Speaker 1: Good I groovers, Welcome to another installment of the View Project.
Speaker 1: Oh good a tiff, Hello Harps, how are you? I'll
Speaker 1: look I tell you what. I'm so excited because the government,
Speaker 1: just the state government just announced that we're sliding into
Speaker 1: lockdown for seven days starting tonight, which is ten hours
Speaker 1: from now. It's just gone two o'clock in the thriving
Speaker 1: metropolis of Melbourne. And if there's one thing I love,
Speaker 1: it's not being able to go to the gym for
Speaker 1: seven days.
Speaker 2: Fuck.
Speaker 3: I thought the only change for you. I thought the
Speaker 3: only change would be that you have to take your
Speaker 3: coffee home now and not sit at the Hampton's with it.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true. Don't tell people where I have coffee.
Speaker 3: Seven am every morning, same seat, same seat.
Speaker 1: Don't do that on the right ah your shitouse.
Speaker 3: You know the best thing about that is I haven't
Speaker 3: even had coffee with you there, but I know that's
Speaker 3: where you sit because.
Speaker 1: That is where I sit, because I like the best
Speaker 1: manage point. And if a bad guy's coming in, I
Speaker 1: need to sit where I can see everything, the layer
Speaker 1: of the land. I need to make sure that I'm
Speaker 1: in a position where I can defend myself. It's all
Speaker 1: about that and you never ever have you back to
Speaker 1: the front door TIF. Just in case you didn't know.
Speaker 3: Speaking of needing to defend yourself, you might today.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I'm glad Steve is wearing a
Speaker 1: long sleeve top and a puffer jacket because I feel
Speaker 1: if he was in a singlet I'd be even more
Speaker 1: insecure than I currently am, which is significant. Good day, mate,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 2: Oh? I'm wonderful. Now are you both? It's so wonderful
Speaker 2: to sit here and just listen to some banter.
Speaker 1: That's what we do. We've both got a PhD in
Speaker 1: talking shit, so we don't like to take ourselves too seriously.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of I think there's enough
Speaker 1: seriousness going around. We need to intersperse it with a
Speaker 1: bit of bullshit. Mate. At times we'll get to the
Speaker 1: serious stuff, but we don't want to get there too quickly.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where do we find you today? Now? I know
Speaker 1: that you're sitting in a gym slash training area slash garage.
Speaker 1: Looks like the best equipped bloody garage gym in the world.
Speaker 1: What state are you in? And I don't mean drunk?
Speaker 1: Course over.
Speaker 2: I'm in New South Wales, so in the Hills area,
Speaker 2: just outside Sydney.
Speaker 1: How long you been there?
Speaker 2: A year and a half. I was living closer into
Speaker 2: the city and had had a few personal changes and
Speaker 2: found myself out this way.
Speaker 1: And how like is it rural?
Speaker 2: Is? Actually it's going through a massive development, Like Sydney
Speaker 2: is just houses on top of houses. So where I
Speaker 2: currently sit actually, you know, not so many years ago
Speaker 2: it was all farmland, right, and just the rate in
Speaker 2: which they're they're putting buildings on it, houses, train stations,
Speaker 2: shopping centers and ain't it. It's it's developing quickly.
Speaker 1: What are you doing these days?
Speaker 2: What am I doing? I'm outdoors down to a kind
Speaker 2: of grassroots training. I guess a lot of you know
Speaker 2: what it is that that I did for many years
Speaker 2: in the military, that GPP type training general physical preparedness,
Speaker 2: but implementing I guess a bit more structure in the
Speaker 2: in the programming. So each morning we load up the
Speaker 2: full drive with a lot of the stuff in the
Speaker 2: gym here or in the garage and go and conduct
Speaker 2: it in a park, in a car park, you know,
Speaker 2: at a number of different locations, and we run five
Speaker 2: or so sessions a day, five to seven sessions a
Speaker 2: day seven days.
Speaker 1: Awak, Wow, do you have a team or is it
Speaker 1: just you or what's the deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a small team of us and just
Speaker 2: working at the moment on kind of growing that. And
Speaker 2: essentially it was born out of necessity. COVID kind of
Speaker 2: funny talking about that before, and you know, we all
Speaker 2: went through the depths of it last year. All of
Speaker 2: the work that I was doing, which was very profile
Speaker 2: based and a lot of corporate work and being in
Speaker 2: front of large groups and kind of that showcase kind
Speaker 2: of way of being evaporated gone within a week. And
Speaker 2: a lot of that was just due to travel and
Speaker 2: marketing budgets and the like, just evaporating. And I found
Speaker 2: myself standing at a center link line and I thought
Speaker 2: this is pretty shit. And when they lifted the restrictions
Speaker 2: and we could start training some people again, you know,
Speaker 2: small groups, I was like, mate, I got some dumbbells
Speaker 2: and bumplep plates. I was thrown in the back of
Speaker 2: the start training people outdoors because no one else was
Speaker 2: doing it. And we'd have ninety to one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty people through the doors on a Saturday and Sunday,
Speaker 2: and then people just wanted more of it, so we
Speaker 2: just started adding days to the point now where we
Speaker 2: deliver training every day.
Speaker 1: How many people do you get to a typical group?
Speaker 1: I know, that's like how long's a been a string
Speaker 1: because it varies, but Bullpark Bullpark.
Speaker 2: Ballpark is we'd say fifteen. Yeah, you know that number
Speaker 2: will definitely fluctuate, but especially now as it's starting to
Speaker 2: get a bit cooler as well. You know, people get
Speaker 2: a little a little turned off by the cole barbels
Speaker 2: and the cooler weather and having to put too many
Speaker 2: layers on. But it's yeah, I love it. It's something
Speaker 2: I guess I've done my entire life kind of be
Speaker 2: immersed in nature and kind of heed the advice and
Speaker 2: strategize around how you best work with nature rather than
Speaker 2: the sterile kind of fabricated indoor environments. And I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot to be learned from that immersion process
Speaker 2: and then the training that's delivered on top of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone who listens to me knows that I'm
Speaker 1: a massive fan of stepping into discomfort and the benefits
Speaker 1: and value and growth and learning and evolution that happens
Speaker 1: in the middle of suffering and pain and discomfort, and
Speaker 1: I'm in strategic discomfort, not silly, destructive. But it's funny
Speaker 1: how how many people want to work out, but they
Speaker 1: want to be comfortable, Like the whole point of working out,
Speaker 1: the fucking point of working out, I reckon creative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you create a physiological sorry dude, to create a
Speaker 1: physiological response to adapt and it doesn't happen when you're
Speaker 1: fucking comfortable. This is the point, oh mate.
Speaker 2: We get in our air conditioned cars or our heated
Speaker 2: cars to drive to an environment that's that's constructed in
Speaker 2: a way to in our mind deadlift and pr in
Speaker 2: a way or run on a treadmill or do whatever,
Speaker 2: when really you can pull on some shoes hopefully it
Speaker 2: put some clothes on before that, and step out your
Speaker 2: front door and and you know, feel your boots like this.
Speaker 2: It just perplexes me. But do you know what a
Speaker 2: lot of it comes down to is education. It's it's
Speaker 2: as much as you know, the industry, and you know,
Speaker 2: with social media has grown to a particular point. What
Speaker 2: we see on social media, isn't it I believe a
Speaker 2: true representation of what happens on the ground, day in
Speaker 2: day out. Like people may get social media look really
Speaker 2: sexy and pretty, but if you go and train with
Speaker 2: those people or you immerse yourself in, you know what
Speaker 2: it is that they're doing. Mate, it's faffing around.
Speaker 1: It's nonsense, yes, so much and so true. And the
Speaker 1: thing is that you know the thing that the thing
Speaker 1: that we the thing that we often avoid, which is
Speaker 1: and discomfort and inconvenience and all that shit. That is
Speaker 1: literally the stuff that makes us better. And I used
Speaker 1: to back in the day when you were fucking sticks.
