Between Two Beers Podcast

Five months after retiring from international cricket, Kane Williamson sits down for a rare long-form conversation.He explains why he stepped away between tests against England rather than hang on for a farewell tour or the 10,000-run milestone, and the conversation with Virat Kohli the day before he announced it.He shares the personal principles he wrote in a notebook that guided the rest of his career, why a duck against Dale Steyn’s South Africa left him at peace, and how the Black Caps rebuilt their culture under Brendon McCullum.Plus the 2019 World Cup final, a Covid detour through the Maldives on the way to the World Test Championship, why he never read his own press, and life now with three kids under five.Between Two Beers is proudly brought to you by One New Zealand. We believe that One NZ connects New Zealand, while Between Two Beers connects New Zealanders. And together, we are NZ’s most trusted connection platform.Steve and Seamus are proud to be dressed by Barkers Clothing.

Five years ago Paddy Gower came on Between Two Beers over a lockdown video call, sitting between about seven craft beers.He’s back on Hambassadors, and he’s now off the drink completely. We talk about what giving up drinking and the Newshub redundancy did to him, why election night is “the Everest” of live TV (this is his seventh), and what he’s hearing from Kiwis on the campaign trail.He also gets the challenge of explaining the overhang like we’re ten years old. Plus a question from Jason Pine, and Paddy’s case for the Phoenix in Saturday’s Kiwi derby.Before that: Kane Williamson spent a full day in the studio before his episode drops on Sunday night, then refused to leave the golf sim. Our flight to Christchurch circled for 40 minutes before getting diverted to Wellington. We emceed a golf day with a hole-in-one stunt that got the whole room checking under their seats, and hosted a live Q&A for Apollo Projects’ 25th birthday with the Reflections team. Rowan Simpson beat us at golf too.Also: Between Two Bits (Auckland FC v Wellington Phoenix), a first wedding anniversary on What’s the Occasion, and a look back at our episode with Dame Catriona Williams.

NZ showjumper and eventer Catriona Williams broke her neck in a fall from a horse and became tetraplegic. Fourteen months into her marriage, she told her husband Sam to leave. He stayed, and 23 years on she calls herself lucky, not inspirational.Through her charity CatWalk she has helped raise $28 million for spinal cord research. She has hand-cycled to Everest Base Camp, been made a dame and stood up again.In 2021 a second accident broke her neck again. Before surgery she signed a form saying she might not survive it, and her answer was “it’s okay.” Now she’s preparing to hand-cycle 3,000 miles across America, and her goal is to one day dance with Sam.Between Two Beers is proudly brought to you by One New Zealand. We believe that One NZ connects New Zealand, while Between Two Beers connects New Zealanders. And together, we are NZ’s most trusted connection platform.Steve and Seamus are proud to be dressed by Barkers Clothing.

Is your business a pet or livestock? Rowan Simpson, employee #3 at Trade Me and an early Xero investor, sits down with Steve, Seamus and business coach Di Foster to pick apart the business behind Between Two Beers.What’s really holding it back, where it could grow, and what should we stop doing?Rowan covers constraints, the three engines every business runs on, the AI hire great teams will soon make, thinking beyond New Zealand, the three ways to get paid, and why deciding really means saying no.Rowan is the author of How to be Wrong: a crash course in startup success, and was the first investor in Vend.This episode is proudly sponsored by Xero - one platform for accounting, payroll, payments and reporting, so your business stays in control as it grows. Start your free trial by searching Xero today. Terms apply.

As a teenager, Brad Iles was a world schools golf champion, and Michael Campbell called him one of the best talents to come out of New Zealand in a long time.At 20, he fell off the back of a golf cart in the US, suffered a life-threatening head injury and woke from a coma to be told he might never play again.Within 18 months he was leading the Australian PGA alongside Cambo, with his dad on the bag. Seven years on tour followed, then he booked a flight home and never went back.This is the story of starting again: a minimum-wage warehouse job in Queenstown, glassy to shareholder in a five-venue hospitality group, and the inflatable park that sparked the golf simulator business he runs today.In this episode:14 houses by age 14, and how having no friends made him a golferHis dad’s chart: scratch by 16Why Kiwis flush it on the range and Americans out-golf them on the courseHearing your handicap from the sound of the strikeLife on tour: 100 cheeseburgers, a shank through a hotel door, and why it gets lonelyThe putt for a quarter of a million dollarsSleep seizures 24 years on, losing his licence, and what the bus taught him about slowing downHis best parenting advice: let them be kidsBetween Two Beers is proudly brought to you by One New Zealand. We believe that One NZ connects New Zealand, while Between Two Beers connects New Zealanders. And together, we are NZ’s most trusted connection platform.

