Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by PayPal Small Business
Speaker 1: boot Camp series.
Speaker 2: Part of gratitude is accepting what you've got, and another
Speaker 2: part is that concept of micro goals and being able
Speaker 2: to put markers of what you've achieved and to be
Speaker 2: thankful and to acknowledge pat yourself on the back. When
Speaker 2: you look at things like traumatic experiences and stress alls,
Speaker 2: it's relative to the individual. You can't compare your trauma
Speaker 2: to someone else's. It just doesn't work that way. It's
Speaker 2: what you're resilient against.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 1: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 1: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 1: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 1: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 1: explore the stories of those.
Speaker 3: Who found lives. They adore the good, bad and ugly.
Speaker 1: The best and worst days will bear all the facets
Speaker 1: of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful
Speaker 1: of Sarah, a lawyer turned entrepreneur who's what the suits
Speaker 1: heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha milkbar. Cz
Speaker 1: The ya is a series of conversations on finding a
Speaker 1: life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy
Speaker 1: and fulfillment along the way. Most of you are already
Speaker 1: aware of my fascination with the military, the origins of
Speaker 1: which I'm still not really sure about, but which I've
Speaker 1: pretty much stopped questioning now because we also all know
Speaker 1: that weird things will make you ya, so just roll
Speaker 1: with them, because you're already far better off than those
Speaker 1: who haven't found their ya yet, so you won't be
Speaker 1: surprised how much I enjoyed this week's two episodes, but
Speaker 1: I promise the military connection was just a timing coincidence.
Speaker 3: If you haven't.
Speaker 1: Listened yet, our Yas of Our Lives guest for this
Speaker 1: week was Tom Howell, Director of Field Operations for Disaster
Speaker 1: Relief Australia, a partner of our partner Mitsubishi, so basically
Speaker 1: part of the neighborhood. Tom started out as an Army
Speaker 1: combat paramedic doing some fascinating work in Afghanistan, then later
Speaker 1: worked in the jungles of Papua New Guinea learning all
Speaker 1: about jungle medicine, before becoming a full time firefighter, which
Speaker 1: he does alongside his work with dra Today we're joined
Speaker 1: by two fellow veterans and legendary brothers, Dan and Ben Pronk, who,
Speaker 1: along with their close friend Tim Curtis, just published and
Speaker 1: already sold out mind you, their first brilliant book, The
Speaker 1: Resilience Shield.
Speaker 3: All three were.
Speaker 1: Elite soldiers in the SAS, which is already impressive enough.
Speaker 1: But later I went on to complete their MBAs, launching
Speaker 1: successful post military careers, and the brothers now fondly refer
Speaker 1: to themselves as two thirds of an author. Setting today's warm,
Speaker 1: self deprecating tone, I already gush about Resilience Shield enough
Speaker 1: in this episode. I mean, I really do. But whether
Speaker 1: you're interested in the military or not, it is a
Speaker 1: transformative handbook for our crazy times that we find ourselves in,
Speaker 1: aiming to help us build a shield of resilience against
Speaker 1: the undeniable, uncertainty, and sometimes unfairness of the world. Hi
Speaker 1: Adrenaline military anecdotes are weaved seamlessly in among dense philosophy,
Speaker 1: science and research from around the world around timely themes
Speaker 1: like fulfillment, loss and then rebuilding of identity, trauma, modern
Speaker 1: information overload, and goal setting no size twelve fonts. Storytelling
Speaker 1: here Resilient Shield is packed full of a methodology built
Speaker 1: over three stellar careers to date, but with endearing or
Speaker 1: latable language like one of my favorite chapters. But what
Speaker 1: about my dickhead boss? I'm pretty much just rehashing what
Speaker 1: we talk about now, so I'll let the boys tell
Speaker 1: you more themselves. But I truly truly enjoyed this one
Speaker 1: so much, and I hope you guys do too. Pronk boys,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you, sir, Get you, Sarah. It's great to be here.
Speaker 3: I am so excited.
Speaker 1: I was listening to you guys on with your third
Speaker 1: co author on the Unforgiving sixty podcast the other day,
Speaker 1: referring to yourselves, there's all collectively one third of an author,
Speaker 1: like you together make an order, So I have two
Speaker 1: thirds of an author here today.
Speaker 3: I'm very excited.
Speaker 5: You've almost got a complete real.
Speaker 1: Author, almost one complete real author. Congratulations on your incredible
Speaker 1: new book, The Resilient Shield, which I have just found
Speaker 1: out has sold out nationally, so I can't even believe
Speaker 1: how lucky I was to.
Speaker 3: Get a copy of this.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: How are you feeling stoked?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, the response has been a bit overwhelming. We didn't
Speaker 2: know what to expect when we threw it out there.
Speaker 2: Of course, we hoped for the best, and it's sort
Speaker 2: of met all those expectations and more.
Speaker 1: Well, Oh my gosh, you guys have done an incredible job.
Speaker 1: I was just absolutely gushing before we started recording about
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone who listens to the show knows that
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly joy focused in positivity, But for some reason,
Speaker 1: war and the military is like a random obsession of mine.
Speaker 3: So I soaked up.
Speaker 1: All the anecdotes and all the stories, but also found
Speaker 1: it so impressive how you've distilled military concepts and stories
Speaker 1: and made them translatable to people's everyday lives at a
Speaker 1: time where I think resilience is something we need more
Speaker 1: than we ever had. People are facing loss of purpose
Speaker 1: like you guys facing the end of your military careers
Speaker 1: and finding your why again. People are facing that more
Speaker 1: now than they ever had. And something you said about
Speaker 1: the resilience requirements of elite soldiers, solicitors, and students differ
Speaker 1: by degree and not kind. So while we would I
Speaker 1: definitely put you on a pedestal for all the incredible
Speaker 1: things that you've done, and also all of you are
Speaker 1: ex special force of soldiers who all have MBAs too,
Speaker 1: Like what is even I don't even know how to
Speaker 1: compute that, But you've done an incredible job of making
Speaker 1: it really practical and very very timely. So it's an
Speaker 1: honor to have you on.
Speaker 2: Thank you, And it is funny. I mean again, we
Speaker 2: were talking just before we came on. It is awesome
Speaker 2: to hear those reflections, and we thank you for them.
Speaker 2: But it is funny that that whole idea of people
Speaker 2: being vastly different because of what they do. Dan's first
Speaker 2: book was called The Average seventy kilo Dickhead, and I
Speaker 2: think I'm a little bit more than seventy kilos now,
Speaker 2: but I think all of us do view ourselves as
Speaker 2: average people who have had this amazing opportunity to do
Speaker 2: something cool. But it doesn't mean that we you know,
Speaker 2: resilience needs are going to be a different kind, as
Speaker 2: you mentioned before. So we were fascinated about learning for
Speaker 2: ourselves how this whole thing about resilience worked, how we
Speaker 2: could get better at it, and we're stoked that it
Speaker 2: has proved to be relatively universal. We're getting great feedback
Speaker 2: from a lot of different recorders on the techniques we
Speaker 2: talk about, and.
