Speaker 1: Good a team. I hope you're bloody terrific. Welcome to
Speaker 1: another installment of the Youth Project. Tiffany and Cook over
Speaker 1: there at typ Central and Craig Anthony Harper here at
Speaker 1: the other branch in Hampton, doing the very best that
Speaker 1: I can. Just a shitkicker, trying to make ends meat.
Speaker 1: I do what I can, tip, don't.
Speaker 2: I It's been a while, So I h it's been
Speaker 2: a while, hasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you and I haven't got together since the
Speaker 1: podcast we did all two hours ago. Have you been good?
Speaker 2: I've been good. I squeezed in a little twenty minute
Speaker 2: stroll in what we just learned was eighteen degree sunshine.
Speaker 1: Stroll as in stroll or sprint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a stroll, just a stroll. Really, I'm thinking
Speaker 2: I'll go for rid.
Speaker 1: I've had minimum vitamin D today, so I do need
Speaker 1: to get out after this and just walk a couple
Speaker 1: of laps of Hampton so that I might get some
Speaker 1: vitamin D into me. But I tell you bloke who's
Speaker 1: probably lacking none because he's in the fucking Sunshine State
Speaker 1: and was beating his chest and bragging before we got
Speaker 1: to know each other, So this could be a fucking nightmare.
Speaker 1: The next forty five minutes. There we go, Heston, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, my friend.
Speaker 2: A Craig Tiff, Thank you so much. From twenty four
Speaker 2: degrees up here in Brisy.
Speaker 1: Yeh whatever, right, Well, I thought it was about twelve
Speaker 1: or thirteen, and I just looked at the little weather
Speaker 1: thing on my phone and it's eighteen in Melbourne, which
Speaker 1: is pretty much tropical for this time of year. So
Speaker 1: stop complaining, harps, that's the story. How's bris Vegas these days?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I grew up here and I just moved back here
Speaker 2: April last year, and I met a place called Newstead
Speaker 2: here at the gas works and they really done well
Speaker 2: you activating the Brisy River and so much development going on.
Speaker 2: It's got a good modern feel to it.
Speaker 1: Where did you move back from Sydney?
Speaker 2: So I spent most of my time living down in
Speaker 2: Sydney per my military career and what I sort of
Speaker 2: did for a couple of years after I got out
Speaker 2: from that.
Speaker 1: Now rather than me banging on with something that I
Speaker 1: ripped off the Internet, which I do have steering at
Speaker 1: me from the computer screen next to your face. Now,
Speaker 1: what don't you do with the honor and give us whatever,
Speaker 1: as much or as little as you want on the
Speaker 1: Heston Russell kind of bio, and then we can expand
Speaker 1: and go wherever we want because we have no rules here.
Speaker 1: We can even say fuck. So enjoy that for sure.
Speaker 2: Who is he? All right? Heston Russell? So my mum
Speaker 2: had a crush on Charlton Heston. That's where my name
Speaker 2: came from, not from Hector Heston. Bloomenthal was fifteen years
Speaker 2: old when I was born. So just to clear that
Speaker 2: up quickly, we're talking Charlton Heston, Moses, ben Her, all
Speaker 2: that good stuff, pre mra sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: How are you now?
Speaker 2: I am thirty six?
Speaker 1: Oh you're My fucking shoes are thirty six. So but
Speaker 1: tell people who Charlton Heston was, because there's quite a
Speaker 1: like tiff. Do you know who he was?
Speaker 2: Naw, he was, you know, he was again bad connotations,
Speaker 2: but he was a Tom Cruise of his apes.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 2: He was ben Her. He was Moses in Moses. He
Speaker 2: was the original lead actor and planet of the Apes.
Speaker 2: He was the male leading role star back in the days.
Speaker 1: He was the goat really of leading men and rock star,
Speaker 1: good looking Hollywood superstars. He was maybe, if not the first,
Speaker 1: definitely one of the first, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean back in the days you know where
Speaker 2: Ben hur was the real life chariot racing scene where
Speaker 2: people died. He was the big blockbuster stuff back before
Speaker 2: there was CGI and everything else in.
Speaker 1: Between, exactly before there were special and effects. You know,
Speaker 1: people used to actually get killed in the filming of movies.
Speaker 2: Tiff no, no looks just google chart and heston and
Speaker 2: he's no Patrick Swayze, Oh, come on, bro, go back
Speaker 2: to his young staff. He was definitely your mother and
Speaker 2: grandmother would have had a.
Speaker 1: Saw what they would have gone off like a frog
Speaker 1: and a sock, your mom and your grandmom. But you know,
Speaker 1: there was speaking of people dying in movies. Here's some
Speaker 1: trivia no one needs. There's a James Bond movie called
Speaker 1: Live and Let Die. And there's a scene in that
Speaker 1: movie where a boat does a jump and it's the
Speaker 1: longest so literally like off a ramp and can you
Speaker 1: just double check this, Tiff, Live and Let Die boat
Speaker 1: jump actor or driver dies. So the guy that did
Speaker 1: that stunt in the movie and they kept it in
Speaker 1: the movie actually died. Wow, And they kept that. See
Speaker 1: this's got nothing to do with special forces or Glorrior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no for sure. Look, and I grew up here
Speaker 2: in Brazil, went to school here, got out, went down
Speaker 2: to Canberra for four years. When I joined the Army,
Speaker 2: I went to the Defense Force Academy for three years,
Speaker 2: the Royal Military College for one, got my commission, became
Speaker 2: a Lieutenant lieutenant and went up to Townsville in an
Speaker 2: infantry battalion for three years, where I deployed to East
Speaker 2: Tymoor for Peace tam and that twenty ten I completed
Speaker 2: selection into the Commandos to become a beret qualified commando
Speaker 2: and I spent the majority of my years there where
Speaker 2: I deployed to Afghanistan four times, Iraq, did a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of domestic caniterrorism stuff and stuff in the Asia
Speaker 2: Pacific region. And then I ended up coming back from
Speaker 2: deployment to Iraq, moving over to the US to live
Speaker 2: with my at the time secret boyfriend, and ended up
Speaker 2: moving back to Australia when I brought a brand called
Speaker 2: Barry's boot Camp over here to Australia and Singapore. And
Speaker 2: fast forward lockdowns, breakdowns of relationships, my own sort of
Speaker 2: mental health decline, failing in my transition from the military
Speaker 2: mental health decline and suicidal ideation the end of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and ever since then, I've really sort of taken
Speaker 2: the torch to the veteran welfare and support system, namely
Speaker 2: the Department of Veterans Affairs and a bunch of legislation
Speaker 2: which saw me campaign for the Royal Commission into Defense
Speaker 2: and Veterans Suicide, which we won April last year, and
Speaker 2: then also step up post the accusations of war crimes
Speaker 2: against special forces, just to make sure that you know
Speaker 2: we're actually focusing on the full story, that those who
Speaker 2: do have things to enter for are actually gone taken
Speaker 2: to court, not trial by media, while the other three
Speaker 2: thousand plus people who being collectively punished weren't done something.