Speaker 1: I used to When I started my PT right, I
Speaker 1: had a smallish PT studio. It was the only one
Speaker 1: in Australia. It was fifteen hundred square feet and I
Speaker 1: had about five or six trainers working with me and
Speaker 1: it was all one on one and two on one.
Speaker 1: But we used to do some groups. But we couldn't
Speaker 1: do groups indoors because we didn't have the space. So
Speaker 1: I used to do a Saturday morning group and it
Speaker 1: started with three ladies that I trained, and a few
Speaker 1: other ladies went as can we join the group when
Speaker 1: it's actually it's actually a private three on one, and
Speaker 1: the ladies went well we don't mind. So then it
Speaker 1: became a six, then a ten. Then I used to
Speaker 1: do every Saturday four years between. This is no bullshit,
Speaker 1: between thirty and one hundred people in this group. My
Speaker 1: gym was two hundred meters from the beach, and when
Speaker 1: new people would come, they would say, oh, what happens
Speaker 1: when it's raining, and I'd say, ask the group, and
Speaker 1: the group would go, we fucking train and your waterproof, right,
Speaker 1: because that was my answer, your waterproof? We train what
Speaker 1: you earlier? Yeah, I'm like, dude, But you know, here's
Speaker 1: the funny thing. I ran programs for years and I
Speaker 1: have zero military credibility or background. I'm just a fucking nuffy.
Speaker 1: But my program was called commando training and before boot
Speaker 1: camps were things, and so I would train. The biggest
Speaker 1: group I trained was on an East of Friday morning
Speaker 1: and we gave all the money. I used to do
Speaker 1: East of Friday at seven am, and we'd give the money.
Speaker 2: To the.
Speaker 1: Royal Children's Hospital appealed down here in Melbourne, and I
Speaker 1: did one hundred and thirty five people on the beach
Speaker 1: at once by myself with the whistle right, and it
Speaker 1: was just fucking awesome. But the thing is when you've
Speaker 1: got all these people just smashing themselves in and out
Speaker 1: of the water in the sand, up and downstairs, up
Speaker 1: and down like and they're stinking and they're sweaty, and
Speaker 1: then they're ass crackers full of sand and it's fucking shitouse.
Speaker 1: But it's joyful, you know, and people have there such
Speaker 1: a sense of achievement from getting out of that sterile
Speaker 1: environment and doing something that is just somewhere between uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and brutal, and it's awesome for us.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Like it reinforces, you know, a belief within
Speaker 2: ourselves and collectively, and you know, it's not a false confidence,
Speaker 2: whereas there's so much false confidence getting around nowadays. It's yeah,
Speaker 2: it involves a hand a phone in your hand half
Speaker 2: the time, but it's the vibe as well. And that's
Speaker 2: that's something that I've been working hard on lately, is
Speaker 2: just trying to I guess reiterate, you know, like initiate
Speaker 2: with the people that train with us. And it's it
Speaker 2: does it's just showing up and getting started, like the
Speaker 2: uncomfortableness of it. But once once you get past that,
Speaker 2: like you don't want to leave.
Speaker 1: It's addictive, right, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: And you know, and one thing that I've really I
Speaker 2: enjoy is again those small so you've got the larger group,
Speaker 2: but breaking down into smaller teams. And I guess that's
Speaker 2: the beauty of technology and the type of equipment that's
Speaker 2: available nowadays, Like look at the concept to rollers and
Speaker 2: skis and things like that, and you can you can
Speaker 2: have a team going for max distance on something like that,
Speaker 2: and as they come off a piece of equipment, they've
Speaker 2: got a few other exercises to do and it's team first,
Speaker 2: team who can cover the most distance in forty five
Speaker 2: minutes or something like that, And you know they're going
Speaker 2: after it, not just for themselves, but you know, for
Speaker 2: the collective group. But that little bit of competition really
Speaker 2: helps to raise the bar and encourage people to give
Speaker 2: a little more than they may give if it's just
Speaker 2: for themselves. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: And when you get you know, when you work when
Speaker 1: you're hurt, you know, working when you're hurting, you know,
Speaker 1: you become a different person, Like your mind changes, your
Speaker 1: threshold changes, your perspective, you're thinking, your choices, your resilience,
Speaker 1: your physiology changes, like you literally become a different version
Speaker 1: of yourself. Because you do the thing that most people avoid,
Speaker 1: you know. But the irony is if you said to
Speaker 1: most people, would you like to be mentally and physically
Speaker 1: and emotionally tougher and have more resilience and be fitter
Speaker 1: and stronger, and everyone says yes, but nobody wants to
Speaker 1: do what's required to produce that result, right, And.
Speaker 2: That's and that's the action piece where it always falls over.
Speaker 2: But that's something that for years with corporates, I've dried
Speaker 2: to get across the line. They want you to come
Speaker 2: in and talk to them and stand in this this
Speaker 2: room that everyone's comfortable being in because they've been in
Speaker 2: there before, and sit in front of a whiteboard or
Speaker 2: you know, a present a presentation that gets stringed and
Speaker 2: you know they're all pumped up for forty minutes. Forty
Speaker 2: five minutes they walk out of the room and started dump.
Speaker 2: It's all gone. And you know, if you from time
Speaker 2: to time you get them. I've done stuff on the
Speaker 2: Gold Coast where they actually want me to run a
Speaker 2: boot camp session for one hundred people, you know, on
Speaker 2: a Wednesday morning in mind you this is for like
Speaker 2: it conferences, and you get them on the beach and
Speaker 2: you know, you'd break them into their teams. You give
Speaker 2: them a rope and a few sandbags and set like
Speaker 2: a bit of a mission, a mission profile, and give
Speaker 2: them an orders set and everything like that. So they've
Speaker 2: got all these they've got this process, this operating procedure
Speaker 2: to work from, and then those skills that we talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, trusting one another and teamwork and communication and listening.
Speaker 2: As you were saying before, when you're immersed in the
Speaker 2: in the middle of hurting, you know, how good are
Speaker 2: you at being able to just put a bit of
Speaker 2: space around what it is that you're doing and be
Speaker 2: considerate of one another. Blink has come on for most
Speaker 2: people and they shut down and they internalize and they
Speaker 2: go to water. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also to be able to be in the middle
Speaker 1: of that and go, well, this sucks, but that's okay. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is temporary sucking.
Speaker 2: That's That's one of the things they take from the military,
Speaker 2: and the Americans are very big on it, is suffering
Speaker 2: silence because it's like anything else, we all know that
Speaker 2: we're hurting, but once we start flapping our lips, we
Speaker 2: start to undermine ourselves, like, oh but that, and then
Speaker 2: the next person, ah, yeah, I'm like, and before you know,
Speaker 2: you're so distracted from the task at hand, and your arm,
Speaker 2: my elbow hurts, on my knee hurts. Shut up, man,
Speaker 2: just like keep going. It's like that's not going to
Speaker 2: get you through it.
Speaker 1: And you're wasting energy on bullshit, you know. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying injury is a bullshit, but when you're constantly
Speaker 1: finding something, always finding something to complain about, you're channeling
Speaker 1: your attention and your focus and your energy into something
Speaker 1: that doesn't produce a good result. And the moment that
Speaker 1: you start complaining to people, you want attention and sympathy,
Speaker 1: you know. And some things just suck. And sometimes, look,
Speaker 1: there's a time when we've got to pull up because
Speaker 1: that's what our body's really telling us. But sometimes you
Speaker 1: just got to do shit that's uncomfortable and painful because
Speaker 1: you know, that's where the growth happens. So and I
Speaker 1: also found it funny like when you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: we go to the gym, We drive to the gym
Speaker 1: in our air condition headed car and get in an
Speaker 1: air conditioned gym, and we drive twenty minutes to get
Speaker 1: there and run on a piece of revolving rubber When
Speaker 1: you could just fucking run out your front door.
