He Pulled A Truck With His Bare Hands | Vanessa Gorman | Ep 103

Vanessa Gorman has spent decades producing some of the most intimate, life-changing television ever made. She's sat across from a towering former police officer who hauled semi-trailers and carried a secret that nearly ended him. She's watched an artist who couldn't read the alphabet discover his brain was extraordinary, not broken. She knows exactly how to hold space for someone else's vulnerability—when the spotlight is on them.
But when the camera turns around, the rules change.

This conversation peels back the layers of what it actually takes to draw a human being's deepest truth to the surface. Vanessa unpacks the quiet, often unglamorous power of saying yes to the invitation you desperately want to decline, and why the stories we're most terrified to tell are often the ones that end up saving someone else's life. It's about grief that doesn't just sit there, grit that doesn't announce itself, and the transformative impact of vulnerability on the lives of ordinary people who have been through the extraordinary. 

Explore the art of authentic connection and how these stories foster understanding in a world that often demands perfection.

Guest Page: https://shithappy.com/he-pulled-a-truck-with-his-bare-hands-vanessa-gorman-ep-103/
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 For laughs check out our other Youtube @inbedwithphil

0:00 The Power of Vulnerability: Grant Edwards' Story
0:42 Vanessa Gorman on Producing Australian Story
1:12 Telling Stories of Ordinary People Through Adversity
2:28 Grant Edwards: A Strong Man's Battle with PTSD
4:40 The Strength in Admitting Vulnerability
6:00 Impact of Grant Edwards' Story: Preventing Suicide
7:44 Vulnerability in Leadership and Personal Growth
10:20 Vanessa Gorman's Long Career with Australian Story
10:59 Learning from Stories: Vincent Fantauzzo's Dyslexia
13:48 Vincent Fantauzzo: The Gift of Dyslexia
16:50 A Memorable Episode: The Poo Transplant Story
18:50 Australian Story's Role in Driving Change
20:44 The Impact of Being on Australian Story
21:56 The Filming Process: Living with the Subjects
23:40 When Filming Overstays Its Welcome

#shithappypodcast #vulnerability #storytelling #resilience #transformation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Program forced me to confront many of my demons, but what made the entire exercise worthwhile were was receiving the feedback that someone who had contemplating committed contemplated committing suicide didn't go through with it after watching the program.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Vanessa Gorman's been on this podcast twice before, episodes 73 and 74, where she shared an extraordinary story about the loss of her baby daughter. They're two of the most popular episodes we've played because she goes so deep and is so vulnerable. Extraordinary. Today, however, she's here in her role as one of the main producers of ABC's beloved Australian story series. And we're going to hear about the impact of stories on the people who tell them. Vanessa, you're back. We're going to talk about your job as producer of Australian Story, one of my favorite ever shows. And this is putting you in a quite different position because you're normally the one doing the interviewing.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yes, I am, and there's a very good reason, Tony, for that. I always feel much more comfortable doing being the one that asks the questions rather than um has to answer the questions. Well, you know, often on Australian Story, we're telling the story of ordinary people who've been through something extraordinary. Um, or we're telling kind of extraordinary people and and who've sort of done extraordinary things in their life. Sometimes it's true crime. We it's uh it's such a wide range of things, but we're often telling stories about people who have been through adversity. I mean, some WAG called Australian story award-winning misery at some point, and because we do tell stories of of ordinary people who go through you know, an accident or an illness or a loss. Um and you can't help but be kind of inspired by by the journey people go through and how they pick themselves up from their worst day or month or year or whatever and rebuild their lives. It's such an incredible kind of pleasure to to pleasure is probably the wrong word, it's such a it's such a privilege actually to hear their stories.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

You shared one of those stories with me about a policeman, so I thought this might be a good place to start.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

