Speaker 1: I'll get it.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another installing the show. It's the You Project.
Speaker 2: We've got the bloody Irish connection. I haven't told them
Speaker 2: that I'm twelve and a half percent Irish. They'll fucking
Speaker 2: love me once I tell them that. It is, of
Speaker 2: course the You Project. David eccles, Tyger Connelly, Hi, boys,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us. Yeah, it's great. You even swore
Speaker 3: so you're certainly Irish.
Speaker 4: Well that's a half percent of you, Craig.
Speaker 2: So yeah, my grand my grandmother's name is Molly Malone.
Speaker 2: There's not it can't get much more Irish than that.
Speaker 2: That's not even a joke, right, that's a real name.
Speaker 4: There's a given mecha make and you're bringing two of
Speaker 4: us in your podcast, so we could be in a
Speaker 4: bit of bother here.
Speaker 1: I think we could be all right. We'll start with you, David.
Speaker 2: Tell tell my audience a little bit before we start
Speaker 2: talking about w now uh and for those of you
Speaker 2: at home who struggle, just press the translate button and
Speaker 2: you might go and understand half.
Speaker 1: Of what he says. Tell us a little bit about you.
Speaker 1: Your background.
Speaker 4: Yeah, background is Irish, obviously, from the North of Ireland
Speaker 4: from a county called Tyrone, a small town called Oma.
Speaker 4: Lived over here in Australia now for sixteen years, married
Speaker 4: to a beautiful Australian Argentinian wife, Cynthia. Three young kids six,
Speaker 4: four and one. So I'm in the middle of it
Speaker 4: at the minute. Blessed of an upbringing in Ireland, in
Speaker 4: the North of Ireland, which we grew up in the
Speaker 4: middle of what we call the troubles over there, but
Speaker 4: it really surrounded me by community, amazing family, amazing community
Speaker 4: ship too was but loving living over here in Australia
Speaker 4: and everything Australia has to offer in the outdoor lifestyle
Speaker 4: so awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what about you birthday boy? Well some Yeah,
Speaker 2: my audience is seventy female and I wouldn't say a
Speaker 2: big ifl kind of following, but most people will probably
Speaker 2: know who you are.
Speaker 1: But give us the ty Canelly snapshot.
Speaker 5: Hey guys, my name's Tiger. If you don't know me,
Speaker 5: google me.
Speaker 1: Jesus. How happy is he with himself? Danny?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I do a bit of coaching, so I tell this
Speaker 5: to the younger kid.
Speaker 3: They're looking at me again, who is this bald old
Speaker 3: bastard trying to tell me something about football.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I was born born.
Speaker 3: In County Kerry, a small country tongue called the Store
Speaker 3: in the West of Ireland. Family community. All the brother,
Speaker 3: younger sister, had a great childhood. Didn't have a whole lot,
Speaker 3: but have had a wonderful childhood. I was loved a lot.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of love in the house. And you know,
Speaker 3: we didn't didn't have a lot of weld, but we
Speaker 3: certainly had a lot of love. And it really influenced
Speaker 3: me as a young man to I supposed to shake
Speaker 3: me who I am, And then I thought was a
Speaker 3: big part of my life.
Speaker 5: My dad was bort success from a sport.
Speaker 3: My brother and I've got an opportunities, need you know,
Speaker 3: to come out to Australia playfl football and with the
Speaker 3: Sydney Swans. And I was looking to play for fifteen years.
Speaker 3: And I'm no married with a beautiful wife, Nicole, and
Speaker 3: three wonderful kids. That the apple of my eye and
Speaker 3: my apple which ways it go?
Speaker 2: Whichever way this is, I think it's I think it's
Speaker 2: appler you it's a good thing, you know, A fucking
Speaker 2: English teacher, that's for sure. I am twenty five twenty
Speaker 2: five years, twenty five years. You've been here, mate, You've
Speaker 2: you've got you haven't lost much of that accent at all,
Speaker 2: have you?
Speaker 3: Depends who you ask. I am sometimes when I do
Speaker 3: talk to my Irish friends and what's happening to you?
Speaker 3: But I slip into the Irish accent pretty quickly, I
Speaker 3: think when I'm talking to Irish people. But yeah, depends.
Speaker 3: In the football world, I've learned to speak a bit
Speaker 3: slower than some media work. You learned to speak a
Speaker 3: small bit slower like David, and I hasn't done all
Speaker 3: out of media working. I can I can see you
Speaker 3: kind of hooking in the small bit to understand the accent.
Speaker 3: But look, it's I'm a very proud Irish man, very
Speaker 3: proud of I came from. And I'm trying to instill
Speaker 3: that in my in my young kids, which can be
Speaker 3: difficult in Australian hostsols. But they're running around with roosters
Speaker 3: and rabbitos tops and swan stops and I'm trying to
Speaker 3: give him some kerry tops and Irish tops.
