Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now, as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Some questions don't have easy answers, and some stories don't
Speaker 1: start or end where you expect them to. In Part
Speaker 1: two of my chat with former SAS Commander Mark Wales,
Speaker 1: I saw these unfiltered views on current global conflicts, including
Speaker 1: the future of modern warfare, the rise of extreme ideologies,
Speaker 1: and what it means for each and every one of us.
Speaker 1: But the most powerful moment in this conversation has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the Battlefield. Mark opens up about finally
Speaker 1: confronting the man who sexually abused him as a child
Speaker 1: and having him put in jail where he belongs. We
Speaker 1: also talked about Mark's new book, Mission Ready. There was
Speaker 1: a lot that we covered. Have a listen, Mark Wales,
Speaker 1: welcome back to Part two. If I catch killers national
Speaker 1: service being pre introduced, I don't think there'd be any
Speaker 1: political party that would be brave enough to do it,
Speaker 1: and I don't think the public would accept it. But
Speaker 1: when I'm talking national service eighteen nineteen, after you've left school,
Speaker 1: you do twelve months in the military in whatever form.
Speaker 1: We're not sending you to war, but working in that environment,
Speaker 1: I could see some benefits of that. What's your will
Speaker 1: take on it?
Speaker 2: So they used to have it in OZ right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they had national service and obviously the.
Speaker 1: Draft they had, they had conscription during them, and I
Speaker 1: think probably back in the Second World War, but they
Speaker 1: had what was called national service with people and I
Speaker 1: don't think it was twelve months. I think it was
Speaker 1: three months. So I remember my father saying national service.
Speaker 1: It was all part of it that you had to
Speaker 1: go to the armed forces for three or four months
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: It was when I was at business school. There was
Speaker 2: a handful of people from different countries that came from
Speaker 2: systems that had that. I think Korea was one, Israel
Speaker 2: was definitely another, and there are a few others. But
Speaker 2: I remember him talking about their national service experience, and
Speaker 2: I think, I don't know what the research says about it,
Speaker 2: whether how effective it is or how it changes things.
Speaker 2: But I mean I'm biased because I've been through it.
Speaker 2: I think it's a good thing because it teaches you
Speaker 2: all the skills around resilience and teamwork and leadership and
Speaker 2: a sense of civic duty. Yeah, so they're all good things.
Speaker 2: It's just a quit, Like you were saying, the political
Speaker 2: capital needed to make it happen is so great that
Speaker 2: it just has never been surfaced. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: it might find depending on how the future goes, he
Speaker 2: might find yourself in a situation where it is desirable.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I'm looking at it not just for national security.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at it for also for the sake of
Speaker 1: building a more resilient society. My son, he hates me
Speaker 1: talking about him on the podcast, but he did the
Speaker 1: gap year after he left school. The twelve months in
Speaker 1: the Army and went down did the basic training, and
Speaker 1: then in the infantry after that, I reckon it was
Speaker 1: the best twelve months of parenting I've ever done. But
Speaker 1: what I observe, and he's a good, good man, but
Speaker 1: a good kid. But if he went to UNI straight
Speaker 1: away after leaving school, he would have been a clusterfuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he would have been attempted by the bright lights and
Speaker 1: everything else. What I saw with twelve months in the military,
Speaker 1: he came back with discipline and had some structure and
Speaker 1: some purpose. I saw that, And that's just from a
Speaker 1: personal point of view, my observation of the impact that
Speaker 1: I had on my son. But I think in a
Speaker 1: society now that we've got we could really do with
Speaker 1: something like that. I don't know how you'd sell it
Speaker 1: from a political point of view, but you mentioned some
Speaker 1: of the benefits that military life gave you.
Speaker 2: I think it should just be an expansion of that
Speaker 2: gap year. Like if you actually offered that up and
Speaker 2: made it even more attractive, then it's a good exchange
Speaker 2: to have people delaying university by a year or whatever
Speaker 2: it is to do some service and they get paid
Speaker 2: well for it. Like everyone's a winner on that front.
Speaker 1: Well, that basically helped him pay his way through union.
Speaker 1: He was set up very well.
Speaker 2: And that improves recruiting as well. It's just I think
Speaker 2: it's a positive. Well.
Speaker 1: I think the trade off the Army were looking at.
Speaker 1: If they give him an exposure for twelve months, half
Speaker 1: of them will decide to stay and they might lose half,
Speaker 1: but they'll gain And yeah, it's I just thought I
Speaker 1: saw the benefits from it. And I see when we
Speaker 1: talk about crime. Often when I look at the crime,
Speaker 1: why people fall in the crime, they're not They don't
Speaker 1: feel part of a group. They might have had had
Speaker 1: trauma in their their childhood and yeah, family structure, yeah,
Speaker 1: no good role models and this type of thing could
Speaker 1: actually steering in the right direction.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it's a good for any youth.
Speaker 2: It's just a good foundation. You never forget it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen if anyone's listening. I don't think they're going
Speaker 1: to introduce national service just on the back of that conversation,
Speaker 1: but it's food for thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mental fortitude too, that's that's another thing. Like I laughed
Speaker 1: watching my son go down there, and the only thing
Speaker 1: I could give him the any gift, get yourself a
Speaker 1: little bit fit because you're going to be running around
Speaker 1: and so take him running or within the morning, and
Speaker 1: then he'd be laying on the land thinking I've got
Speaker 1: this covered. As it getting on the bus to go
Speaker 1: to surprise down there. I'm just smiling, going have fun.
Speaker 2: Especially when your body's not fully form, you're still growing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting mentioned that I check with you before before
Speaker 1: the podcast if it's okay to mention that you have
Speaker 1: had court experience, and that was on the back of that.
Speaker 1: You're a survivor, and I know people that have been
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted as kids choose to call themselves not victims,
Speaker 1: and that's a big thing that your survivor of childhood
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. Do you want to just talk briefly on that.
Speaker 1: I know it hasn't hasn't defined you, but it's something
Speaker 1: that comes up quite often in this room, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people who have gone down the wrong path
Speaker 1: had that happen to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it's I was talking to old
Speaker 2: man about this not like less than a week ago.
Speaker 2: They came over from w A and we were just
Speaker 2: chatting about it at one point, but the for the audience,
Speaker 2: so my brother and I we were six, and he
Speaker 2: was two years old than me, so I was six,
Speaker 2: he was eight. We would go to the southwest of
Speaker 2: w A parents had a farm there. They were farm hands.
Speaker 2: They had cattle and dairy farms, and the extended family
Speaker 2: was down there. So there was one farm which was
Speaker 2: a cousin of my mother's and so it was it
Speaker 2: was the cousin and his wife and they had a
Speaker 2: couple of kids and some farm hands around. It was
Speaker 2: a cool farm. They had dairy going, they had the
Speaker 2: motorbikes and dogs. It was a great place for kids.
Speaker 2: This guy would offer to take my brother and I
Speaker 2: away to show us all the stuff around the farm.
Speaker 2: My parents are like sure, and then on one occasion
Speaker 2: he sexually assaulted my brother and I. And this happened
Speaker 2: on a few occasions. Now I was young enough to
Speaker 2: know that there was some I'm really bad about, you know,
Speaker 2: bad about it. My brother as well. We had to
Speaker 2: We kind of put it aside and we didn't talk
Speaker 2: about it. When I was in high school. I think
Speaker 2: I was in mid high school. I remember telling my
Speaker 2: parents eventually I was like, hey, just so you know
Speaker 2: this happened. Yeah, And they asked my brother too, did
Speaker 2: that happen, and there was like, yeah, Dad's like okay,
Speaker 2: And they packed the car and went straight down the
Speaker 2: farm to go and confront this guy, and which they did.