So this was a story uh that I did about an Australian federal police officer called Grant Edwards. And um, when we were filming Grant Edwards, first of all, he is a mountain of a man. I have a hilarious photograph of he and I on the top of a mountain, and he's like twice the height, and he's just a big, strong bear of a man. And when we were filming with him, he was actually uh head of the Americas, which is a very high-ranking federal police position. And in his federal police career, he had to look at sort of child abuse material that would scar any of us. And he often sort of looked at the worst stuff to save his staff from doing it. Um, he had done a tour to Afghanistan, possibly too. Afghanistan then was a very dangerous place, and so he had spent a year, you know, with with that, with that feeling that possibly you might die at any moment, you know. Um, and he had developed PTSD. And so at some point he got close to suicide. Um, he felt like if he admitted um the that that he had this kind of weakness, and I'm putting up my fingers in in parentheses there, um, that that he might lose his security clearance, he might lose his kind of weapon clearance, all those things as an AFP officer, you know. And eventually, I think when it got so bad, uh he s he sought help and and he sought help to kind of deal with with the the PTSD and he sought tools. And then he did a very brave thing in actually coming out and and admitting that he was that he'd had PTSD. And he did that to kind of help other service people and AFP officers, police, and and to kind of understand that you can be um, you know, you can be a big tall you know, guy, uh of policeman at the top of your field, but you can still feel the vulnerability of PTSD. Now, the interesting thing was that Grant Edwards was officially a strongman. So he had a career in the 80s and 90s as as this strongman, like there are these strongman competitions, and he had sort of traveled the world, and there'll be Turkey's strongman and Australia's strongman and America's strongman, where you're kind of hauling huge barbells around the place. It's a big competition. And he'd also done those those stunts where you know there's one guy out on the tarmac hauling a jumbo jet and you know, hauling a semi-trailer. And we filmed him in Canberra, literally within CUI of Parliament House, hauling a semi-trailer, you know, pulling a semi-trailer kind of along this road, and that weighed like tons, massive amounts of tons. And so this was a strong man. And I think this was a strong man who had felt very weakened by what he had been through. And Grant, I think in the course of doing the story, we had been able to kind of recognize the both of us had been able to recognize that actually being vulnerable about what you're going through and admitting that publicly is actually a great strength. And it's a great strength because you you give a gift to other people, you give them a gift, and so you sort of say, look, if I could get this, you could too. You know, big strong guy like me, look, I can haul a semi-trailer, but you know, I I got close to ending my life. And um Grant um ended up in, I'll just read the sweetest little bit. He ended up writing a book after our story, and he said, um, uh, when she finished hearing my yarn, she was when one of many people who helped me realize that what I'd long perceived as weaknesses in some aspects of my life were actually strengths. And this was a breakthrough moment for me and Lordie. Lordie is his lovely wife. And um, and then he said, the program forced me to confront many of my demons, but what made the entire exercise worthwhile was receiving the feedback that someone who had contemplating committed, contemplated committing suicide didn't go through with it after watching the program. And he had told me that someone was close to ending his life when the program aired and watched it and changed his mind and got help instead of ending his life. And so that is a lovely, that's a lovely outcome.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, I think I think uh vulnerability is way underrated. I I s because I do a lot of work with leadership, I see again and again that the leaders who are willing to become vulnerable to their team and actually admit how badly they're doing or what they're struggling with or what areas of weakness they have, what what strengths they don't have, that's when the team gets moving and productive. It's it's almost like a magic power. If you'd like another reason to smile every month, sign up to my Time to Smile newsletter. Find it in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Isn't it? Isn't it? Because it's just it's just an admittance that none of none of us are perfect, that we're all human, um, and that we will all make mistakes and that we'll all mess up. And well, you don't have to be perfect, but you just have to strive as as as just just you know, you just have to strive to do the very best that you can do.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I think you know, when things happen, we have thoughts that we didn't expect to have. You at you admitted to when you lost Layla that you were feeling like you wanted other people to lose their babies, these thoughts that came through to you that you hadn't anticipated you would have, that made you then look at yourself in a different way and maybe be hard to yourself. If you don't share that, no one else knows that that's the sort of thing that might happen. No one else knows that that's an ordinary thought to have have in that circumstance. And it helps, I think, us feel better about the things that are going on in our heads when we get to hear that really vulnerable side that people are afraid to admit.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Don't you love it? I mean, I love reading a memoir of somebody where they really kind of go deeply into their humanness. Let's just call it humanness, you know. We don't need to netazi put a kind of, you know, but but but where they go very deeply and vulnerably into their humanness, I I just I it I feels like it's always a beacon to me. You know, it's a beacon to me when I hear people and read people doing that. I just love it. And and I think we've come a long way as humans, don't you think that we're we're kind of people are understanding that that vulnerability is a strength and and that just being honest uh gives permission for other people to be honest, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

With doing Australian Story, how long have you done Australian Story now?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

A long time. I I actually I actually started on the program in 1999. It was the second year that the program was going. And then I was going, coming and going. I'm I went off, I made documentaries, I had children, I came in and out of the program for quite a few years, but I have been back on the program now for um 11 or 12 years straight. So I am an old timer on the program.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Many of the stories that you've heard have impacted your life and you've learned things from them. Can you share a couple of those instances where you felt you've really taken something away from that story?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