Speaker 5: So it's a bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1: Good luck trying to sell that.
Speaker 2: Hey, So we're not here to talk about YouTube Bullfeds,
Speaker 2: although we do love to know you backstory and we
Speaker 2: appreciate you both. We're here to talk about this amazing
Speaker 2: organization project. I don't know what we what do we
Speaker 2: call it, David? Do we call it an organization and
Speaker 2: outreach of project?
Speaker 1: What do we call it?
Speaker 5: What do we call w Now?
Speaker 4: It's been described as a movement, a little movement. We
Speaker 4: had a retreat. We do an annual retreat. We call
Speaker 4: it a retreat, not a retreat because Trey selling the
Speaker 4: retreat to a grip a man and they won't go
Speaker 4: on it, right, So it's a retreat, not a retreat.
Speaker 4: And they overheard about it, the ten of our fellows
Speaker 4: trying to describe what w and I is, and they
Speaker 4: were arguing about what it is and how do you
Speaker 4: sell it to your mites, But they landed on it's
Speaker 4: a man's health movement. They call it.
Speaker 2: Awesome And what's the what was the genesis? But firstly
Speaker 2: the name, I know what it means, but I'm so
Speaker 2: w now unpacked the name and what was the genesis
Speaker 2: for the movement?
Speaker 3: I've got David. W and I was formed just over
Speaker 3: three years ago with David and I. I've been going
Speaker 3: through a bit of a dark time. I'd lost my
Speaker 3: job at the Swans around the COVID period. I thought
Speaker 3: it was someone who was worth connected and.
Speaker 5: I wasn't. And until David started reaching out, and I
Speaker 5: was in a pretty dark place.
Speaker 3: Really, I felt like my life was played out in
Speaker 3: the public eye where there was a lot of media
Speaker 3: scrutiny around what had happened to me, and I was
Speaker 3: living in a nightmare on my own head when it
Speaker 3: really wasn't. But I wasn't going outside, and it was
Speaker 3: in pretty dark place, and it wasn't a David kept
Speaker 3: reaching out to me and saying, come on, let's go,
Speaker 3: Let's go for a walk, let's go for coffee, let's
Speaker 3: do it the exercise.
Speaker 5: But I kept saying now.
Speaker 3: But the persistence of a of a good mate dragged
Speaker 3: me out of the house and slowly started to turn
Speaker 3: things around. And from there we started really talking about
Speaker 3: well if I feeling like that, David was going through
Speaker 3: some stuff himself with his kids not sleeping and whatnot.
Speaker 3: So we kind of lenked on each other and walked
Speaker 3: through some pieces of true mates just being there for
Speaker 3: each other, and we both decided well, if we a
Speaker 3: feeling like this, let's do something about it, sort of
Speaker 3: trying to help some mates. And from there wo started
Speaker 3: around just inviting one friend and they invited another friend,
Speaker 3: and then it grew organically. And the name itself when
Speaker 3: no One's Watching is it's from my playing days. I
Speaker 3: was very good at being able to bluff what was
Speaker 3: going on outside the football field or outside the football club.
Speaker 3: And I'd get into my car and i'd get to
Speaker 3: the football club and I'd put the mask on and
Speaker 3: they the body suit on, my body armor, and I'd
Speaker 3: be all happy, go lookie, and I'd get out of
Speaker 3: the club into the can and I'd just take a
Speaker 3: big oh, thank God for that, and.
Speaker 5: I'd be myself.
Speaker 3: And we're trying to instill in men to drop the
Speaker 3: body armor when they get to the front door, to
Speaker 3: live your life like nobody's watching. And it's so important
Speaker 3: to do the right thing when no one's watching. And
Speaker 3: that's where the name itself has come from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awesome all still in a society, it's bloody
Speaker 2: amazing and it's good. It's good to see two young
Speaker 2: men out kind of connecting and opening doors and being
Speaker 2: vulnerable and sharing your story, especially when you're like you TYG,
Speaker 2: someone that people would look up to and know, but
Speaker 2: also at the same time big, strong athletes, successful athlete,
Speaker 2: but you know, dealing with your own stuff and being
Speaker 2: vulnerable and I guess authentic enough to talk to other
Speaker 2: people about that. Why is it when people when blokes
Speaker 2: come into the group, are they a bit standoffish?
Speaker 1: Does it vary?
Speaker 2: Do they?
Speaker 1: How does it work?
Speaker 2: Because I you know, I know a lot of guys
Speaker 2: are quite hesitant to open that door despite the fact
Speaker 2: that they need to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: What happens on a So we meet up at Weddinson
Speaker 4: Organs twenty five locations, twenty one of them in Australia,
Speaker 4: four of them overseas at the minute, but everybody does
Speaker 4: the same schedule. On a Wednesday morning, we come down,
Speaker 4: we do thirty minutes exercise. The exercise is always at
Speaker 4: quite a its body with basts. Anybody can really do it.
