadlocks, little knapsack, a staff, pink cheeks, and we really connected from that moment, and I ended up going back five more times and went on pilgrimage with her and journeys with her. And that became the first book, last seen in Lhasa. So travel, other cultures, understanding that intersection between worlds, I'd say, has always been very much part of my writing passion and my writing curiosity, where things meet, what happens when things, when cultures meet. And that was very similar to my next novel, my my first novel, which came next about 18th century India. And then the third book was with written with my mum. So my dad passed away in 2012, and my parents had had this dream to drive from London to Cape Town, and they did in a Land Rover called Stanley, bit colonial there. But their their take, and they had some incredible journeys, and they were in their 50s, they never camped in their life, but they my dad kitted out the Land Rover and it had a tent on the roof and a fridge in the back, and none of us could go. I've got two sisters, we weren't allowed because the fridge with the cold beers took the place of any other seat in the back. And she had incredible journals. My mum just she was a prolific writer of journals, and so we started this idea after my dad, Tony's passing, to write a book together, and that became a boo a baboon in the bedroom, and it was such a wonderful thing to do because I was in mainly in Australia, she was in the UK, and so it really meant that we were speaking regularly, and it was something to do together and really look forward to, and also it allowed me to inhabit my parents' marriage and relationship and ask questions that I've never would have done otherwise. And my mum's very uh can be very stoic. So she'll say things like, and we came around the bend, and there was an ambush, what we thought was an ambush. And I'd say, okay, great, can we have some emotion there? How did you feel? How did you feel at that point? Oh well, uh, well, I was a little concerned. That's not gonna work. Well, I'm not for the book.

AJ 37:21

Wonderful, the best of British.

Claire 37:25

So we also had a lot of fun with it, and uh yeah, so thanks for asking. So that's that was my journalism, and so the journalism career continued, the book career continued, and just to round that off, then I moved out to Australia, and it took me quite a long time to find my feet here as a journalist and who I was writing for. It was back in the days when we still carried a portfolio, you know, like a big satchel that we'd take to editors and sit down with them and we'd show them our work. And I finally got quite a good freelance gig with the Bulletin magazine. And I finally started doing long-form journalism that I enjoyed. And I wanted to go and interview Mohammed Hanif, who you may remember was the doctor wrongfully accused of terrorism during the John Howard eras, era, and he'd his his career was completely shredded by the actions of the government and ASIO at the time, and he'd gone back to India to try and rebuild his life. And I had always had a big passion with India, and I'd been to India a few times, so I managed to track him down, and very reluctantly he agreed to interview me. Understandably, he was very wary of journalists. And then the following day he agreed for me to go to his house, and I met his family, and it was a very powerful interview with his side of the story. And I was asked to do a live-to-air interview for ABC Radio Gold Coast, because that's where he had been working. And I'm standing in Pushkar on the edge on the balcony, the camel fair is about to start, dust and noise. And I'm introduced as Claire Scobie from the now defunct Bulletin magazine. Oh. And I was on air, so I couldn't say anything. I said, I just thought I must have misheard. Anyway, we did the interview. I call the my editor straight away, and he says, Yes, sorry, Claire, after 128 years in business, we can't we can't continue because of the impact of online uh and digital media. And basically they hadn't got their business model sorted, and so they folded. And he said, But don't worry, your story made the last issue. It's like, thanks. Well, I I now don't have a job. But it was at that moment that I knew that the journalism and newspaper industry, as I'd worked for many years within it, just wasn't going to be the same. But I always knew that stories would be really valued, and that took me to the next phase of my journey with starting a business and helping organizations and companies use story. So it's always been about story just in different forms.

AJ 40:29

Right. Oh, so much in there, Claire. So much in there. Let's follow that thread with

Storytelling That Changes Organisations

AJ 40:36

WordStruck. And I'm so curious, particularly how I guess I'm curious about your take on human beings. With all your workshops, all the workshops you've run, uh, I guess what effect have they had? And what what are your observations of people and and how we how we change? And I and for that matter, like now, even compared to five years ago at WordStruck. It's been going for a while, yeah? But what are your observations on that front?

Claire 41:05

Wordstruck, by the way, came from Aidan. He came up with that when we were driving up to Sortel. See, he's so good with titles or names.

AJ 41:14

We all need someone in our corner.

Claire 41:17

We do. So the that's quite a broad question. How people change people change, people do change by learning story, learning how to become better storytellers. And there's often our harm moments. I mean, last week my colleague and I ran a workshop for a group of leaders, and one said to me, I learned more in the past 10 minutes about my team than I have done in 18 months through the stories we shared.

