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Dave Wood. Woodsy, welcome to my podcast. Woodsy. Are you still called Woodsy? Uh, yeah.
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Woody. Most people call me Woody. Mhm. Actually, my old man's name, Michael Wood. He was He's Everyone calls him
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Woody, but that's just been now passed down to me. So, either Dave or Woody.
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It's great to have you on the podcast. This is the first time we met for the
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first time maybe like 10 minutes ago. You pulled into the garage here at Pod Lab. Um big white van, window down. I
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think um it was AC/DC maybe back in black that I heard screaming out and I thought I'm going to jail with this guy.
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Yeah. Well, I was telling you I was stuck in the traffic for like an hour on the Norwegian motorway and so I was just
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playing my music playing my playlist the whole way and I enjoyed that. What was it? Was it Akada? That song? Yeah, it
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was AC/DC back in black. But um yeah, 70s, 80s. Uh but yeah, I I found that when I jumped on the Noise and motorway,
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my mind was just working overtime, thinking about the business and coming here to do the podcast and then being
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stuck in the traffic and you put your music on and it's just you get in that
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rhythm and it's like it's actually very relaxing. But even in um bumper to
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bumper traffic, are you are you still uh calm under the pressure? You know, it's so interesting like
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because I'm working in, you know, I have a workshop, two-day workshop that's
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called calm under pressure. Big things don't I can handle big things. You know,
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working for 13, 14 years and as an intensive care paramedic, you're confronted with the gnarliest stuff you
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could conjure up in your head is you're repeatedly going to that those, you know, often big things. It's like little
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things that probably agitate me more. But I've leared to, you know, like in the traffic today. Yeah. Maybe back in
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the day I would have been uptight and agitated, but like I said, I just turn the music on, do a bit of breathing, um,
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and relax because I don't want to give that my energy. Like especially running
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a business, my energy is so important. And so having that self-awareness and self-regulation to be like, hey, you
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know, what's the point? It's the same thing as like I used to be that person
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that someone pull in front of me in the traffic. I was very reactive for a long time. I had like a lot of anger. someone
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to pull pull in front of me in the traffic and I would get all uptight and but now I can't even imagine that man. I
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literally look back and I cannot imagine um letting that rattle me. You know I I was um I was exactly the
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same and I've tried to do some sort of self-examination or self-reflection, whatever you want to call it, to figure
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out why. And I wonder if it was like um times in my life where I had anger issues, if it was like mental health
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related, you know what I mean? like I was maybe depressed and I was just like projecting it onto other people but yeah
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now nothing phases me if so if if someone's rude to me in traffic now I almost have like a empathetic point of
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view where I think [ __ ] they must have some serious [ __ ] going on in their lives it brings about well first thing
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is I think for a lot of people anger is a form of anxiety you know like anxiety is built up tension how do you get rid
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of that comes out in lots of different ways for me I know now looking back that that anger that I was carrying was
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anxiety um you know things that I'd gone through in life that I didn't have the skills to
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deal with. So I just shoved it right back there. But it came out in all sorts of ways and angle was one of them. And
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then the other part of like what you're talking about there is I I have um my whole thing is now now
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is I want to be respectful and kind to everybody, right? Even if someone's coming at me with something, I'm going
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to I'm not going to react. I'm going to be like, you know, why is the We never
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know what I don't know what you're going through. I don't know what the And
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running this workshop, what you start learning is that some people are going through some gnarly stuff, man. And you
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just can't see it. You know, I get people in the workshop come up to me at the end of the workshop and tell me what
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they're going through, and it's full on, but I can't see that. Um, you know,
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we're often very good at masking it. And so, I just think, [ __ ] you hear it all
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the time, just be kind to people, but it's not even that hard. Um, yeah, it's
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so true. you you never know what the um what the weight anyone is anyone is carrying, you know, or the or the might
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not even be anything. Yeah. It could be grief or something like that, but you just don't know what someone's going
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through. Compassion is a good way to go. And you only have to look at it from a practical standpoint. We all go through
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something. We all that's like the part of life, man, is you we all go through
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the fire, right? And it's just we go through that fire at different times in
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our lives. And and and so the other thing is, you know, when when a lot of these patterns or or um
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behaviors that people are exhibiting is because they don't know how to deal with what they've been
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through and that and that is like that outward reflection, whether it be um yeah, like what we talked about, anger
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or confrontation or um whatever it might be. And it's just understanding that
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often just taking a step back and meeting that person with calm and understanding can like it's the way to
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go. So I thought this podcast today um a bit of thought goes into how we how we structure it. So I thought the the
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first half could be um yeah what you've learned and how um people listening to
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this or watching this can apply these tools, tricks, tips, techniques, whatever you want to call them into
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their own life. And then the second bit we'll um dig into the Dave Wood story.
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Who is uh Dave Wood before and what led you to this um come under pressure thing? Um but first of all uh what is um
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integrated training and what is come under pressure and what is Woody's movement workshop? Are they are they all
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the same thing? They're all related. People still it's called my company is
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called integrated training. Actually it's the trade name is WMW integrated training. But when I first started this
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business going back six, seven years ago, um I was working as an intensive care paramedic full-time and I'd been
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through chronic pain and as part of that getting myself out of chronic pain was about learning more about my body, about
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what was going on. And that started for me a deep dive into better understanding
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my own physical and mental state. And as part of that, I went deep into um strength and conditioning, deep into
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trigger point myofascial release, deep into anti-inflammatory food, uh sleep hygiene. So I went and uh breathing as
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well and going deep into all of these things, I became like really interested about human health and performance. And
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I already had that background in health science. And so I started as I was working full-time on the ambulance, I
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started seeing clients who were also dealing with um pain and uh muscle imbalance. And um I started building a
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little bit of a client base. And then it got to the point where I was like I'd
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built a big enough client base that I could go part-time on the ambulance um and work part-time in my business, which
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was basically just a shed in my backyard. And I called my business Woody's Movement Workshop. That's where
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it started. And um you know as the business evolved um I went down a whole another a whole different avenue which
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is um mental skill development. I became very interested initially in the clients
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that I was working with. I was seeing a lot of imbalance for example in their breathing secondary to um stress and I
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guess lack of self-awareness and self-regulation. And so I started working in that space of actually um
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breathing development uh as a tool for mental skill development and then it's
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just I guess elaborated and grown from there and um and then so yeah changed the business to integrated training but
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everyone still calls it Woody's movement workshop and so what's come under pressure? Come
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under pressure is like a a a small micro workshop that you do that comes under integrated training. Yeah. come under
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pressure. So working um in the ambulance in the health sector I became frustrated
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with how we were dealing with mental health and working in the health sector you can see I mean you're you're living
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in it you can see the flaws and rather than become I was always like man I can either
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just you know moan about this or I can do something about it and so I was like man I'm going to start my own workshop
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around mental skill development I'm going to call it calm under pressure um the skills of stress. And uh my
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challenge was I I guess like the challenge that I set for myself was I'm going to make the best mental skill
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development workshop in the world. And I'm going to bring people in and I'm
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going to take them through two two days, a transformative two days where we teach
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them the knowledge, the skills, and the practical applications of um of mental skill development. Um it's a very
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transformative workshop and it delves deep into your own subconscious patterns of behavior. So, it's about taking a
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step back, getting the mental clarity to be able to put your thumb on on some of
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your own patterns of behavior that are holding you back. I mean, people hold these patterns their entire lives. The
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beautiful thing about being a human being is we can change, but you've got to identify the pattern, right? How do
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we create a new pattern and then train and ingrain that pattern and we use um um uh uh mindset things to be able to do
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that. So, basically developing your mindset and then you train a new pattern that becomes the subconscious or
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hardwired pattern of behavior. It's not that difficult. Well, change is difficult because we tend to tether our
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identity to these patterns of behavior. So, that's one part of the workshop. But
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I think that like a key thing to because we all talk about like me, it's about
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the mental game. It's 90 90% metal mental, 10% physical. It's not it's 100%
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physical and 100% mental. And we have to invest in both. And the mind and the body are not separate. You know if you
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if you are psychologically agitated, if you have a thought come in that stimulates thinking, you tie emotion to
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it, um and that thought is negative and that thinking is negative, it will have a physiological effect in that. It will
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activate your body's stress response. You will get a release of adrenaline. Adrenaline increases your heart rate,
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increases your blood pressure, you're now in a physiological physiologically
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stress state based on what's going on up here. So they're not separate. And it's
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about getting people to understand that and giving them really simple, easy skills that can be applied in the heat
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of the moment or, you know, under stress and pressure to give you more control. But it's also about getting people to
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understand that you actually have to train to be calm under pressure. Um, yeah. So, yeah, it feels like how long
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has been going now? Three years, four years? Uh, I'm terrible with time. Honestly, like I was thinking the other
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day, we've been doing this workshop for a couple of years and then my girlfriend
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said, "No, you've been doing it for four years." So yeah, 3 4 years I think we've
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been and it feels like um there's this real sort of like buzz or hype or hum
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around it. Maybe that's a result of some of the high performance you've had on it
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who we'll get into but so when someone comes along to a come under pressure weekend workshop um what happens run us
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through it. Yeah. So, um, a big part of our workshop is about being in nature. And so, we run this workshop out
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at Phar Beach on the west coast of New Zealand, which is this crazy melting pot of energy. You got the Wit Takari
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Ranges. You got the Black Iron Sand, which is, you know, been deposited along the along the shores millions of years
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ago from volcanic activity in Tanaki. And then you've got the Tasman Sea. I've
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been all over the world. The Tasman Sea is one of the wildest oceans. and and that coast is it's just well there's
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even a reality show Pa Rescue. Yeah. Yeah. And um it's this this but I don't know like
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getting people in that environment and getting them to understand that you can tap into that energy is a a very
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powerful thing especially when you're getting people that are turned up who are um at a point in their lives where
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they've tried a bunch of things and they're looking for answers and and often the answers are right in front of
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us and reconnecting with nature is such an important part of balancing this entire system. And so we teach them
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that. That's the first thing we do in the morning. And then we get in nature.
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Um we take them, we run the sandunes, we get up into the bush, we jump in the ocean. And I tell you what, it takes
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about 20 30 minutes of being in nature to just strip away all the noise up here. And that's when we get them
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sharing. We get them in a group and we get them sharing. And um people want to talk, man. It's it's we get a lot of
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guys in our workshop and people think the guys don't want to talk. They want
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to talk. You just got to create the right environment. And so um in the morning in the first morning of the car
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under pressure workshop we start bringing in these important themes around how to better control your
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physical and mental state um and what that looks like. And then we test them. We get them to run the dunes. And you
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know from the outside looking in it's just people running up and down the dunes but we give them very specific
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things to work on when they are under pressure or when it becomes really uncomfortable in the sandune. That's
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about being able to control the thoughts that are coming in. If you think about you know thoughts and thinking are
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different a thought comes in if you react on that thought you start thinking you tie emotion to it that dict takes
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action and outcome so it becomes very important to be able to regulate or control your thoughts uh when you're
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under pressure and there's only one stress response. So the same stress response that's activated when you're
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under the pump in the sandjune is the same stress response as when you're getting in the ice bath at the end of
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the first day is the same stress response as when you're going to talk in front of a group of people or someone
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pulls in front of you in the traffic in the car and you can get very good at controlling a p at training a pattern of
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control under stress and that's what we do in the first uh morning of this workshop and then yeah as as part of
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that they'll end up later on in in a classroom and we're talking about you
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know even if I ask you what is like culturally what is our perception of stress is do we think stress is good or
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bad like if you go and Google stress oh it's got a yeah it's all bad it's all
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bad stress is just your body's natural response to threat challenge and demand
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that's all it is and if you think about how you create a robust strong body you
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you put yourself in stressful situations you go and exercise you go and lift weights everybody's system needs stress
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to create robustnessm Stress is not bad. And this is what we teach on on the workshop and with all of my clients.
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Stress is not the problem. The problem is the absence of disciplined intermittent recovery. And if you don't
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get that right and you're burning it in the red all the time, that's where we
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start to experience signs and symptoms of chronic stress. What's the talking thing that you're
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talking about early on? So, is it like um like a vulnerability exchange or what is it? You know, when you said you got
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everyone and they they get talking. Why do you do that feel early on? It would make sense, wouldn't it, towards the end
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when everyone sort of knows each other and there's a bit of a connection because sharing is so important, man.
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We're we're um we have all these things going on with us and we're so scared to
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share it because it makes you vulnerable, right? Or or we think it's um the stuff that we're experiencing is
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a weakness. And when you get in a circle and you go around and share, I don't
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know, maybe one of your weaknesses or something that you're struggling with,
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everyone sitting there is going, "Oh, I do that. I experienced that." The three
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things that we fear most, fear of failure, fear of letting people down, and fear of what other people might
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think. And those three fears hold us back our entire lives. Fear of failure. If you think about these kids that are
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growing up now in New Zealand, man, like the athletes have a lot of the um these
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athletes, you know, they have so many of the um important things we can learn about mental health in New Zealand
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because what happens when an athlete loses? Oh, we come down on them. Yeah. Well, the media does or social some
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idiots on social media break them. We pull them down. And so these kids, these young kids are looking at that. Oh, when
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you fail, this is what happens. Well, it subconsciously this creates a pattern of
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I don't want to expose myself to challenge because if I fail, this is what happens. And so we we breed this
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culture of fear of failure. And um you have fear of failure. I have fear of failure. We all
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have fear of failure. You wouldn't be human if you didn't. What I've learned,
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one of the key things I've learned in terms of my own self-development um and
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and personal growth and investing in into all of the stuff is that we all experience anxiety. We all
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experience fear, self-doubt, imposttor syndrome. I used to think that that stuff you had to push it away. Now I
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understand that you embrace it. They're not bad. It's what you do with it that
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matters. You know, the thought you bring it in. You change your language. You shift your perspective. you respond
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using your creative mind. Um, but I've had to learn all this stuff. I didn't
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have those skills when I was a kid. I went through stuff when I was a kid that I didn't have the skills to deal with.
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So, I just chucked it all in the back and I ran away from it. But, but the problem is that it come we talked about
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it starts coming out in all these patterns of behavior and then we tether that to our identity and the idea of
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change is very difficult. Yeah. Yeah. out out of all the stuff you you said there, one thing that um struck
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a chord with me is um you the fear of what other people think. And I think for me for a large part of my life that's
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something that held me back and it's um only been quite liberating and only in
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the recent sort of like past maybe 5 years that you realize other other people aren't thinking about you as much
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as what you think they are. Everyone is so inward thinking, right? So and it's
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quite a liberating thought when you realize that. Yeah. People are not thinking about you
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as much as what you think they are. Well, people are judging you. Yeah. Yeah. And and um you
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know, I tell you, it's that whole thing of um surround yourself by the right
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people, right? And and that's been a big thing for me is um you know, my mates,
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uh my family, the the close people around me. Um they're the people that really matter. And if you put yourself
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out there, like you've had to put yourself out there. we've had to create
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this podcast, you know, and and that brings about its own challenge cuz people are going to say stuff and some
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people are going to like it, some people aren't, and you're reading that that
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stuff and and so if you you know, and that's just some random person who's
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making a comment and and if you're going to put yourself out there, you're going to get, you know,
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you're going to get pushed down and there's going to be people that are going to um say stuff about you and all
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the rest of it. None of it, you know, none of none of it really matters, does it? Mhm.