Speaker 4: But that gets people moving, That gets people chatting. Shoulder
Speaker 4: to shoulder. We do sixty push ups because we lose
Speaker 4: sixty men of suicide every sixty minutes around the world.
Speaker 4: So that brings everybody back to the way we're here
Speaker 4: and then we pull people into the circle of trust.
Speaker 4: And the circle of trust is where somebody can step
Speaker 4: forward and celebrate something where somebody can ask for help
Speaker 4: or something that's on their mind, or somebody can share
Speaker 4: get something off their chest that they're going through at
Speaker 4: the minute. And people are kind of warmed up before
Speaker 4: they get into the circle. But I'm a Joe nobody right,
Speaker 4: and I stand and I look at you see people
Speaker 4: like Tag that step forward that we put sports stars
Speaker 4: in pedestal. Tag always baby oil his biceps and the
Speaker 4: shoulders up before going out onto the football pitch, and
Speaker 4: he looks bulletproof, you know. But when these people step
Speaker 4: forward and they go you know what, I'm just struggling
Speaker 4: a little bit because of X Y z it. I
Speaker 4: can see the impact that has and other fellows around
Speaker 4: the group, you know, and you're going, shit, Well, if
Speaker 4: he's got an issue, that gives me permission to step
Speaker 4: forward to go you know what, I'm struggling a little
Speaker 4: bit as well. Some people absolutely get it from day one.
Speaker 4: Other people they kind of come down. They might come
Speaker 4: down because of the exercise, they might come down because
Speaker 4: somebody's dragged him down. And then when you get into
Speaker 4: the circle. You can see them their heads almost exploding,
Speaker 4: going what the f is going on here? You know,
Speaker 4: there's still as stepping forward and speaking at six thirty
Speaker 4: in the morning about how they feel and what their
Speaker 4: emotions are. It's unlike any other meal environment I've been in.
Speaker 4: Like if I go back to going into the pub
Speaker 4: and a Friday night my mates, if I try to
Speaker 4: show vulnerability or weakness there, the lads will tear shreds
Speaker 4: off me for a week until somebody else is silly
Speaker 4: enough and unfurther commas the share of vulnerability. But here
Speaker 4: we celebrate. We absolutely celebrate the winds in life. But
Speaker 4: it's an absolute safe space where people can speak about
Speaker 4: the vulnerabilities and the challenges in their life as well.
Speaker 4: A monce fellows realize that they're going to be getting
Speaker 4: pats in the back before we get no water, or
Speaker 4: people are going to welcome here and the challenges they're facing.
Speaker 4: I haven't met a man yet that doesn't want to
Speaker 4: share his story. But it's just about creating safe and
Speaker 4: supportive spaces.
Speaker 5: For people to step forward and do that, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I guess there's not the right word, but
Speaker 2: all the right terms, but we'll go with it. I
Speaker 2: guess the therapy and the healing is just in the
Speaker 2: connection and the sharing and the being together. I mean,
Speaker 2: nobody's nobody's dispensing psychological advice per se, right ty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the sense, it's the connectivity piece, you know.
Speaker 3: I think in that demographics now we do have kids
Speaker 3: that come down with their dads and we've got grandfathers.
Speaker 3: You know, demographic is you know, from ten to eighty,
Speaker 3: but the majority of the mean that we have in
Speaker 3: the group already from twenty five to fifty five. And
Speaker 3: you know, they either get too busy at work, you know,
Speaker 3: they're separating the marriage, or they get too busy in
Speaker 3: the marriage and they lose their social connection. And when
Speaker 3: things got tough for our things fall apart, they're almost
Speaker 3: on their own and they go, well, what's happened to
Speaker 3: my connection and my social connection? And we fill the
Speaker 3: space around in the loneliness, the fact that so many
Speaker 3: men are alone, and certainly in Sydney with six million people,
Speaker 3: it's blown me away. The lack of the lack of
Speaker 3: I suppose that's what I'm looking for at the cold
Speaker 3: Face work for for for mental health, but also loneliness
Speaker 3: and connection for me.
Speaker 5: You know, if it's organized for me and we won't
Speaker 5: do it. You know, it's a free exercise slash social
Speaker 5: connection piece where you come down, do some exercise, share,
Speaker 5: have a bit of dipping the water, have a coffee
Speaker 5: and connect and it sets people up on the Wednesday
Speaker 5: piece itself. And that's the major connection. The major piece
Speaker 5: of w OL is the social connection. And then then
Speaker 5: there's offshoots of it. You know, there's guys that are
Speaker 5: into tennis, they're into poker, nights are into soccer, and
Speaker 5: the connection off building almost the club fuel on your Wednesday.