We reflect on Becki Ross' beautiful send-off at Lake Karāpiro, hearing her mum mention Between Two Beers in her speech, and what happens for guests long after the mics go off.Plus: the post about a “90s childhood” street that struck a chord, and why who you live next to might matter more than the house you buy.Char spends two days off-grid with Ladies Who Venture with Gemma McCaw. A five-year-old who out-lasted her big brothers in the Hanmer Springs cold plunge. What poker teaches you about business. And Sammy’s once-a-year birthday coffee.We also catch up with Suzanne McFadden, lead interviewer for Reflections, our private family documentaries. She talks about the 50-year marriage that still had a secret, the Swiss farmer who sang to his mother on camera, and the one thing almost everyone says matters most. Find out more at reflections.life.And a tease for next week: a guest with more than 100 games for the All Blacks, telling parts of his story for the first time.

This one’s an adults-only episode - sexual themes and language throughout, so maybe not for the school drop-off. 18+.Melissa Vranjes is a certified holistic sex and relationship coach, and she joins us to tackle the stuff most couples never figure out how to talk about.Steve plays the sacrificial lamb on mismatched libido, and Melissa reframes the whole thing: it’s not a mismatch, it’s a discrepancy - just a difference, like one of you loving mushrooms and the other hating them.From there: why exhaustion kills desire in the early parenting years, the one tool she gives every couple in a sexless relationship, the weekly relationship check-in she swears by, what “choreplay” actually is and why the mental load is foreplay, and a no-holds-barred listener Q&A on everything from finishing too fast to dead bedrooms to keeping things alive after years together.Plus Melissa’s own story - seven years on superyachts to a workshop in Bali that changed her life - and a “sex lore” segment settling the myths you’ve always wondered about.Between Two Beers is proudly brought to you by One New Zealand. We believe that One NZ connects New Zealand, while Between Two Beers connects New Zealanders. And together, we are NZ's most trusted connection platform.Steve and Seamus are proud to be dressed by Barkers Clothing.

What if the thing holding back your business - and your life - isn’t a strategy problem, but a story you’ve been telling yourself?This week, business coach Di Foster sits down with Steve to pull apart the quiet narratives running his days: the belief that being constantly connected matters more than being present with his kids, the “survival mode” that kept him buried in the business, and the story about his own body that nearly had him on the sidelines.It’s an honest, practical conversation about time, presence, persistence, and what actually changes when you rewrite the script.In this episode:Why Steve rebuilt his mornings around the hours that matter mostThe real reason he can’t put his phone down at home - and the simple rule to fix itMoving from survival mode to growth mode, and the one hire that changed everythingHow a shift in mindset - not circumstances - changed the story he’d been telling himself about his bodyWhy “persistence” might be both his greatest strength and his biggest blind spotReflections: the new venture capturing the stories of families and the businesses they’ve builtThis episode is proudly sponsored by Xero - one platform for accounting, payroll, payments and reporting, so your business stays in control as it grows. Start your free trial by searching Xero today. Terms apply.

Content warning: This episode contains frank discussion of addiction, depression, suicide and self-harm, and may not be suitable for all listeners. Please take care while listening. Support details are at the end of this description.Mike King is one of the most recognisable figures in New Zealand. Comedian, broadcaster, mental health campaigner, former New Zealander of the Year: he's been all of them, and he's spent the last few years at the centre of a national conversation about how we look after our young people.But the man behind the headlines is rarely the one the public gets to see. In this wide-ranging kōrero, King sits down for the longest and most personal conversation he's given in years.He traces the whole arc: a childhood spent certain he'd never be good enough, the delayed path through kitchens and the Merchant Navy, the comedy career that made him a household name, and the rock bottom that nearly ended everything.He talks with unusual honesty about getting clean, the moment that made him walk away from comedy for good, and how a late-night radio slot became the beginning of I Am Hope and Gumboot Friday. Along the way he reflects on the criticism that follows him, the toll of the work, and why he recently stepped back from the charity he built.Between Two Beers is proudly brought to you by One New Zealand. We believe that One NZ connects New Zealand, while Between Two Beers connects New Zealanders. And together, we are NZ's most trusted connection platform.Steve and Seamus are proud to be dressed by Barkers Clothing.If anything in this episode brings things up for you, support is available.Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time, 24 hours a day, to speak with a trained counsellor.Free counselling for young people is available through Gumboot Friday — http://iamhope.org.nz