Speaker 2: The issue is and they did confront him, and we
Speaker 2: chose not to go to the police. We just weren't
Speaker 2: up for it. I was in grade nine. I just
Speaker 2: wasn't up for it. When I was older, I was
Speaker 2: thirty eight roughly, and I just had my boy, he
Speaker 2: was only two years old roughly, and I remember calling
Speaker 2: my brother and going, I think we've got to go
Speaker 2: and get this guy. I think we've got to try
Speaker 2: and prosecute him, just because having a son. And I
Speaker 2: was like, how could you do that to a kid? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: put him perspective. Yeah, and so, and to my brother,
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know what our chances would be.
Speaker 2: I don't think they would be that high, just because
Speaker 2: you know, the time and all that stuff, and I
Speaker 2: knew nothing about the process for it. And to my
Speaker 2: brother's credit, he's like, now, let's go. So we went
Speaker 2: down to the police state. It was like in Northbridge
Speaker 2: Police station in Perth, sat with a detective. She took
Speaker 2: a statement and she sat down again and she was
Speaker 2: she was great. She helped us with it and just
Speaker 2: helped us understand kind of what was what the process was.
Speaker 2: They left it, We left it with them. I remember
Speaker 2: coming back to us at one point with a few
Speaker 2: more questions, and just based on what they were asking me,
Speaker 2: I knew there was more there. There was there was
Speaker 2: other parts around that case that I didn't know about.
Speaker 2: That he was he was a bad man. He was intelligent,
Speaker 2: and I think this is true with a lot of
Speaker 2: manipulate a lot of pedophiles, I think they are I
Speaker 2: think they have to have a degree of intelligence or
Speaker 2: charm or cunning, and he had that. And I knew
Speaker 2: from what they were asking me that there were other
Speaker 2: cases around this. So it took two years. This is
Speaker 2: all happening during COVID, and then eventually I got a
Speaker 2: call from the detective to go we're going down there
Speaker 2: to arrest him. We've got you know, eight cars and
Speaker 2: whatever it was. They went and arrested him and then
Speaker 2: we went to trial I think a year later in
Speaker 2: Western Australia, and so I had to go down to
Speaker 2: the regional court with my brother and then go on
Speaker 2: we go on stand troll and we talked to the
Speaker 2: prosecutor before we went in, and it was just it
Speaker 2: was super unusual. I remember walking into the courtroom and
Speaker 2: I was I was afraid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, understandable, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I'd put it aside for decades, you know,
Speaker 2: And then I was afraid of that. I was afraid
Speaker 2: of that guy. And and and I went in there,
Speaker 2: and I had my suit on and walked in and
Speaker 2: as a gay of evidence, I kind of calmed down
Speaker 2: a bit and I actually put it in that book originally,
Speaker 2: but he hadn't been to trial at that point, so
Speaker 2: we didn't put in the book. And I'd forgotten about it, Mate.
Speaker 2: I didn't think it really had affected me, But you
Speaker 2: can see it kind of does in a big way.
Speaker 2: I think you can see how and I can see
Speaker 2: now how people really that their life spins off in
Speaker 2: a different direction. Mark.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you you're honestly and talking about it. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: hearing someone like you and the impact it has had
Speaker 1: on you puts it shows people what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: And you know, you said that the bloat was smart
Speaker 1: and that you went in there and you were scared,
Speaker 1: like nothing scares you, but that's you've been taken back
Speaker 1: to your childhood and those predators they manipulate that and
Speaker 1: getting the kids' heads.
Speaker 2: And my parents made my parents feel like he was
Speaker 2: a safe saber of hands and he didn't knowing for
Speaker 2: well what he's going to do.
Speaker 1: So that's that's what they're They're about their predators, and
Speaker 1: they create the persona and it's always oh no, he's fine,
Speaker 1: he'll look after That's how that's how they apply their trade.
Speaker 1: I went into a prison doing a podcast called Breaking
Speaker 1: Badness and spent time in a maximum security prison with prisoners,
Speaker 1: so speaking to them, I know when I was in
Speaker 1: the cops, I thought, yeah, the pedophiles were hated the
Speaker 1: prison like they are the rock spiders and every other
Speaker 1: name that they get called because of the nature of
Speaker 1: the crime, which is understandable. But what I found out
Speaker 1: that there were so many prisoners in there that had
Speaker 1: experiences like yourself and that the trajectory of their life
Speaker 1: went off track because of that. A lot of times
Speaker 1: I sit down speaking the big tough, muscled up bikies
Speaker 1: that the full hardcore gangsters, and when it's all said
Speaker 1: and done, it comes from the pain that these predators
Speaker 1: have done. I want the courts, and we go on
Speaker 1: about a lot here on the podcast, but the courts
Speaker 1: have fully understand the impact it has on people's lives,
Speaker 1: and if we wanted to reduce crime in this state,
Speaker 1: this country, I reckon, let's start start doing that. Will
Speaker 1: have a healthier society.
Speaker 2: I know the prosecutor there were two other witnesses they
Speaker 2: wanted to get that were young guys that I think
Speaker 2: either lived adjacent to that farm or had been farm hands.
Speaker 2: Both of them had their lives effectively destroyed and they
Speaker 2: wouldn't or they couldn't bring themselves to lodge statements. And
Speaker 2: obviously my brother too. It affected him badly and it's
Speaker 2: just shocking and you know, a hard thing to deal with.
Speaker 2: And I think, coming back, this is why I'm proud
Speaker 2: of my brother and I'm proud we did it because
Speaker 2: it would have been very easy to kind of just
Speaker 2: let it go. It would have been easier in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways that I'm glad we kind of didn't.
Speaker 2: And we went through the trial and the jury found
Speaker 2: and found him guilty on think four different counts and
Speaker 2: he got I think it was three years.
Speaker 1: Good on you. They need to be accountable, and I
Speaker 1: hope everyone out there listening that has been a predator
Speaker 1: that thinks they got a way, but you never know
Speaker 1: when the cops are going to be knocking on your
Speaker 1: door or your pass is coming back. We've done a
Speaker 1: lot of campaigning here with people that are working hard
Speaker 1: to make sure that people convicted of child sexual abuse
Speaker 1: and not allowed to give character references like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that dude, he'd roll up and everyone go, he contributes
Speaker 1: to society, he does this, that's how they commit the
Speaker 1: crimes that. Another thing that has been pushing for is
Speaker 1: Andrew Carpenter, List of the Down in South Australia has
Speaker 1: been pushing for super so you know, you'd have the
Speaker 1: school teachers that go through their whole career and then retire,
Speaker 1: they've got their pension for the rest of life, having
Speaker 1: those pensions and superincuation attack too. Four predators, so really
Speaker 1: hitting them, hitting them hard.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a it's a big issue. I think
Speaker 2: it's it has to be massively underreported. I'm sure it's
Speaker 2: like me. I would have it was kind of on
Speaker 2: the fence about if we're going to pull it off.
Speaker 2: So you must imagine it's pretty far more widespread than.
Speaker 1: What we realize statistically too, I think it takes yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as you take every time. It's twenty five years.
