Speaker 1: I'll get a champions Craig, Anthony Harper, Donald James, William
Speaker 1: Elgan and Tiffany and cook high Cookie High Harps. Are
Speaker 1: you're looking a little bit seedy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's been forty eight hours laying in my
Speaker 2: bed eating frosty fruits.
Speaker 1: I did get a snapshot of you. This is going
Speaker 1: to sound much more exciting than it is. Folks of
Speaker 1: you in bed, and it was you and a menagerie
Speaker 1: of animals, you looking like fucking death warmed up. So
Speaker 1: please don't send me shit like that again, because I
Speaker 1: got PTSD now and I can't get that fucking image
Speaker 1: out of my head. It's out of my phone. But
Speaker 1: I didn't deserve that. What precipitated the fourteen and twelve
Speaker 1: spews that you've had in the last Hey everyone, I
Speaker 1: hope you're enjoying your dinner too. I hope it's not
Speaker 1: a casserole. What what? What have you got? What's wrong
Speaker 1: with you?
Speaker 2: I've got no idea, but it come on hard and fast,
Speaker 2: haks Like I drove. I got tired after our last podcast,
Speaker 2: and then at the end of the day, I drove
Speaker 2: down to take Luna for a quick run in the
Speaker 2: park before bed. We pulled up in front of the park.
Speaker 2: Luna started carrying on in the back like she does,
Speaker 2: and I just got hot all.
Speaker 3: Over and went off, I've got to get home.
Speaker 1: And I thought I wasn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I thought I wasn't going to make it back inside
Speaker 2: the hot I thought it was going to pass out.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's not the It's not the menopause, is it.
Speaker 2: I don't think the menopause causes projectile.
Speaker 1: All right, Well I'm no experts, so all right then
Speaker 1: Donald's he's Don's pretty much a doctor. He'll tell us
Speaker 1: what's your prescript? What's your diagnosis? Doc? She's fucked.
Speaker 3: Clinically speaking, Yeah, you're screwed. But God is this this
Speaker 3: will pass a lot of passing going on, but now
Speaker 3: you'll come good, like just a shipload of water, flush
Speaker 3: it out. Whatever.
Speaker 1: It is a bit of a bug you before fruits though,
Speaker 1: frosty fruit, the mate, isn't it? Isn't it funny when
Speaker 1: you crook how you just crave sugary carby ship because Lincoln.
Speaker 3: But we picked that up when we're young, don't we.
Speaker 3: Mom and Dad gives us that, like the flat lemonade
Speaker 3: or something. A bit of sugar when we're young, and
Speaker 3: so that sounds a fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody's sitting at home feeling crooked, going geese. I
Speaker 1: love a canna tuna. Ta give me toast with honey,
Speaker 1: give me all the white bread toasted with honey, and
Speaker 1: or jam Don welcome to the show. How are you, son? Mate?
Speaker 3: I'm excellent better than cookie. That's a fact. And I
Speaker 3: don't say that lightly because it's a pretty rare opportunity.
Speaker 3: I get to say that because she's usually firing on
Speaker 3: all cylinders and got shit sorted. So I do wish
Speaker 3: you well, might hug you. You come good soon, Tiff.
Speaker 3: But I'm flying, mate, I was. I've had a cracking
Speaker 3: year around about eighty events this year in the in
Speaker 3: the airport, so I've been overseas six times. I'm loving life.
Speaker 3: That's exactly how I set it up to live this life.
Speaker 3: I remember body years ago, when I was a little
Speaker 3: tacker at the cameer. People would say, oh, Don travels great,
Speaker 3: but then you've got to get back to your normal grind.
Speaker 3: And as a kid growing up, I thought, I don't
Speaker 3: want to have a normal grind. I want to have
Speaker 3: a life. I wake up every day you can go
Speaker 3: giddy up, and the fact that I wake up, you know,
Speaker 3: my leg's still missing, and I check every day.
Speaker 1: Rights just big day. It's going to be.
Speaker 3: A large night the day that grows back. But seriously,
Speaker 3: so I've created a life and I look at it
Speaker 3: and go hair goods, and I see people. I see
Speaker 3: people that are at airports and they're frustrated to be there.
Speaker 3: And so I don't ever want to get to that point.
Speaker 3: I want to I want to be bloody grateful that
Speaker 3: I'm there. Maybe even I'm the head and do it
Speaker 3: a ship hole. I still want to go, yep, this
Speaker 3: is cool? How good is wow?
Speaker 1: I'm heading to a ship Oh yeah, yeah, but there'll
Speaker 1: be cool people that might. I suggest that if you
Speaker 1: do wake up one day and your leg has well,
Speaker 1: didn't really grow away, you do magically have at your
Speaker 1: left leg that's missing, isn't it is? If you don't
Speaker 1: magically have a whole left leg, I'm thinking you might
Speaker 1: not know what the fuck to do with it. I
Speaker 1: wonder how well you'd be able to traverse the landscape
Speaker 1: with a whole leg on the left side. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: know how to work it well. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: One day I literally fell a said, I was absolutely spent.
Speaker 3: I fell aslep my leg on. I set my leg
Speaker 3: on because it's like you slept your shoes on. You
Speaker 3: just unless you really pissed doores. You just don't do
Speaker 3: it like it's uncomfortable. And so I fell asleep my
Speaker 3: leg on one day and I woke up and I
Speaker 3: walked and I was like, I was I've never done
Speaker 3: drugs in my life, but I swear to God, I
Speaker 3: don't reckon it'd be a drug as good as that
Speaker 3: feeling gone.
Speaker 1: Holy shit, how good is this wake? Just the wake up?
Speaker 3: And what I was like tripping at the fact that
Speaker 3: people do this shit every day and they don't even
Speaker 3: think twice about it. And yes, for me, I was like,
Speaker 3: that's awesome, but I must admit it was also it's uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: like one of my best feelings, and tis out of
Speaker 3: the three of us, tis probably going to be the
Speaker 3: best to agree or disagree with this. But my leg
Speaker 3: is tailor made, it fits perfect, and it's got a
Speaker 3: job to do. At the end of the day, I
Speaker 3: take it off, and my understanding is it's a bit
Speaker 3: like taking off of bra it's like, what a bloody
Speaker 3: and nice feeling. I'm not that happy spot. So me,
Speaker 3: when I get my leg off at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, if I have to put it back on,
Speaker 3: I'm hoping, like hell, it's the next day, because if
Speaker 3: we've got to put it on and I've already mentally
Speaker 3: checked out or taken the leg off, then it's sort
Speaker 3: of like fuck, it's a pun nas And it's not
Speaker 3: really a panas. It's just it's such a good feeling
Speaker 3: to get it off at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: It feels buddy great. How long does it take to
Speaker 3: get on in the morning? A seconds, mate, I've got
Speaker 3: my record is nine seconds. So not that I'm competitive,
Speaker 3: but i do like to have a crack and I've
Speaker 3: got to have everything mined up though, the socks and
Speaker 3: everything right the go. But it's like a roll a
Speaker 3: silicon sleeve on. It's got a pin in the bottom
Speaker 3: of it. I push it in the whole bang We're
Speaker 3: good to go. So it's that easy. So I've got
Speaker 3: no reason to winge. And you know, I've got legs
Speaker 3: that used to have straps go over my knee and
Speaker 3: up my thigh around my waist. One more over my shoulder,
Speaker 3: and you know when you're wearing that type of technology
Speaker 3: as well. So bloody fortunate to go through life now
Speaker 3: because I've seen the evolutional legs. Like I just got
Speaker 3: my processor saying to me the other day, Don there's this
Speaker 3: new leg and it's a waterproof leg. You can wear
Speaker 3: thongs with it on, going like, I can't wear thongs
Speaker 3: because I can't keep the leg on on the thong
Speaker 3: on my artificial legs. But I've also got fucking little
Speaker 3: shit toes on my good foot, So even if I
Speaker 3: wanted to wear the I'm a crocs king, mate, I've
Speaker 3: got crops on now because I literally can't wear thongs.