Speaker 1: I think that's why the cutthrough is so potent is
Speaker 1: because you are also very down to earth, Like, there's
Speaker 1: a whole chapter about but what about my dickhead boss?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, wow, there's also some incredible science and
Speaker 1: very articulate intellectual material, But then this chapters like that
Speaker 1: that just gets everyone on your level. You know, everyone
Speaker 1: has had a dickhead boss in their time and knows
Speaker 1: they need resilience against that, which is why I start
Speaker 1: every episode with a little icebreaker by asking everyone what
Speaker 1: the most down to worth thing is about them to
Speaker 1: kind of break through that glossy surface you often, you know,
Speaker 1: our identities has perceived through the media or through social media.
Speaker 3: And you guys are authors. Now, as I.
Speaker 1: Mentioned, you have incredible military careers behind you, at host
Speaker 1: of amazing achievements.
Speaker 3: You all have MBAs. I mean, it's just outrageous.
Speaker 1: What are some really normal things about you other than
Speaker 1: your vintage Lamborghini, Dan, because that is not the kind
Speaker 1: of material we're.
Speaker 3: Looking for in this section. What are some really relatable
Speaker 3: things about you guys?
Speaker 2: Well, I think for both of us, we're both dads,
Speaker 2: So I've got three young kids, three young boys. So
Speaker 2: at the end of the day. My day to day
Speaker 2: life is that of raising young family, just me and
Speaker 2: my wife trying to do the best we can to
Speaker 2: raise the kids. And we have the exact same sort
Speaker 2: of stress alls in that realm as anyone else, which
Speaker 2: is a great opportunity to flex some of the resilient
Speaker 2: shield type stuff.
Speaker 4: But it's all it's all.
Speaker 2: Get up, get the kids ready for school, getting them
Speaker 2: off to school, and do our thing. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's we've got our day jobs as well, and these
Speaker 2: these sort of things are just side projects. And like
Speaker 2: you say, it looks exciting, and social media is a
Speaker 2: is a great forum to put forward this idealistic but
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, where we've got normal
Speaker 2: day to day lives and then we've had this great
Speaker 2: opportunity to engage in this space and put this book
Speaker 2: out into the market. I think for me, Sarah, I'm
Speaker 2: actually a shamble. It's like, it's funny when people have
Speaker 2: this perception of this. You know, I don't know whatever
Speaker 2: you see in the movies the Elite Soldier.
Speaker 5: And the one that I always love.
Speaker 2: Apparently I'm quite noisy if I come home when my
Speaker 2: wife's asleep. I've been out or whatever, you know, I
Speaker 2: get sort of bang into every surface in the house.
Speaker 2: And so this idea of this sort of stealthy soul
Speaker 2: just sneaking in and being totally squared.
Speaker 5: Away, and my real is very much in a bit
Speaker 5: of a clots.
Speaker 2: So I do laugh when I think about what people
Speaker 2: might perceive and essays to be like in terms of that,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of the opposite.
Speaker 1: Well. I love that one of your very first academic
Speaker 1: references in the book, where you like put a little
Speaker 1: reference note and then there's a note at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the page, was about how people do have this
Speaker 1: big perception. I think it was a guy called Wade
Speaker 1: maybe as being these like staunch, like tall built dudes
Speaker 1: who are always in uniform with like vests and shit
Speaker 1: all over them, and you guys are like, we're slightly
Speaker 1: shorter and a little bit rounder than you.
Speaker 3: Might expect, which I do not believe.
Speaker 1: I was disappointed that you didn't wear your uniforms today though,
Speaker 1: even though you're retired.
Speaker 3: I was like, come on, guys, I mean, you know
Speaker 3: we're videoing here.
Speaker 2: Actually I'm surprised Dan's not in his back shed, which
Speaker 2: is that you know, it's got a better collection.
Speaker 5: Than the War Memorial in terms of soon so stuff
Speaker 5: from war zones that could have ticked that box.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: I also have to say, for people who have been
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast for a while, they'll remember Mark
Speaker 1: Wales and you know how much I just adore him
Speaker 1: as a person and his story. But I have told
Speaker 1: a story quite a few times about the military precision
Speaker 1: that comes back even after you've transitioned back into your
Speaker 1: civvy life. How we were at Sam and Mark's wedding
Speaker 1: and you two were probably part of this story. I've
Speaker 1: just connected and it started raining. The wedding was outside
Speaker 1: and we needed to move all the furniture inside really quickly.
Speaker 1: And all of us were.
Speaker 3: Like, oh it's raining quick and like faffing.
Speaker 1: About like headless chalks, like how do we get all
Speaker 1: the stuff inside? And the military guys just all you
Speaker 1: could see. You all just go into like this precision focus,
Speaker 1: not no words. You all just made eye contact and
Speaker 1: like forty seconds later everything was inside. I was like, what,
Speaker 1: we're at a military wedding.
Speaker 5: That was pretty cool. It was very much a whole m. Guys,
Speaker 5: were you in that story? Oh my god, that was
Speaker 5: a very cool evening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did like that part and I loved I mean, Markent,
Speaker 2: what amazing people and what an amazing group of people
Speaker 2: at that wedding.
Speaker 5: But it made it better. You know, you think there'd be.
Speaker 2: Some circumstances, whether the rain for the outdoor reception would
Speaker 2: be just the deal breaker, but it just I think
Speaker 2: the kind of I guess the things you epitomize in
Speaker 2: C's THEA. I mean, people just enjoyed that we had
Speaker 2: a cooler knough because of that, we were able to
Speaker 2: really see the benefits and how I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, guys, we embraced the suck. Really is what we did.
Speaker 1: I am now adopting resilient shield language in all of
Speaker 1: my life. I'm just announcing for you awesome. So that
Speaker 1: leads to the first section, which is your way to
Speaker 1: A and how you got to where you guys are,
Speaker 1: And I mean people can read about your stories in
Speaker 1: the book and I loved reading those anecdotes all the
Speaker 1: way back from childhood. But just to set the scene
Speaker 1: before we jump into the book itself and the concept
Speaker 1: of the resilient shield, because again, like I said, I
Speaker 1: think it's so timely for what we're going through right now,
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to go through all the
Speaker 1: chapters that you went through before that formed to who
Speaker 1: you are and the views that you translate into the book,
Speaker 1: right back from childhood and how you even decided you
Speaker 1: wanted to enter the military, and then how you transitioned
Speaker 1: out of it and found who you wanted to be
Speaker 1: after that. So, as you say in the book, you
Speaker 1: can't grab the fruit without the climb.