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But but it affects us. It affects us. And if if it didn't affect you, um then
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you wouldn't be human. But it's what you do with it. All of the stuff is what you
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do with it. And um you know what you're talking about is as you've got older and
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you've experienced all this stuff, you've worked it out as you've gone
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along. Yeah. But it takes a while. It takes a while to get to that level of comfort in yourself. Yeah. And I don't
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think you you ever you're never perfect at it. That's the that's the thing.
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There's always that stuff that comes in that affects you that shouldn't. Um, and
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again, that's just human, man. But also, if one if one of your haters or detractors says like, "Oh, [ __ ]
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Dave's doing this come under pressure thing. Won't work. I give it six months." And then you buy into that and
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you you cave after 6 months, then they go, "I knew it." So, the best thing you
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can do to flip them the middle finger and um to make yourself feel good is to push through and say, "Fuck you." And
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make it a success. Yeah. I think the best thing you can do is not focus on anyone else but focus on yourself. And
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the here's here's the the important thing, Dom, is like if you have a clear purpose and you
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have a clear vision and you have clear values and you have set goals, it doesn't matter what gets in your way.
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You either push through it or go around it. But a lot of people that that's like
00:19:28
mental skill 101, values, vision, purpose, goal setting. We often just hear that stuff and we're like, "Oh,
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yeah." But but when you actually get it out of your head and write it down and
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and you've established your values, you know, your vision, your goals, your purpose, that's like the
00:19:43
guywise. That's the thing that keeps you keeps you on track and it makes a massive difference, man. And I didn't do
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this stuff until probably about 5 years ago. Write out my values and my purpose and my vision and my goals and it has
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just been a gamecher, man. Because because all that stuff all that stuff on the um peripheries just becomes white
00:20:01
noise. M you what what are they in terms of your your values and what are the like cornerstones? Well, I tell you one
00:20:08
of my interesting values is um uh selfish. I'm selfish. That's one of my
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values. And and sounds like a controversial one. Yeah. Well, again, we have these words, right? And and we tie
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a negative connotation to these words. What's the opposite of being selfish?
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It's people pleasing. And when you're selfish and you invest in yourself ahead
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of everyone else, your physical and mental health, and you put that ahead of everyone else, what happens is that
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you're way more robust and you're way more um you're way more capable to help
00:20:40
other people. And life is about helping other people, right? So this idea of being selfish is like, oh, it's all
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about you. No, it's not. It's about investing in me so I can help the people
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around me. and and and um yes, I have um you know, one of my values is courage. You know, the the the courage
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to try um even even when I'm lacking confidence, it's the courage to put
00:21:02
myself there even when I don't feel ready, when I have um apprehension, tension, overwhelm, anxiety, the courage
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to put myself in the fire because that's where all the the learning happens, you
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know, like I I remember back to giving my first keynote talk. was in front of like 3 400 people and for weeks
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beforehand, man, I was so overwhelmed by stress and pressure. It was the fear of
00:21:23
the unknown, the fear of failing. I even visualized myself getting up there and [ __ ] it all up. And um you know, even
00:21:29
before I went up to talk, there was a guy that came out. He was a neuroscientist from Australia and I
00:21:34
watched his talk. Can you can you think about imagine what I might have been thinking? Yeah. His presentation's way
00:21:40
better than mine. Who am I? Dave from P. This is a neuroscientist. And I'm just
00:21:43
in my head in this moment, right? And um I I use the skills, right, to be able to
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get up there and smash it. But um but I've lost my train of thought. Um but it is like that whole um courage to
00:22:01
try, man, just to to put yourself out there even when you're feeling all that
00:22:04
stuff. And now um having done lots of keynotes since there, I'm searching for
00:22:09
that same feeling. I want that same challenge and that same fear, apprehension, tension. That's what I
00:22:15
want because that's where all the the the growth happens. You you have the courage to try and if you keep putting
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yourself out there despite failure, you become competent. And it's the competence that leads to confidence.
00:22:26
Confidence is a skill you can train. When I go into these situations, I don't
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look for a feeling of confidence. I understand that what I'm trying to do is
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is just put myself there, feel uncomfortable, and keep going back there. And over time I create that that
00:22:39
competence which leads to um confidence. Yeah. And I suppose your your two sort of previous careers have led you to this
00:22:46
and we'll get to that later but through your 20s you were like a lifeguard around the world. Yeah. Um and through
00:22:51
your 30s as you've alluded to um an intensive care paramedic. Um what what sort of person comes to
00:22:58
like come under pressure? I I feel like the people that really really really really need it the most probably
00:23:03
wouldn't come. You know what I mean? because of fear or whatever. I feel like
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that people that come would they be sort of a types? Um the people that come on the
00:23:14
workshop fortunately tend to be um really cool high performing people. So whether that be that they are a business
00:23:26
owner or a mom or a dad or um an athlete or uh but they tend to be people that are motivated to invest in their
00:23:35
physical and mental health and that's the type of person we want and and we don't I mean we take anybody right but
00:23:42
you got to be you got to be there for the right reasons and um yeah well I think we tend to get people
00:23:49
that are on this journey and maybe they're they've tried tried a bunch of
00:23:54
things uh that haven't worked for whatever reason and they're searching for the next thing and then they come
00:23:59
across this workshop and it's like well 2 days of investing in uh mental skill
00:24:03
development I'll do that. Yeah, it's easy. It's very quick in terms of like
00:24:08
an investment of time, isn't it? And you've had some um like in incred let's
00:24:12
drop a few names here like um from the UFC. You've had Israel, Kikarta, France.
00:24:18
Uh who else? Who else from the UFC? Um yeah, a bunch of the um UFC boys. They do our um rec recovery training, mental
00:24:28
skill development training during the fight camps. We work with I work with athletes across you know uh golf players
00:24:33
uh rugby league rugby uh football um Peter Berling from team NZ Paul Cole from one of the world's best squash
00:24:40
players. Yeah and um and uh what what are they what are they looking for when they when they reach out to you? uh
00:24:47
they're looking for I think like this I think a lot of the work that I am doing are not is not
00:24:56
so much in the systems that these athletes are training in and so they're looking um
00:25:04
right on the outskirts maybe um right how do we get that 1% better uh and yeah I think they look into it and they're
00:25:13
intrigued by what is this um but at the end of the day it's actually very basic.
00:25:17
The work that I do is very very basic. Um it I I I like to say it's it's simple
00:25:23
but it's not easy. And mental skill development should be simple because the
00:25:28
moments when you have to apply this stuff can be the difference between winning and losing. And it's often when
00:25:33
you're cognitively overloaded, you're physically under the pump and you need
00:25:37
to uh be able to pull on things that give you more physical and mental control in the heat of the moment. So
00:25:46
they should be simple but they have to be practiced every day. Um I I like to I mean this is like a huge part of this is
00:25:53
meditation. I don't use the word meditation. I talk about um work that improves your focus, your uh energy
00:25:59
control, um productivity. Um learn more about the condition of your body and mind. But yeah, we work with athletes
00:26:06
across the, you know, all sports and um but I I don't like I get just as much out of working
00:26:15
with the guy down the road who's dealing with stress and pressure and and comes
00:26:18
to me with a challenge. Um so yeah, but but all those all those high performers that we mentioned from
00:26:25
different sports, like is there any sort of one or two or even three things that
00:26:28
you can see they each have in common? Yeah, man. This has been the great thing like because I I feel sometimes I'm like
00:26:35
far out I'm learning more from these guys than than they are from me. And I think um what I see in the
00:26:43
athletes that are performing at a really high level is unwavering self-belief. Um even in the face of of
00:26:51
failure and setback, it's that unwavering self-belief. Um and it's a curiosity you have to have. you you know
00:26:59
curiosity is one of the hallmarks of peak performance and if these athletes end up in front of me they're curious
00:27:05
they want they want to know about this stuff um and I think that's what makes
00:27:09
them so great uh you know those those people that are operating at a really high level and then they're open to um
00:27:16
the things that I am bringing which is things like reconnecting with nature meditation breathing uh development a
00:27:22
lot of these athletes aren't even training um their respiratory system so we like to break the body system down
00:27:29
into like really six body systems that are integral for performance. There's 11
00:27:33
body systems in total. And one of those body systems is the breathing system. So
00:27:37
if you ask yourself, how much time, energy, and focus am I putting into developing my breathing capacity,
00:27:42
strengthening my diaphragm, getting good breathing mechanics, good rate control,
00:27:46
um being able to use my breathing to elicit a calm state, uh because your breathing is indirectly tethered to your
00:27:52
nervous system. When you slow your breathing down, prolong the exhale, you create more calming effect in your
00:27:56
nervous system. you can apply that in really dynamic situations. And then the other part of the breathing training is
00:28:01
um matching the intensity of your breathing to the intensity of the exercise which has a huge effect in
00:28:06
terms of endurance and mental focus. Um so I like to ask them yeah how much time
00:28:12
and energy you putting into the system because they often they come to me and they're like yeah I want the the 1%. And
00:28:17
and most of them aren't training the system. So there's much you're leaving
00:28:20
much more than 1% on the table. Yeah. You know and and the other cool thing about the breathing it is tethered to
00:28:26
every single emotional state. So if you go into a situation you are feeling fear, apprehension, tension, anxiety,
00:28:32
your breathing will reflect that. In that your breathing will be faster, it will be upper chest and it will be
00:28:37
shallow. By having the self-awareness to identify that and take conscious control
00:28:41
of it, you are doing the opposite of your body stress response. You are sending very clear signals from your
00:28:46
body to your brain that you are in control. So, man, this this um probably going off on a tangent here
00:28:52
around the breathing stuff, but this is this is the work that that we're we're
00:28:56
doing. And when I got into this, I was like all of these athletes cuz I come from a um um sporting performance
00:29:02
background. My background is in like you said surf life saving 13 14 years as an
00:29:07
intensive care paramedic being exposed to like constant stress and pressure and having to like um you know make clinical
00:29:15
decisions under pressure and and I'm bringing that learning over into this environment and when I came into um
00:29:20
sporting performance I thought all this stuff was like I thought this was like 101 breathing development meditation um
00:29:27
sleep hygiene all this stuff and then I realized holy man this is like a lot of this stuff isn't
00:29:32
A lot of these athletes are building on top of unstable foundations and they're
00:29:37
getting right to the top based on just pushing. And but when if you don't have
00:29:40
good foundations, you get to the top and the cracks start appearing. And then the
00:29:43
idea of going back and getting this stuff right, self-awareness, self-regulation, stress control, getting
00:29:47
a better understanding of what's going on on up here isn't on the radar. It's
00:29:51
like, right, how do we get better? We push more. Problem is that that that's
00:29:54
what's kind of um Yeah. Well, I reckon with um with this podcast, there'll be
00:29:59
two sorts of people. There'll be the the very very slim pointy end that'll be
00:30:02
like, "Fuck, this sounds amazing. I got to look into come under pressure and
00:30:06
maybe they'll follow through and come to one of your workshops." Um, then
00:30:09
there'll be the majority of people that um may like the sound of it, but they
00:30:13
won't do anything about it. But what are what are some stuff that listeners or
00:30:17
viewers to this can do immediately to help themselves? You know, you I say if calm under pressure is like a 1enter or
00:30:22
a 5enter, what are some like bigger chunks of the pie that they can do immediately? Take radical ownership of
00:30:27
your own physical and mental health and don't rely on anyone else. We need the
00:30:30
specialists, we need the doctors, we need all these people, but never at the expense of taking radical ownership of
00:30:36
your own physical and mental health and investing in it every day. This is the vehicle that's got to get you through
00:30:40
hard times. So what happens is if you don't look after this thing, if you don't invest into it, when you go
00:30:45
through the hard hard times, this is what you reflect back on. And if this isn't healthy, that's where people get
00:30:51
lost. What's radical ownership? Radical ownership is um radical ownership for me is exactly
00:30:59
what I said. Not relying on anyone else. Understanding that we need people around
00:31:04
around us to support us, but not relying on that and investing back into your physical and mental health as a
00:31:11
priority. I like to um explain it as imagine if you had one car to last a lifetime. How much you'd look after that
00:31:17
car? Keep the tires pumped up. You'd keep it waxed and polished. You'd know
00:31:20
everything about the engine. Well, you only have one body to last a lifetime. And what I saw in the ambulance service
00:31:25
that really shocked me into action was people that were trapped in their bodies for the last 20, 30, 40 years of their
00:31:31
lives because they hadn't looked after the thing. So, yeah, that that's um taking radical
00:31:38
ownership for me is just doing the work like and understanding that um and it's not even that difficult, you
00:31:44
know, it's just doing doing the small things every day like um well, eating better, exercising. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
00:31:50
exactly. Like, you know, the physical side of it, exercising, we know that like exercise has such a profound effect
00:31:56
on your mental health, you know, getting in nature, having having a connection with nature is so important, man. Um,
00:32:02
and we're designed to be in nature all the time, you know, and and that's being
00:32:06
in nature sets our circadian rhythm. It balances our nervous system. Um, it creates mental clarity. All the good
00:32:12
stuff's there. But I talk a lot about reconnecting with nature. And um a big
00:32:16
part of that for me is I want to raise the consciousness around looking after that thing. And when you have a
00:32:22
relationship, a deep connection with nature, you start being much more aware about looking after it because if we if
00:32:28
we mess that thing up, we're gone. Thanks for that's such a boring answer.