Speaker 5: And it's the regular piece that's the big attraction I
Speaker 5: feel for in the fact that it's on every Wednesday
Speaker 5: in twenty five locations around the country.
Speaker 3: Now that it's been organized and all you have to
Speaker 3: do on a Tuesday night is put your coffee order
Speaker 3: into the WhatsApp group, which creates the accountability piece in
Speaker 3: their mind, we'll have them Tuesday night.
Speaker 5: So now I've got to go on Wednesday morning.
Speaker 3: It takes am, rain, hail, a shine and then they're
Speaker 3: there and that's really the whole essence of it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so do you know what is really interesting,
Speaker 2: there's lots of research. This one surprised you too, blokes.
Speaker 2: But in the psychology space health wellness, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of research out now that talks about the
Speaker 2: role of social connection, intimacy, not sexual intimacy, but just connection, belonging,
Speaker 2: all of that in terms of the health physical health outcomes.
Speaker 2: So when we talk about health outcomes, generally we talk
Speaker 2: about food and exercise and lifestyle and booze. And this
Speaker 2: fascinated me as a neuropsych researcher and an exercise physiologist
Speaker 2: that maybe the biggest influence on health outcomes and immune
Speaker 2: system function and resilience and sickness is being loved, being connected,
Speaker 2: being valued, belonging more than needing a shit diet. It's amazing, right.
Speaker 4: We Friendship, I think, is the mossunder appreciated aspect of
Speaker 4: holistic wellness or whatever it might be. So like doctor FAVEC. Murthy,
Speaker 4: the Surgeon General of America, has done a great piece
Speaker 4: of work around He said the biggest killer in America
Speaker 4: wasn't heart disease, wasn't cancer, it was loneliness. And the
Speaker 4: stats are all out there at the minute that if
Speaker 4: you're chronically lonely. Your life expectancy is fifteen years last.
Speaker 4: It's got the health impacts of smoking a packet of
Speaker 4: cigarettes today or having sex alcoholic drinks today. When I
Speaker 4: said that the tag that being lonely has got the
Speaker 4: health impacts of sex alcoholic drinks today, he said, so
Speaker 4: as metes, we can go and drink five points a
Speaker 4: day in the pub be healthier than if if we
Speaker 4: were lonely. Like you know, so there's an Irish solution
Speaker 4: for an Irish problem. I think, right, but it's so true.
Speaker 4: Like you know, I think we just want to bring
Speaker 4: back We want to bring back friendship and what it
Speaker 4: is to be a myth, you know, so like it's
Speaker 4: the biohackle life. If you want to live longer, if
Speaker 4: you want to live better, if you want to be
Speaker 4: able to deal with stress better, it's all about becoming
Speaker 4: better friends and being able to share with one another.
Speaker 4: I think, as man, we've been told to suck it
Speaker 4: up and the man up, and you bottle all these
Speaker 4: feelings and emotions inside yourself. That's what being a tough
Speaker 4: man is, you know. But that stress has to release
Speaker 4: itself somewhere, you know, and that comes That's where loneliness.
Speaker 4: That's where depression, anxiety, substance abuse, whatever it might be,
Speaker 4: that the stress releases itself in that and all the
Speaker 4: stats are saying, like the loneliest, the loneliest demographic of
Speaker 4: people in Australia a man from the age of thirty
Speaker 4: five to forty nine. That's where we start getting really
Speaker 4: successful in our careers. That's where we start having the
Speaker 4: kids coming in and we start becoming time poorer with ourselves.
Speaker 4: We start losing that circle of friends that we got
Speaker 4: in our teenage years and our twenties or whatever, and
Speaker 4: may become with liolence into ourselves. We're trying to make
Speaker 4: sure that if that's our main graphic of men, we're
Speaker 4: trying to bring back the midship and the friendship amongst
Speaker 4: men and try to make a difference. There's seven men
Speaker 4: a day that we lose the suicide sixty men every
Speaker 4: sixty minutes around the world. We say we would love
Speaker 4: in Australia if we can drop that seven to six
Speaker 4: and drop it the five. Just by bringing people on
Speaker 4: the beaches or in the locations and being able to
Speaker 4: chat with one another.
Speaker 3: We're ever more connected, you know, in the world's Italy,
Speaker 3: but wherever so disconnected and you look at certainly David
Speaker 3: and I come from smaller communities and upbringings where it
Speaker 3: takes a village to raise a person and that's in
Speaker 3: essence as part of w NOR, the community field and
Speaker 3: the local field that building the chapters in different locations
Speaker 3: or engage in local business, local Facebook pages, local people
Speaker 3: that go well it's here, or does the community based
Speaker 3: field to w NOR, the support is there if you
Speaker 3: need it, and you can see that coming through the
Speaker 3: conversations in the chats itself, and whether it's based against
Speaker 3: that I'm looking for a carpenter or anyone know, a
Speaker 3: choir practor or just the village piece and the community
Speaker 3: feel that we've lost in society, which we all need
Speaker 3: as human beings. We want that touch, that kindness, the
Speaker 3: community to support the people are there for you, are
Speaker 3: knowing that the there for you is a piece.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we live in Sydney here six million people in Sydney.
