Speaker 1: I get are you bloody champions? Welcome to another Installing
Speaker 1: the Year project. It's Fatty Harps Craig Anthony Harper for
Speaker 1: about the millionth time with Matt Formston, who's a fucking gun.
Speaker 1: I've been reading about him, watching a little bit of him.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't call himself that. I'll call him that. Goody, Matt,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good mate and thank you. I definitely wouldn't call myself.
Speaker 3: That you're a gun son? You're a gun? Hey?
Speaker 1: Where do we find you? Where you at?
Speaker 2: I'm Matt Formston everywhere at Mattformston dot com.
Speaker 3: Cool?
Speaker 1: But where are you at geographically?
Speaker 2: Oh? Today, I'm home, which is one Brall on the
Speaker 2: Central Coast, just north of Sydney.
Speaker 1: And I see you've got looks like a dozen surfboards
Speaker 1: behind you. Is that an actual? Are they actual? Is
Speaker 1: that an actual room that you're in or is that
Speaker 1: a graphic?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Now it's a room there my boards? Move on
Speaker 2: to wow, yeah.
Speaker 3: That's real. Wow. How many boards do you have?
Speaker 2: I've got about fifteen boards at any one time. I've
Speaker 2: sort of had a rule at one point with my
Speaker 2: wife that I could have ten. But that's just you know,
Speaker 2: we've got a few bags with boards in different places,
Speaker 2: and I don't really know the number, not to know
Speaker 2: the number that I don't have to count it.
Speaker 1: Of course, what's the what's the thinking behind so many?
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I could understand three or four short board,
Speaker 1: long board, a couple of I mean, what's the Is
Speaker 1: it just that you're greedy? What is that about.
Speaker 2: Each board? See, there's three main characteristics the board. Obviously
Speaker 2: you got your length and with and thickness are the
Speaker 2: three main things that people would know about. But then
Speaker 2: also you've got your rocker and your tail shape, and
Speaker 2: you know shape, so like I might have, I've got
Speaker 2: probably about five boards that are all six foot long,
Speaker 2: but they all work very very differently, and I'll use
Speaker 2: them for different things. And then you got different so
Speaker 2: I'm more pulled into Like a narrower tail will will
Speaker 2: manage speed better, so I will wash off speed in
Speaker 2: more powerful waves, whereas a wider tail will generate more speed.
Speaker 2: So won't you probably use that in smaller waves or
Speaker 2: fatter waves to generate speed rather than controlling speed. And
Speaker 2: then more thickness up under the under the chest will
Speaker 2: let your paddle better, but you might might catch as
Speaker 2: well and more faster, more critical parts of all waves.
Speaker 2: So you'd have it for like barrels and steeper waves,
Speaker 2: probably ever more pulled in nose which will be harder
Speaker 2: to paddle. And then for smaller waves, I have a
Speaker 2: wider nose which is easy to paddle and get that
Speaker 2: entry speed for a small board. And then construction that
Speaker 2: you'll have a POxy boards which are lighter, which once
Speaker 2: work better in smaller waves, but then all use peu
Speaker 2: with probly ethane for more windy or choppy days because
Speaker 2: it'll cut through the chop. And then for big waves surfing,
Speaker 2: when I'm towing in on really big stuff, We've actually
Speaker 2: got lead in the board, so like most strain board's
Speaker 2: got five kilo of lead in it, and my board
Speaker 2: for nazarree is probably got ten kilos of lead in it.
Speaker 3: What what is the what's the I mean?
Speaker 2: Is it is it?
Speaker 1: Is the attraction just that it's awesome and it's fun?
Speaker 1: Or is it for you? Is it therapy? Is it spiritual?
Speaker 1: Is it social because you're doing it with mates? Or
Speaker 1: is it all of the above?
Speaker 2: Surfing in general?
Speaker 3: Yeah, surfing general, all.
Speaker 2: Of the above. Yeah, I prefer it to be with
Speaker 2: less mates these days. The ocean is very, very crowded
Speaker 2: everywhere in the world now, but you know that's the
Speaker 2: only part of it that's getting more challenging.
Speaker 1: This is a dumb question to a surfer, but is
Speaker 1: there a favorite break for.
Speaker 2: You anywhere where there's no other people? To my other
Speaker 2: point around crowdedness, it's it's now like I've definitely got
Speaker 2: credit break my favorite breaks around my local area. Look,
Speaker 2: I'll call one of them out because it's just ruined now.
Speaker 2: Like for most surfers, you ask them what their favite
Speaker 2: break is, I'm not going to tell you because they
Speaker 2: don't want to blow that spot up and everyone to
Speaker 2: go there are There's a spot near us called box Head,
Speaker 2: which is probably one of the longest left hand breaks
Speaker 2: in Australia, maybe in the world. If it all connects up,
Speaker 2: it's like a kilometer long. We used to have so
Speaker 2: much fun there, but it's just every time there's a
Speaker 2: swell now there's like three hundred peop than the water.
Speaker 2: I basically don't surf there anymore.
Speaker 3: It's not really worth going, is it.
Speaker 1: So rather than me read something mate, tell my audience
Speaker 1: a little bit about you give us a little bit
Speaker 1: of the Matt Formstone bio, if you'd be so gracious.
Speaker 2: So I'm blind. I've got three percent. I've got no
Speaker 2: central vision in about three percent peripheral vision. So it's
Speaker 2: just a big blur. I can see a little bit
Speaker 2: of shapes and lines and maybe, like people say, how
Speaker 2: far can you see? I can sort of see the
Speaker 2: line of the horizon, so I can see a long
Speaker 2: way away, but there's no detail, and then I can't
Speaker 2: see him on facial features straight in front of me.
Speaker 2: I am a paralympian. I was a world world champion cyclist,
Speaker 2: world record holder as a cyclist. I'm a business business executive.