Speaker 2: We campaigned and succeeded for a few things there. So
Speaker 2: I now run a charity and up here Brisie with
Speaker 2: my little three year old sausage dog Copper.
Speaker 1: Awesome, we'll get onto TiO. What did you find?
Speaker 2: Well, I forgot. I forgot half way through what I
Speaker 2: was googling.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it at the Moment's past.
Speaker 2: Live and let die of boat stunt rather dies. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I haven't found any you know, just living.
Speaker 1: Live and let die James Bond tragedy or something. You know,
Speaker 1: this really doesn't matter for the podcast, does it. This
Speaker 1: is what we do, has don We just bloody. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit Joe Rogan esque. We're just freestyle and
Speaker 1: we have a chat about anything. But all right, tell
Speaker 1: me about your secret boyfriend. Hang on, tell me, I
Speaker 1: just want to So that wasn't tell us about that?
Speaker 1: How was that? So you obviously couldn't be out and
Speaker 1: open about that.
Speaker 2: So this is the whole thing. I mean, I've just
Speaker 2: spent the last two weeks going into a hand to
Speaker 2: hand conflict over this lighting up the try to remembrance
Speaker 2: rainbow colors type of stuff. I kept myself in close
Speaker 2: at my whole military career. The best part about my
Speaker 2: career was that it focused on what we call the
Speaker 2: daily renewable contract. The focused on how you showed up
Speaker 2: and your confidence and character as opposed to any other
Speaker 2: label that even now you know, you just google me
Speaker 2: and have a look at all the different labels, different
Speaker 2: outlets in the media try and put on me and
Speaker 2: people you know, to define them by traits that we
Speaker 2: were born with, you know, differences that shouldn't define us,
Speaker 2: but I used to define us because we'd like to
Speaker 2: understand things. So I kept myself in the closet because
Speaker 2: it was at a time I only first came comfortable
Speaker 2: with my sexuality twenty fifteen, when I was thirty years old.
Speaker 2: I was actually living in the US for a year
Speaker 2: on exchange for their Special Forces, and it was the
Speaker 2: first time I got to see professional gay men who
Speaker 2: didn't wear their sexuality on their sleeve. I was in
Speaker 2: LA hanging out with Disney producers, you know, big tech
Speaker 2: people who I didn't know they were again until someone
Speaker 2: else told me, and I got to see the difference
Speaker 2: between that and otherwise Oxford Street and Sydney, which is
Speaker 2: all I knew. All I knew was drag queens and middrifts,
Speaker 2: and I do celebrate that side, and I now understand
Speaker 2: that piece of that culture that needs to put their
Speaker 2: identity on display when you've rejected or had people reject
Speaker 2: your identity. But yeah, I kept that to myself. I
Speaker 2: kept my personal life out of my work life. That's
Speaker 2: what made me perform better. And I never wanted anyone
Speaker 2: to judge me on anything other than how I performed
Speaker 2: and showed up each and every day.
Speaker 1: But you know, an amazing mate, so good, so good.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like, what was that? I mean that
Speaker 1: moment that when was that twenty fifteen where you decided
Speaker 1: to open that metaphorphoric door and walk through and go
Speaker 1: that Ah, hey, guess what give us a snapshot of that?
Speaker 2: Well? This is it. It was me becoming comfortable with
Speaker 2: who I was. I was in the US and my
Speaker 2: sister was actually living up in Banff, Canada, and I
Speaker 2: flew to her and she's the first person I told
Speaker 2: and love her. She's four years younger than me, and
Speaker 2: she said, you know, as long as you're not doing
Speaker 2: anything illegal and not hurting anyone, why does it matter
Speaker 2: what you do? And she said, as long as you're okay?
Speaker 2: And you know, she's just absolutely authentically amazing that I
Speaker 2: told mum and she cried because she wanted to have
Speaker 2: grandkids and I told her, apparently you can still do that,
Speaker 2: and then she's all happy again. But what I never did,
Speaker 2: I never came out. I never had a coming out.
Speaker 2: I told those who I wanted to because I felt
Speaker 2: like they needed to know, because otherwise I didn't want
Speaker 2: them finding out for our other people, but I kept
Speaker 2: it completely removed because again I didn't want it to
Speaker 2: be a consideration because when I got back to the
Speaker 2: US Craig, this is when the whole gay marriage vote
Speaker 2: and pleposite was going on, and society was looking for
Speaker 2: examples to use to be symbolic. You know, even within Defense,
Speaker 2: we were looking to celebrate and raise up people who
Speaker 2: were different in this diversity, and that was the last
Speaker 2: thing I wanted into the Defense force. You are praised
Speaker 2: publicly based on your performance, and to identify anyone on
Speaker 2: anything other than the way they perform in their role
Speaker 2: completely go against our culture. The defense culture is service,
Speaker 2: service before self, the team before self. You know, there
Speaker 2: is no individuality in that. There's individual excellence for the
Speaker 2: benefit of the team. And again hence why a bunch
Speaker 2: of the sort of culture wars I've been fighting the
Speaker 2: last couple of weeks because I also appreciate in this
Speaker 2: space that unfortunately so much of this comes from trauma.
Speaker 2: You know, I know what it was like literally rejecting
Speaker 2: my own sexuality and not being comfortable with myself, and
Speaker 2: how others have had that experience by others, and when
Speaker 2: people come from that place of trauma. It all depends
Speaker 2: who's around them once they reach that level of self actualization,
Speaker 2: whether it turns into entitlement and a stick they use
Speaker 2: to beat others and get back their pound of flesh
Speaker 2: at or it turns into which I was fortunate enough
Speaker 2: to now see it as a lens of responsibility over
Speaker 2: a responsibility to show people that I'm the same person
Speaker 2: to encourage those who feel like they can't be themselves,
Speaker 2: but at all times to focus on that external purpose
Speaker 2: and that team before looking to progress myself based on
Speaker 2: something that I choose to be honest.
Speaker 1: The hell good for you? And so, what's the did
Speaker 1: you say that currently there's been a little bit of
Speaker 1: who are around the lighting up that was at the
Speaker 1: shrine in the city remembrance. Have you had to deal
Speaker 1: with a bit of bullshit in the last couple of weeks?
Speaker 1: If so, what was that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's this big the Shrine of Remembrance down
Speaker 2: there in Melbourne that was going to publicly display the
Speaker 2: LGBT rainbow lights on the external of the structure. It's
Speaker 2: doing an internal display, an internal year long display on
Speaker 2: LGBT i q A plus people within their service. But
Speaker 2: they want to do this big external signaling essentially, and
Speaker 2: they didn't consult with any of the veteran community. The
Speaker 2: CEO of the shrine isn't a veteran in itself, and
Speaker 2: they didn't consult with Victorian RSL. They didn't consult with
Speaker 2: many openly gay veterans like myself are out there in
Speaker 2: the media doing that thing, and a few of us
Speaker 2: just spoke up and said, hey, this isn't what we do.