Speaker 3: There is no linear pathway in life whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So take us through all those little chapters along the
Speaker 1: way so we can get some context before we jump
Speaker 1: into the book.
Speaker 2: I was on the planet first, so I'll go first.
Speaker 2: Dan and I were army brats, So our dad was
Speaker 2: in hindsight well at the time as well an amazing human.
Speaker 2: He was a really kick ustad. He was an army
Speaker 2: helicopter pilot and very much instilled in both of us
Speaker 2: this view that you could achieve anything, and not in.
Speaker 5: A platitudinal sense.
Speaker 2: It was more like through his example that the dishwasher broke.
Speaker 2: You know, yes, you could call a person to do that,
Speaker 2: but if a person can work out how to fix
Speaker 2: a dishwasher, then so could we. And so that kind
Speaker 2: of attitude led to a ton of stuffed household appliances
Speaker 2: that you could do things, you know, you could try
Speaker 2: things and achieve things and work things out.
Speaker 5: And so that was when we look back, when.
Speaker 2: We both looked back, that was so fundamental to I
Speaker 2: get anything that we've achieved in our own lives. My
Speaker 2: story is much more boring than Dan in terms of
Speaker 2: I was always kind to join the Army. I did
Speaker 2: school cadads. I'd seen how much Dad loved it. He
Speaker 2: never pressured us either way. But for me, I was
Speaker 2: the kid in cams at age thirteen, and I was
Speaker 2: a fat kid as well, which I sort of look
Speaker 2: back on. I think that was a great thing. I've
Speaker 2: still got some kind of weird Freudian psychological issue, and
Speaker 2: I think that'll keep me skinned for the.
Speaker 5: Rest of my life.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that was me, fat killing cans. And I
Speaker 2: graduated from high school, took a year off because I
Speaker 2: was a bit young, but then went to the Defense
Speaker 2: Course Academy, four years there and done troon, graduated to
Speaker 2: Infantry Corps, and again, with hindsight, you know, we'd been
Speaker 2: thirty years without a major. The military have been thirty
Speaker 2: years without a major. Deployment, so there was kind of
Speaker 2: no expectation that we were going anywhere. Our dad had
Speaker 2: been in for about that whole period post Vietnam and
Speaker 2: had never deployed, and so.
Speaker 5: It was very much this kind of peacetime army, and.
Speaker 2: None of our instructors had medals or any of that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff, so we graduated with no real expectation. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: it rained on my graduation parade at R and C
Speaker 2: and the urban myth, the old R and C myth,
Speaker 2: if it rains on your parade, you're going to war.
Speaker 5: And we sort of all super excited raining and the parade,
Speaker 5: this must mean something.
Speaker 2: I was not excited standing in the fucking rain yet
Speaker 2: another one of your parades at the time. But sorry, continued, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't share your enthusiasm. And we'll get to that
Speaker 2: because because Dan was standing there in badly mustard three
Speaker 2: quarteral pants and shoulder and here he was like something
Speaker 2: out of an April lavine.
Speaker 3: Got a length pants?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: What a.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Let's yeah, Okay, put it in context.
Speaker 4: I'm still in the charts.
Speaker 2: If he wasn't in the charts, he's definitely still.
Speaker 4: Exactly back to me.
Speaker 2: So it rained on our parade, and yeah, within two
Speaker 2: years I was in these team or the first push
Speaker 2: out of second to ten and so that really, in hindsight,
Speaker 2: kicks off this whole thing. So I came back from that,
Speaker 2: did essays selection and then essentially spent the rest of
Speaker 2: my career in special operations and just an amazing sort
Speaker 2: of journey. Clearly met Mark along the way, people like
Speaker 2: that of that caliber. It's just such an incredible place
Speaker 2: to work. But yeah, I was lucky enough to command
Speaker 2: it sort of everything from five person patrol up to
Speaker 2: the entire unit.
Speaker 5: I deployed a number of times to Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: I've deployed on exchange with the Americans to Iraq, a
Speaker 2: couple of trips to Team Or. I had a year
Speaker 2: in the UK on exchange study. Just this incredible series
Speaker 2: of experiences, some good, some bad, but certainly very fulfilling.
Speaker 2: At the end of my time as unit commander, I
Speaker 2: was looking at transition options and so took a year
Speaker 2: off to do an NBA, decided I wanted to get
Speaker 2: out of the Army.
Speaker 5: At that point met.
Speaker 2: Back up with an old boss of mine, Tim Curtis,
Speaker 2: who'd been out for ten years, and we had this
Speaker 2: serendipitous sort of crossing of pat So I think I
Speaker 2: decided I was getting out of the Army. I thought
Speaker 2: I was going to go to another big institution, in
Speaker 2: another big company, and Tim said, why don't we start
Speaker 2: this thing together, which became Metal our company, and geoon glad.
Speaker 5: Don't tell him.
Speaker 2: That, I said, but I'm glad that we met. I'm
Speaker 2: glad he was that safety net to allow me to
Speaker 2: try something like that. And I'm so glad we've done
Speaker 2: what we've done because it's given us these incredible opportunities
Speaker 2: that I wouldn't have got. And look, I talked a
Speaker 2: little bit about it in the book, but for me,
Speaker 2: there was this transition, and when I really looked at it,
Speaker 2: there was a status based transition that I had to
Speaker 2: let go of being special or being a lieutenant colonel,
Speaker 2: or being in the ESAs these kind of things that
Speaker 2: I don't think consciously I.
Speaker 5: Was aware of.
Speaker 2: But that's been a big part of the journey and
Speaker 2: understanding with resilience. So, yeah, we've done this sort of
Speaker 2: consultancy for the last four and a big years, and
Speaker 2: along the way sort of did a lot of work
Speaker 2: in that leadership and resilience space and the pandemic really
Speaker 2: gave us not only a chance in terms of a
Speaker 2: few quiet months work wise, but also the catalyst, as
Speaker 2: you said, with the whole world suddenly in their heads
Speaker 2: around how to deal with stressors and the unpredictable and
Speaker 2: the extraordinary, which really led us to codify our thoughts
Speaker 2: and our model into the I.
Speaker 3: Think it's just extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like books and opportunities really come to
Speaker 1: you just when you need them, or just when the
Speaker 1: universe needs them, just like you'll open the page of
Speaker 1: a book and a quote will come out that's exactly
Speaker 1: what you need to hear. And I wouldn't have thought
Speaker 1: that someone's transition from you know, and a position in
Speaker 1: Special Forces to back to a consultancy or even studying,
Speaker 1: or even just into family life and coming back to
Speaker 1: Wa from Afghanistan like you have such a different pace
Speaker 1: of life. But the message of losing your purpose and
Speaker 1: your title and your identity in one world and having
Speaker 1: to find it again.
