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Speaker 1: Anthony Moffatt or Harry as you've been known as Welcer

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Speaker 1: to Straight Talk mate.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Mark. Yeah, so pleasure to be here. So I.

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Speaker 1: Like, I always want to know how someone's name goes

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Speaker 1: from Anthony to Harry and your name, of course it Moffatt,

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Speaker 1: But like, tell me how that occurred? How did you

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Speaker 1: get that nickname?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Harry came from an old Rodney Rude character.

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Speaker 2: Harry Muff was his name, and a lot of people

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Speaker 2: called me mof so it was Harry moff in the end,

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Speaker 2: and I don't think there was much of a likeness.

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Speaker 2: Wasn't that funny?

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Speaker 1: But who named you?

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Speaker 2: Bloke by the name of Ken Studeley on our essays

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Speaker 2: selection course he made up a poem and a rhyme

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Speaker 2: about everyone. He's one of the funniest guys who you'll meet.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, he was one that gave me the night

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Speaker 2: the name in the part and stuck. It stuck. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Well you resist these names and they stick hard.

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Speaker 1: I don't they totally. So that would have been in

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Speaker 1: like the eighties, nineteen ninety ninety nine. Yeah, yeah, because

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Speaker 1: I remember Rodney was he had a Radis show on

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Speaker 1: TV show. I also remember Kerry closing his TV one

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Speaker 1: of his programs now actually mid program because carriage isn't

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Speaker 1: like the way he went on. But he was a

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Speaker 1: funny barsad I remember him. And so you're in the

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Speaker 1: mid nineties. You were let's call it trying out whatever

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Speaker 1: the word is for essays.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, attempting essays selection, and it hasn't changed a great

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Speaker 2: deal as anywhere between five hundred and one thousand applicants,

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Speaker 2: they pick one hundred and fifty odd and you go

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Speaker 2: to Perth and out of that we generally get twenty.

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Speaker 2: I still return to the unit today to mentor the

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Speaker 2: new charges coming through, and the numbers haven't changed over time,

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Speaker 2: which is good.

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Speaker 1: So let's say that's in the nineties. He obviously weren't

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Speaker 1: born in nineteen eighty because you would have been too

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Speaker 1: young to be doing this. Were you in the military.

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Speaker 1: What's that process? Joining the military then trying for essas?

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Speaker 1: Were just decided one day at midday I saw the

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Speaker 1: SAS TV shows series on Channel seven or Channel nine

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Speaker 1: where it is, and I decided want to become an

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Speaker 1: essays soldier. I mean, how does that work? I mean

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Speaker 1: you become how do you become? Well, how do you

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Speaker 1: get the instinct and the ambition to join the ESAs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a spark for me. I was going

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Speaker 2: to be running out of full Ford for Hawthorne football

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Speaker 2: team up until I was twelve years old. That was

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Speaker 2: my dream, or open the opening the batting for Australia.

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Speaker 2: But I saw the images you may remember Princess Gate,

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Speaker 2: the Iranian embassy siege in the UK and nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: and that flickered across a grainy black and white television

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Speaker 2: set and it just captured my imagination. And I read

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Speaker 2: a bit in those days. I was reading from an

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Speaker 2: early age, and I started reading some books about counter

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Speaker 2: terrorism and anti terrorism. These are that was the golden

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Speaker 2: era in the eighties, you know, the aircraft hijackings and

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Speaker 2: et cetera. So it was in the geist, if you like.

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Speaker 2: It was in the background, and I just thought, whatever

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Speaker 2: they're doing looks awesome and sexy, and they're all dressed

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Speaker 2: in black. And the more I dug, the more I

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Speaker 2: was intrigued and the more I wanted to do it.

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Speaker 2: So I joined that the Army in nineteen eighty six

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Speaker 2: as a regular and when the SAS circus came to

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Speaker 2: town and beat the drums. I signed up and went

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Speaker 2: through started a selection process, pre selection into that one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty proper selection, and then you go into

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Speaker 2: a eighteen month odd reinforcement cycle, which is still part

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Speaker 2: of the selection. So it's probably all in a two

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Speaker 2: year process once you're in the system.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind just talking about it because I've always

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Speaker 1: been fascinated with the process of being selected. And I

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Speaker 1: guess you're also self selecting too, because correct you might

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Speaker 1: decide I'm going to drop that as well. It's not

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Speaker 1: just somebody saying you're the dude. You might say I'm

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Speaker 1: not the dude. I want to go back to that

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Speaker 1: in a second.

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Speaker 2: But self selection is a really important part to grew insight.

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Speaker 1: I can imagine because it happens in business too, and

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Speaker 1: people think they're going to be an entrepreneur, but ultimately

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Speaker 1: you self select yourself and or the market will tell

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Speaker 1: you whether you can do it or not. But some

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Speaker 1: people fail to self select out when they should, when

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Speaker 1: they should be getting out. And it's not there's nothing

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Speaker 1: wrong with selecting to get out of these things. Self

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Speaker 1: selecting out, that's just what your instincts telling you. After

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Speaker 1: you've gone through the process. It's not instinct. With our process.

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Speaker 1: Process informs your instinct at the end of the day.

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Speaker 1: But we'll come back to that in a second. Because

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Speaker 1: it seems like you have a view on it, a

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Speaker 1: strong view on it. But you were a like use,

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Speaker 1: I think you said, regular soldier, Yeah, what does that mean?

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Speaker 2: So you just join the ADF you going to any

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Speaker 2: number of cores infantry. I went into signals core. You

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Speaker 2: can be in catering, transport, artillery. And so the regular

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Speaker 2: I suppose process is the military picks you and where

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Speaker 2: you go, whereas the self selection part of the SAS

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Speaker 2: is entirely voluntary and you hand yourself over to them completely.

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Speaker 2: You don't really have much in the way of hands

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Speaker 2: on your own destiny, whereas in the regular army you

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Speaker 2: pick a call, you get put in, and then you

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Speaker 2: start a career, regular career.

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Speaker 1: In that way, it's pretty full on. If you go

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Speaker 1: back forty years, which we are to be, for a

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Speaker 1: young man to be reading articles about or reading articles

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Speaker 1: about war and what's going on in the various territories

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Speaker 1: war territories, it's pretty out there, pretty unusual. I would

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Speaker 1: have thought back then, for because I don't know anybody.

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Speaker 1: I had one mate, Andy Nolan. He became an SS guy.

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Speaker 1: But that's the only person I know, And I don't

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Speaker 1: even know how he became one. But he's just weird

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Speaker 1: shit though. I can to you, Like when it used

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Speaker 1: to rain really heavy down in rose Bay, he used

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Speaker 1: to get into the after after having he's also an architect,

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Speaker 1: but after having left the sas, he used to get

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Speaker 1: in a like a one man canoe and get into

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Speaker 1: the canals when the heavy rain was just to test himself,

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Speaker 1: is that right? And go through weird tunnels you think,

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Speaker 1: And like he was the most unassuming person in the

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Speaker 1: world that you would never think he was a morement architect,

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Speaker 1: but he went through the whole process. Yeah, a massive

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Speaker 1: risk taker. And just every now and then when it's

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Speaker 1: a heavy rain. You know, I did see him this

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Speaker 1: is this is back in the eighties. He say, I've

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Speaker 1: just been going down the canals and lunatic. What's wrong

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Speaker 1: with you?

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Speaker 2: Like what.

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Speaker 1: Is wide sort of like effectively rapids because it's filling

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Speaker 1: it with water down rose By and end up out

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Speaker 1: in the harbor somehow. But it's I don't know anyone

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Speaker 1: who thinks this way. Other than him, and now I'm

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Speaker 1: meeting somebody else. What is it that makes you a

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Speaker 1: or having such an inquiring mind that you start rooting

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Speaker 1: me this sort of stuff and then makes you when

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Speaker 1: you mentioned the circus comes to down, you know, the

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Speaker 1: sas recruitment comes to town. What was it that made

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Speaker 1: you feel as though, yeah, this is for me, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to have a crack at this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've thought about this, and we've studied this in

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Speaker 2: fact in the unit. But I resolve my thinking to

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Speaker 2: it's an internal competitiveness, as an internal drive, which you

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Speaker 2: would be very familiar with. It happens in the business

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Speaker 2: what I see it in the business world in sports,

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Speaker 2: and I think when the essays in particular, it's it's

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Speaker 2: the opportunity to test yourself to see if you have

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Speaker 2: what it takes. And you're not impressing anyone at that

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Speaker 2: stage because no one really knows about it. It's very

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Speaker 2: done in house, very much. But it's that just that

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Speaker 2: drive to see you do I have what it takes?