Speaker 2: I contemplated all of this stuff when I like, I
Speaker 2: do it all the time, but especially when I was
Speaker 2: on Survivor. I was starving because they didn't give us
Speaker 2: freaking anything. And then a fifty kilo woman wants to
Speaker 2: eat the same amount of food as me, you know,
Speaker 2: ninety kilo, while I was about nine a kilos after
Speaker 2: losing seven or so on the on the you know,
Speaker 2: through the through the weeks there it's a little bit
Speaker 2: of rice and a handful of beans if we didn't
Speaker 2: burn the shit out of them. And and and you're contemplating,
Speaker 2: you know, all of that. You're thinking about morale and
Speaker 2: being able to sustain life and have a shelter and
Speaker 2: fire and and I'm thinking to myself, I've spent all
Speaker 2: these years building this identity to be the person that
Speaker 2: I am, and I'm sitting on this island in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere doing a TV show. Yes, I put
Speaker 2: myself there, but I had no real inclination or to
Speaker 2: want to train. It becomes about survival and smart about
Speaker 2: what it is that I'm doing. You know, I need
Speaker 2: energy to collect firewood so that I don't freeze my
Speaker 2: ass off, you know, to go and gather and find
Speaker 2: some food if I like, and conserve energy for the challenges.
Speaker 2: And I'm not thinking of that just for myself, but
Speaker 2: also for the team. And then I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: when I go home, do I really what do I need?
Speaker 2: You know, like, really am I have? I just been
Speaker 2: bullshiting myself my whole life about you know, the what
Speaker 2: it is that I've been kind of doing and the
Speaker 2: game that I've been playing. And I made a little
Speaker 2: commitment to myself when I got home to to just
Speaker 2: run daily, you know, regardless of where my head was at,
Speaker 2: pull those runners on and go for at least thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: And you know, over time, with that consistency and commitment,
Speaker 2: you find yourself doing more and more. And then Maddie
Speaker 2: Rodgers actually got me involved in a in a triathlon
Speaker 2: and I ended up doing a an iron Man distance triathlone.
Speaker 2: So I ran my first marathon, you know, off the
Speaker 2: back of swimming near four k and cycling one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty. But again a life living that way and
Speaker 2: having that mentality off the back of that, it doesn't
Speaker 2: take much. You just change the bearing on the compass,
Speaker 2: just a little bit and you go after it, you know,
Speaker 2: because you've got that foundation, you've got that capability. You've
Speaker 2: just got to, I guess, learn the ropes of the
Speaker 2: specificity of what it is that you're going after. It's
Speaker 2: not that I was going to break any eight hour
Speaker 2: record and be up there with the pros, but just
Speaker 2: finishing something like that is a bloody challenge in itself.
Speaker 1: Well, what's your weight at the moment, give or take
Speaker 1: ninety six? Yeah, you're definitely not fucking built for marathons
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Was ninety I was ninety one and a half ninety
Speaker 2: two kilos when I did that.
Speaker 1: You're still about thirty kilos heavier than the elite guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, you're a fucking monster. You're
Speaker 1: like superhero competed. I mean, those guys are amazing and
Speaker 1: those girls are amazing. But yeah, you're a big unit
Speaker 1: that's definitely not built for ultra endurance. But that's a
Speaker 1: bloody great achievement, mate.
Speaker 2: But that's a life of doing that. That's the military,
Speaker 2: you know. We we were encouraged and it was expected
Speaker 2: of us to be able to get to the fight.
Speaker 2: So we had to have what it takes, but then
Speaker 2: you know, have enough left in the tank to fight
Speaker 2: the fight.
Speaker 1: And I reckon the objective with a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff is really how uncomfortable can you get and be
Speaker 1: and perform in the middle of that? And how well
Speaker 1: can you be the calm the chaos and how well
Speaker 1: can you keep your shit together when everyone else doesn't.
Speaker 2: And that's I've looked at. You know, you hear the
Speaker 2: words strength thrown around a lot. Strength can manifest itself
Speaker 2: in so many different ways. It's like, you know, we
Speaker 2: could talk about love all day and you know the
Speaker 2: different I guess the essences of it and strength than
Speaker 2: to be able to exude strength, you have to be calm, period.
Speaker 2: You have to be able to send yourself in and
Speaker 2: amongst all of that chaos and calm the mind and
Speaker 2: the thought process and the emotions that come of that,
Speaker 2: and use you're smarts about how you're going to apply it. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm not talking and everyone's going to pull four hundred
Speaker 2: kilos off the floor in a dead lift. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's relative to the conditions, the environment and
Speaker 2: the task in hand.
Speaker 1: And I think when you do discomfort in inverted commas
Speaker 1: you do one with one task or one activity or
Speaker 1: one discipline. When you work against that resistance of pain
Speaker 1: and suffering a discomfort, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, it
Speaker 1: crosses over to other things because when you so you
Speaker 1: went you went in the jungle on Survivor or you know,
Speaker 1: and you were there for a period of time and
Speaker 1: it sucks and there's no food and it's fucking cold,
Speaker 1: and there's no you know, there's no anything, and it
Speaker 1: literally is about survival and you are just trying to
Speaker 1: get through this and not waste energy and not make
Speaker 1: stupid decisions and not lose your shit and be value
Speaker 1: to the team. And then you go through that and
Speaker 1: then you come home and go, ah, maybe I've been
Speaker 1: doing life or part of life wrong. You know. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's these moments where we do something like so many
Speaker 1: times over the years I've trained someone who had never
Speaker 1: really done anything physically and they went from you know,
Speaker 1: lounges lizard to I ran a half, you know, I
Speaker 1: ran twenty one cased and then they're like the next thing,
Speaker 1: they're opening a business and they're fucking enrolling in UNI
Speaker 1: and then they're doing all this awesome shit because now
Speaker 1: not because of the running, but because of the way
Speaker 1: that their mind and their emotional system and their confidence
Speaker 1: changed in the middle of doing something hard.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree with you anymore. It's it just helps
Speaker 2: us to believe in ourselves and who we are. And
Speaker 2: I think we're so constrained by by the status quo
Speaker 2: and who we think we should be, and we all
Speaker 2: want to belong. What's the same, you know, babies babies
Speaker 2: for attention, Babies cry for it, and the rest of
Speaker 2: us die for it. And you know we were rather
Speaker 2: we will do crazy, stupid things for attention, you know,
Speaker 2: even you know, mistaking a few breaths, you know, which
Speaker 2: is vital. It's listening just then thinking of my brother
Speaker 2: who he works for garment and he's probably he's an
Speaker 2: absolute beast, you know. You everyone knows that, David Goggins
Speaker 2: and just some of the crazy ship that he does.
Speaker 2: You know, my brother is an Australian version of a
Speaker 2: forest gump. Wow, Like just the other week, you know, Well,
Speaker 2: anyway it all started. He was working in the minds
Speaker 2: and rather than being a p said like most people
Speaker 2: who work in the mines, you know, because it's just mundane,
Speaker 2: he just started running and I was working with Garment
Speaker 2: at the time, back in twenty sixteen, and he came
Speaker 2: on a trip with us, and then he said to
Speaker 2: the guy Garment, put a post up and for every
Speaker 2: like you get, I'll run a kilometer. Anyway, Garman got
Speaker 2: a bit nervous and they stopped. They stopped the likes
Speaker 2: that and pulled the post down at a thousand. So
Speaker 2: he ran a thousand k's in a month back in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. They documented it, and you know plenty of
Speaker 2: people do that. But he was working a nine to
Speaker 2: five job replacing suspension in semi trailers, and he pushed
Speaker 2: his daughter a normal pram that you walked the streets
Speaker 2: with not a running prem for nearly six hundred ks
Speaker 2: of that. And then, and I should see some of
Speaker 2: the video footage of just how cripple he was. He'd
Speaker 2: run three times a day. He had to run thirty
Speaker 2: three point three k's a day to make it every
Speaker 2: day for a month. Anyway, not so long ago, he
Speaker 2: was training for an event call I think it's Last
Speaker 2: Man Standing. And the Australian record is every seven, every
Speaker 2: hour on the hour, you run seven kilometers until you
Speaker 2: can't run anymore. In the Australian records about forty hours,
Speaker 2: forty two hours anyway, he in preparation for that, he
Speaker 2: started on a Sunday morning at six am and ran
Speaker 2: for twenty four hours on his own around the streets
Speaker 2: of his home, with no support, no one there cheering
Speaker 2: him on seven k's every hour on the hour, you know,
Speaker 2: justice and so that's on round one hundred and sixty k's.