Speaker 3: In a new world, in a new normal.
Speaker 1: Is exactly what everyone needs to hear right now. And
Speaker 1: your whole first chapter about uncertainty, unfairness in the world
Speaker 1: and not knowing why some things happen and trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of that but still living a fulfilling life.
Speaker 1: That's what everyone needs right now in the most you know,
Speaker 1: acute way. So it's incredible how you might never have
Speaker 1: known you'd become authors, but the minute that you did
Speaker 1: was exactly the minute when everything cold went over the
Speaker 1: last however many decades is what the world needs to hear.
Speaker 1: Which I just think is that's yay for me. That
Speaker 1: is so exciting, which is why I've just been like
Speaker 1: so thrilled to have you guys on. So, yeah, what
Speaker 1: a story. And I know that, I mean, obviously that's
Speaker 1: a very very short form version. And I am going
Speaker 1: to tell Tim later that you did refer to him
Speaker 1: as your wife, which I.
Speaker 3: Think is really lovely. But joined the.
Speaker 1: Three of you together collectively making up one legitimate author.
Speaker 1: I love how much you guys are like brothers and
Speaker 1: wives and partners and like, it's just.
Speaker 3: This beautiful little threesome going on.
Speaker 5: So Tim, someone just started listening at that point.
Speaker 3: What I walked into.
Speaker 1: Maybe they see joy in an interesting kind of trio way.
Speaker 3: Oh, so Ben was.
Speaker 1: The fat kid, Dan, you were the professional triathlete, I
Speaker 1: mean the opposite.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's let's back up there, Sarah. That's I mean.
Speaker 3: I love that it's professional.
Speaker 2: I think the word failed it will become before that
Speaker 2: was certainly my ambition. And don't get me wrong, I was.
Speaker 2: I was a chubby little kid as well. God bless
Speaker 2: her he fed us up. Well, there was always common
Speaker 2: jam doughnuts waiting for us when we got home from school.
Speaker 2: And but yeah, I turned down a little earlier than Ben.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even tell you why, but I.
Speaker 4: Think it was I realized that.
Speaker 3: That you were going to be wearing three quarter pants,
Speaker 3: so you have a.
Speaker 4: Good, very flattering for my chubby form.
Speaker 2: So yeah, with the baggish, baggy shirts, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: was that guy with that annoying little hat on Backwoods
Speaker 2: listening to gangster rap as a little fat, thirteen year
Speaker 2: old white kid.
Speaker 4: But for whatever reason, I got.
Speaker 5: Sorry, did you did you mention the rollerblades going to focus?
Speaker 3: I think it's important.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a roller.
Speaker 2: Waiting stage, but once again, like the three quarter length pan,
Speaker 2: this was the nineteen nineties, so it's not like a
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one rollerblater. I'd like to keep anyway, moving on.
Speaker 2: So yeah, when I sort of hit my mid teens,
Speaker 2: I became interested in middle distance running and so started
Speaker 2: running relatively competitively. Had a bit of success with that,
Speaker 2: just at a state level, nothing sort of extraordinary, but
Speaker 2: that led to an interest in triathlon.
Speaker 4: Got into the Trithons.
Speaker 2: And when I got out of school, was starting to
Speaker 2: show a small amount of promise as a junior triathlete,
Speaker 2: and so I did pursue that for about five years
Speaker 2: pretty seriously. In that period of time, I got out
Speaker 2: of school and moved down to the Gold Coast and
Speaker 2: I'd done okay at school, not great, but well enough
Speaker 2: to get into an exercise science degree.
Speaker 4: Pretty much.
Speaker 2: My parents and our aunt, good old aunt Mary, I'd
Speaker 2: said hey, we'll support you with your triathlon, but you
Speaker 2: have to study. So I went off to UNI. I
Speaker 2: was in my mind, Adam and I was going to
Speaker 2: be a professional athlete and the academia was just a
Speaker 2: necessity to get some support. Went through all of that
Speaker 2: and sort of thrashed the trithlon thing for five years.
Speaker 2: It became really clear I wasn't going to be the
Speaker 2: athlete I wanted to be. I had finished my exercise
Speaker 2: science and done quite well in that in the end,
Speaker 2: because I got it. It made sense to me. It
Speaker 2: was relevant to the triathlon. I was doing a lot
Speaker 2: of the biophysics and the biomechanics, and we're in the
Speaker 2: exercise testing lab doing VOTWO max testing, and so it
Speaker 2: was the first time I hit my academic straps.
Speaker 4: And at the end of that that was a year
Speaker 4: two thousand.
Speaker 2: I took that year off to try and give triathlon
Speaker 2: a final nudge, and it was abundantly clear I was
Speaker 2: nowhere near the athlete that I wanted to be. There
Speaker 2: wasn't a future there, and so that all fell through,
Speaker 2: and realized I had to grow up and get a
Speaker 2: real job.
Speaker 4: And I'd gone through my youth with no.
Speaker 2: Interest in the military at all. And as I said,
Speaker 2: I'd go along to Ben's graduation parade with shoulder length
Speaker 2: dreadlocks and an earring and just sort of watch the
Speaker 2: officer cadets march around, completely bemused.
Speaker 5: By this whole spectacle.
Speaker 2: And never did I know I'd end up doing that
Speaker 2: same sort of being on that same parade ground doing
Speaker 2: orbit a very limited officer training.
Speaker 4: So when the trathline thing fell through, it done. My
Speaker 4: exercise science.
Speaker 2: Didn't really want to work in that area. I on
Speaker 2: a bit of a whim SAT the Graduate Medical School
Speaker 2: Admission test, the gam SAT to go and do postgrade medicine.
Speaker 2: That was the first time that the Army started looking
Speaker 2: like a reasonable option for me because I just didn't
Speaker 2: have a career path and I was in my early
Speaker 2: twenties and started to prove into both of them, got
Speaker 2: myself into med school and then Dad actually told me
Speaker 2: about the scholarship scheme. So the Army has a scholarship
Speaker 2: scheme to put people through postgraduate study. And so I
Speaker 2: managed to get an Army scholarship, went off and did medicine,
Speaker 2: and it was at the first year of medicine, so
Speaker 2: I was full time Army. They picked me up, but
Speaker 2: I was at a civilian medical school, so fundamentally a
Speaker 2: UNI student. Still no real interest in the Army at
Speaker 2: that point. It was just a means of funding my education.
Speaker 2: I saw it a spree money be perfectly free. And
Speaker 2: then it was the end of that first year at
Speaker 2: med school, which two thousand and one, when I was
Speaker 2: going to interject because at this stage I'm deep and
Speaker 2: I'm about queen and country.
