Speaker 1: Oh good a, you bloody champions. Welcome to another installment
Speaker 1: of you Know What with you know Who? Tiffany and
Speaker 1: Cook sitting over there like like she just got back
Speaker 1: from some kind of outdoor adventure, which I think is
Speaker 1: the case?
Speaker 2: Is that the case?
Speaker 3: That's the case?
Speaker 2: Cracking still wearing your outdoor baseball cap? What's going on?
Speaker 3: Well? I thought we might have like the line across
Speaker 3: my head if I take it off. Now we're all morning.
Speaker 2: Where'd you go?
Speaker 3: I went to the thousand steps again, hanging out with
Speaker 3: a bit of nature.
Speaker 2: And who do you go there with?
Speaker 3: By myself?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at you getting your bloody your nature girl
Speaker 1: vibe going.
Speaker 3: I should get my calf down in the mail this week?
Speaker 3: I think, do you.
Speaker 2: Take do you take the wonder dog?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: You know how to take dogs?
Speaker 1: There? Hmm, it's sad. Well, well that's okay, just you
Speaker 1: and you and God and nature.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: Whoever got whoever your God is? Joel Sardi, Hi, good morning.
Speaker 1: Did you go to the thousands? You go on thousand
Speaker 1: stairs this morning?
Speaker 2: Mate?
Speaker 5: I The last time I went to a thousand steps
Speaker 5: was probably more than ten years ago, So yeah, I
Speaker 5: didn't do the thousand steps this morning, I've I've done
Speaker 5: probably a few less steps than everybody here on the call.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Probably not because you're lazy, just because you know, these days,
Speaker 1: stepping is not really a forte let's be honest.
Speaker 2: No more of a more, more of a roller than
Speaker 2: a step of these days.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's not like, yeah, not like the thousands
Speaker 1: steps are particularly wheelchair friendly.
Speaker 5: Yeah. No, last I checked, they weren't accessible.
Speaker 2: Oh how are you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm really good. A lot of changed since we
Speaker 5: spoke last. I think I saw you last in October?
Speaker 5: Was it, no, November?
Speaker 2: No, we saw each other earlier this year. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah that was that was not that long ago.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but we didn't really get to check much
Speaker 1: because we were at an event and we're all talking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you joined a cult? Because your hair is very short?
Speaker 1: You look like a Buddhist or some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And it's if you are a Buddhist,
Speaker 1: well done?
Speaker 2: What's going on with the hair? Beautiful?
Speaker 5: I was told by a four or three year old
Speaker 5: daughter that it's probably time for a change because my
Speaker 5: hair was as long as hers. And that was all
Speaker 5: the advice or the feedback. I needed Harps and TIP.
Speaker 5: So that day I went to the barber and he
Speaker 5: shaved it off.
Speaker 1: And look at you. I'll tell you what. You'll never
Speaker 1: go back. I used to have long hair. But my
Speaker 1: hair looks My hair looks fucking terrible long Yours look good.
Speaker 1: Mine looks like some kind of shrub, some ugly shrub.
Speaker 1: Ergo the perpetual short hair. What's what's going on? Like
Speaker 1: what you said, A lot's happened. What's happened?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, since I met you guys, to you guys
Speaker 5: last I was made redundant from my last job along
Speaker 5: with the whole team. There was no performance INDICADI was
Speaker 5: more so a finance repercussion and it sent me on
Speaker 5: the path of unemployment with a mortgage and a family
Speaker 5: to support. So it was a really stressful time and
Speaker 5: one I've never been put in before. And just the
Speaker 5: way the world works, Harps and TIF, it's quite interesting.
Speaker 5: I was approached by someone at the Department of Veteran
Speaker 5: Affairs and asked for some input and they said, would
Speaker 5: you like to join the team, And I said absolutely,
Speaker 5: because I've wanted to work in veteran welfare and improving
Speaker 5: the lives of people who have experienced adversity or hardship.
Speaker 5: It's funny, you know. I went at the time and
Speaker 5: needed at most, so I reached out and said, come
Speaker 5: and join us. So I'm now turning a bit months
Speaker 5: into a new role with the Department of Veteran Affairs,
Speaker 5: working with veterans and their families who are you could say,
Speaker 5: catastrophically injured and affected. Yeah, and putting toga there's some
Speaker 5: framework to assist them.
Speaker 2: Wow, congratulations mate, that's amazing.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about like.
Speaker 1: Because obviously that's you know, it's in the wheelhouse, but
Speaker 1: it's a different role, and it's a different organization and
Speaker 1: it's working with a different group of people.
Speaker 2: How do you learn how to do that job?
Speaker 1: Like, do they go, well, mate, we're going to train
Speaker 1: you four weeks and then cut your loose or how.
Speaker 2: Does it work?
Speaker 5: Well, that's the interesting thing, Harps. I joined a team
Speaker 5: when there wasn't really a job description for me, So
Speaker 5: my left and right of arc hadn't really been defined,
Speaker 5: and my job description wasn't there. So I really didn't
Speaker 5: completely understand what my day to day looked like until
Speaker 5: I sort of did my for lack of a better word,
Speaker 5: apprenticeship in your public service, understanding who does what and
Speaker 5: what teams have responsibility for what, and then understanding there
Speaker 5: were some gaps in capability and sort of pitching that
Speaker 5: to some of the people at the team, and that
Speaker 5: was where they said, Yep, let's jumped down, let's jump
Speaker 5: into that. And again, you know, I'm starting from scratch.