Speaker 3: But hearing about this technology, I'm just going, how body
Speaker 3: good is this? That this stuff exists in my lifetime?
Speaker 3: You know, And I'm in a country that's fortunate through
Speaker 3: the NDIS or whatever means, then I'm going to be
Speaker 3: able to get access to it. So I'm boddy wrap
Speaker 3: that it exists.
Speaker 1: I feel, without having done any research on this, which
Speaker 1: is pretty much typically my way, that the evolution of
Speaker 1: prosthetic legs from say nineteen hundred to nineteen eighty what
Speaker 1: was probably a steady inclimb, But from say nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: or ninety five until now, it's been a sharp kind
Speaker 1: of inflection up. It's like it feels like the last
Speaker 1: twenty years there's been two hundred years of development in
Speaker 1: that space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bang on my big like crypto, but without the
Speaker 3: fall like it just keeps going and going and it
Speaker 3: has planted out. There's no question about that. I got
Speaker 3: my first. I was in that group of athletes that
Speaker 3: got a j leg that was the first start of
Speaker 3: a running blade, and looking back, it was fucking shit out.
Speaker 3: So it was really stiff and you couldn't get much
Speaker 3: out of it. But when you're wearing it and you go,
Speaker 3: holy shit, this is better than having a sash foot
Speaker 3: or a bit of rubber on the bottom of a
Speaker 3: wooden leg. You feel like king of the kids, you know,
Speaker 3: because you can run fast with it. But now that
Speaker 3: you see the blades, the Cheetah is the one that
Speaker 3: I wear now, and it's not even a running leg.
Speaker 3: It's actually a running leg that's been modified down to
Speaker 3: an everyday fight activity leak. So you know, when you
Speaker 3: see that sort of stuff, it's the same like Formula one.
Speaker 3: You know, they put the research and development into the
Speaker 3: top level stuff, and then it filters, it finds its
Speaker 3: way down into the suburban you know, family car, the
Speaker 3: right oil to use and better fuel and all that shit.
Speaker 3: So same with legs. They put all the energy into
Speaker 3: the fast guys, the people that could do something with
Speaker 3: it and push it and test it, and then it
Speaker 3: finds its way in every day. So yeah, I'm pretty fortunate, mate,
Speaker 3: But you're right in terms of the development, I reckon
Speaker 3: it's pretty much pladded out. But what was really cool
Speaker 3: about it is you had athletes like me just go
Speaker 3: what else can we do with this? Well, how can
Speaker 3: we push this? I had a running blade, so in discus,
Speaker 3: I want to rotate around at the back of the
Speaker 3: circle and then get across the circle really fast. Block
Speaker 3: and then you know, like get that whip to throw
Speaker 3: the disc. And I thought, if I use a running
Speaker 3: blade at the back of the circle, then I'm going
Speaker 3: to get across really quick. But imagine if I could
Speaker 3: use a running blade and be completely balanced. So I
Speaker 3: put a universal swivel through the blade so I could
Speaker 3: pirouet perfectly, and then when I lad it up across
Speaker 3: the circle, it was like dialog. I couldn't control I
Speaker 3: got to the front. I was like out of control
Speaker 3: on my ass so many times. But that's that's the evolution,
Speaker 3: you know. It comes with a desire for finding something
Speaker 3: better and more brains than I've got for people to
Speaker 3: actually make it work. My very first attempt at it,
Speaker 3: we used a full drive suspension sprick we can wait
Speaker 3: to eight kilos. I couldn't move it, mate, it was
Speaker 3: too heavy. But we had got us thinking about what.
Speaker 1: Can we do with this?
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's really cool now to see some great
Speaker 3: stuff out there.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that a spatial awareness or rotational awareness
Speaker 1: would be a big issue when you're pivoting like a
Speaker 1: fucking ball arena with a discus in your hand, because
Speaker 1: if you release that at the wrong time, you're going
Speaker 1: to kill seven people. Well that's why.
Speaker 3: They've got a cage here made for lunatics on me.
Speaker 3: But fortunately, fortunately nobody died in the making of those
Speaker 3: fast legs. But I haven't seen any of the girls
Speaker 3: like it on the scene. Most people. Most people just
Speaker 3: work out what works for them, And I think that's
Speaker 3: where you know, you ask the question and you better
Speaker 3: have been born without a body part or acquiring a
Speaker 3: disability somewhere along the line. And for me, I was
Speaker 3: literally just at a physio this morning and she's talking
Speaker 3: about my stump because I was actually trying to get
Speaker 3: qualified or get a classification for another sport. I'm going
Speaker 3: to have a crack at so watch this space. But
Speaker 3: she's saying to me, what's your stump? Like I said,
Speaker 3: I shot you not you probably won't find another one
Speaker 3: like it. It is so resilient. It's tough, but you
Speaker 3: can hit the bottom and I'm not asking you to
Speaker 3: do this, but I can hit the bottom of my
Speaker 3: stump and I'm not going to hit the roof. For
Speaker 3: some people, you can't touch the stump. And I think
Speaker 3: that's got a lot to do with the fact that
Speaker 3: over the years, as a kid wearing ill fitting legs,
Speaker 3: it just got tougher and tough. It's like resilience, you know,
Speaker 3: you just you fall over, you'd get up and you go, okay,
Speaker 3: I can do that again. And my stumps learnt and
Speaker 3: it doesn't have the nerve endings and the tenderness that
Speaker 3: somebody having their leg chopped off and has never weight
Speaker 3: bed on it has. So yeah, I'm pretty fortunate mate.
Speaker 1: Well you probably desensitized it over the years, and also
Speaker 1: it is probably like is it very callous? I imagine
Speaker 1: it would be as no, yeah.
Speaker 3: I would sort of go through phases so when it
Speaker 3: doesn't fit well, so my body weight. And I always
Speaker 3: struggle with this bit because you put your shoes in,
Speaker 3: put your foot in your shoe, and there's a bit
Speaker 3: of movement, right, even with leather shoes and shit, and
Speaker 3: you've got a bit of time, like if you put
Speaker 3: a bit of weight on, typically your shoes will still fit,
Speaker 3: they'll carry you around. If I put some weight on,
Speaker 3: like this is this is a plaster cast plaster pars
Speaker 3: of my stump, so it's made perfectly for me to
Speaker 3: fit into it. So you start putting weight on, like
Speaker 3: one or two kilos, or take it off. Then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden there's movement in there that it just
Speaker 3: doesn't fit right. And then you've got rubbing, and then
Speaker 3: you get then you create problem. But the drama is
Speaker 3: the climates. You know, when you're sweating like a pig,
Speaker 3: it's a silicon sleeve, so the sweat builds up in there.