I was thinking just in preparing for this um for for this interview, I was thinking about um uh doing a story that I did a couple of years ago with Vincent Fantuzzo. Now he's a he's uh an artist who has he's won a number of prizes. And I don't know if you ever remember that beautiful um portrait he did of Heath Ledger that came out just after Heath Ledger died. When I was starting this project with Vincent, now Vincent has quite severe dyslexia and and probably a fair chunk of ADHD as well, but certainly dyslexia. And so trying to organize filming with Vincent, like my emails would go untouched or or my text to him, we'd have a great conversation, we'd agree on things, and then I'd confirm and then nothing would come back. I then kind of understood, then I got a message from Asher Ketty, his wife, and she said, I'll have to, she was off on location, and she said, You really won't be able to organize filming until I get back. And because I'll have to kind of organize it with you. Once Asher was on board, she got back from her filming, it was all Sistens Go. And Vincent, um, you know, and we did he's like this incredible artist, but he grew up with undiagnosed dyslexia and and and he um you know he had the shame of just feeling stupid. He couldn't read, he couldn't make sense of the letters and the numbers, and so he just tried to hide it all his life. They moved around to different schools, his family wasn't wealthy, his parents had separated, his mum was, you know, struggling to provide, and so they they weren't able to kind of get the help. They were in really working class, dangerous areas of Melbourne. So there just weren't weren't the supports there that might have and and he was sort of changing teachers and schools so much that there was no teacher that said, hang on, you might have this. So he just thought he was really stupid, and there was so much shame that came to that. But of course, you know, and so he would draw instead. That was his language, um, the visual was his language, you know. And as as part of the story, I was able to kind of talk to him about the different intelligences. You know how there's the sort of seven different intelligences, you know, visual intelligence, verbal intelligence, logical, bodily, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, you know. And um, and he had that incredible kind of visual um uh intelligence. It was like it was, and and these these processes always go on together with the subjects. It's I don't walk in there kind of going, Oh, I know all about your life. We we're sort of exploring these seams in their life. And I was exploring the shame that he felt because that was a big thing, and then and then how he came out of that and how he found his way to um uh you know being being this amazing artist. And and I really kind of recognized that he um he just had an extraordinary brain, but it just looked different from everybody else. I just pulled out a a couple of quotes from that that story. I mean, this is Vincent talking about himself. I'll go to the supermarket and I'll buy beans instead of tomatoes. You lose everything, you forget everything. I don't know what month comes next, I don't know what season is next. Even if you give me a letter in the alphabet, I can't tell you the letter after it unless I sing the whole song. Isn't that adorable? He has to sing the alphabet song. But then um, and and Asher talked about, you know, he tried to hide his dyslexia from her when he first met her, you know, because he was ashamed of it as as well. But but in the end, I Asher says, Here's the quote from her, he is so competent at so many things that I am not. The solutions he comes to and the problem solving is really accomplished. I'm kind of envious of it in a way. I look at him and I think, God, you just think about things in a way that my brain doesn't. I find that fascinating. His dyslexia is part of the gift. It is the gift, actually. And that it really kind of uh it was a story that really, or doing that with Vincent, it was kind of it was that discovery of how extraordinary his brain is, even though in terms of forgetting his keys and wallet, he's a disaster, you know. But he's really sort of just so extraordinary in the in the different ways. So I think that was and you know, after that he he was able to get a book deal. I mean, he had a guy help him write the book, because the dyslexia is still there, and he's opened his own gallery, and you but but it was it was just going on that exploration with him about well, these are the things that didn't work or were were difficult, and and and and and even the fact that he couldn't read led him to becoming such an amazing artist. So it's always really fun to be on that kind of exploration with your subjects and kind of working out, as I said, these these deep seams of of um of of the seams that are that are difficult in their life, but also how they've compensated and also how they've uh how they've healed or how they've kind of grown themselves in in another way. So there's that one.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Um do you have a favorite interview or an episode you're particularly proud of?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I I did one just a few weeks ago um with uh a woman called Jane Dudley and her partner Alex Dudley, and and that one was on the surface of it kind of like she had felt like she had cured herself of her bipolar and depression, and but her long-standing bipolar by using poo transplants and fecal transplants. Now that's not necessarily edifying viewing for the eight o'clock, you know, just finished dinner and then we're serving up a poo transplant on Australian story. It was kind of an amazing story. She fell in love with this man, Alex, who's uh an ecologist and an amazing photographer and a and a sort of ranger. He's sort of worked outdoors all his life. And he sort of thought he'd read some scientific studies about the poo transplant that that had helped helped in rats. So there was a rat study that was looking promises, promising, and he said, why don't we give this a go? And I mean, they got very lucky. Uh don't try this at home, you know. Um, and we made that point. But just to see this woman go through from being hospitalized a number of times with manic episodes and being so depressed that she wanted to end her life over so many years, and see her sort of get well and be well, and again kind of want to change things for others, you know. So that was one that I did recently that I really enjoyed kind of going on that exploration with them as well. You know, again with them, they live in the the a in a a small house way out past Inverel. But um, you know, it's such a it's such a wonderful journey that you go on with your with your subjects, really.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah. And like this is this is part of the importance of what you actually do and what Australian story does so well, bringing up these things. Just because you did that story and you fought for that story, that wasn't something readily um given, you know, people didn't necessarily rush to want to do a poo story. Yet because you did that story, there will probably be research done because it attracted some interest through that story. And I think that's a really good illustration of the the importance of telling the stories that we've got is that stuff happens out of those stories.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, I mean we we are part of the we're part of what do you call it at at the ABC, we're part of the news and current affairs department, we're not part of the sort of features department. So we are part of current affairs and we we've the lens of Australian story is often that we're looking at a topical issue, but we're looking at it through the personal story or someone's journey through it. People kind of engage with with as we're talking about, if someone is is is being intimate and and if someone is being kind of vulnerable and honest, we relate to that, you know, and we're more likely to sort of get involved than just um hearing about an issue with a whole lot of talking heads and experts and whatever.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Or a study or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Or a study and or statistics or whatever, you know. If you watch someone going through um uh whatever it is, you know, and see their personal story, it's it's such a um it's such a way that you you can make change. And many of our programs on Australian Story have kind of helped bring change about, and that's a that's a real privilege to feel like you can move the dial a little bit in some way. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Yeah. Being on Australian Story for me opened doors because Australian Story has such high regard, people just revere the program. When I then wanted to start speaking about what I'd been learning, all I had to say for anyone to take me seriously was I've been on Australian Story, and immediately I'm in a totally different category, which was incredible. The story you did on me was a very rare feel-good one. It was all feel-good, that one, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Well, you're all about the feel-good, Tony, and because normally there's a bit more tragedy. That's right, that's right. And your your your film festival was all about positive films and films that made a difference. So that was what we were coming to film your struggle to get to get a regional film festival on in Gympie that was all about a kind of showing films that were that had a really positive thing. So it was lovely. It was just kind of lovely to meet you and Phil. And yeah, I think we probably tried to capture a bit of the struggle because I think you put your house up as collateral and you took some risks to put that film festival on. Um, and so we were sort of capturing some of that hardship and the difficulties and the craziness as it as it was on, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

