Speaker 1: Gary Waltern, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you good great to be here. We tried last time,
Speaker 2: but we made it.
Speaker 1: This is what.
Speaker 3: This is the second crack at the podcast because there
Speaker 3: was just ridiculous technical issues the last time.
Speaker 1: And we don't have technical fairies either of us.
Speaker 2: Right, No, no technical fairies. In fact, I'm the technical gremlin.
Speaker 2: So that's just not.
Speaker 1: Far behind you, to be honest.
Speaker 3: Now you have written a book called Mastering the Art
Speaker 3: of Reinvention, right, which I think is pretty relevant these
Speaker 3: days because the researcher saying, we're.
Speaker 1: All going to have more jobs than we used to.
Speaker 3: No longer to get a job when you're eighteen and
Speaker 3: stay with them for your entire life like my dad
Speaker 3: did actually with the post office for his entire life.
Speaker 3: And they reckon, we're going to be having two three
Speaker 3: plus careers.
Speaker 1: You've had forty four jobs in your it's now I've
Speaker 1: had a few. Jesus me at forty four and on.
Speaker 2: There is that ADHD or what probably actually, now that
Speaker 2: we've got sort of the four letters around it, it
Speaker 2: could very well be that's what it is. But the
Speaker 2: forty four jobs came about, I actually don't know how
Speaker 2: they came about other than I've got almost like Bao
Speaker 2: bird syndrome. So Bao bird syndrome is that shiny.
Speaker 1: Thing that you're going to.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, I'm over there looking at it.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. And then I've got so this is interesting.
Speaker 3: And there is a gene around the dopamine receptor, right,
Speaker 3: and a certain variant of the dopamine receptor means that
Speaker 3: people are much more likely to love novelty and change.
Speaker 3: And I have that variant of the gene, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to beat my host business and children that you
Speaker 3: have got that variant of the gene, And it means
Speaker 3: we're novelty secrets and we like new, shining new, and it's.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, what's this over here? What's that over there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can't help but run towards what's different. It's
Speaker 2: just part of I think of who we are and
Speaker 2: you know, going with that approach if you think of
Speaker 2: the Bell curve and yeah, exactly. And we have this
Speaker 2: problem of the people that aren't as accepting and able
Speaker 2: to change. How do we help them or how do
Speaker 2: they find their path to get over there? When things
Speaker 2: need need to change, because like life comes with all
Speaker 2: these changes, some personal, some career, some AI but overall
Speaker 2: there's a whole lot of changes. And so if you
Speaker 2: don't have that gene, it's good to know that I
Speaker 2: possibly have it. But if you don't have that, then
Speaker 2: you're left thinking what am I doing? Where do I
Speaker 2: go from?
Speaker 3: We will dive in beg into strategies around that. I
Speaker 3: think it is more important today because even if people
Speaker 3: think about the change in technology, right, which has been
Speaker 3: massive in the last five years, like huge, what they're predicting,
Speaker 3: the futurists is that the creative technological change that we
Speaker 3: have experienced in the last five years is the slowest
Speaker 3: rate of change that we're going to witness in our life, right.
Speaker 3: So change is absolutely here to stay. This is an
Speaker 3: increasingly voca world. It's a term that come out of
Speaker 3: the military volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. And I think
Speaker 3: you're plays into this, But I want to come back
Speaker 3: to the forty four different jobs.
Speaker 1: Yes, So was there big? What jobs give you the
Speaker 1: biggest learning lessons?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'll give you the interesting ones and I'll
Speaker 2: dig in some deeper ones. So I've been a school teacher.
Speaker 2: Was my first real time, real full time gig. Before
Speaker 2: that was a milkman and did all of the sort
Speaker 2: of after school jobs, holiday jobs. But from there went
Speaker 2: into being a topless waiter, which yeah, I know, mate,
Speaker 2: I know, I get that look a lot where people
Speaker 2: are going walker, but yeah, I was there. I didn't
Speaker 2: have the dance moves. So when Jamie Drury and man
Speaker 2: Power were created, I was in the nightclub and they went,
Speaker 2: you can't dance, but you could probably take your shirt off,
Speaker 2: so the top and so that was my gig there,
Speaker 2: probably about six months after the break of school holidays,
Speaker 2: and then into Australia. I got yeah, so I got
Speaker 2: to I don't know whether you knew you.
Speaker 3: Knew of Peter Australia back then, I still call Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he sang that and he rocked up and you know,
Speaker 2: I got to serve Peter Allen while being topless, and
Speaker 2: he was offering to help me out by f being
Speaker 2: part of my life for me, which was lovely. I
Speaker 2: didn't take him up on it.
Speaker 3: Then it was an offer interesting and the school teacher,
Speaker 3: how long did you last as a school.
Speaker 2: It's probably about two and a half years. And the
Speaker 2: reason why firstly, as an eighty well I came out
Speaker 2: at twenty and as a male, still maturing a lot
Speaker 2: during that time. And you're teaching kids who are eighteen
Speaker 2: or nineteen, and you're trying to figure out who you
Speaker 2: are while trying to hold a discipline over them and
Speaker 2: try and sort of go, Okay, how do I take
Speaker 2: you on this journey? And Mum and Dad are school teacher,
Speaker 2: so they led me down the path of Hey, school
Speaker 2: teaching is great. You get lots of school holidays, so
Speaker 2: go explore it. I got in it, and I went well,
Speaker 2: first of all, I suffer from the not enoughs, so
Speaker 2: you know, not smart enough, not good enough, not attractive
Speaker 2: enough all or they not. And being up in front
Speaker 2: of thirty people was a really anxious situation for me.
Speaker 2: But I also had a passion for business and exploring
Speaker 2: other things, and so that's where my I was teaching.
Speaker 2: But I was always looking out the window, looking at
Speaker 2: the whole business world and the corporate world, going what
Speaker 2: could I do out there? And that's sort of what
Speaker 2: took me out the door eventually, and then from there
Speaker 2: got into we had a fashion business with my ex wife,
Speaker 2: got into some consulting and consulted through Aviation, Health Education Finance,
Speaker 2: set up a bank for famous people with Brand Hackett
Speaker 2: and Tim Horan, the rugby union player.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: That was pretty much a really interesting gig, that one,
Speaker 2: because you've got to understand that when you're talking banking,
Speaker 2: the banking between a famous person and you and I
Speaker 2: is basically the same. The difference comes in in how
Speaker 2: they're treated. I walk into the restaurant with the famous
Speaker 2: person and all of a sudden the table appears. If
Speaker 2: I walk in by myself, they've shut the door on
Speaker 2: me and gone, hey, come back in about a year's time.
Speaker 2: So that was fascinating when over got to sort of
Speaker 2: see all the talent agents and things like that, and
Speaker 2: then flexed again into running over registered training organization. And
Speaker 2: you can see that as I unpack this, there's commonalities
Speaker 2: and links between past experiences. So you know, being a
Speaker 2: teacher meant that I now could do training and consulting,
Speaker 2: and then I had the ability to think of strategy
Speaker 2: through the next stages of that. And so when you're
Speaker 2: starting to pitch and talk about ideas and concepts and
Speaker 2: trying to get people to get on board that journey
Speaker 2: of change, all of that is about using the skills
Speaker 2: of being able to present think about how people learn
Speaker 2: and adapt and evolve, and then sort of go okay,
Speaker 2: well I can help you through some of this, or
Speaker 2: I can't because you're not ready to see the opportunities ahead.