Speaker 2: But just and he goes, mate, I was falling asleep
Speaker 2: on my feet, the hallucinations I was having, like it
Speaker 2: was just he said, it was a trip, just some
Speaker 2: of the stuff that was happening to him. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's one thing to be in at an in an
Speaker 2: event where you know you're competing against other people. And
Speaker 2: as we were saying earlier, dig a little deeper you
Speaker 2: find that that that next year, that that extra mile.
Speaker 2: But I don't know what makes that bloke tick. And
Speaker 2: you know he's my brother, and he just it blows
Speaker 2: me away what he what he achieves. And he's got
Speaker 2: this big ass bier like Forrest Gump and long hair.
Speaker 1: It's just what's his first name, what's his first name?
Speaker 2: Andrew? But he goes by Drew Willis or he's better
Speaker 2: known as the garment Man.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Drew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if anyone's in that type of stuff, he is
Speaker 2: the most softly spoken, barely says anything kind of guy.
Speaker 2: But you wouldn't put yourself up against him and that
Speaker 2: type of stuff, you know. And he's not a small guy.
Speaker 2: He's an eighty five kilow guy and he plays six
Speaker 2: in that event you had to pull out because he
Speaker 2: had to work at Camping Caravan Canny Caravan Expo on Monday.
Speaker 2: That's buddy. Yeah, it's amazing. There's amazing people out there
Speaker 2: who don't do it for the accolades of anybody else.
Speaker 2: They just do it to test themselves.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing what people discover about themselves when they
Speaker 1: really really genuinely have a crack or when you know
Speaker 1: what else is amazing, And I've spoken about this abnauseum
Speaker 1: on this show. Is like when when shit goes sideways
Speaker 1: in someone's life and there's a catastrophe or there's something
Speaker 1: fucking terrible that happens, how adaptable and capable and amazing
Speaker 1: people can be in the middle of a catastrophe or
Speaker 1: after a catastrophe in terms of you know, what they
Speaker 1: can do if they have to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, we rise to the occasion, and I think
Speaker 2: again a lot of the language and how how we
Speaker 2: view ourselves in this current era of humanity, it's undermining. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like because as you just said, you know, like yeah,
Speaker 2: like some of the events that like look in christ churchmen,
Speaker 2: I had those those earthquakes a few years ago, and
Speaker 2: how quickly they all pulled together and got themselves through
Speaker 2: what was happening, you know, and time and time again,
Speaker 2: when nature just gives a swift kick in the ass,
Speaker 2: you know, we band together and we find a solution.
Speaker 2: We come up with ways to get through it. You know,
Speaker 2: look at COVID, even not so long ago, you know,
Speaker 2: half an hour down the road from us here, we
Speaker 2: had the floods, you know, the water the water levels
Speaker 2: raised by twelve meters. Fuck like that's you know, people's
Speaker 2: homes got washed away, and you know, and just before
Speaker 2: COVID we had the fires. You know, people are still
Speaker 2: dealing with the consequences and the aftermath of all of that,
Speaker 2: you know, with everything else that's gone on.
Speaker 1: Wow, So I want to jump around a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to. I don't not if this sounds bad,
Speaker 1: I hate I don't you you'd probably be happy. I'm
Speaker 1: not that interested in the biggest loser, but people will
Speaker 1: want me to ask a fucking question or two. He
Speaker 1: didn't ask him about the biggest loser. Tell me one
Speaker 1: good thing and one thing that kind of not so
Speaker 1: good thing, whatever it is, out of the biggest loser.
Speaker 1: Or maybe there's no bad things, but something you enjoyed
Speaker 1: and something that you look back and go, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about that.
Speaker 2: From where we are nowadays, in our understanding around you know,
Speaker 2: obesity and weight issues and the like, we know it's
Speaker 2: a lot of it's mental health. Yeah, it's the perception
Speaker 2: of self and use food and whatever else is it
Speaker 2: means to soothe and to cope. Yeah, we didn't know
Speaker 2: about all that well, you know five years ago, ten
Speaker 2: years ago, and it was all very people were like
Speaker 2: that because they lacked you know, whatever it might have been,
Speaker 2: and they were full of excuses, and they were just lazy.
Speaker 2: You know, everything was based in laziness, and they're pathetic
Speaker 2: and apathet and all of this stuff and which you
Speaker 2: know isn't isn't so true? Like there's a lot of
Speaker 2: trauma that happens for people at very early ages. And
Speaker 2: again it's education, it's it's understanding and when the framework
Speaker 2: and the foundation isn't set when they're young, they don't
Speaker 2: know any different. And then they find themselves on a
Speaker 2: television show because they put their hand up and said
Speaker 2: I need to turn my life around, and they ended
Speaker 2: up on my team especially. I felt sorry for them
Speaker 2: half the time, but I very much when I went
Speaker 2: into it at the start, had this line you're either
Speaker 2: in or you're out. There's there's no middle ground. Like
Speaker 2: you know, you got to you got to live up
Speaker 2: to the expectation. But that's how it was for me
Speaker 2: for many years in the army and my job I
Speaker 2: took very seriously. I loved it, and it was all
Speaker 2: about building rapport and relationshi and ships because you wanted
Speaker 2: people to define that that intrinsic drive to do it
Speaker 2: for themselves, you know, not me just bark some orders
Speaker 2: and point of finger and when I turn my back
Speaker 2: they go and screw you. I'm not doing this any longer.
Speaker 2: Because those tools they then put into their little bag
Speaker 2: when they leave the biggest lose and it's in the
Speaker 2: rear vision mirror and they can implement them, you know,
Speaker 2: into their lives moving forward, you know, forever, and you
Speaker 2: know some of the transformation stories and you know people
Speaker 2: that have that have done amazing things this day, and
Speaker 2: it helped them immensely. But then there's others that they
Speaker 2: just they needed far more help than what the show
Speaker 2: could deliver. And a lot of that was was coming
Speaker 2: to terms with with things in their lives that yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of the traumas and the upset that they
Speaker 2: carried and those burdens and just how food and how
Speaker 2: readily available it is. They're just that they can't deal
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: I was banging on when I owned four gyms down here,
Speaker 1: and I spent my life talking to people about the
Speaker 1: psychology of eating and the psychology of getting in shape.
Speaker 1: And even though my first degree is exercise science, so i'm,
Speaker 1: you know, I would, you know, that's my area of
Speaker 1: real expertise. But I figured out quite young that getting
Speaker 1: in shape was whatever getting in shape means. That's a
Speaker 1: very sweeping, kind of blanket kind of description and statement.
Speaker 1: But I realized that helping people change their body was
Speaker 1: largely not about their body, and especially when it came
Speaker 1: to food, you know, because we don't accidentally eat cake.
Speaker 1: We don't accidentally eat three pies. We don't accidentally have
Speaker 1: fucking five beers and go shit out it like this.
Speaker 1: This is all choices and byproducts. And you're right, you know,
Speaker 1: just saying to someone, hey, fucking eat less and jog
Speaker 1: more and have more fucking self control, that's not the answer.
Speaker 1: And I've written a bunch of books. But the first
Speaker 1: book I wrote was nearly twenty years ago, mate, And interestingly,
Speaker 1: to my knowledge anyway, when no one was talking about
Speaker 1: the psychology of food and getting in shape, I wrote
Speaker 1: a book terrible fucking name, but I think it was
Speaker 1: a good conversation. The book's called Fatitude, which was basically
Speaker 1: a book about the psychology behind the physiology. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's almost like, the body's not the problem. The body
Speaker 1: is the consequence. The body's the symptom. What's the problem
Speaker 1: is between my ears? And I'm the same, mate, like
Speaker 1: i've my audience. No, I'm a fucking idiot with food,
Speaker 1: like I've been. I was the fattest kid in my
Speaker 1: school and it took me until I was probably mid thirties,
Speaker 1: which was twenty years ago for me. And I owned
Speaker 1: gyms and I was writing for the Herald Sun, I
Speaker 1: was doing all this cool shit, but I still had
Speaker 1: my own bullshit with food. And it took me three
Speaker 1: and a half decades to be able to manage my mind,
Speaker 1: to manage my body. And I think people really don't
Speaker 1: understand what a huge role managing our emotions and our
Speaker 1: mind and choices and behaviors and you know, thinking in general,
Speaker 1: what a huge role it plays, because we're so obsessed
Speaker 1: with the body that we actually missed the cause.