Speaker 6: I'm like you to do something the nation and this
Speaker 6: is more than a job pain yet to go to
Speaker 6: med school and I don't even have to do anything
Speaker 6: ext study.
Speaker 4: When do I sign it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was a bit of a burr under my
Speaker 5: st le for a little.
Speaker 1: I mean, but if if there's any better example that
Speaker 1: pathways into the military can happen in completely different ways
Speaker 1: and you can get you can have different goals but
Speaker 1: still come out with really rewarding careers.
Speaker 3: I mean, you guys are a walking ad.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 4: Look, it just made a whole bunch of sense.
Speaker 2: And the motivations initially weren't probably the right ones, but
Speaker 2: they certainly became that.
Speaker 4: And it was end of one when.
Speaker 2: So Ben was over at SASR. By that point I
Speaker 2: still had no interest in special operations until the December
Speaker 2: Holidays UNI holidays after my first year med school September
Speaker 2: eleventh had happened and Australia had pushed its initial special
Speaker 2: operations over to Afghanistan. I think, Ben, you're gearing up
Speaker 2: for the second push in very early too, and I
Speaker 2: went over to Perth to visit Ben before he deployed,
Speaker 2: and that was when I met some of the other
Speaker 2: blokes from the regiment and went to the base and
Speaker 2: had a bit of a look and just got that
Speaker 2: inside and it was like this light bulb moment was
Speaker 2: I got to be involved. This is for me, And
Speaker 2: so set myself the goal at the end of one
Speaker 2: to try and get into the Essays Regiment. I still
Speaker 2: had to finish medical school and then do an internship
Speaker 2: and another year as a junior dog, do all my army.
Speaker 2: So it was a lengthy process, but I had this
Speaker 2: focus again that I hadn't had in my life since
Speaker 2: the triathlon. So it was a great way for me
Speaker 2: to just have this long term goal that motivated me
Speaker 2: to train. I had my study and yeah, then sort
Speaker 2: of fast forward, finished my med school, did my internship residency,
Speaker 2: went in, did all my basic medical officer induction stuff,
Speaker 2: and then the first chance I got, which was in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, I went and did the essays
Speaker 2: selection course and got through that, and then there was
Speaker 2: a bit of a convoluted pathway, but that pushed me
Speaker 2: into the Special Operations direction and I managed to get
Speaker 2: the opportunity to serve with the Second Commando Regiment and
Speaker 2: SASR over the next five years. And so had that
Speaker 2: just that incredibly rewarding experience there and found a real
Speaker 2: passion for the tactical medicine in terms of just applying
Speaker 2: the medical skill set in that military environment, and so
Speaker 2: that while it didn't start off as having any real
Speaker 2: passion for either medicine or the military, it really came
Speaker 2: together in this incredible thing that's to date's been the
Speaker 2: most professionally rewarding period.
Speaker 4: Of my life to go and do that.
Speaker 2: Then got out in twenty fourteen, did my MBA that year.
Speaker 2: Actually over a couple of years, I did it corresponden
Speaker 2: so online and then started to where I did a
Speaker 2: bit of line fly out staff, worked as a ship stocked,
Speaker 2: a couple of other different remote jobs. Then had an
Speaker 2: opportunity to go and help run a small hospital up
Speaker 2: in Queensland, so to work as the deputy medical superintendent
Speaker 2: of a hospital for a good friend of mine who
Speaker 2: was the med super up there. So did that for
Speaker 2: three years, working in ed and also helping run the facility.
Speaker 2: And then my wife's Adelaide girl and so we moved
Speaker 2: back to Adelaide and I picked up a role running
Speaker 2: as the medical director for the state Prison Health Service.
Speaker 5: So I worked in the medical side of.
Speaker 2: Prison health for a few years and have gotten out
Speaker 2: of that earlier this year, and doing a little bit
Speaker 2: of d work and a few other bits and pieces
Speaker 2: at the moment, and then of course the whole Resilient
Speaker 2: Shield project. My interest in that fell out of that
Speaker 2: transition out of defense, where for the first year or
Speaker 2: two I had a really warbly time and it was
Speaker 2: just a huge adjustment. I'd lost my purpose once again,
Speaker 2: I'd lost my identity. And it was at that stage
Speaker 2: that some of the cumulative experiences of my time, particularly
Speaker 2: on operations in Afghanistan, started to catch up with me
Speaker 2: and it just seemed paradoxical that I'd never been safer,
Speaker 2: I'd never been earning more money, I'd never been at
Speaker 2: home more, and this stuff was starting to come back
Speaker 2: to bite me on the ass. And so I started
Speaker 2: to just do a bit of a deep dive into
Speaker 2: what this resilience thing was, why we were all able
Speaker 2: to stay so resilient in those high stress environments. And
Speaker 2: then when you take the pressure off a lot of
Speaker 2: discharging soldiers, that's when they start to have a few problems,
Speaker 2: as I did. And so yeah, that led to my
Speaker 2: deep interest in resilience.
Speaker 1: Well, I love that. I think now everyone will understand
Speaker 1: a little bit better. Why I was like, God, why
Speaker 1: did I even research these guys before they came home?
Speaker 1: You were so qualified, incredibly articulate, and the intellect shines
Speaker 1: through so much when you just refer to taking the
Speaker 1: gamsat which people study for like eight years for I just.
Speaker 3: Like I just did medicine. I just accidentally became a doctor.
Speaker 4: It convinced.
Speaker 2: That test has got exponentially harder than when I did it,
Speaker 2: because I was trying to help someone study for it
Speaker 2: a few years back, and I couldn't. I couldn't do half.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think it was. It was easy when
Speaker 4: I did it.
Speaker 5: I'm sure of it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I doubt that.
Speaker 1: But I think that's something that is so unique about
Speaker 1: your book as well, is because you both, well all
Speaker 1: three of you do have this incredible academic basis as well.
Speaker 1: You bring a lot of science to a lot of
Speaker 1: the conversations. There's anecdotal evidence, but there's a lot of science.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of diagrams, there's a lot of backing
Speaker 1: for certain concepts and certain patterns in the brain. That
Speaker 1: adds a legitimacy that sometimes you don't get in books
Speaker 1: like this that are really trying to army with tools,
Speaker 1: which I loved so much and thought was a really
Speaker 1: really different, valuable part. It's hard to write a different
Speaker 1: book right now, but you guys have done an incredible job.
Speaker 1: They continue to just flow me away.
Speaker 2: Well, it's awesome you say that. I mean sorry that
Speaker 2: that was a massive, really important thing for us that
Speaker 2: the last thing we wanted was another book saying you know,
Speaker 2: I was at war need even grenade pins, and you
Speaker 2: should be more like me a because that's not the case.