Speaker 4: Sydney is the second and onliest city in the world
Speaker 4: after Stockholm. You know, Tiger and I both come from
Speaker 4: small towns of six to twenty thousand people. You know,
Speaker 4: and you say, like, if I look at my hometown
Speaker 4: Woman the North of Ireland, nineteen ninety eight. It was
Speaker 4: the last atrocity of the Troubles. There was a bomb
Speaker 4: in our hometown that ended the Civil War and there
Speaker 4: weren't enough doctors or counselors or sex to go around.
Speaker 4: So it was the community that healed. The community. The
Speaker 4: types of conversations that you were having in the furry clubs,
Speaker 4: in the schools and the pubs the cafes were really
Speaker 4: keeping meaningful conversations. Then come over here to a cety
Speaker 4: of six million people and everybody's running around and life
Speaker 4: is extremely fast, but we're forgetting the most important thing
Speaker 4: is to slow down and connect with one another and
Speaker 4: support each other in correct communities of care and lover
Speaker 4: around each other.
Speaker 2: It's amazing that you can be in the middle of
Speaker 2: a crowd and totally isolated normally.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the bigger of the city, the more isolated you
Speaker 4: can be.
Speaker 5: I think, you know.
Speaker 2: This is irrelevant, but I'd never been to Ireland until
Speaker 2: a few years ago.
Speaker 1: I had to do a gig. I do a lot
Speaker 1: of speaking and stuff, but I did it a gig
Speaker 1: in Tullamore. Do you know where Talamore is?
Speaker 2: And it was.
Speaker 1: It was so good.
Speaker 2: I did a half day workshop and what was hilarious
Speaker 2: was nobody knew me. I didn't know anyone obviously, and
Speaker 2: I was there for a couple of days and I
Speaker 2: just hung out and I walked around and people, I
Speaker 2: would say ten different families asked me to stay with them.
Speaker 2: They like it, but ask me, where are you staying?
Speaker 2: And I'd tell them and they're like, oh, no, you won't.
Speaker 2: If you staying there, you'll be staying with us. Like
Speaker 2: I'm like what, They're like, yeah, no, no, don't stay there,
Speaker 2: come and stay stay with us, Like I'm not stay
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you, but the warmest, friendliest And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying it because I'm with you two. I've never
Speaker 2: ever been anywhere where people have been so generous and
Speaker 2: so friendly. And it really bothered them that I was
Speaker 2: in Australian on the other side of the world by
Speaker 2: myself and staying in a hotel.
Speaker 1: They didn't like it at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a fellow from my hometown, sorry from Australia,
Speaker 4: but he's living in my home town and I don't
Speaker 4: know his name because he just gets called Arsie your
Speaker 4: story resonator because he came for a weekend and he's
Speaker 4: still living there twenty years later, and he's been brought
Speaker 4: in by the family and the community. I don't think
Speaker 4: he's everbought a I don't think he's ever bought a drink,
Speaker 4: and he just fell in love with the tone and
Speaker 4: the community.
Speaker 1: Do you think boys that.
Speaker 2: That like when we grow up as I mean not
Speaker 2: just boys, I think all of us, but we're kind
Speaker 2: of taught about you know, we need to manage our money,
Speaker 2: we need to manage our education, you know, real estate projects,
Speaker 2: career like, we have all of these projects, but it's
Speaker 2: like we don't know how to manage ourselves mentally, emotionally, socially, practically,
Speaker 2: which is why I called this podcast the You Project,
Speaker 2: right because I think, like, without trying to sound like
Speaker 2: a weirdo, by the time I was thirty three, I
Speaker 2: had five different businesses and I was doing really well.
Speaker 2: But in the middle of all of that, I was fucked.
Speaker 2: I was mentally and emotionally like I was doing well,
Speaker 2: but I felt almost spiritually bankrupt. And it was because
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to manage me, my mind, my emotions,
Speaker 2: my you know, my body to an extent, but all
Speaker 2: that social stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you think that we don't.