Speaker 2: But that's but that's humanity in and of itself. We're
Speaker 2: so fixated on the materialism and the form of everything,
Speaker 2: we missed, we miss everything else. Now the Japanese have
Speaker 2: a word for everything else, and it's called marm. It's
Speaker 2: the space, the interval, or the gap between. And yeah,
Speaker 2: as you said, so the physiology and how it presents
Speaker 2: itself is exactly you know, what's going on, you know, internally.
Speaker 2: And I saw it this morning when I took a
Speaker 2: group for training and as we were talking earlier, people
Speaker 2: banging on about injuries and I can't do this and
Speaker 2: I can't do that, and we're sitting down and I
Speaker 2: got them to do like a simple like seated splits
Speaker 2: position and to bend to one side to stretch out
Speaker 2: through the QL and mate. People couldn't even sit on
Speaker 2: the floor with their leaks like they had them sitting
Speaker 2: on like a yoga mat or an exercise mat. Some
Speaker 2: people could barely get their feet wider than with the mat.
Speaker 2: And they're so posteriorly or you know, the hip so
Speaker 2: possibly rotated, but they're going into this caiphoonic position with
Speaker 2: the hip. And then and then you know, you're asking
Speaker 2: them to lunch, you're asking them to squat, you know,
Speaker 2: do all this other stuff. They're so their reductors are
Speaker 2: so bound up and tight, and then it's affecting all
Speaker 2: of that as external rotators and up into their back.
Speaker 2: It's and and again it's it's what's going on in
Speaker 2: he here. It's what they then deem and think is
Speaker 2: most important. And we chase the form, we chase the
Speaker 2: output because humanity says, well, anything that you want is
Speaker 2: found in intensity and going hard. Well, you know, we
Speaker 2: know that that to be true to a degree, but
Speaker 2: you've got to be smart about how you do it.
Speaker 2: You know, efficiency of movement, efficacy of movement, you know,
Speaker 2: and otherwise it's not trying to drive your car with
Speaker 2: a bloody handbreak on, like you know, you're.
Speaker 1: Just so trying to use fast and also on top
Speaker 1: of that, like look at us three right now, where
Speaker 1: the sit down generation? Right, There's never been a generation
Speaker 1: of fucking humans ever in the whole timeline of humanity
Speaker 1: who sit as much as we do. So we're in
Speaker 1: constant hip flexion and quite often with this forward head position,
Speaker 1: so our heads forward over our center of gravity. Our
Speaker 1: shoulders are forward and slumpy, like Tiff, who looks like
Speaker 1: a fucking question mark over there, get your shoulders back
Speaker 1: to the boxing. And but yeah, so this forward shoulder position,
Speaker 1: this chai fotic back, this forward head position, you know,
Speaker 1: this constant hip flesh. And so our hip flexes get tight,
Speaker 1: our glutes get weak and stretched, and then we stand up.
Speaker 1: And just fucking standing up straight is a struggle for
Speaker 1: some people. Yeah, but you know it's our lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like we're just hearing you say with Tiff,
Speaker 2: and I guess the specificity of a given sport. With boxing,
Speaker 2: it asks of you to hold your body in cert
Speaker 2: positions and not be so square, you know, because you
Speaker 2: to avoid being hit. It's easy to hit a freaking
Speaker 2: big target. And I look back to my military time,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm six to two, you know, and
Speaker 2: you know I'm a biggish guy. But what what was
Speaker 2: required of us, you know, was with a lot of
Speaker 2: the drills that we did, we had a weapon system.
Speaker 2: So we're kind of in that position and wear crouchs
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: Remember when I was.
Speaker 2: Leaving the army and I was introduced a crossbit, you know,
Speaker 2: and they're talking about overhead squats and snatch and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. Mate, I've thought my shoulders were going to
Speaker 2: get torn off and my wrists and like I'd try
Speaker 2: and front squat and I'd almost cry because the pain
Speaker 2: that I'd get in my risk is my shoulders were
Speaker 2: just frozen in this position. And then my elbow extension
Speaker 2: from carrying a damn machine gun for years, like bent
Speaker 2: like that, like it just it's all that muscle memory again,
Speaker 2: and then the calcification in the joint. And but again,
Speaker 2: I've just never been one to to allow others to
Speaker 2: define who I am. It's like, you know, doctors say,
Speaker 2: but don't do this, and don't just like men. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm human, I'm organic. I'm gonna I'm gonna give it
Speaker 2: a damn red hot go to, you know, to improve
Speaker 2: my mobility, and you know, the things I can do
Speaker 2: now at near on forty five that I wasn't capable
Speaker 2: of doing when I was twenty five. Yeah, good for you, dude.
Speaker 1: How long were you in the military.
Speaker 2: So I joined when I was eighteen and I left
Speaker 2: just before I was thirty, So yeah, it was around
Speaker 2: that ten year mart Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was the best part.
Speaker 2: The best part, Gosh, there was lots of it, but
Speaker 2: it was the camaraderie. It was the matship and doing
Speaker 2: hardship with your mates, Like doing some real scary, funky
Speaker 2: like like almost out of body experience stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: like sliding down the rope of a helicopter and a
Speaker 2: high rise building, you know where it's just you and
Speaker 2: your hands hold one and you've got thirty kilos a year,
Speaker 2: you know, just jumping out of aircraft with your boats
Speaker 2: and landing you know, way out in the ocean where
Speaker 2: you can't even see land doing parachuting at night, sliding
Speaker 2: down lift you know, steel cables twenty stories, you know,
Speaker 2: just stuff, doing shooting, shooting in rooms you know where
Speaker 2: you're standing close to targets and the trust and that
Speaker 2: you have in your teammates too, you know, engaging you know,
Speaker 2: friend from foe and hostage terrorist type situations. It's just,
Speaker 2: you know, the level and degree of training. It's hard
Speaker 2: to kind of articulate because most people's references to stuff
Speaker 2: like that are movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there's guys that do this stuff day
Speaker 2: and day out, and and and they've deployed those skills,
Speaker 2: you know, for real, you know, in countries far away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's full on and that that you know,
Speaker 1: what you do a lot of, whether or not that
Speaker 1: set a lot, or carry a machine and a lot,
Speaker 1: or eat donuts a lot or whatever. That behavior is
Speaker 1: that you do a lot of, that becomes your default setting.
Speaker 1: That becomes your programming. That becomes your whether or not
Speaker 1: it's good or bad. That becomes your blueprint. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you a little bit about like I mean,
Speaker 1: I've only known you for forty five minutes. We could
Speaker 1: have been brothers. I could have been your older brother,
Speaker 1: I feel like to me, yeah, mate, Well, the funny
Speaker 1: thing is I always have my head shaved. I've had
Speaker 1: it shaved for thirty years. And this is the first
Speaker 1: time I've grown it in ever because people thought I
Speaker 1: was bald. I'm like, no, motherfuckers, I just shaved that shit.
Speaker 1: It grows like fucking bamboo up there. So to me,
Speaker 1: you seem like a contrarian, and by that I mean,
Speaker 1: and tell me how wrong or right I am. Contrarian
Speaker 1: in that you like, you're full on with what you do.
Speaker 1: You discipline, you're in control, You've got your shit together.
Speaker 1: You you have pretty clearly defined boundaries about who you
Speaker 1: are and what you're doing, what's okay and what's not okay.