Speaker 2: And then coming to the realization that you sometimes just
Speaker 2: have to accept that some people don't want to change,
Speaker 2: and that's okay.
Speaker 3: What was the register organization? What did you and the
Speaker 3: only divisional maskings? Are you still in the register train
Speaker 3: organization as well? We taught so three and four in fitness.
Speaker 2: Yeah cool. We did serve three and four in business
Speaker 2: and it was called First Choice. I did legal studies
Speaker 2: business were the two ones in that one?
Speaker 1: Interesting?
Speaker 3: And tell me this, So when did you realize along
Speaker 3: this journey of forty four jobs that reinventing was your thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know that. And I had this conversation that's fascinating.
Speaker 2: If I go off mark a bit, bring it back.
Speaker 2: I had this conversation two weeks ago. I had this
Speaker 2: conversation with somebody. Two weeks ago. There was a guy
Speaker 2: that works in marketing, and he's got his own business
Speaker 2: in marketing, and he was telling me that his business
Speaker 2: is not going to be there in three years time,
Speaker 2: and so he was working and planning for that and
Speaker 2: I was talking about the book and I said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know reinvention. He said, reinvention. Gary. I don't wake
Speaker 2: up in the morning and think, oh, reinvention. I said, no,
Speaker 2: you don't. But what you do do is you wake
Speaker 2: up in the morning and you think about opportunities, and
Speaker 2: you see about the things that you need to move towards.
Speaker 2: And the process is reinvention, not the end. Going Wow,
Speaker 2: that's a lie bulb moment for me to be able
Speaker 2: to break it down so that people know that reinvention
Speaker 2: is that sort of process that you can use that
Speaker 2: gives you a framework to ensure you're moving forward knowing
Speaker 2: that you're getting somewhere versus being stuck in the past.
Speaker 2: And stuck is one of those words that means you know,
Speaker 2: life is not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: Just don't do it if you like it. I like
Speaker 1: process for me. I talk a lot about this process s.
Speaker 3: Beach goals every day of the week, right and focusing
Speaker 3: on the process. Was there a big moment, a big
Speaker 3: learning lesson in any of your forty four jobs that
Speaker 3: you have taken with you to this point.
Speaker 2: As you can imagine, the biggest lessons are from the
Speaker 2: hardest geeks or jobs. So where I've had people that
Speaker 2: I've reported through to, and quite often i've by the
Speaker 2: reason I say reported through to is because I will
Speaker 2: have worked for them, but I'm not a full time employee,
Speaker 2: So as a contract or, a consultant, and the ones
Speaker 2: that will find holes in absolutely everything that you're doing,
Speaker 2: you will still continue because we're competitive. We'll be going, Okay,
Speaker 2: how do I work this?
Speaker 1: How do I.
Speaker 2: Get the right outcome that is going to tick the
Speaker 2: box for you but still maintain the goal of what
Speaker 2: we need to achieve. And so getting that balance. I
Speaker 2: hated it during the time because you're going, I don't
Speaker 2: feel like I've can find my way through this wall.
Speaker 2: But when you get to the end of it, you go,
Speaker 2: you know what, that was a really good growing experience
Speaker 2: for me because I wouldn't have got there easy.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, those growth experiences, they are the ones that we
Speaker 3: keep with us, right, that we continue to learn from.
Speaker 1: And So, has there been.
Speaker 3: A kind of a personal or professional upheaval in your
Speaker 3: life that actually tested this philosophy of yours, this reinvention
Speaker 3: where you're thinking, oh, Macanell, I really need to focus
Speaker 3: here and walk the talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it was when I separated from my wife, divorced,
Speaker 2: and then got into a new relationship. That period of
Speaker 2: going between those two was really confronting. And my new wife, Ezra,
Speaker 2: she was very much about holding me to account of
Speaker 2: the things that I got away with in the past
Speaker 2: and we're not acceptable now. And so that evolution of Okay,
Speaker 2: who am I and what do I want to do?
Speaker 2: Because one of the things I'm a big believer in
Speaker 2: I call it my superhuman or superman syndrome, is I
Speaker 2: try to save people. I try to save situations. I
Speaker 2: try to help I love. That is something that I
Speaker 2: get a big intrinsic reward out of. But to go
Speaker 2: and have an affair as an example, you are hurting
Speaker 2: multiple people in that sort of situation. In our brains
Speaker 2: at the time, we might be you know what, that's okay,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, it's just this. And Bob I call my
Speaker 2: mind part of me Bob as in boss of Brain,
Speaker 2: and Bob's sitting up there going, yeah, that's okay, surely
Speaker 2: it's okay, Like there's no harm in us. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So that reasoning part becomes part of that thought process
Speaker 2: that Bob uses to justify actions or things that you want.
Speaker 2: Because Bob's like an over protective parent sitting up there
Speaker 2: going Okay, how can I help you and protect you?
Speaker 2: And so protecting you may be lying to you, not
Speaker 2: telling you the hard truths, all of those things that
Speaker 2: our brains are really good at, or our minds, sorry,
Speaker 2: not our brains, two separate things, which I totally agree.
Speaker 2: But Bob has this knack of telling us bullshit. And
Speaker 2: you know, he doesn't want us to suffer physiologically, psychologically, emotionally,
Speaker 2: and to do to protect us, he'll just bullshit. So
Speaker 2: when it comes to something like the affairs, then I was,
Speaker 2: you know, held to account on those, and I think
Speaker 2: that there was the point that I went, you can't
Speaker 2: be the person that you've always been. You need to
Speaker 2: move past what you were getting out under first understand
Speaker 2: what is it that you were getting out of those
Speaker 2: situations that enabled you, that fed some part of your ego,
Speaker 2: because that's really what it was. I mean, if you
Speaker 2: think about an affair, it's kind of sex with another person,
Speaker 2: but equally you could almost have sex by yourself. So
Speaker 2: what is the other part of that feeding that you're
Speaker 2: getting in that in that sort.
Speaker 3: Of time, how long how long in thesation did that light.
Speaker 1: Bulb go off?
Speaker 2: It wasn't a quick one. It needed to have pain,
Speaker 2: It needed spotlights put on it. It needed me to
Speaker 2: go to some pretty deep dark spots to go, Okay,
Speaker 2: what do I need to do with me? Because reinvention
Speaker 2: is not an easy path, like it takes huge amount
Speaker 2: of energy, So why would you do it unless.
Speaker 1: You have a great to do it.
Speaker 3: It's something that is really important for people to understand
Speaker 3: is that we have behaviors and habits and behavioral processes
Speaker 3: that have been with us for a long period of time.
Speaker 3: And sometimes those behaved and those thought patterns served us
Speaker 3: well and then often are not serving us well. Not
Speaker 3: but they're really hard to break because they're just so
Speaker 3: wired into your behavior and they become automatic. And I
Speaker 3: think understanding that our brains are just so bombarded with
Speaker 3: so much bits of information that if we were to
Speaker 3: slow down and process at all, we wouldn't get anything done.
Speaker 3: So we have to have these heuristics and shortcuts and
Speaker 3: and and thinking styles and behaviors that are running on autopilot.