Speaker 1: We had a hard ass cop from Victoria up here
Speaker 1: on the podcast and talking about his career in some
Speaker 1: of the cases he's worked, and then at the end
Speaker 1: he said, look, you know, and he worked in child
Speaker 1: sexual assault teams and all that. He said, I'm actually
Speaker 1: going through the madam myself. He was working doing a
Speaker 1: lecture to his team. He was a team leader doing
Speaker 1: his lecture, and that's just sort of it's all come
Speaker 1: up and he's gone, I got to deal with this,
Speaker 1: and he ended up dealing with it, and surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: the person that sexually abused him had abused all these
Speaker 1: other kids. Shocking, because they never get well, they more
Speaker 1: than likely have committed more offenses than the ones that
Speaker 1: they're caught for.
Speaker 2: I that we spoke to a journalist. We spoke to
Speaker 2: one journalist from the ABC about because I just wanted
Speaker 2: to make sure that, you know, if there was someone
Speaker 2: else out there that was in the similar position, maybe
Speaker 2: to give him that nudge. And it was part of
Speaker 2: the point I made. It's like, we found out that
Speaker 2: it was far more widespread, so although it's difficult, you
Speaker 2: might be saving not just yourself, but other people in
Speaker 2: the future, or even other victims or sorry, survivors. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's a shocker.
Speaker 1: Good on your parents for dealing with too, because I did.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of families. It's too confronting. It
Speaker 1: gets raised and apparently worse, and people step away from it.
Speaker 1: We just can't deal with that, and that is something
Speaker 1: that we've got to We've got to change because it
Speaker 1: is confronting. Let's I'll try and light that up. But
Speaker 1: I look at you, I look at your life. You're
Speaker 1: jumping from one thing to another, business school at Wharton Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: As I said, reading your book, I thought, okay, you
Speaker 1: got through sas you got through wars, years of tours,
Speaker 1: and then you put yourself in the challenge like that.
Speaker 1: I was getting I was getting tired, tired, So what
Speaker 1: did you have to find something to match the intensity
Speaker 1: of what you left on.
Speaker 2: I think I had to find something that was also
Speaker 2: an institution. But while I was kind of recovering, i'd
Speaker 2: be at least learning something or developing myself because I
Speaker 2: had no idea what I was going to do. Really
Speaker 2: after leaving, I wasn't sure what career I wanted, but
Speaker 2: I knew if I went through an institution like that,
Speaker 2: I'd figure out something good or I'd meet a network
Speaker 2: that could help, which is kind of what happens. I
Speaker 2: went in. There was a lot I didn't know about businesses,
Speaker 2: basically everything, and I think over time figured out there
Speaker 2: were different avenues I could take. I wanted to do
Speaker 2: entrepreneurship because I was like the idea of running my
Speaker 2: own kind of show, but wasn't really sure how to
Speaker 2: do it all. And I did do the entrepreneurship subjects,
Speaker 2: and I eventually took a job in a consulting firm
Speaker 2: because I'm like, while I kind of figure out to
Speaker 2: do or just do this and figure out the rest later.
Speaker 2: But it was great because I kind of it's it
Speaker 2: was good training and there was a bit of an
Speaker 2: apprenticeship in business, and I just loved it.
Speaker 1: It was great fun, but it was it was challenging too,
Speaker 1: and as you said, the cost of it, and it
Speaker 1: was a highly sought after position and you really had
Speaker 1: to drill down to get there. Once you were there,
Speaker 1: did you feel like you fitted in or.
Speaker 2: Did I just loved it, and I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 2: really feel like a fit in. But there was a
Speaker 2: bunch of other veterans there that were in the same boat,
Speaker 2: and there was all shades and colors of people from
Speaker 2: all different backgrounds went to this school, so you you know,
Speaker 2: I'd be having one lecture with an Israeli jet pilot
Speaker 2: and he'd be arguing there's some Lebanese guy on the
Speaker 2: startup community and that these guys were really trying to
Speaker 2: punch each other around. It was all types of people
Speaker 2: coexisting in the same space. So it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And you got a lot from the experience, and it
Speaker 1: broke your way from the mindset of the military. It
Speaker 1: was a good way that clear clear head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got up every morning excited to go
Speaker 2: to school, so I knew there was going to be
Speaker 2: some great professor. They were all kind of rock star professors.
Speaker 2: They were if they weren't doing lectures there on CNBC
Speaker 2: talking about the economy.
Speaker 1: Or so inspiration.
Speaker 2: It was really good fun and it was just Americans
Speaker 2: have a totally different view of the world. They're very
Speaker 2: much you know, like you go get yeah, let's go
Speaker 2: get it. But they're ruthless too. They're just savage.
Speaker 1: About you can stick your head up or say you
Speaker 1: want to achieve that, and it's not like the tall
Speaker 1: poppy syndrome.
Speaker 2: And if you if you get shot down, people love it,
Speaker 2: they're great, you know, go again. I think it's not
Speaker 2: like Australia where it's a bit of a you know.
Speaker 1: Well yeah again, because I've read your books, I know
Speaker 1: your secrets. But you wanted the challenge over there and
Speaker 1: you entered into Philadelphia boxing. Now I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know the history of boxing, which well Philly is
Speaker 1: a pretty tough, tough area like bred Joe Fraser, not
Speaker 1: to mention Rocky. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The further I went into it, the more I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is a real boxing.
Speaker 1: Town, isn't it, And it's such how do you end
Speaker 1: up in that? Because that's a good again challenge for myself?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was. I was just in a ruck,
Speaker 2: so I'd been over there and it's disruptive, and I
Speaker 2: didn't have tons of money, so I was kind of
Speaker 2: being badly and it just was just my fitness and
Speaker 2: health wasn't great and I wasn't starting well because of it,
Speaker 2: and you kind of need to be starting at a good
Speaker 2: level so they have a boxing over again, I should
Speaker 2: do this, It'll be great to train for and and
Speaker 2: so I'd run down to a gym that was probably
Speaker 2: nine blocks away, but it was kind of on the
Speaker 2: fringes of you kind of the city's pretty good, but
Speaker 2: as you get further out, it gets worse and worse
Speaker 2: and a bit of razor wir and all that. And
Speaker 2: by the time I got down to my gym, it
Speaker 2: was a good Philly style boxing gym with you know,
Speaker 2: every character in that you can think of. And I
Speaker 2: kind of cornered a trainer who was an MMA guy
Speaker 2: as well. You know, I had broken teeth and everything,
Speaker 2: and it was probably like in his mid twenties. But yeah,
Speaker 2: we trained together for about two three months and it
Speaker 2: was great. It was just it was a great experience.
Speaker 1: Really, and just going out in front of the crowd
Speaker 1: and all that. And if you want motivation for training,
Speaker 1: sign up for a fight.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so bloody intense, isn't it.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine even and we'll talk about your
Speaker 1: experience on Survivor. But yeah, you carry a reputation, whether
Speaker 1: you like it or not. Being an x S A
Speaker 1: S like you carry that reputation pressure. You're against knocked
Speaker 1: out this blay s a s and you what were
Speaker 1: you fighting at? You're a big, big fellow, heavy heavy.
Speaker 2: Card for sure. Yeah. And the other fellow was a one.
Speaker 2: The first fire had fallen out and they got another
Speaker 2: guy that was a marine and he was just a slag,
Speaker 2: but god, great guy. We chatted after and I lost
Speaker 2: on points, but it was bloody great, great battle.