Speaker 2: I run sustainability for enterprise. I'm a dad, really proud dad,
Speaker 2: and a rugby league coach, junior footay coach, four time
Speaker 2: world champion surfer, big wave world record holder, and just
Speaker 2: just got a againess world record for the biggest wave
Speaker 2: ever served by a blonde person. And that's enough.
Speaker 3: That's enough. That'll do. Now you just bragging? How big
Speaker 3: was that? How big was that wave? Mate?
Speaker 2: Fifty one feet?
Speaker 1: It's about five stories, so think everyone, think of a
Speaker 1: five story building or a twenty story building.
Speaker 3: In the first five floors. I don't even know.
Speaker 1: How do you get your sense of spatial awareness?
Speaker 3: Matt?
Speaker 1: How do you how do you do that without vision?
Speaker 1: How do you know where you are? I mean, I
Speaker 1: know there's dumb questions, but they're probably understandable, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've been asked a version of this, so I apologize,
Speaker 1: but we've never chatted.
Speaker 3: How do you know where you are? How do you
Speaker 3: know where you're going?
Speaker 1: And how do you know where you are on the wave.
Speaker 2: It's a very reasonable question, but I'll say I'll answer it,
Speaker 2: but I'll also say it back to you. I'll preface
Speaker 2: it with a question, how do you walk?
Speaker 3: Automatically? Instinctively? Intuitive?
Speaker 2: Yes? Right? So e Then people say, how do you like?
Speaker 2: It's the same sort of question. I've been surfing for
Speaker 2: nearly forty years. It's like walking for me. I just
Speaker 2: do it, so it's really hard to explain how I do.
Speaker 2: And I've been surfing as a blind person for almost
Speaker 2: forty years too, right, So there's that element. But now
Speaker 2: that I've had to explain it a number of times.
Speaker 2: I can feel the waves, so I can feel the
Speaker 2: water traveling up my rail on my board and but
Speaker 2: by the way it's traveled, the way the water comes
Speaker 2: up the rail of my board, and through you know,
Speaker 2: we talk about ten thousand hours becoming an expert. I've
Speaker 2: done one more than ten thousand hours of surfing. I
Speaker 2: can feel I've had that many stacks and wipeouts and
Speaker 2: got it wrong so many times. Like making mistakes a
Speaker 2: really important part of becoming good at something, and I've
Speaker 2: made lots of mistakes. So through that, I now can
Speaker 2: feel with my board's doing. Like when I go down
Speaker 2: the wave, my front foot's basically my cane. Like I
Speaker 2: use a cane on land, sometimes my front foot becomes
Speaker 2: my cane. I can feel my way down the wave,
Speaker 2: then back up the wave, and the way the water
Speaker 2: is tracking up the rail of my board. I know
Speaker 2: of the book, but if the wave is going to
Speaker 2: barrel so it's going to pitch over my head, or
Speaker 2: if I need to get further out in front of it,
Speaker 2: and then when I'm going up to do a turn,
Speaker 2: what it's doing. So I just feeling everything under my board,
Speaker 2: and I'm just one hundred percent present, so I'm not
Speaker 2: worried about the next section of just feeling what the
Speaker 2: wave's doing. Right now and then for fifty foot waves,
Speaker 2: I've got a few extra little bits that we've worked out,
Speaker 2: so we use a whistle. So I'm obviously not paddling
Speaker 2: into waves that big. I'm getting towed in with the
Speaker 2: jet ski, so I'm on a tow rope. And then
Speaker 2: when the boys know that's the wave they want me
Speaker 2: to get into, they basically as I'm in the right spot,
Speaker 2: they blow like we go really out orienteering whistle. They
Speaker 2: blow that, and I just got to trust it. They've
Speaker 2: got me in the right spot, and I pull the
Speaker 2: rope and let go, and then it's the same process,
Speaker 2: just feeling my way down the wave. But because I'm
Speaker 2: going so fast on those waves, you're doing sort of
Speaker 2: sixty five cornus an hour bit more. And as I
Speaker 2: said before, I got about ten kilos, I let in
Speaker 2: my board to hold my board in the water so
Speaker 2: it doesn't start skipping out of the water. And then
Speaker 2: they I was turning too late on those bigger waves,
Speaker 2: so they worked out that they ride the corner of
Speaker 2: the wave on the ski and watch me, and they
Speaker 2: blow the whistle a second time, and then I can
Speaker 2: I turn, and then they blow the whistle a third time.
Speaker 2: I kick out of the wave. So it's a bit
Speaker 2: of feel and a bit of bit of information from
Speaker 2: the boys with the whistle.
Speaker 3: Okay, now that all makes sense.
Speaker 1: Here's my only here's my only question about your analogy
Speaker 1: between walking and surfing. If I was walking and blind,
Speaker 1: I'd be bumping into shit all the time.
Speaker 3: Mate.
Speaker 1: I'm good at walking, but I'm not good at navigating
Speaker 1: the world with my eyes closed.
Speaker 2: And here's the here's the here's a bit of what
Speaker 2: that won't won't you won't be intuitive for you, but
Speaker 2: we'll click when I say it. Right, You're one hundred
Speaker 2: percent right. So walking is a lot harder for me
Speaker 2: than surfing. Wow, Because walking there's potholes and gutters and
Speaker 2: cars and trees and low hanging branches and things that
Speaker 2: just want to get me and hurt me all the time.
Speaker 2: And I've forever got brushins and rolled ankles and I'm
Speaker 2: forever injured. In the surf, I've hit a bit of
Speaker 2: a bumper, fall off on them and water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I guess in a way.
Speaker 1: That the ocean is this is going to sound maybe
Speaker 1: this is wrong, but I feel like it's more predictable
Speaker 1: for you than terra FIRMA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't say more predictable, but just more forgiving.