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Speaker 2: You know? And the more you read you go you

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Speaker 2: think you question yourself, you know, is this would I

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Speaker 2: would this suit me? And that kind of in a

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Speaker 2: way attracts you even more some of the common characteristics

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Speaker 2: that I've observed over time, high tolerance to ambiguity, and

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Speaker 2: an appetite for risk taking. But it's generally quite measured.

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Speaker 2: They kept within the informed risk informed, and also a

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Speaker 2: competence level of risk within your own competence. You have

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Speaker 2: a good sound understanding of the scope and limit of

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Speaker 2: your scope and limitations.

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Speaker 1: So it's not much as so are you saying though

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Speaker 1: it's not reckless.

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Speaker 2: I would say that, although.

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Speaker 1: In other words, it's not like And that's actually quite

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Speaker 1: an interesting point because I noticed in the briefing that

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Speaker 1: I got that, you know, a lot of the stuff

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Speaker 1: you talk about your book is the Fourth Pillar, your

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Speaker 1: most recent book, the Fourth Pillar. But one of the

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Speaker 1: things I noticed in the description of the book is

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Speaker 1: modern Stoicism. So you know, what's interesting to me anyway,

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Speaker 1: is that you just mentioned the word reckless. And we'll

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Speaker 1: come back to that. And one of the headings of

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Speaker 1: your book is Stoicism. And the Stoicism, of course, is

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Speaker 1: a you know, thousands of year old virtue, you know,

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Speaker 1: like going right back to the Stoics, and Aristotle talked

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Speaker 1: about stoicism, but you talked about recklessness and then there's

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Speaker 1: a an Aristotle himself talked about the difference between courage

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Speaker 1: and recklessness is somewhere in between the two, the gold,

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Speaker 1: the gold what he called gold mean, it's not in

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Speaker 1: the middle, it's somewhere else. And for each individual it's

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Speaker 1: different for everybody else. Someone might be closer to recklessness,

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Speaker 1: and someone might be closest closer to courage. But it's

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Speaker 1: definitely not recklessness. In other words, it's not and fearless

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Speaker 1: is different to courage. And do they in the when

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Speaker 1: you're training for the sas, do they go through this

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Speaker 1: virtue type deal to start talking to you about these

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Speaker 1: old school things that our old school I don't mean

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Speaker 1: that in a disrespectful way, but old school virtues. Do

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Speaker 1: you talk about these things stoicism, recklessness, courage, blah blah blah.

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Speaker 2: We do now and back then it really was a

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Speaker 2: matter of survival. And so if you were tough enough

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Speaker 2: to wait it out, to run it out, to just

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Speaker 2: persist and in a very pure stoic fashion, you know,

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Speaker 2: just to be able to persist and put up with it.

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Speaker 2: Stand your ground, stand your ground, don't complain. In fact,

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Speaker 2: no one's listening anyway. It's a nail feedback environment, which

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Speaker 2: is very, very harsh, and that's what makes something like

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Speaker 2: tolerance to ambiguity very such a valuable measuring or measure

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Speaker 2: of someone who's suitable.

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Speaker 1: For virtue words tolerance.

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Speaker 2: Yeah and so, yeah, and you do you need to survive.

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Speaker 2: But these days I actually go back and teach applied

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Speaker 2: ethics to our junior operators, not only for the moral

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Speaker 2: challenges that they will face in their careers, you know, physical, mental,

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Speaker 2: and moral in service. But back in those days, it

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Speaker 2: was how how how hard you could go for how long,

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Speaker 2: and what you could tolerate and put up with. So

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Speaker 2: there's there's two kind of sides to that coin. My

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Speaker 2: generation is the pure stoic, just put up with it

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Speaker 2: and keep persisting. These days we have a more virtue

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Speaker 2: approach to it, because we realize now that servicing this

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Speaker 2: this kind of these kinds of units has a moral

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Speaker 2: toll as well, and that gets mixed up with the

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Speaker 2: mental health toll that it takes on people, or.

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Speaker 1: With the final outcome, you know, like because you know,

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Speaker 1: you don't want people being all these things and then

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Speaker 1: walk out and their and their careers finished, and all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden there are a wreck.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but inside that's correct exactly. And I'm as a

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Speaker 2: psychologist now, I spend a fair bit of time in that.

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Speaker 2: But I guess at the start of an sas soldier's journey,

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Speaker 2: what we want is to give some guidance around what

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Speaker 2: is reckless and what is controlled and informed. And I

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Speaker 2: think we always want to select people who are probably

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Speaker 2: going to lean towards the reckless part because some of

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Speaker 2: the nature of the work is such that it's high risk,

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Speaker 2: high consequence, catastrophic consequences not only for ourselves but for

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Speaker 2: the people around us. So we need people to be

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Speaker 2: willing to step into that space without question, without being afraid,

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Speaker 2: a feared, or or without hesitation in most cases. So

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Speaker 2: we want people who are probably that side of it.

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Speaker 2: But I think the golden mean of Aristotle, if you will,

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Speaker 2: it's a navigable space. What we also want is people

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Speaker 2: to come back to a normal setting, a civilian setting,

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Speaker 2: and readjust those parameters as well, And that takes a

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Speaker 2: certain kind of person. We don't always get right, but

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Speaker 2: I think we're pretty bloody good at it.

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Speaker 1: So recently Donald Trump announced and Peter X announced that

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Speaker 1: they're going to change their Department of defense to the

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Speaker 1: Department of War and got all sorts of reactions around

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Speaker 1: the world. And initially I thought to myself that might

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Speaker 1: be good for recruitment, because recruitment is a big deal.

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Speaker 1: For we don't have national service, and so recruitment is

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Speaker 1: really a big deal important to have recruits. It's not

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Speaker 1: saying you the whole country to join the army or

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Speaker 1: whatever it is, whatever the military is, but you definitely

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Speaker 1: want you've got to recruit and or retain as well.

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Speaker 1: And maybe that has a bit of marketing appeal to it.

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Speaker 1: But how does that fit into the narrative in a

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Speaker 1: modern day, modern day in terms of the types of

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Speaker 1: people might attract.

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Speaker 2: Do you think, yeah, I think it's it can be

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Speaker 2: a concern, and particularly in a nation like America where

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Speaker 2: they're in a marshall footing your martial kind of culture.

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Speaker 2: Australia not so much. I'm not sure it would fly

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Speaker 2: well here. I get I get the idea we want

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Speaker 2: to be proactive, I guess, and maybe at war rather

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Speaker 2: than being defensive and on the back foot. And I

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Speaker 2: heard a bit more and I think I've punched out

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Speaker 2: a semi poem or something like that to Romance Donald

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Speaker 2: but I don't know that it would make a marked

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Speaker 2: difference on recruiting. That would be have to play out.

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Speaker 2: I think what's important to state is during times of peace,

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Speaker 2: recruiting naturally goes down. You know, the boys that turn

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Speaker 2: out to want to go on the adventures and go

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Speaker 2: to war seem to spike when that's imminent or in

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Speaker 2: the in the news. I've had a few people say

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Speaker 2: or ask me the question. You know it means Australian

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Speaker 2: Defense Force in trouble and recruitings down and all the

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Speaker 2: rest of But I'd say, look, you know, it's never

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Speaker 2: as bad as it seems, never as good as it seems,

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Speaker 2: and we probably need a more moderate conversation about it.