Speaker 1: And you you're obviously because of your background with TV
Speaker 1: except you're comfortable doing this. But to me, you don't
Speaker 1: seem like a natural extrovert. You seem you seem more
Speaker 1: like an introvert that has just been developed the skill
Speaker 1: to be able to do this stuff. You're not an
Speaker 1: introvert shy like you seem like to me a naturally
Speaker 1: more quiet, reserved, just get shit done kind of person
Speaker 1: and then beat my chest, look at me.
Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent, like I I think, yeah, and
Speaker 2: upbringing and just I think inherently being that way, like
Speaker 2: my constitution. But that's that's the mentality and the military
Speaker 2: as well. You know, you you might talk a little,
Speaker 2: and you know, you plan and you have your orders,
Speaker 2: groups and the like, and then you just you put
Speaker 2: it to practice. You go out and it's all about
Speaker 2: the action piece. And that's you know, where you take
Speaker 2: the theory and you put it into practice, and half
Speaker 2: the time you prove that those theories just are a
Speaker 2: load of shit. And the reality of it is you've
Speaker 2: got to be You've got to have a lot of
Speaker 2: lateral thinking and be able to come up with contingency
Speaker 2: plans a lot of the time. But I've always been
Speaker 2: that way, and that's why I find the social media
Speaker 2: side of things and kind of you know, the current
Speaker 2: era quite difficult to to play in that space in
Speaker 2: that game, because I would rather, you know, show my
Speaker 2: worth and you know, my capability in the middle of
Speaker 2: a workout or doing something hard or being of service
Speaker 2: you know, to my family or to my friends or
Speaker 2: you know, to people in need. And that's I think
Speaker 2: that speaks volumes. And I guess I was quite fortunate
Speaker 2: when I left the military and the biggest loser opportunity
Speaker 2: presented at skull self. It scared the absolute shit out
Speaker 2: of me, but I saw the opportunity and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to give it a crack. And I thought,
Speaker 2: if I fail, I'll just go back to the Army.
Speaker 2: But that immersion process and that constant butterflies and feeling
Speaker 2: sick in my guts want the puke every time I
Speaker 2: was going to go on camera. The more you immerse
Speaker 2: yourself in it, like everything we've been talking about, you
Speaker 2: start to learn the roapes, You start to gain an
Speaker 2: understanding and some insights and how to work around things.
Speaker 2: And I found I've just got a lot better at
Speaker 2: talking because I was around people who could talk. And
Speaker 2: other than that, i'd still be like my nine year
Speaker 2: old son who says very little, Well.
Speaker 1: You get conditioned to whatever you do. You know, you
Speaker 1: become you know, you become who you're around and what
Speaker 1: you're doing to an extent in that you know. You
Speaker 1: sorry to repeat all these metaphors everybody, but I always say,
Speaker 1: whatever you start as you start as a white belt,
Speaker 1: whether or not that's martial arts or TV or academia
Speaker 1: or building a business or you know, we start as
Speaker 1: a white belt and then we train and we fall down,
Speaker 1: we get up, and we learn shit, and we progress
Speaker 1: and develop skill and resilience and awareness and competence, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you just get So you go from being
Speaker 1: shipped in front of camera, not many skills, not much awareness,
Speaker 1: and lots of nerves and then over time you become
Speaker 1: confident and skillful and the physiological response tones down and
Speaker 1: you're the same person, but now you've got a different
Speaker 1: relationship with that thing with the camera, with that exposure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'd related to exercise all the time, and
Speaker 2: it's you know, like like learning complex skills, and you've
Speaker 2: got to You've got to hone the basics first because otherwise,
Speaker 2: you know, all that complexity, what does it base itself in?
Speaker 2: You know, what are you're working from? And yeah, they
Speaker 2: actually those everything that you just spoke about have being
Speaker 2: some of the biggest struggles that I've had in my
Speaker 2: life is that that outward yeah, persona of who I am,
Speaker 2: and then also playing a role as well and living
Speaker 2: up to the expectation of what that character was. And
Speaker 2: over time I just learned really people just want you
Speaker 2: to be who you are, and you don't need to
Speaker 2: be this one dimensional human being like people. People like
Speaker 2: to see the many facets of what makes another person tick,
Speaker 2: and you can be soft and gentle and loving and
Speaker 2: calm and at the same time an absolute weapon. And
Speaker 2: I think when you have you're conscious and aware of
Speaker 2: when to turn it on and not, you actually go
Speaker 2: through life with more rhythm and you can move with it.
Speaker 2: You're not you're not resistant because you're trying to be
Speaker 2: something that you're not at times when you don't need
Speaker 2: to be it.
Speaker 1: That's that's so insightful. That's you. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I expected, but I didn't expect you. That didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't have low expectations. I try not to own think it,
Speaker 1: but you're very philosophical and insightful.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, there's this thing that, as you said, persona.
Speaker 1: It's a really good word because I think with a
Speaker 1: lot of people and me included at times, so all
Speaker 1: of us probably at times there's the persona and then
Speaker 1: there's the person you know. And quite often the persona
Speaker 1: is the role we play or the character or public
Speaker 1: me or TV me, or me at the gym. You know,
Speaker 1: when I was running my shit and people are everywhere,
Speaker 1: and I step out on the floor and it's fucking
Speaker 1: wah wah wah, and there's I'm still me, but there's
Speaker 1: a fair bit of role playing in that and when
Speaker 1: you step away from there being the commando and you're
Speaker 1: just Steve, just the fucking bloke who's a bit complicated
Speaker 1: and a bit brilliant and good and bad days and
Speaker 1: gets fucked off and inspires people all in the same hour, right,
Speaker 1: because you're just a fucking dude. You're not really special.
Speaker 1: None of us are special, right, You're just a bloke. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what I mean, No one's fucking special.
Speaker 1: Or there's seven point eight billion of us that we're
Speaker 1: not that fucking unique.
Speaker 2: But collectively we are. But that's the we don't work
Speaker 2: together enough. You know. Bruce Lipton, one of the best
Speaker 2: biologists in the world, talks to that piece. You know,
Speaker 2: everyone bangs on nowadays there's too many humans, you know,
Speaker 2: it's that's the problem with the world. Well, actually humanity
Speaker 2: in the world are two different things. Humanity is the
Speaker 2: issue with the world, and the world is actually going
Speaker 2: to it's working its magic and sorting us out. But
Speaker 2: Bruce Lipton said, you know, talk to the piece where
Speaker 2: you know there's what seven point however many billion people
Speaker 2: just to make one human body. There's like seventy trillion cells, yes,
Speaker 2: you know, and and they need to work reasonably harmonious
Speaker 2: or harmoniously for us to function and be a human.
Speaker 2: And you know, we we have the capability. Were just
Speaker 2: we've got to get over this archaic way of thinking
Speaker 2: and actually use our intelligence. But we you know, our
Speaker 2: state of being in this mindset, and a lot of
Speaker 2: it too, is the ego and the emotions that are
Speaker 2: born of the ego. A lot of anger and aggression
Speaker 2: and resentment and jealousy and all this other type of
Speaker 2: stuff constantly pulls us down and it undermines us.
Speaker 1: In terms of your life. Now you've got to go soon,
Speaker 1: when you've got to go five or ten? All right,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm fucking loving it. I'm loving it. I okay,
Speaker 1: So for me, so I'm going to start. So for me,
Speaker 1: my issues are numerous. But in terms of me managing me,
Speaker 1: it's always been you go, bit of bullshit, a bit
Speaker 1: of self doubt, yeah, self loathing yep, a bit of overthinking,
Speaker 1: a little bit of self sabotage. Like beautiful cocktail of
Speaker 1: emotions and behavior there, right, and and like feeling shit
Speaker 1: but kind of knowing well, I'm not shit but feeling
Speaker 1: shit at times. I've always had to bring myself fucking
Speaker 1: keep myself aligned because I can shoot myself in the
Speaker 1: foot or I can. You know, I always say to people,
Speaker 1: nobody's a harsher critic of me than me, So do
Speaker 1: your best right? What about you? How do you self manage?