Speaker 2: Like I can slide, like as I go off, I
Speaker 2: can slide and move my feet around. Whereas once I've
Speaker 2: rolled my ankle or I've hit a toaball it's too late,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, smashed my touchin into a
Speaker 2: table into a table. And but also I can go
Speaker 2: full gas, like if I run anywhere, it's like unless
Speaker 2: it's a controlled environment, run on the beach, and I
Speaker 2: make sure I run into the locations where it's pretty safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's bad, right, Like if I'm like snowboarding, for example,
Speaker 2: I go snowboarding. If I get it wrong, I go
Speaker 2: with the cliff. That's a really bad outcome. Or run
Speaker 2: into a tree at high speed, very bad outcome. Whereas
Speaker 2: I can go as fast and as crazy as I
Speaker 2: like in the surf and as long as my body's
Speaker 2: physically fit enough and strong enough, and I can, I can.
Speaker 2: I've trained as a big wave surfer. I've trained to
Speaker 2: hold my breath. I can stand the water for almost
Speaker 2: six minutes, So you know, I've got all those physical
Speaker 2: components that are no different to me than they are
Speaker 2: enable body. Big wave surfer. I'm just probably going to
Speaker 2: get it wrong more than they do because I can't see.
Speaker 1: Does your missus never say to you listen, squeeze and
Speaker 1: that's no fucking snowboarding for you.
Speaker 2: She used to, but she realized when she does that,
Speaker 2: it does it's I then probably go bigger. So which
Speaker 2: I'm still trying to get that out of that little
Speaker 2: teenage brain out of my body that has that rebellion.
Speaker 2: But look, I'm toying with the idea of doing a
Speaker 2: free diving world record at the moment because of that
Speaker 2: breath capacity I have from big wave surfing. And she's like,
Speaker 2: can we not do this? But it's, you know, it's
Speaker 2: just who I am. I'm just inquisitive about what's next.
Speaker 3: How old are you? How old are you?
Speaker 2: I turned forty six yesterday.
Speaker 3: Wow, you look amazing, dude, Happy birthday.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's funny speaking of people who love the ocean, right.
Speaker 1: So two of my friends are Trevor Handy, who I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know of, ye and Tammy van Wissa, who
Speaker 1: you might not know of.
Speaker 3: Do you know who Tammy van Wissa is? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I chatted with her yesterday on the show, and
Speaker 1: I used to train her. Someone excise physiologists, but I
Speaker 1: used to train her and she was for quite a
Speaker 1: long time the world's best female endurance swimmer swimmer, and
Speaker 1: both both Trevor and Tammy talk about how therapeutic the
Speaker 1: ocean is for them, like it's almost you know, meditative, spiritual,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: your home when you're in the ocean?
Speaker 2: Does it make for sure? I can't be away from it?
Speaker 2: Like when I was when I was a psycho pro cyclist,
Speaker 2: I'd spend months in Europe racing in like very landlocked areas,
Speaker 2: and as I was getting deeper into that time, I
Speaker 2: could fielm my psychology and I suppose my motion and
Speaker 2: everything just needing that that that top up from the ocean.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I just now I get it every day.
Speaker 2: I just need it. And it's anything like I went
Speaker 2: ice skating with my kids yesterday and that's always playoffs
Speaker 2: ice hockey as well. But it's still water, right, It's
Speaker 2: the something to do with that, like it's frozen water,
Speaker 2: but it's it's water, and I think and anything to
Speaker 2: do with the water sport, I love it because it's
Speaker 2: just the feel of flow, and water. You know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't have tables, so it's always fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true. Yeah, nice observation. Tell me about
Speaker 1: So I'm fascinated with high performance. I talk about it
Speaker 1: all the time, and I've worked with lots of teams
Speaker 1: and athletes and organizations and stuff. What's what's your kind
Speaker 1: of And I'm sure it's varied, but in terms of
Speaker 1: sleep and recovery and training and nutrition and you know,
Speaker 1: optimizing your physiology, give us a bit of an insight
Speaker 1: into how you do all that.
Speaker 2: So right now, look, it's totally tuned back when I
Speaker 2: was a cyclist, as you know, that is a fitness sport.
Speaker 2: Like there's no there's very There's not a lot of
Speaker 2: technique involved. It's whoever is the fittest, whoever has the
Speaker 2: most strength and power to weight ratio, they're basically going
Speaker 2: to win because obviously there's technique involved. But when you're
Speaker 2: in the top twenty in the world, everyone's got similar technique.
Speaker 2: It just comes down to fitness. So when I was
Speaker 2: doing that sport, it was crazy, like I I'd have
Speaker 2: to be in bed by nine o'clock every night to
Speaker 2: get up and train every day. It's full fifteen six
Speaker 2: days a week doing sort of one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: k's ish to two hundred k's a morning, and then
Speaker 2: I do gym and I was like seventy three. I'm
Speaker 2: about ninety kilos now as a surfer, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit more body fault that I was
Speaker 2: carrying as a cyclist, but I'm pretty fit human. I
Speaker 2: was racing as a cyclist at seventy three kilos. They're
Speaker 2: just not eating at all. But while I was seventy
Speaker 2: three kilos, I was lead pressing four hundred and forty kilos.
Speaker 2: The power to weight ratio was crazy.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And forty kilos so that's like forty five degree leg
Speaker 1: press plate loaded.
Speaker 2: Was it correct? Yeah, like every every twenty and twenty
Speaker 2: five kilo plate in the gym basically, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible. And how tall are you? I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what that ninety kilo took? Six foot
Speaker 1: so six ft and ninety so, like you're a strong,
Speaker 1: solid lump of an athlete. Like you're not skinny, You're
Speaker 1: not gargantuan, but you're definitely not skinny.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not the smallest human getting around, But I'm
Speaker 2: definitely a presence.
Speaker 1: So what what is your you know, when we talk
Speaker 1: about what we do?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: So whether or not like for me, I started a
Speaker 1: PhD at fifty six, So I do podcasting, I do
Speaker 1: corporate speaking.