Speaker 5: I've never been a project manage lead before, but here
Speaker 5: i am. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of Courserra, a
Speaker 5: lot of YouTube, a lot of LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: On the go.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But the benefit I have Craig and Tiff is the
Speaker 5: fact that I've been in the position where I'm going
Speaker 5: to be working. I've been in the position where catastrophically injured,
Speaker 5: where my family was affected, where we didn't know where
Speaker 5: to turn to for help. Yeah, So that lived experience
Speaker 5: is critical and that's what I'll be leaning on. But
Speaker 5: the major difference in what my role is now, it's
Speaker 5: quite it's strategic as opposed to the operational role I've
Speaker 5: been in with my previous job. So as opposed to
Speaker 5: seeing the outcomes, I'm not sure if I'll see that
Speaker 5: yet because I'm building the program.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that what you said about lived experience,
Speaker 1: because I was thinking, when someone comes knocking on the
Speaker 1: metaphoric door to talk to someone and you're not coming
Speaker 1: from a theoretical or an academic place or a you know,
Speaker 1: of course you need knowledge and skills and you know,
Speaker 1: awareness around what to do and strategies and tools and resources.
Speaker 2: And all of that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, they meet you
Speaker 1: and they go, oh wow, you understand, like you experientially understand,
Speaker 1: if not exactly what we're going through, a version of
Speaker 1: what we're going through.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I'll never understand what you're going
Speaker 5: through Craig let alone the veterans who are going through families.
Speaker 5: But the fact that I've got my injury in my
Speaker 5: experience gives me a little bit of credibility. And for
Speaker 5: those out there that aren't aware, you know, people love
Speaker 5: to throw shade at DVA and so they're not doing
Speaker 5: a good enough job. But I think a lot of
Speaker 5: those people haven't really said, you know what, I'll put
Speaker 5: my hand and I'll join the team and I'll try
Speaker 5: and improve the processes. So that's something I want to do.
Speaker 5: I am doing. I want to improve the rhetoric or
Speaker 5: improve the narrative around DVA and injecting people who lived experience,
Speaker 5: who have served into the department, I think is a
Speaker 5: really good start. Without long own trumpet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that every organization needs to
Speaker 1: be you know, it's hard because it is an organization,
Speaker 1: not an individual. But if there's such a thing as
Speaker 1: organizational self awareness, I think all organizations need it, you know,
Speaker 1: where we can say yeah, we do some things well,
Speaker 1: some things we could do better. You know, we're not perfect.
Speaker 1: We're working stuff out, and everything is you know, there
Speaker 1: is no perfect system, there is no perfect model. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great, mate, that's great. So how does it work?
Speaker 2: Do you like?
Speaker 1: Where are you right now? I can see Dennis Rodman
Speaker 1: Jersey behind you. Are you at home or at work?
Speaker 1: Or do you go?
Speaker 2: Do you work or do you do it from home?
Speaker 2: What's the practical?
Speaker 5: The beautiful part of the public service is the flexibility
Speaker 5: and the hybrid environment that I've rolled into, not stepped into.
Speaker 5: So it's two days in the office, which is in CBD,
Speaker 5: and then three days from home. Yeah, and for someone
Speaker 5: like myself with disability, who sometimes my morning routine could
Speaker 5: take two and a half three hours. That flex really
Speaker 5: allows me to work from home on days where I
Speaker 5: need to and then go into the office when I can.
Speaker 2: What's the what are the like in a perfect world?
Speaker 2: Is that hybrid the best fit for you? Because I
Speaker 2: would imagine going to work five days wouldn't be ideal,
Speaker 2: but always being at home wouldn't be ideal.
Speaker 5: Ah, it's ideal in that I can also maintain sessions
Speaker 5: with my EP. So start early, so I start at seven,
Speaker 5: finish around eight thirty nine o'clock, and then do a
Speaker 5: full day of work and then go into the office
Speaker 5: the next day to then build the networks to then
Speaker 5: understand a little bit more about the going on internally. See,
Speaker 5: I'm no different to people that have no that don't
Speaker 5: have disability. That's crucial for a work life balance.
Speaker 1: So when you say your EP some there's a percentage
Speaker 1: of people right now going what's an OPE? So you're
Speaker 1: talking about your excise physiologist. I'm guessing ye, So how
Speaker 1: long since your injury is it?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 5: It was ten years in August this year.
Speaker 1: I won't say happy birthday, that feels inappropriately. How how
Speaker 1: does your rehab and I guess your exercise programming in
Speaker 1: general how does that work now? Is it just now
Speaker 1: more where you've got to a point where trying to
Speaker 1: keep it, maintain it or is there still is the
Speaker 1: goal still improvement increased function?
Speaker 2: Like what's the focus?
Speaker 5: The focus for me now getting to the gym and
Speaker 5: exercising recovery isn't getting back to what it used to
Speaker 5: be in terms of before my injuries, just maintaining a
Speaker 5: level of health and strength. Over the past the past
Speaker 5: ten years, I've had a lot of learning about what
Speaker 5: my body's capability is because of my spinal cord injury.
Speaker 5: But my EP will work holistically on nutrition, on exercise,
Speaker 5: on wellness outside of the gym as well, and that
Speaker 5: would be three sessions a week, two hours a day.
Speaker 5: And over the past ten years, my weights fluctuated from
Speaker 5: ninety five kilos down to what started at ninety five
Speaker 5: and then dropped down to sixty and then went back
Speaker 5: up to ninety five and then back down to sixty
Speaker 5: and understanding the body's limitations, and over the last I
Speaker 5: think ten months, I've stopped drinking alcohol and I haven't
Speaker 5: had a trip to hospital a bladder infection, and my strength,
Speaker 5: my AP's notice has gone through the roof so Craig,
Speaker 5: you'd probably understand tip and for the exercise buffs bench
Speaker 5: press is a pretty good measure of strength. Then I
Speaker 5: started twelve kilos at the start of the year. I'm
Speaker 5: now at thirty five kilos.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, mate, that's fucking wow.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, that's one kilo away from triple you know,
Speaker 1: three hundred percent increase.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know it's funny, there's no surprise. It's
Speaker 5: consistency and nutrition.