Speaker 1: How do you keep yourself mentally, emotionally, practically where you
Speaker 1: need to be to be your best person or your
Speaker 1: best self and to live your best life. Do you
Speaker 1: have any rituals or do you have any to read
Speaker 1: a lot? Do you meditate to your listener? Fucking Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan nineteen weeks.
Speaker 2: So I growing up, I didn't think much of myself.
Speaker 2: Grew up with a stepfather who was just a hard ass.
Speaker 2: He used anger was his go to emotion with everything,
Speaker 2: and so I grew up as a young boy. You're
Speaker 2: seeking acceptance, you know, from you know, the parent kind
Speaker 2: of age group and my peers, because I didn't get
Speaker 2: a lot of that nurturing and that love. Like it
Speaker 2: was it was hard line and discipline. The military kind
Speaker 2: of brought more of that, and I didn't like myself
Speaker 2: at all. And in my early to mid teens, I
Speaker 2: just started using exercise as a means to beat the
Speaker 2: freaking absolute crap out of myself, you know, rather than
Speaker 2: alcohol or drugs, I went to exercise. I'd get up
Speaker 2: early in the morning and go for runs and try
Speaker 2: and kill myself like like I would try and hurt
Speaker 2: myself like that, like with exercise. My eye used to
Speaker 2: ride a pushbike and do paper runs every day, and
Speaker 2: and the like, and that that was a very tumultuous
Speaker 2: relationship with exercise. But the thing with exercise, you know,
Speaker 2: this whole talk, is it's freaking hard, and to sustain
Speaker 2: it you've got to keep answering your why otherwise and
Speaker 2: many people can't though, And for me, even in my
Speaker 2: military years, I still did my own training on top
Speaker 2: of it. So when I made the decision to leave
Speaker 2: the Army, I knew what I wanted to do because
Speaker 2: it had had such a profound effect on my life
Speaker 2: and help me kind of forge and carve a particular path.
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, the things that I've learned to
Speaker 2: that point in time and from the Army, I can
Speaker 2: put that to good use and help others. And then
Speaker 2: the profile came and I found that very hard to
Speaker 2: deal with. But then I would talk to people and say,
Speaker 2: you know, what do I do? And they would just
Speaker 2: say if someone approaches you and has something nice to
Speaker 2: say and congratulate and I'm like, job well done. Just
Speaker 2: say thank you, like, actually give them enough space and
Speaker 2: listen enough for them, regardless of what it is that
Speaker 2: they have to say, because that's their opinion, that's their perspective,
Speaker 2: and you may have had a profound effect on their
Speaker 2: life from a few words that you said. If they
Speaker 2: want to say something, just let them say it, and
Speaker 2: then just say thank you. And I was like, man,
Speaker 2: how easy can it be? But you get all hung
Speaker 2: up on this stuff. And then and then in when
Speaker 2: I was thirty three, in two thousand and nine, I
Speaker 2: competed in the CrossFit Games in America and I finished fourth.
Speaker 2: I was still the highest ranked Aussie to finish at
Speaker 2: the Crossfieit Games. James h Adelaide finished fifth last year,
Speaker 2: behind me, So he's getting close. But you know, not
Speaker 2: many people know about that, you know, and that was
Speaker 2: the early days of CrossFit.
Speaker 1: And that's an amazing outcome, Like I know what that means.
Speaker 2: And then guy, yeah, and Guy said to me, oh,
Speaker 2: served with me, and you know, it was special Forces
Speaker 2: in the Army, and they're like, what's the difference between
Speaker 2: what we did in the army and what you did
Speaker 2: in CrossFit? And in the army it's about being the
Speaker 2: gray man. It's about just getting the job done. It's
Speaker 2: an endurance race. Crossfits just it's brutal, it's all out.
Speaker 2: You're trying to win. And I des drawed myself in
Speaker 2: thes and for about a year after that, I didn't
Speaker 2: want to even think of exercise, like I just it
Speaker 2: made me want to be sick. But my relationship after
Speaker 2: that with myself and what I put myself through for
Speaker 2: all those years was I can't keep working through and
Speaker 2: operating from the thought processes and the emotions that I
Speaker 2: elictit to get the job done, because a lot of
Speaker 2: it was, as you were saying earlier, self loathing. There
Speaker 2: was a lot of aggression. There was a lot of
Speaker 2: turning things back in on myself and using that as
Speaker 2: a fuel to get it. But it's very destructive. But
Speaker 2: through that immersion again and the experience, I started to
Speaker 2: read a lot more. I started to you know, I
Speaker 2: guess have my mind and eyes open to many different
Speaker 2: facets and ways of being, and again just rewinding to
Speaker 2: when I was. I didn't know how to express myself,
Speaker 2: so I used physical action to express myself. And then
Speaker 2: I realized you reading a lot of philosophy, and then
Speaker 2: kind of into the Buddhism side of things and Zen
Speaker 2: Buddhism and teaching myself how to be still, to just
Speaker 2: sit and be and come home to myself and build
Speaker 2: a relationship with my mind and my body and the
Speaker 2: essence of who I am. So nowadays I can get
Speaker 2: really fidgety and up tight and upset about things, and
Speaker 2: I can go and do a workout, but at the
Speaker 2: same time, I can be in that same place and
Speaker 2: I can go sit quietly out the back or even
Speaker 2: come into the carriage and turn the lights off and
Speaker 2: sit here with my legs quiet although as my leg's
Speaker 2: quite my legs cross quietly, and I might want to
Speaker 2: jump out of my skin. But after about fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: of just sitting with myself and just following my breathing,
Speaker 2: everything just comes. It just kind of evaporates, and a
Speaker 2: lot of that those very strong, powerful emotions subside. And
Speaker 2: this is the other thing that I've learned is the
Speaker 2: Western mind teaches resistance trying to push away a lot
Speaker 2: and to resist and having something to actually resist when
Speaker 2: there doesn't have to be. And emotional intelligence is actually
Speaker 2: recognizing an emotion coming up because it's been triggered from something,
Speaker 2: and not trying to resist that emotion, but calming that emotion,
Speaker 2: like your anger, like I don't need you right now,
Speaker 2: Everything's okay, I've got this, And then you calm that
Speaker 2: and you make space and room to engage with other
Speaker 2: emotions that are more uplifting for you and they're more
Speaker 2: beneficial to maybe what it is that you're trying to
Speaker 2: get done.
Speaker 1: Listen to you, dude. You like the Deli Lama with
Speaker 1: fucking big shoulders.
Speaker 2: But it's like I couldn't meditate five minutes when I
Speaker 2: first started, you know, sitting at it, like and the
Speaker 2: aches in my knees and just the discomfort and pain.
Speaker 2: And then I think I've in me. I've got a
Speaker 2: bit of a bit of OCD with stuff if I
Speaker 2: get if I fixed my mind on something like I'm
Speaker 2: like a pitbull that's been let off the leash. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be I'm not gonna to be
Speaker 2: distracted by what's left and right. I'm going after it
Speaker 2: and some of the stuff I read, especially in zen Buddhism,
Speaker 2: about how disciplined they are and the expectation. I was like, mate,
Speaker 2: I might not be in Japan or in a zen a,
Speaker 2: in a Buddhist monastery or the like, but I can
Speaker 2: damn or practice it in the confines of my own home.
Speaker 2: And you know what I've learnt about myself, And I
Speaker 2: think getting to know yourself better, you know humanity better.
Speaker 2: And and and a lot of the time, half the
Speaker 2: stuff that you irritates this and upsets this doesn't need
Speaker 2: to be We just just put some spate, just let
Speaker 2: it go, and just observe, because a lot of it,
Speaker 2: too is we're just carrying on like five year olds.