Speaker 3: In order to navigate the world, but often we end
Speaker 3: up just with repetition, with deeply burned in behaviors that
Speaker 3: may sometimes have served us well in the past but
Speaker 3: just aren't serving us well now. And they're really frigging
Speaker 3: hard to break. And people actually go, why am I
Speaker 3: still doing this shit?
Speaker 1: Right? But it's hard to break it?
Speaker 2: Eh, yeah, totally. So I'll talk about my coc addiction
Speaker 2: like I'm a real mix but the good part is right,
Speaker 2: so okay, totally. Yeah, we've all got it. And you
Speaker 2: know the facade that people put up and try to
Speaker 2: be pretend that everything's perfect, and.
Speaker 3: I eventually you see that, especially on social media, where
Speaker 3: people have this facade on social media, it may be
Speaker 3: a relationship that looks like it's blessed and that you know,
Speaker 3: they're putting up a post in the next week they're
Speaker 3: freaking divorced, right, Oh, people who look like they have
Speaker 3: everything and then you find out they just fell apart, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that authenticity that's lacking in those For me. You know,
Speaker 2: my wife and I will regularly talk about this because
Speaker 2: you're a look at a photo and say, hey, look
Speaker 2: at these guys. They're having the best time, And I went.
Speaker 2: They are today, they're having a great time, and I
Speaker 2: hope that continues for them. But really that's just a
Speaker 2: moment in time, and shit happens. Life happens, you know.
Speaker 2: It could be that you get bored with me or
Speaker 2: whatever those things are that mean a relationship gets challenged.
Speaker 2: Then the facade that we see in social or digital
Speaker 2: media is really just that, And the problem is we
Speaker 2: get caught.
Speaker 3: Up in comparison language comparison where you're comparing yourself to
Speaker 3: people who seem later their life's the whole heat better
Speaker 3: than yours, and it then brings you down. But sorry,
Speaker 3: I kind of hijack the conversation a little bit about
Speaker 3: the contection.
Speaker 1: So let's let's not just bring this back to the
Speaker 1: co co addiction. Let's explore that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel it's not going to be as big
Speaker 2: now as I painted it out toime because it was
Speaker 2: Coca Cola, who line and sinker, But it's true, even
Speaker 2: though it's Coca Cola, I was.
Speaker 1: A day though. That's probably worse for you than Colkie
Speaker 1: every nine.
Speaker 2: And then right totally when you think about the research
Speaker 2: now on sugar and how addictive it is and how
Speaker 2: bad it is overall longevity.
Speaker 1: Five to six liters a day. Holy quite a mouley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so I went from you know, I probably
Speaker 2: started that I'd say sixteen, and then it just kept going.
Speaker 2: And then there was points there that I would go,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to try and break that
Speaker 2: habit or see what the cycle is, and in my head,
Speaker 2: I'm going, well, surely it's okay. And so exactly what
Speaker 2: you were saying before, where you start to justify behaviors,
Speaker 2: That's what my brain was doing in the coke space,
Speaker 2: going Okay, surely you know it's great to have It's
Speaker 2: okay to have that. And it was only that when
Speaker 2: I started to really think about, okay, what is it
Speaker 2: that I need to do for myself, that I was
Speaker 2: able to break that habit. I'm still an addict. I
Speaker 2: am still literally a coke addict. I can walk past
Speaker 2: the fridge and if I see I'm a six hundred
Speaker 2: millis sort of a guy in the bottles. I can
Speaker 2: tell you whether the fridge is at about two degrees
Speaker 2: by the amount of condensation in the coke bottle, and
Speaker 2: my little brain starts going, Bob starts going, you know
Speaker 2: you want it go on just well, what's it going
Speaker 2: to hurt? Just one go on, just do it. It's
Speaker 2: not going to hurt anything. And that's the part of
Speaker 2: the addiction where you're starting to get into the trigger
Speaker 2: of addiction and whether you start to get into you know, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm craving it, But what do I do then? Can
Speaker 2: I put a different routine in there? So going back
Speaker 2: to the affairs, what was I getting out of an affair? Yes,
Speaker 2: there was sex, but there was something else that you know,
Speaker 2: let's go way back, and I talked about.
Speaker 1: Them not enough. You're getting validition and.
Speaker 2: Maybe correct totally. And I can see I'm hurting over there,
Speaker 2: hurting people that I really care about. I'm hurting people
Speaker 2: that I'm connecting with who are trusting me in that
Speaker 2: sort of situation, but I'm still hurting them. And you know,
Speaker 2: as you said, values are a really critical thing for you.
Speaker 2: And that was against my venues, but a behavior that
Speaker 2: I kept doing.
Speaker 3: And you know, whether it's a furze Co connection, ultra
Speaker 3: process food, alcohol, drugs. I think lots of people, if
Speaker 3: they're being honest, have have behaviors that they really don't
Speaker 3: want to do, but they they can't help doing them.
Speaker 1: And they do them more when they're stressed.
Speaker 3: Right, And that that's the thing, because when you're if
Speaker 3: you've had a stressful day, your will part becomes a
Speaker 3: lot lower. Right, If you've had a day of meetings
Speaker 3: and difficult conversations, it completely drains your will part. And
Speaker 3: then you're walking home and you walk past the shop
Speaker 3: and you see the fridge out of the corner of
Speaker 3: your eye and the coca cola.
Speaker 1: And that's it. And that's the degree stuff Bob was saying.
Speaker 1: And then the next thing, you know what, you're in
Speaker 1: the right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, and I can I've even now, so I've
Speaker 2: been clean for probably I think it's fourteenth.
Speaker 1: Do you haven't had any coca cola for fourteen?
Speaker 2: No, because I know that as soon as I have
Speaker 2: that one, I'm back off the wagon, I'm bathing in it,
Speaker 2: and I'm pouring it down my dog and all those
Speaker 2: sorts of things.
Speaker 1: That's that's interesting. So what was what did you what strikes?
Speaker 1: How did you did you use to wing yourself off?
Speaker 2: It was very much a mental game, but I was
Speaker 2: also able to tie a consequence to it. So in
Speaker 2: this case, I made a commitment to my now wife
Speaker 2: that I would change my behaviors, and this was one
Speaker 2: of those indications of that I had changed the behavior.
Speaker 2: So you asked before about that milestone moment or life
Speaker 2: changing event, and that was where we'd broken up deservedly so,
Speaker 2: and I was working to get our relationship back on track,
Speaker 2: and there was multiple commitments I made, and that happened
Speaker 2: to be one of the You know, it turns out
Speaker 2: inconsequential off to the side, but it's a measure that
Speaker 2: I have and I still use it as to my
Speaker 2: commitment and my own mental strength in my reinvention of
Speaker 2: who I am in relationship.
Speaker 1: Interesting stuff.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the because we had a very very
Speaker 3: brief chat on her before we came on and the
Speaker 3: word values came up. So I am, do you think
Speaker 3: that values are in behavior, particularly trying to change behavior.
Speaker 1: That's the first part of the question.
Speaker 3: And then I want to dig in, dig into helping
Speaker 3: people discover their values if they're not already clear, because
Speaker 3: there's some people who'd be listening to this, Yes, I'm
Speaker 3: very clear on my values and other people going not
Speaker 3: so sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, I think you've got me nervous
Speaker 2: now that my values are going to hold up against
Speaker 2: the the scrutiny of Paul. But I'm happy to go there.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: My values are an evolution from what I learned from
Speaker 2: my parents, plus what I inherently have as who I
Speaker 2: am as a person. So authenticity is such a strong
Speaker 2: thing for me. Now, did you want to give me
Speaker 2: a definition of your term of values? Because I know
Speaker 2: quite often I can have believes.