Speaker 1: And that's booze is no good for you everyone, Sorry,
Speaker 1: you heard it here first. Hey, let's just pause this
Speaker 1: conversation momentarily, and just for the people who are meeting
Speaker 1: you today for the first time, can you just remind
Speaker 1: us what your injury is. Just it doesn't need to
Speaker 1: be well as much or as little as you want.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yep. So I've got a spinal cord injury at
Speaker 5: the C five level, so I'm classed as a C
Speaker 5: five quadriplegic. So you'll you'll see I've got use of
Speaker 5: my arms, but not my fingers, not use of my
Speaker 5: tricep or my core or basically anything below my chest.
Speaker 5: And that was the result of a fall down some
Speaker 5: stairs ten years ago. So when Craig was referring to
Speaker 5: you know, happy birthday, the thirty first of August is
Speaker 5: my wheeliversary, inniversary, whatever you want to say, And yeah,
Speaker 5: that's that's where I'm at now.
Speaker 1: Cool, Hey day you had I mentioned on the show
Speaker 1: tip and I did give and I just did a
Speaker 1: freestyle chat as we do because planning is overrated and
Speaker 1: we're both lazy.
Speaker 2: So other than that, other than that, it's all gold.
Speaker 2: And we're talking about we're talking about gratitude.
Speaker 1: And I was talking about my gratitude practices and you
Speaker 1: know which, as I said yesterday, it can be it
Speaker 1: can be a kind of a cheesy concept, I guess,
Speaker 1: but tell us about you and gratitude, like I was.
Speaker 1: My three things, which I'll say just quickly again, is one,
Speaker 1: every time I talk to my mom, I have overwhelming
Speaker 1: gratitude because one day she won't be there, right so
Speaker 1: right now she's still here, I can talk to her.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: Every time I get up out of the chair that
Speaker 1: I'm now in as I talk to you, just the
Speaker 1: fact that I can stand is fucking amazing, right, It's like,
Speaker 1: as you more than anyone knowing being able to walk
Speaker 1: down my stairs and walk up my stairs. Right, I
Speaker 1: have this little gratitude practice, especially having spent time with
Speaker 1: you and John, my friend who also.
Speaker 2: Got blown up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just being able to walk upstairs is
Speaker 1: a privilege. But we don't have that sense because we
Speaker 1: met most of us have never lost it.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: And then my last one is just being able to
Speaker 1: turn on tap. You know, I turn on a tap
Speaker 1: and cold water comes out, and more than a quarter
Speaker 1: of a million people in the world can't. Court of
Speaker 1: the population I should say, two point two billion people,
Speaker 1: not only do they not have taps, they don't even
Speaker 1: have any access to fresh, cold, drinking water. Right, So
Speaker 1: the amount of people who don't have a tap could
Speaker 1: be half the population in the world. But you know,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about these little like what brings me back?
Speaker 1: Like what for me kind of grounds me, what gives
Speaker 1: me a healthy perspective that makes me realize sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: a privileged, entitled fuck what about her?
Speaker 2: I am? You know, I don't want to be.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be, you know, but sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes some of the shit that goes on in my mind,
Speaker 1: I go, I don't even fucking like me, and I
Speaker 1: am me, why am I thinking like this? You know,
Speaker 1: you know, Huck, So tell me about you.
Speaker 2: Do you find it?
Speaker 1: I'm sure the answer is no, But tell us about
Speaker 1: you and gratitude. How does that work?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 5: Look, when you said the word perspective, Crea, you could
Speaker 5: have just finished everything you were saying there, because perspective
Speaker 5: is literally what I live by, Because you know, I
Speaker 5: may not be able to move ninety percent of my
Speaker 5: body or control it, but you know, my mind is active,
Speaker 5: it's healthy, functional. I've got two little girls. I've got
Speaker 5: a wife who we've been married for six years this year.
Speaker 5: So there's so much in my life that that is good.
Speaker 5: You know, I've got a good job, I've got a
Speaker 5: great family around me. I may not be able to
Speaker 5: do things like you know, peace or shit or you know,
Speaker 5: all the other things that people do without, but you
Speaker 5: know what, I woke up this morning. I've got in
Speaker 5: the shower, my care, I got me dressed, and I
Speaker 5: went to had a coffee with my oldest daughter. I
Speaker 5: drove her down. Now, all of that doesn't happen without
Speaker 5: being grateful for what I do have. And there was
Speaker 5: a long time when I was injured where I was
Speaker 5: looking at everything that I couldn't do every day? Why
Speaker 5: couldn't I?
Speaker 1: Why me?
Speaker 5: Were the questions, and it took a moment of realization
Speaker 5: to change the narrative of why me too? Why the
Speaker 5: fuck not me? Why can't I be happy? Why can't
Speaker 5: I be successful? Just because I'm a quadriplegic, Because I've
Speaker 5: got friends in my life that that won't be around
Speaker 5: for much longer because they've got brain cancer right now. Yes,
Speaker 5: there's the word perspective for you. Yes, my daughters don't
Speaker 5: know me as any different. They just know me as dad,
Speaker 5: and they treat me no differently, CREATI and Tiff and
Speaker 5: your prime example is our youngest daughter Luna, who grabs
Speaker 5: a TV, runs away from me and hides behind the couch.
Speaker 5: She treats me no different, she just tells me. So
Speaker 5: that is my gratitude, those little moments. And I think
Speaker 5: everybody not I think everybody in your life. You could
Speaker 5: look around and they've all got some shit going on. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's my injury and it's not really a problem for me.
Speaker 5: I'll just I would use the biggest example we've got now,
Speaker 5: Elon Musk, maybe Lebron James, all these massive names with
Speaker 5: so much profile, money success. I bet you they're going
Speaker 5: to have their problems Monday through Friday or nine live.