Speaker 2: Really I feel like, let's just talk about blokes for
Speaker 2: the moment, but we live a little bit on autopilot
Speaker 2: and it doesn't really work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that are three
Speaker 3: kids in the minute. You know, I'm trying to build
Speaker 3: some resilience in by helicoptering as a parent, so you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm only learning from my parents, and I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get better as a dad, and I'm trying to
Speaker 3: learn and teach. Sorry, my kids do understanding of the
Speaker 3: struggles and how important it is to not get things
Speaker 3: your way, So they're getting the life lessons to be
Speaker 3: able to take care of themselves and understand the piece
Speaker 3: that life's not going to be easy for you. So
Speaker 3: you're trying to develop tools into young people and not
Speaker 3: just my own kids, but young people in general aren't
Speaker 3: how to deal with the struggles and the challenges are
Speaker 3: going to come your way, and we certainly don't do
Speaker 3: enough of it, you know, And I think you're banging on.
Speaker 3: In the school system, we do a lot physically to
Speaker 3: help kids, and even we could be a lot better
Speaker 3: a physical point of view, and in schools but we
Speaker 3: certainly don't do a lot with the mental tools of
Speaker 3: helping young boys and girls to develop with the stresses
Speaker 3: and struggles of life. And it's certainly an area that
Speaker 3: needs a lot of looking into because it's a it's
Speaker 3: a piece that's not being touched for mine, because.
Speaker 2: There's it seems to me, tiger like, there's there's a
Speaker 2: real balancing act between and between letting our kids fall down,
Speaker 2: you know, scrape their knees, build resilience, do hard things.
Speaker 1: You know, you ran the race, you came last. That's okay.
Speaker 1: I still love you, You're still my kid. It's all good.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you're going to come first, Sometimes you're going to
Speaker 2: come last. It's okay, right, But at the same time,
Speaker 2: you know, we need to be loving and we need
Speaker 2: to be aware of their feelings, Like, what's that kind
Speaker 2: of as a dad, what's that that line that you
Speaker 2: walk between not wanting to molly cuddle them but also
Speaker 2: not throwing them.
Speaker 1: To the wolves.
Speaker 5: It's ardist balance and the hardest challenge I find in
Speaker 5: my current life. You know, I've got.
Speaker 3: About twenty jobs at the moment, but the most important
Speaker 3: one is raising my kids. And I find it extremely
Speaker 3: difficult to even at the sporting field or just a
Speaker 3: school piece with homework and the balancing act of not
Speaker 3: stepping in because you want to hug them and kiss them,
Speaker 3: and it's very difficult to do. And I get it,
Speaker 3: and I understand it because when your kid balls, I
Speaker 3: hurt themselves. You don't want to see them disappointed. But
Speaker 3: you've got to consistently remind yourself. And I'm consistently learning
Speaker 3: and educating myself around and what it means to be
Speaker 3: a better dad and a better man, constantly reading it,
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm consistently challenging my own thoughts on
Speaker 3: you know, an example, my middle boy very very in
Speaker 3: touch with emotions, and some people will say he's soft,
Speaker 3: and my initial tendency was to push him through this piece.
Speaker 5: And go, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: You need a tough enough And that was my own psyching,
Speaker 3: but in fact it was me that I need to
Speaker 3: be looking at no, I need to be embrace in
Speaker 3: this lovely young man that's in touch with these motions,
Speaker 3: that's caring, that's kind, And that's exactly what I've done,
Speaker 3: bestly true, just learning and improving myself as a person.
Speaker 3: So I've got that piece right from just look at
Speaker 3: myself to help my young finessing through and them and go,
Speaker 3: come on, you got.
Speaker 5: To tough and up and you know.
Speaker 3: And that's all I can say really as far as advice,
Speaker 3: and it's only I'm learning. David will continue to tell
Speaker 3: the echos to say, we're all as a dad, I
Speaker 3: certainly don't know the answers when I'm trying my best.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because in psychology there's a thing called the
Speaker 2: false consensus effect, and it says basically that we think
Speaker 2: others think like us, right, But obviously it's like us
Speaker 2: three are in one conversation, but we're not having the
Speaker 2: same experience because none of us are identical psychologically, emotionally,
Speaker 2: sociologically or physically. Right, So, and it's not necessarily about
Speaker 2: agreeing with but just understanding someone else's version, like what's
Speaker 2: your version of this? Because it ain't my version and
Speaker 2: it doesn't need to be my version.
Speaker 3: It's so good I find out court and courting your kids,
Speaker 3: and I could get frustrated and frustrated with a piece
Speaker 3: of I'm trying to teach them and how they're not
Speaker 3: getting it, and then understanding that piece of well, we
Speaker 3: all don't think the same or my kids are not
Speaker 3: going to be the same as me. But as parents
Speaker 3: who often think, oh, well, I'd love my kids to
Speaker 3: do this that, and we try and insteal what we
Speaker 3: think we would like as a what's.
Speaker 2: It called, Oh, that's called false consensus effect, But that
Speaker 2: is where you assume that other people think like you.