Speaker 1: Good on you for challenging, challenging yourself. You had another
Speaker 1: thing going you were trying to develop. Was it kill
Speaker 1: and capture or capture kill? Yeah? Yeah, I started that
Speaker 1: as a when I was in business school. Started as
Speaker 1: a one of the entrepreneurship projects because I was, like
Speaker 1: I liked I had to get closed.
Speaker 2: I hadn't. I didn't have a lot of civilian style clothes.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get a leader jacket just because winter
Speaker 2: over there and it's cool. But notice there wasn't really
Speaker 2: a market for all. The brands for it were a
Speaker 2: bit just weird and didn't really appeal to me. So
Speaker 2: I came up with the idea of kind of building
Speaker 2: one that was based off some of the special Ops designs,
Speaker 2: and so I had to I went and built prototypes
Speaker 2: in New York City and got all made and started
Speaker 2: selling it and yeah, I hopefully years we've sold it
Speaker 2: to some interesting folks and even the head of Asus
Speaker 2: his wife. His wife bought him one and I saw it.
Speaker 2: I remember being on watching a TV when they were
Speaker 2: in a prisoner exchange in Tehran. It was the Kylie
Speaker 2: Moore Gilbert.
Speaker 1: We had her on the podcast there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was over there doing the prisoner exchange.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing the footage. I'm like, that's a bloody
Speaker 2: kill capture jacket and he's on the tarmac in Tehran.
Speaker 2: Bo he's swapping hostages wearing this jacket. So I had
Speaker 2: a good laugh about that. But yeah, so we still
Speaker 2: do it now, we build kind of more custom ones.
Speaker 2: Now my mate's going to there's a filmmaker at Netflix.
Speaker 2: He runs the operations in the US for Kill Capture,
Speaker 2: and he's just made him a custom jacket. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: great fun. We didn't do it full time, but we still.
Speaker 1: Got good stuff having to go. And you're quite right
Speaker 1: if you get the wrong leather jacket, they're pretty bad
Speaker 1: bloody pleth pleath jackets. Yeah, it's all good stuff. So
Speaker 1: you branching out into different things. Get your thoughts on
Speaker 1: a couple of things the world at the moment. What's
Speaker 1: going on in the world, Russia, Ukraine, US, Iran, is Rael, Lebanon,
Speaker 1: and China, possibly Taiwan. I get the sense no expert
Speaker 1: by any means, but just watching and absorbing what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world. It seems like we're on the
Speaker 1: crest of something that could be bad. There's so many
Speaker 1: different regions going on. What's your take, Having the experience
Speaker 1: that you've got and seen what you've done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, even ten years ago, this kind of theory
Speaker 2: about state on state warfare wasn't really considered seriously. It
Speaker 2: was very much a few regional wars happening, and the
Speaker 2: US kind of still a dominant power. But I think
Speaker 2: in the last ten years, what we've witnessed is China
Speaker 2: and Russia saying we want to see at this table
Speaker 2: as well. We want to be equal partners. We don't
Speaker 2: want the international system to the international rules to be
Speaker 2: American rules or the West, and so they have started
Speaker 2: to push back in their fears of influence, which is
Speaker 2: Europe for Russia or Eastern Europe, and then the Pacific
Speaker 2: and Taiwan for China. And I think that America's desperately
Speaker 2: trying to hold together the international war that they created
Speaker 2: after World War.
Speaker 1: Two as almost a sheriff of the but it's.
Speaker 2: Kind of starting to fall apart, and I think I
Speaker 2: don't know where it's headed. But one of my fuse
Speaker 2: is that we could be watching the early stages of
Speaker 2: a global conflict, because we've got these major, major conflicts
Speaker 2: unfolding in Europe, the Middle East, and the potential of
Speaker 2: one in the Pacific. So you're right, it could be.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty full burning time and I have no
Speaker 2: idea where it's headed. I just don't know it. But
Speaker 2: I did hear and this is kind of hot off
Speaker 2: the press. One of the senators in the US I
Speaker 2: remember his name in a minute, but he's a Carolina guy,
Speaker 2: has the ear of the president, and he was saying, Goes,
Speaker 2: my prediction is this peace process is going to fail
Speaker 2: and we're going to have to militarily secure the straight
Speaker 2: up hor moves. That's like, that is a major, major war.
Speaker 1: And we're looking at Iran. They're a big population and
Speaker 1: a big.
Speaker 2: Country in the US in Israel just through almost the kitchen,
Speaker 2: they have a lot of other k hills they didn't use,
Speaker 2: but they used some pretty severe capabilities. They hit eleven
Speaker 2: thousand targets and Iran's doing just fine because I've been
Speaker 2: heard obviously, But yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think, and yeah, just a thought that the
Speaker 1: modern warfare has changed, like when we're looking at the drones,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you see something of what's happening in Iran
Speaker 1: or even Russia. Ukraine missiles to shoot down drones. The
Speaker 1: drone might be worth ten thousand dollars, and missile the
Speaker 1: shoe that down's worth one hundred thousand dollars. So you
Speaker 1: just keep throwing those drones up. It's a different, different world,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: I think that I kept thinking that the drones might
Speaker 2: just be a kind of natural step in warfare, but
Speaker 2: I think it might be a much bigger kind of swing,
Speaker 2: kind of like gunpowder or rifle barrels. It might be
Speaker 2: a major change in warfare. The reason being is because
Speaker 2: they can exist anywhere in a three dimensional space. They
Speaker 2: kind of render armored vehicles, which used to be pretty
Speaker 2: hard to defeed, they're now easy to defeed with these
Speaker 2: cheap drones. The casualties they're inflicting on people, they are
Speaker 2: just unbelievable, So I think it might be. And they're
Speaker 2: a cheap way. They're a cheap way to target people.
Speaker 2: Like what would you rather do hit an oil refinery
Speaker 2: in Geelong with a drone that costs a thousand bucks
Speaker 2: or craft a missile in China that costs ten million
Speaker 2: dollars that you've got to fire across the globe. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's obviously it's going to go this direction.
Speaker 1: And like the technology, and again my observation is it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the country with the biggest army anymore, but
Speaker 1: the most technically advanced might have the advantage. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's that's a concern. And with it, it's not the
Speaker 1: leaders that are sending their people in that. Okay, well
Speaker 1: this is costing lives with what's happening in Russia and
Speaker 1: the Ukraine. You hear how many lives are lost there.
Speaker 1: But we're just sending drones in. It's almost like playing
Speaker 1: a computer game for Yeah, that's where it gets gets scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this and this is what I worry about
Speaker 2: with any sort of operation in Iran with troops on
Speaker 2: the ground, they're going to be heavily targeted byrones and
Speaker 2: they're going to have. The Americans have obviously got capabilities
Speaker 2: to defeat them. But these things don't always work. Just
Speaker 2: things go wrong, you get bad weather or whatever, you
Speaker 2: make mistakes. These drones can get in, they'll they'll kill
Speaker 2: a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Well, well, what's our vivid thing? Oh yeah, drones for
Speaker 1: ol skuy That wasn't we have those that China has
Speaker 1: those military parades and the US has the UFC and
Speaker 1: we've got the vivid how drones fall out of the sky
Speaker 1: Darling Harbor. That wasn't a good good look. Extreme extremists
Speaker 1: and the areas that you've worked, you've seen what extreme
Speaker 1: ideology can look like at the extreme. That sounds ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But in this country, I get the sense that we've
Speaker 1: got the right wing up here, we've got left wing there,
Speaker 1: all the extreme ideologies. We had a counter terrorism expert
Speaker 1: on that I used to work with and he said,
Speaker 1: if the right rises, guarantee we don't just have to
Speaker 1: worry about the right, We're going to worry about the
Speaker 1: left because if one rises, the other rises. I just
Speaker 1: get the sense in society at the moment I'm talking
Speaker 1: Australia that there feels to be a lot of anger.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of protests, there's a lot of extreme views.