Speaker 5: So just because they's someone we see on TV or
Speaker 5: picture anywhere externally in our lives doesn't mean that they've
Speaker 5: got their shit squared away and their lives are better
Speaker 5: than ours. We've all with our own problems, so understanding
Speaker 5: that we've got good things in our lives and having
Speaker 5: gratitude for those is really important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. As you were talking, then I
Speaker 1: wrote down. I wrote down on my ever present pad
Speaker 1: that I have in front of me when I talk
Speaker 1: to people. I wrote life situation versus life experience. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's the situation that we're in and then there's
Speaker 1: the experience that we are having. And for the most part,
Speaker 1: our experience is a byproduct of our thinking and our emotions.
Speaker 2: You know, like you are in a situation.
Speaker 1: I mean this with respect, and I talk about not
Speaker 1: your family, kid's job, but in terms of being in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair and being C five quandity. Like you, you
Speaker 1: are in a reality, a physiological reality that nobody wants.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants, right, that's part of your life situation. But
Speaker 1: in the middle of that thing, that nobody wants. There's
Speaker 1: every chance that you're happier than a lot of our
Speaker 1: listeners who don't have that. Now, by the way, listeners,
Speaker 1: I love you. I'm not throwing you under the bus,
Speaker 1: but I'm just thinking, like when we when we look
Speaker 1: at somebody's just practical reality, their life, situation, circumstance, environment,
Speaker 1: and then we look at the experience, which is an
Speaker 1: internal thing, not an external thing, but that internal experience
Speaker 1: in the middle of that practical, observable reality, what's the link,
Speaker 1: what's the relationship? Either of you two feel free to
Speaker 1: jump in, but what comes to mind with that? Like
Speaker 1: when you think about some people in great situations are
Speaker 1: having bad experiences and some people in terrible situations are
Speaker 1: typically having much better experiences. It's you know, for me,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of that is about our ability to
Speaker 1: consciously create our version of reality.
Speaker 5: I think the link the link there is the perspective
Speaker 5: perhaps over time we become numb to certain experiences or memories,
Speaker 5: so therefore we forget what things used to be, and
Speaker 5: we really don't compare to what we used to have.
Speaker 5: We just compare it to the now. And I guess
Speaker 5: that's the perspective part you know in terms of what
Speaker 5: was it the internal experience versus the internal situation?
Speaker 2: Well, I was just saying your life experience, like you
Speaker 2: how you experience life now? You know all the internal stuff, feelings, thoughts, ideas, emotions, joy, pleasure, fun,
Speaker 2: pain versus situation. And like you said, Lebron James and
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, from the outside looking in, you would both say,
Speaker 2: depending on the metrics that were used, they are wildly successful.
Speaker 2: Therefore they're probably really fucking happy. Well, statistically they might
Speaker 2: be less happy than the average person who knows.
Speaker 4: I feel like like in Joel's situation, the idea of
Speaker 4: it is what it is now. I talked about with
Speaker 4: Captain Charlie Plumb when he was imprisoned for six years
Speaker 4: in the Hanoi Hilton, and the fact that they didn't
Speaker 4: come out with PTSD because it was the worst it
Speaker 4: could possibly be and it stayed there. So this no
Speaker 4: rise and fall of expectations, Like Joel isn't suffering from
Speaker 4: a physical disease where he's deteriorating. In somebody who might
Speaker 4: have a disease like that, like say maybe MS or
Speaker 4: something where their function is declining, whereas Joel's at a baseline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have either of you read Man Search
Speaker 1: for Meaning Victor Frankel.
Speaker 3: A long time ago? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you love that mate.
Speaker 1: It's about a psychiatrist in the Second World War who
Speaker 1: was in prisoner of war, a prisoner of war camp
Speaker 1: in Germany, a Jewish psychiatrist, and essentially he was like,
Speaker 1: they can take everything, but they can't take my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, and like they can for me. The way
Speaker 1: that I read it, which is just my interpretation, was
Speaker 1: very much they can control my situation and my environment
Speaker 1: and my circumstance, but they can't control me because I'm
Speaker 1: not my situation or environment or circumstance.
Speaker 2: I'm not that.
Speaker 1: I'm something separate. I'm not even my body, you know.
Speaker 1: And there's that beautiful like, oh yeah, I'm not my body,
Speaker 1: I'm not my environment, I'm not my bank balance, I'm
Speaker 1: not my wheelchair, I'm not my situation. I'm not what
Speaker 1: other people fucking think me and who I am at
Speaker 1: my core. No one can take that, doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: goes on around me.
Speaker 5: It rings a bell and I do remember that was
Speaker 5: his coping mechanism. Yes, have you finished your PhD? At Halts?
Speaker 1: Oh no, from on the way for a while. I'm
Speaker 1: not the fastest, but it's only I say only, but
Speaker 1: it's five years, so I would I don't know like
Speaker 1: I think i'll be. I'm handing, so I've done without
Speaker 1: boring my listeners again. But so all of the work
Speaker 1: that I have to do in terms of running studies,
Speaker 1: collecting data, doing my own research, all that is done
Speaker 1: passing what's called all of my academic hurdle or requirements,
Speaker 1: which is going in front of a board. You've got
Speaker 1: to do that four times. That's been done and passed.
Speaker 1: So now I'm at what's called the write up stage
Speaker 1: where i'm writing up. So I'm writing what's called a
Speaker 1: systematic literature review, which is about a fourteen month process.
Speaker 2: So if you do a search.
Speaker 1: On how long does it take to write a systematic
Speaker 1: literature review for a PhD, it says fourteen months full time.
Speaker 1: That's if you're doing nothing else, right, So that's if
Speaker 1: it's your job. So I've been working on that for
Speaker 1: about a year. And I'm also writing to what's called
Speaker 1: empirical papers, which are papers off the research. So the
Speaker 1: research that I did on metaaccuracy and metaperception, you know
Speaker 1: how other people see us.
Speaker 2: So you do your research, you.