Speaker 2: But I'll give you a couple more terms that you
Speaker 2: might both like. So there's another interesting term. And I
Speaker 2: apologize to my audience who get bored with my bullshit. Right,
Speaker 2: But there's a really interesting area of research called metacognition,
Speaker 2: which is just thinking about thinking. Then up from that
Speaker 2: is another area called theory of mind, which is your
Speaker 2: ability to understand the mind of someone else, right, not
Speaker 2: agree with it, not endorse it, not support it, just
Speaker 2: understand it.
Speaker 1: And then this is probably something you'll.
Speaker 2: Find maybe the most fascinating, which is my PhD research,
Speaker 2: which is on a thing called metaperception, which is your
Speaker 2: ability to understand that you experience for others. So the
Speaker 2: question at the center of my research is what's it
Speaker 2: like being around me for the rest of the world,
Speaker 2: whether that's yeah, whether that's my kids, my wife, my athletes,
Speaker 2: my business, partner, you know, the people listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2: So me, as a professional communicator, educator, corporate speaker, I'm
Speaker 2: always trying to at least have an insight into what
Speaker 2: it's like for the audience in this moment.
Speaker 5: Do you become you become too self?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 2: So there's a difference between so some people misinterpret as oh,
Speaker 2: you know, do they like me?
Speaker 1: It's not that.
Speaker 2: It's not about insecurity or self loathing. It's about self awareness. Like,
Speaker 2: here's the thing, right, you might be expressing something to
Speaker 2: a bunch of athletes, young athletes tie and in your
Speaker 2: mind it makes sense. It's clear, you're articulate, it's not confusing.
Speaker 2: And you've got twenty young footballers. Five of them are
Speaker 2: fucking confused, five of them are having a light bulb moment,
Speaker 2: five of them are bored, and five of them are inspired.
Speaker 2: Because and it would be more diverse than that, right,
Speaker 2: because the only person in the group thinking like you
Speaker 2: as you. So the question the question is how do
Speaker 2: I share this thought or idea or message or strategy
Speaker 2: in a way which has the most resonance with this group,
Speaker 2: And that would be you could ask that same question
Speaker 2: with fifty blokes on the beach at a w now
Speaker 2: kind of get together, right. It's like, and I would say,
Speaker 2: you guys are already doing that on autopilot to an extent,
Speaker 2: because you're trying to You're not trying to make them
Speaker 2: be you or be like you. You're genuinely trying to
Speaker 2: connect and understand. So you do it somewhat naturally, I
Speaker 2: would think, But there's a whole raft of research around it.
Speaker 2: And in the corporate space, I'll shut up after this,
Speaker 2: but you might be interested. They are a fuck load
Speaker 2: of bosses, managers and leaders who are absolutely shit at this,
Speaker 2: and they essentially don't care what people think, which is
Speaker 2: a really bad strategy. So it's not being worried about
Speaker 2: whether or not people like you. That's a different thing
Speaker 2: that's in security. It's just about understanding, is the way
Speaker 2: that I'm communicating optimal for this moment, for this group.
Speaker 1: For this you know, whatever we're in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's flip flipping the mainset from being an ego
Speaker 4: centric main set seek and approval. I think to be
Speaker 4: in a service given mainsat rate and think, and I
Speaker 4: think that's where happiness comes in the service giving, not
Speaker 4: the seeking approval or the ego centric approach ate.
Speaker 2: Well, the moment that it's about you, then you fucked up,
Speaker 2: because especially with the work that you boys do, and
Speaker 2: I think like the question what is that Stephen Covey
Speaker 2: and a few others have said over the years like
Speaker 2: seek first to understand and then to be understood. So, hey,
Speaker 2: so how does it work? So you said, David, you said,
Speaker 2: there's twenty five chapters?
Speaker 4: Yeah, go yeah, twenty five chapter is growing by the week.
Speaker 1: So is there a leader for each one?
Speaker 2: Is there?
Speaker 1: How does it work?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: So we've we've chapter leads for each chapter, but the
Speaker 4: growth has really been in the last six months nine months.
Speaker 4: Like a little bit of the backstory is it was
Speaker 4: as Tag said, I have only two treats as a friend.
Speaker 4: It's consistency and being annoying. So it was me constantly
Speaker 4: trying to pull them out of the host to get
Speaker 4: thrown under the beach. And two became four became it
Speaker 4: became sixteen, but it was just in one location. Then
Speaker 4: we got a call from the New South Wales Mental
Speaker 4: Health Commission one day saying, hey, you guys coming to
Speaker 4: the award ceremony on Friday, and we didn't know. We
Speaker 4: didn't know there was an award ceremony, we didn't even
Speaker 4: know there was a Mental Health Commission. But she gave
Speaker 4: us our Community Champion of the Year and that cut
Speaker 4: the word out there a little bit. So people in
Speaker 4: Balmorle approached us about starting one the other side of Sydney,
Speaker 4: so we had to create a template if you want
Speaker 4: that they could do, because we couldn't be in two
Speaker 4: places at once.