Speaker 3: If you don't take it off, wipe it down and
Speaker 3: keep it going, then it basically just creates a problem
Speaker 3: for yourself. But yeah, i'd certainly say it's reactive to
Speaker 3: what I do. So if I look after it, it'll react. Well,
Speaker 3: if I don't, well it still reacts, but it ends
Speaker 3: up with me.
Speaker 1: Now do you know where you and I met? I
Speaker 1: don't even know, did you? Do you know we've met
Speaker 1: before today?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, at buck somewhere and you invite them down
Speaker 3: to the gym and I said I'll get there and
Speaker 3: I never made it.
Speaker 1: I've been looking out the window for fifteen years. But
Speaker 1: don't worry. That's fine. I keep look, I'll go past.
Speaker 1: I usual on my back. I can do it. I
Speaker 1: usually give you a wave.
Speaker 3: It was the end. I can't remember, mate, it was.
Speaker 3: It was a long time, It wasn't It was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I interviewed thousands of people, and you've done
Speaker 1: thousands of interviews. So I was, do you know this?
Speaker 1: I should admit what I'm about to admit because it's
Speaker 1: it's essentially discrimination. I was thick because I interviewed you
Speaker 1: a couple of times, and also Michael Milton, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was I was thinking, what was Don's downhill
Speaker 1: skiing record? What was that? What was that downhill and
Speaker 1: then I'm like, oh, fucking how bad is that? And
Speaker 1: then as I'm like, no, that was the other bloke
Speaker 1: with one leg the other that's he was the other
Speaker 1: bloke with one How fucking bad of that?
Speaker 3: Like, I'm not really apologize, no, No, Michael Milton is
Speaker 3: an above me. Michael Milton got really pissed with me
Speaker 3: for a bit because I was the first person with
Speaker 3: the disability to drive in his celebrity challenge and and
Speaker 3: when I first did it, he rang me up and
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, that's nice. I don't really speak to Michael.
Speaker 3: He's a winter sport fella's lunatic and Paul got cancer,
Speaker 3: you know, like I've been very fortunate my run, and
Speaker 3: he goes, how do you get into that race? I thought,
Speaker 3: fucking hello, Michael, and I said, I've just been I've
Speaker 3: been stalking the Grand Prix Corporation for a number of years.
Speaker 3: Made I'll let him know who I am, and I'm
Speaker 3: ready he is, he said, I wanted to get then
Speaker 3: and go, oh fucking good luck, see.
Speaker 1: Lader, Michael.
Speaker 3: We didn't have a lot to do with each other,
Speaker 3: with different personality types, but like he has anyone who's
Speaker 3: had cancer, and Kelly Cart writes another Girl that I
Speaker 3: have a fair bit to do with Cawer manager. Cancer
Speaker 3: is one of those things that you really never sleep
Speaker 3: soundly at night, particularly you've lost a leg to it,
Speaker 3: all that sort of stuff. So when it come back
Speaker 3: and Michael got in the throat and stuff, I just
Speaker 3: actually I realize how fortunate I am, you know, like
Speaker 3: the disability for me, the heart's edge, you're at three
Speaker 3: years of age, all that sort of shit. It's done
Speaker 3: and dust that what you see is what you get.
Speaker 3: And I've just grown up with all this. Whereas I'm
Speaker 3: not looking over my shoulder going fuck, am I gonna
Speaker 3: lose a finger next week? Or is it going to
Speaker 3: get my other leg? It's like, no, mate, this is
Speaker 3: your Cart. So it's easy to come to terms with that.
Speaker 3: So whereas I reckon, it's got to be a bit harder,
Speaker 3: you know, I reckon.
Speaker 1: I reckon also, And I don't know, but I'm asking you,
Speaker 1: like I would think emotionally and socologically, there's not the
Speaker 1: same trauma associated because you never had that, but that
Speaker 1: you know, you never had that leg, and so you
Speaker 1: don't miss it in inverted commas, Yeah, no, no, I get.
Speaker 3: That, and I've heard that a lot over the years,
Speaker 3: and I don't disagree. I think what happens is when
Speaker 3: I was a kid, I was dead set going tied
Speaker 3: to toe, punching on and having fights with other kids
Speaker 3: because they teach me so like they found, the trauma
Speaker 3: is a different It's not the trauma of oh shit,
Speaker 3: I've lost my leg now, and there is absolutely no
Speaker 3: doubt in my mind that losing a limb or some
Speaker 3: sort of function, acquired brain injury, any of that sort
Speaker 3: of stuff. There is still a it might sound weird,
Speaker 3: but there's a grieving process to it. You've got You've
Speaker 3: actually got to come to terms with the fact that
Speaker 3: it's gone. It's not coming back. And if you don't
Speaker 3: do that, you always have this what if or why me,
Speaker 3: or you have a component of you that's never really settled.
Speaker 3: But the moment you go through that proce and go,
Speaker 3: oh fuck it, you know, my dad was awesome at this,
Speaker 3: he goes mate. Even if we find out exactly why
Speaker 3: you're missing your leg, and your brother and your three
Speaker 3: sisters all got theirs, it's not going to make one
Speaker 3: ounce of difference. Not going to go back, So don't
Speaker 3: look back about and ask them why just look forward
Speaker 3: and say, well, I've got one good leg. And so
Speaker 3: that for me is it's probably the strength for me
Speaker 3: over the years. It's the trauma or the disappointment of
Speaker 3: not having a leg. It raises its head from time
Speaker 3: to time, but I'm really quick to be able to
Speaker 3: put it to bed and go. Mate, that's a view.
Speaker 3: It doesn't hold space with me anymore. So she'll be
Speaker 3: right and away we go. So, yeah, but I reckon
Speaker 3: losing a leg. There's far more for you to contemplate.
Speaker 3: And typically not a lot of people lose it at
Speaker 3: such a young age, kids at the bomb because they're resilient,
Speaker 3: because I don't know any different. If you lose a
Speaker 3: limb as an adult, you've had a life time of
Speaker 3: knowing how to walk, no one, how to fit in, knowing,
Speaker 3: knowing how to create your way. Maybe I created a
Speaker 3: way as a one leg of block. So that's my way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, dad's dad and mum sound like though. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you're not prepared for that as a parent. You
Speaker 1: don't know how to deal with that until you've got
Speaker 1: to deal with it. There's I'm sure there's a book
Speaker 1: now but at the time there was probably no five
Speaker 1: step plan of how to deal with young don so
Speaker 1: they must have done a pretty good job.
Speaker 3: Though, Oh I made I reckon they nailed it, Like
Speaker 3: my mum and dad young lovers got married with no young,
Speaker 3: had us kids young. You know, when I'm talking young,
Speaker 3: I'm talking nineteen twenty twenty one in the first three
Speaker 3: kits sort of thing. So and then I sort of
Speaker 3: followed suited. I was married at twenty one, first kid
Speaker 3: at twenty two, so I think it's sort of it
Speaker 3: makes sense. But their approach was absolutely one hundred percent
Speaker 3: old school, where if it's don't broke, if it's not broken,
Speaker 3: don't try and fix it. If if you My mum
Speaker 3: was awesome, and she probably took the line's share of
Speaker 3: shit unfortunately, because she knew that if I was to
Speaker 3: go okay in life, then I was going to have
Speaker 3: to get off mars. She wasn't going to be there
Speaker 3: to hold my hand all the time. Unfortunately, she checked
Speaker 3: out for the last time last year, so she's corrected that.