Speaker 1: We saw what happened in Bondai and extreme ideology. What's
Speaker 1: your take on it. You've seen the countries where it's
Speaker 1: led the war, you feel of what's going on here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the I think smartphones and social media
Speaker 2: mean that you can be effectively indoctrinated pretty quickly in
Speaker 2: a way that you just couldn't ten or fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: Wasn't really that possible and it wasn't as effective. It's
Speaker 2: like you had to go looking for it, whereas now
Speaker 2: you can get that content fed to you pretty consistently,
Speaker 2: just day to day. So I think that's probably the
Speaker 2: major contributor to why things have diverged so much. It
Speaker 2: has to be a big factor for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, before we had access to social media and the
Speaker 1: mobile phones, if you and I were hanging out in
Speaker 1: the community and you had some extreme views, we'd sort
Speaker 1: of laugh at you and yeah exactly and put you
Speaker 1: down or whatever, or talk you down from that view
Speaker 1: and you'd be left. But now you could have an
Speaker 1: extreme view, and I suppose jump on social media and
Speaker 1: you're going to find someone out there that's going to
Speaker 1: support that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they talk about that echo chamber. Yeah, happening. So
Speaker 2: that's one part. And then you've got all the other
Speaker 2: issues that have come up recently where people lose faith
Speaker 2: in institutions or government, like the lockdowns or things that
Speaker 2: have viewed as not being democratic. And I lived in
Speaker 2: Melbournere and that it was horrible, just bloody shocking. So
Speaker 2: you can see people have less faith in institutions and
Speaker 2: extreme ideology is starting to take hold. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 2: I'm guessing at a policing level, it's a major issue.
Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest concern of policing. And I
Speaker 1: talked to a lot of police here and overseas, and
Speaker 1: we are worried about the ideologies and the extreme mass killers.
Speaker 1: You know, it used to be serial killers that would
Speaker 1: get people's attention. Now the mass killers a concerned and
Speaker 1: that's usually born from an ideology, and that's I know
Speaker 1: in the United States were speaking to one of the
Speaker 1: experts that helped identify serial killers way back in the day,
Speaker 1: and they're now looking at the mass killers as the threat,
Speaker 1: which is so worrying. You know, how to inflict violence
Speaker 1: and if someone's got the will there's a way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if they planned, if they planned a lot
Speaker 2: and there's there's a soft target like it's shopping at
Speaker 2: whatever it is, it is a real concern and that
Speaker 2: fear never really left me. I remember when the Link
Speaker 2: Cafe siege happened and I had that horrible feeling like
Speaker 2: everything we've been doing overseas had come home. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: really it's bad, and it also has a disproportionate effect
Speaker 2: on on psyche, national psyche as well.
Speaker 1: Link Cafe was interesting when that happened. I ended up
Speaker 1: I did the crime scene for Link Cafe, so very
Speaker 1: much involved in it and saw what happened. But I
Speaker 1: think that was it was almost like the nation woke
Speaker 1: up at that stage. And I think because of the location,
Speaker 1: because of yeah, seeing that the flag held up on
Speaker 1: the window, the hostage is a terror, and how it
Speaker 1: all played out, I think it was a wake up
Speaker 1: call for all of us. I think from a policing
Speaker 1: point of view, that probably eind out a few few
Speaker 1: flows in the way that we respond to that that
Speaker 1: type of type of situation. But yeah, that that bought
Speaker 1: us into the world of what can actually happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, modern modern counter terrorism for sure.
Speaker 1: Other things that I wanted to wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: your survivor.
Speaker 2: Survivor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, this is the real, real, this is a
Speaker 1: real Now I've been watching I shouldn't like. No, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I want to say this. On Married
Speaker 1: at First Sight, I got looked on it.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it massive, hilarious.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel better about my life watching that.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of closet NAFS watches out there.
Speaker 1: Just don't you're mad enough to actually come out and
Speaker 1: come out and say that there is and anyone I
Speaker 1: wouldn't watch that, and then they sit down for half
Speaker 1: an hour and then no, I love it. Okay, Survival.
Speaker 1: When you went on Survival?
Speaker 2: What made the way that I remember being in I
Speaker 2: was in New York and I was like, I was
Speaker 2: doing the consoling stuff. I'm like, I don't want to
Speaker 2: I want to do something that's different. I don't know
Speaker 2: what it is. I kind of was just looking out
Speaker 2: for something different. But then I remember a friend of
Speaker 2: mine that I went to business school with in New
Speaker 2: York talking about his friend that had played in the
Speaker 2: Australia Sorry the American Survivor and just talking about how
Speaker 2: awesome it was, and I was like, oh, that'd be
Speaker 2: so much fun. And I went and checked if Australia
Speaker 2: had something similar, and they literally just had the first
Speaker 2: season The Survivor, and I was like, oh, I should
Speaker 2: apply for the second season. Not sure, you know, I
Speaker 2: never applied for a TV show, but I filled out
Speaker 2: the application to apply for it, and then got an
Speaker 2: email from the producers just saying, hey, would you jump
Speaker 2: on a zoom call? And so I did that and
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, this could be good fun. And
Speaker 2: then I had to do an audition for it, and
Speaker 2: then I had to do some more homework on the show.
Speaker 2: Because I've been in the Army, I hadn't really watched it,
Speaker 2: so then started watching it. And then after about six
Speaker 2: weeks of jumping through their hoops, got a call from
Speaker 2: the main kind of director there and they go, hey,
Speaker 2: do you want to join us for the next season.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, okay, but I'm coming from New York,
Speaker 2: like it's a long way, and I had to kind
Speaker 2: of make a little logistics work, but went out and
Speaker 2: just I'd never done anything in TV, didn't know what
Speaker 2: to do, what to make of it, but it just
Speaker 2: ended up being really good fun. I met my then
Speaker 2: wife at the star of that show and went back
Speaker 2: five years later to play again, and then played it
Speaker 2: went back a second time as a fan. I thought
Speaker 2: about what I did first time and just played a
Speaker 2: much harder game and ended up.
Speaker 1: Had a strategy second time.
Speaker 2: I had a bit of luck and a good strategy
Speaker 2: and got to win second time.
Speaker 1: Congratulations. And there was a bit of financial reward there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I made a good prize for sure, So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's good and yeah all worked out well. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you say that you enjoyed the TV
Speaker 1: side of things, because I would imagine the work that
Speaker 1: you've done. It's very say dark, it's intense, intense in
Speaker 1: the in the Army switch on. You obviously have your
Speaker 1: downtimes and you laugh and carry on, but it's intent intense.
Speaker 1: Work I did when I was in the Cops a
Speaker 1: lot of work with the writers for TV series, and
Speaker 1: that not paid gigs, but just they're looking for input.