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Speaker 2: But it's a lot of money to sustain a standing

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Speaker 2: army that's not doing anything and not going anywhere. And

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Speaker 2: if the example I give is at the end of

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Speaker 2: World War One, a lot of the old guys were

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Speaker 2: saying because a lot of men we died in World

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Speaker 2: War One, and they were having a shot at the

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Speaker 2: next generation coming through, saying they're all soft and weak,

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Speaker 2: and you know they need to be trained up, and

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Speaker 2: things like scouts and outward bound and you know these

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Speaker 2: will will forced and all of these other things were

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Speaker 2: invented to make to toughen up the next generation. And

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Speaker 2: when the sixteen and eighteen year olds went off to

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Speaker 2: Kokoda Track, they did a pretty bloody good job. And

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Speaker 2: the young charges I see come into contact with regularly.

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Speaker 2: I think Australia's in good stead. I don't think we

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Speaker 2: should panic. If we do need to raise an army,

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Speaker 2: we'll do so. Capability is still strong. This is the

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Speaker 2: time to spend a bit of money on the on

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Speaker 2: the hardware. And I think hardware being tech, yeah, tech

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Speaker 2: and hardware and some decent chips and things like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: But I think Australia, I think we should just calm

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Speaker 2: the farm a little bit. On that. I think Australian

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Speaker 2: the essence of the Australian soldiers still here and will

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Speaker 2: serve our country well come the time.

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Speaker 1: So do you think that essence that you're talking about

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Speaker 1: cuts across Australian Australian values? Do you think? Because is

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Speaker 1: that essence and Australian value. And given our immigration and

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Speaker 1: our change in the sort of the makeup of our nation,

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Speaker 1: and it's rapidly changing, probably faster now than has ever done.

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Speaker 1: As past in terms of cultural changes, sense of nationalism,

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Speaker 1: perhaps religious relationships, like at one stage pretty much a

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Speaker 1: Christian nation. These days we're much more mixed. Then there's

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Speaker 1: conflict overseas relative to some of the some of the

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Speaker 1: religions relative to other religions, and that's pretty obviously we'll

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Speaker 1: be talking about who might be talking about we're thinking

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Speaker 1: about at the moment. Do you think these things will

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Speaker 1: ultimately create a bit of a chasm in our armed

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Speaker 1: forces military?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, potentially. I think there's parts of the military which

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Speaker 2: have been maybe distracted by what's going out on going

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Speaker 2: on out in society. So I give that. But to

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Speaker 2: feel and have a strong standing Australian Army, we need

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Speaker 2: about one hundred thousand people and I think there's well

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Speaker 2: inside that many to service our military. And we'll always

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Speaker 2: remember we're a small nation. Our GDP and defense is tiny.

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Speaker 2: It's probably the budget of the first Marine Division and

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Speaker 2: we're now one of Americas if not biggest aircraft carrier

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Speaker 2: and the Marines increasing in numbers. So I think again

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Speaker 2: there are challenges, there's no doubt mark from a broader

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Speaker 2: society perspective, but I think I would like to see

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Speaker 2: the kind of margins and the fringes. Discussions that I

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Speaker 2: see in the veteran community go on just kind of

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Speaker 2: keep our power to dry. I think we should take

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Speaker 2: comfort that we will still be able to raise a

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Speaker 2: strong army that's that will do its job.

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Speaker 1: So do we need I mean, there's probably more war

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Speaker 1: strategy question. And you know, I don't know if I'm

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Speaker 1: oversetting the marqu here, but because you're you're on the

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Speaker 1: ground guy. You're the guy who goes and does stuff

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Speaker 1: like it's more tactical than you undertake a strategy outcome,

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Speaker 1: but you're going to have to make changes.

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Speaker 2: This is a strategic tool, a strategy.

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Speaker 1: Go in there, but you've got to make changes. This

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Speaker 1: didn't more get the way we wanted to work, and

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Speaker 1: we've got to do this tactically and then make some

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Speaker 1: quick change, a quick thinking. And as a group, do

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Speaker 1: you think that we need as many regular soldiers, regular

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Speaker 1: military people as we have done in the past, Given

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Speaker 1: I'm not too sa I'm not talking about specialized people.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about regular guys and girls. Do you think

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Speaker 1: we need as many these days? Given what's going on,

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Speaker 1: giving the giving, given what we see in Ukraine, what

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Speaker 1: we're seeing in various other places what's going on in

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Speaker 1: the world at the moment as we have needed in

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Speaker 1: the past, in other words, drones and all those other things.

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Speaker 1: Is the World War potentially more technological?

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Speaker 2: Well, definitely got technological very quickly back in the US

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Speaker 2: Civil War, you know, So that doesn't change. I think

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Speaker 2: that's expected strategically no matter what conflict we're going to.

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Speaker 2: There's probably a good point to make here around the

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Speaker 2: type of war that we might be engaged in. The

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Speaker 2: wars that we've had recently and arguably since the end

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Speaker 2: of World War Two have been wars of choice. Really,

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Speaker 2: they haven't been wars that we've been invaded or we've

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Speaker 2: chosen to a company America or a coalition or UK

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Speaker 2: and they've been choice. They've been largely wars of choice.

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Speaker 2: So they have a different a different context and a

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Speaker 2: different requirement, especially when we're being asked for certain capabilities

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Speaker 2: to travel overseas. And then there's wars like Ukraine, where

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Speaker 2: that's not a war of choice for Ukraine, that's a

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Speaker 2: war that arrives on one's doorstep and you need to

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Speaker 2: do whatever you've got to do. And I don't think

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Speaker 2: it's controversial to say that they find themselves in a

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Speaker 2: pretty conventional situation and they need warm bodies. It kind

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Speaker 2: of comes down to that, Yeah, the technology matters, and

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Speaker 2: it's been amazing to watch that, hasn't it That the

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Speaker 2: adaptation and the little drone shops underground and whatnot have

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Speaker 2: been fascinated by that. That's just human adaptability. But at

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Speaker 2: the end of the day, they need warm bodies defending

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Speaker 2: a line dug in and it takes you back to well,

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Speaker 2: the US Civil War, you know, where they started digging

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Speaker 2: in and and that's kind of that was the precursor.

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Speaker 1: So it takes me back to Breaking Rand. The first

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Speaker 1: thing I think of, remember the Australian movie Breaking Around,

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Speaker 1: I do, yeah, And I think that was like in

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Speaker 1: the Boer War or something it was, and which is

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Speaker 1: like eighteen ninety or somewhere in center anyway, and we're

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Speaker 1: very famous movie for those people who haven't watched a

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Speaker 1: great movie, one of the great films. At Australia. Government

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Speaker 1: was actually able to well southtrat Gun was able to

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Speaker 1: help one, but they were they were sitting in trenches

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Speaker 1: and in those days communication was done by a runner.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Now communication might be slightly different, but well,

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Speaker 2: interestingly in the Ukraine k phones so it's landline.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like a box with the that's what

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Speaker 1: I call it.

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Speaker 2: And they're targetable and they're being used because there's electronic

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Speaker 2: magnetic pulses and all this type of stuff being used

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Speaker 2: blanketing out communications conventional communicator. There's runners are being used still,

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Speaker 2: and notes and notes. So in the in the in

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Speaker 2: the short in the battle space, the forward edge of

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Speaker 2: the battle area, the fever as it was called, in

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Speaker 2: those trenches, there's notes and runners being used between pits

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Speaker 2: and those types of things. So comm's cord you might

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Speaker 2: never have heard of that, but three tugs means safe

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Speaker 2: to come and too. So all this these in a

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Speaker 2: conventional war that's not of our choosing, you don't get

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Speaker 2: to use the full remit of technology and capability because

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Speaker 2: there's an enemy that's just the equal of yours.

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Speaker 1: Certainly going to make that bing that yeah, you can't make,

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Speaker 1: you can't meet that, you can't make any other presumption

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Speaker 1: because more likely you could be wrong.

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Speaker 2: And the gravity of that is a big deal exactly.

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Speaker 2: And so those wars of choice that I've been involved in.

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Speaker 1: And so which was have you been where have you

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Speaker 1: gone to? So I served in the.