AJ 41:51

Wow.

Claire 41:52

So I think that's the power of stories is that they allow people to actually get to the heart of what's really going on much quicker, and they encourage people to be braver and more courageous. Do they lead to behavioral change long term? They do, but it takes consistent effort. And it's very much what we see is when we work one-to-one with a CEO or a head of an organization or a head of a team, and they start role modeling that more authentic way of being, and then they start doing that with their immediate team and their leaders, that's is filled that filters down. So that's one side of it. The other side to really think about, and this is where the storytelling's changed, is for so long, companies have had a broadcast way of communicating. So you've got the high typical hierarchy, and someone at the top says a message, and everyone in the rest of the organization is supposed to listen and act according to that message. But actually, what works so much better now is participatory storytelling. So where you really go into the root, the grassroots of the organization, sit in yarning circles, actually find out what people are really thinking, and then and do it from that perspective, not just a top-down. But too many companies think it's top-down still.

AJ 43:31

I was gonna ask, like, what's your observation? Because that seems to be the way, huh? And a lot of the frustration in people that that our broad corporate environment's not really shift. I mean, you've talked to John Elkington, the founder of Triple Bottom Line Framework, and and he he issued a product recall, as it were, a bunch of years ago on that because it just wasn't cutting the mustard. Yeah. Yet he still feels optimistic about, you know, the with our carapace is cracking, and and we will respond. But how are you? Seeing it with companies. And I guess part of my curiosity, Claire, is per your experience and mine, to be honest, and so many people I speak to, does the story need to meet, does even that all positive progression need to meet more visceral reality? You know, getting on country, as it were? Is this a missing piece?

Claire 44:19

I yes, I believe it is a missing piece because the sense of embodiment, the sense of actually experiencing, is often what a leader needs to have in order to be and to walk the change. And I was speaking to another executive at one of the big banks, and she we were talking about nature and the fact that nature is actually a much easier message for people in business and corporates to understand than climate change, or even sustainability, because sustainability itself, the word is tarnished and it's had for many reasons, but people can't deny the fact that they feel and respond differently in nature. And yet, what she often sees, and I've seen it myself, is people will love go going bushwalking or fishing on the weekend, or they'll surf. That's their weekend. But as soon as they come to work, they put their suit on, they go into the office, nature is still something out there. It's not something that actually is intrinsic and they depend on for their work. I mean, as we all depend on the living systems that are around us. So that disconnect is still very much alive. We're making inroads, but I have got very frustrated over the past few years as I've tried to bring regenerative ideas in, often by stealth, actually, because even trying to do it in a front-on way hasn't caught people's imagination. Something that does catch people's imagination is this idea of the living system.

AJ 46:13

Right.

Claire 46:14

There's some great work there from, say, Giles Hutchins around that that I think is really interesting. And doing a nature immersion with him last year in Springwood in Sussex was quite profound. And he's taking a lot of leaders and whole company teams through that process.

AJ 46:39

So for you, does what you're doing with Story now start to incorporate that? How are you gonna, or how are you changing what you do?

Claire 46:47

Two ways, I'd say. So the book is giving me the the words, the the stories in the book are the proof that this future is already here. And other people and other companies and other CEOs are building it. And so the book is an incredible testament to that. The people in the book, not the book, the people in the book.

AJ 47:15

It's a touchstone. It is. This is real.

Claire 47:18

Yes, this is real. And business likes reality, they like evidence, they like proof. So that's that that's the outward way. The inner way, and this might sound a little uh, yeah, maybe it won't, but we live in this incredible living system. How are we part of that? How do we speak on behalf of that? How do we touch it? How does it touch us? What the past few years has given me in ways I can't fully understand is this sense of tapping into that deeper living system. And I can do it so far, I find in my personal life. Um, so for example, last year, or in my family life. So for last year, in August last year, I had such a strong sense I had to go to the UK, spend time with my mum. And it was in the middle of writing the book, so it was a bit mad. But that sense of there was a bigger calling there needed to be acted on. And actually, when I was there, there were some very good reasons why I was there from a family perspective, but also I ended up doing this nature immersion with Giles Hutchins. So that was interesting. Now, my what I'd really like to do is to start to be a systems activator in my work. And so really becoming more attuned to what's going on internally, so then you can find the acupuncture points in a bigger system. And through the book, I've met people who are doing it, like Thomas Bourne. Hi, Thomas, if you're listening. He's in the UK, he started off as a lawyer, he set up his own consultancy called Greenheart, and he he really wanted to follow a regenerative approach. And he talks about the fact that they don't hold quarterly meetings in a meeting room anymore. They go out into the woods and they sense check the energy of their company and they find the blockers and the acupuncture points. And there are others who are doing similar work. That's Janine Barron is another great example. Uh, Janine has been a mentor of mine. She's running nature's boardrooms now. And that's where that's the next, I don't want to say frontier because that sounds quite pioneer, but that's the next eddy and flow of where we're going. And I'd love to know your perspective on that, actually, Anthony, about how do you find you tap into the bigger system? Because you're in so many different systems.