Speaker 1: Get the data, you interpret the data, and then you
Speaker 1: write papers about that, and you've got to add, Like
Speaker 1: in a PhD, you've got to bring something new into
Speaker 1: the world in that area of research. You can't do
Speaker 1: what's been done, So you've got to build on the research.
Speaker 1: You've got to add to someone else's research, or you've
Speaker 1: got to open a new door and.
Speaker 2: Go, oh, look what's in here, and so look at this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, to answer your question, hopefully in six months,
Speaker 1: I'm done and dusted. But even then, when you hand
Speaker 1: everything in, it's not like they go thumbs up, well done,
Speaker 1: pad on the back. More than likely i'll get stuff
Speaker 1: sent back where they say you've got to fix this,
Speaker 1: change that, or address that.
Speaker 2: So it's a bit of a too.
Speaker 1: But I'm on the If it was the Melbourne Cup,
Speaker 1: which I do not like, but would be in the
Speaker 1: last fucking furlong or so, I would think, whatever a
Speaker 1: furlong is, yeah, beats me for your doc. Oh, when
Speaker 1: you can call me doc. Hopefully in about six months,
Speaker 1: I would hope. So what else is going on? How's
Speaker 1: the family? How old are the kids now?
Speaker 5: So as may turns for tomorrow. She turns for tomorrow.
Speaker 2: How do you spell may.
Speaker 5: Me with a little s? Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right, what a cool cute with the little thing
Speaker 2: go above the last e?
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah. So from top right to bottom left?
Speaker 2: What's the origin story of Esme? What? How did you?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a very cute name. That's enough. It
Speaker 2: doesn't need to be a backstory. But is there a backstorre?
Speaker 5: The origin goes My wife said what do you think
Speaker 5: of Esme? And I said, I love it? That's the origin?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's good. That's all.
Speaker 1: That's all you need. So tell me about as you
Speaker 1: as you step into this new role in your job
Speaker 1: and you're working alongside other people, are you being mentored
Speaker 1: and coached or is this largely you know, here's this
Speaker 1: space over here, Joel, go figure it out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm definitely being mentored, and I'm really grateful for
Speaker 5: that because the public service is so different to private sector.
Speaker 5: Coming from the tech startup where everything was go go, go,
Speaker 5: go go, it was a lot faster. However, where I
Speaker 5: am now it's it's understanding. You know, this morning I
Speaker 5: had to listen to estimate center estimates. I've never done
Speaker 5: that before. I had no idea what was happening, but
Speaker 5: there I was. So it's a really different landscape in
Speaker 5: terms of what impacts my immediate job as well. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I've been mentored and guided and the first two and
Speaker 5: a half months, I say, it's like the apprenticeship. I've
Speaker 5: probably got a lot more to go on my apprenticeship
Speaker 5: in the public service.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I feel like when you do the first.
Speaker 1: I don't know, month two, three, ten, Like when I
Speaker 1: opened my first business. I was twenty six, and the
Speaker 1: idea of opening that business to the reality of what
Speaker 1: I had to do when the business was opened, I
Speaker 1: was completely unprepared, like I didn't have the skills because
Speaker 1: I've never had my own business. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, like I'm in meetings with lawyers, I'm in
Speaker 1: meetings with marketing people, or with my accountant or with
Speaker 1: and I'm having conversations that are just over my head
Speaker 1: because I don't I don't know the answers for a start,
Speaker 1: and then I don't have the language because I don't know,
Speaker 1: especially when I'm talking to a lawyer. And even when
Speaker 1: I remember when I went looking for my first premises
Speaker 1: commercial premises to set up Australia's first personal training studio.
Speaker 1: And the guy said that I had no experience. I
Speaker 1: didn't own a house or I owned. I had no
Speaker 1: real estate. I'd never done anything like that. And the
Speaker 1: guy goes to me, what kind of lease are you
Speaker 1: looking at? This is for the thing? And I go
Speaker 1: what kind are there? And he goes what I go,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to answer that question, Like I
Speaker 1: just look like a fucking idiot, But I thought, I
Speaker 1: can't make up an answer because I.
Speaker 2: Don't, you know.
Speaker 1: And what he was saying was how long do you
Speaker 1: want the lease to be? And do you want any options?
Speaker 1: Like a three year lease with two three year options
Speaker 1: do you want I didn't know that language. And he
Speaker 1: also said to me how many square feet are you
Speaker 1: looking at? You know, like back then it was feet
Speaker 1: not meters. And he goes how many square like what
Speaker 1: area square feet? And we're standing on Hampton Street and
Speaker 1: I said, see that silver Corolla down there, and he goes, yeah.
Speaker 1: I go from me to the silver Corolla and across
Speaker 1: to that orange Cortina and back to that fucking white Commodore.
Speaker 2: Like I literally just.
Speaker 1: All I knew was in my head what it looked like,
Speaker 1: but I just translate that into some fucking formula or number,
Speaker 1: Like I knew what it looked like, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: quantify it, because I mean, now I can, But then
Speaker 1: I didn't know what two thousand square feet looked like.
Speaker 1: And He's like, he must have thought, this is the
Speaker 1: dumbest motherfucker I've ever.
Speaker 2: Spoken, you know, But that's where you grow, right, That's
Speaker 2: where you grow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, outside the comfort zone. I'm doing a lot
Speaker 5: of that at the moment, and imposter syndrome. I'm getting
Speaker 5: a healthy dose of healthy dose of it. It wears
Speaker 5: off a little bit further into the role, but you
Speaker 5: know that those lessons you learn, like speaking to the
Speaker 5: real estate agent, understanding what square feed are Yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: getting little lessons like that every day, and I think
Speaker 5: it's best for me to sit back and listen as
Speaker 5: opposed to talking, which is what I was doing in
Speaker 5: my last job, because I was quite confident and competent,
Speaker 5: whereas I'm not saying I'm not competent here, but there's
Speaker 5: not as much confidence as of yet.
