“Don’t make people into heroes, John.”

2013 was a big year for me. It was the year I stopped being a school kid and became a corporate employee. It was the first time I saw women in the workplace—even through I’d spent all my life watching, without seeing, my mum work harder and longer than any of them.

It was exciting. I was finally entering the world of adults who make their own money to spend on their own interests.

It was also the year Sheryl Sandberg launched a book that broke the internet and every expectation of women in leadership. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead is a book that “encourages women to assert themselves in their careers and personal lives,” says Penguin Books.

I only learnt about the book a couple of years after, so when I truly realised I now have to work every day to feed myself, so many of the women around me had new-found confidence and opinions about the role of women in workplaces. Sheryl’s thought leadership made the rounds in group chats. Phrases like “glass ceiling” were thrown around.

I haven’t read Sheryl’s book yet. It’s been in my “I’ll get to it one day” pile for about a decade now, and I still think I will at some point.

But I did read Sarah Wynn-Williams’ memoir about her job at Facebook as its international policy manager. In her book, the Kiwi-American former-diplomat, shares what it was like to work for Sheryl.

Not only the long hours and expectations to hide her child’s existence, but also the subtle and not-so-subtle instances where SWW was asked to risk freedom, her pregnancy, and her life for her employer. Let’s just say it felt like a glass ceiling, above which Sheryl’s book sat, shattered to a million pieces.

It struck me how widely accepted the behaviour was in the company. This isn’t new. We hear stories about bad workplace culture all the time. But it’s yet another high-profile reminder that normal people like you and I can become complicit in creating and sustaining unsafe workplace cultures.

So many people tell lies, evade taxes, betray their spouses, and abuse others. But when there’s a leader or powerful personality attached to these things, we react in one of two ways:

1. We’re shocked and disappointed. A monster takes charge of our minds, rages indignantly in its cage. How could they?!

2. We (unconsciously) avoid seeing the truth in front of us. We create excuses for bad behaviour. “Are you sure you’re not imagining it?” we ask when someone says a senior manager makes inappropriate gestures. ”She’s just direct and straightforward,” we say masking passive aggression as “strong leadership.”

It reminded me, again, that we love to make people into heroes, worship them, and put them on pedestals they don’t belong on. And then be disappointed when they inevitably misstep.

I’ve done it, and I know others who’ve done it. This is why it’s good to talk about these things—normalise calling out bad behaviour and normalise not treating people like gods.

Careless people

In 2021, when Sophie Zhang, a data scientist, blew the whistle on her former employer, Facebook, the world was shocked at just how much power Facebook had had over global political and social issues.

But no one was surprised that the company wasn’t the saintly, do-gooder it had claimed to be in the early 2000s, when most of us embraced Facebook for connecting us with old school mates.

Since then, the façade gradually fell and many of us grew skeptical of Facebook as the platform designed for community building and social connection. After the 2016 presidential election, however, whatever appreciation we had for Facebook plummeted down to the ditches and remained there.

There are so many things that Facebook did well in its early years. But as any registered company, Facebook also has the legal obligation to further its own commercial interests. Consequently, the platform that claimed to want to democratise the internet ended up causing extreme psychosocial harm across the world. The road to hell is paved with good intensions, as they say.

Over the weekend, I finished reading a book titled Careless people – A story of where I used to work. A book I devoured during my runs, gasping mildly, smirking, and shaking my head in disbelief at what I was hearing. It’s dark and funny and deeply disturbing.

It’s a memoir of a Kiwi-American, former-diplomat who created the international policy team at Facebook—just before it started engaging with governments. She remained in a leadership position throughout some of the biggest political and social events that Facebook was involved in, including (but not limited to) the internet[.]org project’s entry into Asia, the hate crimes in Myanmar, the “Facebook elections” in the Philippines and the US, the company’s stealth launch in China, and the preparations for the senate hearing.

In her book, Sarah Wynn-Williams talks about how careless the company’s leadership was in their handling of the power that comes with owning and managing tools that can manipulate the truth at scale.

There are plenty of themes in this book that’re great for staying up at night.