Speaker 3: I've been training. I'm sixty.
Speaker 1: I've been training in a gym every day in my
Speaker 1: life since I was fourteen.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So they're the things that they're my wat's, But I'm
Speaker 1: interested in the why behind the what, like what what's
Speaker 1: your what's your why? With the pushing, the striving, the
Speaker 1: raising the bar, the trying new things, the danger, the uncertainty,
Speaker 1: the vulnerability.
Speaker 3: What's the driver for all of that? Do you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So it's evolved for me over the years. So
Speaker 2: definitely when I was younger, it definitely was too There
Speaker 2: was the f you to the world to say, can
Speaker 2: you keep telling me? Because I got told, you know,
Speaker 2: when I was five, and my parents got told, your
Speaker 2: child's got disability, he has to go to a school
Speaker 2: for kids with special needs. He won't get an education,
Speaker 2: he won't have friends, he won't play sport, he won't
Speaker 2: have a career, all these things. That was the prognosis.
Speaker 1: Terrible what kind of terrible fucking input is that from people.
Speaker 2: Who says that, Well, all the experts, so that you know,
Speaker 2: the specialists, a doctors, the school principal, the school teachers.
Speaker 2: So my parents had to fight that trend. And and
Speaker 2: I was in a mainstream school and not like he
Speaker 2: has to leave the mainstream school, and like, but he's
Speaker 2: doing okay at the mainstream school, so why does he
Speaker 2: have to leave? So I was lucky that my parents
Speaker 2: had that within them like myself. My dad was a
Speaker 2: sales and marketing director, so he's used to having challenging
Speaker 2: conversations with people. And basically so I stayed in that school.
Speaker 2: So I went through and I was one of the
Speaker 2: not many kids with disabilities went through in the eighties.
Speaker 2: They were just kids with disability didn't go through mainstream schooling.
Speaker 2: And because of that, the teachers weren't set up for me,
Speaker 2: so they you know, it was it was always hard,
Speaker 2: but there was always this thing like you can't. And
Speaker 2: I played rugby league for multiple years. I ended up
Speaker 2: playing representative rugby union. I played ice hockey to a
Speaker 2: representative level. But every time I start one of those sports,
Speaker 2: people like the blind kid can't play like this, can't, can't, can't.
Speaker 2: So the whole world was always saying you can't do it.
Speaker 2: So my brain, my whole, my whole psychology is I
Speaker 2: can do it. I'll prove you wrong, you know. And
Speaker 2: that was that was my that was my why back then,
Speaker 2: and that carried on and then I and then I
Speaker 2: got really sick when I was about sixteen, got glandular feval,
Speaker 2: was in bed for six weeks and the doctor said,
Speaker 2: if you play footy so that that that time was
Speaker 2: rugby league, ruby union, sorry, and ice hockey either or
Speaker 2: and you get a stick to the ribs or a
Speaker 2: big tackle one of the ribs, that you could have
Speaker 2: a ruptured'splain because of my honest. So I missed the
Speaker 2: whole season. Then I couldn't. I have had all these
Speaker 2: processes I used around following the ball and hearing the
Speaker 2: park go across the ice and I lost all that,
Speaker 2: And then the kids got better and stronger, and I
Speaker 2: just couldn't keep up anymore. So I found partying and
Speaker 2: I found you know, I found drugs, and I just
Speaker 2: I went down this really toxic spiral. It was it
Speaker 2: got into like I was fighting because I've got bullied
Speaker 2: at school. So my way of dealing with the bullies
Speaker 2: was to bash them. So I broke kids fingers and
Speaker 2: say how many fingers? And my holding upsides, so how
Speaker 2: many things you want to keep? All this really toxic stuff.
Speaker 2: And that went off about ten years and then I
Speaker 2: found my way out and I was in my late twenties.
Speaker 2: I basically got my first executive role in corporate. Within
Speaker 2: a year, I started writing for Australia, met my wife,
Speaker 2: and it all just turned around because I decided I
Speaker 2: took ownership of my life in instead of trying to
Speaker 2: say f you to the world and prove everybody wrong.
Speaker 2: It's just like what I took ownership of what I
Speaker 2: want to do. Who do I want to be? Like?
Speaker 2: I wasn't That wasn't the human I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: On knew I could. I could be better for myself
Speaker 2: and for the world. And since that time, now it's
Speaker 2: about best being inquisitive about what's possible for me. And
Speaker 2: because of that that ten year hiatus, I'm like, I
Speaker 2: only died right. I was lucky I didn't end up
Speaker 2: dead or in jail. And because of that, I've got
Speaker 2: this now, I've got this perspective of life like, I
Speaker 2: don't want to go back to that. I know how
Speaker 2: bad that is. And that's what I suppose why I
Speaker 2: can train as hard as I do because I did
Speaker 2: train hard as an athlete when I was younger. I had
Speaker 2: to train harder than all the kids that could see
Speaker 2: to be the fittest kid on the field. And then
Speaker 2: I know, now you know that what brought that toxic
Speaker 2: party life is like as well, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to be part of that. So I just just pushed myself.
Speaker 2: That's just being inquisitive. So I take on this next
Speaker 2: journey of free diving. It's just because I'm inquisitive about
Speaker 2: what's possible from them and what's possible for human beings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and with all of that, I love that. I
Speaker 1: love that turnaround. I love that story. Was there a
Speaker 1: was it just a cumulative thing, Matt over ten years
Speaker 1: of going this is not fucking working. Or was there
Speaker 1: a light bulb moment? Was there an epiphany an event?