Speaker 5: We've got a.
Speaker 4: History of saying yes to things and then thinking how
Speaker 4: to do it after I think you know, and then
Speaker 4: Bond II, which everybody knows in Sydney, started about eighteen
Speaker 4: months ago. Koogie, our fourth chapter, started the fifth of July,
Speaker 4: so this time last year and I'm not going to
Speaker 4: go through the rest, but it was a slowish start
Speaker 4: because we never intended it to be this But now
Speaker 4: that word has got out there thanks to the podcast
Speaker 4: like This and a couple of TV programs in the
Speaker 4: last in the last six months, it's really growing from
Speaker 4: from that four to twenty five overnight different chapters around Australia.
Speaker 4: We now have won in New Zealand, two in Ireland,
Speaker 4: one in America or New Zealand opening we have one
Speaker 4: kicking off in Cyprus. We've one kicking off in Dubai.
Speaker 4: We've required of assis done in Antarctica that want to
Speaker 4: kick one off in Antarctica. And it's just they're contacting us,
Speaker 4: associating with seeing, seeing what we're doing, going hey, that
Speaker 4: looks cool. Can we start one of them here? We appoint,
Speaker 4: We appoint that We kind of bring them through a
Speaker 4: little bit of basic basic training and the everyday man.
Speaker 4: Anybody can pick it up. Anybody can run a program.
Speaker 4: We support them. We've got a little pack, We've got
Speaker 4: a two pager which tells them what to do. We
Speaker 4: give them the exercise routine to do every week, and
Speaker 4: then we do a bit of coaching around the language
Speaker 4: which they should use throughout throughout the program. But two
Speaker 4: your earlier point staining and early in. We're not psychologists,
Speaker 4: we're not therapists, we're not doctors. We're just about creating
Speaker 4: safe and supportive spaces where men can come drop their
Speaker 4: body armor and just be their authentic selves for an
Speaker 4: hour or a week.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2: And so I mean, on a practical level, if people
Speaker 2: want to get involved, how do they do that?
Speaker 4: The website is WNI w now dot com dot au.
Speaker 4: There's a big button in the middle of it to
Speaker 4: contact us, and they just send us an email and
Speaker 4: we'll get back to them within twenty four forty eight hours.
Speaker 4: You'll also see a button and it's saying about joining
Speaker 4: us at a w NI chapter. There'll be a drop
Speaker 4: down there about our twenty five locations that will get
Speaker 4: you into one of the WhatsApp grips and then you're
Speaker 4: in the family or the tribe from there.
Speaker 2: So well, boys, I think what you do is amazing
Speaker 2: and I genuinely mean that, and I don't know if
Speaker 2: I can help in any way, but I'd love to
Speaker 2: be involved or help you at the very least support
Speaker 2: you through the you project and our listeners. And i'd
Speaker 2: encourage our listeners. If you're a dude or you've got
Speaker 2: some dudes in your life who maybe would benefit from
Speaker 2: being involved, just reach out to the boys. Just go
Speaker 2: to the w OW website and get involved. But for now, Tig,
Speaker 2: thanks so much. Is there any parting message from you, sir,
Speaker 2: to any blokes who might be struggling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think in the now and the head Craig,
Speaker 3: you know, reach out to your mates FoST of all
Speaker 3: a simple text or a phone call. You don't know
Speaker 3: what people are going through, and often say it to
Speaker 3: the guys from chat and put your fine on and
Speaker 3: text that person that you've been thinking about because sometimes
Speaker 3: you think it gets too long in a relationship and
Speaker 3: I haven't.
Speaker 5: Got there, I haven't talked to them in three months,
Speaker 5: four months, gone too far. Just just fucking do it.
Speaker 5: It's the best thing you do. And that'd be very appreciative.
Speaker 3: And I think the world's full of great, great ideas,
Speaker 3: but not enough people doing doing shit and getting shit done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And David, if people reach out via the website, you
Speaker 2: or one of the team will get back to them.
Speaker 2: I reached out to you to have a chat with
Speaker 2: you too on the website and you, I think got
Speaker 2: back to me or someone got back to me really quickly.
Speaker 2: So if someone wants to reach out, they'll get a response. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's our mission, it's their mission to help a
Speaker 4: million man be better. Where we're about five percent of
Speaker 4: the way there at the minute, I would say, so
Speaker 4: please everybody reach out, no matter where you are in
Speaker 4: the world. Will help you get set up either join
Speaker 4: a W Night chapter or set you up with your
Speaker 4: own W Night chapter.
Speaker 1: Perfect.
Speaker 2: All right, boys, we'll say goodbye Affair, but for now
Speaker 2: we really appreciate having the chat with me and connecting
Speaker 2: with our audience here.
Speaker 1: Thanks boys, Thanks craigat