Things like workplace culture, how the corporate world sees motherhood and maternity leave, how sometimes girl bosses can be bad bosses, how the idea of heroes is deeply flawed, how whistleblowers spend years silent and complicit, how even big companies with thousands of employees can be dangerously understaffed, and so much more.

I’ll be thinking and writing about these in the coming weeks, and if you also read the book, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My 2025 in books—reflecting on the meh, relishing the mastery

Every January, I give myself a target to read a certain number of books during that year. For the first time this year, I read some fantasy fiction that I never would’ve if it hadn’t been for my best friend who loves steampunk, urban fantasy, and exploding worlds in the sky. She chose books we’d read together, so I ended up peering into stories about astronaut schools and moon-hopping rebel cadets; about bone witches discovering their witchiness and bitchiness at the same time; about vampire knitting clubs; and all such woo woo-ness.

Although I enjoyed these strange stories at the time, many of them didn’t challenge me too much. That sounds pretentious, I realise, but they were largely short-lived fun. Not unlike the feeling you get after watching a salacious TV series about steamy affairs and greedy cocaine snorting gangs. You know it’s wrong, and you feel bad that you enjoyed the experience of being embedded in that world, even if just for a few hours.

Surely my year in books wasn’t all that bad?

It wasn’t. I was just blowing things out of proportion. Because when I scrolled through my Goodreads account, I realised I’d also read some fantastic books that kept me obsessed, curious, questioning, and challenging my own assumptions and long-held beliefs.

Like This I Would Kill For by Anne Buist, a book that goes into the mind of a psychiatrist who has bipolar disorder. It was the first time in my life that I’d considered that a mental health physician could live with a complex mental health condition themselves, and that that doesn’t mean they can’t function or do their job admirably.

Or Theory & Practice by Michelle de Krester, a book that challenged my notions of what a story is and how narrative fiction should look and read.

Or The Lasting Harm by Lucia Osborne-Crowley that chronicles a day-by-day account of the now-renown trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, and goes into harrowing details of Epstein’s empire of abuse. This book kept me up at night.

As did the controversial Ayn Rand’s popular Atlas Shrugged that made me think about the parallels between our modern AI-driven world of business and creativity, and the world that John Galt tried to destabilise. I wrote about it, too.

That book nicely sandwiched Cal Newport’s thoughts on the nature of workplace communication in A World Without Email, where he explores how much we’ve let email run our lives even when we’re supposedly switched off, and Johann Hari’s rather disturbing, illuminating, and complementary observations in Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again.

It was with that solid backdrop that I went into the next great read of the year: The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer, a beautiful and honest exploration of why we sometimes struggle to like our international colleagues, and how our traditions and cultures influence the way we think, work, and approach life and play. This stuff should be essential reading in colleges and universities. This is what young people should know as they step into the real world of The Workforce.

Then there was Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankar Chandran. It had been on my list for a few years and is the kind of book that immediately reveals its nature in the title, and stays true to every unspoken promise it made in said title. Having read Song of the Sun God by the same author earlier in the year, and as someone born and raised in Sri Lanka during the civil war, I knew what I was getting into with Chai Time and felt connected to these books in a way that I hadn’t connected with a person this year.

Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy as We Know It by Kashmir Hill pulled me sharply back to modern day reality, making me pick up my jaw from the ground several times over the course of fabulous narrative prose. The author tells a story I wish weren’t true—the tale of dangerously powerful people like Hoan Ton-That (an Aussie computer engineer) Richard Schwartz (former Rudy Giuliani advisor), and Peter Thiel, and the unregulated facial recognition technology they championed, offered, and sold to businesses, private investors, and law enforcement agencies. A technology so questionable that even Google and Facebook considered it too immoral to release.

One of my favourite pieces of screenwriting comes from BBC’s Sherlock: “Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.” Once again this year, I was reminded of how true those words are when I settled into finally reading Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes by Chris Masters. The author, a journalist, explores how Australia fell in love with Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG, the most decorated soldier of the Australian army, who after leaving the force, became the epitome of success and gallantry, and the general manager of Seven Media in Brisbane. Masters goes on to explain the biggest defamation trial in modern Australia, one that shed light into the horrific war crimes, bullying, executions, blooding, and abuse that Ben Roberts-Smith (or BRS for ease) was responsible for. I was living in Australia when the war crimes allegations against BRS came to light and the defamation trial was being heard. So I knew what I was getting into with this book but that didn’t make it any easier to digest. Heroes really don’t exist.