Speaker 1: And I enjoyed it because it was working with creative
Speaker 1: people and just to me, it nourished my soul from
Speaker 1: the negative side of the place where if you come
Speaker 1: up with an idea, someone's knocking you down this or
Speaker 1: that dark world or intense world, and then just creative
Speaker 1: people and just sitting there with creative people, and I'd
Speaker 1: walk out energize and then go back to a murder
Speaker 1: soon and go fuck yeah, but yeah, I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: got that out of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the same thing. I just remember thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: this is actually really good fun and there are all
Speaker 2: these other fields in life that you can do which
Speaker 2: are amazing, and yeah, I've been the best thing ever.
Speaker 2: And I've even just from doing that and been in
Speaker 2: that world. I've got now beautiful partner who's from that.
Speaker 2: From that world, we got two kids and my first
Speaker 2: kid as well, Harry. So mate, it's been it's been
Speaker 2: a blessing. I'm glad I went down that path because
Speaker 2: it's been a really really fun addition, you know that
Speaker 2: you never knew about if you're in the army or
Speaker 2: proppers or whatever.
Speaker 1: How like doing something like that with the army, like
Speaker 1: it's let's all conform and we.
Speaker 2: All do this.
Speaker 1: Did you have some negative feedbackward people?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did hear about it for sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure even your mates aren't been negative, would have
Speaker 1: put shit on you.
Speaker 2: I gave you heaps of shit and there was it was.
Speaker 2: It was relentless, and I was like, it was too
Speaker 2: late now kind of you know, I've already embarrassed myself
Speaker 2: on national TV. So then I decided to do all
Speaker 2: the other stuff, the book and all that stuff because
Speaker 2: and I'm glad I did, because often times people don't
Speaker 2: want to speak out of turn because they're worried about
Speaker 2: what their old community will think. But most of the time,
Speaker 2: no one's even paying attention anyway. And you know, so
Speaker 2: I'll still hang shure on you, but everyone's happy for you,
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doing the book like your first book, how did
Speaker 1: you feel about doing that? The SAS And I know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of books out with all Special Forces
Speaker 1: guys and books out and reading that you're not giving
Speaker 1: away methodology. It's a personal journey, it's a memoir. It's
Speaker 1: about the impact of the things you have seen and
Speaker 1: seen and done. How did you feel about writing the book?
Speaker 1: Because I ask you that because when I left the Cops,
Speaker 1: it offered for me to write a book, and I
Speaker 1: was never going to write a book, and then I
Speaker 1: thought about it and thought, yeah, I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: my story and I felt like it was cathartic, like
Speaker 1: sitting down. Actually it was actually getting me dealing with
Speaker 1: stuff that i'd been through, processing it seeing the words
Speaker 1: on paper. How did you feel with writing this book?
Speaker 2: Pretty similar? I think I always wanted I felt like
Speaker 2: what we'd been through and what we'd experience, I wanted
Speaker 2: to share it just from a kind of selfish point
Speaker 2: of view, but also I thought it was important that
Speaker 2: everyone kind of knew about what had happened, because even
Speaker 2: I was shocked. I was like, I remember, coming out
Speaker 2: of one battle, how are we ever going to explain
Speaker 2: how that? And I thought the best way would be
Speaker 2: to just make it a story, and I tried not
Speaker 2: to kind of center it just on that experience. I
Speaker 2: tried to make it a life story with a kind
Speaker 2: of a war as part of it. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: kind of why I did. I found it pretty cathartic,
Speaker 2: and I just I knew that I knew I would
Speaker 2: be thankful later that I'd written it, and that my
Speaker 2: kids would be and other people that knew meal parents.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I just thought it was a good experience.
Speaker 1: Did you also find that when you put it all
Speaker 1: on paper, once it's out there, it's out there, Like
Speaker 1: if you're if you're a private person or a bit
Speaker 1: of an introvert, Well, once it's out there, well, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do? Yeah, it's there.
Speaker 2: You can I was like, maybe I shouldn't have done it,
Speaker 2: but then I was like, you know, no one really cares.
Speaker 2: It's and a lot of people are being complimentary. They're like,
Speaker 2: this helped me, you know, with something in my life
Speaker 2: or or whatever. I think that people take a lot
Speaker 2: of a lot of benefit from a life story. If
Speaker 2: you if you're good about it or as honest as
Speaker 2: you can be, I think it's good.
Speaker 1: Well, a humility comes through through the book, and the
Speaker 1: humility in the way that you're showing that you're not
Speaker 1: a superhero because sa s Blake you can say we
Speaker 1: did this, we did that, and you can know where's
Speaker 1: your cape. But you're showing the vulnerabilities, the things that
Speaker 1: you're scared about, where you've made mistakes, lessons that you've learned.
Speaker 1: And I think everyone can take take away something from
Speaker 1: a book like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember thinking and I remember being uncomfortable about
Speaker 2: some of it. I'm like, if you don't if you
Speaker 2: don't talk about some of these things that you did
Speaker 2: badly or you're embarrassed about, you're going to be very unrelatable,
Speaker 2: I think as a as a character. But thinking that so,
Speaker 2: I'm like, probably have to talk about all the stuff
Speaker 2: I'm annoyed about that I wish i'd rather forget. But
Speaker 2: they're the things people talked about, like, Oh, I love
Speaker 2: that part because you know you're expecting a super soldier
Speaker 2: but you just another bloke from something else.
Speaker 1: Makes it makes it relatable, like yeah, you're nervous before
Speaker 1: you're doing this, or you're nervous, Like, okay, i'd be
Speaker 1: nervous too. This bloke saying he's nervous, so it must
Speaker 1: be a like it's so yeah, a good road. You
Speaker 1: also had a go at fiction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fiction. I did that. I had this idea
Speaker 2: I've done that one, and I was like, I'd like
Speaker 2: to do fiction. I had an idea that I kind
Speaker 2: of formed during COVID. I was like, this could be
Speaker 2: a good story if I talk about it. I guess
Speaker 2: an insurgency in Victoria in a fictional scenario.
Speaker 1: So I've worked on that.
Speaker 2: I found it it's actually much harder than nonfiction because
Speaker 2: you're having to create that world out of thin air
Speaker 2: and a lot of a lot of cases. But I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it. Took a while to get it down
Speaker 2: and get it ritten and release that with the same publisher,
Speaker 2: Pam McMillan, and loved it. I've still got people asking
Speaker 2: for a follow up, so we'll see.
Speaker 1: What's the name of the book. That's right, and I've
Speaker 1: got it on the audio I'm going to I'm walking.
Speaker 1: But yeah, writing fiction, I've only I've written one chapter
Speaker 1: of fiction on the back of After the first book,
Speaker 1: there was an idea that they had of different authors
Speaker 1: writing different chapters in the book. Start off with a
Speaker 1: murder scene, and you've got to follow You've got a
Speaker 1: week the week after the other person has written the chapter,
Speaker 1: you've got to follow on from the chapter. It was
Speaker 1: hard to start with because I'm sitting there thinking like
Speaker 1: a homicide detective, going okay, well, I've got to do this,
Speaker 1: got to do that been really structured, and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is fiction. I can take it wherever I want.
Speaker 1: But I'm amazed at the fiction writers that can just
Speaker 1: churn out one book after another, Like where do they
Speaker 1: get where do they get the It's got to be
Speaker 1: ideas because I found it hard. You'd have to think
Speaker 1: about a scene, and I know, average scenes about two
Speaker 1: thousand words. I'll be like, Okay, I think I know
Speaker 1: how this scene is going to go. And I try
Speaker 1: and do half a scene in one day and the
Speaker 1: other half the second day, and then I try and
Speaker 1: edit a bit. But it's just I found it really
Speaker 1: hard to build that world and have good characters with
Speaker 1: good dialogue believable when none of it's really happened in theory.