Speaker 2: You know, this is virtue signaling. This is jumping on
Speaker 2: to a lot of these issues that are going on
Speaker 2: in society. And people immediately put up the wall saying
Speaker 2: you know you saying not to do that is homophobic.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, hold on, I'm a home so settled down.
Speaker 2: What it isn't is it's not people understanding our culture.
Speaker 2: It's projecting society's culture onto the shrine of remembrance. Is
Speaker 2: there to commemorate service and sacrifice and bullets and bombs
Speaker 2: do not discriminate people do and to individually identify people
Speaker 2: who served based on a demographic or a piece of
Speaker 2: them that has nothing to do with that responsibility, but
Speaker 2: comes down to entitlement and seeking personal example. I see
Speaker 2: personal promotion goes completely against our culture. And this is
Speaker 2: at a time where I will take up the fight
Speaker 2: on culture left front and center, because if we don't
Speaker 2: fight for those values that we believe in, like, what
Speaker 2: what are we fighting for?
Speaker 1: How ironic? Well, firstly, that was incredibly well articulated, that
Speaker 1: was bloody amazing. But how ironic that you kind of
Speaker 1: get labeled homophobic? Any did you go? Hang on what?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I've even had my own run ins with the
Speaker 2: heads of Marty Gorara and people like this who I've
Speaker 2: been told that I'm not gay enough to be seen
Speaker 2: as an adequate representation of the community. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't conform to the stereotype. You know, I come across
Speaker 2: as quote sis male heterosexual who's actually homosexual. And this
Speaker 2: is where I said at people and going, look, I'm
Speaker 2: Hester Russell, and I am who I am each and
Speaker 2: every single day. You know, I'm sorry that I don't
Speaker 2: conform to what you think. But I have that many
Speaker 2: closeted homosexual gay men reach out to me from militaries
Speaker 2: across the world saying how just seeing me being a
Speaker 2: normal person and wearing my labels with responsibility not in toilerment,
Speaker 2: has made them feel so much more comfortable in them
Speaker 2: in themselves and not needing that public affirmation to make
Speaker 2: them feel accepted, which, as we know in this day
Speaker 2: and age, is what we actually need more young people
Speaker 2: to do, to not rely on external affirmation, but to
Speaker 2: be confident with who they are internally at an intrinsic level.
Speaker 1: How dare you not meet their expectations? How dare you
Speaker 1: not be how people think you? Stop being yourself? You
Speaker 1: fucking rebel?
Speaker 2: Well, what I love is, Craig, I haven't even had
Speaker 2: a personal conversation with these people. It's all based off
Speaker 2: social media snippets, you know. That's the way we live
Speaker 2: it at the moment. It comes down to what people
Speaker 2: perceive your brand to be without taking the time to
Speaker 2: have a physical conversation.
Speaker 1: By the way, everyone over one hundred combat missions serving
Speaker 1: with the Special Forces. I mean.
Speaker 2: I used to be cool. I tell people I used
Speaker 2: to be cool.
Speaker 1: I think you still wear the cool badge pretty well. Right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about something else. But so so much respect
Speaker 1: for you being so transparent and great with all of that,
Speaker 1: because we all need to like, it's just nice to
Speaker 1: know how you think and not that the way you
Speaker 1: think is the only way people should think but for
Speaker 1: you to know who you are and how you are,
Speaker 1: and to have clarity about yourself and your identity and
Speaker 1: to be comfortable in that. I wish we were all
Speaker 1: that comfortable with whoever we are and how we are.
Speaker 2: Let's come quickly, job in there, that's come. Like I
Speaker 2: said September August twenty twenty, mate, I sat on my
Speaker 2: lounge after a whole period of you know, de escalating
Speaker 2: and living in authentic life to a point where I
Speaker 2: was literally planned on how I wanted to take my
Speaker 2: own life in the service of so many other veterans
Speaker 2: who are experiencing this mental health and suicide crisis. And
Speaker 2: when you get to that point where you know, I've
Speaker 2: been in one hundred combat missions, I've had plenty of
Speaker 2: bad guys shoot at me and hit parts of my
Speaker 2: equipment and all this. But the closest I came to,
Speaker 2: you know, being removed from this earth was by my
Speaker 2: own hand. And when you reach that point of extreme
Speaker 2: sort of self rejection and get to that mental state
Speaker 2: of a place you really start to you really have
Speaker 2: the chance to sit there and do that self assessment
Speaker 2: and go, you know who I am, what do I
Speaker 2: stand for what is the authentic version of me, because
Speaker 2: everything else is causing all of these issues to snowball
Speaker 2: and progress further. And once you figure that out, and
Speaker 2: again do so through a lens of responsibility, not a hey,
Speaker 2: this is me, fuck you all, but like, this is
Speaker 2: me and this is my responsibility. All the rest of
Speaker 2: it is a bit of white noise, mate, as long
Speaker 2: as you're working for the right reasons, which is helping others.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, what's it like being in the middle
Speaker 1: of combat when people are trying to kill you and
Speaker 1: people are shooting at you? I mean, apart from shit
Speaker 1: and terrifying, can you.
Speaker 2: Expand the best time in my life?
Speaker 1: You know? We had a guy on TIF what was
Speaker 1: his name recently, I shouldn't know his name. He said,
Speaker 1: you never feel and he'd like you combat whole bunch
Speaker 1: of times and a similar space, but different story. He said,
Speaker 1: you never feel more alive than when someone's trying to
Speaker 1: kill you. That's what he said.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I give this talk on leadership. People want to
Speaker 2: talk about combat leadership. Combat leadership is the easiest form
Speaker 2: of leadership because there's immediate feedback. You know, if you
Speaker 2: don't do something you're going to get shot. You make
Speaker 2: the wrong move, it's going to hurt you or your team.
Speaker 1: And when you say easy, come on, bro, So I mean.
Speaker 2: That's Look, that's what I've been trained to do. You know,
Speaker 2: my whole career was trained to do that. Imagine training
Speaker 2: for you know, representational rugby and never getting to run
Speaker 2: on and play. I got to do that, and I
Speaker 2: got to do that with a team that I worked with.
Speaker 2: You know, eighteen months beforehand. We're at this intuitive level
Speaker 2: of mental and emotional and physical connection to the way
Speaker 2: in which we conducted our operations. You know, career leadership
Speaker 2: is the hardest when there's so much more time for
Speaker 2: people to question decisions. You know, combat leadership, your stuff up.
Speaker 2: Someone gets killed in your career leadership, your stuff up.
Speaker 2: It grows and slowly eats away like a toxic cancer,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's not that purpose and that motivation
Speaker 2: isn't immediately there in front of you to manufacture and
Speaker 2: generate and inspire people so much more. I often say this,
Speaker 2: particularly the last couple of years of politics and everything else.