Speaker 2: There was? There was no light bulb moment, but there
Speaker 2: was there was light bulb moments. So there was one
Speaker 2: time when I, and I tell this story very often,
Speaker 2: but there was one time when I, like I woke
Speaker 2: up after after being like a blackout of partying way
Speaker 2: too hard and not knowing what was going on. And
Speaker 2: I had I had like BRUI MT knuckles and had
Speaker 2: blood alab me, which wasn't mine. That was one moment
Speaker 2: in my early twenties. And then I had a few
Speaker 2: relationships that didn't weren't successful, and you know, when you
Speaker 2: look at it at the time, it's easy to blame
Speaker 2: someone else, but then when you look into it, you're level.
Speaker 2: I was, you know, there's two people in that in
Speaker 2: that relationship, so there was there wasn't. And then my work,
Speaker 2: like my career was sort of stagnating. And then I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, if I take ownership and I
Speaker 2: change these behaviors, I can be a better man, be
Speaker 2: more successful, animal, happy man. And I wasn't happy, you know,
Speaker 2: and I really wanted to have I wanted to become
Speaker 2: a dad, I wanted to be a husband, and that
Speaker 2: were things that really important to me. And I knew
Speaker 2: that I needed to change things in me to be
Speaker 2: to make that a successful thing. So you know, I
Speaker 2: made those changes over a couple of years. And then
Speaker 2: once I made a few of the minor changes around
Speaker 2: stop partying and having goals like once I had that
Speaker 2: goal of writing for Australia. That was really good because
Speaker 2: it changed that I couldn't then go drinking. I couldn't
Speaker 2: go do these things because then I've set my training backs.
Speaker 2: So they were they were just things that all clicked
Speaker 2: in that all helped me get there really quickly in the.
Speaker 1: Middle of you know, like the mix of ambition and
Speaker 1: anger and dealing with the stuff that you were dealing
Speaker 1: in that ten year period. Was there ever moments of
Speaker 1: and if there was, I would understand, because I think
Speaker 1: I would.
Speaker 3: But was there ever moments of self pity like woe was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there was. I don't really remember it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I think definitely through the relationship breakdowns there
Speaker 2: was a lot of that you know, why why am
Speaker 2: I having to do this? You know, you know, why
Speaker 2: am not good enough? All that type of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there was in my career as well, like
Speaker 2: where you know I looked because well, to be honest,
Speaker 2: the world not a not set up for people with disabilities.
Speaker 2: I'm a massive advocate now and I work a lot
Speaker 2: in the disability space, on the chair of the Disability
Speaker 2: Network at optice and through that, I've got a really
Speaker 2: good lens of what what disability looks like in the
Speaker 2: corporate world. And like at the moment, there's a huge
Speaker 2: gap between the amount of people with the don't have
Speaker 2: a disability to do a disability with employment like where
Speaker 2: it's it's a huge gap. So the opportunity to start there.
Speaker 2: But like in the corporate environment, a lot of the
Speaker 2: systems don't work, so there's an opportunity to just go
Speaker 2: whole is me, you know, like it's not working for me,
Speaker 2: so I'm not going to do it. But but there
Speaker 2: was obviously there just you know, through that whole change
Speaker 2: a period I was like, you know what it is,
Speaker 2: what it is, So I'm just gonna have to work
Speaker 2: with what it is. We work with the tools I've
Speaker 2: got and do the best I can. And I used
Speaker 2: to hide my disability so when I first, you know,
Speaker 2: were a first couple of jobs, I wouldn't tell people
Speaker 2: that I was blind because I can get around a
Speaker 2: little bit and sort of fake it. Do you make it?
Speaker 2: But then I realized, you know what, that's actually my
Speaker 2: strength because I lead with So I'm on a few
Speaker 2: boards and now like I'm going for very very senior roles.
Speaker 2: When I'm going for those roles, I'm going straight in
Speaker 2: with I've got disability, but despite because of my disability,
Speaker 2: I'm a very good problem solver. I've got huge amounts
Speaker 2: of resilience. I've got all these attributes that I've built
Speaker 2: because of my disability. So I lead with my disability
Speaker 2: now rather than hiding it. And that's been a big
Speaker 2: mind shift for me, and I try and help. You know,
Speaker 2: other people use that to go you know, but just
Speaker 2: your difference actually makes you better. And as market as
Speaker 2: there any business person you talk to, they'd say, oh,
Speaker 2: when we need like what's the differentiator, Like every car
Speaker 2: is the same, every TV is the same, but what's
Speaker 2: your differentiator? But then, as humans, we hide our difference
Speaker 2: rather than leading that difference. So I think, you know,
Speaker 2: that's something that we wanted to do better hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And I mean I think about you navigating the world
Speaker 1: with pretty much no vision. Like you said, you're constantly
Speaker 1: solving problems. But it also means like problem solving is
Speaker 1: a form of creativity, right, So you're always having to
Speaker 1: think outside the box, whereas the rest of us just
Speaker 1: walk across the road. Unconsciously or do whatever, or open
Speaker 1: the gates, shut the gates, slide the bolt, da da
Speaker 1: da da, like all these things that for us are
Speaker 1: unconscious and you know, without thought.
Speaker 3: Like for you, that's a very different prospect.
Speaker 1: And I just, yeah, I agree with you, and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that to just endorse you, but I think,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some research out recently that people with
Speaker 1: dyslexia are three times more likely to become millionaires than
Speaker 1: people without because people with dyslexia, obviously, you know, can't
Speaker 1: read either can't read at all times or can't read
Speaker 1: well at all, so they have to navigate, and of
Speaker 1: course you too, but they have to navigate this world
Speaker 1: that is to an extent dependent dependent on.
Speaker 3: Being able to read shit, and they can't.
Speaker 1: So they end up being like you, really adaptable, flexible,
Speaker 1: able to improvise, adapt overcome, survive, thrive in the middle
Speaker 1: of pressure, and deal with all of the atypicalness of
Speaker 1: existing in a world where you're not like most people
Speaker 1: in the room. I mean, yeah, I think that communication.