AJ 50:10

Yeah, well, that's that was your journey too, eh? It was like realizing it's all it's all one, and then and then you're trying to um see where the story weaves together. And in this kind of a way, you're describing. So, I mean, what you're saying is landing square in where I've come to. And so what we're doing with Confluence River journeys, for example, that you probably noticed. Yes, but or and because this is incorporated in those journeys too, but also uh when I say connecting with country before, it's connecting with those of country, full circle to where we started, and of course your personal experience with Aiden, uh, with and through Aiden. And I want to come back to that, right? Because part of I think my answer to your question and and what I was thinking anyway, as you talked about, you know, you mentioned the word nature and you and you mentioned the perspective of living system and so forth, and then connecting viscerally with that, and that that's your benchmark. Like take your cue, yeah. So all that.

Language Revival And A New School

AJ 51:06

That this extraordinary, another extraordinary story in itself of the uh Gambania Language and Culture Centre. I think it was the first one in the country. Now there's a massive language resurgence, but I think it was the first one, right, Claire?

Claire 51:20

So it's the Murabi uh Culture and Language Cooperative in Nambuka, Heads, which is just south of Sortell. Yes. And it was certainly one of the leading ones in New South Wales. So when Aidan was growing up, often he'd talk about the fact that he was part of the lost generation. He wasn't allowed to speak Gumbangia, his mother wasn't, and he'd go into the bedrooms when his grandmother and his great and his aunties um he always talks about the fact he comes from a house of eight mothers. So he'd go into the bedroom and his grandmama, Phoebe, and others would be speaking in language and they'd immediately stop because they that it had been beaten out of them, essentially. They weren't allowed to talk their language. And he'd also been told that back in the 60s and 70s, there was a view that all the languages on the east coast of Australia, except for Bunjalung, were going to become extinct if they weren't already. So that's where that was where he was coming from. But in the 1990s, there was this revival of languages, and Uncle Gary Williams, who's uh Aidan's uncle, uh, and a group of elders, uh partly because of a group of elders and teachers came together to start this start Murabi. And Murabi means tree of life, and beautifully it's housed in what was the Catholic Church on the mission.

AJ 53:02

Yeah.

Claire 53:02

So I thought that was fascinating. The place itself speaks to that revival and that regeneration, but at the same time, it's a reclamation because the Catholic Church had come in and had really imposed their view. But as Uncle Gary said to me, being there, people felt comfortable in that place because a lot of um Aidan's Catholic, a lot of his family are Catholic, so it's a real melding of that uh deep ancestral Gambangia wisdom and hero ancestry stories with Catholicism. So that's the backdrop of Murabi. And at the same time, you have uh New South Wales was one of the leading states to encourage the with the renaissance of Aboriginal languages, and they actually introduced an act back in the 80s and then again in 2017. So all of that became sort of like mycelium. It's sort of the language started to spread and speakers started to spread. And then in the start of the book in 2020, I met a fab fantastic um individual called Clark Webb, and he's uh a First Nations educator from north of Coff's Harbor, Gumbangia man, and he told me how about age 16 he'd heard Gumbangia spoken for the first time, and from that moment he wanted to stay close to it, and then he had this dream to start a bilingual school. He'd been working really closely with many other um individuals, including Aidan's nephew Troy Robbo. So they'd been seeding it in primary schools, but by the end of the book, I myself and Aidan and another and a group, we go to the first bilingual school in New South Wales of Goombangia and English. And that was an extraordinary moment because it was seeing something that had I'd heard about come to life, and it was this wonderful idea of this is this is how systems really shift. You you need that deep-rootedness, you need that reverence, and in this sense, a sense of culture, but then it's through that that creates the right conditions for a school like this. And they've got great ambition for it to be fully up to year 12 and no English spoken within the school gates. And as Clark said to me, we can't teach our kids the same thing that they get taught in mainstream schools because otherwise they won't be able to navigate the system. They need to be able to navigate the system with language and with country in their hearts and in their on the tip of their tongue, and they take them out on country every week. So it's such a different way of bringing the next generation forward.