Speaker 2: I miss being overseas mate, because everything is so practical
Speaker 2: and pragmatic and relevant. If I tell people, Hey, I
Speaker 2: need extra helicopter otherwise we can't get our dudes out
Speaker 2: if someone gets injured. You get it. You know, you're
Speaker 2: able to justify these things. You're not sitting there playing politics,
Speaker 2: you know, trading one thing for another. It's like, this
Speaker 2: is why we need this, because this is the mission
Speaker 2: we need to achieve. And you literally are going out
Speaker 2: there with people who are risking their lives to achieve this.
Speaker 2: They believe in it that much. And you could just
Speaker 2: imagine that collective mindset and motivation that comes with that,
Speaker 2: as well as being able to do you know what
Speaker 2: is a very masculine thing to do, you know, go
Speaker 2: out there and serve and protect and do all those
Speaker 2: sorts of things that you know require us to provide
Speaker 2: physical courage. And very rarely in modern society do we
Speaker 2: ever get to show physical courage. It's that moral courage
Speaker 2: that we need. And once you are able to test
Speaker 2: yourself and test yourself with those you love to be
Speaker 2: around and are trained with that level of again the
Speaker 2: different levels of self actualization, I realized being able to
Speaker 2: go into that on that one mission, on that one
Speaker 2: deployment in twenty twelve, you know, we flew sixty seven mission.
Speaker 2: We killed one hundred and seventeen bad guys. I killed
Speaker 2: my share of those. And none of that is to celebrate.
Speaker 2: It's finally being tested at doing the job you've been
Speaker 2: trained to do for the right reasons. And once you
Speaker 2: do that, it really provides a perspective that is now
Speaker 2: my responsibility to bring forward into everything else we do
Speaker 2: as well. If Nathan Bolton episode eight hundred and seventy two, everyone, jeez,
Speaker 2: you guys are busy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, eight seventy two. What are we up to now?
Speaker 1: Eight nine ish?
Speaker 2: Yes, ish, yeah.
Speaker 1: We do one every day, mate, We're a bit crazy.
Speaker 2: That's great. Gives the mind engaged. There.
Speaker 1: We're three hundred and sixty five days of even Christmas,
Speaker 1: New Year's Day, and New Year's Eve. We put out
Speaker 1: episodes because we can. It's how we roll awesome. It's
Speaker 1: always interested me. I'm not really asking a question, I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking out loud about something and maybe you can
Speaker 1: roll off the back wet. I've always been fascinated, like
Speaker 1: we grow in our culture where you know, thankfully now
Speaker 1: there's a focus on you know, bullying and looking after
Speaker 1: people and keeping everyone safe and out of harm's way.
Speaker 1: And don't hurt people, and be kind and be thoughtful,
Speaker 1: and these are all great ideas and constructs and kind
Speaker 1: of guidance principles. But then you and your mates you
Speaker 1: get trained to kill people, understandably, because like it or not,
Speaker 1: that's fucking more. And so all of that kind of
Speaker 1: cultural and I guess in a way like moral and
Speaker 1: ethical and perhaps spiritual kind of principles that most of
Speaker 1: us grow up don't hurt anyone, and definitely then you
Speaker 1: have to kind of park that and then learn how
Speaker 1: to kill people?
Speaker 2: Is there?
Speaker 1: How does that work? Is their internal conflict? Is there?
Speaker 1: Like fucking don't blah lah lah, don't think about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what how do you manage that? That's
Speaker 1: a really good question. No one has ever actually asked
Speaker 1: me anything that sort of touches on that question. And
Speaker 1: I think it all comes down to purpose. So I've
Speaker 1: just saying, you want to hire performance, you need a
Speaker 1: higher purpose. If you know why you're doing what you're
Speaker 1: doing for the right reasons, then all of that sort
Speaker 1: of fades into the white noise. And particularly in.
Speaker 2: Afghanistan, I knew why we were deploying, I knew the
Speaker 2: mission we were doing, you know, we go out into
Speaker 2: a target and we'd take fingerprints off things, or we'd
Speaker 2: get someone's phone, and you know, we'd track down and
Speaker 2: capture or kill someone who'd manufactured and detonated an ID
Speaker 2: in a crowded marketplace and killed women and children, you
Speaker 2: know the previous month, or you know, had built an
Speaker 2: ID that had killed one of our guys or an
Speaker 2: American guys. You know, we didn't just go out there
Speaker 2: indiscriminately getting people. It would take us a month, you know,
Speaker 2: or just at least a few weeks to develop and
Speaker 2: get all the intelligence together to justify these people as
Speaker 2: properly bad people that we needed to capture or kill.
Speaker 2: Fast forward through to my last appoyment to Iraq. We
Speaker 2: were fighting isis dash Literally, the best way I can
Speaker 2: put it, is the true manifestation of evil on this earth.
Speaker 2: I won't tell you some of the things they did
Speaker 2: to innocent women and children, but I've actually never felt
Speaker 2: more there. I say it righteous in actually going out there,
Speaker 2: and the most enjoyment I've ever taken from my career
Speaker 2: is taking the fight to those people who are trying
Speaker 2: to persecute fully and kill those who can't defend themselves
Speaker 2: and being able to protect those who can't defend themselves
Speaker 2: is where so much of that moral authority essentially comes
Speaker 2: from to enable us to do that, and again putting
Speaker 2: that purpose and your immediate team before yourself. None of
Speaker 2: those situations sort of ever registered into a personal mental
Speaker 2: health or an emotional health aspect for me, and I've
Speaker 2: still to this day have absolutely zero issues with any
Speaker 2: of the combat and carnage I've seen. To be honest,
Speaker 2: I miss that all immersive and inspirational purpose and team.
Speaker 2: If anything, you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's weird. I mean that love and caring, compassionate
Speaker 1: brother heston. What's weird is that people like you perform
Speaker 1: great under pressure, but the average person or many average people,
Speaker 1: don't perform really well under pressure. But then sometimes people,
Speaker 1: not necessarily you, but sometimes people like you come back
Speaker 1: to mundanity suburbia where there's no war, there's no one
Speaker 1: trying to kill you, there's no immediate threat, and you
Speaker 1: take away the pressure and they're not as good as
Speaker 1: when they're under pressure. Is that right?
Speaker 2: That's where I struggle, mate, That's where I literally struggled
Speaker 2: in my mental health. I struggled for relevance. I went
Speaker 2: from planning and coordinating gigantic missions, you know, doing no
Speaker 2: fail stuff through to waking up and the biggest responsibility
Speaker 2: I had was taking my dog for a walk that day.
Speaker 2: That's where I struggled And what I realized is I
Speaker 2: struggle without having a team. I struggle without having that purpose.
Speaker 2: I struggle without having responsibility. And people don't rise to
Speaker 2: the occasion. They fall to their level of training. I've
Speaker 2: been taught that time and time again, and before I
Speaker 2: deployed on my first trip to Afghanistan, I've been through
Speaker 2: seven years of training in the Army, eighteen months worth
Speaker 2: of intensive training to do our job. There's so much
Speaker 2: that goes into that. It's not like you're just thrown
Speaker 2: into battle in my role to go out there and
Speaker 2: do it. So everything else is that de escalation and
Speaker 2: that decompression from that, and that is, to be honest,
Speaker 2: where defense actually is really failing a lot of soldiers
Speaker 2: in that sort of transition from defense process is one.