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Speaker 2: Big Three team or Afghanistan and Iraq over eleven over

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Speaker 2: a period about a dozen deployments and then other missions

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Speaker 2: and other activities around them.

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Speaker 1: And what was your role?

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Speaker 2: So I started off as a six ICEE and then

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Speaker 2: end up running what's that? A trooper? So I was

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Speaker 2: in a team and I was the shipkicker, the junior

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Speaker 2: guy in nineteen ninety one, and then I was in

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Speaker 2: the unit until pretty much until twenty seventeen. In twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 2: I finished up on the teams as a team commander

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Speaker 2: or our bravo, the senior sergeant role in the.

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Speaker 1: We're talking says correct? So what would your maybe the

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Speaker 1: role is probably not the right word. What would your

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Speaker 1: function be of your unit? Would be to go and

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Speaker 1: do something, catch someone as surveillance what would have been?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all of those things and more so. We were

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Speaker 2: special missions unit, so we greet or we address missions

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Speaker 2: without precedent. So what's often means that problems and attacks

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Speaker 2: on or threats to the national capability and national interests

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Speaker 2: of Australia without precedents. You know, whether that's by terrorists,

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Speaker 2: whether it's technical humans, war fighting, all of those things.

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Speaker 2: So I've worked everything from one up by myself in

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Speaker 2: the streets of some shitty a city in the world,

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Speaker 2: to what would your mission be with the captive someone

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Speaker 2: or to watch them be surveillance or something along those lines,

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Speaker 2: to related to information and people, and then everything through

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Speaker 2: to working is a thirty man troupe on a more

435
00:24:53,960 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 2: conventional direct attack or direct a more direct active jumping

436
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 2: out of helicopters and blowing things in the essays gets

437
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 2: a bit confused at times by the imagery we see

438
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 2: movies and the movies, yeah, and it makes us look

439
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 2: very one dimensional, but we're not where, We're anywhere anything anytime,

440
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 2: force and everything that that encapsulates.

441
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 1: Do you have to in the course to become apart

442
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 1: from be able to prove that you know you can

443
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: you know you're not going to panic when you get

444
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: go under water or whatever those things you see in

445
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 1: the TV shows, apart from those things. In the learning process,

446
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: do they what skills do they teach you apart from

447
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: how to shoot and all those sort of things, but

448
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: obviously combat whatever, But what other skills they teach, like

449
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: engineering skills or you do a little bit of everything.

450
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit of everything like computer skills, code writing,

451
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 2: language skills right up to paramedicine, surgery, all the weapons,

452
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 2: all the things that go bang. We do your high

453
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:06,160
Speaker 2: altitude parachuting, which is everything. If you can imagine, as

454
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,120
Speaker 2: at its extreme, jumping from an airplane at twenty five

455
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 2: thousand feet at night wearing five hundred kilos worth a

456
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 2: kit sounds like a lot. It's a lot, and you're

457
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 2: jumping on oxygen. So it's a highly technical, highly high

458
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 2: risk event. To rebreathing underwater, rebreathing diving underwater and submarine release.

459
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 2: And one thing Australia is really well renowned for is

460
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 2: our long range vehicle patrols and capability and those three

461
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 2: things amongst others. There really only means to get to

462
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 2: the job. The majority of the SAS work is done

463
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 2: in infill and extraction. The job itself is a whole

464
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: other set of skills, and that's whether we take the

465
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 2: expert and get them there safely, or we bring the

466
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 2: skills and execute the mission on the ground as required.

467
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: Are you're talking about that that transport vehicle that we've

468
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: come from, the name of it. Now we've sent quite

469
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: a few of them to the Ukraine, I think, oh, yeah, yeah,

470
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: the as labs I think itself either, but so we

471
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: but astraight as good at building those things. Is it

472
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: because of our train H yeah?

473
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 2: I think so. I think they we We were getting

474
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 2: I D strikes in Afghanistan regularly and surviving a lot

475
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 2: of them. So I think there was a I think

476
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 2: there was a technology that just evolved in a local

477
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 2: place and that's had a asymmetric kind of impact or

478
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 2: certainly interest from around the world, and that technology spread.

479
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 2: It's just v shaped holes, so I guess.

480
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: At the bottom of the Yeah, the transport machine.

481
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 2: It still goes bang inside. I don't know that. But

482
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 2: but the vehicles, it's it's survivable.

483
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: Morphs dispersus the vibration impact, the impact. So because you

484
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 1: experience it yourself, ID is that's right?

485
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 2: In two thousand I unfortunately it was in two thousand

486
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 2: and eight drove over an I D which turned out

487
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 2: what we think was an old Russian anti tank mine

488
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 2: that was remote detonated, and a colleague of mine was

489
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 2: killed beside me, and our interpreter lost effectively lost both

490
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 2: of his legs in the blast. I was very traumatic,

491
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 2: and you know, it's remarkable to think out of the

492
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 2: dozens of strikes that we had in Afghanistan on the

493
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 2: cars that we drove, very few deaths. I think we

494
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 2: really had. We had two or three, I think it

495
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 2: was over that time. A lot of injuries, et cetera,

496
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 2: but high survivability. They went to vehicles we had. We

497
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 2: had our own set of vehicles.

498
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: And what happened to you? Did any happen to you?

499
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 2: Yeah? I had fragged through the back of both legs

500
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 2: and burnt. Actually the force blew a boot off of

501
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 2: an army bootoff, just to give give you an idea

502
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 2: of the force, which I don't need much idea, really,

503
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 2: I guess. And I was actually okay. I had a

504
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 2: bit of surgery and came back to the troop. But

505
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 2: I contracted an infection. Most of Afghanistans covered in human

506
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 2: feces and animal feces.

507
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 1: Really and yeah, well you know, leveraging systems.

508
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 2: They haven't had a huge sanitary advance there. But and

509
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 2: they use a fertilizer actually, be fair to them, they

510
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 2: use they reuse it for fertilizer. These are pretty humble existences.

511
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 2: And so I got a staff infection, a goal and

512
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 2: staff infection that kind of got up into my Yeah,

513
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: it started there and I had to be repatriating in

514
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 2: the end because it just that my testicles were swollen

515
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 2: up to the size of a soccer ball and that

516
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 2: started to get into my thoracic cavity and they were

517
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 2: they were going to remove my leg, but they got

518
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: into some heavy drugs back in in Perth. I was

519
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 2: back just in time, thankfully, and over weeks it calm down.

520
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: And would that have been a signal to you maybe

521
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: it's time and how to hanging the boots up a bit?

522
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I was. I was forty at that age.

523
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: Is there a retirement age do they forty?

524
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 2: Is it? There's two retirement ages. One is around fifty

525
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 2: five or so, yeah, and the other ones, the more

526
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 2: realistic one is when the young fellas say, Harry Off,

527
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 2: you were a bit slow, and a few times towards

528
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 2: end and my time, the guys did turn around say mate,

529
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 2: you're looking a bit slow.

530
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: Oh really?

531
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's and you do straight up and your

532
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 2: ego wants not to hear that. But slow in terms

533
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 2: of keeping up, you mean, yeah, definitely keeping up. You

534
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 2: remember the backpack on absolutely, yeah, when you're getting gunshots,

535
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 2: fighter you need everybody up in the line. And I

536
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 2: never fell off or let anyone down, but there was

537
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 2: a sense that it was harder than it should have been.

538
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: And is that their job to tell you that.

539
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 2: I think it's all about jobs to tell each other

540
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 2: that it's you know the essays. Regiment's a prison yard

541
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 2: you get to go home from. It's it's brutal, but

542
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 2: there's a as am in respect. You don't have to

543
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 2: be everyone's best friend, but you need to respect the

544
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: fact that the bloke next to you has got what

545
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 2: it takes to look after you and you'll have your

546
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 2: back when it matters.

547
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: Sounds like a footy team.

548
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot like a footy team. I work

549
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 2: in AFL and NRL teams and it is a familiar environment.

550
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: And you want confidence that the guy next to you

551
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: is not going to leave a gap, or if there

552
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: is a gap, that he's going to close the gap.