AJ 56:21

Beautifully said, and it's a stunning story and part of how you wind your book up about not being able to have these kids come through in the mainstream system. I feel like that about all kids. All kids. And, you know, what I was thinking before is the story around there not being the word nature in Gambangia language. It was just sort of, I guess it's superfluous. But what that set me doing was imagining actually I've done it for some time, but it sort of brought it back to me, imagining not using it for myself. Like, what if we didn't use that word? But this well, I guess firstly, that's where I came to things like living world myself. You know, you talked about your your engagement with Joel. So yes, that. And then secondly, and more importantly, I suppose, it shows it's another angle of the value of connecting on country with the people of country, is that you have these reflections that do open the portals to the change without necessarily having to have your head smacked as well, right? Bonus, this this can be the proactive, joyful. There might be fear and stuff we have to front, but uh you did with this book certainly as well. This is part of your experience too. So, what encapsulated it most of all, then for me, was the sign that you spotted on the wall, which said, Yeah, which was an expression of mission, I suppose, if you were to put that language language to it, to grow, and you've got quote here, the next generation of elders and knowledge holders. And I was in that moment, I'm like, why is that not the goal of every school? Like every school, and then why is actually that not the goal of our entire governance system? What else is going to serve us in any sphere the best, but the best elders and knowledge holders we can, you know, grow, quote unquote. That one phrase, we could do well to have that sign on all our walls.

Claire 58:29

That is brilliant. I love that you pick that up. Because, yes, that there was a whole bigger, even bigger mission statement than that, but that was the essence of it. And yes, exactly, this this whole idea of education as something, and and and just to say Clark Webb's vision and the Genghana Freedom School, the Genghana Gumbangia Freedom School, it's still completely compliant with the New South Wales Education Department. So it's it's it's very possible to have these two running in parallel, but at the same time, you have this, all this other knowledge and these other experiences that the kids are having. And the other point about it, and you I think you'll relate to this with your son Yeshi, is in order to, this was what Clark said, and this is all full acknowledgement to Clark Webb and the his incredible team there, that when they enrol kids, they also enroll their parents, as it were. So the parents, there has to be some sort of commitment from the parents that they will not only be part of the school activities, but but very much take on board that Gumbangia is a language that also needs to be spoken at home. So, so that's and that's something that Aidan's always remarked upon, that that's where you really start to build those deeper community connections and the healing that can happen through that.

AJ 1:00:14

Right. In so many ways is that instructive, I think. And as much because of what you said about being compliant. So it's not that the broad structure of education is wrong. And I would draw the thread to corporate structures. Like company structures, educational, the broad educational structure, it can accommodate, I mean, essentially, paradigm change, right? The structures are so what I'm saying in another way is the structures are there. It's not that we have to, you know, smash it all down and start again or whatever. The structures are actually okay to have different corporate cultures and vastly different outcomes, as you've described in your book, the people you were mentioning before, and different educational processes that do connect in this profound way and create vastly different outcomes. And that's another way of thinking, I think for me, I guess one of your take-homes, Claire, is that this is available to us in the here and now in so many ways.

Claire 1:01:20

Yes, yes. I think that's very, a very good observation and point because there is a spectrum of where people sit at this point in time, as climate change and biodiversity and economic volatility, all of these things are happening, and it's a spectrum of collapse often, and people can sit in different places, and there is some belief that you need to rip down the whole system and start again. That's very much that Buckminster Fuller idea. But I'm more of the belief that wild hope is everywhere, there are green shoots everywhere, and we need to be building from the ground up as things around us are dismembering, falling apart, and we can be working together to intertwine things, which I think is your point. There needs to be, however, a leadership and a willingness, though, to take that, to take those risks. And it's hard to find that in a lot of business and a lot of corporates. You see it a lot in smaller companies, um, impact-driven companies, but certainly where there's so much entrenched, it's hard to see that movement. And yet, someone like Paul Hawkin in the States, who's hi, Paul, I know you listen to this podcast, you've been incredibly great mentor during this. He he works behind the scenes for big organizations there, and so it is possible. It is possible.

Treaty Work And What Comes Next

AJ 1:03:11

Right on, right on. Also worth mentioning that Aidan has become one of two commissioners for treaty processes in New South Wales, a story in itself.