00:32:33
I was I was um I don't know. I was thinking it was going to be like um ice baths or meditation or box breathing or
00:32:38
something like that, but very simple, isn't it? It is. And the the um example
00:32:43
you use about a car is a very good one because I think um a lot of people, maybe men in particular, I don't know,
00:32:48
probably treat their their car better than what they do their own their own body in terms of regular servicing and
00:32:53
things like that. Yeah. Well, you said there it's simple. It's simple, but it's
00:32:57
not easy. And it's not easy because we're so busy and we sacrifice our own
00:33:01
physical mental health all the time and we're um burning it in the red, you know. How sorry, how do you mean? Well,
00:33:10
you think about when we talk about stress, don't think of high level stress. Just think of the busyiness of
00:33:14
your life. You've got to get up in the morning. You got to get in the car. You
00:33:17
got to sit in traffic. You got to go to work. You got to meet deadlines. You got
00:33:19
financial stress, psychosocial stress, physical stress, mental stress, the chemical load of food. We're not
00:33:23
designed to be doing what we're doing nowadays. We haven't our brains haven't
00:33:26
evolved much in 5 6 thousand years. We're still very primal, right? And um this it's this constant busyness and the
00:33:34
stimulus. Even if you think about the phone, the constant stimulus, the multitasking, it's cognitively
00:33:40
overloaded and it's having all of these um knock-on effects that I think a lot of people
00:33:46
aren't able to to draw the dots. Mhm. And um part of this whole thing I think is
00:33:54
being able to stand back and I think it's all first of all it's realizing
00:34:00
that we're actually addicted to stress because you think about in your day when
00:34:05
you find a quiet space in your day what do you do I don't know pick up my phone there you
00:34:11
go you pick up the phone because your brain is craving more stimulus the brain just recognizes patterns you know and if
00:34:18
the pattern is to burning it in the red all the time. Adrenaline is addictive. Don't think of high level stress. So
00:34:24
when we you know back when you're a kid and you find a quiet space, you know
00:34:28
what did you do? You allowed your mind to wander off and it would you'd come up
00:34:34
with an idea and you'd bring that idea and you'd use the creative part of your
00:34:37
brain to come up with a game or whatever. Nowadays we we don't that that void that we have that quiet place we
00:34:42
fill it with more stimulus and then in the evenings what are we doing? We you know when when our bodies are supposed
00:34:48
to be slowing down and the pineal glands supposed to be releasing melatonin we are putting more stimulus into our
00:34:55
brains and that is activating your body's stress response and that is uh adrenaline release from your adrenal
00:35:00
glands. So we're going you know 180° against how we're designed to um to sync
00:35:05
in with our you know natural 24-hour cycle. And it's a massive problem, man.
00:35:10
Like I was out um checking my mail the other day and I just looked down the road and there's this kid that had
00:35:15
jumped off the bus and he was walking up the road. I was watching him looking at
00:35:18
his phone. He walked into the back of a parked car and it's like, you know, like
00:35:22
I'm so glad I grew up in a in a time where we didn't have um phones and we
00:35:27
were like, you know, like growing up out of Phanrush, we were in the surf and and we
00:35:33
never had that um you know, that uh constantly being on the phone. But even myself, I find that
00:35:39
like I have to have really strict rules and regulations around that thing because it can become just an extension
00:35:44
of your arm. I I'm I'm very guilty of that. I know I've got um an incredibly
00:35:49
toxic relationship with technology. Um one thing that's maybe worth worth highlighting which I really like about
00:35:53
you is um you're you're you're not you're no monk yourself. Like um last
00:35:58
night we were messaging each other and uh it was Monday night and you were having a whiskey at home. So you're
00:36:03
you're not one of these people that's just doing, you know, all this wholesome
00:36:08
stuff and saying, you know, live live a live a Spartan lifestyle. Like you you do have good balance in your life. Oh
00:36:14
man, I you eat some [ __ ] food as well, man. I tell you what, this this is where
00:36:20
we when we get into like holistic health and self- betterment and personal growth.
00:36:29
Um we tend to think that it's yeah, you have to eat healthy and you have to exercise every day and you got to be
00:36:36
meditating and it's just not the reality. The reality is like even for myself, I'm I'm sometimes I just burn it
00:36:42
in the red for a couple of weeks cuz I'm busy in the business and I eat [ __ ] food
00:36:45
and I'm like, you know, I fall away from my um you know, my routines. But it
00:36:51
doesn't need to be perfect and it's never going to be perfect. You're never
00:36:54
going to be get the balance right between stress and recovery, the red and the blue. The the way that life designed
00:36:59
now is that we spend much more time in the red. But that's why these active recovery rituals that I have in my day
00:37:04
are so important because they improve your stress tolerance and they um they improve your energy and they help you
00:37:10
especially when you're going through the hard times to be able to fall back on a
00:37:13
toolbox that you have to be able to um you know um balance that stress with the recovery. But yeah, man, I'm not far
00:37:22
out. I love having a beer. I love partying. Um that's I grew up in that environment.
00:37:28
Is it like like an 8020 rule for you? a 9010 rule. No, it's nothing like that.
00:37:32
It's just live life and enjoy yourself, expose yourself to challenge and most of
00:37:36
the time eat healthy food and and you know do a little bit of meditation and exercise and this is like this isn't it
00:37:42
doesn't have to be like it's just enjoyable, right? This is all this all
00:37:46
this stuff is like it doesn't if we create too much I have to do this and I have to do that. It's not sustainable.
00:37:52
Yeah. I think it starts to feel too hard for some people if you listen to like um
00:37:56
a Huberman podcast or Dr. Peter Artier and it just feels too hard. It's like I
00:38:01
need to cut everything out. It's too hard to get from where I am to where to
00:38:04
where they expect me to be. But yeah, what what you're suggesting seems very
00:38:09
achievable. Yeah, exactly. Well, um you know, I'll give you an example. Like I I do strength and conditioning
00:38:16
every day, but I don't I'm not in the gym for 45 minutes. I do like 20 minutes. And some days I'm really busy.
00:38:24
I just do one exercise, you know? I'll just do walking lunges. take me five minutes, but I it keeps me in that
00:38:29
routine. And then I love having a pie. So what? You know, I love having a beer, but predominantly I eat food that's um
00:38:37
cuz I understand that the chemical load of the food that I'm put the digestive
00:38:41
system is one of the body system is the body system that uses the most amount of
00:38:44
energy. So if I'm shoveling crap into my mouth, it's got to get from my mouth
00:38:47
through my esophagus, my stomach, my large intestine, small intestine, and out my ass. It's going to use a lot of
00:38:51
energy if I'm just shoveling [ __ ] in there. And so I understand that like if
00:38:55
I want to have good energy, I better put good food on. And that's just like everyone understands that. But
00:39:03
um yeah, it's just yeah, I do think that people feel like everything if they're
00:39:09
going to do this stuff, it's got to be perfect. And what I'm telling them is it
00:39:12
does not need to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. And this whole thing around radical ownership and
00:39:17
investing back into your physical and mental health is a lifelong journey. And it's it's not going to go like that.
00:39:22
It's going to go like this. and you're going to deviate out there and you're
00:39:24
going to fall off track and it's all part of it. Do you do you have like a set morning routine or anything? Yeah.
00:39:30
Yeah. What do you do? How does the day start? I get up and I go straight to my coffee machine.
00:39:35
See, see, part of me expected you'd be like one of these YouTubers where it's
00:39:38
like 5:00 a.m. start gratitude for 20 minutes, ice bath, you know. No, because like I like to think of this as
00:39:48
just I have a gratitude practice. I have a practice every day where I I prop myself up through selft talk. Two
00:39:53
minutes I sit down and I just talk about myself. I'm disciplined. I'm I tell
00:39:57
myself what I want to be. I'm disciplined. I'm focused. I'm courageous. I'm calm. Is that it? Is
00:40:03
that the daily mantra? Is it those four things? What? No, no, no. just talk I just talk about man I I talk about
00:40:10
myself and almost like man you've done really well to get to the why would you
00:40:14
not talk about we have far more negative thoughts in a day than positive ones and
00:40:18
we tend to react based on those negative thoughts and so it's really important
00:40:21
cuz don't wait for anyone else to do it for you prop yourself up so I have these
00:40:26
practices I have a gratitude practice my gratitude practice is so simple I walk down the beach for a surf and I just go
00:40:30
man I'm lucky to be able to go for a surf surfing for me used to be about catching all the waves and you know and
00:40:36
if I if I didn't get the good wave or to come out better. But now it's just about
00:40:39
being in the ocean and being like grateful that I have health to be out there. And my morning routine is have a
00:40:46
coffee. I I I will often just walk out onto the balcony and I'll just be like I
00:40:51
don't know just far out, man. Just like just take it all in for a for a minute.
00:40:56
But I don't I'm not that structured in in terms of like my morning routine is this this this and
00:41:02
this. Um I exercise every day. I I expose myself to challenge. I um I do some form of meditation every
00:41:10
day, but I'm also busy. I'm also running a business. Um that can get in the way
00:41:16
of all of this stuff. And and man, it's hard to get the balance right. It's
00:41:20
really difficult to get the balance right. And that's why it's so important
00:41:23
with all of this stuff that we keep it real simple and it should be simple. Like this stuff's really refreshing to
00:41:30
hear your that um positive selft talk. Has has it always been like that or is this something you've had to work
00:41:37
on? I went through a stage in life I I feel like I've always had um I've always really deeply believed in
00:41:49
myself but I went through a phase in my life probably um in my around my sort of
00:41:56
early 30s where um I experienced chronic pain and I lost I feel like I lost my identity. I remember thinking man I'm
00:42:04
over the I remember like thinking of what I used to be like and I'm over here and I can't bridge that
00:42:12
gap and it was a real feeling of being lost in my own body and a lot of negative selft talk started and I
00:42:21
started having some really troubling thoughts like um you know thoughts like [Music]
00:42:28
um how am I going to keep doing this because being in chronic pain and working on ambulance and at the same
00:42:34
time my my girlfriend was going through a really difficult time. It was this culmination of all of this stuff and it
00:42:42
was incredibly overwhelming for me and that's where um I I think that negative
00:42:48
self-t talk started um uh dominating this space up here. M and so as part of this whole journey it
00:42:56
was about you know identifying that and um again realizing like right we can change all this you just have to be uh
00:43:04
you know you got to be open to it and it's got it's all I mean going through
00:43:08
like you will know this you've been through the fire I'm sure oh no one gets
00:43:14
to I'm I'm 52 no well some people do get to 52 and have nothing happen to them some sort of
00:43:20
adversity n [ __ ] Well, I think that some people live a pretty um or try to create a life where
00:43:29
because they have a negative relationship with stress where they put a bunch of safety barriers up. That's
00:43:34
kind of what I'm talking about. Yeah, we all go through the fire, but and it's
00:43:37
that negative relationship with stress and pressure and challenge where you create a very uh insular environment and
00:43:43
you put all these safety barriers up and that cuz really happiness to me is about
00:43:50
ripping those barriers down and exposing yourself to challenge and new experiences and being okay with setbacks
00:43:56
and all the things that we've talked about failure. M um that to me is like in my life, you know, where I felt most
00:44:03
content is where I've really challenged myself. Type two fun stuff that's often um Do
00:44:10
you know about type two fun? No. It was a a previous um podcast guest um Sir Peter Beck who set up Rocket Lab that
00:44:17
introduced me to it. I'd never heard of it, but he said it's it's the sort of
00:44:19
fun that's often it's [ __ ] at the time when you're doing it, but afterwards you
00:44:24
go actually that was that was quite enjoyable. I've heard you in another podcast talk about like and we'll get to
00:44:28
this your travel stories like um some camel trick you went on that sounds like it was type two fun [ __ ] at the time and
00:44:34
then afterwards you go actually that was one of the best experiences I I had when
00:44:38
when was the last time you you failed really badly. Um I well from being an hour late for
00:44:44
this podcast today. Um I feel like where I last felt really confronted um was working in the ambulance service and
00:45:02
having a ch couple of jobs go wrong and the ambulance service is a small place and people talked and that really
00:45:08
affected my confidence and that amplified stress for me and I started noticing that I was
00:45:14
going to these jobs and I was overwhelmed by stress and pressure. I could feel my heart rate going, my hands
00:45:20
would be clammy. And for me, how that played out is I'd get into the job and
00:45:23
I'd get tunnel vision. And in in that job, if you get tunnel vision, it's very
00:45:30
dangerous because you need to make clinical decisions under pressure. You need to have good peripheral awareness
00:45:33
of what's going on. You need to make decisions about what do we do on scene,
00:45:36
what do what do we do offsecene. You also need to manage uh and lead a group of people. And so I started noticing
00:45:43
that I'd get to these jobs and I was just getting tunnel vision. And um and that, you know, I I made some um poor
00:45:49
clinical decisions and then that amplified that um that stress even more. And I felt like whatever I've ever done
00:45:57
in life, I want to be the best at it. I think we all do, you know, like you want
00:46:00
to be good at it. And part of like starting in the ambulance service, I want to be an intensive care paramedic
00:46:04
and I want to be the best at it. And when that happened and I had these jobs that um you know failed, um it really
00:46:10
impacted me. When you say poor clinical decisions, do you mean potentially like um patients that died that didn't need
00:46:18
to or No, not I'm not. No, I I So, I'm thinking that's in terms of stress. That's a that's that's an
00:46:27
extreme job. Yeah. But the reality is that's what I'm talking about. The
00:46:30
reality is a lot of these jobs are prehosp jobs. I mean, if you don't initiate the right care, they don't get
00:46:36
to hospital. And so I was very acutely aware of that. But having these jobs that went wrong where I failed and
00:46:44
people were talking about it was really confronting for me. Yeah. And um but man, I've failed and so I [ __ ]
00:46:51
I'm failing all the time. I just don't I don't care that I'm failing because in
00:46:59
each of those and I fail in business. I fail in the training that I do where I don't deliver up to the expectation that
00:47:05
I expect of myself. Um, I fail in my relationship. I fail in all the far out. It's like, but I'd understand now that
00:47:15
there's learning in all of that, right? So, it's I I kind of view failing as
00:47:18
it's only failing if you don't learn something from it and grow from it. And
00:47:23
um I don't look at failing as something that's negative. I I look at it, you
00:47:26
know, it sounds cliche, but as a stepping stone to success. Have you I might get the movie wrong. It's it's a
00:47:32
kids movie. You wouldn't have seen it called Inside Out. It's a Pixar movie.
00:47:36
What movie? Yeah, Pixar. You know Pixar, they do animated movies. It's like an
00:47:40
arm of Disney. There's a movie called Inside Out and um there's a scene in
00:47:44
there where this kid goes, "Oh, no. I failed." And then all these bells and
00:47:47
whistles goes off and it's like, "Yeah, yeah, you failed. It's a one step closer
00:47:51
to success." That's it, man. And that's the message we should be getting across
00:47:54
to these kids and to everyone. And there's a real culture in New Zealand, I think, of like the stigma around certain
00:48:00
things. There's a stigma around anxiety. There's a stigma around mental health.