Speaker 2: I don't know how they do it. To give me
Speaker 2: another level of respect skill?
Speaker 1: Do you think with the writing that you would have
Speaker 1: done as an officer in the army is very direct
Speaker 1: and very structured and each word has a purpose.
Speaker 2: Oh it's horrible, right, So you.
Speaker 1: Came from that to then trying to write something that entertained.
Speaker 1: We're in the news court building. I started writing here
Speaker 1: after coming after doing fact sheets for thirty years, and
Speaker 1: the first couple of articles just lighten up, a little
Speaker 1: bit fun with had a bit of color. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: type of thing. Okay, So advice now your book that's
Speaker 1: out now or just coming out and mission mission ready, resilience, leadership,
Speaker 1: elite performance. You can see by the posted Nations. I
Speaker 1: picked up a lot of stuff in there. What are
Speaker 1: the key takeaway points from that book? I read it
Speaker 1: cover to cover. I enjoyed it, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of really interesting things that came out of about it,
Speaker 1: about focusing on the mission, about not over complicating things.
Speaker 1: What's the takeaways?
Speaker 2: So I donote speaking where people have a they've got
Speaker 2: a curiosity about how Special Forces unit works. Everyone's kind
Speaker 2: of might have seen in the movies what happens or
Speaker 2: but people are genuinely curious about how you either do
Speaker 2: tim building or how you rehearse for a mission, or
Speaker 2: how you plan one how you might operate when things
Speaker 2: go wrong, and they're all the more I encountered those
Speaker 2: questions and I was like, actually, there is some there
Speaker 2: are some kind of nuggets around how the units organize themselves.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't kind of translate it into the right
Speaker 2: speak for people to kind of understand and apply themselves.
Speaker 2: So I, after thinking about for a few years, I
Speaker 2: kind of came up with what I think of the
Speaker 2: right concepts and put it in that book. But it
Speaker 2: centers around that stuff you dis mentioned, which is just
Speaker 2: the mindsets around planning and just concentrating on the basics,
Speaker 2: which the Special Ops teams were great at, keeping things simple,
Speaker 2: focusing on things understanding concepts like Parrito's law, which is
Speaker 2: the uneven application of effort and results, like how to
Speaker 2: compress timelines and have a kind of more aggressive bias
Speaker 2: to action and how that helps and how we used
Speaker 2: it in Special Ops. And then I just try and
Speaker 2: overlay that with the same habits I saw in the
Speaker 2: top consulting teams, all the top business teams that I've
Speaker 2: read about. I'm like, well, I saw those in both units,
Speaker 2: so they must be useful. So I put it all
Speaker 2: in that book. And yes, so somemary of those tips.
Speaker 1: Skills and the stuff that you took away from working
Speaker 1: at the elite level in the military and Special forces
Speaker 1: what came across in the book too. It's very transferable
Speaker 1: to the business. And there's also and you weren't sitting
Speaker 1: there up on a pedestal that you thought you probably
Speaker 1: were a Special Forces there's some business people that got
Speaker 1: really sharp minds on the way to get a business
Speaker 1: kicking a long yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were complete weapons. And I was I didn't
Speaker 2: realize how many blind spots we had when we came
Speaker 2: out of the military. There were business leaders that were
Speaker 2: much better organized and more disciplined in some of their thinking.
Speaker 2: And that's what I've tried to capture it. Even just
Speaker 2: the way you test a plan and after you've executed,
Speaker 2: how you capture the lessons and just keep improving on it.
Speaker 2: There's just a process you can use, and I think
Speaker 2: any organization benefits from it.
Speaker 1: And I like, you have the post assessment of an operation,
Speaker 1: but the pre for and let's look at all the
Speaker 1: things that can go wrong before it goes wrong, and
Speaker 1: you use you use a couple of business examples and
Speaker 1: also military examples about okay, let's get everyone in the
Speaker 1: room and let's test what if this goes wrong, what
Speaker 1: are the contingencies? And how do we act on that
Speaker 1: sort of preparation beforehand. But there was a lot of
Speaker 1: takeaways from it. The other thing I found interesting about
Speaker 1: the ethical the culture of an organization. And there was
Speaker 1: one example I just can't think of it off the
Speaker 1: top of my head where it was a Volkswagen and
Speaker 1: the yeah, tell us tell us much.
Speaker 2: The long story short Volkswagen had was trying to enter
Speaker 2: the US market. To do it, they weren't able to
Speaker 2: do it because their emissions were at the right level.
Speaker 2: So instead of actually fixing the emissions the hard way
Speaker 2: in their vehicles, they chose a shortcut where they were
Speaker 2: just entering software and that would basically cheat the emissions tests.
Speaker 2: So they weren't actually changing their emissions and doing the
Speaker 2: right thing. They were kind of cheating. They've actually got
Speaker 2: found out and they basically just instead of spending five
Speaker 2: billion converting the engines, they lost thirty billion, and you know,
Speaker 2: everyone got put in jail. So just like if you
Speaker 2: just made the right choice at the start, this would
Speaker 2: have been a lot easier, you know.
Speaker 1: So, and you use a lot of studies about keeping
Speaker 1: an ethical culture and it might be the short term game,
Speaker 1: but the long term you will benefit from it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also everyone's kind of watching how the leaders
Speaker 2: behave to take all their cues off that. So as
Speaker 2: a leader, you've got you've got to kind of set
Speaker 2: this right standard and you can't kind of say one
Speaker 2: thing and do the other. Then the organization will follow you.
Speaker 1: The leadership aspect in there too, very much in what
Speaker 1: I've observed in the police of the good leaders how
Speaker 1: it's very inclusive. Homicide, we have briefings, and the first
Speaker 1: time I went into a homicide briefing, I'm the young
Speaker 1: kid sitting in the back of the room thinking I've
Speaker 1: got no right to even speaking. Yeah, and then the
Speaker 1: person conducting the briefings going, yeah, Gary, what do you think?
Speaker 1: And I thought, Wow, Yeah, I didn't think anything to speak,
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything. We'd better find the killer. But
Speaker 1: that sort of inclusiveness, and I tried to learn from
Speaker 1: good leaders that I work with, and the ones that
Speaker 1: I did work with had that inclusive type of approach
Speaker 1: to the leadership that everyone's part of a team. And
Speaker 1: I know on a homicide investigation when the pressure is on,
Speaker 1: if everyone feels like they understand what their role is
Speaker 1: and they're all contributing, you can get much more work
Speaker 1: out of that. Applied to business and military.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think there's always that kind of stereotype
Speaker 2: of a leader which people have, which is often it's
Speaker 2: often a really flawed view of how I think I
Speaker 2: think a good leader operates. I think a good leader
Speaker 2: is often pretty studious and quiet, but very focused on
Speaker 2: the job, and they, like you're saying, they bring everyone
Speaker 2: with them, make everyone feel like they're contributing. And it's
Speaker 2: often not flashy or showy, but it's far more effective.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, there was an example in the book about
Speaker 1: the touch Shop lady. But oh yeah, yeah, And I was.
Speaker 2: Telling her the other day. I was like, man, I've
Speaker 2: got you in my book. Are you doing a great job?