Speaker 2: Because we've seen so many of our friends who were,
Speaker 2: by most metrics, incredibly resilient. They were physically indestructible or
Speaker 2: mentally robust, and yet some of them were still having issues.
Speaker 5: So for us, this.
Speaker 2: Concept of resilience obviously needed to be more than just that,
Speaker 2: and so that was part of the exploration. But the
Speaker 2: other thing for us is that, you know, we didn't
Speaker 2: see ourselves as that different. We've done this job, which
Speaker 2: seems different to a lot of people, but we've done
Speaker 2: a lot of training for it, We've prepared for it.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't I guess that sort of I
Speaker 2: guess superhuman type thing. And so it was really important
Speaker 2: to us that whatever we did was scientifically backed and applicable,
Speaker 2: sort of beyond just our own I guess limited experiences.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys, but I guess it's
Speaker 1: such a rush of motivation and energy to keep learning
Speaker 1: and upskilling when I hear from our guests each week.
Speaker 1: If you're feeling the same, I am so thrilled to
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Speaker 3: It blew me out of the water.
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Speaker 3: The show notes.
Speaker 1: One giant silver lining of the past year or so
Speaker 1: has been getting access to some of the cleverest minds
Speaker 1: and their wisdom without having to go anywhere. So don't
Speaker 1: miss the chance to take advantage while you can hopefully
Speaker 1: see you there neighborhood. And I think something else that's
Speaker 1: really evident in the way that you write and present
Speaker 1: a lot of these concepts, and it is even explicitly mentioned,
Speaker 1: is the relationship between resilience and vulnerability. And from three
Speaker 1: sas guys who have just not been scared in situations
Speaker 1: that terrify most of us, and we'd freeze, you know,
Speaker 1: like who you have these preconceptions about your masculinity and
Speaker 1: your strength, and I think it was so important that
Speaker 1: you did share. Like Dan, you shared that you did
Speaker 1: have a hard time transitioning back into life. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of trauma, and that being vulnerable isn't the
Speaker 1: anathema to resilience.
Speaker 3: They actually go hand in.
Speaker 1: Hand, which makes it even more relatable because people don't think,
Speaker 1: here's these really feearless sas guys telling me what to do,
Speaker 1: because of course they wouldn't be scared of anything. You
Speaker 1: actually opened up about those parts, which I think made
Speaker 1: it even more like it hits even harder when you
Speaker 1: see that you are just people who have vulnerabilities as
Speaker 1: well well.
Speaker 2: Exactly as Ben just said as well, it's what you're
Speaker 2: trained to be resilient against, like you can train resilience
Speaker 2: and so and that's an important thing. And it's when
Speaker 2: you look at things like traumatic experiences and stressors. It's
Speaker 2: relative to the individual. It's not you can't compare your
Speaker 2: trauma to someone else's, it just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: It's what you're resilient against. And so for someone like
Speaker 2: a special operation soldier, they can go off into a
Speaker 2: combat environment and that's not necessarily stressful for them, but
Speaker 2: you know, put them in put them on stage and
Speaker 2: tell them to sing, and they'll be panicked like anyone else,
Speaker 2: you know, because they don't have resilience.
Speaker 5: Against that stress.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's a trap that people fall
Speaker 2: into when I've had it a number of times at
Speaker 2: presentations and things, people opening up coming and seeing me
Speaker 2: in a break and saying, oh, you know, it's nothing
Speaker 2: compared to you, but you know, I've had this happen
Speaker 2: and some of those are hugely stressful things for these individuals.
Speaker 2: So I think we have this tendency to diminish our
Speaker 2: own experience relative to someone else's, and we need to
Speaker 2: not view it like that. It's not a competition. If
Speaker 2: it's real to us, then it's real. And it's that
Speaker 2: balance of the stress or versus your resilience against that
Speaker 2: stress or, and if the stress overwhelms your resilience, then
Speaker 2: that's going to be a traumatic experience for you totally.
Speaker 1: And I think you bring a lot of concepts in,
Speaker 1: like even the first three chapters are on the sense
Speaker 1: making concepts that help really break down the way our
Speaker 1: brain works and the way that we are so different
Speaker 1: and stress isn't something that can really be measured because
Speaker 1: and particularly in a pandemic, like people are trying to measure,
Speaker 1: there's a lot. It's a heavy newsweek this week, there's
Speaker 1: a lot going on for other people. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you're not having a challenge because your world
Speaker 1: is dismantled, even in a different way to how someone
Speaker 1: else's is.
Speaker 3: So I think that also is particularly timely.
Speaker 1: I mentioned before there is so much I took out
Speaker 1: of this book, and I didn't know where to start,
Speaker 1: and I've written so many notes, but I thought maybe
Speaker 1: it might be easier to get you guys, to sort
Speaker 1: of introduce the concept of the shield, what it is,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a taster into how you chose
Speaker 1: to break down the chapters and the way that you
Speaker 1: brought in anecdotes versus like the way that you've even
Speaker 1: managed to in the same book compare life to a
Speaker 1: Chicken Street carpet shop, and also talk about Wabi sabi
Speaker 1: in Japan and Cisu in Finland and Richard Harris our
Speaker 1: favorite episode on this show, the Cave Diver, and then
Speaker 1: also Dickhead Bosses and porpoising in a chinork like, I
Speaker 1: don't even know how you did it.
Speaker 3: So introduce us to the Resilient.
Speaker 1: Shield, the concept, the big takeaways that you think we
Speaker 1: all need to hear right now.
Speaker 2: So I think from the genesis of the model, Dan's
Speaker 2: experiences were a catalyst. And as I mentioned before, it
Speaker 2: didn't seem to make sense on the surface that he
Speaker 2: could get out of the military, get away from all
Speaker 2: of that stress, and then have the negative experiences. And
Speaker 2: it also didn't seem to make sense in that he's
Speaker 2: it together, dude, he's physically mentally with I can't even
Speaker 2: say that without last.
Speaker 1: Advanced to retire from three quarter pants, he wears full
Speaker 1: length pants.
Speaker 3: Now he's come a long way.
Speaker 5: He doesn't anymore.
Speaker 3: So are you sure?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: I'm not so.
Speaker 2: I play for his looking all right, and yet you
Speaker 2: know he can still have these issues. And so the
Speaker 2: big thing for us when we sat down to try
Speaker 2: and nut out a model of resilience, it needed to
Speaker 2: be scientifically packed. It needed to be dynamic in that
Speaker 2: it could grow with us, and it could search and
Speaker 2: flex to different points in our life and also to
Speaker 2: different life experiences, different people's life. It needed to be
Speaker 2: multi factoral. We've seen a lot of outstanding resilience related
Speaker 2: stuff out there that talks only about one single day.