Speaker 1: But I think this is really relevant, this conversation because everybody,
Speaker 1: like a lot of us, want to change something like,
Speaker 1: especially people who are listen to the show, they want
Speaker 1: to change something in their life. They want to adapt
Speaker 1: or do something different, or they do the same thing
Speaker 1: a better way, or be more effective or more efficient,
Speaker 1: or learn more or grow more. But like for you
Speaker 1: right now, you're probably going to go through more of
Speaker 1: a growth spurt in inverted commas intellectually, emotionally, sociologically, you know,
Speaker 1: skill wise, more of a growth spurt in this six
Speaker 1: months than the last six years.
Speaker 2: Maybe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd say so. I absolutely agree, and I'm really
Speaker 5: looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's I mean, that's been willing to put
Speaker 1: ourselves in that situation. I guess do you remember, Tiff,
Speaker 1: when you started your podcast right like, how many episodes
Speaker 1: are you in now to yours? Are you about eight
Speaker 1: hundred or something?
Speaker 3: Eight fifty something?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, But do you remember, like I remember jumping on
Speaker 1: and I had a running start because I've already done
Speaker 1: a few that were no good, and I've done radio,
Speaker 1: so at least I was used to talking. But what
Speaker 1: like when you look back now and you've done hundreds
Speaker 1: of episodes with me, so you've probably done I mean,
Speaker 1: you must be heading towards one and a half thousand
Speaker 1: episodes yourself all up?
Speaker 2: What did you thinking? Back now?
Speaker 1: What didn't you know and what skills didn't you have?
Speaker 1: And it doesn't need to be about podcasting everyone. We're
Speaker 1: just talking about taking us something that we're good at
Speaker 1: and getting good at it and developing it into a
Speaker 1: real thing in the world that works.
Speaker 2: Like, what was a challenge for you?
Speaker 4: Well, I didn't know what I didn't know, but what
Speaker 4: was What I've always talk about.
Speaker 3: Is naivety was the gift for me.
Speaker 4: So because I didn't know what I didn't know, I
Speaker 4: just got stuck into it and I didn't get held
Speaker 4: back by any rules that might that I might have
Speaker 4: perceived existed that I wasn't up to scratch with. I
Speaker 4: remember calling you maybe three months in and going, okay,
Speaker 4: so i've been doing this a bit now, and I
Speaker 4: want to get better, but I don't know what that means.
Speaker 4: I don't know what it looks like or feels like,
Speaker 4: and I don't know what I'm asking to get better at.
Speaker 1: So you're the guru?
Speaker 3: Can you make me better?
Speaker 2: Definitely? I've been fucking masquerading as a guru. In fact,
Speaker 2: I never masqueraded as a guru.
Speaker 1: But it is funny when you know, it's like sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm about four days ahead of someone else on the
Speaker 1: progression and they I'm like, mate, you know last Thursday
Speaker 1: I was you. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm fucking making it up as I go.
Speaker 1: So that imposter syndrome, Joel, and the kind of the
Speaker 1: feeling like a fraud is that is that more apparent
Speaker 1: now than it was in the last few years because
Speaker 1: you're in this new space. And also how do you
Speaker 1: deal with that because that's a scourge. I mean, everybody's
Speaker 1: got a version of that.
Speaker 5: It's absolutely more prevalent now than it was in the past.
Speaker 5: Somebody told me once that all strangers know something you don't,
Speaker 5: and it's always stuck with me. So I just sit
Speaker 5: there and I think was as much as I don't
Speaker 5: know what they know and they don't know what I know,
Speaker 5: goes back to what you're saying, Tiff. You know you
Speaker 5: don't know what you don't know. And I'll sit there
Speaker 5: in a meeting and listen to people speak about certain
Speaker 5: topics or certain projects are running, and there'll be a
Speaker 5: brain brain something will come out and I'll think we
Speaker 5: should consider this, we should consider that. But the other,
Speaker 5: the voice in my head saying, no, someone's already thought
Speaker 5: of that, someone's already spoken it. But that naivete comes in, Tiff,
Speaker 5: I'll put my hand up and I'll make a comment
Speaker 5: and it's received well, and there's a little bit of
Speaker 5: imposter syndrome wearing enough with each little risk I take.
Speaker 5: And I think in a productive environment, people should be
Speaker 5: willing to and prepared to make mistakes and say almost
Speaker 5: the wrong thing, but not in terms of insulting others,
Speaker 5: because that in there, that is where the growth happens,
Speaker 5: that's where we develop. I'm not to someone I haven't
Speaker 5: made some silly comments in the past, or asked some
Speaker 5: silly questions, or been asked questions when I wasn't concentrating
Speaker 5: and thrown out an absolutely ludicrous answer. But hey, there
Speaker 5: were again learnings.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the good things about having
Speaker 1: somebody who isn't part of the program, who gets brought
Speaker 1: in who like you, don't think like them. You don't
Speaker 1: have their background, their program, their conditioning, and they're not
Speaker 1: bad things that just you haven't been part of that.
Speaker 1: And then you come into a different space and environment
Speaker 1: with a different skill set and background and maybe you'll
Speaker 1: have an idea, maybe you'll see something they don't see.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll bring a different energy.
Speaker 2: Like I I met a lady the other day in
Speaker 2: the cafe who.
Speaker 1: I don't know, she knows me, and she's she listens
Speaker 1: to the show, and she was a sweetheart, and she's like,
Speaker 1: you know what i'd love you to do? And I
Speaker 1: went what she goes, I'd love you to coach someone
Speaker 1: in real time on the show. And I'm like, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I just thought of fifty things that
Speaker 1: could go wrong with that, right, And I was kind
Speaker 1: of that would be a challenge, right, because you've got
Speaker 1: to find that. But then later on I thought, like,
Speaker 1: the right person, the right way that could be, you know,
Speaker 1: And then I thought, do you know what?
Speaker 2: I thought?