Speaker 1: There are different things. There's virtues, there's values.
Speaker 3: The way I look at it is that things that
Speaker 3: are important to you that actually guide your behavior. And
Speaker 3: actually authenticity is a big one of mine. I've got
Speaker 3: little story once you've finished, So.
Speaker 2: My authenticity kindness is huge in my scale. I can't
Speaker 2: say I think honesty is in there, but having affairs
Speaker 2: and the things that we do that sometimes are self
Speaker 2: serving means that honesty gets compromised.
Speaker 1: Asperience day, Well.
Speaker 2: I think it is for all of us, because if
Speaker 2: we are all honest. I had this conversation with somebody
Speaker 2: years ago where they're going, I never tell a lie off,
Speaker 2: And how can that be something you're lying about? Life?
Speaker 2: Hard work is another one, and it's not a value,
Speaker 2: but it's an ethos of getting shit done.
Speaker 1: And talk to us about how.
Speaker 3: Important they are in the whole process of reinventing, Like,
Speaker 3: how do people use them in that process?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's different levels of reinvention. So if
Speaker 2: you're talking about true to the core level reinvention, such
Speaker 2: as something like you may have been given a health
Speaker 2: diagnose that is cancer, heart conditions or whatever, that's when
Speaker 2: you really start to get deep into who you are
Speaker 2: and it challenges the beliefs that may be built on
Speaker 2: other people's stories. So Mum and Dad might have told
Speaker 2: you a certain thing about you know, it could be
Speaker 2: gay people, it could be whatever, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you're now seeing the world through your eyes and you're
Speaker 2: going that was just an uninformed view of the world.
Speaker 2: So now I want to build up my own values
Speaker 2: that relate to who I am, because whilst you brought
Speaker 2: into this world and I'm made up of your DNA,
Speaker 2: the person I am is not the person you are,
Speaker 2: and so the values that I get will be both
Speaker 2: in the way I process and think. Plus also there's
Speaker 2: a core component which is really hard to describe, but
Speaker 2: it's core because it's almost like you're born with them.
Speaker 2: And that adventure part that you and I said we
Speaker 2: shared the genon is something that we might be born on.
Speaker 2: So you know, accepting mediocrity might not be something that
Speaker 2: we're able to do because one of our values is
Speaker 2: to challenge ourself.
Speaker 1: So little story about mine.
Speaker 3: So I think my kryptonite over the years has been alcohol, right,
Speaker 3: being iris and ex military.
Speaker 1: And even as I say that that's.
Speaker 3: Justifying, right because I'm an irishman, I'm ex military.
Speaker 1: You know that's what we do.
Speaker 3: We drink, right, And I was brought up in Ireland,
Speaker 3: massive drinking culture, massive drinking culture at university, particularly in
Speaker 3: those days. Thankfully it's different these days, I think for
Speaker 3: a bit when I look at my daughter at university,
Speaker 3: but then joining the military, which in those days was
Speaker 3: a massive drinking culture in the British military, and so
Speaker 3: those behaviors were heavily embedded in me and continued to
Speaker 3: I would say, have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. When
Speaker 3: I said I was an alcoholic, certainly not, but I
Speaker 3: would be probably drinking definitely four days a week, right,
Speaker 3: And I used to have and drink three days a week, right,
Speaker 3: Monday Tuesday were generally easy to not drink.
Speaker 1: Then Wednesday was the fucking.
Speaker 3: The Will Parr fight from hell, And then Thursday it
Speaker 3: was just like, hey, it's thirsty, we'll have a drink.
Speaker 1: Friday, Satday, Sunday, We're yeah, exact.
Speaker 3: Sometimes Tuesday sneaked in and then sometimes I find like
Speaker 3: it was every night and I wasn't a huge amount.
Speaker 1: Maybe me and Carl would split a.
Speaker 3: Bottle of wine or something like that, and then sometimes
Speaker 3: there'd be a second bottle come out, which I would
Speaker 3: drink more of. Right, And then you know, I always
Speaker 3: had a you know, when you're going out, you go
Speaker 3: out to get drunk, right, And and probably still do
Speaker 3: a little.
Speaker 1: Bit of that, but not The thing that really.
Speaker 3: Reduced my alcohol consumption was it started when I was
Speaker 3: training to become a boxer, and I was training heaps
Speaker 3: and getting myself fit as for a pretty big fight.
Speaker 3: But alcohol was still the thing, right, and I was
Speaker 3: justifying it because hey, I'd work my ass off and
Speaker 3: training and I could have a few drinks.
Speaker 1: And it was really sitting.
Speaker 3: Down and with doing an exercise on my values, and
Speaker 3: one of mine is authenticity.
Speaker 1: And wondering, I'm like, hold on a minute, you fuck her.
Speaker 1: You're not being authentic.
Speaker 3: You are a peak performance corporate speaker who is going
Speaker 3: and talking about piak performance and you're drinking four or
Speaker 3: five six nights a week.
Speaker 1: Like that is not authentic.
Speaker 3: And so I had this. I got my bathroom mirror
Speaker 3: where I had all of my processors, rituals, had my
Speaker 3: goal up there being a professional boxer, and I had
Speaker 3: authenticity written right up there right because two things. I
Speaker 3: wanted to get into the ring as an authentic professional boxer,
Speaker 3: and I knew that that word authenticity would be the
Speaker 3: one that would influence my alcohol consumption. And and then
Speaker 3: post boxing, I kind of forgot about it, started probably
Speaker 3: drinking a little bit more, and then I actually brought
Speaker 3: it back one day and said, you know what.
Speaker 1: You need to be authentic here.
Speaker 3: You need to walk the path otherwise stop seeing that authenticity.
Speaker 1: Is a value of yours.
Speaker 3: And that is the thing that has made me drink
Speaker 3: like I'm not ris next military.
Speaker 1: And I'll still I'll still give it a note wat
Speaker 1: with me.
Speaker 3: It's but the social drinking in our household has just
Speaker 3: fallen through the floor, right, and now you can have
Speaker 3: blonde glass of wine and it's most.
Speaker 1: Nats a week, not touching any of it.
Speaker 3: But it was linking into that value of authenticity the
Speaker 3: thing that helped me to get over the lane.
Speaker 1: In terms of my behavior.
Speaker 2: And isn't that interesting that it's one thing that gives
Speaker 2: you the key to go, okay, I need to change this.
Speaker 2: And authenticity, if you peel away all of those other words,
Speaker 2: you think about what I was talking about from an
Speaker 2: affair and hurting people, I'm lying, I'm cheating, I'm doing
Speaker 2: those things. I'm not being authentic to who I am.
Speaker 2: And it's like buying a Rolex watch. For me, I
Speaker 2: can buy a fake. I can't afford the real thing,
Speaker 2: but I can buy a fake, but I still know
Speaker 2: and therefore the value of me wearing the watch doesn't
Speaker 2: work for me. I just can't see. I can't see
Speaker 2: past that I'm wearing something that isn't the real deal,
Speaker 2: and you know it cheapens it for me. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I bought one while overseas and I went, you know what,
Speaker 2: that's just not me and I think, guys, and that's
Speaker 2: my view of that. Cool.