Speaker 3: But up until then, what she said is every time
Speaker 3: I fell over, she'd just get up, give you have
Speaker 3: another go, And so that the words I heard were
Speaker 3: things that were going to stack me in good stead
Speaker 3: for life. And my dad, I think he he my
Speaker 3: old man used to do a bit of boxing and
Speaker 3: was going to have a crack at golden gloves and
Speaker 3: until my mum said you fun go to boxing and
Speaker 3: not me on that day, then we're done. So which
Speaker 3: was I just think my old man for Varsity's got
Speaker 3: that hanging over his head. It's like, oh, I could
Speaker 3: have got golden gloves and anyway ended up with my mum,
Speaker 3: which was a much better ticket. But a really cool
Speaker 3: thing for him was that they were on the same page.
Speaker 3: So Mum was always there with a big heart and
Speaker 3: mopped up when Dad was too brutal in terms of
Speaker 3: saying bucket mate. You know, like sometimes sometimes as a kid,
Speaker 3: what you think you need is a cuddle. In actual
Speaker 3: fact you need to foot up the ass. And it's
Speaker 3: a balance act to where do you when do you
Speaker 3: give the foot and when you give the cuddle. And
Speaker 3: my dad was he'd go the foot first, and over time,
Speaker 3: to his credit, as he got older, he got way
Speaker 3: more nurturing. But as kids, I think if my parents
Speaker 3: had been really super nurturing when I was young, I
Speaker 3: reckon I would have struggled as a kid growing up
Speaker 3: as an adult today, I wouldn't be who I am
Speaker 3: and that tough love odd bloody rate it, mate. I'm
Speaker 3: a big fan of tough love and it served me
Speaker 3: really well.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, I'm not, surprisingly, I think all three of
Speaker 1: us are. But it's it's it's interesting because like, you
Speaker 1: want to love and look after your kids, of course,
Speaker 1: and you want to be there for them, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, you want them to be strong and
Speaker 1: resilient and independent and capable of dealing with discomfort and
Speaker 1: uncertainty because the world gives no fucks about their emotions
Speaker 1: and and you know, so trying to find that right
Speaker 1: balance between letting them know that they're loved and they're okay,
Speaker 1: but also letting them fall down and scrape their knees
Speaker 1: without you running in to pick them up. Because how
Speaker 1: do kids get strong or resilient or capable if they
Speaker 1: never have to do anything hard or get uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: That's right, It's a learned behavior, isn't it. So whatever
Speaker 3: we're learning is our level of resilience or lack of
Speaker 3: because we learn, okay, we fall over or just have
Speaker 3: to put behind up or make enough noise and Mum's
Speaker 3: going to pick me up. Yeah, I can make all
Speaker 3: the noise in the world. Mum's so exactly something. And
Speaker 3: that's why I say I recond Mum got the raw
Speaker 3: end because her sister and sisters would say to her, oh,
Speaker 3: you bitch, pick him up. He's only got one leg
Speaker 3: and one would be like hearing this from her loved
Speaker 3: ones and she's got nah. He's got to learn to
Speaker 3: do it without it, without me. And you just think,
Speaker 3: what a courageous woman to stand up to the people
Speaker 3: that fucking pointing you out and calling you out for
Speaker 3: not being there for your kids, because none of us
Speaker 3: want that. But her vision and view of how to
Speaker 3: raise me was, in my opinion, hands down better that
Speaker 3: I could possibly have asked for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, hey mate. For those of our listeners who
Speaker 1: don't know anything about your sporting background, can you just
Speaker 1: give us like a little bit of a two minutes,
Speaker 1: ten minutes, as much or as little as you want.
Speaker 1: Where did the sporting career start, what did it look like?
Speaker 1: And can you give us a little bit of this
Speaker 1: is your life of your sporting career just and then
Speaker 1: I might weave a few questions in yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Made I was pretty fortunate. I was born without the
Speaker 3: below half my leg, and then that meant that the
Speaker 3: same opportunities weren't going to exist for me as they
Speaker 3: were for my brother. What I didn't realize is that
Speaker 3: I was being raised in the same vein as my brother,
Speaker 3: so disabled, handicapped, special like the Paralympic Games. Although back
Speaker 3: when I was born they weren't a big thing, but
Speaker 3: they certainly weren't even They weren't a welcome thing in
Speaker 3: our house. My parents weren't looking for that. They said, mane,
Speaker 3: you'll play footy. Just go down play footy with your brother.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did.
Speaker 3: So I grew up in an able bodied world, but
Speaker 3: always being a bit pissed off that I couldn't keep
Speaker 3: up like I was alway. And then people would make
Speaker 3: excuses for me, Oh, it's okay, you've got one leg.
Speaker 3: I go. I fucking no one got one leg. But
Speaker 3: I still want to win that race, you know. So
Speaker 3: there's that little bit of mongol that sort of creeps
Speaker 3: in because you just you've got to fight a little
Speaker 3: bit harder. And then a couple of my mates at
Speaker 3: high school said to me mate, why don't you go
Speaker 3: to the Paralympics. And I'd never heard of them. And
Speaker 3: when they told me that the Paralympics stand for parallel
Speaker 3: to the Olympics, I started getting a bit excited because
Speaker 3: I've heard stories about the village and I thought this
Speaker 3: could be all right. And then they and they said
Speaker 3: that the Olympics overseas, and so if that's the case,
Speaker 3: so of the Paralympics, And I just thought, how would
Speaker 3: would that be to go overseas? Mate? So I'm from Tokamo.
Speaker 3: Tokomo had twelve hundred and a half people made I
Speaker 3: was the half like I am, thinking this is gonna
Speaker 3: be awesome. So I went home and I said to
Speaker 3: my man mom and Dad, I shit, you're not. I
Speaker 3: still remember it like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: I walked in.
Speaker 3: I put my bag, my school bag on the ground.
Speaker 3: Mum's peeling spuds at the sink. Dad's standing behind her,
Speaker 3: grope and her holding her up, and I said, Mom, Dad,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go to the Paralympics. But Dad said,
Speaker 3: you're going to go the what and what was really
Speaker 3: interesting is Mum stoped peeling spuds and Dad stopped groping
Speaker 3: mump and they both looked at me and said.
Speaker 1: You're going to go to the war.
Speaker 3: I said to the Paralympics and Dad said what are they?
Speaker 3: And I said, oh, they're games for disabled people. Shit,
Speaker 3: you're not My dad said you're not bloody disabled, and
Speaker 3: I thought, there goes my te overseas. So I had
Speaker 3: to convince mom and Dad that I was disabled, and
Speaker 3: sadly didn't take that long, but I got to go
Speaker 3: to my first ever. We'd got the Yellow Pages out,
Speaker 3: we looked up amputees and MPT Association. I was living
Speaker 3: tokenmar to New South Wales. Found the New South Wales
Speaker 3: empt Championships. Said fuck, that's in Sydney. Let's see if
Speaker 3: we can go to the Victoria once because I've come
Speaker 3: down here to get my legs made in Melbourne. It's
Speaker 3: only three hours. And they said, nah, you're a New
Speaker 3: South Wales athlete. We don't want anything to do with you.
Speaker 3: You belong up there. So we rang Robin Howe, who
Speaker 3: was a president of the New South Wales Empt Championships,
Speaker 3: went up to Sydney, competed in my first ever New
Speaker 3: South Wales Empte Championships and that was half So I shoot,
Speaker 3: you not it was WHOA, what like is this? But
Speaker 3: I went up there. My parents ran a public swimming pool.