00:48:03
There is a stigma around imposter syndrome. You know, have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? All the
00:48:09
[ __ ] time. Yeah. My mindset about imposter syndrome matters. So, my mindset around imposter
00:48:17
syndrome is that it's good. It means that I'm in a situation where I'm
00:48:20
challenging myself. I'm outside my comfort zone. I'm in a situation where I
00:48:25
don't know a lot about the subject, but I'm there anyway. And um imposter
00:48:29
syndrome is good. And when you have that percept perception of imposter syndrome,
00:48:32
when you find yourself there, you instantly have more control. You instantly it dampens the stress
00:48:38
response. It's even like your mindset around stress. My mindset around stress
00:48:41
is that it's good. Some people have a stress is debilitating mindset. If my mindset around like if I'm going through
00:48:47
if I'm navigating a hardship and I feel like I'm going backwards and in that
00:48:50
moment like it's pretty fullon. If my mindset around that is this is good, this is actually where I need to be. I'm
00:48:56
going to navigate through this. I'm going to come out the other side more resilient. Um then that's going to um
00:49:02
dampen the amount of stress I experience going through that event. So mindset around all of the stuff matters. And
00:49:09
I've just one of the biggest learnings I've taken away from doing all this
00:49:13
stuff is developing my own mindset and realizing where I can reshape my mindset. Realizing where I have a really
00:49:20
fixed mindset around stuff and I maybe need to change that into more of a growth mindset. realizing that like you
00:49:26
know I talked about you know for many years I had a lot of anger I was very reactive um that became a subconscious
00:49:33
pattern so when I went into stress and pressure moments that reactive pattern of anger would come to the forefront I
00:49:38
was consciously aware of it but it was coming from my subconscious patterns of behavior you know based on my practical
00:49:44
experiences based on my values based on the things I've been through in life I
00:49:48
recognize that I can change that pattern but it requires a different mindset my mindset is I remain calm and in control
00:49:54
no matter what. I developed that mindset for myself about seven years ago and eight years ago and it has changed my
00:50:02
life. And when I developed that mindset, someone would pull in front of me in the
00:50:05
traffic, I would get all pissed off and then it' be like, "Hold on, my mindset
00:50:07
is remain calm and in control. I'm going against the system and protocol I've
00:50:11
made for my mindset." And then so I'd be, you know, the next time and and it
00:50:14
was just through this repetition. I can't even imagine, man, even getting in
00:50:18
confrontations now. I got in a confrontation the other day and back in the day I would have just it would have
00:50:24
just been like that you know and and I I would have met that confrontation by raising my voice. Now I just take a step
00:50:30
back and I just man calmness of mind is a superpower and being able to regulate your emotions under pressure is a
00:50:36
superpower. So the real strength I thought the anger was a strength the anger is a weakness. Oh yeah any any
00:50:42
interaction when someone loses their call it's like they've lost the argument. Hey but but we still only
00:50:48
human though. When was the last time? Yeah. When was the last time you got angry? Last time. I remember it so
00:50:53
clearly. Do you I was in the water surfing and um I won't go into detail, but I just saw red and
00:51:02
and you know I lost it. What did someone cut you off? Cut you off, steal your wave. No. What? Yeah, it was. Yeah.
00:51:08
Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. We collided. We collided in the surf and then we come up and he said something to
00:51:15
me and then it's all on. And I went away from that experience cuz there's a bunch of
00:51:21
other people in the water and they're listening to me yelling and and carrying
00:51:24
on. And um I went away from that experience feeling really back in the day I would have gone away from that and
00:51:31
being like, "Yep, that's a win." I went away from that really deflated um
00:51:35
because I'd gone against my mindset and because I understand that that is a real
00:51:39
sign of um reactivity and weakness and so you failed to meet your own personal expectations.
00:51:46
Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. But um you know emotional regulation is not only being able to
00:51:54
regulate your own response but what what happened like I don't know what that guy
00:52:00
is going through. I don't know what like saying those things I don't know the
00:52:04
effect that potentially could have had on him. And so um you know P's a small place. The next
00:52:10
day I went up to him and I I said hey man that that I really apologize. I'm I'm that was not okay behavior you know
00:52:18
and um but very rarely now do um you know do I lose my temper. Very rarely. That's
00:52:27
probably the last time that was years ago. Um but you know that doesn't mean that
00:52:35
um again like man I'm I'm definitely not you're human. Yeah. So but do you do you
00:52:42
are you just fairly measured? You don't get too high, don't get too low. So like
00:52:45
never lower than a three, never higher than like an eight. Yeah. By to be honest with you, by nature I'm quite
00:52:51
like a I guess like a feisty person. You can tell you're you Westy Westy through and through. That
00:53:00
comes I think that comes with like growing up out at Phar man. It was just this constant like
00:53:07
um I would say like peer pressure or um you know our challenge growing up was the ocean and it was just like I was
00:53:15
petrified of the ocean but I was constantly being pushed to go out there and it was this challenge of going out
00:53:20
when it's bigger and bigger and then we had this other thing I guess it was like
00:53:24
right how do we show that we're real men so okay we fight so we go out we drink
00:53:28
and we fight so I grew up in that environment and I'm not that I'm not good at fighting And so I carried this
00:53:35
and then you know going through my teenage years where I had these things happen I would say they were pretty
00:53:40
traumatic things that I didn't have the skills to deal with that I just pushed
00:53:44
back here and I ran away. I went overseas and I stayed overseas for 10 years. I'd be out at the pub 1:00 in the
00:53:48
morning. I don't know. It would just be like um nothing would happen, but it
00:53:52
would just be like the switch and and I would just be, you know, want to fight or be aggressive or and it was it
00:53:59
started coming out all the all the time, especially when I was um when I was drinking and looking back
00:54:06
now, I I understand all of it. It's just uh that that you know, if you push something back, it's going to come out
00:54:11
one way or another. Yeah. It's like um Yeah. Yeah. The analogy I like to use is
00:54:16
it's like putting uh dirty gym clothes in a bag and put in the boot of your car. Like it the problem is not going to
00:54:21
go away eventually. You're going to have to zip open that bag and it's not going
00:54:24
to be pretty. Yeah. What's um Yeah. What were you What's the stuff you were
00:54:28
talking about that you that you buried when you went overseas? Like were you trying to run away from your demons or
00:54:32
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's [Music] um I guess like I'm not ready to like publicly talk
00:54:42
about that stuff and I probably I've had to do a lot of deep work, man. I I've had to do like a
00:54:51
lot of self-reflection and a lot of deep work around um and it's not just that
00:54:56
you know like there's been other things in life that have been incredibly challenging.
00:55:02
Um and for so long my way of dealing with it was just avoidance relatable whereas like really the way to
00:55:11
deal with it is acceptance and and and to do the best thing I've found in my
00:55:15
life is um personal growth. M that's the best thing that I've ever got into in my
00:55:21
life. And learning about all of the stuff that I now teach has just been an absolute game changer for me. And I feel
00:55:27
so every day I feel so grateful that um I uh surrounded myself by the right with the right group
00:55:38
of people because their behaviors resonated over to me. And that's partly like having people around
00:55:45
you that can be like, "Hey man, the way that you're doing things is not right."
00:55:49
And and having your mates confronting you about this stuff. Um but yeah, as I've got into my late
00:55:57
30s and 40s, really surrounding myself with people that are also into self- betterment, personal growth has had a
00:56:04
you know, there's a guy that helps me run the workshop. His name is Jamal. He
00:56:06
runs a um company called Tak uh Tikahi, which is to mentor. and he comes on this
00:56:12
workshop and he does a talk. This this 45minute talk. I've heard it 20 30 times. Every time I hear it, the hairs
00:56:19
on the back of my neck stand up. And it took me probably 10 times of listening to this talk for some of the things that
00:56:26
he said to really sink in. And listening to that talk has been [ __ ] it's been an
00:56:32
absolute gamecher for me, man. some of the stuff that he talks around about around you know his one thing that he
00:56:37
kept saying is like whatever you put out in the world so whatever thoughts you have whatever you put out you will find
00:56:45
confirmation of that everywhere so if I'm putting out negative energy if I'm thinking negative thoughts I will
00:56:51
find confirmation of that everywhere that's why gratitude is such an important practice I'm grateful just
00:56:56
being able to walk down the beach and go for a surf well you'll go through your
00:56:59
day and you'll start seeing the good in other things and then you will. It's not
00:57:04
like a practice that you have to sit down and do. It just happens autonomically.
00:57:08
And so surrounding being around those types of people is contagious, man. And this is why I love working with the
00:57:14
athletes. It is they're man they are really good people. And you can I I learn a lot from them
00:57:25
and being around that that type of uh high achiever. Yeah. You there's a saying like if you if you hang out with
00:57:31
four smokers, you'll be the fifth. If you hang out with four obese people, you'll be the fifth of it. Works the
00:57:35
same the other on the the positive end of the scale, I guess, as well, eh? Yeah. I tell you what's um I tell you
00:57:41
what's quite confronting is like with going through this, you I had a big mental block around even starting
00:57:49
an Instagram account and putting stuff out there because when I grew up, if you put your head up, you got pushed back
00:57:54
down. That was just that was just what it was. You know, you didn't do that.
00:57:58
that self-promotion, all that sort of stuff. and they say there's a real mental block around that. And um but but
00:58:04
obviously we know like that's all [ __ ] Like if you want to get ahead in life, you got to put yourself out
00:58:08
there. So how old are you? 43. 43. Yes. I'm not like 9 years older than you. So
00:58:13
yeah, and there's so many parallels with what with what you were saying. Like I
00:58:16
can I can relate. Like vulnerability not a thing at all. Showing any sort of weakness or be weaponized against you.
00:58:22
Even um when where I went to school like you'd be called a try hard and you look
00:58:27
back now you what's wrong with trying? Trying hard is is the most powerful thing. It was such a common phrase. Oh
00:58:32
yeah, try hard. Yeah. What's wrong with trying hard? It's a superpower. Yeah.
00:58:36
And um I tell you what, you may have experienced this, but when you do put yourself out there, sometimes it's
00:58:42
people that are relatively close to you that push you down. And that for me was like a real aha moment. It's
00:58:50
like that really surprised me. I mean it's that comes back to that thing where you
00:58:56
know those people I kind of love them but keep them at a distance and and my real mates are are are the type of
00:59:03
people that when you put yourself up there they they prop you up and and you know what I want for each what I want
00:59:09
for all of my mates is for them to be successful uh happy to challenge themselves.
00:59:16
That's what that's what we should all want for not only our mates but everyone. And that that's we we talk
00:59:21
about like raise the consciousness. Raising the consciousness is like let's all prop each other up. Let's all like
00:59:27
you know like it can be something as simple as just walking down the road and and you know we're all busy and we're
00:59:32
all stuck in our heads. It's just smiling at someone, you know, or or or just like the interactions that you have
00:59:37
throughout the day. You want to leave people with a feeling of um feeling a bit better. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Um yeah,
00:59:44
what you're saying it's so true. My my inner circle is so small and so tight
00:59:50
now. It's it's ridiculous because you just want people there that um completely have your back
00:59:54
unconditionally. And it's amazing. It's sort of like um a localized version of
00:59:58
tall poppy in a way, isn't it? People around you, they they want you to succeed, but only to a point. Cuz I
01:00:03
think it maybe it it sort of um highlights their weaknesses or something. Yeah, I don't know. I think
01:00:08
sometimes like if it can be confronting maybe and um I think a lot of people have um are threatened by other people's
01:00:19
success. Yes. I mean like you you can't say you've never been through life and be been
01:00:25
threatened by someone else's success. Whether it's someone that's coming in
01:00:28
and is doing a podcast similar to yours or or it's someone that's coming into
01:00:32
mental skills where I'm at and and it's like you feel that is normal human
01:00:36
behavior. Why? cuz this thing's wide for survival. But but I can just recognize
01:00:40
it now. I'm just able to have that self-awareness to be like, okay, put my finger. Okay, that's that. You know, I'm
01:00:46
I'm threatened by this person's success because of X, Y, and Zed. Hey, man, you
01:00:50
don't need to feel like that. Actually, you need to be embracing them. the more
01:00:53
people we have and you know it's like um a guy builds a cafe here and he's got
01:00:58
he's got um you know he's got everyone coming to his cafe because he's got the
01:01:03
only other cafe and then someone builds a cafe next to him and he starts fighting that guy because he's wants to
01:01:07
be the only cafe. The reality is with two cafes there's going to be more people there and then you can this guy
01:01:12
here can make the pies and you can buy the pies off him and you can start collaborating and that's I'm a
01:01:16
collaborist. I want to collaborate with people because I recognize that in order
01:01:19
for me to get ahead I don't know everything. I I want to collaborate with people that are specialists in their uh
01:01:25
um field and I want to welcome people and that's how you that's how you get
01:01:29
better, right? You can't do it by yourself. Yes. I think it's flipping from like a scarcity mindset. Scarity
01:01:35
mindset. I've got I had a scarcity mindset around money for so long, man. I think I still do to be I got I got a
01:01:42
really weird relationship with money, but that's that's not a conversation for
01:01:45
today. I'll save that for therapy. Yeah. And I I had to like do some I had to
01:01:49
really like take a step back and be like right where does the scarcity mindset come from and I was able to identify
01:01:55
that growing up my old man my old man is the hardest worker I have ever I mean everyone's he's a man now I just
01:02:03
watching him growing up from a young age I identified in ter in terms of getting
01:02:08
money you had to work incredibly hard I then went traveling for 12 10 years on a
01:02:14
shoestring budget and so it was all about you know if I wanted to the new surf, but I'd save up for months and
01:02:18
months and months of like a new pair of shoes, I'd save up and it was all traveling on a shoestring. And I think
01:02:24
that for me created this um scarcity mindset around money and then coming into now owning my business. You have to
01:02:32
change that mindset because there is an abundance of opportunity. There's an
01:02:35
abundance of money. Yeah. You know, I I have a mindset where it's like um money
01:02:40
and money comes to me freely and I have multiple sources of income. Well, that's been a game changer because
01:02:46
remember it's what what you put out. It's what you put out. That's great.
01:02:51
Hey, this has been really good stuff and um there's been so many takeaways in
01:02:54
here that I think so many people can get a lot of um uh value out of for themselves. Should we um focus on your
01:03:00
personal life for a bit now, Dave? Would Okay. What is um what is something that
01:03:05
Yeah, have a swig of your water. Massive massive Yeti bottle there. How many What
01:03:09
is that? Like a liter and a half. Two liters. I don't know. It's probably a
01:03:12
bit more than a liter. Um, what's something about you about something that people might be surprised
01:03:18
to learn about you? Oh man, I've got a couple here if you can't think of
01:03:21
anything. Um, surprised to learn about me. Uh, I don't know. You're deaf in your
01:03:30
right ear? Yeah. Completely deaf. Completely. Yeah. Since birth? No, since about the age of five. I I got a lot of
01:03:37
stuff going on. I got I'm deaf in that ear. I have tinitus in this ear, which
01:03:40
is constant ringing. I've not surprised that you you were listening to AC/DC so
01:03:43
loud on the way in this morning. I have um bulging disc in my neck. I have um and as a result of that, I've got this
01:03:50
um this nerve that flares up down my arm um which causes like intense itching. I
01:03:55
have I've had bilateral failed hip surgery which has result in chronic pain. I have bulging discs in my lower
01:04:00
back. I've had bilateral um shoulder surgeries. I I got a lot going on. People look at me and they think, "Man,
01:04:10
you're working in this area of mental skill development. You've got all your
01:04:12
stuff together." I'm on a journey. I'm on a journey, man. And it's a I love the
01:04:18
journey, but and it but it's challenging. It's real challenging, man. And
01:04:23
um I again that comes back to like I'm just so grateful that I found these skills because I believe if I didn't
01:04:28
have these skills, it would kind of like everything that I've been through or am
01:04:32
going through, I feel like it would kind of be very overwhelming. Yeah. Um, something else uh that people might not
01:04:38
know about you, you're bros with King King Charles. He's so funny. He's one of your boys.