553
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: And then he's going to run up the line all

554
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: the time with you, and every time you're up, he's

555
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: going to run up.

556
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 2: And we want to know too that if you're bleeding

557
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 2: out in the AO that they're going to do their

558
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:35,239
Speaker 2: best to get your home as well. You know, that's

559
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 2: a kind of a commitment that we make to all

560
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 2: the families when we deploy as well.

561
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: And when you did make this decision to leave, you

562
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: mentioned a couple of times you have psychology qualifications. Did

563
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 1: you do that during your army period or did you

564
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: decided to go in to psychology after that.

565
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 2: No. I took some advice of a man I call

566
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 2: my kind of second far the Gary Kingston. I've mentioned

567
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 2: him a lot, and in the book he once said

568
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 2: words the effect of, don't let this place be everything

569
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 2: you are. You know, it's not all you are.

570
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: You're more.

571
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 2: And he was a great proponent of educating yourself, whether

572
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 2: that was tertiary or build a carpentry or whatever it was.

573
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 2: Do something else, be something else. And I took that

574
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 2: to heart, so I started studying seriously in the last

575
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 2: ten years I was in the regiment. So often I

576
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: would joke that I'd have a book from a university

577
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 2: book out on patrol with us and be reading that

578
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 2: digging a trench while I was having a break. I'd

579
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 2: be finishing a Uni degree. And it didn't add any

580
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 2: way to any any effort overseas. It actually gave me

581
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 2: a distract, helpful, healthy distraction away from planning all the time.

582
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 2: And it just so happened in twenty nineteen when I

583
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 2: left the Defense Force full time the weekend or the

584
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 2: week after I started, I was qualified and registered as

585
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 2: a psych and I've been.

586
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: So you did that. You do that that whilst you

587
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: were in the military, That's right. Last two is online

588
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: type call I tended.

589
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 2: Psychology is a seven year degree, the last three of

590
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 2: which you need to do face to face supervisions and

591
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,239
Speaker 2: all this type of stuff, so like as in an

592
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 2: intern type thing exactly. Yeah, And so the military gave

593
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 2: me a part time gig and helped me do that.

594
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 2: And the military is pretty forgiving like that.

595
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: But the military is great. I mean, the defense forces

596
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 1: generally are great.

597
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 2: That way it is now, Yeah, it is support people. Yeah,

598
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 2: it's much better these days.

599
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: Is my psychology?

600
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 2: Well it seemed to make a lot of sense to me.

601
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 2: It was something else I was interested in. I kind

602
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 2: of dropped out of UNI after year twelve. I didn't

603
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 2: I was going to UNI, and then I thought, I'll

604
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 2: join the army now, or do UNI and then join

605
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 2: the army. That was the kind of conundrum, and I

606
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 2: ended up doing the latter, doing the former. But yeah,

607
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 2: it was a little bit underfinished business. I read a

608
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 2: lot about psycholog Jean philosophy. They were kind of my staples.

609
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 2: I found them fascinating, love the stories that went behind them.

610
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was kind of It's just natural for me.

611
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 2: It wasn't I felt like and it makes very good

612
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 2: use of my lived experience. Now when I work with

613
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 2: mission critical teams or sports teams or hedge funds. I

614
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 2: love working with hedge funds. I think they have a

615
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 2: semi very similar vibe to them when they're up and

616
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 2: running a private capital team or a deal team. You know,

617
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 2: you've got a dozen young men and women who just

618
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 2: want to shoot the lights out. It's the few that

619
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 2: I work with. Sometimes they feel like a footy team.

620
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 2: There's that kind of camaraderie in the trenches fighting. So

621
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:45,399
Speaker 2: I think that my background psychology pulls it together, gives

622
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 2: it an evidence base, and allows me to tell stories

623
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 2: and share hopefully my small w wisdom with those people.

624
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,840
Speaker 1: So when did you write Because your first book, I

625
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 1: think this is your first book, eleven bats.

626
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 2: My mates, Tommy, I should have called a bat's eleven

627
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 2: because I'm a ship bats.

628
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:05,959
Speaker 1: But what is that about eleven bats?

629
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 2: What's it's just an autobiography mark of my journey from Williamstown,

630
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 2: Victoria to back to Victoria really where I ended up

631
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 2: end up at the end of that book at the

632
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 2: mcg doing an Anzac Days speech and the eleven bats.

633
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,359
Speaker 2: It was my habit to take a cricket bat every

634
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 2: operation that we went on, every tour we went on,

635
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 2: and a ball, I presume, and a ball, yeah, a

636
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 2: few balls because they get a bit lost Sean balls.

637
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 2: And we'd play cricket, you know, and we recreate or

638
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 2: we'd even gather information. We use them to gather intelligence

639
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 2: and bricket Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you build rapport with

640
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 2: the localists playing game of cricket and they become you

641
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 2: a layer of an extra layer of defense. Or you

642
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 2: go up to the street urchins who you know, you've

643
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 2: thrown them a ball or whatever, let them get you out,

644
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 2: and you might just say who's who's old mate over there?

645
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:01,800
Speaker 2: Who's he you know? And they'll look after you. They'll

646
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 2: come to knocking and doing and saying this such and

647
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 2: such as bad man, he's back in town and that

648
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 2: type of stuff. When I was looking after Alfredo Ronaldo

649
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 2: up in the hills of Malbusi in Team or Less

650
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 2: Day he was the protagonist and the antagonist he had

651
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 2: the militia up there. He was the most interviewed person

652
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:26,320
Speaker 2: on the planet at one stage, CNN, ABC, Fox, everybody

653
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 2: was coming to interview him, and there was a conga line.

654
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 2: So we set up this game of cricket and we

655
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 2: needed to note everybody who came into seem because there

656
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,239
Speaker 2: were spies running everywhere from all corners, from Portugal to

657
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 2: the US, et cetera, Indonesia and Indonesia, lots of them,

658
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 2: and so we'd play a game of cricket and everyone

659
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 2: was forced to stop. We got photos, got a bit

660
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 2: of narrative from them, fingerprints where we thought there was

661
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 2: a high threat, would just throw throw them a ball

662
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 2: or give him a glass or something, just all in

663
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 2: this of the ball it was, yeah, there was, there

664
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 2: was all that kind of carry on.

665
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: So that was your sort of is your go to

666
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: eleven bats being a cricket side, that's right, eleven men

667
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: eleven bats. But you've played around with that because is

668
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: that something that was that you can that was your

669
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: common denominator. I guess from most of your deployments.

670
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:23,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, I came home to cricket, to the apple Cross

671
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 2: Cricket Club. Who I'm still available for selection?

672
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: There he's calling out.

673
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a place to come home and be

674
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 2: moth not Harry, if that makes sense. And my cricket

675
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 2: mates grew to unders really deeply understand that, and they

676
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 2: didn't bug me about my military service. I could just

677
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 2: come home, be one of the blokes, a handy up

678
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 2: here into the breeze bowler, a normal human being. And

679
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:53,320
Speaker 2: I speak emotively about it because it played such a

680
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 2: massive role in normalizing life for me.

681
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: You know, how does that work? One minute, you're in

682
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and you're trying to work out if someone's going

683
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: to blow you up or do something terrible, and you're

684
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: seeing all sorts of crazy stuff and living with individuals

685
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: who are same the same milk. Then you come back

686
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 1: to Victoria and where everybody is just like running the

687
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 1: local coffee shop and making baking and eggs and digging

688
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: ditches for as a plumb or whatever, and your mates

689
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: from school, I presume, and you create club. How does

690
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 1: that transition work?

691
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 2: It's bizarre, it really is. We talk about being away.

692
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 2: I ended up referring to being away like being at home,

693
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:42,280
Speaker 2: and being at home like being away. That was really

694
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 2: how it felt. That makes so much sense to me. Yeah,

695
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,280
Speaker 2: we go away to the unordered, extraordinary world where things

696
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,879
Speaker 2: that happened shouldn't happen we wish or wish they didn't.

697
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 2: Then we come back to this ordinary world. You talk

698
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 2: about post office, milk bars, and.