Speaker 3: So we talked about the power of values in helping
Speaker 3: guide behavior. Let's let's just switch tacks a little bit,
Speaker 3: because you talk in your book for a bit about AI,
Speaker 3: right and and and.
Speaker 1: AI is big and it's here to stay for sure.
Speaker 3: And you talk about harnessing the power of ar so
Speaker 3: we're gonna we're gonna switch from personal and eye to
Speaker 3: to to people's professional things. How can people harness the
Speaker 3: power of ar AI effectively in their job and maybe
Speaker 3: if they are looking to reinvent themselves.
Speaker 2: Sure so is becoming so intuitive and a great tool.
Speaker 2: And I think you've got to keep in mind the
Speaker 2: tool part of it. But you know, we have the opportunity,
Speaker 2: unlike any other part in the world or sorry, any
Speaker 2: other time in the world, to get into creative fields,
Speaker 2: fields that we've never thought of before, and explore them
Speaker 2: without having to go and do the university degrees. And
Speaker 2: you're doing your PhD. I did a couple of masters
Speaker 2: along the way as well. And the answers that I
Speaker 2: would get out of going into AI, I'm giving a
Speaker 2: good prompt are better than what my three year degrees
Speaker 2: do as and also probably a senior associate in a
Speaker 2: knowledge creat So right now, it is crazy. I was
Speaker 2: talking with my wife the other day and so we
Speaker 2: have a business on also longevity for women, and we
Speaker 2: were working on a business plan and I said, hang on,
Speaker 2: se let me just jump into Gemini Deep Research and
Speaker 2: have a look at that. The get them to create
Speaker 2: the business plan. After it's searching three hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: five websites to a deep level of detail that would
Speaker 2: have taken me probably a year. It then pops out
Speaker 2: this strategy that is, oh, this market here has these challenges,
Speaker 2: but it also has these opportunities. And the assessment was
Speaker 2: at the level that you would expect from a senior
Speaker 2: partner in one of these firms that you're paying sort
Speaker 2: of between five and ten grand a day for so
Speaker 2: and then I will hold the book up because it
Speaker 2: does come through. Forget the media part this section here.
Speaker 2: Last time on sort of shit out my last book,
Speaker 2: I paid I think it was two thousand dollars for
Speaker 2: the cover to be designed. This time, I went, okay,
Speaker 2: chat GBT, let's see what you got jumped in and
Speaker 2: amongst other things. So it gave me a whole selection.
Speaker 2: It came up with this and I went, oh, I
Speaker 2: think I love that, and I think I love it
Speaker 2: because it captures the puzzle.
Speaker 1: Pieces that we do with our lives.
Speaker 2: Now a year ago I couldn't have done that, But
Speaker 2: now I'm getting to that point where this tool is
Speaker 2: letting me be more entrepreneur. And if we go back
Speaker 2: to I can't remember the exact official term, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to call it Bourberd syndrome, where I can go
Speaker 2: I want to explore how much a nineteen sixty four
Speaker 2: Combi would sell for in this market and what my
Speaker 2: restoration costs would be. Instead of me going googling, I
Speaker 2: can type that prompt in and have a full report
Speaker 2: of past sales and everything within about three minutes. It
Speaker 2: my decision making is so much fun.
Speaker 3: And it's all about the quality of the prompt, Isn't
Speaker 3: it that when you're getting the information?
Speaker 2: But it is today it's like going and saying to
Speaker 2: somebody that you're getting a Sarah's going to say a
Speaker 2: heck cut, mate, and I'm not sure. I'm far behind,
Speaker 2: So I don't know that's a good example. But let's
Speaker 2: say going into the barber and you go, hey, I
Speaker 2: want you to just trim there, and they go okay,
Speaker 2: So they just do whatever they're thinking, but you haven't
Speaker 2: given them the instructions. I want my brows done, I want,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever else. So it's about being able to
Speaker 2: communicate and communicate efficiently, and so that's what we will learn,
Speaker 2: just like were going and learning a second language. If
Speaker 2: we go into a new country, we're going to learn
Speaker 2: how we best communicate by the responses we get back
Speaker 2: and we go, oh, I don't remember ordering that vanilla slice.
Speaker 2: I actually ordered the sausage roll. Let me try something
Speaker 2: else now. And as we do that, it's kind of
Speaker 2: like mini reinventions because we're learning by a mystats.
Speaker 1: It's a crazy world that we're getting into.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think you're right. Is this stuff is
Speaker 4: here to say and we need to use it effectively.
Speaker 4: And I've used it for some stuff and it just
Speaker 4: produces some really cool shit. There's also it can produce
Speaker 4: a little bit of nonsense, but I think you can
Speaker 4: sharpen it up like that and then feed it back
Speaker 4: that it's produced nonsense and it learns, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we've become the director in our own lives
Speaker 2: on this one.
Speaker 3: And now let's talk about so with the whole reinvention
Speaker 3: and challenges, and I think we're very aligned on this
Speaker 3: one in looking to turn life's challenges into growth opportunities.
Speaker 3: Give us an example, either from you or someone that
Speaker 3: you that you know, there's been a big challenge that
Speaker 3: they've fierced or you have fierced that has actually turned
Speaker 3: into a growth opportunity.
Speaker 2: I can probably only give you mine because I think
Speaker 2: mine are my real stories. Everybody else's would be an
Speaker 2: interpretation of their own story. So for me again, I
Speaker 2: will go with this epara of leaving somebody behind that
Speaker 2: I had cared about significantly and loved deeply, and then
Speaker 2: moving into a new relationship. So for those things there
Speaker 2: I needed to firstly, I use a bit of a
Speaker 2: six step project process. In this number one was I
Speaker 2: needed to accept that change had happened. There was a
Speaker 2: period of time of just you know, feeling sorry for myself,
Speaker 2: even though it was my affections.
Speaker 1: Led me down. You can't get can't move it anywhere.
Speaker 2: No, exactly. So you need to be able to go
Speaker 2: accept change happens and accept this one happens. And you
Speaker 2: would know this from all of the stuff that you've
Speaker 2: done as well. The acceptance of change becomes easier the
Speaker 2: more you do it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'll tell you what, it's not just me and
Speaker 3: you saying that. Two and a half thousand years ago,
Speaker 3: Confucius said the change is the only stealable reference point
Speaker 3: in life, and the change process can be easy and
Speaker 3: natural for us if and only if we embrace it
Speaker 3: and then talked about the more often the embrace change,
Speaker 3: the easier it becomes.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it makes sense if you think about our
Speaker 2: physiological adaptation. The more we do something, the better we
Speaker 2: get the more and I'll call it neural pathways, but
Speaker 2: you're going to blink at me and go Gary, that's
Speaker 2: not the right term. But neural pathways are strengthened as
Speaker 2: part of that process. So, like going to the gym,
Speaker 2: the more we do it, the stronger we become and
Speaker 2: the more we're able to use it. And so then
Speaker 2: from there, the next part is the give yourself a
Speaker 2: good hard look because the reality check means that what
Speaker 2: you've done you played a role in wherever you are
Speaker 2: right now, and it could be the most traumatic thing
Speaker 2: that was done to you, but there was a part
Speaker 2: to play in there that you need to assess for
Speaker 2: yourself and decide what's the stuff I want to go
Speaker 2: forward with, good, bad, and ugly.