Speaker 1: I thought I'm going to be reading about yea, all
Speaker 1: these Yeah, this operation was unbelievable. Leadership and all that,
Speaker 1: and the touch Shop Lady.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of sandwiches that day, but it
Speaker 2: was and the pressure.
Speaker 1: Was on how you cut the salad. But the way
Speaker 1: that that was told, and I could see exactly what
Speaker 1: you meant by that, that was that was inclusive. You
Speaker 1: know what music do you want to play? Enjoy yourself.
Speaker 1: Let's all work as a team. If if you're falling
Speaker 1: behind or you don't know how to cut the salad,
Speaker 1: she shows you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's she's dealing with volunteers. She kind of
Speaker 2: knows how to. Yeah, she can't tell people what to
Speaker 2: She's just got to bring them all with you.
Speaker 1: And that's a good point too, if they're there because
Speaker 1: they want to be there, and then the leadership flows
Speaker 1: from that.
Speaker 2: I heard there there was some there was one of
Speaker 2: the business leaders. I think in McKinsey said that he goes,
Speaker 2: you know, you have to understand everyone here is a
Speaker 2: professional voleunce here. Yeah, they're choosing to be here, right,
Speaker 2: you know, they've chose in this company like you have
Speaker 2: to treat them with that respect and respect that they're
Speaker 2: treatm like adults and take everyone with you.
Speaker 1: That's leadership. About team teams, what's your view on teams
Speaker 1: or something that you picked up on teams?
Speaker 2: I think the big one is that I think the
Speaker 2: ESAs had kind of figured this out through and a
Speaker 2: lot of militaries have, is that the team size. Beyond
Speaker 2: a certain size, you lose accountability in people. So you've
Speaker 2: got to keep them quite compact for them to be
Speaker 2: high performing. The study done by Google into effective Teams,
Speaker 2: I thought was really interesting, which lists five key attributes
Speaker 2: for top teams, and they're not kind of what you
Speaker 2: would think necessarily. The top one is psychological safety, so
Speaker 2: everyone feeling like that can take a risk and that
Speaker 2: can be punished for it. And then the points you
Speaker 2: made about everyone delivering impact, everyone knowing what their role is,
Speaker 2: and the leader just kind of keeping everyone heading towards
Speaker 2: that mission because so easy you get distracted by all
Speaker 2: the other garbage that is in the workplace. I think
Speaker 2: the best leaders were just good men and women that
Speaker 2: you wanted to work for and just had a clear
Speaker 2: understanding of what to do.
Speaker 1: I think, because I might come as a surprise, but
Speaker 1: I think it's just a thing that happens in the
Speaker 1: police and that happens in the army. You argue with
Speaker 1: leaders above, but that's identified I think in the book
Speaker 1: that you need that have to. You've got to argue up.
Speaker 1: I always said, you know, when I'm a sergeant, well,
Speaker 1: I should be arguing with the inspector if I don't agree.
Speaker 1: And when I was an inspector, I should be arguing
Speaker 1: with the superintendent. That got that worked real well for me.
Speaker 1: I still maintain that is that is the way to go.
Speaker 2: But in a good organization, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: To question and because that stops that group think and
Speaker 1: that that came out there's a couple of examples in
Speaker 1: the book there that it stops that group think by
Speaker 1: people making it comfortable to speak up if you don't
Speaker 1: agree with something like I.
Speaker 2: Talked about how we didn't do it well in Afghanistan. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so at the tactical level. Were pretty good at that,
Speaker 2: but I think when it came to the bigger beast
Speaker 2: of strategy, maybe you know, you need to challenge that.
Speaker 1: All The other thing I found interesting was the size
Speaker 1: of the meetings, like not having too many people in
Speaker 1: the meetings and working in the public service. And that's
Speaker 1: what the cops are shockers for it. Some of them
Speaker 1: meetings just go kill me, now, like what is happening here?
Speaker 1: No one's really invested in it, No one's someone's up
Speaker 1: there and they've got for their next job application the
Speaker 1: description I held a meeting with twenty people or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I like that that mentality. Where's that born out from?
Speaker 2: So that came from That was very much McKinsey and company.
Speaker 2: So they were utterly ruthless about the use of time.
Speaker 2: Their focus was all on speed. They were all like,
Speaker 2: we need to bring this, We need to introduce these mechanisms,
Speaker 2: whether it's cost savings or a revenue task, whatever it was,
Speaker 2: it needs to be introduced immediately. Because if it's a
Speaker 2: million dollar task over every year, every month you're lay
Speaker 2: it's worth eighty thousand dollars. So they're like, when you
Speaker 2: organize a meeting, you better have the right people there.
Speaker 2: If you don't have a very clear problem solving statement
Speaker 2: for it and a very clear output, will tell you
Speaker 2: once and if you do it again, you'll be sacked.
Speaker 2: Right Okay, So they were like, and you better better
Speaker 2: stick to that schedule precisely. There will be no meandering.
Speaker 2: Everyone's going to contribute and we're going to solve that
Speaker 2: problem and there will be deliverable at the end and
Speaker 2: that's it and anyone who's not required to be there
Speaker 2: won't be there. Well, yeah, they were ruthless with it,
Speaker 2: and it taught me that you do have to be
Speaker 2: really aggressive with time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well a time, we waste time.
Speaker 2: And I've seen companies. We go to companies where they
Speaker 2: just had back to back meetings and it's just a
Speaker 2: it's a cover for being We.
Speaker 1: Had stacks in there. About the average executs how many
Speaker 1: times hours a week they're in the meeting that it's
Speaker 1: just it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: My partner's a corporate lawyer form of corporate and she
Speaker 2: would get pulled into meetings just for people to ask
Speaker 2: cover themselves to have the lawyer in there. She's like,
Speaker 2: I don't need to be here. So she'd often walk
Speaker 2: out of these meetings, so she agrees.
Speaker 1: With me, Well, I've enjoyed our chat. What's what's the
Speaker 1: future hold for you, mate?
Speaker 2: We well, we've got four months ors, so we're just
Speaker 2: we're looking yeah, yeah, not not getting much of my
Speaker 2: doing much my own advice at the moment with self care,
Speaker 2: but we're just concentrating on that. I've obviously got the
Speaker 2: book coming out of this month, and I've built an
Speaker 2: online course for it as well, so it kind of
Speaker 2: links to that at the end, which has been a
Speaker 2: bit of a process too, So we're just going to
Speaker 2: be working on that pretty much this year. And and yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe look at moving to the Central Coast as well.
Speaker 1: I'll speak to you off off. Yeah, but look, I've
Speaker 1: really enjoyed how vigor and congratulations on what you're achieving now,
Speaker 1: but also thank you for your service. And I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I speak on behalf of most people in the country.
Speaker 1: We know the sacrifices you guys may and yeah, sadly
Speaker 1: sometimes it gets lost in the woods with what's happening
Speaker 1: with the media, but you guys are really out there
Speaker 1: and put it all on the line for us. So
Speaker 1: thanks for your sacrifices. To the country.
Speaker 2: Thanks mate, and congrats to you for the for the
Speaker 2: podcast and bringing I guess such a very bunch of people.
Speaker 2: I was impressed to see that the variety of people
Speaker 2: you got that you might not hear from in society otherwise,
Speaker 2: people from all parts of the of the country.
Speaker 1: So it's worked out well. It's a good platform interesting.
Speaker 2: People, and it's turned out well.
Speaker 1: On the end, I'll show them all right, Thanks Mars,
Speaker 1: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Y