01:04:46
Prince Charles is my mate. King Charles. Um, so yeah, I was working for a um catering company in London called the
01:04:52
Admiral Kiteon. They do all the royal family um charity events and um you're very much not out the front,
01:05:02
you're in the back and um you know doing all the prep, food prep and stuff like
01:05:06
that. And one night I was slicing the salmon and um Charles likes to walk around in the back scenes and go and
01:05:13
meet everyone which I thought was really cool. And so you come up to me and he was like and you get told to um you know
01:05:19
when you meet him to say um your royal highness which felt really weird for me. So I was like, "Good evening, your Royal
01:05:24
Highness." And he was like, "Ah, just call me Charles." And he was like,
01:05:26
"Where did you where where'd you get the salmon? Where's the salmon from?" And I
01:05:29
was like, "Oh." And my my head's going a million miles an hour. I was like,
01:05:32
"Ireland." And he's like, "Ireland? I know where the salmon was from." He was,
01:05:35
"Oh, wonderful." And he was like, "Oh, you're Kiwi." And I was like, "Yeah, I'm
01:05:38
from Ph." And he's like, "I know Phar." Which I thought was I mean, Phi's a tiny
01:05:42
place. And then we got chatting and then he Camila comes over and he introduced me to Camila. And then the next time
01:05:46
that we're doing a event at Buckingham Palace, he came over and he remembered
01:05:50
my name. So yeah, we are bros. Unreal. It's an amazing story, especially now
01:05:54
that he's king. It's amazing. Yeah. Um uh what was amazing in that job was
01:06:01
just being in those places like Buckingham Palace and Kingsington Palace. And was it in what way? Well,
01:06:05
you just never expect like in my wildest dreams, I never thought I'd be doing,
01:06:09
you know, working in those types of places. Is that is that almost like an imposter syndrome moment? Like, [ __ ]
01:06:15
what's a boy from Phar doing? Oh, all the time. I'm I'm like, man, I'm I'm
01:06:19
Yeah, all the time. But that's not that's not imposter syndrome. That's
01:06:22
just like, "Holy [ __ ] look what I'm doing." Like a pinch myself moment.
01:06:25
Yeah. So, um the backstory uh you went to Oakland Grammar. Yep. And um average intell this is another thing I could
01:06:34
relate with you. You are being very kind there. Average. You were going to say average in I was in the bottom class.
01:06:38
No, they had the streaming system thing. I don't know if they still have that
01:06:41
now. They still have it. But you Yeah. you were you you were dumb by school standards but um it was later sort of
01:06:47
recognized that you had like dyslexia or unable to learn like a normal sort of way. Is that fair? Yep. Yeah. So um
01:06:56
third form turned up at Oakland Grammar sat in the hall while they called out A B C D and I was like yeah I'm not going
01:07:01
to be in the top classes E FG and I was like I'll be around about the middle and
01:07:04
it got down to L it goes down to M. uh they called out and and when it got to K I remember going up to a teacher cuz
01:07:10
there's only a few people left and I said, "Hey man, there's something's
01:07:12
going on here. My name hasn't been called out." And he just told me to sit
01:07:15
down. So I sat down. I was an L. Um and it went down to him. And that that for me was from that moment
01:07:22
on my mindset was I am dumb. That means that I'm not going to try and that means
01:07:29
that I'm never going to expose myself to any job or anything that requires, you
01:07:34
know, smarts. And um I saw the same thing in all the kids in my class. We just didn't
01:07:39
try. And then when I left school, I never went to university because you know I'm not intellectual. So I always
01:07:47
took on jobs that didn't require I don't know like um you know working I'm not
01:07:52
No, I won't even say but I just took on jobs that didn't require like me um Yeah. mental
01:07:59
intelligence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just physical jobs. Yeah. Just physical Exactly.
01:08:03
And it wasn't until I went back to university at the age of 30 um and I started getting D's in that first
01:08:12
semester and it was just all that came back to me man. I was like what am I doing here? Um and I was again very
01:08:21
confronting and a teacher I forget her name um I'd like to remember her name
01:08:25
she is a legend man and she identified that I did have a a learning um a learning issue and she sent me to um a
01:08:34
part of the university where they can assess that and they decided that if I drew diagrams um that would be hugely
01:08:42
beneficial because I was very visual learner. So I started being even in my exams they allowed me to do diagrams and
01:08:47
I would draw these incredibly intricate diagrams and I started getting A's and
01:08:50
A+es right through my degree and then I was like holy man I'm actually quite
01:08:55
smart that took me you know it's it's funny isn't it cuz I suppose it's a
01:09:00
story that you you get told and then you just believe it or you start to tell yourself that story that you're a person
01:09:04
that you can't do this thing or can't do that thing. Yeah I tell you like that
01:09:07
whole thing of never trying I failed fifth form maths I got like 45%. I had to go back in sixth form. I had to go
01:09:13
back and do fifth form maths again and I got 43%. And my old man said, you know,
01:09:18
you got me a a um tutor. I'd have the a math tutor two times a week. I could see
01:09:24
it was like, well, [ __ ] you're going back a whole another year and you've had
01:09:26
a tutor and you got two less marks. But at that point, my mindset was it doesn't
01:09:31
matter what I that the fixed mindset. You are dumb. Doesn't matter what you do. You will never be smart. You will
01:09:38
never be good at math. You will never be and that people carry that that type of
01:09:43
mindset their entire lives, you know, like the the reality is that is a very fixed way of looking at stuff and I
01:09:49
still have a fixed mindset around certain things and and I'm very aware of it.
01:09:55
But when you're aware of these things, that's when you can sort of pull yourself up or take a drone like view
01:10:00
and be aware that you're doing it. Yeah. But some things you Man, I'm very aware
01:10:05
of some of my patterns of behavior that are holding me back. I'm not ready to
01:10:08
change them. I'm very aware of some of my patterns of behavior that are um maybe not healthy patterns, but they are
01:10:14
patterns that are [ __ ] pushing me forward. Man, there's I tell you high achievers, all high achievers have three
01:10:20
three things. They have something that's a chip on their shoulder, something
01:10:25
that's driving them. And for me, there's a big chip on my shoulder around there's things that teachers told
01:10:32
me, man, in in in that school. And there's things that people said to me and it's always been I've always been
01:10:37
like right I'm going to prove myself. I'm going to I'm going to be the best.
01:10:40
It comes back to that I'm going to do this. I'm going to be the best. I'm
01:10:43
going to prove myself. So it's this chip on my shoulder but that comes from way
01:10:46
back there from and we and then there's a clear destination, a clear vision, a
01:10:53
clear purpose, a clear goal. And then the third thing they have is the ability to center their focus to be present in
01:10:59
what you're doing. Those three things. Um, and I've identified that as being,
01:11:06
you know, there's these things that are this chip on my shoulder thing that's,
01:11:09
you know, maybe it's not healthy, but I'm not ready to remove that. If I do, I
01:11:12
feel like it'll stop that edge that drive that that thing that's pushing.
01:11:16
Yeah. You're using it as fuel. Yeah. Yeah. Outside of the classroom though, you were you were quite capable though,
01:11:22
like you were a captain at PUAB by the age of 19. Yeah. Which means you're like
01:11:26
the the the lifeguard boss. Is that what that means? Yeah. The I was the youngest
01:11:30
captain. um I think in New Zealand at that time and I had a team of 12 people and man at
01:11:38
that age at 19 your prefrontal cortex hasn't even fully developed. I I look back, man, and it was pretty wild, you
01:11:45
know, like it's a lot of responsibility. Um because you've got thousands and
01:11:50
thousands of people on the beach and you're responsible for the the team and
01:11:55
the management of the beach and but I learned a lot through that. you know, I lifeguarded for um you know,
01:12:02
professional ocean lifeguarded for 10 years and I went overseas and I did that in Cornwall for for five years and
01:12:09
um I learned a lot just being exposed to like that um challenge and stress and pressure doing that job and the same in
01:12:16
the ambulance. Um can you remember the first time you dealt with a death? Yeah. So you were a teenager when this
01:12:23
happened? Yeah, I was. And um this that is something for me that is very challenging to talk about because
01:12:34
um when you're in charge of the beach that's on you and not getting too deep into the
01:12:42
details, but when you're that age, it's easy to be influenced by outside noise.
01:12:46
And the outside noise was this is how you set the beach up. This is where you uh you need to put the flags. this is
01:12:53
now I would just be like I I would um exercise my autonomy and be like no that's not the right way to do it but I
01:13:01
was being influenced and basically a result have you heard of the Swiss cheese effect no what's that
01:13:08
and so say in any like in surf life saving or anything any business you have a whole lot of uh safety layers right
01:13:15
and when there's holes in those defense layers and those holes line up something
01:13:19
catastrophic happens and that's what happened on this day those holes lined Um, you know, one of those holes was me.
01:13:25
Um, you you were you were young though, like with the benefit of hindsight, you must real maybe you didn't have the
01:13:29
confidence or the courage. I had the confidence. I was overly confident. Um, those holes lined up and and someone
01:13:36
ultimately someone drowned. And it's easy to be like, well, okay, this is that person's fault or cuz there's a
01:13:42
whole lot of things like but at the end of the day, if you're the captain and
01:13:47
you're in charge of that beach, it's on you. And so that really um that was a
01:13:52
hard one and I don't think of like with that type of stuff man you don't I don't
01:13:56
know you kind of carry that you always carry that right yeah how how do you process that at that
01:14:03
age like drink party game party and like that's a sensible way to go around it yeah it's
01:14:11
all just shove it in the back and move on isn't it yeah moments from the life
01:14:15
saving that um yeah stay with you forever Yep. The co the the the the team, the camaraderie is the most important thing
01:14:23
and and I love that about Surf Life Saving. I loved that it was I love the autonomy of you are in charge of the
01:14:32
speech and um because there's a lot of autonomy in in um surf life saving. There's a lot of
01:14:39
autonomy that you have working on the ambulance. love those types of jobs. And I think that I think it's such a shame
01:14:44
that we have and this is like across the board that we have brought in so many rules and regulations and we're so
01:14:51
scared to put a foot out of place and we're taking away people's autonomy to
01:14:55
make decisions and I saw that in surf life saving. I could see the transition very clearly. I saw that in the
01:15:00
ambulance service and it's a damn shame because um it's that making mistakes,
01:15:04
giving people autonomy, allowing them to make mistakes, controlled mistakes um and learning from that which I feel like
01:15:10
we're taken away from people. But um I forgot your question, but yeah, the the um just being
01:15:18
around the team and and and people and being challenged in that job was fantastic. Yeah, you would have been one
01:15:24
of those lifeguards that was telling people off. Eh, you would have been Oh, bro.
01:15:29
I've seen it on PR. You would have been one of the shouty guys. Get between the
01:15:32
[ __ ] flags. What the [ __ ] are you? Yeah, I I um I was not the type of person that if someone stepped the foot
01:15:39
out the flags, I'd be down there whistling. I like I like Man, I'd almost
01:15:42
let people get in trouble and then you'd go and But um I did, man. I had like I don't know
01:15:51
if someone was like I was just [ __ ] up. I was just ready for confrontation. I was reactive. Yeah. I was just ready
01:15:58
for and I almost welcomed it, you know, and and and when it was there, it was um
01:16:03
I enjoyed it. Just like an angry would you say you're an angry young man? Not I think um well looking back I
01:16:12
probably was but not I was still I was still a good bloke man. I was like you know still kind to people and I cared
01:16:20
deeply about people. I cared about others. I cared about my mates. I cared about my family. But I just yeah always
01:16:26
had this um I always welcomed a confrontation and and but I I want to make steer down the barrel of the lens.
01:16:34
I was not tough. I was not tough, man. And and you know I was not a great fighter or anything like that. I'm not
01:16:41
saying that you know I'm this big tough guy at all. Um so yeahve I've um I've
01:16:47
had Dan Hooker on the the podcast and there's a guy that just loves fighting,
01:16:51
right? Loves it. Loves it. He's a guy that likes loves fighting does doesn't
01:16:55
even but doesn't even mind losing and being punched as long as it's a good
01:16:59
fight. Just loves fighting. Yeah. And I grew up, you know, like we would surf and then our um side thing was going to
01:17:07
kickboxing. We went to um Strikeforce Gym in New Lin and we were there for like 10, you know, on and off for like
01:17:13
10 12 years. And so we knew how to fight. Um but our thing was um you know you you you'd drink too much and then
01:17:21
you'd want to prove to everyone that you were tough and so you yeah you'd be a
01:17:26
fight and you'd be jumping in there and Yeah. So the the lifeguarding stuff that's um that's what took you around
01:17:31
the world through your 20s. Um so was it sort of professional? Was it like semi-professional? You get you get paid
01:17:36
a fee. Yeah. Um lifeguarding you can do lifeguarding professionally. You can do it year round. uh you do get paid and
01:17:45
it's not it's definitely not great pay but the thing about like that job is
01:17:50
when I went overseas and I was lifeguarding I made enough money to um cuz I the lifeguard season over there
01:17:56
goes for 6 months I would then have enough money to travel for 6 months and I did that for 6 years so it was based
01:18:01
in Cormal bought a van went through Europe went down took my van down into Morocco uh went right through central
01:18:06
and south America right through Asia um and yeah and and then I did lots of other jobs I worked um for the Admiral
01:18:13
Cryon book. I I worked putting up marquees all around England. I worked in Venezuela for a bit. Um I worked for
01:18:20
Club Med for two years in in um Indonesia and then in in Malaysia um teaching wind surfing and sailing. Um so
01:18:30
yeah, I I look back on that as probably the most important I look back on when I think
01:18:37
about like the most content I've ever been in my life. It was when I had the
01:18:40
least amount of things or when I was traveling through Venezuela and I just had my backpack and or or or I was, you
01:18:45
know, going through Asia and and it just had the things that it was just life was
01:18:50
just so simple, right? At the time or in hindsight? In hindsight. Yeah. In hindsight because
01:18:57
even like I I've always taken this idea that I don't want to over complicate my
01:19:04
life. I want my my life to be I don't want too many things. I want to live a
01:19:08
simple life. But even when you try hard to do that, it's very difficult to do
01:19:12
because inevitably you're going to have a house, you're going to have a mortgage, you're going to buy a car, and
01:19:16
you got all these things that you got to service. And that you got to be really I
01:19:21
think you have to be really careful to keep your life simple. Have you seen um um the minimalism documentary on
01:19:29
Netflix? Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That was a game changer for me. It was. Yeah. cuz I I was probably at my most
01:19:34
unhappiest where I had the most um material possessions. Like um me and my ex-wife, we bought a bought a villa.