Claire 1:03:25

Yes, and I think it's fair to say that neither of us saw that coming when we were on country in Sortell. And that time, though, him having this deep rest, addressing what was going on with his health and and emotional well-being, being on country was so healing. To your point, Anthony, that we don't need to have the big crack open. Sometimes actually, what we need to do is slow down and listen. I think that's I think that's another way of doing this, and that certainly was for him, to stop caretaking for everyone. So he's he had a remarkable journey. I won't give too much away, but he turned everything around, as you can read in the book, and he's now one of two treaty commissioners for New South Wales. So the whole country has never had a treaty with its First Nations people. There is one now in Victoria, and New South Wales is starting the process. So he's been on the road pretty much for a year uh with his colleague, uh, Treaty Commissioner Naomi Moran, and they've been sitting down in community. They've gone to the um detention centres, they've sat with youth, they've sat with mums and bubs, they've been to the Elders Knockout and uh Elders Olympics, Curry Knockout, and it's really about truth telling from and this deeper sense of asking First Nations people in New South Wales, do they want a treaty? And if so, what does that look like? And really some wonderful yarning circles that he's been part of and leading with his team. And through that process, it's from my perspective as his partner, it's been amazing to see that sense of purpose and real like drive come back to him. He loves, he's been loving it. Uh, he's been loving that sense of reconnecting with country across New South Wales.

AJ 1:05:43

Oh, it's just brilliant, just brilliant to hear. It does also, I mean, uh a lot of our conversation evokes for me, Claire, the the your dedication in this book was indeed to grandmother's mother and aunts. So um, yeah, there's a thread right through. Back to the elders and here's to it. Oh, great chatting Claire. Of course, to go out, we're going to talk with music, but uh geez, it's been good talking with you. So, what story have you got on the music front?

Claire 1:06:12

So it was quite tricky to choose something, but I chose something that actually Aidan introduced me to. Um, so he's an artist called Bo Svensson, and the piece is called Nemrut. And normally when we listen to it, we listen to it with the YouTube backdrop because he's sitting in this extraordinary setting in Turkey and he's playing it at sunset, I think, either dawn or sunset. And it's one of these pieces that we put on, and we'll often be dancing around the kitchen, making dinner, or if we need a pickup. Uh, so that's why I chose this piece.

AJ 1:06:55

Brilliant.

Claire 1:06:57

I thought it'd be fun to choose something that people can visualize and boogie along with.

AJ 1:07:01

100% join you in the in the in the dance, and uh I'll be streaming it straight after this.

Claire 1:07:06

Okay, fantastic.

AJ 1:07:08

So good to chat with you and well done on getting through the story, and and uh I'll look forward to what's next.

Claire 1:07:14

Yeah, thank you. Can I just say on what's next, actually, that uh so I thought World Hope was the outcome. Of course, that's another surprise. We're we're circling back to where we started. So the book is there and the book is out, 1st of September. There'll be some launch events, by the way, in Sydney and in Melbourne. I'm sure you'll give all those details, yeah, AJ, on the show notes. But what actually came to me when I was writing it was imagine all of these extraordinary individuals who ever wanted to talking together. So I've had the privilege of talking to you and talking to Uncle Gary Williams and whoever, and imagine getting online or in-person events with these voices. And there's already quite a lot of interest from people I've spoken to. So I hope I may well be hitting you up for this. And so I can see that this is just the start of the next phase, and I can't wait to see where it takes us.

AJ 1:08:17

Funny you should say, Claire. I'm glad you did, because I've been thinking the same thing. So, yes, let's talk. I've had listeners over the years say, Oh, if only you got that guest with that guest, and and if we could sit in the room as well, you know. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So good stuff.

Claire 1:08:34

Excellent.

AJ 1:08:35

Thanks, Claire.

Claire 1:08:36

Oh, thank you. It's been terrific.

Music Choice And Closing Thanks

AJ 1:08:38

That was Claire Scobie, author of the new book Wild Hope: Stories of Living and Leading in Uncertain Times. Published by New South Books. It's out September 1, though you can pre-order till then and with the 20% discount direct from the publisher right now, all of which helps the author, so don't hold back. All links in the show notes, including of course those launch event dates. If you'd like to let me know what you think about today's episode, send a voicemail or text via the show notes too. And if you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon or Substack, which includes some writing of mine too. This episode was only possible with your support. So thanks very much, Claire Scobie, for also becoming a paid subscriber on Substack. And when I started a Patreon page five years ago, I'll never forget those of you who jumped on straight away, and especially those who are still there. The hugest of thanks to yes, my wife, Olivia, my brother-in-law, Nelson Cheng, and mum. And the wonderful Bate family, Fiona, Maryanne, Sven Stenvers, Sharon Clifford, and Todd Delfs. You guys are the best. And thank you all for sharing, rating, and reviewing the podcast. That all helps too. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden, and at the top was Desert Horizon by Nolan Nova, sourced from Artlist. It reminded me of the piece Claire talked about. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.