Speaker 3: I can swim reasonably well. I went up there to
Speaker 3: swim in five events, and I thought I was bloody
Speaker 3: win everything. I thought, I'm not really disabled. I'm going
Speaker 3: to swim against disabled people. I've got this. And I
Speaker 3: looked around. Here's all these people missing and missing legs.
Speaker 3: And I've never seen me shit before, never like. The
Speaker 3: most I've seen is maybe one or two other amputees
Speaker 3: at the leg joint, not a whole bloody group of them.
Speaker 3: And I thought, wow, bloody a bunch of freaks. I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: I've got you lot. Oh but yeah, And and then
Speaker 3: I went in the five events and I won too,
Speaker 3: but in the other three I got my ass kicked.
Speaker 3: At that point, that was the turning point for me,
Speaker 3: my entire life to be honest, not just for me,
Speaker 3: but for mom and dad, because their perception of what
Speaker 3: they had been told about disabled and disability and handicap
Speaker 3: and people that weren't like everybody else was flipped on
Speaker 3: its head. All of a sudden. This shit was hard,
Speaker 3: and if I was going to make it, that sort
Speaker 3: of seemed to be music to my dad's ears. He
Speaker 3: liked the fact that it wasn't going to be walking
Speaker 3: the park, you know, like if I was going to
Speaker 3: make it, I'd have to earn it. And so after
Speaker 3: that I really got stuck into swimming, and I tried
Speaker 3: out for at the national championships for the nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: two Barcelona Paralympic Games, and I missed out by one spot.
Speaker 3: And at the time of sixteen, and I was fucking filthy.
Speaker 3: I thought, like, I've broken national records. I was ringing
Speaker 3: up Mom and Dad. I was staying there at Parkville
Speaker 3: and I was ringing them up every day.
Speaker 1: Oh, national record fifty four hundred and three. And things
Speaker 1: were going pretty good.
Speaker 3: And at the end of the games, I announced the teams,
Speaker 3: and when I missed out, I just thought, fuck you,
Speaker 3: and Dad come down picked me up. Everybody else is
Speaker 3: going out to celebrate that night, and we're driving home
Speaker 3: and I said, Dad.
Speaker 1: Stuff quit.
Speaker 3: I've had enough, mate. He said, what do you mean
Speaker 3: you quit? I said, I've retired.
Speaker 1: I'm done.
Speaker 3: He said, you're fucking sixteenth. You're a bit young to retire.
Speaker 3: How about you have another crack. And so next year
Speaker 3: I went to the Stage Champs and I did swimming
Speaker 3: and athletics. I come back from there with ten gold medals.
Speaker 3: I thought, this is I'm back.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 3: And I had the very very good fortune to speak
Speaker 3: to one of the head coaches, Chris Nunn, and he said, mate,
Speaker 3: if you had a real opportunity to represent the country,
Speaker 3: what was like to do either swimming or athletics, Because
Speaker 3: you're gonna have to get serious because the great athletes
Speaker 3: that make these teams they don't do facking everything. You
Speaker 3: might be good at everything, but at that level you
Speaker 3: won't make it. And I said, I'd rather do athletics.
Speaker 3: He said why. I said, because the guys who are
Speaker 3: athletics are having more fun. I said, at home in
Speaker 3: the middle of winter, our swimming pool's cold and green
Speaker 3: and slimy. At least if I'm doing athletics, I can
Speaker 3: play footy and still get fit. So that was the
Speaker 3: start of my athletic career. I spent the next well
Speaker 3: a couple of years training mass off. I was fortunate
Speaker 3: to make the Atlanta Paralympic Games, and then I ended
Speaker 3: up with four World Championships and three Paralympic Games, a
Speaker 3: couple of World Cups and Commonwealth Games, and I spent
Speaker 3: the best part of twenty years representing the country, you know,
Speaker 3: just playing sport. And it's never been wasted on me
Speaker 3: that I played sport. You know, I didn't save lives.
Speaker 3: I've got to travel the world here, I had to
Speaker 3: raise money and stuff along the way. But I've literally
Speaker 3: filled four passports, you know, I'm on my fifth through
Speaker 3: just having them filled up with stamps because I'm in
Speaker 3: another country to run or to push a shot pull
Speaker 3: or throw a discu It's like, how good is that?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Just very fortunate. And the event that I'd chose was
Speaker 3: the pentathlon and often hear people say, oh, the event
Speaker 3: chooses you, and that bang on. I was never great
Speaker 3: at any one thing, but I was reasonably good at
Speaker 3: five and so which stacks up when you you know,
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, when you go over
Speaker 3: one medal, you need to be able to put a
Speaker 3: really shit performance behind you really quickly and reset. And
Speaker 3: fortunately for me, maybe it's kid growing up, I had
Speaker 3: a very strong mental approach to things. I was able
Speaker 3: to compartmentalize things really quickly and not take the bad
Speaker 3: chi into the next event, but to reset and go
Speaker 3: again and that served me really well.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, Sydney wasn't so well. I had.
Speaker 3: I finished fourth in Atlanta and the Pentathlon, I'd finish
Speaker 3: fourth at the World Champs in ninety eight. My goal
Speaker 3: was to win a medal in my home country at
Speaker 3: the Sydney Games. In two thousand, I thought this is it.
Speaker 3: I went out at the Sydney Games. I was in
Speaker 3: after the first two events. After the first three events,
Speaker 3: I was sitting in the silver medal position. I was
Speaker 3: sitting decon, only behind the current world champion. And then
Speaker 3: I went into the discus and as you line up,
Speaker 3: if you've paid much attention to athletics, when you're lining
Speaker 3: up and you're about to go into your event, the
Speaker 3: cameraman goes along the line and the announcer says, oh,
Speaker 3: we've got Thomas Bourgeois from America and Urst colleague from Switzerland,
Speaker 3: and I've got Don Elgen, And instead of the camera
Speaker 3: being on me, the cameraman had found my wife and
Speaker 3: my two year old daughter and the rest of the
Speaker 3: Don Elgon cheersquad in the crowd, and Thomas was beside
Speaker 3: me goes, haven't got the big screen and looked up
Speaker 3: on the big screen and here's my little girl with
Speaker 3: her go Dad shirt on, and I just lost my shit.
Speaker 3: It was I'm getting joked now. I was so emotional,
Speaker 3: it was that this is I don't even need to
Speaker 3: throw the discus. This is the best moment of my life.
Speaker 3: Like I'm at the pinnacle of sport, and I've got
Speaker 3: the people that give a shit about me right there.
Speaker 3: So I had three throws of discus that day with tears.
Speaker 3: I was crying the entire way and so fucking get
Speaker 3: it together and I couldn't. I emotionally wasn't ready for
Speaker 3: the impact. And then I dropped from second into third
Speaker 3: and it's like, fuck, I'm gonna blame Earth for that
Speaker 3: for the rest of my life, but anyway, I better
Speaker 3: get that shit sorted. So I went into the last event,
Speaker 3: which was the four hundred meters, and I knew I
Speaker 3: had to beat the American by six seconds, and if
Speaker 3: I could do that, then I'd get my first ever
Speaker 3: parentl pick metal, which would be a bronze. I'd have
Speaker 3: to do some pretty crazy shit in the four hundred,
Speaker 3: and honestly I had at the four hundred, so it
Speaker 3: wasn't likely I was going to do anything super amazing
Speaker 3: in that event, and fortunately I did. I'd beat the
Speaker 3: American and I ended up with a bronze medal, you
Speaker 3: know in my home country.