01:19:39
When we moved in, it was there were empty rooms and by the time we left it was like just full of clutter. We even
01:19:46
had like a some stairs installed and got an attic built and I just had accumulated so much stuff and I thought
01:19:51
I realized all of it just added to sort of um mental weight in a way and none of
01:19:57
it actually brought me joy anymore. Temporary joy. That was it. buy buy something and you be happy for a couple
01:20:02
of days and that's it. We used to like when you clean your car or you clean your room, you instantly feel way way
01:20:08
more mental clarity, right? And um I remember working with an athlete and it was coming up to the com the time of the
01:20:14
competition. And one of the things that I said to him was, man, make sure your house and your room is tidy. just go
01:20:21
back and make sure everything's tidy because it is that you've instantly when
01:20:25
everything is tidy and everything's in place and there's no clutter and it's
01:20:27
min you just feel like way better 100%. M um so when you came back from these um
01:20:35
extreme travels which um yeah like you did you talked about club med for a couple of years but it
01:20:41
seems like you did a lot of really rough stuff and there was even a couple of times where your life was in jeopardy
01:20:45
like being um left out at sea in barley. That sounds [ __ ] harrowing by the way. What was that? It was like a a surf
01:20:52
trip where the boat takes you out and the it's like a final destination thing
01:20:55
or something. I'm pretty sure I've seen a movie with this plot. The boat goes
01:20:59
back in and you were left out there on a surfboard. Yeah. Long story short, yeah,
01:21:02
I got left out way out to sea and had to paddle in and it was dark and the all the water was moving out of the um the
01:21:08
way that the reef passes work out out of there as you got millions of tons of water moving out these reef passes and
01:21:14
yes, it took me like about 3 hours to paddle in and if you weren't a good paddler, you went you definitely weren't
01:21:20
getting in from that. But um I terrifying. Yeah. Um, I don't know. That was not like
01:21:29
something that was, I guess, like terrifying. It was just, um, it was just really uncomfortable. But I have
01:21:38
been in and man, there's situations I've been in my travels that I've never told
01:21:41
anyone about. I've never shared it, not even with my family, you know, and I I
01:21:46
probably will take that stuff to my grave. Now's the opportunity. Yeah. And there's going to be one I just wouldn't
01:21:52
share it. There's stuff that like is in the vault, man. And um why why stuff
01:21:57
that stuff that happened to you or stuff that you did or both or Yeah, both, man.
01:22:02
Just just like the situations that I ended up in over there and and um you know, nothing like where I've done
01:22:08
something really bad, but it's the stuff that I wouldn't I don't know just
01:22:12
wouldn't share it. It's not like you look back in hindsight, you think, "Fuck, how did I survive that?" Exactly,
01:22:16
bro. Exactly. And um and putting myself in situations where I shouldn't have
01:22:20
been. M um and doing things that were really I look back on and we're just like I can't even
01:22:29
imagine doing that stuff now. But but the thing with all of my travel was like I really I was in a time in my life I
01:22:34
really wanted to challenge myself. I I grew up listening to my old man stories of traveling through the Middle East
01:22:37
when no one was doing that stuff. And I worked with a guy who really influenced my travels who said you know he was
01:22:43
constantly getting in my head. He goes when you go traveling you don't stay at
01:22:46
at host you don't stay at backpackers. you go and stay with the f that's how
01:22:50
you're going to learn when you're traveling. You don't go to the um the uh
01:22:53
tourist traps. You go get yourself way out on the you know and I just listened to this guy for years. I worked with him
01:23:01
in Cormal and and he was a this guy is when you talk about a traveler, this guy is a traveler man. He's been everywhere.
01:23:07
That's all he does his whole life. He's like I don't know 55 60 years old now.
01:23:11
He's still way out there doing stuff that most people wouldn't do. and and I
01:23:14
had this guy influencing the way that I perceived travel. And so when I went traveling, it was like, man, I really
01:23:20
want to get myself out there and challenge myself. And and you know, the the camel track, like most people will
01:23:26
go into the Th Desert for a night and spend it with a group. A night wasn't enough. I I went in there for eight
01:23:31
days, you know, tramping through the Th with a camel and the camel herder and and he couldn't speak English and it's
01:23:37
40° heat. And you know on the second day I had a heat stroke and all we ate was rice and chapati and potatoes and it was
01:23:42
just terribly uncomfortable and I hated it at the time. I hated it. I I will remember that for the rest of my life.
01:23:49
There was one night where we spent because the desert's like very flat, right? There's nothing to look at. You
01:23:53
just you just you know I could get off and walk ahead of the the the camel. It was we
01:24:00
were going that slow and there's you know after 24 hours what the hell am I doing here? M one night uh we were 3
01:24:07
days in and there was a um a hill and we went up to the top and slept on the top
01:24:11
of this hill and in the very far distance there was a little village and they were playing this music that was um
01:24:18
echoing through the that you could hear and I was sitting up the top there and just looking out like panoramic view
01:24:24
360° like for as far as you your eyes could see was just desert and I was just like man there's no more isolating like
01:24:31
look where I am and um I'll never forget that. I'll never forget, you know, even
01:24:37
after the third day, I was trying to tell this guy to take me back, you know, I was drawing diagrams on the ground to
01:24:41
get me get me back to the this place um where where this little town, you know, and the whole time I was just it was a
01:24:50
battle. But I look back on that as one of the best experiences of my life and all the challenges I've I've gone
01:24:54
through in life, whether it be traveling or whatever, you navigate, you come out
01:24:57
the other side, and that's what you remember. That's why I said like if you
01:25:00
want to find true happiness, whatever that is, I don't even know what true happiness is, but I know that in order
01:25:07
to be content and happy, you got to expose yourself to challenge. Cuz that's
01:25:12
how we grow, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's there's that saying like um something
01:25:16
like the comfort zone. It's a it's a great place, but nothing grows there.
01:25:20
Yeah. And I love comfort. I love Everyone does. I love sitting in my bean bag in the
01:25:25
evening watching an episode having a little whiskey. Um, you know, I love comfort, but um I also love like I'm
01:25:34
trying to find things now. I said to you before where I can get that same feeling
01:25:38
of overwhelm and stress and anxiety where I feel really uncomfortable. I I want to find that, man. Like I want to I
01:25:45
want to do things in the next, you know, with my business and what I'm doing that
01:25:49
really challenge me. Um yeah, I just want to that's what I really want. So this um extreme uh
01:26:00
travel and these adventures which went on for years like with the benefit of hindsight like were you were you trying
01:26:06
to find yourself or something or were you trying to pun like torture yourself for something that you were escaping
01:26:11
from like from a psychoanalysis point of view? Um I don't know. I I would say I'm
01:26:20
actually not that deep a thinker to be honest. I'm actually pretty I am pretty simple.
01:26:26
And when I look back at it, I think that I just loved I just loved being out there, man. I
01:26:33
loved like, you know, I just I loved the um adversity and I love the idea that I
01:26:43
was just out there and that it was like there's not many other people here and
01:26:46
I'm doing something that's, you know, considered to be out there. Yeah. That's to me that's
01:26:53
just what I was I I just enjoyed it. So, I don't try to um But maybe you're
01:26:58
right. Maybe there was something like deeper there. But I don't think I don't
01:27:02
think we need to work everything out either. I think like you can go down with this like personal growth and self-
01:27:09
betterment. I think you can sometimes dig too deep. Overthink. Yeah. Overthink it and and and over cookook it. And
01:27:16
sometimes it's like whatever it is, it's just is, you know. Yeah. So once you got that out of your system
01:27:22
and you survived, you came back to New Zealand, then you studied and became um an intensive care paramedic for St.
01:27:28
John's. Um anything from that career that still haunts you? How long did you do that for? 12 years.
01:27:36
Uh 13 years. 13 years. I like when you say that like honestly the hairs on the back of my neck stand
01:27:42
up because people don't understand um people have a very w perspective of what um you know they call them
01:27:51
um ambulance drivers. Being an intensive care paramedic nowadays is like taking the recess room
01:27:57
from the hospital out into the prehosp environment. You have a very broad scope of practice.
01:28:03
um you are confronted. I like to I don't know like imagine anything that you can conjure up
01:28:12
in your head is what we see in the prehosp environment and you are exposed to very challenging stressful situations
01:28:18
where if you don't have good situational awareness, you can really get yourself
01:28:22
messed up. I saw things in that job that no one should have to see. Um, I saw things in that job that
01:28:30
[Music] uh you unless you had the ability to just um push it back. You couldn't do
01:28:38
your job because one minute you'd be doing something that you'd be exposed to
01:28:43
something very horrific and then the next minute you'd be having your lunch and then you'd be on to the next job. So
01:28:48
if you didn't compart compartmentalize, how do you say that? Um compartmentalize. Yeah.
01:28:54
you couldn't do your job and that's what and the other thing is like I became
01:29:01
very cynical about human beings doing that job but that's why I left in the end I was just like I became very
01:29:06
frustrated that people were doing what they were doing like inflicting self misery on
01:29:13
themselves through through through basically lifestyle choices not looking after themselves um but yeah I was even
01:29:21
thinking man on the drive in here. I don't know why, but I started thinking about a few jobs that I went to that
01:29:26
really I would say now I understand really had um a profound effect on me. Um and they wouldn't be the type of jobs
01:29:35
that you would expect like nothing gory. It was just um the jobs that really stuck with me was where that human um
01:29:43
side of it came into it. You know, like where you have to go and tell a family that you know their loved ones just
01:29:48
passed away. Oh, you do that? My job as an intensive care paramedic, at one point I worked in a first response jeep
01:29:55
and my job was to drive around backing up crews, right? And if you're a junior
01:29:59
crew and you're at a cardiac arrest, um you can't call uh you can't call time
01:30:05
off until an intensive care paramedic gets there. So at one point I felt like the grim reaper. I was going from job to
01:30:11
job, walk in, um have a look at the monitor, talk to the crew, make a decision to stop, go and tell the
01:30:16
family, on to the next one. And I I remember going to a job and I called the resuscitation, went up to the family and
01:30:24
I said to the um lady, he's dead. And then I walked off and I was out in the
01:30:30
um truck filling out the paperwork and the girl came up to me and she goes, "Hey, I just want to let you know I
01:30:34
found that that was really um really blunt." And I sat there and I thought about it. It was blunt. And um but the
01:30:44
thing was that at that point, man, if you it was just uh I feel like if you bought too much into the um
01:31:02
emotional element of it, it would just I don't know. I don't know how to explain
01:31:06
it. You just become desensitized, man. Um I have so much respect for um the emergency services and and and you know
01:31:15
whether it be the police, the fire or the ambulance because these these guys and girls are exposed to stuff that it's
01:31:20
just we we don't even realize it, you know. Um so yeah, it was just that that
01:31:26
dealing with the human element of it. And I would go to, man, I learned so much from that job cuz I would go to
01:31:31
elderly people over the age of 90. You know, whenever I'd go, whenever you go
01:31:34
to someone over the age of 90, you'd be you'd be driving there and you'd be
01:31:37
reading the notes and you'd be like in your head, you would conjure up an image
01:31:40
of what this person would look like over the age of 90. they're going to be, you
01:31:43
know, they're going to be um cognitively and physically. And you'd get there and
01:31:49
they'd be spritly they'd be fully cognitively on point, no arthritis and
01:31:53
and and and they may have just knocked their leg and had a skin tear and they needed like some help, right? And I'd
01:31:58
get there and I'd talk to and they they were war vets and they had these amazing
01:32:02
stories and I would always ask them. So I did a 12 13 year study when I worked on the ambulance. Whenever I went to
01:32:08
someone over the age of 90, even centurans 100 years old, I'd say, "What
01:32:11
is the secret?" And they would always say the same things. And those things
01:32:16
were they worked until late in life. So they had purpose and they enjoyed what they were doing. They were passionate
01:32:23
about what they're doing. That's what that tells me. Plus, they were staying
01:32:26
cognitively um stimulated. They all always You'd go in there and they'd have a veggie patch and they talk
01:32:33
about food. you know, that they were making their own veggies and they prioritized like eating healthy food.
01:32:38
They would still go to bingo nights and they still had close social interactions. If you're socially
01:32:43
isolated, that's um significantly affects your mental health, right? They were active, they were still exercising,
01:32:50
they were still moving um and they had a really positive outlook, positive mindset. It was those
01:32:57
five things every time. Mhm. Um so whilst in that job, you know, you're exposed to all sorts of gnarly stuff and
01:33:05
it's um can be confronting, you still there's such a beautiful element to that
01:33:09
job and that is um the h humanistic side of it and uh yeah and even the team that
01:33:15
you work with, you spend, you know, a shift goes for 12 hours and on a shift you might not even get a lunch break and
01:33:20
you might have to work 2 hours overtime. It's it's full on, man. At night time
01:33:25
you you're going from one job to the next job. you're clearing a hospital and
01:33:28
you're on to the next one and and you're leaning on the energy of the person that
01:33:31
you're working with. I miss that camaraderie of that side of it. Um it's
01:33:36
it is a it's a crazy job, man. Like you're 3:00 in the morning and you're
01:33:40
going to a job that requires all of your cognitive focus. You're exhausted. You've been burning it all night and
01:33:47
you're having to make these clinical decisions under pressure and it's huge
01:33:50
hugely demanding job which is why I respect respect them so much. Yeah. There's and there's heaps of jobs like
01:33:55
that that that we don't even think about. Like um I think the first the first and only time I've seen a dead
01:34:00
body in my life is like my 86y old nana in an open casket and that was quite confronting and um I was talking to
01:34:05
where where this studio is. We're just over the road from the police station. I
01:34:08
was talking to a cop a couple of weeks ago. Um, and we're talking about some of
01:34:12
the aspects of his job and he said like just recently that they attended a suicide where uh it had happened like 5
01:34:18
days earlier and then afterwards they got McDonald's on the way back to the to
01:34:22
the station and he was just reflecting on the surrealness of it of it all. It's
01:34:26
it's [ __ ] bizarre what emergency services and you know intensive care ambos have to go through. Yeah. Yeah.