699
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,720
Speaker 1: It's all structured the morning, get a coffee.

700
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 2: Control, Yeah, less unless you feel under control. But yeah,

701
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 2: so I remember being walking the streets of Afar off country,

702
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 2: being one of the most dangerous jobs I'd been in

703
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 2: decades or in years, on a Friday night, and I

704
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 2: knew I was leaving in the morning. We'd finished up,

705
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 2: I did the handover, got on the plane and got home.

706
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 2: And on the Sunday, I was sitting at home the

707
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 2: family dinner in Australia with the kids and Daniel and

708
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 2: my wife, and we were having broccoli mash s buds

709
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 2: and lamb chops. That was my welcome home dinner, always

710
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 2: my favorite dinner. And the kids are arguing and I

711
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 2: just caught myself thinking, what the fuck, what's just going on?

712
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 2: My head's still there because I'm going I wonder if

713
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 2: John I got to mate in time, and I wonder

714
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 2: if anyone got hurt on the particular part of the

715
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,839
Speaker 2: mission I knew. And it takes a week or two

716
00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,800
Speaker 2: just to stop wanting to is everything okay? Do you

717
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 2: need hand and dure walking the streets or jumping in out?

718
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 2: So it's a very very hard transition. But my wife

719
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 2: worked out very early on that I needed to get

720
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 2: down to the club pretty quick too. That was it

721
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 2: was a source of tension earlier now in that period,

722
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 2: but in my career, our marriage. But it's remarkable how

723
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 2: well that social setting would buffer those It would bring

724
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,399
Speaker 2: me back to Earth's decompression. Absolutely, it's a perfect word

725
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 2: for it. Yeah, decompressing. So when I go back and

726
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 2: mentor young men, now, I talk about your third thing,

727
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 2: your first things, your family, your second things, your vocation,

728
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 2: and really they get just wound up together inextricably. But

729
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: you need a third, third thing and that is you.

730
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 2: You know, buger the family, bugger the vocation. Where can

731
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 2: I go just to be the real identity inside of me?

732
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 2: Because in a lot of ways, the sas facade, if

733
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: you're not careful, takes over.

734
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, you become that you become.

735
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:07,919
Speaker 2: That and that's let me sound strange, let me say

736
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 2: that that's not an identity you want to carry around

737
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 2: with you forever. That's something you want to be able

738
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 2: to slip in and out of. And that's an agility

739
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 2: that we talk about now, which is a discussion that

740
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 2: we never had, and I think it's a really important discussion.

741
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point in terms of particularly business people

742
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: or people just people generally when it comes to remaining

743
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: relevant to society. If you see that as an important thing,

744
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: that to some extent means that you can then follow

745
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 1: how society is changing as opposed to just sticking in

746
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: one spot and just being that person you think you are. Like,

747
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 1: our brain is interesting, and you're, being a psychologist know

748
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: more about this than me. But our brains a very

749
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: interesting in terms of how we build a story about

750
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: ourselves and everything we do and then ends up becoming

751
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,319
Speaker 1: affirmation of the story you built about ourselves. And then

752
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: and then sometimes we end up just living that life

753
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: and get stuck as opposed to making use the plasticity

754
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: of our brain to think of our life.

755
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 2: I love the words stuck, by the way, it's the

756
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 2: perfect word stuck in time, stuck in characters, stuck in family,

757
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:21,359
Speaker 2: stuck in event, or trauma, whatever, whatever it is, including trauma.

758
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: It's perfect, including trauma, and a lot of people suffer

759
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: from this. But you know, our brain does have plasticity,

760
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,959
Speaker 1: and which basically means I can change things and change

761
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: the story about myself and start affirming the news story

762
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: about myself. And people often say to me, ask me

763
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: about it. How do you stay relevant given changes? Like

764
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:40,839
Speaker 1: you know, one stage, I worked at a law firm

765
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 1: and I mortgage business and then I'm broadcasting this type

766
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: of stuff. And how important is the willingness for an

767
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: individual to be able to You've done it to be

768
00:42:55,600 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: able to. I might use it technical term, use our

769
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: brain to actually stay relevant. Not me being relevant to

770
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: an audio, it's just me being relevant to society. What

771
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:11,280
Speaker 1: can I contribute to my society? Not everybody, but my society.

772
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: How important is that as a technique?

773
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 2: I think it's very important. And you've a couple of

774
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 2: things there. You know, the plasticity of the brain is

775
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:26,040
Speaker 2: a thing these days. It's labile is another term that's

776
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 2: used that applies to all aspects of us as humans.

777
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 2: We're never ever static. We're allostatic. We're navigating the world changing.

778
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 2: You know, we're not a beat of strings or a

779
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 2: straight linear line. We're kind of Depending on which philosophy

780
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 2: you want to talk to process theory with Whitehead would

781
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 2: talk about we're spiraling through space, changing every second, and

782
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 2: that's true. You know, we're evolving or adapting as we go,

783
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 2: which is the other point you raise. You are an adaptable,

784
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 2: highly adaptable person. Not everybody is. There's a biology behind

785
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 2: our personality and our psychology, and some people are more

786
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 2: tolerant to ambiguity. You would be someone like that. Founders.

787
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 2: I find work a lot with founders and also with

788
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 2: individuals who started their own family offly high net wealth,

789
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 2: so who might be a bit stuck in their family

790
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 2: in the wealth and the intergenerational transfer, etc. But founders

791
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 2: have a high tolerance to ambiguity and they're under the

792
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 2: same I think, the same risk profile that they can

793
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,280
Speaker 2: get stuck in this persona that they've created for themselves.

794
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 2: You know, the King of Collins Street or the King

795
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 2: of Macquarie and the suit and tie and I say, well,

796
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 2: when was the last time you went and had a

797
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 2: Friday night at the footy with your mates? Your schoolmates,

798
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 2: because most of our schoolmates are still good, close community,

799
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 2: and it's not surprising to hear them say, oh, months ago,

800
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 2: or I don't really catch up, or I'm too busy,

801
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 2: or and Mark, i've sat new again. This is your

802
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 2: area of expertise. But I've been surprised at how many

803
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'll make a generalization at sixty sixty

804
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 2: five year old men who've sold their business for a

805
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 2: life changing amount of money. To some it's twenty million,

806
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 2: to some it's two hundred million, and their life around

807
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 2: them behind the facade is atrophied, their relationships of atrophied,

808
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 2: their health is atrophied, their social connectivity and all that.

809
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 2: I can go on. And it's and they feel it.

810
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:34,760
Speaker 2: They feel there like a sense of loss almost or regrets,

811
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,400
Speaker 2: or they it's not as a happy time as they

812
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 2: had been imagining. I shouldn't laugh, but it's so I

813
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 2: don't think it's just as real. It's very real, and

814
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 2: so I don't think it's necessarily just the remit of

815
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 2: veterans or sports athletes have the same thing.

816
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 1: Time.

817
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 2: For every one hundred athletes, one of them will make

818
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 2: life changing.

819
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: Money and means or become a TV presenter or a.

820
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 2: TV presenter exactly. But the other ninety nine who have

821
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 2: sacrife everything to on the on the journey won't have that.

822
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,359
Speaker 2: So this is what do you say to them? Well,

823
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 2: you've got the very first thing any human needs to

824
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 2: do if they want to change is do and they

825
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 2: have check where you at right now? And let's be realistic,

826
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 2: But at.

827
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: What point before they get to the retirement point?

828
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 2: Or well, I can only go off when they first

829
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 2: come to me if I'm working to them, and I

830
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 2: do a bit more of that than I would have

831
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 2: expected these days. But yes, a reality check, a fish slabe,

832
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 2: wake up, you know, let's let's let's where are we at?

833
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 2: You know? And there's any any number of means. And

834
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 2: I'm from the Maslow kind of school of psychology where

835
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 2: I'm not there to provide solutions, and no psychologists should be.