Speaker 1: Of the challenges. Before I asked this question, So you
Speaker 1: retired as you were a Special Forces major? Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: How old were you when you became a major?
Speaker 2: I was thirty one?
Speaker 1: Is that young? That seems really young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sort of. Well, going to school here in Queensland,
Speaker 2: I graduated, I turned seventeen in November and when then
Speaker 2: went straight down and I passed selection as a twenty
Speaker 2: four year old. Always been the sort of youngest in
Speaker 2: everything that I've done. I was the youngest in my platoon.
Speaker 2: But that's that's pretty much the absolute youngest you could
Speaker 2: physically be.
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing. We talk a bit on the show about identity.
Speaker 1: While we talk more than a bit, but you know,
Speaker 1: that sense of who am I and what defines me?
Speaker 1: And where do I get my sense of self from?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: You know, And when I was a fat, insecure kid,
Speaker 1: I had all this weight and then I last weight.
Speaker 1: Then I used to for a long time we've spoken
Speaker 1: about this, I used to get my identity from what
Speaker 1: I look like, my body and my biceps and all
Speaker 1: that shit, and you know, then it was kind of
Speaker 1: from my business. And when you're a soldier and you
Speaker 1: do what you do, it's kind of what you do
Speaker 1: is pretty much who you are to a level. Am
Speaker 1: I correct?
Speaker 2: Absolutely mate? And that is where I've struggled my entire life.
Speaker 1: And so then you're this Special Forces fucking literally trained
Speaker 1: killer who's done, you know, gone over there to serve,
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you for your service, gone over
Speaker 1: there and done all this incredible shit on our behalf.
Speaker 1: Literally put your life on the line over one hundred times.
Speaker 1: And then you come back and it's Wednesday, and you're
Speaker 1: on the couch and you're not a soldier, and you're like, fuck,
Speaker 1: is it Netflix or is it a pizza? Or is
Speaker 1: it both?
Speaker 2: Is there a bit of that that goes well, this
Speaker 2: is my struggles And you've hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 2: The military is fantastic at grabbing people off the street
Speaker 2: and issuing them with a collective identity that makes you
Speaker 2: subordinate to your team and subordinate to the purpose. What
Speaker 2: they don't do is successfully reconstitute that individual identity when
Speaker 2: you leave, and you leave a giant organization that is
Speaker 2: a not for profit, it is a full purpose organization,
Speaker 2: and throws you into a world which is arguably for
Speaker 2: profit in employment at least, and you are unable to
Speaker 2: find that same level of personal satisfaction. And for me, mate,
Speaker 2: I left the military and threw myself headlong into my
Speaker 2: identity being a gay man, you know, finally accepting myself
Speaker 2: and in joining so much that I had deprived myself.
Speaker 2: I fell in love. I'd never been in love throughout
Speaker 2: my personal career, and then society wants that to be
Speaker 2: your label. And I've made my relationship become literally my identity.
Speaker 2: And then when I lost that relationship for four years,
Speaker 2: I got sent back to that identity crisis. And what
Speaker 2: I've learned time and time again is it then comes
Speaker 2: down to the community you've built around you. Everything has
Speaker 2: to come back to those you surround yourselves that help
Speaker 2: you to either find your identity again or find your purpose.
Speaker 2: But everything does come back to who you are outside
Speaker 2: of any other label. And that's where you heard me
Speaker 2: say before I finally reached the point where I understand
Speaker 2: that I am Heston Russell, and I get back to
Speaker 2: that daily renewable contract. The day you rest on your
Speaker 2: laurels is the day you become irrelevant. But it's so
Speaker 2: hard in this society. Mate. You know, before every interview,
Speaker 2: before every whatever, people like, hey, how do you want
Speaker 2: us to refer to you? Hey? Tell us about you.
Speaker 2: It's like, what parts you know? I could stuff up tomorrow?
Speaker 2: In my entire life of successes, I mean absolutely nothing
Speaker 2: in this society. That's just show short term focused at
Speaker 2: the moment, and that's an opportunity, but it's actually massive
Speaker 2: threat and you feel like it's his inauthenticity piece. Mate,
Speaker 2: when I when I transition to the to the gay
Speaker 2: version of me, everything is measured by you know, biceps,
Speaker 2: speedos at pool parties, what your last Instagram post is.
Speaker 2: You're comparing yourself to the last version of yourself. And
Speaker 2: that's with these layers of in all authenticity creep in
Speaker 2: social media is one of the worst things for it.
Speaker 2: And just cutting through all that and you know, creating
Speaker 2: your own content based off what you're doing as opposed
Speaker 2: to just creating content for the sake of content. That's
Speaker 2: what sort of really helped me get back on this
Speaker 2: right narrow.
Speaker 1: Everyone that I talked to that's been in the military,
Speaker 1: there's there's this I suppose it was the same for you,
Speaker 1: but they seem to have this this level of connection
Speaker 1: and trust and loyalty with their you know, with their colleagues,
Speaker 1: the tribe, with their tribe. Thank you like this. There's
Speaker 1: this loyalty and trust and connection and I guess understanding
Speaker 1: that you can't get outside of the military. Is that
Speaker 1: a struggle.
Speaker 2: Well, it's when you've been through adversity with people. You know,
Speaker 2: true bonds are formed when you're under pressure, be that
Speaker 2: physical pressure, be that you know, out in the cold,
Speaker 2: shivering and feeling that freeze to death. You know, you
Speaker 2: form bods when someone you're snuggling up to in the
Speaker 2: same sleeping bag just don't have those same pressure. So
Speaker 2: same particularly physical and mental pressures on the outside that
Speaker 2: I've experienced during my time in service. A lot of
Speaker 2: people have gone through some of those personal, mental and
Speaker 2: emotional pressures doing COVID lockdown, feeling alone, isolated, everything else
Speaker 2: in between, but particularly that physicality and the endorphins and
Speaker 2: all the chemicals that go with going through that physical
Speaker 2: adversity together and you know, training and progressing and being
Speaker 2: like minded with it. You just don't find that on
Speaker 2: the outside because people's interactions are either within work, which
Speaker 2: is designed for a purpose, or outside socially, where you
Speaker 2: know you pulled in so many different directions. It's such
Speaker 2: a finite and focused and high precious sort of situation,
Speaker 2: and those bonds are for much faster and stronger.
Speaker 1: How did your tribe respond when you came out?