Speaker 2: Is a key part of that too. Now, I just
Speaker 2: think communications keep out of that too. I are a
Speaker 2: lot of sales teams and a lot of the time
Speaker 2: people just want to talk to people, Whereas I think
Speaker 2: if you've got this lext or something, you become a
Speaker 2: very good listener because that's your only way that you
Speaker 2: can consume information. So and I think that's a key
Speaker 2: skill that a lot of us don't have. And we
Speaker 2: because we can read or I can't read, but because
Speaker 2: other people can read, they just go, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to focus now because they can just read the document,
Speaker 2: Whereas if you don't have to do that, you have
Speaker 2: to you have to focus on what's happening and understand
Speaker 2: the concept. So if you're not understanding, you ask questions,
Speaker 2: which makes you're very good communicator.
Speaker 1: I also feel Matt like doing this stuff that you've
Speaker 1: had to do, Like you can't wake up tomorrow and go,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going to do blindness today.
Speaker 3: Fuck it.
Speaker 1: You know everybody else can go, fuck, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to the gym, or I'm not going to do my
Speaker 1: run or you know, a friend of mine, Joel's a quadriplegic,
Speaker 1: and I always talk about him and he can't get
Speaker 1: up today and go, you know what, fuck quadriplegia.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing it, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fuck it. I'm just going to walk today. I
Speaker 1: can't be bothered being qudriplegic, right, And the same with you.
Speaker 1: But like when you, when you don't have the option
Speaker 1: of easy, where you have to do hard, then you
Speaker 1: become strong and resilient, you know, almost just as a
Speaker 1: byproduct of your day to day function. Whereas at the moment,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you think about this, I think
Speaker 1: to an extent because of the great modelly coddling of
Speaker 1: the twenty first century, where we don't want anyone to
Speaker 1: participate in a sport where they might lose. We don't
Speaker 1: want to give out, you know, we don't want to fuck.
Speaker 1: Don't let them, don't let's not keep score, you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's nerve the world. Don't let them climb because
Speaker 1: they might hurt them. Like I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: in an intelligent and a caring way, like a motcom
Speaker 1: of pain and discomfort and uncertainty is good.
Speaker 2: Right, don't get me started on this topic, mate.
Speaker 3: Oh come on, let's hear it. Son fucking open the door. Bro.
Speaker 3: Come on, Well, my boy, my.
Speaker 2: Boys play league and my son, my oldest son's ten.
Speaker 2: He's his team last year was undefeated. They and then
Speaker 2: everyone knows the score. This whole bass about not keeping
Speaker 2: the score. Every parent, every child, everyone knows the score.
Speaker 2: They go to school and they get marked at school.
Speaker 2: They get graded at school. They know who's the best reader,
Speaker 2: who's not the best reader. But then they go into
Speaker 2: the sporting environment, they're not allowed to be compared to
Speaker 2: each other. Yes, and all my son wants to do
Speaker 2: is win a premiership. He all he wants to know
Speaker 2: is what the other teams are doing. All the other
Speaker 2: kids all they want and there's just been taken away
Speaker 2: from them. It's horrendous and it takes away resilience. And
Speaker 2: then they didn't know when they're going to introduce it.
Speaker 2: They introduce so now for regular argue, they've taken it
Speaker 2: from under tens. It used to be undertends and now
Speaker 2: they've moved up to Thirteen's what's one of the hardest
Speaker 2: things you have to do with in your life, transitioning
Speaker 2: from from primary school to high school. So they're not
Speaker 2: just taking those children that they're having to do with
Speaker 2: going to high school and that transition, they're going to
Speaker 2: make them learn about losing when they're going to high school.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's just crazy.
Speaker 1: And also you think about like when you step out
Speaker 1: of that bubble mate, Yeah, okay, now you're now you're
Speaker 1: getting a job or you're going to university. By the way,
Speaker 1: no one gives a fuck about you or your feelings. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not your boss's job, or your university lecture's job,
Speaker 1: or the world's job to manage your feelings and emotions.
Speaker 1: And if we're constantly running into ference and trying to
Speaker 1: protect somebody's feelings until they're thirty, fucking we're not allowing
Speaker 1: them to build resilience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is one of the things. Back to
Speaker 2: my diagnosis, my dad was having. So when I start
Speaker 2: first started playing rugby league, Dad's having a beer with
Speaker 2: a couple of mates and they said, oh, does Matt
Speaker 2: have any mates that want to play because we're short
Speaker 2: on the team. This is like an underfile. I was
Speaker 2: under six's team and Dad said, well, made your play.
Speaker 2: And instead of those dads going good on you, my
Speaker 2: dad's name is Don. Good on your Don for letting
Speaker 2: giving your son with a disability opportunity to play, and
Speaker 2: you have a try it if he files in, you
Speaker 2: know whatever. Instead of doing that, they went, oh, no, Don,
Speaker 2: your son's blind, like he can't play, You're putting him
Speaker 2: in harm's way and making him out to be the
Speaker 2: bad parents. That was the whole tone of narrative throughout
Speaker 2: my whole childhood was when my parents gave me opportunity
Speaker 2: to do things, the whole community would say, you're bad
Speaker 2: parents because you're putting him in harm's way. Wowow, But
Speaker 2: we all know now that that we should know that
Speaker 2: has set me up to be the athlete that I am.