01:34:35
Um, I remember going to a job working in Helensville and at the time you would work single crude and I was asleep and
01:34:42
the tones went off at 2:00 in the morning. It was just down the road and I ended up down this long driveway, drove
01:34:47
nose down, which you never do. You always reverse down in case you you know, you don't know what you're going
01:34:51
into at 2:00 on a Saturday night. And um I ended up down this long driveway. And
01:34:56
I won't go into I won't go into heaps of detail, but I knew straight away when I
01:35:01
walked into the scene that I was in a place where I shouldn't be. And especially working by yourself and I
01:35:07
didn't have my radio on me. I left it in the in the truck. And I arrived there
01:35:11
and there was a person on the ground unconscious and um and in a pool of blood and there was a whole bunch of
01:35:17
people standing around. And um so you know, you walk in, you want to get a little bit of history of what's going
01:35:21
on. No one would talk. And uh one guy one guy said um you know they've fallen
01:35:26
down the stairs. There was no stairs anywhere so you can read between the lines and
01:35:32
um this is you know 100 kgs of dead weight on the ground. This patient was critically unwell and needed to be in
01:35:40
hospital but I couldn't get the patient off the ground onto the stretcher without the help of someone
01:35:45
you know without the help of someone g giving me a lift. And so then this guy turned on me and he said well where's
01:35:50
your the person you're working with? And it became this um very um this basic guy basically shadowing me
01:35:59
and he said, "Man, if you don't get this this person out of here, we're basically
01:36:02
going to [ __ ] you up type thing, you know." And so in the end, I just had to
01:36:07
bend down and like just wrestle this this um person onto the stretcher and then getting the stretcher up and into
01:36:13
the back of the the truck and I had this person following me the whole way. And if you don't, there was certain things,
01:36:19
you know, like if you don't have good self-awareness and self-regulation in those moments on those jobs, man, you
01:36:25
can literally Yeah, you can get really um you can find yourself in a really bad situation.
01:36:32
Um is there any bizarre call outs that you remember? Oh, lots of bizarre call outs, man. What was some of the funny
01:36:37
funnier ones? H I don't know, man. You go to like Oh, man. I I don't know. There's so
01:36:46
there's so many like butt stuff. There's so many. I mean, I remember going to a
01:36:50
guy who basically like got home from town, walking down his just normal person walking down his
01:36:56
driveway and um was so intoxicated that he fell into the ditch and called the ambulance cuz he couldn't get himself
01:37:00
out of the ditch and then and all I turn up is like, you know, bend down, get him
01:37:05
up, knock on the door. The wife comes to the door and here's your here's your
01:37:09
husband, you know, like that kind of stuff was just routine. Are you angry? Are you pissed at that point? Like you
01:37:15
can laugh about it now, but you know, you're this high stress, high pressure
01:37:18
job. I just tr you can like some of the jobs are so like just out there that yeah, you just you have to just laugh at
01:37:25
it. But you do you do get like you do get annoyed at like Yeah. getting woken up going to jobs where they don't
01:37:32
actually need an ambulance. What about um smells that you'll never forget from
01:37:36
that job? Oh, the smells was the worst. That was the worst thing that like I could see
01:37:44
anything you know like the the blood the open wound all that stuff didn't affect
01:37:47
me but the smells were um you know um overwhelming and that's I I find it difficult to go into too much
01:37:56
detail cuz I want to be respectful of like but you know you're talking about
01:38:00
jobs where you're going into a house and someone has been passed away for like
01:38:04
you know a week and they're decomposing and and you know you're in there and
01:38:08
yeah it's pretty pretty gnarly. But in that job, man, you get you get spat on,
01:38:12
you get vomited on, you get, you know, you get [ __ ] on you, you get pissed on.
01:38:16
It's like that's not that uncommon. Do do you think like um all these things
01:38:22
that you've been through, they they led you to um integrated training and come
01:38:26
under pressure. Um but do you think like now if you if something like come under
01:38:30
pressure existed and you did that and then you started becoming a um intensive care paramedic you would have been
01:38:36
better at the job or I suppose another way of framing it if someone's just just getting into that
01:38:42
sort of like field of work now if they came and saw you for a weekend would it equip them better for the job definitely
01:38:48
man I didn't I went right through school and I didn't learn the skills of stress
01:38:54
no one does right I I didn't learn how to develop my mindset. I didn't learn
01:38:58
how to shift my perspective. I didn't learn how thoughts, thinking, emotion,
01:39:01
action, outcome. I didn't know about thought control and reframing. I didn't
01:39:05
know about cognitive reappraisal. I didn't know about um acceptance or any of this stuff. Then I went to
01:39:10
university. For four years, I studied a degree in health science. Not once, I'm
01:39:14
telling you, man, not once did we learn about how to control our physical and mental state under pressure. Now, that
01:39:21
to me is mad. And then you and then you're thrust out into the prehosp environment where you are exposed with
01:39:28
everything you can imagine and you have to be calm under pressure otherwise you can't execute. So you learn that you
01:39:32
just learn it on the job. But these are young kids 19 20 that are coming through
01:39:36
into this job now. And I I just want to make it very clear that job is a beautiful job. If like if there are
01:39:41
people out there listening to this I don't want to be a par. It is a wonderful job. You're helping other
01:39:45
people and you're learning you know incredible skills that will set you up for for life. I feel Did did you have
01:39:53
um on a on an occasion or numerous occasions where you were dealing with a patient and they thought they were fine
01:39:59
but you know you knew you were saving their life? Oh, 100%. Really? Yeah. Absolutely. Because
01:40:08
um man, I went to I remember going to a 28-year-old um guy in Glenn Eden who was
01:40:13
having a um myocardial inffection. So, a heart attack and and all he experienced
01:40:18
was so so an occlusion in his coronary artery in his heart, which by the way is not that uncommon in people of that age.
01:40:24
Um you would think would be very uncommon, but it's not. and um all he was experiencing was some shortness of
01:40:30
breath and some chest discomfort and so he didn't want to go to the you know
01:40:34
didn't want to go to um hospital. I was having to explain to him and show him
01:40:37
the ECG you are having an evolving event here where you're basically having a
01:40:42
heart attack and this guy was refusing to go to the hospital. So yeah lots of times. Wow. Um what were the biggest
01:40:51
lessons about um first of all about yourself but also about the human psyche during this period in that job?
01:41:01
Um sorry we're getting really deep here today. No, I think what surprised me
01:41:07
most is that how we can willingly um do the stuff that we do to ourselves physically and mentally and and the
01:41:20
punishment we put our bodies through. You know, like I don't think that we are
01:41:24
a very well um nation of people. You only have to go to the mall, go look around the mall.
01:41:33
every second people person's morbidly obese. Yeah. See, I know that I will get
01:41:38
um for saying these types of things. I know that I'll get, you know, I get some
01:41:41
backlash, but that's the reality. Let's just be honest. There is a physical
01:41:46
health crisis and a mental health crisis in New Zealand. I came on a podcast when
01:41:49
I said this. We're talking about a mental health crisis. There is a physical health crisis. And then
01:41:54
everyone's saying to me, oh, how dare you say it's a physical health crisis
01:41:57
and and and not give the respect to the fact that it's a, you know, mental health crisis. That we have one body. If
01:42:05
you are not physically healthy, it affects you mentally. Physical health is mental health. Mental health is physical
01:42:12
health. It is we got to get away from this like um this like huge, you know, the mental
01:42:21
and the physical is just it's one. And how do we improve our mental health? We
01:42:24
invest in our physical health. How do we improve our physical health? We invest in our mental health. So yeah, it was um
01:42:31
I think your question was just I can't even remember what your question was. Um
01:42:36
oh biggest yeah biggest things you learned about yourselves and um and you know other people during this time and I
01:42:42
think that's that's really good. Um yeah there's there's another quote I really
01:42:46
like. It's like um a man who has good physical health can have many wishes. A
01:42:50
man who has bad physical health can only has one wish to be healthy. Yeah. 100%.
01:42:55
Because it's like you think even if you got like a infected like toenail or something, it's all you can think about.
01:43:01
When you have had your health taken away from you, I I I my purpose like I feel like one one of my deep purposes in life
01:43:10
is when I'm 60 I want to be health when I'm 50 I want to be healthier than what
01:43:15
I am now. when I'm 60, I want to be stronger, more resilient than what I am when I'm 50.
01:43:21
And I believe that I can do that. And so, part of my purpose for that is that I've had my health taken away from me.
01:43:28
Um, I've been in a very lost place where um, you know, with chronic pain and and
01:43:32
and feeling the effects of that. And this part of that is like that's what drives me to like I don't know go
01:43:43
to the gym every day, do my mobility work, do my my meditation and and I don't understand I don't
01:43:50
understand like I don't understand it when I want everyone to be my wish would be be for everyone to
01:43:58
invest into their physical and mental health and to be constantly working on themselves because that raises the
01:44:05
consciousness of everyone. you know that that raises the bar for for everything.
01:44:10
And so I I that's like part of that was I got frustrated just seeing like the
01:44:14
effect of what but also the burden that had on the um on the public health system. Huge burden man on the on the
01:44:20
public health system from people that weren't looking after themselves. So it's not just you you're affecting
01:44:25
you're affecting everybody. You know the the waiting rooms are full up. um you
01:44:30
know a routine u um procedure now like an um you know um appendix removal or whatever it might be have now become
01:44:38
very complicated procedures. So that is putting a lot of pressure on the aniththetist that's putting a lot of
01:44:44
pressure on the on the doctor because they're now having to work in an environment where the stakes are so much
01:44:48
higher because these people are so are such high risk. M we don't we don't see
01:44:53
that and we don't see that like you know when when you're taking the old person
01:44:57
who's um you know served our country and they need help and you're taking them
01:45:02
into the um into the hospital and all the rooms are full of people that haven't looked after themselves and
01:45:08
they're waiting out in the foyer and they're not getting the help that they
01:45:11
deserve. Yeah. Yeah. I I think um one of the worst things in the world would be like spending the last 10 or 15 20 years
01:45:19
of your life trapped in a body that doesn't work anymore. That would suck so
01:45:23
much, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would. And um man, we're in our old age. We're
01:45:27
supposed to thrive, man. We're supposed to be healthy. Look at look at like those countries where um you know, they
01:45:32
call them the blue zones, but you're looking at like people in their 90s that
01:45:36
are just humming, man. But that starts now. That that starts right now. And it's um the other thing is like you have
01:45:43
a responsibility. You have a responsibility to um because all these kids are looking at us. So what are they
01:45:50
looking at when we get into our 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s? Are they seeing what are they seeing? You know, are they seeing
01:45:56
people that are high functioning and still exercising and vibrant and eating good food and you know so we all have
01:46:03
for for this uh mental health crisis that they're talking about where it starts is with each one of us, you and
01:46:09
me. M yeah just doing doing our job. And again like this thing doesn't need to be
01:46:14
perfect, right? It's just it's just understanding that like that is the journey. It's like we're all on a health
01:46:18
journey. If you're not on a health journey, you're wasting your time here.
01:46:20
Yeah. Surely. Yeah. There's there's um there's there's a book that I started
01:46:24
read. It's a very long book, so I haven't got through it, but the um the
01:46:27
book's called Outlive. And the gist of it is gist of it is basically reverse
01:46:30
engineering your aging. So if at the age of 70 you want to be able to you travel
01:46:34
around Europe by rail and be able to put a 20 kilo suitcase in an overhead locker
01:46:39
then at 50 you need to be able to you do overhead a lot more than that. I love that. Um if if you can barely walk 5 km
01:46:45
at 50 then you're not going to be able to walk briskly enough to get around a
01:46:48
train station at 70. Um so I kind of like that. Hey home stretch now. You're
01:46:53
doing great by the way. How's how's this been? Is it all right? Bloody good mate.
01:46:56
Yeah. Okay. They're kind of like, you know, like I've I've um you asking me that question just
01:47:05
pings something in my brain and it's like um I'm not saying this is um but
01:47:12
we talked about earlier on the podcast that we're all very similar. We all have
01:47:16
the same insecurities. Um you know, we all have the same worries, the same fears. And I have people come in, you
01:47:22
know, example is I have people come in and talk on our workshop. And these are people that are operating at a very high
01:47:28
level in what they do. And afterwards they come up to me and and they say to me, "Was that all right?" You know, how
01:47:35
did that go? Do you do you think I' and you can see the level of that that whole thing around the
01:47:42
insecurity and the fear of failure or the fear of what other people might think. And it's um I don't know why I
01:47:49
brought that up, but when you ask me is this going good? I know. I have that with the podcast. you've done like 220
01:47:56
episodes now. I I I have some people like High Performers that will message me the week it comes out saying, "Oh,
01:48:00
how have the numbers been? How have the how the downloads? What what episodes have gone better?" And it's a real it's
01:48:05
a it's it's been a fascinating insight for me like um Yeah. Yeah. Just how how
01:48:09
these people want everything to do well or I don't know if it's a micromanagement thing or an insecurity
01:48:14
thing or what it is, but it's fascinating. Yeah. Well, I think it comes back to those three fears. Fear of
01:48:19
failure, fear of letting people down, fear of what other people might think. Yeah. and and even coming on to this
01:48:24
podcast, every everyone that comes on your podcast will have some level of um feeling and emotion, whether that's
01:48:31
excitement or stress and anxiety or a bit of overwhelm or [ __ ] you know, I'm
01:48:36
going on Dom Harvey's podcast. What if I [ __ ] it up? And everyone that comes in
01:48:40
here has that. Um and it comes back to that thing that sometimes we can't see
01:48:44
it. I could have been incredibly anxious coming in in here today, but I would have just mastered it. M and and that
01:48:50
draws back around to like just you don't know just be kind there. Yeah, 100%. What are your best and worst
01:48:57
habits? My best habit I think is uh I am okay. What is my best and worst habit? My best habit I think is that I am very
01:49:18
determined. Um I care deeply about other people. Um I I love um man I just love life. I think that's
01:49:39
like I just love I love what I'm doing. I love life and that's you know it's not
01:49:47
with obviously without its challenges. I love going through it. Now I even like going through adversity cuz I know I
01:49:53
know there's a clear you know I know I'm going to come out the other end more
01:49:56
resilient. What is it that what was the other your best and worst habits? My worst habit is probably like I and I've
01:50:01
had to really put my thumb on this one the last couple of years but I procrastinate.