Speaker 1: Week Wow.
Speaker 3: So when you see people in the bronze his body
Speaker 3: jumping around, they're really excited, probably sometimes more than silver
Speaker 3: and maybe even gold. That's sometimes why I mate is
Speaker 3: because what it means to get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I love that, mate. That's so good. And
Speaker 1: that story about your little girl you did, I read
Speaker 1: you've got four kids? How old are they? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So my little girl's now twenty six year old nurse
Speaker 3: who works in the Royal Melbourne and it's you know,
Speaker 3: she did her work experience at the place that makes
Speaker 3: my legs. So when you think about that connection and
Speaker 3: what they're picking up by looking at me and my
Speaker 3: wife and the people around them, you know, if you're
Speaker 3: a care then that's what you do. So and then
Speaker 3: I've got a twenty three year old twenty two, I'll
Speaker 3: get the fucker they have birthdays.
Speaker 1: I'm good for a.
Speaker 3: Full year saying this is how old they are. Then
Speaker 3: they go and have a birthday and it starts my
Speaker 3: little routine. How dare they? George and she's living her
Speaker 3: best life. Mate. She's an ambassador for an energy drink,
Speaker 3: drives around body Love and matt and works in the
Speaker 3: corporate boxes, which just her people skills. Her ability to
Speaker 3: be able to talk to people and just go, mate,
Speaker 3: that is probably the greatest asset today for anybody that
Speaker 3: can actually speak with their mouth. And I get that
Speaker 3: not everybody is verbal and they can't all do that,
Speaker 3: but the nation and the globe is moving towards speaking
Speaker 3: with your thumbs and the ability this will never get old,
Speaker 3: the ability to sit down and have a chat. And
Speaker 3: she has that, which is bloody awesome. I've got my
Speaker 3: third born, my little midget. She's she is now just
Speaker 3: eighteen to eighteen last week and finish year twelve, and
Speaker 3: so she's not sure what she's up to yet, which
Speaker 3: is bloody exciting part time job. And then the boy,
Speaker 3: the Golden Child as I like to refer to him
Speaker 3: as he's he literally just finishes grade six this year
Speaker 3: and he's off to high school next year. So yeah,
Speaker 3: things things are good in the olden camp.
Speaker 1: Well, mate, it must be a bloody it must be
Speaker 1: a circus at your joint periodically.
Speaker 3: I guess they're not all at home now though not now,
Speaker 3: but during COVID, I had Nutto and her fiance Bill
Speaker 3: living in our house. So we had Evan in our
Speaker 3: house during COVID. And we made the call after about
Speaker 3: the fucking fifteenth lockdown that what is what's going to
Speaker 3: be our reflection of COVID. How are we going to
Speaker 3: you know, when we look back, what's it going to mean?
Speaker 3: And I thought, you know what, my kids are going
Speaker 3: to remember that we had good fun. So Nada, oh,
Speaker 3: my firstborn, it was her job to create the game.
Speaker 3: So we'd have Elgin Olympics in our house most days
Speaker 3: and it was like sometimes it was just Boddy throwing
Speaker 3: m and ms into a bowl or sliding a coin
Speaker 3: or you know. So she'd come up with games each
Speaker 3: each day for us, which was awesome. I come up
Speaker 3: with a game and they reckon that I probably should
Speaker 3: be off the games. Mine was to get the little
Speaker 3: you know, the little mobile vacuums that just do their
Speaker 3: own thing around the house. Well, I got everyone to
Speaker 3: blow up a balloon and put it between their feet,
Speaker 3: and then I strapped a knife to the vacuum and
Speaker 3: just whoever's balloon got popped last, they were the winner,
Speaker 3: but the kids reckon. I was probably trying to recruit
Speaker 3: them into being emput so I didn't get much of
Speaker 3: a gig to pick games after that.
Speaker 1: No, it's not death. No, I think it's great that
Speaker 1: Dad's strapped a knife to the fucking vacuum. What could
Speaker 1: go wrong?
Speaker 3: But you could move. I mean we're just told don't move,
Speaker 3: but you can. I mean you've got to use a
Speaker 3: bit of con sense too. If it's coming at you,
Speaker 3: get out of the way.
Speaker 1: So I want to let's talk a little bit about mindset.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about you start. So I'm stumbling towards the
Speaker 1: finish line and my doctorate in psychology, and so I'm
Speaker 1: always talking just like you were talking. I guess a
Speaker 1: lot about mindset and thinking and motivation, inspiration, fucking self management,
Speaker 1: like how do I manage? How do I get the
Speaker 1: most out of me? Are you like in terms of
Speaker 1: you like the guy that we're seeing now, the high energy,
Speaker 1: optimistic realist. Is that your default setting or is that
Speaker 1: something that you've had to hone and develop and build?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Mate, absolutely in the ladder it's my default now.
Speaker 3: And my dad would say to me when we're young, Mate,
Speaker 3: if you tell someone they're a dickhead, long enough, they'll
Speaker 3: believe it. I thought, fuck it, why would I want
Speaker 3: to tell myself I'm a dickhead? Like, why don't I
Speaker 3: tell myself life is awesome? So I would tell myself
Speaker 3: every time, all the time, whenever good, bad or otherwise,
Speaker 3: especially when things were shit, Our life's awesome. I fucking
Speaker 3: find another way. Life is awesome. Don't forget life is awesome.
Speaker 3: And so I programmed myself to think like that. And
Speaker 3: then what I'd started doing is I started getting feedback
Speaker 3: from society. People go, oh, what do you want? You know,
Speaker 3: what are you having? I want with your having a
Speaker 3: fucking life? How good is this?
Speaker 1: Life's awesome?
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until I think out of fault setting
Speaker 3: because of what we look up and see is the news,
Speaker 3: and it's negative. And there's more that we create space
Speaker 3: and we enable pessimism to come in and hold way
Speaker 3: too much ground in our life. And I go, it's there.
Speaker 3: The leg's not going back, but there's one good one.
Speaker 3: If we chop that one off, you know what, I'll
Speaker 3: probably get a fucking wheelchair mine having an electric one
Speaker 3: and suit that up. So there's always a way to
Speaker 3: look at things in a different line, and I just
Speaker 3: choose that. I've seen people that that have succumb and
Speaker 3: agreed that life's hard and it's negative. It's like, fuck,
Speaker 3: how do you carry that weight around with you all day?
Speaker 3: The burden that is on your shoulders looking to find
Speaker 3: something that's wrong in the world. Like when when you
Speaker 3: choose that? Nah, you know, like you can choose the
Speaker 3: default setting that suits you. And for me, I'm a
Speaker 3: helper mate. I ride a motorbike. I see something broke down.
Speaker 3: I was luck Believers. You need a hand people, It
Speaker 3: freaks some people out there. Go you're the RSV. You
Speaker 3: got to equiply go. Nah, made on just a country
Speaker 3: bike right a home. I'm already wet. You're broke down?
Speaker 3: Do you need my phone?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: And you know what it does? It fucking makes me
Speaker 3: feel good. It makes me feel like I'm actually contributed today.
Speaker 3: I might not have made any money, I might not
Speaker 3: have done, but a buddy, I've helped somebody. And if
Speaker 3: somebody helps one of my people one day when I
Speaker 3: can't be there for them, bloody awesome. Massive believer Craig
Speaker 3: of what goes around comes around, And I see it.