Speaker 2: So it might talk about gratitude and mindfulness, or it
Speaker 2: might talk about physical fitness, or it might talk about
Speaker 2: the importance asleep. We want to work out how all
Speaker 2: those things interrelated. And it needed to be modifiable. There
Speaker 2: was no point having an academic document that sort of
Speaker 2: explained why you were having depressive issues. It needed to
Speaker 2: be something we could get better at. We could look
Speaker 2: at ways of improving. So that was the parameters we
Speaker 2: set ourselves. We ended up necking it down to the
Speaker 2: six layers that we've spoken about in the book. The
Speaker 2: the innate layer nature, nurture, genetics, effort, genetics, your character,
Speaker 2: your personality or values. The mind layer is the next
Speaker 2: on the metal one, which includes everything spiritual and psychological.
Speaker 2: It includes your perspective, your mindset, your views, but also,
Speaker 2: as team loves to say, your ability to flush the
Speaker 2: nonsense out, so things like meditation, things like mindfulness, things
Speaker 2: like gratitude, what you store in your head, and how
Speaker 2: you process things. The body layer is three words slip, diet,
Speaker 2: and exercise. Social layer, absolutely crucial, how you interact with people,
Speaker 2: particularly those outside of a work setting. You know, the
Speaker 2: social connections we're likely to have for our entire life.
Speaker 2: And then the professional layer, which talks about our ability
Speaker 2: to find purpose and virtuosity and what we do in
Speaker 2: a professional context. We wrap it all up in this
Speaker 2: idea of adaptation, the idea that if you can develop
Speaker 2: competence in each of those previous layers, or recognize competence
Speaker 2: in them, then you're essentially ready for whatever the world's
Speaker 2: going to throw at you when the zombie apocalypse comes,
Speaker 2: even though you might have seen it before. You can
Speaker 2: adapt those characteristics going forward.
Speaker 4: Or as we outline. And you know you mentioned Harry before.
Speaker 2: When an unprecedented event occurs, you've got a bunch of
Speaker 2: people stuck in a flooded cave. Guess what, We've got
Speaker 2: a guy here who's got a huge amount of skills
Speaker 2: in anesthesia, a huge amount of skills in cave diving,
Speaker 2: brings them together and goes and well, not single handedly,
Speaker 2: but it was fundamental to saving the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the things I loved so
Speaker 1: much about that episode was that people are so flooded.
Speaker 1: In fact, you guys actually managed to scientifically prove and
Speaker 1: also express so articulately a concept that I've been babbling
Speaker 1: around trying to explain for so long, and now I
Speaker 1: am so grateful that you've proven that it's true that
Speaker 1: the information overload that we face in our life has
Speaker 1: increased at a pace that our brain's physical evolution can't
Speaker 1: keep up with, which causes all kinds of problems. But
Speaker 1: because of the increased visibility of everyone else's lives, we're
Speaker 1: subject to so many expectations and norms about what happiness
Speaker 1: looks like, what success looks like, what joy looks like.
Speaker 1: And Harry, to me, was such a perfect example that
Speaker 1: if you have random things that light you up that
Speaker 1: don't make sense. Being an anesthesiologist or an ethetist and
Speaker 1: being a technical cave diver are not related. They don't
Speaker 1: necessarily help each other. You have to organize your life
Speaker 1: in a way that allows you to do both. But
Speaker 1: he's stuck to it, and there was only one of
Speaker 1: him in the entire world that could save those boys,
Speaker 1: And that to me was like, you have just proven
Speaker 1: the theory that whatever weird stuff makes you happy, you
Speaker 1: need to do that because one day that exact combination
Speaker 1: will be what someone else in the world needs, which
Speaker 1: is just thrilling to think that our weirdness is what
Speaker 1: makes us special, not our uniformity. It's the stuff that
Speaker 1: makes us odd balls.
Speaker 5: I love that, and I love you.
Speaker 2: The flip side, Dan said that the resilience and stress
Speaker 2: is not a competition. You know, you shouldn't be thinking
Speaker 2: I didn't have to say, you know, kids from a
Speaker 2: flooded cave, or I didn't have to go to war.
Speaker 2: Therefore I don't deserve to feel stress. Our weirdness, the
Speaker 2: different things that stresses it shouldn't be about sort of
Speaker 2: working out a relativity or you know, what's better or
Speaker 2: more worthy of the stress or resilience. It's about accepting that, hey,
Speaker 2: if this is having an impact on me, positive or negative,
Speaker 2: then lean into the positive and deal with the negative.
Speaker 2: It's not about comparing it to other people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, something that quite a few different chapters kind of
Speaker 1: covered these concepts, and that's really pivotal to the idea
Speaker 1: of CZ is redefining your happiness around input versus output,
Speaker 1: but also in terms of positivity versus negativity and embracing
Speaker 1: the suck as we spoke about before, like negativity.
Speaker 3: Will always be there.
Speaker 1: And then also when you do find your purpose and
Speaker 1: you do have your goals, that idea of micro goals
Speaker 1: and not always needing to jump to the end. I
Speaker 1: always say in my book it's called dream big, Plan small.
Speaker 1: For you guys, it's expressed is always a little bit further.
Speaker 1: And that concept just it hits me in the gut
Speaker 1: every single time of just how much society hails this
Speaker 1: idea of like here starting point, destination and nothing in between.
Speaker 1: But in between is the bit that's life, you know,
Speaker 1: and I get so frustrated.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's not the destination.
Speaker 1: So especially with you guys, having reinvented your identities completely
Speaker 1: a couple of times in your life. Yeah, it took
Speaker 1: us through those kind of concepts in the book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it is crucian.
Speaker 2: I think social media has a lot to answer for
Speaker 2: because we do just see those one minute snapshots of
Speaker 2: people doing something outrageous or excellent or outstanding, and what
Speaker 2: gets missed in that is the twenty years of training
Speaker 2: that went into that, you know, and so we get
Speaker 2: these false ideals of what's positive, and it makes us
Speaker 2: feel bad about ourselves because we can't achieve that you
Speaker 2: miss that bit in between.
Speaker 5: And one of the sort of.
Speaker 2: Reference points that I think is great here is you
Speaker 2: talk about someone getting on top of Mount Everest, and
Speaker 2: if you were to hop in a helicopter and go
Speaker 2: up on top there, then that's one thing, but it's
Speaker 2: not where near the same as if you train for
Speaker 2: years and years and you climb that thing and you
Speaker 2: get to the top and get that reward, and even
Speaker 2: if you don't get to the top, that's probably exponentially
Speaker 2: better than just taking that shortcut and getting plunked on
Speaker 2: top of the hill for the view. And so the
Speaker 2: happiness is in the struggle and it's the reality of it.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, setting those goals, working towards
Speaker 2: those goals, whether you hit them or not, you're going
Speaker 2: to end up a better version of yourself.