836
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,240
Speaker 2: We're here to get it out of you. As Plato says,

837
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 2: all information exists within us. It's just us up to

838
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 2: us to find it. And so I become the mid

839
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 2: wife to your birthing, your your understanding of yourself. And

840
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 2: I think with that facade to sometimes and as our

841
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 2: lives atrophying, behind it the distance with there's a distance

842
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 2: with ourselves that we create. And you alluded to that

843
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 2: earlier about how we look for reassurance that we're on

844
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 2: the right path. And I think when we the soldiers

845
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 2: that I see, particularly special forces soldiers, if this is

846
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,919
Speaker 2: all they are, this, this, this character, if they don't

847
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 2: have this kind of deeper sense of connection to community

848
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 2: or to to citizenry, as the ancient Greeks might put it,

849
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,919
Speaker 2: then it's it's very hard work to kind of pull

850
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 2: them back.

851
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: Is it a trade off though, between and I have

852
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: no idea, but is it I'm just wondering. Is it

853
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 1: a trade of between the effectiveness of a particularly a

854
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: specialized soldier like an s a says person and there

855
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: identification of themselves as being this person. Is there a

856
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 1: trade off between that being really effective at their job

857
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 1: but therefore as a result of being less effective in

858
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: terms of looking at the bigger picture for when the

859
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: day they retire, And is there a sort of a

860
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 1: process where it's when they're first starting, they're really effective

861
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: when they're twenty eight, twenty on, whatever the age is

862
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: when they first kick it off, and as they start

863
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 1: to reach forty, does the army or does the defense

864
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,400
Speaker 1: forces try and do this for them so that they

865
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: just become more effective as a citizen.

866
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 2: The way I love it mostly, and we haven't done

867
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 2: a great job of that with my generation, so I

868
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 2: probably see more people stuck there. In fact, what you're

869
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 2: talking about is exactly what the book is about. Oh cool,

870
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 2: it's about the fourth pillar is the philosophical pillar. The

871
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 2: other three pillars in any high performance program on the

872
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 2: planet largely around the three pillars physical, psychological, and social pillars.

873
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 2: And that's whether they mean to or not. That's and

874
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 2: so the fourth pillar, I argue in the book is

875
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 2: a philosophical pillar. To your question, we can do both

876
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 2: at the same time, and we can learn from the Greeks.

877
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 2: Here the agogies of the ancient Greeks, whether they be

878
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 2: the Spartans or going back further pre Socratic Heraclitus times,

879
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 2: when they grew warriors or soldiers, they went off to

880
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 2: these agogies and they were schoolhouses to train not only

881
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 2: military martial skills, but they learned erudition, history, geography, They

882
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 2: learnt storytelling, dance, poetry and the reasons for dance and poetry,

883
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 2: and they learned about a respect for life, and how

884
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 2: to take a life, and the respect for that life,

885
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 2: and how they're not in competition, they're actually mutually inclusive,

886
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:08,880
Speaker 2: and they learn about how to be a good citizen

887
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 2: and what that means. The advantage that they had is

888
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 2: that the warrior cultures were embedded in the society, because

889
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:19,399
Speaker 2: these are societies on more footings permanently, aren't they if

890
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 2: you can imagine the Greek societies, and in some ways

891
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 2: we still are today. But I think that we can

892
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 2: learn some lessons, and I try to tease that out

893
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 2: in the book. What are the lessons that we can learn?

894
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 2: And as I said earlier, when I sit with young

895
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 2: soldiers now, I try my hardest to make that point

896
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:39,800
Speaker 2: to them. You know, one of the first conversations I

897
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:43,480
Speaker 2: have with a young sas soldier is what your plan be?

898
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 2: You've got about a fifty percent chance of being here

899
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 2: after ten years, so what your plan be? The reality

900
00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 2: is that in this room of twenty five of you

901
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 2: won't be here in three years time due to matters

902
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 2: outside of your control. Because that the job's tough like,

903
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:02,479
Speaker 2: and so it's a bit of an again, a fish slab.

904
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 2: This is where you're at, you know, you're back to

905
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 2: the bottom again. You're coming in and we expect you

906
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 2: to be elite with guns, languages, and technology. We also

907
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 2: expect you to be elite at personal administration, personal life.

908
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 2: Being connected to the community doesn't mean you have to

909
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,120
Speaker 2: go and serve on boards or anything like that, but

910
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 2: it just means you have to have a good sense

911
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 2: to be a member of cricket. So I think it's

912
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 2: sound as flippant as it sounds crochet cricket or canastera club.

913
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 2: As I say through get out and get let civilians

914
00:51:34,600 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 2: reflect back to you that this is what you're coming you.

915
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 2: Eventually we have to return to it.

916
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: And I guess what you've got to teach them as

917
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 1: an openness to be that person. Yeah, because a lot

918
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,440
Speaker 1: of them probably think, no, I can't be that because

919
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 1: that might create weakness in me. In my current job,

920
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 1: my current role is I cannot have any weakness in

921
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 1: me whatsoever because I'm going there against whoever.

922
00:51:58,560 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 2: It need be to the end.

923
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:02,880
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think you can be

924
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: I'd be interested here what you've got to say. I

925
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:07,800
Speaker 1: think you can be open but not be weak. I

926
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,239
Speaker 1: think actually openness to me is a strength. It makes

927
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,080
Speaker 1: you strongsolutely, Yeah, makes you're more of a whole person,

928
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 1: which means you're probably.

929
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 2: Stronger absolutely, And you want to combine the king and

930
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 2: the philosopher. You know that the wisdom is embodied in

931
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:25,720
Speaker 2: the courage, in the ability to be able to switch

932
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 2: from compassionate father and lover at home to a warrior

933
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 2: who can be brutal and deliver violence when required. I

934
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 2: hope I'm a kind of living proof of that, and

935
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 2: the majority of sas soldiers that I've served with, I

936
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:50,279
Speaker 2: would say embody that they're compassionate, good men who are

937
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:54,920
Speaker 2: also able to do things that they're asked to do

938
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:59,240
Speaker 2: in the interests of the national national security.

939
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: And today the sorts of things you do, I presume

940
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: hopefully this is the case you are doing. You go

941
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:09,279
Speaker 1: into talks and this sort of stuff. People can book

942
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: you to do a lot of speech, but like a

943
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: talk to a group.

944
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, do lecturing. I don't do a heap of

945
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 2: keynote speaking, but I do a bit here and there.

946
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker 2: For corporates are pretty happy to hear or keen to

947
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 2: hear the stories. But I do spend a lot of

948
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,800
Speaker 2: time with young soldiers. One thing I'd like to do

949
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 2: is set up a program in an institute where soldiers

950
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 2: from all across the journey from civilian to elder, without

951
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 2: going into it too deeply, can come and discuss and

952
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 2: share stories. And I think that's something that's missing. There's

953
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 2: an old there's an old kind of proverb. I'll be

954
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 2: very quick with the soldiers. Once would go away to war,

955
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 2: they'd be away for a long time. It's along the

956
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:03,320
Speaker 2: lines of Homer's Returned to Ethics Distances the Odyssey. But

957
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 2: the warriors would at sixteen, they'd be trained up, they

958
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:11,440
Speaker 2: go off to war, and then I come home. And

959
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 2: the young warriors wouldn't come straight home. They'd be left

960
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 2: on the edge of the village and they would be

961
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 2: left there to process the events, to celebrate the successes

962
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 2: and commemorate the losses, to share stories about what they'd

963
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:28,080
Speaker 2: been through, and the village would come out to them,

964
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 2: share food and say when you're ready, we're here for you.

965
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,440
Speaker 2: And the elders and the spiritual leaders would come out

966
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 2: and help them process and sit and listen to them,

967
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 2: and then when they are ready, they would come home.

968
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:43,359
Speaker 2: And it's this kind of decompression, this sense of decompressing

969
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,760
Speaker 2: and processing the experiences and I think in the modern

970
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 2: world when such a bloody rush and this is not

971
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 2: only for veterans, this is for our police, our emergency services.