Speaker 1: This my ego and my fear and my insecurity. I thought,
Speaker 1: what if I do a bad job?
Speaker 2: What if?
Speaker 1: What if proper coaches listen? What if what if real
Speaker 1: coaches listen and they go, why the fuck is? Why
Speaker 1: did he do that? Why did he say? But then
Speaker 1: you know that was my own bullshit.
Speaker 2: But have you pardon?
Speaker 5: Have you found anybody to coach? No?
Speaker 1: I haven't put it out there yet, but it would be.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think some people go, yeah, pick me,
Speaker 1: pick me, but I don't think most people would realize no,
Speaker 1: that is that that is perhaps not the prize you
Speaker 1: think it is. To be coached like that seems like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll get a bit of airtime, I'll be.
Speaker 2: On Craig show.
Speaker 1: No, no, that's not. It's not a self promotion exercise.
Speaker 1: Like I actually genuinely want to open the door and
Speaker 1: coach someone.
Speaker 2: And obviously it'd be pre.
Speaker 1: Recorded, so if it ended up being a dog's breakfast,
Speaker 1: we'd been it, so there's no you know, or if
Speaker 1: the person went, fuck, I don't want that to go
Speaker 1: to air, that would be okay. Or if I went, look,
Speaker 1: that's probably not going to be great listening. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: just as a concept, like as in terms of someone
Speaker 1: coming into my space with a fresh idea, I thought,
Speaker 1: what do you think of that idea?
Speaker 2: TIF I still don't know if that's good.
Speaker 4: Orbout it, and I think Joel might be raising his hand,
Speaker 4: But I love it. I listened to shows where people
Speaker 4: are doing either live therapy or coaching, and that the
Speaker 4: benefit you get as a listener is astounding because you
Speaker 4: have to borrow the stories of others and see similarities,
Speaker 4: and there's something beautifully authentic about those sorts of honest, open,
Speaker 4: real conversations.
Speaker 1: I think one of the challenges for me I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it would be because whenever I like what I'm
Speaker 1: doing right now, what we're doing right now, we're in
Speaker 1: a conversation. But even though we're in a genuine, organic, unplanned,
Speaker 1: unscripted conversation, I always have audience awareness, you know, so
Speaker 1: I would want to do it where essentially I'm not
Speaker 1: at all at all thinking about which that's a challenge
Speaker 1: about the fact that thousands of people are going to
Speaker 1: listen because I don't want to. I don't want how
Speaker 1: I would normally be or coach or connect. I don't
Speaker 1: want that to be influenced by my awareness that there's
Speaker 1: a big audience. So that might be something I need
Speaker 1: to figure out, But I don't know.
Speaker 4: How does that come into play with your group coaching?
Speaker 4: Do you have a number of people in the room witnessing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, interest I mean really that's that's a small group.
Speaker 1: So it's it's for me, it's more, you know, it's
Speaker 1: closer to one on one coaching than a podcast, which
Speaker 1: is thousands of listeners. But yeah, I'm I'm as raw
Speaker 1: and as open and as direct and as what's the
Speaker 1: word impactful as they will let me be. Like, there
Speaker 1: are people who on my in my current mentoring group
Speaker 1: a very vulnerable and very like they've opened the door
Speaker 1: wide right. There's a few people who who the door
Speaker 1: is still shut and they're peeking through the keyhole.
Speaker 2: And then there's a few.
Speaker 1: Then there's a few who have opened the door about
Speaker 1: fucking three inches, but they've got the foot against the door, right,
Speaker 1: and all of that is okay, that's no judgment either way.
Speaker 2: That's just.
Speaker 1: And so you get people who like I even know
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, next week is week ten, So
Speaker 1: I've spent nine weeks with them. I've done one on
Speaker 1: a one on one with most of them, and I'm
Speaker 1: well aware of who even though I haven't met any
Speaker 1: of these people face to face.
Speaker 2: Oh actually that's not true.
Speaker 1: I've done a couple of face to face coachings, but
Speaker 1: most of them I don't know them other than through
Speaker 1: the program. But I know them now well enough to
Speaker 1: know who I could ask a particular question that I
Speaker 1: could not ask another member of the group, you know,
Speaker 1: So I think there's and I mean this just comes
Speaker 1: back to you know, even even when we're talking before
Speaker 1: about what's happening in our external world and our internal world,
Speaker 1: and you know, you and I opened a pretty you
Speaker 1: and I on our chat yesterday, like I got quite
Speaker 1: vulnerable and and I didn't. But I've cried about four
Speaker 1: times in the history of the show, and yesterday was
Speaker 1: fucking very close to number five.
Speaker 2: Did you get that? Did you know? I was a
Speaker 2: bit emotional. Yes, But it's like I don't mind that.
Speaker 2: I don't mind that.
Speaker 1: It's like if where I just end up is in
Speaker 1: tears and that's just organic, then I'm cool with it.
Speaker 1: I don't like that to me. That doesn't that's not
Speaker 1: an indictment on me. That's not a problem for me.
Speaker 1: I just tried be aware of being whatever the best
Speaker 1: version of me for the listeners is. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So well mate, it's going to be interesting to chat
Speaker 1: to you in a year to see what the progression
Speaker 1: has been.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, look, I'd be happy to chat to you
Speaker 5: in a year from today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Can I ask, just for the benefit of me and
Speaker 4: maybe the listeners, what were you doing before this job, Joel?
Speaker 3: What was your role before, I was.
Speaker 5: An account manager at a tech startup called the Field
Speaker 5: dot Jobs, and it was helping employers directly target people
Speaker 5: with disability to employ them into their business and for
Speaker 5: job seekers with disability to go on there and apply
Speaker 5: for jobs on a website that was accessible in terms
Speaker 5: of catering to their accessibility needs. And I absolutely loved
Speaker 5: every moment of it. It was purposeful and we could
Speaker 5: see the impact it was having. And then moving on
Speaker 5: from that, there was a big, big transformation moving from
Speaker 5: there to Department of Veteran Affairs.
