What happens when two women who’ve built entire movements around food – one through storytelling, the other through saving it – sit down for an unfiltered conversation about courage?
In the latest episode of Marie Claire’s new hit podcast, You’re Gonna Want to Hear This, former MasterChef Australia judge, writer and author Melissa Leong joins Ronni Kahn AO, social entrepreneur and founder of OzHarvest, for a soul-nourishing conversation about food, failure and the power of taking impossible chances – the very themes that define Leong’s new memoir, Guts.
You’re Gonna Want To Hear This Episode Two
Raw, funny and profoundly human, Guts sees Leong bite down on her demons and serve up a story about resilience, reinvention and radical honesty. “I’ve learned that courage isn’t about never being scared,” she tells Ronni Kahn. “It’s about deciding that your fear doesn’t get to drive.”
Across the episode, Leong opens up about the burnout and beauty of the hospitality world, what it means to start over, and how self-belief can be the boldest ingredient of all. “Sometimes,” she says, “you have to blow up your life to find yourself in the pieces.”
When Leadership Begins With Empathy
Kahn – whose own memoir A Repurposed Life charts her journey from events entrepreneur to food-rescue revolutionary – brings her signature warmth and candour to the conversation. Together, the pair unpack what it really takes to live with purpose, create change and, as Kahn puts it, “show up with heart.”
In one particularly moving moment, Kahn reflects on the kind of legacy she hopes to leave behind:
“I would think the most important thing to instil in all of our young people is kindness and generosity and thoughtfulness, and I think that’s what our world is missing. We’ve got leaders that are self-centred, domineering, narcissistic, and are not doing what they do for the good of the people.”
It’s a reminder that leadership, like life, starts with empathy – something both women embody through action as much as words.
As Leong says, “You can’t always choose what happens to you. But you can choose to build a life that tastes like freedom.”
Listen now to You’re Gonna Want to Hear This wherever you get your podcasts.
Watch highlights on @marieclaireau.