It wasn’t all dismay and despair, though. This year’s reading list also included some gloriously heartwarming stories of love, life, and choices that make your heart sing…

Like Two Steps Onward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist, a sequel to the story of two people who first met on the Camino de Santiago (Two Steps Forward), and find that circumstances bring them together again to walk the Chemin d’Assise.

Like Northbound: Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa by Naomi Arnold. This woman, who’d been watching the Te Araroa and dreaming of walking it for 20 years finally did it when she was 41. Te Araroa is a 3000 kilometre through hike that goes through the entire length of New Zealand. Most people take 3-5 months to walk the trail, during the spring-summer walking season. But the author, an adult with life and responsibilities and an active job, did it in 10 months. I love this book because the author talks about how we can become obsessed with the idea of perfection (of walking every damn inch of the trail), and how that sometimes leads to missed opportunities and more pain than pleasure.

Like Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a great story about soulmates who aren’t lovers. This is such a deep exploration of love and relationships, how personal insecurities get in the way of happiness and honesty, and all the reasons we hold people close in our lives. All the feels.

Richard Flanagan is one of my favourite Australian writers. His love for Tasmania, nature, people, history, and country shine through in his personal examination of morality and storytelling. Question 7 is one of those books that doesn’t seem all that coherent on a surface level but illustrates how seemingly random events lead to the here and now. Reading Flanagan is like stepping into a dream where you confront reality in poetic form.

I can’t speak of poetry and dreams without paying homage to Dirrayawadha by Anita Heiss. The author of Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (glorious read, btw), Heiss has a way with words and stories that made me fall in love with Australia’s aboriginal heritage like nothing else did. She sets humble fiction within the harsh history of Australia; her simple prose slices through any illusions that modern/migrant Australia might still have about the role of invasion in the destruction of aboriginal culture and lifestyle; and she shows that love stories and happily ever afters are so much more nuanced than “boy meets girl.”

So there you have it—the end of another year of reading, thinking, learning about life, work, and the purpose of everything. It’s been a great year of pushing boundaries, sitting in discomfort, keeping an open mind (as much as possible), and reading more of writing that brings me joy.

What are your favourite reads from this year, and what’re you looking forward to reading in the next?

My bookshelf from 2025 – full list of books I enjoyed this year.

Review: Voices Within – A Between Worlds Novel

I’ve known Odette, the author of Voices Within, for five years now. Over many a fine whiskey, I’ve heard a lot about her work as a contemporary shaman and her perspectives of working with people experiencing severe trauma. Client confidentiality always applied, obviously.

So when I finally managed to get my hands on Odette’s book, I knew, to some extent, what to expect. It wasn’t going to be an easy, breezy read. It would deal with mental illness and wellness and non-conventional healing methodologies. I was fully aware that it’d challenge my personal views on living with mental health issues while also providing well-researched strategies that worked for other people. In short, I was in no way doubtful that Voices Within will be an enchanting and thoroughly enjoyable read.

I should probably say that I have an intense curiosity of mental health issues and trauma, having grown up in an actively warring country, hearing stories of my parents running away from rioters and angry mobs that wanted to decimate lives. My mum was also diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia about 13 years ago, which is why Isabo’s journey and life with schizophrenia was of particular interest.

The book was easy to get into. About 20 pages in, I messaged Odette to say it reads as smoothly as fine whiskey, my ode to our shared passion for the warming beverage. But about 25 pages in, I stopped. The story was still going smoothly and the narrative felt flawlessly natural. But life got in the way and I had to deal with other stuff first.

Over the next 6 to 8 months I went back-and-forth, only managing a handful of pages at a time. Every time I returned from my break, however, Isabo’s story jumped right out at me, and I could carry on as if I’d never left. All that’s to say that the author has brilliantly kept the core thread of the story throughout the book so that regardless of where you drop off and when you pick it up again, you can always reorient yourself in the story at exactly the right spot.