Speaker 2: Well again, so I never had a whole coming out thing,
Speaker 2: and I just gradually let people you know, I was
Speaker 2: just more liberal on my social media. Essentially, I made
Speaker 2: the rule that anyone who ever asked me, I'd tell
Speaker 2: them absolutely upfront. And you know, I actually attended a
Speaker 2: wedding with some of my old platoon guys that we
Speaker 2: sort of post all this and the amount of guys
Speaker 2: who came up to me and just be like, dude,
Speaker 2: why the fuck didn't you tell us? Yeah, And it
Speaker 2: was from a place of we could only imagine what
Speaker 2: that was like for you, holding yourself back, like we
Speaker 2: are so sorry that you didn't feel supported enough to
Speaker 2: come out and be like that. That's so I said, hey, no, no, stop,
Speaker 2: I'm the one who wasn't comfortable with me. They have
Speaker 2: been the most amazing people, particularly in the Special Force
Speaker 2: aside of the house. You know, you're performing at the
Speaker 2: elite level. And this is what I've realized. I was
Speaker 2: bringing ninety five, ninety six percent of myself to everything
Speaker 2: that I was doing, but there was still, you know,
Speaker 2: that four or five percent of me that was holding
Speaker 2: myself back. And my regret is that I hadn't allowed
Speaker 2: myself to be fully one hundred percent emotionally and mentally
Speaker 2: aligned to what I was doing. But that's my own
Speaker 2: development phase.
Speaker 1: Do you think that if you had come out to them,
Speaker 1: I don't know earlier I'm not. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is I'm not suggesting you should or shouldn't do anything,
Speaker 1: but could that have proven a distraction and maybe that's
Speaker 1: why you didn't do it?
Speaker 2: Or yeah, again, it was all timing. So I came
Speaker 2: back from the US at the end of twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: fully prepared to live an openly gay life. But again,
Speaker 2: who you sleep with and what your sexual preference is
Speaker 2: completely irrelevant to day to day. Within the military was
Speaker 2: such a high operationally focused unit that you're not sitting
Speaker 2: there going, oh, by the way, guys, I'm gay and
Speaker 2: like accept it. Like that again goes against our entire culture.
Speaker 2: But the issue was that society was reaching in looking
Speaker 2: for diversity for diversity's sake and also to progress those
Speaker 2: who were over those who weren't. At that same time
Speaker 2: I was dealing with, I was running the commando selection course.
Speaker 2: We had just opened it up for women to finally
Speaker 2: be allowed to apply for the selection course, and I
Speaker 2: was told by our general that I was to reserve
Speaker 2: ten positions for female candidates, which for a selection course
Speaker 2: goes completely against everything. There is a standard. That standard
Speaker 2: comes from the operational requirement backcasting. And I did a
Speaker 2: public consultation with the other support staff females in our unit,
Speaker 2: and they burned it down in flames. They said, don't
Speaker 2: you dare undermine our success by giving us a quota.
Speaker 2: We want to earn that off our own bat and
Speaker 2: particularly in that society. And that was that same sort
Speaker 2: of context for me. There was also that time and
Speaker 2: space relevance where it just wasn't the right time to
Speaker 2: do that publicly. But the biggest thing was, Mate, I
Speaker 2: had to become comfortable with it first. It's only once
Speaker 2: we can become comfortable with ourselves can when you actually
Speaker 2: withstand if people can't tolerate or it's just something new
Speaker 2: for them to catch up on.
Speaker 1: And when you think about it, it is, I mean,
Speaker 1: for ninety nine percent of you know what I do
Speaker 1: in my job, what you do in your job, what
Speaker 1: Tiff does, maybe even nearly it's not relevant. Like I've
Speaker 1: never walked into a meeting or an environment or a
Speaker 1: workshop or a conference and made a point to let
Speaker 1: anyone know that, by the way, I'm heterosexual. I just
Speaker 1: thought i'd put it out like it's not a thing,
Speaker 1: is it? So you shouldn't need to feel on any way.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like required to open that door because
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make any difference to what you do.
Speaker 2: And that's my aspiration, you know. I said to one
Speaker 2: of my guys, is like, hey, mate, why don't you
Speaker 2: just come out and tell everyone about it. I'm like, mate,
Speaker 2: do you come out and tell people you're heterosexual? And
Speaker 2: he's like no. I said, exactly, why the fuck do
Speaker 2: I need to tell people sexual preferences? And he just
Speaker 2: you watched them. He sat back and went, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's just what everyone does. I said, why do.
Speaker 1: They do it? Yeah, because why do they do it?
Speaker 1: What's your take on that?
Speaker 2: It's it's a way in which they feel permission to
Speaker 2: I guess progress that next level of self acceptance for
Speaker 2: many many people. Unfortunately, it is also a way in
Speaker 2: which many people use to gain attention and gain affirmation.
Speaker 2: Per our love languages. People need affirmation. They need to
Speaker 2: feel permission to be different because they're made to feel different.
Speaker 2: They're not sat down and taught hey, you know, difference
Speaker 2: and diversity is actually empowerment, but you have to use
Speaker 2: it with responsibility, you know, particularly if it's not something
Speaker 2: you've earned, it's something you've been born with. My whole
Speaker 2: aspiration is for this just to be so normalized and
Speaker 2: we focus on the content and character of people, not
Speaker 2: you know, their sexual preference, you know, religion, skin color,
Speaker 2: all these things. When I was a kid, we'll talk,
Speaker 2: never judge a book by its cover, But all we
Speaker 2: do in society these days is put more and more
Speaker 2: labels on that cover and make that the measure of
Speaker 2: the person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, everyone, I've just looked at Heston's instapage and
Speaker 1: hang on, steady on Champ. He's nine hundred people away
Speaker 1: from one hundred thousand. He's ninety nine point one thousand.
Speaker 1: So jump on, follow, Follow the little fucker, give him
Speaker 1: a bit of love, send him a message and tell
Speaker 1: him he's ace because he's killing this podcast. Tell him
Speaker 1: how awesome he is. But most importantly, hit the follow.
Speaker 1: Hang on, I'm going to do it right now. There's
Speaker 1: you can you see the blue? Yeah? I can right
Speaker 1: now live follow and I don't follow. Many people only
Speaker 1: follow about two hundred. Oh wow, so you are now
Speaker 1: part of my tribe, whether or not you like it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, mate. I was at one hundred and four
Speaker 2: thousand before the election, and then I got shadow bound apparently,
Speaker 2: and I'm just dropping numbers every week, really blue tick
Speaker 2: and all, mate, like it means nothing if.
Speaker 1: You turn that around, peepsy, let's turn the big steering
Speaker 1: wheel around all in the ring. A couple of questions,
Speaker 1: So tell me you came out of the military. Was
Speaker 1: it in fifteen, twenty, seventeen, seventeen? Okay, so five years ago.
Speaker 1: Now there's a weird question. But coming out of the military.
Speaker 1: Before you came out of the military, you were obviously
Speaker 1: had an idea in your mind of what that would
Speaker 1: be like. Yeah, so the idea of what it would
Speaker 1: be like post military. Give me a comparison with how
Speaker 1: it actually was. How was it different to what you expected?
Speaker 2: Two key things. One was, again in the military, you're
Speaker 2: working for purpose, whereas on the outside everything is based
Speaker 2: on profit and there was a big sort of personal
Speaker 2: disconnect with that. I never had to do that before.