01:50:06
And so common right? Yep. I procrastinate and I know why I do it. Was it a fear? So I used to think that
01:50:17
that was just wow just I'm just a procrastinator, right? Um I procrastinate because and a little bit of
01:50:26
self-sabotage. Um and the reason for it especially in my business is like right if we get to
01:50:33
this level there's there's a chance it's going to fail. you're really putting
01:50:37
yourself out there, right? And so there's certain things that my business management will get me to do and I just
01:50:42
won't do them. And it's been like a little bit of an issue the last couple
01:50:46
of years and and you're a procrastinator and you're putting this stuff off and
01:50:49
you're self-sabotaging some of the stuff. Why? Fear of failure. I'm not even afraid to talk about it, man. I
01:50:54
don't care about any of the stuff anymore like when talking about this stuff cuz it's just the reality. But if
01:50:59
I if I have the self-awareness to say that's why I'm procrastinating, well,
01:51:02
now I can change it. Yeah. And that that's um I think that's important that like we can talk about
01:51:08
any of the stuff like I'm not afraid. Obviously there's certain things I hold
01:51:12
back from talking about which we've come up in this podcast. Oh, I respect that
01:51:15
too. I'm not afraid to talk about my insecurities and my weaknesses and there's lots of other men. I have lots
01:51:21
of other weaknesses and things that I got to work on. Um but procrastinating has been a big one for me and because
01:51:27
I've identified the why now I can start creating the change around it. When when
01:51:31
was the last time you cried? Um, the last time I cried was in um probably in the workshop, not in
01:51:42
front of everyone. um listening to Jamal's talk and there's a there's this bit at the end of his
01:51:50
talk where um he he works with these young kids that um are struggling like and he gets them
01:51:58
in nature and he takes them through breath work, gets them um you know up into the into the nahi and uh there's this
01:52:08
part in this video that he plays and it's got these kids walking along the sand in their bare feet and then they're
01:52:13
up in the bush and there's a um Kofi tree and they're surrounded by the Kofi
01:52:17
tree and they're locked like that and and he's shooting up and the trees are
01:52:21
up like that. That gets me that really hits me, man. And and I I I sort of so I had a few tears and and I realized like
01:52:29
um I wasn't sitting there sobbing. It just was very emotional for me and I realized I sort of reflected on that
01:52:36
and I think it is because nature um going through like challenging times that's been always the constant for me
01:52:44
has been getting in the ocean and up into the bush and I just have such a deep connection with that and and it's
01:52:49
been um such an important integral part of my life. M um plus seeing those kids,
01:52:56
man, like just seeing like those kids struggling and um just feeling so fortunate that you
01:53:06
know we we are lucky to have access to the stuff and we should be incredibly grateful cuz some people man are are
01:53:12
really struggling out there and they don't have access to the stuff. Did that
01:53:15
come with a sense of pride as well in that it's this um it's this uh thing
01:53:19
that you have created? What? Like the the the kids with their arms linked around the Kofi tree. Um
01:53:27
like this is this workshop that you've created that they're on. Yeah. Um I don't know. But um
01:53:39
I mean it's pretty cool. Yeah. But they wouldn't have been there in that
01:53:42
situation in that video had you not created this thing. You procrastinator. Yeah.
01:53:49
Yeah. Far out, man. when I go away from the workshop and I'm just like, man,
01:53:52
what can we do better? And and we we haven't done enough or we haven't It's
01:53:57
uh it's it's the blessing and a curse of having a growth mindset, right? Never
01:54:01
never satisfied. You got to Yeah. You got to like sometimes I do just take a step back and I'm like, man, it's
01:54:06
incredible what we've created here. We've created a workshop. We've run
01:54:10
we've run hundreds and hundreds of people through our workshop. And people message us, man. And I had a message
01:54:16
from a guy yesterday who came on the workshop two years ago and he he said to me that that that workshop has been
01:54:20
absolutely life-changing for him. And he came on a workshop at a time where he was really struggling and
01:54:25
and oh man, I've had a guy come up to me at a keynote and and tell me that um he
01:54:30
listened to a podcast and and if it wasn't for he man, he basically told me that he was going to top himself and he
01:54:36
listened to the podcast and he said that um listening to your podcast changed everything for me.
01:54:43
Man, that was like saving lives. Yeah, I grabbed that guy and gave him a hug and um I I don't post
01:54:50
any like we get feedback from from the workshop all the time and I very rarely post it up. But it's when we get that
01:54:56
feedback that I just kind of stop and reflect and it's like, man, yeah, it's
01:54:59
pretty but but the that whole thing of like you never make it, you know, always more to be done. Yeah. You get to this
01:55:09
level where you're doing all this cool stuff and it's like, okay, what's the
01:55:11
next thing? what's the next thing? You never make it. You never make it in life
01:55:15
ever. And when you think you have, that's where you the wheels fall off. Yeah. And that's that whole thing of
01:55:19
it's just a journey, man. It's like constantly evolving. And I suppose that's where you get stagnant. Like um I
01:55:25
had um Anna Moberry on the podcast last year, like super successful businesswoman, a billionaire, um set up
01:55:32
the uh the company Zuro with her brothers and she she set up a new company now and she's involved with
01:55:37
Oakland FC. And I said to her, "Why don't you just like kick back and relax
01:55:40
and go on a couple of cushy boards or, you know, get on the kids school committee or something with your billion
01:55:46
dollars?" And she she was like, "That was just a mountain to climb and there's
01:55:49
plenty more mountains to climb." Exactly. I thought, "Wow, that's cool."
01:55:52
Yeah. And I've worked with people that um I I remember a client saying to me,
01:55:55
he goes, "You know, I um the happiest I ever was or the most content I ever was
01:56:00
was when I went from $200,000 to $300,000. This is a multi multi-millionaire." He he goes, "The
01:56:07
more money I I made, I never got happier. The less things I had, you know, the the the time in my life where
01:56:14
it was the simplest and I had less things was the happiest I was." And that
01:56:17
really resonated with me. Um before we do finish, I'd like to take you through
01:56:23
um this two-minute breathing exercise. Oh, who said we're finishing? Oh, sorry.
01:56:28
Next question. No, no, you're right. Um okay. Um your last couple, do you have
01:56:34
any regrets? Do I have any regrets? Yeah, I think everyone has regrets, man. Like, how can
01:56:40
you not people? What are the big ones for you? Um, what are these things you're
01:56:46
not ready to talk about on a podcast yet? I I'd have to think like what is something I regret? Um,
01:56:53
I regret the way I've treated some people. I definitely look back and I regret the way that I've treated people.
01:56:59
Um, I regret not taking some opportunities. Um, I regret doing some things that I shouldn't have done. But
01:57:09
people like to say like, you know, you should never regret anything in life. Of course you do. I know. No. Especially
01:57:14
like the version of um, you know, you that's sitting in front of me now is probably completely different to who you
01:57:19
were when you were 20 or 30. And I think it's okay to look back and have like toe
01:57:23
curling moments where you think, "What the [ __ ] was I thinking?" Yeah. If you
01:57:26
don't, that means you haven't grown at all. Yeah. Oh man, I probably regret
01:57:30
things I did last week. And it's like, you know how sometimes you have friends
01:57:33
that say, "Oh, you've you've changed." And I think it's a good thing because if
01:57:37
if you're not changing, then you know, it means you're not growing. Yeah. You
01:57:40
change, but then you stick to your um I've always felt like I've stuck to who
01:57:44
I really am. And that is embedded in growing up at Phiha. um you know, surfing um
01:57:54
uh I don't know, my practical experiences of life and and I feel like I've got a deep understanding of who I
01:57:59
am and I will never there's part there's part of that is like yeah you want to
01:58:03
change and you want to evolve but there's a big part of that that I'm very
01:58:07
stubborn around and I won't change. I'm me. Uh and and there's yeah I can I can
01:58:13
tell there's a definite stubborn streak that streak in there. I can't can't
01:58:17
imagine your it was your partner that that's been going backwards and forwards
01:58:19
with me to set this podcast up. Um and I can't imagine how frustrating it would
01:58:23
be to be in a relationship with you. No, no, no. Um I've enjoyed this today.
01:58:30
Are you proud of yourself? Hugely proud of myself, man. Have you always been able to say that? Yeah, I think so. I I
01:58:37
don't think there's ever been a moment in life where I've sat down and been
01:58:39
like, I'm really not proud of you. M. No, no, but I I wonder like um you know
01:58:45
how we talk about it in the school in school when you being called a tryhard is a bad thing and you don't want to
01:58:50
sort of stand out. I feel like saying you're proud of yourself at that stage
01:58:53
in life in your 20s or whatever like people would think [ __ ] this guy's a this guy's a dick. Yeah. But
01:58:59
um uh I don't know, man. It's like, okay, that's one thing, but then there's
01:59:06
there's the um the relationship you have with yourself and that constant um noise
01:59:12
up here, that constant thinking and thoughts that are coming in. And I've always I feel like I've always been in
01:59:19
that respect, like the relationship that I have with myself and the time I spend
01:59:23
up here, I've always I've never felt like um man, I'm not I don't feel like
01:59:29
I've ever had a time where I've been like, man, I'm not proud of you. M I've
01:59:32
never had that talk with myself. That's cool. Yeah, that's great. That's great.
01:59:38
I think that's a great way to to end it. Uh do you want Oh, what's the breathing
01:59:41
thing? Is this something that obviously if people are driving and listening to this, they won't be able to partake, but
01:59:46
anyone that's listening or watching to this, can they join in? Well, what I wanted to do was um cuz you I think it's
01:59:52
about I I would like to um for anyone listening to go away and be able to um implement this into their busy day. Like
01:59:59
if some I don't know someone might be listening who's struggling with stress
02:00:03
or they may have some anxiety or they may be having difficulty sleeping um or they may just be instant interested in
02:00:09
regulating their physical and mental state. Um so this exercise is real easy and the beautiful thing about this
02:00:17
exercise dom is that you don't need anything. So we can do it sitting right here. It it relies on internal control.
02:00:23
So when I say internal control tapping into some of these body systems are designed to regulate stress and pressure
02:00:28
and it's your breathing. Now how this exercise will work I want to do it for
02:00:32
just one minute so people listening and you can do it yourself but all you do is
02:00:37
you start off by doing a body scan. Find where you're holding tension and let it
02:00:40
go. So if you start off in your face you move all the way down your body. Find where you're holding tension chest jaw
02:00:47
shoulders and release it. Did you find any tension? Everywhere. all through all through my face. Yeah, definitely in the
02:00:55
in the jawline. And that's another whole conversation. But release that release
02:00:59
that tension and on the count of five, you're going to get flow into your first
02:01:04
inhale through your nose. And when you get to the top of the inhale, you're going to hold your breath. And I'll give
02:01:08
you some other cues when you get there. 5 4 3 2 1. Inhale slowly. Fill up space.
02:01:15
Get to the top. Hold your breath. And once you hold your breath, I want you to tap out. Lack of awareness of time. and
02:01:20
relax every single muscle. And you're going to continue to sit there until you
02:01:24
feel an urge to breathe out. If you don't feel an urge, just enjoy the stillness. As soon as you feel an urge,
02:01:30
I want you to drop it out. Melt into your chair and flow back into the next inhale. Hold. It's not how long you can
02:01:36
hold your breath. Just whenever you feel like it, drop it out. Literally melt into the
02:01:41
chair. Drop it out, man. Don't control it. Drop it out. Yeah. Mean. and then flow into the next
02:01:49
inhale. Hold. Cool. Hold your breath. Relax every single muscle. Lack of awareness of time. Get
02:02:00
rid of expectations. Bring a sense of calmness over your entire body. Soon as you feel an urge to
02:02:08
breathe, you're going to drop it out. Melt into the chair. The key is in the
02:02:12
exhale here. Use the exhale to get real calm. Two more cycles, Dom. Go deeper with this, man. Two more
02:02:24
cycles. Take your time. Imagine you're the only one in the room. And on this next breathold, I'm
02:02:35
just going to tell you a few of the things that are happening while you do this. The signals your body send your
02:02:40
sends your brain is very important. And and those signals need to be that you are in an alert, calm, and focused
02:02:47
state. And by slowing your breathing down and focusing on prolonging the exhale, you're sending very clear
02:02:53
signals to your brain that you're calm and you're in control. With this breathing cycle that you're doing,
02:02:58
you're also activating the parasympathetic division of your nervous system. So that's the calming division
02:03:04
of your nervous system. And that is because when you slow your breathing down and prolong the exhale, it
02:03:09
stimulates something called the veagal nerve, which is the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system. So, how
02:03:15
did that feel, Dom? You're calm, man. Look at him. Look how calm he is. Good. Yeah. Very relaxed. That's a very
02:03:25
easy technique, isn't it? Yeah. And the key thing is here, man. I know we're
02:03:28
going to wrap this up, but I challenge you, Dom. I challenge you for the next month, I'm going to send you this
02:03:34
breathing flow. I'm going to send you a couple five minute ones. I challenge you
02:03:37
to do it twice a day. So, two times a day, two lots of five minutes for the next month. You will not I could sit
02:03:44
here and talk about all the benefits of doing this, but it's that practical experience of doing it. You will see
02:03:50
unquantifiable changes because it's just 5 minutes, but you carry that self-awareness, that self-regulation,
02:03:57
that calmness into the rest of your day. And then you carry it that level of control where you're able to shift your
02:04:04
state from whatever physical and mental state you're in into a calm state. You
02:04:07
carry that into situations in life where you need more self-control. That's powerful tool, man. And all it is is
02:04:14
your breathing and and that body scan. My leg stopped shaking. I think my leg's
02:04:18
been shaking for the last two hours. Yeah. So that um that shaking of your leg is neural tension. And the What does
02:04:25
that mean? It's just like if you're um in the red all the time, so in that
02:04:30
sympathetic part of your nervous system, which is not bad, it's just that you're
02:04:34
a busy guy, you got stuff to do. Um that is stress and we store that stress in our body and that is adrenaline and
02:04:41
adrenaline agitates us to move, but you're sitting here. So you're you're
02:04:44
going like that with your leg and then the tension when you know when we go through do the body scan. Yeah. Release
02:04:50
the tension. We store stress in our muscular system and we store this as this constant um muscle contraction.
02:04:58
This isn't just you, man. It's it's like me. It's a lot of people. And
02:05:02
self-awareness is being aware of this stuff. So when you go into stress and pressure moments, you have the skill of
02:05:08
right relax my body. Because if you're holding tensions constantly, you are sending clear signals to your brain.
02:05:13
Fight, flight, or freeze. You're in that freeze stress state. That one minute of
02:05:18
breathing. Um, obviously your uh commentary was very helpful, but even without that, like someone could do that
02:05:24
in their car before they go into a meeting at work or before you go on a Zoom call or you after driving home in
02:05:30
traffic and going into, you know, reconnect with your family. Um, yeah. Well, you you don't actually want all
02:05:36
those cues. That was just, you know, the first time you do it, you give those cues so that when people go and do it
02:05:40
again, then they've got those important cues um to to sort of help get them into
02:05:45
a calmer state. But hey, here's a bit of self-promotion, man. I've built a um
02:05:49
performance breathing course. It's got all the stuff in it. It's got over 30
02:05:52
videos and it runs right through the breathing mechanics, breathing to elicit calm, the stuff that you've just done
02:05:57
here. There's like 10 videos in there, breathing flows, how to use the exhale
02:06:01
to activate that calming division of your nervous system, and then there's a
02:06:04
whole other part in there around dynamic breathing training. And um yesterday I just finished um filming a course in how
02:06:11
to use the ice bath for mental skill development. It's a beautiful course, man. I'm I am proud of that course cuz
02:06:16
that's like um taking all of this um uh knowledge and wrapping it into a course
02:06:22
that gives people better self-awareness and self-regulation, stress control and skills of stress and stress resilience
02:06:28
and uses the ice bath to test um that level of control in a very stressful environment.
02:06:34
Well, you're doing great work and um yeah, we'll put everything in everything
02:06:37
in the show notes that everyone could need to know about Dave Wood or integrated training or the come under
02:06:42
pressure workshops. But um thanks mate. This has been really awesome today. Really nice to connect. I can't believe
02:06:48
we only met like uh two hours ago. Cheers, mate. Uh yeah. Yeah, sure that we'll stay in contact, man. And um I
02:06:56
thank you very much for having me on. 100%. Thanks for coming and being so open.