Speaker 1: I'll call it.
Speaker 2: What's the good stuff that you want to keep going,
Speaker 2: what's the bad stuff you kind of don't want to do,
Speaker 2: and what's the ugly stuff you just want to make
Speaker 2: sure never happens again.
Speaker 3: Can I just jump on in before one because a
Speaker 3: brilliant little tool from Japanese psychology I'm stealing this off
Speaker 3: my wife called a ni can reflection where and you
Speaker 3: can do this on individuals and situations. So take your
Speaker 3: break up for example. We're at that point because a
Speaker 3: lot of people get very bitter over a breakup and
Speaker 3: it's like that person's the devil in cornate, right, But
Speaker 3: then I can reflection, and you can do this in
Speaker 3: five year chunks or over the entire relationship.
Speaker 1: Is three questions. What did I give? What did I receive?
Speaker 3: And what troubles and difficulties did I cause? All right,
Speaker 3: And it's that third question that is really important, that
Speaker 3: tends to be the one that people avoid, But this
Speaker 3: is exactly your have a.
Speaker 1: Good hard look at yourself. What was you rule in this? Right?
Speaker 1: I think that's hugely important if we're going to lane
Speaker 1: and grill.
Speaker 2: And as a side note, I've been incredibly fortunate that
Speaker 2: the people in my life some haven't come along the
Speaker 2: journey with me. But my ex wife Julie and her
Speaker 2: husband Alan live about three minutes away from us, we
Speaker 2: would catch up with them at least once once a
Speaker 2: week probably. Yeah, it's so cool and I really cherish
Speaker 2: and value that relationship that's built on. Yes, we had
Speaker 2: a deep love for each other, it turned into friendship,
Speaker 2: and my behaviors meant that we broke what we had,
Speaker 2: but it probably needed to be broken. And then moving forward,
Speaker 2: we've been able to build a world of trust that Alan,
Speaker 2: Julie's husband, and my wife Ezra are able to trust
Speaker 2: us in this relationship of good friends. And so Julian
Speaker 2: Azra will go bootskooting every Wednesday night and I almost
Speaker 2: every Wednesday go How lucky am I that these people
Speaker 2: have been able to accept them find love for themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super cool. So let's talk about the next step.
Speaker 1: Stand in your process.
Speaker 3: You think you said you had a six step process
Speaker 3: for sure if we just recap the first couple of years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the word we're creating is called create and
Speaker 2: so we've had change happens and change acceptance reality check.
Speaker 2: The next one is empowering yourself because once we've done
Speaker 2: all of the self reflection and everything else, we now
Speaker 2: need to start to think about where do we want
Speaker 2: to be? What is it and who are we going
Speaker 2: to be in this next form of ourselves because our
Speaker 2: old normal no longer exists and we now get a
Speaker 2: choice to create our new normal. We don't get to
Speaker 2: choose everything, but we get to create a lot of
Speaker 2: it based on the views, the approaches, and the choices
Speaker 2: we make in this. And so by empowering yourself, it
Speaker 2: may be you know, listening to you talk today, I'm
Speaker 2: learning from you and there's things that I'm taking forward
Speaker 2: into how I approach life. The books I read, the
Speaker 2: programs I watch, all of those are about empowering me.
Speaker 2: And so that's great. So now I am I've done training,
Speaker 2: I've done all of the things that make that I'm
Speaker 2: ready to move forward. And you would know this from
Speaker 2: change and resilience, and I know it from transformational change
Speaker 2: in organizations. People won't change when there's a fear of failure.
Speaker 2: So how do we help them get over their fear
Speaker 2: of failure? Well, we train them so that they know
Speaker 2: that they're capable of performing in this new world, and
Speaker 2: we communicate with them regularly so that they understand where
Speaker 2: they're heading and what the unexpected may be. But they
Speaker 2: also have a voice in being able to express to
Speaker 2: themselves or to us, Hey, I've got uncertainties. Can you
Speaker 2: listen to me and let me help and then sort
Speaker 2: of move me forward with that and understand why I'm
Speaker 2: so nervous. You go, yep, that's great. That's part of
Speaker 2: helping their bob talk this through. And then we go
Speaker 2: into the next part, which is the where a lot
Speaker 2: of people will fall down. So we've done the analysis,
Speaker 2: We've started to think about Okay, I've done all the training,
Speaker 2: I'm ready to go. I don't do it, No, let's not.
Speaker 2: So action is the next one, and this is where
Speaker 2: most people will fall down because action means stepping into
Speaker 2: the unknown, into territories and lands that we have uncertainty,
Speaker 2: and there's a well, sorry, no, there is a certainty.
Speaker 2: We're going to take missteps. We're going to take wrong steps.
Speaker 2: We're going to do the things that we didn't think.
Speaker 2: They didn't play out the way we thought they would.
Speaker 2: So failure again comes into this equation. And the only
Speaker 2: way to deal with failure is that growth mindset or
Speaker 2: a reinvention mindset. And so I've taken a step.
Speaker 3: Everything's an experiment, right, It just need to be your
Speaker 3: own and just run experiments rather than sitting and procrastinating.
Speaker 1: Is it's just I'm big on this.
Speaker 3: You just get into action because motivation follows action, not
Speaker 3: the other way, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, totally. I don't know whether you follow the rocket
Speaker 2: program that we've got in Australia. So there's you know,
Speaker 2: they're sending rockets up and testing them, and we've got
Speaker 2: some really create an amazing scientists here. They send rockets
Speaker 2: up knowing that it's going to fail. It's data, but
Speaker 2: they've also got the measures there.
Speaker 3: Everything's everything's ex and they going Okay, what did we learn?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I love that approach of be the scientist of
Speaker 2: your own life because it's.
Speaker 1: All that's just it's just it's.
Speaker 2: All about Yeah, it wasn't ten thousand light bulb.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then you've got Michael Jordan with his I've failed
Speaker 2: nine thousand times. I think it is all.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, just and it's that mainset of just running
Speaker 3: experiments and learning and growing and developing through the process
Speaker 3: and not being a free to feel to your.
Speaker 2: Point right Yeah, and if you hit a roadblock, you
Speaker 2: go yep, kill what about I learn? And you then
Speaker 2: divert unless you kind of need to do it a
Speaker 2: second time because you're not You're kind of like me,
Speaker 2: not that smart. So you bump into the wall twice
Speaker 2: and they go, oh that hurts second time, shouldn't a
Speaker 2: third time? And now the pressure is on. And then
Speaker 2: of course the action part also falls into that tri
Speaker 2: track component of failure. And then the final part, which
Speaker 2: is something I really have struggled with, is enjoy The.
Speaker 3: Tea is try try again, and so it's to get
Speaker 3: into actually, don't give up, learn your learn your lessons,
Speaker 3: go again.
Speaker 2: And reset yourself, start doing the last enjoying the process
Speaker 2: and now enjoying. For me, I couldn't do it because
Speaker 2: I'd set myself at the tender age of eighteen and
Speaker 2: with no I suppose foundation to put this promise on
Speaker 2: myself was I would be a millionaire by the time
Speaker 2: I thirty. I was thirty, so each birthday that became
Speaker 2: part of the journey to thirty was actually not a
Speaker 2: celebration but a milestone.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I don't do birthdays well, and it's still a
Speaker 2: thing that I have to go. I've got to just
Speaker 2: accept that life is live. But the one thing I
Speaker 2: have learned is having gone through those really dark spaces
Speaker 2: in that journey of birthdays and whatever else might happen,
Speaker 2: and also then looking backwards, but blame and you know, oh,
Speaker 2: well I could have on that differently. Well you didn't,
Speaker 2: and you don't get a second shot because it's in
Speaker 2: the past.