Speaker 2: How many weeks were you in limbo and what was
Speaker 2: that like? What was that like? Dealing with the unknown?
Speaker 5: Poor Craig. It was a daily challenge of I had done?
Speaker 5: What did I have written on my mirror? I think
Speaker 5: it was be present, Be present. It was on my mirror.
Speaker 5: And it was six weeks of unemployment until I found
Speaker 5: out I had a new job. So every morning I'd
Speaker 5: wake up, but the beauty was every day. I get
Speaker 5: to hang out with the girls every day. So there
Speaker 5: was one one moment where I took as May on
Speaker 5: my own for the first time in our relationship together
Speaker 5: to the city. We had a day together of getting
Speaker 5: on the train and she had chocolate for breakfast, we
Speaker 5: had ice cream for lunch, and I just did whatever
Speaker 5: the fuck I could to spoil her because it was
Speaker 5: the first chance I got with her because I was unemployed.
Speaker 5: So all of those experiences that I was having were
Speaker 5: because I was unemployed. So I was really grateful to
Speaker 5: be unemployed at that stage. It was you know, it
Speaker 5: was tense. It was hard to be present. At the
Speaker 5: same time, was understanding that I had to find a job. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it was a bit of a roller coaster each day,
Speaker 5: but there was I think better experiences than they were
Speaker 5: worse worse.
Speaker 1: A part of me wants to tell you you're a
Speaker 1: ship father, and part of me wants to tell you you're.
Speaker 2: The best dad ever.
Speaker 3: I just want to know, next time you're going out
Speaker 3: and doing that, can I come dream?
Speaker 5: Yeah, my wife was now with the ice cream breakfast
Speaker 5: and the chocolate breakfast.
Speaker 1: That's because she's an actual fucking grown up. That's well,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe breakfast or lunch, but not both. Now, it's
Speaker 1: a good thing you've got a job and you're out
Speaker 1: of your wife's way because you and parenting.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure I got asked today, Dad, when Are
Speaker 5: we going to go back to the big city again?
Speaker 2: No time soon. Mom won't let me. Maybe if you're twenty.
Speaker 5: First diabetes is crept into her life suddenly.
Speaker 2: That's hilarious. Do you know what? I think we're going
Speaker 2: to wind up?
Speaker 1: But you know what, and this is completely unhelpful, unhelpful,
Speaker 1: this doesn't What I am about to tell you doesn't
Speaker 1: help you at all. But I reckon you should study psychology.
Speaker 1: I reckon you'd be good at it. I just think
Speaker 1: you have you know, I know that's completely impractical. Maybe
Speaker 1: you could study part time. Do you ever think about
Speaker 1: not necessarily psyched, but studying anything.
Speaker 5: I've got a semester into psychological science, rest my case. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I freaking loved it and I actually got really good grades.
Speaker 5: And then I got offered a job to be at
Speaker 5: the field and I put that on hold.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 5: No, if I had the capacity, crag. Everyone's got the
Speaker 5: same amount of time in the day that I do.
Speaker 5: But if I had more capacity, I would I will
Speaker 5: return to it.
Speaker 2: You know what you need?
Speaker 1: You need a voluntary research assistant, so we could get
Speaker 1: someone to help you with your just the practical shit.
Speaker 1: You can get those you know, it'd be good for you,
Speaker 1: be good to anyone.
Speaker 5: Out there that would know how to support me. There
Speaker 5: I'll start tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think that you, apart from the fact
Speaker 1: that you know you're smart and you have a curious
Speaker 1: mind and you're fascinated with human behavior, I think because
Speaker 1: of your lived experience, on top of the knowledge, on
Speaker 1: top of the education and.
Speaker 2: The training, you know it would be Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's I don't know why I think that, but that's
Speaker 1: and I probably shouldn't have said that mid fucking podcast.
Speaker 1: I probably should have told you that off there. It's
Speaker 1: probably totally inappropriate.
Speaker 2: But there you go. Listeners, You're welcome.
Speaker 5: You're on point, because you know I was half a halfway.
Speaker 5: I was an eighth of the way there.
Speaker 2: Greg, Well, we'll see what happens. If people want to.
Speaker 1: Get you, Joel, Barry, Evan, Brian SARTI to come and
Speaker 1: work with their organization and buy that. I mean, come
Speaker 1: and have a chat with them, inspire them, educate, inform them,
Speaker 1: be at a corporate be at a sporting a club,
Speaker 1: be at any other kind of organization. I've heard Joel
Speaker 1: speak multiple times. He's very good, and not just because
Speaker 1: he's a bloke in a wheelchair and a bit inspiring.
Speaker 1: He's very good. He's a very good presenter. So if
Speaker 1: you want somebody like Joel to come and chat with
Speaker 1: your group, hit him up and how do they do that?
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Craig Joelsarty dot com and the
Speaker 5: details will be there.
Speaker 2: Is that it.
Speaker 1: You're the worst fucking self promoter of all time. Better
Speaker 1: at promoting I'm better at promoting you than you are.
Speaker 2: Mate.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, We love your guards. Congrats on a
Speaker 1: new position. Onward and upward. Have a good day mate.
Speaker 1: We'll say goodbye affair of course, but for now, thanks
Speaker 1: a ben on the if you've got your pen up,
Speaker 1: do you want.
Speaker 2: To say something?
Speaker 4: Yes, if anyone wants to hear more about Joel Sadi's
Speaker 4: story that they haven't already heard prior to today episode
Speaker 4: one two five three titled when.
Speaker 3: Life Gives You a Shit.
Speaker 4: Sandwich, so you can hear more about his accident, recovery
Speaker 4: and all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a good chat. That was a good chat.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Tiff. That's why we have you, see you
Speaker 2: Tame