Speaker 3: I just figured, well, if what goes around is me
Speaker 3: putting good shit out, then what should come around is
Speaker 3: good shit coming my way. And somebody said to me,
Speaker 3: I think it was just today, this is how you
Speaker 3: feeling lucky. I said, bloody, I don't I'm lucky. You know,
Speaker 3: I am very lucky. I'm very very fortunate good stuff
Speaker 3: happens to me. I'm not even willing to open the
Speaker 3: can and say, nah, I never win anything, but that
Speaker 3: if you never win anything, what have you just told
Speaker 3: the universe You're not going to win?
Speaker 1: Not me. You know what I like the most, and.
Speaker 3: This is how I use it in my sporting career
Speaker 3: is the medals at the Parlem became the Parallemer. Games
Speaker 3: do not come engraved quite simply is because they don't
Speaker 3: know who's going to win them. The blueprint for the
Speaker 3: future is not written. So I figure, fuck it, let's
Speaker 3: ride ourselves into it. I've got no more ride than
Speaker 3: any other person lining up on the games, apart from
Speaker 3: the fact that I've pictured myself having a crack. I've
Speaker 3: done the training I needed to do. I am going
Speaker 3: to do whatever I can to put myself in the
Speaker 3: best possible position. Every now and then I find myself going, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going down the wrong track reload, And that's why
Speaker 3: you need that really strong network. But my default setting
Speaker 3: now is of my choosing, and that is that life's
Speaker 3: awesome and I want to stay there, and when I'm
Speaker 3: not there, I try and get back there as soon
Speaker 3: as again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very much kind of of the hangout with
Speaker 1: people who drag you up mindset and also be the
Speaker 1: person that drags others up. You know, it's it's hanging
Speaker 1: out with energy vampires is a hard gig. Ah, come on, bro,
Speaker 1: you know you've still got a care And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: this is like emotional quicks And every time I talk
Speaker 1: to you, and I'm not talking about someone with mental
Speaker 1: health issues necessarily, just someone with a fucking toxic attitude,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, God sake some Now this new sport
Speaker 1: that we're not talking about, No, this new sport that
Speaker 1: you're training for, grasshopper, are we thinking that at you're
Speaker 1: what are you seventy four? Now?
Speaker 3: At your no?
Speaker 1: How old are you? Actually?
Speaker 3: I'm right now today and this shit changes in two weeks.
Speaker 3: I'm forty eight today, right, So get your head on this. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is my plan. I've got a real good made
Speaker 3: of mind. And she was at the same three games
Speaker 3: I compared to in Atlanta, ninety six, Sydney, in Athens,
Speaker 3: and we were just I went over to Paris this
Speaker 3: year I scored a little gig hosting a commercial. I
Speaker 3: did a one of my other mates and there's about
Speaker 3: a little core group. It was about five or six
Speaker 3: of us that have been really good mates throughout our career,
Speaker 3: and a couple of them were commentating at the games
Speaker 3: and she was sitting at Hunger. Well, you fuck is
Speaker 3: involved in doing shit and I'm not doing anything. She goes,
Speaker 3: I reckon, I need to do something. So I sat
Speaker 3: out with her at the end and said what do
Speaker 3: you want to do? And she goes, I don't know,
Speaker 3: And I thought, well, fucking this is not a really
Speaker 3: good start. We need to have some sort of concept.
Speaker 3: And then we both sort of hit the point with it.
Speaker 3: What sort of rare group of humans would be able
Speaker 3: to compete at two home games? And so you know,
Speaker 3: you can do one or two or three paralym bigs
Speaker 3: and it's people have done four, five, six and seven.
Speaker 1: That's a rare group.
Speaker 3: But how how small must the pool be of athletes
Speaker 3: that have competed in two home games, and we've got
Speaker 3: Bridgbane coming up in twenty thirty two, and we both
Speaker 3: compete in Sydney, and it's like, fuck, you know what,
Speaker 3: that's only eight years away, like that like that is
Speaker 3: nothing in the scheme I reckon. So and then we
Speaker 3: looked at it and go, okay, let's be real, because you know,
Speaker 3: we do a lot of speaking and we help people
Speaker 3: with goal setting and different ways to do it. I
Speaker 3: have a very simple goal setting philosophy. I just put
Speaker 3: it like a ladder, and the very first thing I
Speaker 3: do is go, where are we right now? What are
Speaker 3: all the facts that we're dealing with, you know, oldie
Speaker 3: injuredy fucking driven?
Speaker 1: What's the story? What's the real?
Speaker 3: And then you know, what do you want to aim
Speaker 3: for me? I would just go, now, let's say for
Speaker 3: the top, let's actually have a crack at the very
Speaker 3: best thing, the biggest, because why not, and then just
Speaker 3: work back and put the steps into play. So if
Speaker 3: I'm to go to the Paralympic Games in in eight
Speaker 3: years time, and then that means that I need to
Speaker 3: be at a Paralympic Games in four years to get there,
Speaker 3: I need to fill probably a couple of world champs
Speaker 3: in between that. Before that, I need to be at
Speaker 3: a nationals. I need to be at a state. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to need a local club. And right there's
Speaker 3: the fucking map. Right now, we've worked backwards, we've sort
Speaker 3: of out. Now, let's take one step and just focus
Speaker 3: on that step. We'll nail that one and then we
Speaker 3: either come back and reload or we take the next
Speaker 3: step whatever we're at. And so really simple philosophy. But
Speaker 3: mine now, when I sat down and had a look
Speaker 3: at the now, mine now excluded me being super physical
Speaker 3: to go and paddle a boat or you know, to
Speaker 3: run a marathon.
Speaker 1: Couldn't be fucked.
Speaker 3: My body. It's done what it needed to to get
Speaker 3: me to this point. But there's still plenty in the
Speaker 3: tank for me to go. I could still get strong enough.
Speaker 3: Maybe I could get strong enough to hold a gun.
Speaker 3: Maybe I could get strong enough to do a sport
Speaker 3: that requires a different skill set, like a mental game,
Speaker 3: because I'm probably stronger there than I am physically in
Speaker 3: my in my legs, my arm. Now, so anyway, that's
Speaker 3: where we're looking in that space. My friend and it's
Speaker 3: fucking exciting.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can see what I wrote
Speaker 1: helps hang on, I'll just tell you down the bottom
Speaker 1: of my page. I wrote, Paris shooter, you know that
Speaker 1: old dude, And because I was trying to guess the
Speaker 1: sport and I'm thinking, well, it's not going to be
Speaker 1: fucking Greco Roman wrestling or high jump because he's going
Speaker 1: to be fifty six ish at the that's my all
Speaker 1: over again? Not enough?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, Well he got twenty million for just lasting,
Speaker 4: so it ain't the worst gig I would yeah, I dude,
Speaker 4: I would have just jobbed around the ring for four
Speaker 4: rounds now.
Speaker 1: I would have worn him out in that time. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: tiff wol to beat him though. No, but yeah, like that,
Speaker 1: that is that's interesting, have you? And I thought I
Speaker 1: thought maybe shooting, and I was thinking of that. Where
Speaker 1: was he from? Do you remember where he was from?
Speaker 1: That shit? Was he actually French or was he from Italian?
Speaker 1: And he shot in jeans and a T shirt and
Speaker 1: his hand.