Speaker 1: It's gone. Let it go.
Speaker 2: The future hasn't happened. Now, let that one go too.
Speaker 2: You'd like focus on it, but if it doesn't play
Speaker 2: out the way you expected, then you're pretty much on
Speaker 2: the money. All we have is here and now. And
Speaker 2: when I'm finding myself getting really anxious or stressed, that's
Speaker 2: because I'm either looking forwards or backwards present.
Speaker 3: That's such an important statement and it is completely backed
Speaker 3: up by science and philosophy. Epic Titus two thousand years
Speaker 3: ago said we have no business in the past of
Speaker 3: the future. All we have is a series of present moments.
Speaker 3: The Stoics new two thousand years ago that depression was
Speaker 3: lamenting on the past. Anxiety is a strong concern about
Speaker 3: the future, but they've become problematic because we bring the
Speaker 3: past of the future into the present moment. That's when
Speaker 3: it creates difficulties for us. Right, It's like, and you know,
Speaker 3: if we think about it, for me, it plays back into.
Speaker 1: To attention, and it's where your attention is. And yes,
Speaker 1: we have to be future focused to be able to plan.
Speaker 1: I think Seneca picked that up the other story. He said,
Speaker 1: foresight is man's.
Speaker 3: Greatest gift and his greatest achilles heat, which I love
Speaker 3: that because it enables us to plan for the future,
Speaker 3: but it also enables us to catastrophize and be anxious
Speaker 3: about shit that doesn't actually happen. And a lot of
Speaker 3: people are just living in the past or living in
Speaker 3: the future, and they're not good places to live your life.
Speaker 3: And Matt Killing's worth Actually he did a study with
Speaker 3: Professor Dan Gilbert around happiness and they had people have
Speaker 3: an app and was basically sending them a little question
Speaker 3: about raising their happiness and also what they were doing
Speaker 3: and what they find. They've got so many data points
Speaker 3: that someone's levels of happiness was about being in the moment,
Speaker 3: even if they were stuck in traffic, but they were
Speaker 3: fully present, they were much happier than if they were
Speaker 3: daydreaming about the future or are thinking about the past. Right,
Speaker 3: and yeah, all the meditators are there in the monks
Speaker 3: and we going no shit, guys, how long did it
Speaker 3: take you to work that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean talking two thousand years back.
Speaker 2: We're talking five thousand years back. The other thing i'd
Speaker 2: I'll like to sort of unpack there a little bit
Speaker 2: is that is the illusion of happiness because we chose it.
Speaker 3: This is so much violent agreement here, and I think
Speaker 3: we are we have a society that is obsessed with emotions.
Speaker 3: We are chasing one emotion, happiness, and we are medicating
Speaker 3: other emotions sadness, nervousness, which are now depression, anxiety. We
Speaker 3: just we are a nation that is freaking obsessed with
Speaker 3: controlling emotions.
Speaker 1: And emotions are just like clouds. They come and they go.
Speaker 1: You can't be happy twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3: And anybody whose goal in life is to be happy
Speaker 3: is completely and utterly bunkers and likely heading towards failure totally.
Speaker 2: If you focus on happiness, you can beyond that individual.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's one of the things that I've
Speaker 2: learned in the in the journey and the many reinventions,
Speaker 2: is we keep putting happiness as this aspirational thing, whereas
Speaker 2: a contentment it just still goes back to again.
Speaker 3: Contentment should be the good content totally.
Speaker 2: You know if you've have gone through and you've suffered,
Speaker 2: like let's say you've got had major surgery like the which.
Speaker 3: I had, which I hadn't but it's on its way.
Speaker 2: How did you get?
Speaker 3: But I view it's a challenge, right But anyway, show
Speaker 3: you what you were saying about going.
Speaker 1: Through me surgery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you go through major surgery, you will
Speaker 2: be expressive. There will be a level of pain that
Speaker 2: you have and quite often, and I've had, I've torn
Speaker 2: off biceps on both sides and also the peck off
Speaker 2: this side as well. When that happens and I've gone
Speaker 2: through the surgery to reattach, I look with a fascination
Speaker 2: of wow, this is an interesting thing from a pain perspective.
Speaker 2: But equally I then go, am I okay, Like I
Speaker 2: could worry that the pain's going to get worse, but
Speaker 2: right now, is that pain bearable? And if so, then
Speaker 2: I'm okay. I'm okay. And that is something that I
Speaker 2: use regularly, which is almost like a little checklist of
Speaker 2: I feel myself and my anxiety and my stress levels
Speaker 2: coming up. And I'm assuming from having open heart surgery
Speaker 2: I had, I'm in the nineteenth percentile for the culture
Speaker 2: is getting blocked as well. Yeah, yeah, sclerosis, I think
Speaker 2: it is. Thank you. Yeah, that's why we've got you
Speaker 2: here as well, so you can pick up after me.
Speaker 2: So you know, that was a life changing thing for
Speaker 2: me of you know, some of the behaviors again had to.
Speaker 3: Change, and you were talking about the pin and reframing
Speaker 3: the pain, and the whole thing was about the operation we.
Speaker 1: Got there from, about being in the moment.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And so I can stress about those things
Speaker 2: of the future, and so I'll get anxious. But if
Speaker 2: I do three things, I think it's three, let's see
Speaker 2: how we go. Number one is am I okay right now?
Speaker 2: Am I breathing?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: My breathing is pretty good, even if it was a
Speaker 2: financial issue and I'm facing impending bankruptcy. Am I okay?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 2: Have I got enough food to eat?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I do? Have got people that I care about and
Speaker 2: they care about me. Yeah I do. Okay, take another breath.
Speaker 2: And those things help bring back bring me back to
Speaker 2: the present, because I am a future liver and the
Speaker 2: past dweller, and I need to remind myself on a
Speaker 2: regular basis.
Speaker 3: Of that when people have difficulties, the words this two
Speaker 3: shall pass.
Speaker 1: Are very powerful, right, just to know that you will
Speaker 1: get through this, this too shall pass.
Speaker 3: And the thing we were talking, you just reminded me
Speaker 3: about something with open heart surgery right when I knew
Speaker 3: I was going into it. And this is about the
Speaker 3: future and catastrophizing, right, So clearly what I did first
Speaker 3: when I first found out that I had to have
Speaker 3: because I was born with a dodgy valve that get
Speaker 3: picked up by chance, right, because I played soccer with
Speaker 3: a cardiologist, and you know, I came home, I wrote
Speaker 3: a couple of things in my bathroom murror. One of
Speaker 3: the things I wrote on my bathroom murror was, and
Speaker 3: it's a line from Monty Python, you lucky, lucky bastard, right,
Speaker 3: is written on my bathroom murr because I could have gone,
Speaker 3: oh fucking woe is me, I've got to have open
Speaker 3: heart surgery. But I was like, I got this picked up,
Speaker 3: this thing that would definitely have killed me, and I
Speaker 3: got that picked up because I was being proactive about
Speaker 3: my health.