I think what people don't realise, and which I never realized when I watched Australian Story, is how long you are actually with the people. It's if it's like you moved in for a while, it's like you're come and then you're there for days and days. It's not just a couple of hours.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Um, yes, and um that's also you know, can could be a cause of contention sometimes too, because it's it's um, you know, it's funny. I was actually interviewing, you know, it does, it takes a long time. We do, you know, a week or two, a couple of weeks of research. Sometimes the story's been kind of bubbling along, somewhere research has been kind of you know getting along, and then you know, we might film over a two-week period. Sometimes we film over months, you know, but just kind of come back and back if there's something unfolding. We we we wouldn't be filming every day for months, but we would be coming in and out of their life. And and it it can be quite, you know, taxing. And so we've got to be try to be very sensitive to when we've outstayed our welcome. And just a funny little story. I was filming, I did a story about that funny show, uh, Race Around the World, and the participants that were on that. And one of one of the one of the women who won the first first one of Race Around the World works with us now. She does she does the same job as me. She goes out and makes stories as a producer. And so we were filming an interview with her and filming some sequences with her around the house. And about sort of three o'clock in the afternoon, she said, I cannot believe how much I want you to leave. I cannot believe how much I want you to get out of my house now. And she was just voicing probably what every other talent, what every other person that we're sort of doing filming with, wants to say, but is too polite to say. She was like, I can't believe how I want you to leave now. You know, how much I've had enough of this now, you know. So it is, it can be quite taxing on people, but it is it is, you know, it's worth it in the end. They're usually very happy with the with the No, we we didn't You didn't want us to go.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah, no, we didn't want you to go at all. We loved you. No, we love but we loved it.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

I seem to remember you cooking cookies and muffins.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

That would have been Phil.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Phil cooked muffins, I think. Phil, Phil cooked muffins. I tell you what, here's a tip: if you make muffins for a film crew that's coming, they'll light you really beautifully. They'll make you look good. If you've cooked muffins for them, they'll be very happy.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

That's right. Yep.

unknown 25:07

Goodbye, goodbye. I'm in your head now. Your head now. Goodbye, goodbye.