Having read a few hundred books, and written a couple (unpublished ones) myself, I know that it’s incredibly difficult to travel between the past and present, and skirt around sensitive themes like multi-generational trauma without losing a sense of place. It requires a precisely organised mind. Which is funny because Odette as a person is more spontaneous and whirlwind-y than meticulous and organised. But that’s exactly what’s so great about this book—I know Odette’s been brewing this story in her mind for over 20 years, and in all that time, she has—consciously or not—managed to keep herself and her readers oriented.

Isabo’s voices within

This is a story of a teenager with a schizophrenia diagnosis. Her father is a wealthy and established lawyer who can afford her the most expensive care that the pharmaceutical industry has to offer. He is, however, irrationally reluctant to explore alternative avenues. He only wants to “fix” his daughter and he tries everything he can. Until he realises that everything he does to cure his daughter is only harming her. He relents and agrees to Isabo taking some time off to learn more about her mind and the possible cause for the voices that seem to haunt her mind. The rest of the story is this teenager’s exploratory journey into her mind—with a reliable and loving guide. On the way, Isabo endures loss, heartbreak, and a terrifying experience with fake guides.

The takeaway point

This is a brilliant read for anyone curious about what goes on inside the head of someone with any sort of mental issues. But you’ll do well to remember that if you met one person with a mental health issue, you’ve only met one person with a mental health issue. The condition is so vast and so diverse and so very personal that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution or insight.

This story, then, is a nuanced and well-articulated experience of one individual. It didn’t teach me how to deal with my mum’s schizophrenia. Nothing can, because Isabo and my mum aren’t the same. But what this book did do is to give me a previously-unknown insight into how not to treat my mum and how not to try and “deal” with her. This book taught me to be more patient and be more open to ideas, however wild they may seem. Because the mind of someone who realises they’re experiencing voices or visions is incredibly rich in imagination and creativity. Sadly, too many of such people are lost to medical systems that aren’t prepared to listen.

Check out Voices Within on Goodreads.

My 2022 in books

stock image of a brown dog wearing glasses, an open book on a table in front of it

It’s been a good reading year for me. I managed to finish 53 books, with 2 more unfinished. Many of the 53 were audiobooks, often consumed in bed, while cooking, or while stretching muscles. Some required my rapt attention while others were shallow enough for me to be scrolling mindlessly while listening. But all of them were enlightening in a different way. Here’re my favourite reads of 2022.

Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmania Salmon Industry, Richard Flannagan – non-fiction
You can almost hear Flannagan despair at the transformation of his homeland. The Tasmanian author illustrates the realities of the farmed fish industry that keeps most of Australia fuelled every week. We learn about the intense and disgusting conditions of salmon farming, paired with gory details of what constitutes food for the fish we so desire. Brilliantly confronting.

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams, Anita Heiss – historical fiction
Sheer beauty—both the narrative and the setting. The tale of a woman’s connection to land, family, and the joys and challenges of fitting into a society unlike your own. This is a captivating read that explores the often unspoken elements of inter-racial friendships and relationships. Set in colonial Australia, it’s a good perspective into the lives and loves of people who made this country.

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts, Julian Rubinstein – biography
A gripping telling of the life and adventures of Attila Ambrus, a Transylvanian immigrant in Hungary. This is an outrageous and hilarious life story of a renowned ice hockey player, who’s had a range of oddly interesting jobs including gravedigger, church painter, building superintendent, and a bank robber. Oh, and he loves his whiskey. Reading this book is like watching a thriller TV series from the ‘70s. There’s humour, silliness, stupidity, and lots of running around.

The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science and The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity, Norman Doidge – Science
The most educational books I’ve read in a while. Lots of fascinating facts about the brain and its miraculous ability to retrain itself after what most people would consider irreversible damage. They stand as seperate books, and you don’t have to read one to understand the other. However, since I read both in that order, it helped connect them both better. The author explains how our brains are wired and how one portion of the brain can “learn” to compensate for another. Both books refer to medical journals on neuroscience, but they’re are written for the average reader with no medical knowledge or experience. You don’t even need to know the lobes of the brain to appreciate neuroplasticity. The second book brims with stories and anecdotes from people who’ve experienced neuroplasticity in their lives. Like the man with Parkinson’s Disease who controlled and nearly eliminated all his symptoms just by walking at a specific pace and routine. Absolutely worth your time, and both books will leave you craving more knowledge on the subject.