Speaker 1: Then happened to play soccer with a cardiologist. Right.
Speaker 2: But the.
Speaker 1: Thing about.
Speaker 3: When you're going into something like that that I obviously
Speaker 3: looked up the risks, you know, being and that that's
Speaker 3: probably the ex military helicopter navigator. We were always a
Speaker 3: bit about risks and doing assessments on risks and mitigating risks.
Speaker 3: But the whole point of looking up the risk is, okay,
Speaker 3: so what's the chances that I'm going to die on
Speaker 3: the table here? And it was less than one percent
Speaker 3: was what the data showed, and I thought, well, I'm
Speaker 3: pretty fit and healthy, so I'm probably it's even less
Speaker 3: than that. But the whole point of doing that risk
Speaker 3: analysis wasn't to get anxious about it.
Speaker 1: It was like, okay, so what needs to be done? Right?
Speaker 1: So that is a less than one percent chance.
Speaker 3: But again, we were always taught you look at what's
Speaker 3: the what's the risk of something happening, and what's the
Speaker 3: potential impact.
Speaker 1: So for me, the risk is pretty.
Speaker 3: Low of dying on the table, but the potential impact
Speaker 3: is fucking massive. So that's where I went, Shit, I
Speaker 3: need to get my furze in order, just in case, right,
Speaker 3: And I need to record some videos for my kids
Speaker 3: for their eighteenth and their twenty first birthday is just
Speaker 3: in case, right, And so I did that to mitigate
Speaker 3: for those risks, But then all of my energy was
Speaker 3: directed towards the challenge, right, And I actually wrote on
Speaker 3: my bathroom mirror worthy opponent, and I'm like, this open
Speaker 3: heart surgery is my worthy opponent that I need to
Speaker 3: train for that's going to bring out the best in me.
Speaker 3: So that I think that that's important when people are
Speaker 3: going through big changes, isn't It's it's the mindset that
Speaker 3: they have to look at as a challenge to test
Speaker 3: and develop you, rather than as a stressor or a
Speaker 3: bad thing, because that massively changes your physiology, your motivation,
Speaker 3: your engagement in the task, all of this shit.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm sure you've come across that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I joke with my wife when I because
Speaker 2: we're very competitive, and it'll be something like walking or
Speaker 2: you know, bush walking through really tough terrain, and I'll say,
Speaker 2: give me all the packs. I'll take them, and you go,
Speaker 2: why because I need to know that I can and
Speaker 2: you know what happens if I ever get drafted. She's going,
Speaker 2: you're sixty years old.
Speaker 1: I'm going, you here, you never know interesting stuff.
Speaker 3: So, Carrie, what's so going through the process of writing
Speaker 3: this book? Because I've just handed in my manuscript for
Speaker 3: my second book, right, and actually writing that will, I
Speaker 3: learned some stuff that I've then gone and applied and
Speaker 3: it's kind of stuff that I knew. But when you
Speaker 3: write it, Dine, and you're talking about your thinking, fucking hell, yeh,
Speaker 3: I need to do more of that right And one
Speaker 3: of my big like was more time in nature.
Speaker 1: As I was I was writing about the chapter on it.
Speaker 3: So is there anything that when you wrote this book
Speaker 3: that you actually looked at it and went fuck, I
Speaker 3: need to take that on board and I need to
Speaker 3: double down on this bit in my life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy enjoy. That was it.
Speaker 2: But like you, the process of writing a book, if
Speaker 2: listeners haven't ever sat down to just try and start
Speaker 2: writing something. You may start at the first word thinking
Speaker 2: you know where this story is about to get up.
Speaker 2: The story evolves and tells itself through you as you
Speaker 2: start writing. And you know, Bob, you talked about Monty Python.
Speaker 2: Bob's is the reason Bob came into my head in
Speaker 2: the first book was the definition of oh sorry, the
Speaker 2: that Blackadder said, Bob. And so I'm sitting there writing away,
Speaker 2: going okay, I need something to name the mind Bob.
Speaker 2: And then afterwards, when the book was all finished and printed,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, I realized, Bob is the acting
Speaker 2: for Boss of Brain. That that's pretty good. And you
Speaker 2: get all of these revelations that you sit back and
Speaker 2: you go, I'm not sure where that came from, but
Speaker 2: it's come from me. So it's built around the stories
Speaker 2: I have within me. But the story has told itself,
Speaker 2: and I'm as surprised as anybody else. And sometimes I
Speaker 2: looked at my writing and my wife was reading the
Speaker 2: most recent one. He said, you're actually a good writer.
Speaker 2: I think of a surprise in a voice, and I
Speaker 2: read read some of it and I went, yeah, you're
Speaker 2: actually right. And it's that thing of being authentic, of
Speaker 2: using the stories that are within you to reflect and
Speaker 2: tell the stories that or the messaging that you need
Speaker 2: to get.
Speaker 3: And look, I think, well, we'll finish it there, but
Speaker 3: I just want to revisit your enjoy thing because it came.
Speaker 1: Up on the podcast a few weeks ago and it's
Speaker 1: something that when I remembered it, I was like, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is so true.
Speaker 3: And it's a quote from a book called Zen in
Speaker 3: the Eye of Motorcycle Maintenance by Martin Persi Michael Persic,
Speaker 3: It's Michael Percy anyway, and somebody persing and he talks
Speaker 3: about that we're all trying to climb the mountain. Like
Speaker 3: everybody's trying to climb the mountain, you know, these big goals.
Speaker 3: And he said that lots of people miss the journey
Speaker 3: because they're so focused on the destiny issue.
Speaker 1: And he's like, sometimes it's better to travel than to
Speaker 1: get there. And that's really about joining the process, isn't it.
Speaker 3: You got a one in four hundred trillion chance of
Speaker 3: being born, fucking waste it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, can I have one more point with enjoy is
Speaker 2: also laughed. You know, when my mum lost a leg
Speaker 2: to cancer, we laughed when she was dying.
Speaker 1: We laughed.
Speaker 2: When my ten year old niece was lying in I
Speaker 2: think it was Marta hospital with meningitis. She eventually died,
Speaker 2: we laughed. And the reason we laughed was we needed
Speaker 2: the stress relief. Our brains were so in such a
Speaker 2: dark spot. The being able to laugh and just be
Speaker 2: in that moment with people that you care about and
Speaker 2: laugh and enjoy sounds weird, sounds kind of all like
Speaker 2: gallow humor, and it is, but that's the stress release
Speaker 2: and that's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did a lot of gallows humor in my
Speaker 3: time in search and rescue, and it is very effective
Speaker 3: as a stress reliever one hundred percent. Yeah, this has
Speaker 3: been awesome. You're like a brother from another mother. So yes,
Speaker 3: over a beer maybe so Master The Art of Reinvention
Speaker 3: is the book presumably available in all good bookstores. But
Speaker 3: what else you do consulting that sort of stuff? And
Speaker 3: where do people go to find out more? And on
Speaker 3: what other services do you offer for anybody that's out there,
Speaker 3: whether they are individuals or companies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure so. Gary Walden dot com is my website
Speaker 2: and speaking and also consulting the things that I do
Speaker 2: that help share and get to get people to change
Speaker 2: and track, and it is something
Speaker 3: That definitely all need to do because the journey is
Speaker 3: just so much more interesting if you reinvent right awesome
Speaker 3: than cat