Speaker 2: And second was just the value set. So service within
Speaker 2: the military, particularly where I was, came down to responsibility, selflessness, leadership, teamwork.
Speaker 2: They were those sort of core values, you know, courage,
Speaker 2: physical and moral courage. And then into the outside world,
Speaker 2: responsibility is replaced with entitlement. Selflessness is resplace, is replaced
Speaker 2: with selfishness. You know, teamwork is replaced with dog eat
Speaker 2: dog Leadership is replaced with risk avoidance, you know, abdication,
Speaker 2: passing the buck. There's no accountability, all these things. And
Speaker 2: so I found that completely different. And it's funny because
Speaker 2: even though you're in the military, you're still living in
Speaker 2: wider society, but your outside living is more dwelling before
Speaker 2: you go back into it. At least it was for me,
Speaker 2: you know, there was really that rejection of those values.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, what we're also trained to do so well
Speaker 2: is to assimilate into our new environment. And I found
Speaker 2: myself getting on that gravy train, becoming entitled, getting you know,
Speaker 2: fixated on how I looked, going out to parties, you know,
Speaker 2: recreational drugs, all those things that are in society that
Speaker 2: you know, we were drug tested every week on our
Speaker 2: special Force of stuff, things like this, but you never taught,
Speaker 2: you never had those adult conversations like hey, you're going
Speaker 2: to go out in Sydney and every person, every bathroom
Speaker 2: is going to be doing this stuff, and that's actually
Speaker 2: the worst thing for your mental health as opposed to,
Speaker 2: you know, just getting caught up in the short term
Speaker 2: existence of it. And it really was a struggle. And
Speaker 2: it was this whole collision of what we call this
Speaker 2: moral injury or this dislocation from your values, combined with
Speaker 2: being lonely, not having a team, not having a purpose
Speaker 2: that understood you at an intrinsic level, with everything else
Speaker 2: being focused so extremely and it was a whole new
Speaker 2: identity shift.
Speaker 1: Was there a this is a dramatic question, but fuck
Speaker 1: it was there a grieving? Like when do you feel
Speaker 1: like there was a grief period? Because there was a
Speaker 1: loss or a sense of loss.
Speaker 2: I think, particularly for me, I've been operating at such
Speaker 2: a high and fast level that you know, it's the
Speaker 2: I call pendulum swing. You've got to swing away. And
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that first year living in the US. Again,
Speaker 2: I'd never been personally in love or fulfilled my personal needs.
Speaker 2: I always focus on those professional so I really loved
Speaker 2: and enjoyed that. But then once that pendulum starts to
Speaker 2: swing back to its resting place, you sort of sit
Speaker 2: there going well, this is all enjoyment and I fulfilled that,
Speaker 2: but I'm actually missing that deeper level of purpose and
Speaker 2: value and giving back and service. I was missing that
Speaker 2: element of being able to serve, to put the needs
Speaker 2: of others before me, And that is where I have
Speaker 2: really struggled. And that's where I missed my tribe. That's
Speaker 2: where I drive past and army barracks and remember and
Speaker 2: wish I could drive on and go do PT in
Speaker 2: the morning at seven point thirty, which is the time
Speaker 2: every base does PT. Just go join in a group
Speaker 2: and go do PT. Go and be equal, go and
Speaker 2: be accountable. Do you miss that? You really do miss
Speaker 2: that authenticity?
Speaker 1: And so as part of your mission purpose fill in
Speaker 1: the blank, to create your own tribe it is.
Speaker 2: And I struggle with that, mate, And I you know,
Speaker 2: I have my meeting, my weekly meeting with my psychiatrist
Speaker 2: actually before having miss chat.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're going to talk to a psych before
Speaker 1: you talk to me, that's a great time, because I'm
Speaker 1: a fucking hand I'm a handful. So well done.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My issue these days is again my love language
Speaker 2: is active service, and I love doing things for people.
Speaker 2: So I continue to build relationships based on me being
Speaker 2: able to do things for them and in order in return,
Speaker 2: people get coming to me looking for ways in which
Speaker 2: I can help them. But the way in which I
Speaker 2: feel love is actually quarterly time. People who want to
Speaker 2: be around me and be with me just for the
Speaker 2: sake of hanging out with you. Again, That's why I
Speaker 2: have a three year old dog. So I actually really
Speaker 2: struggle informing those connections with people that aren't based off
Speaker 2: any form of service. That's where you know, I contemplate
Speaker 2: going back and joining a rugby team or joining a
Speaker 2: water polo team. Finding that camaraderie where your actions are
Speaker 2: that which define you as opposed to anything you say
Speaker 2: or any perceptions otherwise, something I'm still working on and
Speaker 2: I really need to.
Speaker 1: Well, if you live down here and not up in
Speaker 1: the bloody tropics, you know we could hang.
Speaker 2: Out coming down there in November, putting together.
Speaker 1: Hit me out buddy, you and me breakfast arm wrestling
Speaker 1: you know, no arm wrestling, I reckon you might have it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So as much or as little as you
Speaker 1: want to tell me about twenty twenty when you momentarily thought, fuck,
Speaker 1: do I want to be here anymore?
Speaker 2: Yep? So I literally had been other day at the
Speaker 2: park of the day with my dog and came home
Speaker 2: and I've got a message from one of my former
Speaker 2: guys who told me that a person we knew who
Speaker 2: I deployed Canisteen with beforehand and tried to take his
Speaker 2: own life and tried to overdose, and he had his
Speaker 2: young son in the back room. And there was a
Speaker 2: long string of by that stage, known more guys who'd
Speaker 2: taken their own lives than we lost in combat, And
Speaker 2: there were so many factors going on. I was in
Speaker 2: eighteen months worth of a fight with the Department of
Speaker 2: Veterans Affairs. I was alone. I was suffering from depression
Speaker 2: anxiety that I refused to ever see a psychologist to
Speaker 2: admit any weakness as opposed to vulnerability. And it took
Speaker 2: me to a place where I just sort of sat
Speaker 2: down and applied every ounce of my professional planning skills
Speaker 2: to pull apart what was going on. And the scariest
Speaker 2: part is I had the sharpest moment of clarity I've
Speaker 2: had I'd had in you know, three or four years,
Speaker 2: where every ounce of me decided that what I needed
Speaker 2: to do was to be the next veteran to take
Speaker 2: their own life. I needed to write a letter to
Speaker 2: Senator Lambee, who I'd connected with, and all of this
Speaker 2: in order to and at this stage, I had, you know,
Speaker 2: seventy five thousand followers on social media, and I'd been
Speaker 2: on the news a couple of times supporting veteran things,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was this picture of biceps and
Speaker 2: Barry's boot camp and all this stuff as well. I
Speaker 2: needed to use my profile to be that next veteran
Speaker 2: suicide that would finally get cut through because I was
Speaker 2: you know, when people say this, I was one of
Speaker 2: those people that no one would have ever expected it
Speaker 2: to sort of happened to. I wasn't sitting there drinking
Speaker 2: myself into misery. I was excelling at the top of
Speaker 2: my performance. And you know, for that five or ten
Speaker 2: minutes or fifteen minutes, whatever it was, I was sitting
Speaker 2: there so clear and set on my mission and purpose.