Speaker 2: Like I've been dominant in multiple sports because I've got
Speaker 2: to do to play against people that were ever bodied
Speaker 2: and then like the contrast of that as well as
Speaker 2: I then went on to play representative rugby union on
Speaker 2: the northern beach of the Sydney which is like one
Speaker 2: of the brooding grounds for rugby union in a time
Speaker 2: when rugby was very successful. So like, when you think
Speaker 2: about who all those other kids that are turning up
Speaker 2: to rep triyouts, how the hell did the kid that's
Speaker 2: got at the time five percent vision get selected over
Speaker 2: other kids? Because I wanted it more and I was
Speaker 2: more focused on my job. I knew what my job
Speaker 2: was and I wasn't trying to be everything to everyone,
Speaker 2: And you know, float around, which just shows you know,
Speaker 2: if you give, if you give an opportunities and you
Speaker 2: take them, then the world opens up for you. If
Speaker 2: you don't take your opportunities, or if you know, if
Speaker 2: you're hide away in the corner, or if you protect
Speaker 2: people from what might happen, they're never going to flourish
Speaker 2: and they're never gonna have those experiences to fail and learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love it. So you've got a movie.
Speaker 1: Is it a movie or a doco? You've got coming
Speaker 1: out soon?
Speaker 2: It's a doco, it's a documentary. It's a nine. It's
Speaker 2: a full featured documentary movie. It's we actually launched at
Speaker 2: the Sydney Film Festival. We just did two screenings, all
Speaker 2: sold out there. We're getting great reviews. Then we go
Speaker 2: like we go cinemas nationally on the fifteenth of August.
Speaker 2: But we're so the premiere release will be at the
Speaker 2: Sydney Opera House on the eleventh of August. So that's
Speaker 2: all all happening right now. It's called The Blind c Sea.
Speaker 1: The Blind ce. Oh that's great, mate. And how did
Speaker 1: that come about? Who filmed it, whose idea was it?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: How long did it take?
Speaker 2: So it was filmed by a company called Brick Studios.
Speaker 2: The directors Daniel Finec or Finec. We've been we've worked
Speaker 2: together on a few little small clips like through the
Speaker 2: Rio Paralympics, and people have been saying, you need a movie,
Speaker 2: you need to do a movie, and you know, it's
Speaker 2: one of those things people said, you need to make
Speaker 2: a movie, but your life it's a bit of a
Speaker 2: you know, you laugh and good good on you, and
Speaker 2: then look at an opportunity to come up. We got
Speaker 2: some funding so said let's do this and then we
Speaker 2: were sort so the first forty five it's a ninety
Speaker 2: minute film. The first forty five minutes is my backstory
Speaker 2: and my parents telling that the stuff we've talked about today,
Speaker 2: and then must equip it on my cycling career and
Speaker 2: break ended up breaking a world record which is an
Speaker 2: able body world record for four kilometers on the goor droone.
Speaker 2: And then it transitions into surfing, and the last forty
Speaker 2: five minutes is Nazaree so the big wave, which is
Speaker 2: the biggest wave in the world and finishes up with
Speaker 2: me breaking the Guinness World Record for a big wave
Speaker 2: for a parasurfer. So that's the short and long of it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he's got some great.
Speaker 1: It's called the Blind Sea. Everyone's going to be in cinemas.
Speaker 1: August thirteen. I was talking yesterday, as I said to
Speaker 1: you earlier about with Tammy van Wisa, and she swam
Speaker 1: just under two and a half thousand kilometers. Mate, she
Speaker 1: swam the Murray River right now, didn't It took her
Speaker 1: one hundred and I think it was one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirteen days. She broke the record by I think thirty
Speaker 1: one days if I'm not right right, which was held
Speaker 1: by a bloke. She swam in one hundred and thirteen days.
Speaker 1: She did not have one day off. That's the condition
Speaker 1: of the record. You can't have any days off. Fucking
Speaker 1: brown snakes, tiger snakes, lots, mud infections, like it's it's
Speaker 1: not a dirty river, but it's a muddy river, so
Speaker 1: it's dirty time. It's fucking horrible. And I've trained lots
Speaker 1: of athletes, but I reckon you're in the same category
Speaker 1: of all the And I've worked with AFL teams, I've
Speaker 1: worked with Olympians, I've worked with you know, fighters and
Speaker 1: MMA athletes, and she's the toughest athlete I've ever trained, right,
Speaker 1: just in terms of and dealing with you know, like
Speaker 1: she swam lock Ness, which is fucking freezing forty kilometers, right,
Speaker 1: and yeah, she's just the toughest, the toughest athlete I've
Speaker 1: ever worked with. But I'm thinking, did you say the
Speaker 1: four k's.
Speaker 3: On the velodrome that you yeah?
Speaker 1: That, I mean people who don't like as an x
Speaker 1: I sign, that's just fucking Firstly, how many minutes.
Speaker 2: Is that we did? Four to eleven? Four minutes? So
Speaker 2: that's just so.
Speaker 1: That's just two hundred and fifty one seconds of pain,
Speaker 1: Like that's just well, maybe not the first ten, but
Speaker 1: from there, I mean, how do you deal with getting
Speaker 1: in that level of discomfort? I'd be interested to know
Speaker 1: you lactate threshold, by the way, that would that would
Speaker 1: have been just four minutes of agony, wouldn't it.
Speaker 2: Look it's the first three minutes aren't too bad because
Speaker 2: you're sort of building up, you're staying within your threshold.
Speaker 2: I mean, and when I say not too bad, not
Speaker 2: too bad as an elite athlete, so the norm of
Speaker 2: him being it would probably be unmanageable. But when you've
Speaker 2: trained at that level and you never do foks as
Speaker 2: a when you train to that level, you never do
Speaker 2: a four k effort ever in training because your body
Speaker 2: then your body remembers how bad it is and won't
Speaker 2: do it. So you're tricking your body, so you trick
Speaker 2: your Only the longest effort you ever do is three
Speaker 2: k's in training and then that last k and then
Speaker 2: you do longer rides, so you do one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty k rides or whatever, but you never do four
Speaker 2: gas four k's until you do it, until you do
Speaker 2: it to your race. And they say every time you
Speaker 2: do one of those, you basically take it because the
Speaker 2: amount of stress it puts on your heart, it takes
Speaker 2: about a year off your life. That's how that's how
Speaker 2: bad it is. So you're you're done so once and
Speaker 2: once you train to that level as well, like you
Speaker 2: you go so deep that you can't actually you squeeze
Speaker 2: everything out of your body. You can't get yourself off
Speaker 2: the bike. So we like finish the effort and then
Speaker 2: we just roll around and we need like there's twenties
Speaker 2: and mechanics that actually help us stop and get off
Speaker 2: the bike. It's that's that's the level you get to.