Speaker 2: It's no, we're just in bigger bodies. Like I watched
Speaker 2: my five year old son carry on. I think, oh,
Speaker 2: there you go, Steve. You know sometimes you act like
Speaker 2: that and you're in your forties, you're big kid. But
Speaker 2: and then and then you smile, because as you said
Speaker 2: at the start of this, you know we do we
Speaker 2: take ship too seriously a lot of the time, and
Speaker 2: you know, we beat ourselves up when really we could
Speaker 2: just smile and go there you go. You just you're
Speaker 2: just being a goose again, just you know, wind it
Speaker 2: in and and just calm things down.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to hear the contrast between the highly
Speaker 1: trained Special Forces soldier, which is all you know, switched on,
Speaker 1: ready to go, ready to go, like be prepared, sympathetic,
Speaker 1: nervous system, fight for flight, blah blah, but also parasympathy
Speaker 1: being the calm in the chaos, through to the kind
Speaker 1: of the Eastern philosophical journey as well, you know, being
Speaker 1: the equanimity, you know, the calm in the chaos, and
Speaker 1: being where you become. You don't you're not the thought anymore.
Speaker 1: You're not in the thought. You're actually outside the thought.
Speaker 1: You're the observer of your thinking. Where there's that disconnect
Speaker 1: between me and my thought. It's not the same anymore.
Speaker 1: Oh fuck, where did that thought come from? That's bullshit
Speaker 1: and being able to you know, and you go, well,
Speaker 1: if it's not my mind recognizing that thing that's coming
Speaker 1: from my mind, what is it? Who the fuck or
Speaker 1: what the fuck is the observer? Because it's also it's
Speaker 1: not my body. Oh hang on. If I'm not my
Speaker 1: body and not my mind and not my thoughts and
Speaker 1: not my emotions. I fucking love that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wrote about that in two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: in the book No Excuses, And when I was training
Speaker 2: and training up for the cross with games and the like,
Speaker 2: and pushing myself to the point of having out of
Speaker 2: body experiences and like I used to, but I can
Speaker 2: do that again now. You know, meditating, and you talk
Speaker 2: to many people who are very practiced in those ways
Speaker 2: of being, and they do they go into different states
Speaker 2: of reality and and things become altered. And it's much
Speaker 2: like you know, even sleeping, like the states of sleep
Speaker 2: and remembering dreams and not and the like, and you know,
Speaker 2: was I awake? Was I sleep like? It's it's that
Speaker 2: trying to distinguish, and I think sometimes we get a
Speaker 2: bit hung up on it, but the mind tries to
Speaker 2: grasp as well and understand when really it's just just
Speaker 2: be happy with a certain observation or awareness that it is,
Speaker 2: and don't try and make anything more of it. But
Speaker 2: that's what where I'm at now too. In working out,
Speaker 2: like in that chaos of squad, pressed with a barbell
Speaker 2: or running my guts out, I can I can just
Speaker 2: find myself quite centered and calm, and there's this buffer,
Speaker 2: and I can observe how the mind starts to trying
Speaker 2: to attach itself to certain pain triggers that are going on.
Speaker 2: And if you do, you go down this rabbit hole
Speaker 2: and you find yourself stopping when really, if you can
Speaker 2: bring it back to your breathing, bring it back to
Speaker 2: some fundamentals of like, all right, so what's the exercise
Speaker 2: that I'm doing and what what what techniques do I
Speaker 2: need to employ to ensure that I'm moving efficiently with
Speaker 2: those movements? And I bring it back to that, and
Speaker 2: I just find I can just keep going rep after
Speaker 2: wreck and it's and even now with I might not
Speaker 2: be as strong in the sense of you know, one
Speaker 2: r M type work that I've been able to do
Speaker 2: over my years, but capacity wise and across a variety
Speaker 2: of skill sets, I'm a much better athlete human being
Speaker 2: than I've ever been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the thing is with fitness, I mean there's
Speaker 1: cognitive fitness, emotional fitness, you know, physiological fitness, of course,
Speaker 1: and even if we just look at the physical their
Speaker 1: strength and power and speed and muscular endurance and aerobic
Speaker 1: endurance and reaction time and spatial awareness, there's all that shit, right,
Speaker 1: you know, and yeah, being able to bench press whatever
Speaker 1: or deadlift whatever or clean whatever is good, But not
Speaker 1: if you can't run five hundred yards, you know, or
Speaker 1: not if you can't do a chin up because one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty kilos, or because you can't fucking touch
Speaker 1: your knees because you lower backs fucked and you've got
Speaker 1: the flexibility of a fucking cricket bat, you know. So
Speaker 1: it is so interesting mate, to hear you talk about
Speaker 1: all of that, and also, you know, to open that
Speaker 1: door beyond you know, the identity thing and the reality thing.
Speaker 1: It's like you were talking about the dream. You know.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, right, your body doesn't know what's real
Speaker 1: as in practically literally happening. It doesn't know the difference
Speaker 1: between that and the dream because your body, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're dreaming that you're being chased by the saber
Speaker 1: toothed tiger and in that dream you're there and that
Speaker 1: you're present, and you believe that, then so does your body.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden we have all of
Speaker 1: these physiological responses which are identical to if it was
Speaker 1: actually happening, because your body can't differentiate. That's how powerful
Speaker 1: thought is. And so when we get people sitting around
Speaker 1: God bless them all day, some people who are really
Speaker 1: you know, focused on negativity. Well, the day is negative
Speaker 1: because you're telling yourself those stories of how shit and
Speaker 1: horrible everything is, even if it isn't. But then that's
Speaker 1: reflected in your body's biochemistry and your heart rate and
Speaker 1: your blood pressure and your sympathetic nervous system and your
Speaker 1: stress home hormones, and you know, it's this whole integrin
Speaker 1: of mind, emotion, body and learning to self regulate, which
Speaker 1: is kind of where you've been and where you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I fucking love this.
Speaker 2: How you can, yeah you can. You can articulate it
Speaker 2: in a way just with the differences and I guess
Speaker 2: you know, the facets of what it means to be human.
Speaker 2: And again we get so fixated on the form and
Speaker 2: that muscular skeletal system and the aesthetic of how it
Speaker 2: looks when you know, there's so many people that I
Speaker 2: know that don't look like athletes and they turn the
Speaker 2: inside out and a heartbeat.
Speaker 1: And also think about how many people that you and
Speaker 1: I know that a walking around in this awesome rig
Speaker 1: that mentally and emotionally are falling apart. You know, and
Speaker 1: then you go. So it's good to have a great
Speaker 1: body and well done, and it's good to be strong
Speaker 1: and look fit and look amazing, and that's great. That
Speaker 1: is a really great achievement. But if the only thing
Speaker 1: you train is your body, you'd never train your mind,
Speaker 1: or you never look after your mental or emotional health.
Speaker 1: You know, there are going to be some problems. We're
Speaker 1: going to wind up because I realized that you've got
Speaker 1: shit to do and you don't need to talk to
Speaker 1: me all day. But I don't say this every episode,
Speaker 1: but I really really enjoy chatting with you, like really good,
Speaker 1: so such a good conversation, and you're such an insightful
Speaker 1: human being. So I really appreciate you coming on to
Speaker 1: you project buddy.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mate, you're a ripper. You're fucking great. You're good.
Speaker 1: You're real good. You probably know that, but I didn't,
Speaker 1: but now I do. You're real good, Tiff. What'd you think?
Speaker 3: I thought he was real good?
Speaker 1: I reckon to give him on your your podcast at
Speaker 1: some stage.
Speaker 3: Well, little did he know I was going to hit
Speaker 3: him up for it. Well, let's now I think he's ready.
Speaker 1: Yeah, primed him he's had a practice run with me.
Speaker 2: Mate.
Speaker 1: If people want to follow you, you connect with you.
Speaker 1: What's the deal? Buy your books? Fucking spoon you on
Speaker 1: the couch?
Speaker 2: What is it? Just all the handles Commando Steve, So
Speaker 2: Commando Steve, website, dot com, Instagram, Kimando Steve, Facebook, Commando Steve.
Speaker 2: And you know the training we we kind of the
Speaker 2: banner we go under is get Commando fit perfect.
Speaker 1: Well, we appreciate you stick around once I do the
Speaker 1: show sign off if you would just for a minute,
Speaker 1: tiff anything, no harps, Well done you, well done, Steve.
Speaker 1: Well done listeners. We love you, guts and we will
Speaker 1: see you next time.