Speaker 3: In his pocket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he didn't use the normal bloody super duper sights
Speaker 1: or that he did.
Speaker 3: All the other Olympians just doing everybody you know, doing
Speaker 3: the poses and ship. It was pretty cool, like that's
Speaker 3: a you know, when you see that sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: you just go like it's one out of the bag.
Speaker 3: You know, I must've been our stuff. It might probably
Speaker 3: be air rifle shooting, so it's not you know, the
Speaker 3: clay target, not the cool shit, but still, you know
Speaker 3: it's I think for me, it's about saying, is there
Speaker 3: a possibility that something can be done? And I went
Speaker 3: to I took the same approach into the and fourteen.
Speaker 3: I'd been the World Champs manager team manager. In twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: I went to London as a team manager and then
Speaker 3: I come back from London and the head coach and
Speaker 3: me goes, oh, mate, I was thinking about you the
Speaker 3: other day. Fuck, that's dangerous, and he goes, one of
Speaker 3: your events from your pentathon is on at the Commonwealth
Speaker 3: Games in Glasgow in twenty fourteen. I said, we'll get
Speaker 3: stuff mate, I'm eating pies. I'm done and because my
Speaker 3: head space was finished, and he said, oh I was
Speaker 3: the disc it said, I made this foolish mistaker saying
Speaker 3: what was the qualifying and he told me what the
Speaker 3: qualifying business was. I thought I could fucking do that,
Speaker 3: and that's what happens in my head? It's like yes.
Speaker 3: First and so then I rang booth my wife and
Speaker 3: I said, mate, what do you reckon? The common Games
Speaker 3: are in Glasgow? Do you reckon? Do you reckon? I
Speaker 3: have a crack? And I was sort of half expecting
Speaker 3: her to go, mate, if I can be in the
Speaker 3: four World Champs three pound because just let it go, mate,
Speaker 3: it's all good.
Speaker 1: You've done it.
Speaker 3: And she said yeah, why not? And I thought, fucking
Speaker 3: game on. So I literally come out of retirement and
Speaker 3: I chase competitions around the country. I walked into a
Speaker 3: PTE and I said who was pt for?
Speaker 1: My wife?
Speaker 3: I said do you want to coach a Commonwealth Games athlete?
Speaker 3: And he goes yeah, who? I said me, He guess
Speaker 3: you haven't been a common Wealth Game? I said not yeah.
Speaker 3: And then I went to my processus, who is a
Speaker 3: discus coach as well. I said, do you want to
Speaker 3: coach Commonth Games?
Speaker 1: I guess who?
Speaker 3: I said me, you haven't been? I said not yeah,
Speaker 3: and I shit you not. I qualified by the skin
Speaker 3: and white teeth by two centimeters. I made the qualifying
Speaker 3: and went over to Glasgow and I thought, okay, how
Speaker 3: good is this? Mate, so, and I used. I used
Speaker 3: the process that I thought most people had access to,
Speaker 3: which was not to go and apply for an Institute
Speaker 3: of Sports scholarship, which I was fortunate, I'd had one for.
Speaker 1: Twelve years throughout my career.
Speaker 3: Take one. And I thought, because so many people go on,
Speaker 3: you're just so lucky. You've got everything. You've got fucking
Speaker 3: access to massulas and physios and diet and it's true,
Speaker 3: I do. But can the average punt I get off
Speaker 3: their ass and go and do this? Is it possible?
Speaker 3: And so that was what I sort of wanted to
Speaker 3: take into more so so I could say to my
Speaker 3: kids and say, hey, guys, fucking just don't die wondering,
Speaker 3: have a crack. If you crash and boon stiff shit,
Speaker 3: you know, we're not saving lives. We're playing sport. And
Speaker 3: so I wanted to see what was possible. And then
Speaker 3: that is why I booked into this physio, the bill
Speaker 3: and clinic today. And I went down and seen it
Speaker 3: and said, I've just got to get a classification. And
Speaker 3: she's going, Okay, we'll put you through all these tests
Speaker 3: and she's got can you move this?
Speaker 1: Do this?
Speaker 3: And she goes she's you're strong, thank you, and I
Speaker 3: just just fucking need a classification. And she goes, I
Speaker 3: squeeze my hand and saying I'm used to putting shot puts, mate, like,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: You really want me to squeeze it.
Speaker 3: I'll go I'll fucking break your hand. I felt like,
Speaker 3: take it easy, and she goes, no, no, I'll tell you
Speaker 3: when to stop if I need to. And so anyway,
Speaker 3: all the right bits are moving. We're good to get.
Speaker 3: There's no excuse not to have a craft, mate, So
Speaker 3: watch this space, Halves.
Speaker 1: If I think you better come out of retirement. You
Speaker 1: could make you first. You could make your first Olympic
Speaker 1: team as a boxer, I mean, as a legit. Why not.
Speaker 1: We just need to fix that nerve impingement you've got
Speaker 1: going on and stop throwing up for a bit. John
Speaker 1: might help. I made. I could talk to you for days,
Speaker 1: but we don't have the time and people have probably
Speaker 1: got shit to do. But I so love talking to you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Know you're a natural at this. You
Speaker 1: know that. But you're such good talent, as we say
Speaker 1: in media, like, you're such good talent. It's such a fun, dude,
Speaker 1: You're so real and authentic. And as I said to
Speaker 1: you before we started rolling, we don't do any interview.
Speaker 1: We just have a chat, and you definitely are great
Speaker 1: at that. So one, I appreciate you and thank you.
Speaker 1: But two, how do people connect with you and find
Speaker 1: you and get you to come to their company for
Speaker 1: an obscene amount of money and inspire the masses?
Speaker 3: Well, my dad is bloody awesome. Firstly, thanks for having me, mate,
Speaker 3: I really I know you've got a full book. You've
Speaker 3: got a shitload of really talented people. You've got access
Speaker 3: to incredible people, and I'm really grateful for a chance,
Speaker 3: just like I was when I had the opportunity to
Speaker 3: have a chat with Tiff. I'm really grateful to like you,
Speaker 3: be surrounded by good people. It's an awesome space to
Speaker 3: be in. My old man said to me when I
Speaker 3: was young. My dam madam, what you do? Just keep
Speaker 3: it simple. So my website is my name, all the
Speaker 3: ws don elgin dot com dot au and all my
Speaker 3: contact details are on there. JT takes care of business
Speaker 3: for me. That is, Seriously. The easiest way to get
Speaker 3: me is straight on my website.
Speaker 1: You're a gun, all right, mate? Well say goodbye. Affair.
Speaker 1: But for the moment Superstar start shooting motherfucker, and you know,
Speaker 1: get yourself, get yourself in the zone sun because I'll
Speaker 1: be cheering your motherfucker.
Speaker 3: I can see that new T shirt I got Legli
Speaker 3: and Donnie and he started shooting motherfucker.
Speaker 1: That's right. That's going to be probably on new motto
Speaker 1: and you can I'll take ten percent royalties. I bet
Speaker 1: if you got that on a T shirt, start shooting
Speaker 1: motherfucker with your name just underneath and sell like hotcakes.
Speaker 3: We're not going to die on wondering. Keep an eye
Speaker 3: on eBay next week, mate, we'll have another website.
Speaker 1: All right, mate, we'll say goodbye Affair, but for now,
Speaker 1: thanks buddy, right to mate, Take care bye