Speaker 2: And it really helped me appreciate and understand that suicide
Speaker 2: can just happen like that. You know, it can just
Speaker 2: take that mental shift where you literally think you are
Speaker 2: doing the right thing. And as a story goes, my
Speaker 2: dog came and literally put his head on my lap.
Speaker 2: It was my time to feed him. And as I've realized,
Speaker 2: for me, it was that service someone else needed something
Speaker 2: of me. That sort of actually snapped me out of
Speaker 2: that moment. And I sat there and I read the
Speaker 2: email that I'd written in all of this and just went,
Speaker 2: what the fuck are you doing, you idiot? Why are
Speaker 2: you outsourcing? Just cut through? Why not get out there
Speaker 2: and be that voice yourself? And that was that.
Speaker 1: Well, mate, we're very glad you made that decision. And
Speaker 1: what's your dog's name?
Speaker 2: Copper? Copper, like the color like the metal copper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank god? Is it a he?
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, he's a good boy.
Speaker 1: Thank god he came over and interrupted you, bloody the
Speaker 1: rabbit hole that you were going down. Thank goodness for him,
Speaker 1: and thank goodness. All right, now tell us about Voice
Speaker 1: of a Veteran. What is it? What do you do,
Speaker 1: how does it work? How can we help if we can?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, Voice of a Veteran actually just ended up
Speaker 2: being a podcast and a social brand that I started
Speaker 2: up to start talking about my own mental health decline.
Speaker 2: I then even then needed a platform that wasn't me
Speaker 2: talking directly talking from a platform as a veteran, and
Speaker 2: just took off when me telling my mental health story
Speaker 2: really started to help so many other alpha masculine males,
Speaker 2: and then very strong other females step forward and say, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, I now have mission to acknowledge that I've
Speaker 2: been struggling, and part of it has then been making
Speaker 2: sure that the continuation of that journey for them is
Speaker 2: through a lens of responsibility, not entitlement, because so many
Speaker 2: of my problems came from again outsourcing all of my
Speaker 2: problems solving to departments, agencies, politicians, and it's about getting
Speaker 2: back to solving those problems yourself. That led us to
Speaker 2: campaign for the Royal Commission, and I've then set up
Speaker 2: the charity Veterans Support Force. It's the website is VSF
Speaker 2: dot org dot au where we are a charity organization
Speaker 2: and we support veterans and their families during the current
Speaker 2: Royal Commission. We do projects, we do surveys, we've done
Speaker 2: some campaigning up to government, we do community activities, We
Speaker 2: support veterans who want to engage with the Royal Commission
Speaker 2: and off that that is where I find my projects
Speaker 2: with purpose back for the community of my people. So
Speaker 2: I want to get involved. Head to VSF dot org.
Speaker 2: Dot au and otherwise it's whatever else comes across my
Speaker 2: table that I find purpose doing and jump on board.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Do youv dot org dot? Are you? Is this
Speaker 1: your and I mean I know this year is your
Speaker 1: purpose and your passion, but is this also your career?
Speaker 1: Do you do corporate stuff? Do you do like how
Speaker 1: do you make a buck?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So that's been and to be honest, I've only
Speaker 2: actually had to start looking at that. So I did
Speaker 2: the lead up into politics, which was unsuccessful this year,
Speaker 2: and up until that time, I've just been sort of
Speaker 2: living off savings that I screwled away, very conscientious throughout
Speaker 2: my career. So I'm actually at that point where VSF
Speaker 2: stuff is all voluntary. What I do do to earn
Speaker 2: a buck is I go in and do corporate speaking.
Speaker 2: I give it a speech on leadership, and my website
Speaker 2: Heston Russell dot com is where most people go to
Speaker 2: get info on that. But corporate speaking workshops, even helping
Speaker 2: out recruiters select people, that's the stuff I love. Anything
Speaker 2: to do with people and teams and particularly leadership is
Speaker 2: my number one topic because no amount of technology or
Speaker 2: you know, outsourcing innovation is going to help that. It
Speaker 2: comes down to people and purpose motivations. That's how I
Speaker 2: earn a buck.
Speaker 1: And what do you do for fun mate? Do you
Speaker 1: still train? Do you still lift heavy? Shit? Are you
Speaker 1: still jacked? I can only see you from the kind
Speaker 1: of the chest up, but you look like a fucking
Speaker 1: hell mate. I shipped away.
Speaker 2: Just I'm getting I'm getting back into it, you know,
Speaker 2: particularly after the campaign, I actually let myself go. You know,
Speaker 2: my mental and physical health sort of went by the wayside.
Speaker 2: That sort of happened to those hyper periods. But I
Speaker 2: try and get to the gym every day. I really
Speaker 2: enjoy going to the gym and working out. I enjoy
Speaker 2: a bit of sort of group fitness, And to be honest,
Speaker 2: I've spent the last two years so focused on the
Speaker 2: purpose side of the house, campaigning for those things we
Speaker 2: spoke about, and then the politics piece that the rest
Speaker 2: of this year is actually focusing on me. I actually
Speaker 2: got a contract to write a book on my own
Speaker 2: memoir last year and it's finally due to get published
Speaker 2: by the end of this year. So that's been a
Speaker 2: real passion project as well. But I'm in the rebuild
Speaker 2: and refocused face. And that said, fitness is such a
Speaker 2: huge part of that fitness and nutrition that I need
Speaker 2: to get back to. Absolutely well.
Speaker 1: Mate, when you come to Melbourne, we'll lift some heavy
Speaker 1: shit as well as have a coffee. It's really good
Speaker 1: to meet really good to meet you, great to chat
Speaker 1: to you. What you're doing is awesome. Thanks for sharing
Speaker 1: some of your story with us and maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: you back again. I reckon, there's a lot more we
Speaker 1: could unpack.
Speaker 2: Thanks for letting me chack Craig, thanks to let me
Speaker 2: have I call this my mental fitness session, so thanks
Speaker 2: for just let me have that chat with you. And
Speaker 2: there we go. Mate, you've got a man here. You
Speaker 2: go elusive. I like it.
Speaker 1: Heston Russell Voice of a Veteran. Is that the name
Speaker 1: of the podcast?
Speaker 2: It's now just called the Heston Russell Podcast.
Speaker 1: Heston Russell and Russell Podcast and VSF dot org, dot
Speaker 1: au TIF. Very good scouting by you, good job.
Speaker 2: Tip, pretty happy, Thanks Hestin, Thanks Harps.
Speaker 1: I feel like you might be on roll with the
Speaker 1: punches soon and you might be back at TYPO. Will
Speaker 1: talk in a minute, but for the minutes. Thanks everyone, Heston,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thanks great. Thanks Jeff