972
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:57,120
Speaker 2: They live in the extraordinary world and it's something that

973
00:54:57,239 --> 00:54:59,840
Speaker 2: we don't do well to bring transition them back to

974
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 2: the ordinary world, which for anyone listening in the mission

975
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 2: critical teams, it's a wonderful world. Back in civilian world,

976
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 2: there's a great place to be and I think I'd

977
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:13,400
Speaker 2: like that's something I'll be looking at in the future. Well,

978
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 2: we're not in the future. We're doing now to help

979
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 2: to share those stories and I'm not sure what it

980
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 2: looks like yet, but at the moment, it's a fireside

981
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 2: chats and those discussions that you alluded to.

982
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 1: And your two shows as Stoton. Yeah, just explain what

983
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 1: that is. That's obviously your business name, but what is it.

984
00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, Percy Seriitie, who's one of the themes or one

985
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 2: of the characters in the book. The greatest I think,

986
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:43,280
Speaker 2: the greatest coach of all time. He owned a dozen

987
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 2: world champions and gold medals and world championships out of

988
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 2: a tin shack in Portsy. He was a prolific writer

989
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 2: and reader, and he had a philosophy called the Stoton philosophy,

990
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,400
Speaker 2: which is a portmanteau or a blended word from Stoic

991
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,399
Speaker 2: sto and Spartan, and that's the st that the ta

992
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 2: n and he put those words together. He believed the

993
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 2: Stoic philosophy was good, but it was found wanton in

994
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 2: terms of an embodied philosophy. So the physical training aspect,

995
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 2: so he thought Spartan, the Spartan a go Gey approaches

996
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 2: was the missing piece to Stoicism to make it complete

997
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:27,279
Speaker 2: for an athlete, which he believed was the purest and

998
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 2: the highest order of humanity. And that's what I borrow

999
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 2: that from my business name.

1000
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:35,399
Speaker 1: And that's something obviously believe. It's funny. You're just talking

1001
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:40,320
Speaker 1: about a moment ago about like a decompression process of

1002
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:43,320
Speaker 1: putting people outside the village and the village coming to

1003
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 1: them and letting people just sort of stay outside the

1004
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 1: village before until they're ready to come in. And you

1005
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:54,080
Speaker 1: mentioned Odysseus or the Odyssey. Well, Homer's story allegedly it

1006
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 1: was Homer, who we don't know actually wrote a let's

1007
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: say it was Homer, and it seems like that whole

1008
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:05,440
Speaker 1: lot he was for Odysseus was a decompression process for

1009
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 1: him to get back into society back in Ithaca, because

1010
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 1: he just finished the Trojan War. He just came out

1011
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:18,720
Speaker 1: of the Trojan War, and and and between wherever Troy

1012
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 1: was and getting back to Ithaca, which is on the

1013
00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 1: other side of grees on the western side. Agrees, he

1014
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:27,600
Speaker 1: had to go through a whole lot of adventures.

1015
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 2: That's right.

1016
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: And maybe do you do you have you ever thought

1017
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 1: about this? Maybe Homer was writing a story about decompression

1018
00:57:34,560 --> 00:57:35,800
Speaker 1: and getting back into society.

1019
00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:39,640
Speaker 2: I hope so, because that's that's the model it. Yeah,

1020
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 2: well I absolutely do. And and you know the monsters,

1021
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:48,360
Speaker 2: the cyclops and the sirens and all the temptations to

1022
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 2: temptations are all the monsters of from within, you know effects. Yeah,

1023
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:57,920
Speaker 2: very Freudian kind of of So these are the monsters

1024
00:57:57,960 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 2: and the demons that he wrestles with to get home

1025
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,920
Speaker 2: to his beloveds and back to being back to citizenry.

1026
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:07,760
Speaker 2: And yes, I do. And I think that it's funny

1027
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 2: that it's not funny. It's curious that in other indigenous

1028
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 2: cultures they have similar stories about the warriors coming home

1029
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:19,640
Speaker 2: and how they will depro there's a theory about World

1030
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 2: War One, which I think is very rubbery, that the

1031
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 2: ship trips home, that the trips home in the ships

1032
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 2: helped some veterans or some of the soldiers to prolong

1033
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:37,360
Speaker 2: the long, long trips. I don't think the research backs

1034
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:39,320
Speaker 2: that up, but it's again, I think it would have

1035
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 2: been helpful for some. And I'm not even sure that

1036
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 2: making room to process can completely address anything. There's the

1037
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:54,080
Speaker 2: bruised Apple's theory that you know, you roll them down

1038
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:57,080
Speaker 2: the stairs enough stairs and the bruises don't kind of heal.

1039
00:58:57,200 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 1: But I.

1040
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 2: Another model I use is the oak table. You know,

1041
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 2: a veteran is like a beautiful, old, hundreds of years

1042
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 2: old oak table. You're going to take that over the

1043
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 2: ike every day of the week. It's battered and bruised

1044
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 2: and being burned on the corners and chipped and Grandpa

1045
00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 2: ractor saw a bit off and add a new bier.

1046
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,440
Speaker 1: I've got lots of stories and lots of stories in

1047
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:23,400
Speaker 1: Providence exactly exactly, and it's that patina that we all

1048
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: carry that we should be we should be really be

1049
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 1: embracing and.

1050
00:59:28,480 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 2: The metaphor of the village, or the metaphor of Homer

1051
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:35,920
Speaker 2: for veterans that that's kind of the staple to my stories.

1052
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:38,440
Speaker 2: And as I said, it's not only I've realized now

1053
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 2: that it's not only the mission critical teams, police, emergency

1054
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 2: services and first responders, but it's also athletes. I think

1055
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:50,840
Speaker 2: it's a useful conversation and also think it's a useful

1056
00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 2: conversation for burnt out private credit team. I got a

1057
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:57,280
Speaker 2: number of forty year olds I'm working with at the

1058
00:59:57,320 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 2: moment that I'm saying, you sure this is the right

1059
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 2: job for you. You've you've shot the lights out, but

1060
01:00:03,040 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 2: it's it's taken a toll, you know, and you've got

1061
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:07,439
Speaker 2: to stop and assess that at some stone.

1062
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: I know one forty plus year rold that you do

1063
01:00:09,240 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: look after and and he's a mate. You need it

1064
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:14,960
Speaker 1: say his name, but he has that name.

1065
01:00:15,040 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 2: Chair.

1066
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you need more of Harry. And by the way,

1067
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:21,520
Speaker 1: you're luck you've got Harry. Harry, thanks very much. I

1068
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: really appreciate him. This is the fourth pillar. This sort

1069
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:27,560
Speaker 1: of reading is not what generally I would expect to

1070
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 1: get from a veteran an XSAS person, but the wisdom

1071
01:00:34,160 --> 01:00:36,440
Speaker 1: and from what we're just discussing, because I haven't read

1072
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: the book yet, but the wisdom and the whole discussion

1073
01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 1: around how we look at our lives, not as a veteran,

1074
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:47,920
Speaker 1: but as anyone who's retiring from anything. That's really important

1075
01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:51,640
Speaker 1: because I've been through that process myself, wondering, we'll hang

1076
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: on a minute. I used to identify myself with a

1077
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 1: certain as a certain type of person, and I actually

1078
01:00:58,280 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: got quite ill for about three months, very sick and

1079
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,600
Speaker 1: because because it was a full stop put in my

1080
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 1: career voluntarily, but I didn't realize how much I was

1081
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 1: thought I was that person, and it took me years

1082
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: to work it out. I'm lucky, I'm much older now,

1083
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:19,280
Speaker 1: but it took me a long time to work that

1084
01:01:19,360 --> 01:01:21,840
Speaker 1: stuff out. And I was one of the lucky ones

1085
01:01:21,840 --> 01:01:23,640
Speaker 1: because I had good support around me, et cetera. But

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01:01:24,640 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: I recommend someone read these things, and if you're a

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01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:30,520
Speaker 1: partner of somebody who's in the same category, this is

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01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: a great type of insight. This type of insight is

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01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: what we need to read. So thanks very much.

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01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:35,600
Speaker 2: Appreciate you, Mark, appreciate it. Thank you.

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01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:36,120
Speaker 1: You're welcome.