On Eating Meat: The truth about its production and the ethics of eating it, Matthew Evans – non-fiction
This is a no BS, no greenwashing book about the realities of being a meat lover in a society that’s increasingly meat conscious. A confronting book, you could say. Former food critic and chef, the author is now a farmer living in a large farm with his family and a few cows. Most of the book is self-referential, almost memoir-like. Evans outlines the evils of today’s meat farming industry, but also explains why vegans shouldn’t be the ones demanding to stop it. In a time where vegan activism is taking over the news, the author argues that meat eaters should be fighting for a better way of creating meat for humanity. It’s an interesting read—especially if you eat meat. This isn’t an attack on meat eaters or vegans. It’s an interesting examination of the way we exploit animals for cheap meat, diminishing their dignity and trivialising death. I’ve been vegan for almost 5 years, and I thoroughly enjoyed a meat-eater’s perspective on sustainable meat.

Devotion, Hannah Kent – historical fiction
If you’ve read anything by this author, you’ll know you can rely on her to rattle your core. Set in 1836, the story follows the protagonist, her family, and their village of Old Lutherans embarking on their journey from Prussia to Adelaide, South Australia. The first half is a vividly-beautiful illustration of the Prussian village, contrasted sharply in the second half, by the harshness of living in a sickly and overcrowded ship for months. This is the story of a young girl who loves and loses two great things in her life: the nature in her village and her best friend. At the time in colonial Australia, the first free-settlers were arriving in the country. South Australia is the only state in the country that wasn’t a penal colony, and so the arrival of European settlers is a big part of the state’s long and proud history. Beautiful writing—worth every moment.

The Stranger, Kathryn More – dystopia
For a fan of The Handmaid’s Tale and 1986, this book wasn’t hard to like. It’s set in a fictional town in the middle of nowhere where the teenage protagonist lives as the lover of the town’s leader/protector. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the people of this little town live in constant fear of the mystery illness that plagues the “outside”. A stranger rides into the town one day, challenging everything the townsfolk and our protagonist have ever known. Though Covid is never mentioned, you often get the feeling that this town’s story could’ve easily been the reality we escaped. This is described as a feminist book, but I think it’s also a clichéd narrative of feminism: gun-wielding woman teaches abusive men a lesson, empowers young girl. Still, the storyline is interesting and the setting is curious enough to read this book.

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens – historical fiction
Set in 1960s America. This is essentially a nature book. Such glorious descriptions of nature and the young girl who lives alone in the marsh. This is an interesting read because it’s a coming-of-age story, weaved in with a crime investigation. There’s a lot of sharp plot turns and twists to keep you entertained and wanting more. It’s also a fascinating idea to feature an independent main character who becomes an accomplished naturalist and creative, when all the world looks at her as an illiterate, naive, and vulnerable girl. I love a good strong female lead. There’s a hero, too, of course. He teaches her to read, falls in love with her and leaves her, only to come back and become the only one who stays by her. The romance is young, awkward, and silly, and so artfully portrayed.

Wild Abandon, Emily Bitto – literary fiction
This book stayed with me a long time after I read it. It’s a raw depiction of a range of characters who’re the most human they can be. This is a study of human characteristics and how no one can know what or why someone does something. The story follows a young Australian who travels to the United States to get over his break-up, get some perspective, and enjoy himself. He meets eccentric people with uncommon hobbies, and ends up taking care of and feeding exotic animals in a veteran’s property. When all is said and done, he returns home a changed man. I love that the author has taken a storyline that’s already beaten to death, and has successfully revived it.

Before You Knew My Name, Jacqueline Bublitz – fiction-thriller
The 18-year-old protagonist moves to New York City to find a better life. She soon becomes Jane Doe—an unidentified body by the river. Another, slightly older woman, has also moved to NYC at the same time to recover and find a fresh start. Except, she’s the one who finds the body. The story follows the intertwining lives of the two women, uncovering the killer in the end. This is not a pleasant read. There’s a lot of trauma in the storyline. But it’s a well-told story that’ll make you feel things.

What’re your favourites of 2022?

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