Speaker 2: But it was it was painful, but the emotional part
Speaker 2: that got through me through it. My my oldest son
Speaker 2: was six weeks old at the time, so I was
Speaker 2: away my son and my wife was looking after our baby,
Speaker 2: and I was, you know, as that started, that last
Speaker 2: minute was hurting. I was just like, and the thing
Speaker 2: about my parents, what they went through and their kids,
Speaker 2: and that just you know, that stuff just still gets
Speaker 2: me emotional talking about it, but that I might just
Speaker 2: suck it up, mate, get it done. And that was
Speaker 2: the thing we beat, like, we beat the Spanish and
Speaker 2: it was in the heat. And the world record that
Speaker 2: day was four minutes sixteen because it was on a
Speaker 2: on a tandem obviously for people that are older would
Speaker 2: know that the tanna just used to race at the Olympics,
Speaker 2: not just in the Paralympics. So that was that was
Speaker 2: an able body world record, which was four sixteen, and
Speaker 2: we raced that attitude and that morning the Spanish went
Speaker 2: out into the four twelve, so four minutes and twelve seconds.
Speaker 2: So we're just like, we're going to do a four eleven,
Speaker 2: but everyone else has got their heads down. So me
Speaker 2: and mix that I rode with, we just went bang, Well,
Speaker 2: if they can do a four twelve week, and it's
Speaker 2: just that self belief, right, so we're just like, we're
Speaker 2: to do a four eleven. We put a gear on
Speaker 2: which no one had ever was a massive year because
Speaker 2: obviously on the track you've got a fixed gear. No
Speaker 2: one had ever didden this gear ever in any race
Speaker 2: any in the world, and we hadn't written it in training.
Speaker 2: We just got it built because we thought we thought
Speaker 2: we might be able to ride on it. One day
Speaker 2: we chuck this gear on. I think it was like
Speaker 2: a fifty eight teeth gear. It was massive and anyway
Speaker 2: we write, we kind of hard to get it out
Speaker 2: of the gate and then we wound the thing up
Speaker 2: and then by the end we broke the world record.
Speaker 2: But it was it was that thing of you know,
Speaker 2: I'm just doing it for my family. Really, that's what
Speaker 2: got me through the last minute.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, bro. There would have been a slow start
Speaker 1: without fifty eight to one thing.
Speaker 3: And because that, yeah, we came.
Speaker 2: Out of the game and we actually rolled down the board,
Speaker 2: so we rolled almost roll off because just trying to
Speaker 2: get the things started. But then once we got through
Speaker 2: the first three or four pedal strikes, it was we
Speaker 2: got on top of it.
Speaker 1: Now before we wind up, tell me about freedomving. That
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a good idea. I mean, I'm no expert,
Speaker 1: but that does seem like a great idea, and that's.
Speaker 2: Probably a good thing. Like one of the things I
Speaker 2: built a ond my my extreme sports career is managing
Speaker 2: real risk and perceived risks. So everyone's got this perceived
Speaker 2: risk around big wave surfing and free diving. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of people have died doing free diving, but when
Speaker 2: you look at the risk they do, they'll buy themselves
Speaker 2: or they're fully being a little bit reckless in competition.
Speaker 2: Only one person's ever died from in free diving competition.
Speaker 2: So I'll be managing it the way I do anything
Speaker 2: else and being very you know, I'll be sending it
Speaker 2: as hard as I can, but I'll also be doing
Speaker 2: it in the most controlled way possible and managing risks.
Speaker 2: But look, I trained to for Nazuree. I trained myself
Speaker 2: to hold my breath for nearly six minutes. So if
Speaker 2: I can build on that a little bit, because that
Speaker 2: was obviously that was an elevated heart rate for big
Speaker 2: wave surfing, whereas free diving, I'll be less heart rate.
Speaker 2: So if I can push that, then I'll be older. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'd say I'll be able to set a fairly significant
Speaker 2: record for the power paraphletic community.
Speaker 1: It's a very unique physiological requirement doing that, isn't it,
Speaker 1: Because it's kind of and your body the whole time,
Speaker 1: your body is like, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: This is stupid? Stop, you know, because.
Speaker 2: It'll come back to psychology though. I've just got to
Speaker 2: stay home and trust my trust that my body is
Speaker 2: doing what it's trained to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Hey, mate, if people want to find you or follow you,
Speaker 1: I know you're a conference speaker, you inspire and educate
Speaker 1: people around the all around the country and beyond. How
Speaker 1: do people connect with you and even book you.
Speaker 2: Anywhere? So you find me on social channels, But the
Speaker 2: easiest way it's just at my website Mattformston dot com,
Speaker 2: which is f O R M st O N and yeah,
Speaker 2: reach out and would love to come and inspire your
Speaker 2: team or do whatever we can.
Speaker 1: Awesome, And the movie comes out in all good cinemas
Speaker 1: and shit ones on August thirteenth, fifteenth.
Speaker 2: Correct, go on, yeah, August fifteenth, We've got all We've
Speaker 2: got Hoots Village and whatever the other one is that
Speaker 2: it's in all cinemas fifteenth of August.
Speaker 3: We'll go palace.
Speaker 1: Who knows the other one? Yeah, exactly. We'll say goodbye
Speaker 1: offair in a minute. But Maddie, really nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: You're inspirational. You know that that's not a revelation. But
Speaker 1: thanks for chatting with me on the new project.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: Thanks Man