Speaker 5: But just continuing to evolve.
Speaker 2: And we talk about that all ways a little further
Speaker 2: and you may not know where that end goal is,
Speaker 2: or you may have set that lofty goal as I
Speaker 2: did with triathlon that I felt miserably short of, but
Speaker 2: that allowed me to have this foundation of physical fitness
Speaker 2: that was then applicable to training towards the military stuff.
Speaker 2: And it also gave me that discipline that was also
Speaker 2: translatable across to the studying of medicine and these kinds
Speaker 2: of things. So nothing's ever lost. And I think it's
Speaker 2: very important for us as humans to set these goals
Speaker 2: and chip away at them, enjoy the journey, and if
Speaker 2: you get to that goal, great, and then set a
Speaker 2: new one and keep going from there. If you don't
Speaker 2: and it takes you somewhere else, you know you're going
Speaker 2: to end off better often if you didn't set the
Speaker 2: goal in the first instance. This for me is where
Speaker 2: so many of these thick concepts are interrelated, and I've
Speaker 2: got a much better appreciation of meditation on fromness of gratitude.
Speaker 2: I think all three of them have got a pr problem,
Speaker 2: maybe particularly most Aussie mails in that you know, even
Speaker 2: as I'm saying these words, I'm thinking sort of mung
Speaker 2: beans and flowing roads and in a sense, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's not as accessible to I guess the mindset I
Speaker 2: used to have, but that idea, particularly things like gratitude.
Speaker 2: Our own research and a ton of other bodies of
Speaker 2: research has suggested that that is an incredibly powerful thing.
Speaker 2: It's correlated so strongly with global resilience that it's worth
Speaker 2: looking at. And part of gratitude is accepting what you've got,
Speaker 2: and another part is that concept of micro goals and
Speaker 2: being able to put markers of what you've achieved and
Speaker 2: to be thankful and to acknowledge pat yourself on the
Speaker 2: back for having done that. And I think, to Dan's point,
Speaker 2: it's not about scaling Everest, it's about you know, developing
Speaker 2: that first plan to start walking upstairs with a pack
Speaker 2: on your back, and then acknowledging that that's one step
Speaker 2: of the way. Because to your point, and we love
Speaker 2: that John life of what's happens when you're busily making
Speaker 2: other plans. I mean, this is what we've got. It's
Speaker 2: not the end state, it's the process. And Dan has
Speaker 2: a beautiful is it a Buddhist philosophy mat to sort
Speaker 2: of enjoy the journey not the destination.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think it goes across a lot of
Speaker 2: philosophies and religions, but yeah, Buddhism, that impermanence of.
Speaker 4: Everything is an underlying theme there.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that does tie in, as you were saying,
Speaker 2: to that whole mindfulness, like being present and not just
Speaker 2: being future focused or dwelling on the past, just doing
Speaker 2: what you can achieve in the moment, being present, having
Speaker 2: those meaningful engagements and doing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, always a little further.
Speaker 3: I love always a little further.
Speaker 1: It's so simple, but it's so tangible, like you could
Speaker 1: just write it down and apply it to anything that
Speaker 1: you're not.
Speaker 3: You don't need to rush to the end. It's just
Speaker 3: a little further.
Speaker 1: And I think at the moment, particularly you know on
Speaker 1: the eastern side of the country, where it's a hard
Speaker 1: thing to wake up every day and not be able
Speaker 1: to leave your house, that changing the goalposts from I
Speaker 1: need to stay as happy as I was before or
Speaker 1: I need to be as productive as I was before.
Speaker 1: You know that just get a little bit further today.
Speaker 1: That's all you need to do is suddenly so much
Speaker 1: more achievable, which then makes your mindset better because then
Speaker 1: you don't feel like a failure because you're not being
Speaker 1: you know, working efficiently, or you're not achieving what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to achieve. I love that mentality, And if I
Speaker 1: highlighted anything in the book, it was that just just
Speaker 1: a little further, like stop trying to aid type even
Speaker 1: with rest, you know, I'm like, oh, we've got four
Speaker 1: slow down, lockdown, Yeah, and then I a type my
Speaker 1: resting like okay, how am I going to diy renovate
Speaker 1: my house or sprin clean or like have you know
Speaker 1: the most baths of any person in the world. You know,
Speaker 1: like I can't just relax, so that just a little
Speaker 1: bit further, you don't need to go the whole way.
Speaker 3: That was really really valuable.
Speaker 1: Did you guys find anything when you were writing, like
Speaker 1: I kind of find something that was Another way that
Speaker 1: you translated a military concept into something really useful for
Speaker 1: the masses was the after action report and the idea
Speaker 1: of debriefing and writing down just journaling, like it ties
Speaker 1: into the same importance of things down to consolidate your
Speaker 1: thoughts and what you learned. I found when I was
Speaker 1: writing my book, I learned a lot of things that
Speaker 1: I didn't realize I knew, or that I hadn't consolidated,
Speaker 1: just through the process of trying to tell someone else
Speaker 1: the concept. Did you guys pick up anything that was
Speaker 1: like an aha moment for yourselves while you were writing
Speaker 1: or researching.
Speaker 2: Certainly for me, there's a couple of things at a
Speaker 2: global level. Putting this down on paper is exactly the
Speaker 2: same as doing a journal or doing what we call
Speaker 2: a rexilience action plan. It makes it very difficult to
Speaker 2: then not live what you're preaching. And so we've done
Speaker 2: all this research about how important I keep using meditation
Speaker 2: because that was my moment coming to that through this process.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it now makes it very hard.
Speaker 2: For me to say I'm too busy to meditate because
Speaker 2: I've got all this research in the back of my
Speaker 2: head that says And in fact, we had a guy
Speaker 2: on our podcast call Gary Goro, who said, look, if
Speaker 2: you haven't got twenty mins and that's in your day
Speaker 2: to meditate, then you need to be meditating for forty minutes.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're that busy, then you really need
Speaker 2: this stuff. And so those kind of things I find
Speaker 2: help really keep you to account. And I love that
Speaker 2: always a little further has resonated with you, Sarah, because
Speaker 2: that has been a mantra with me for years. It's
Speaker 2: got a connection back into the British Sas and it's
Speaker 2: an amazing poem, like I called Flecker, but it is
Speaker 2: always in the back of my head and it makes
Speaker 2: it really hard for me. The classic for me every
Speaker 2: morning I come out of the train and I've got
Speaker 2: the incredibly steep staircase or the escalator, and I've got
Speaker 2: this absolute choice at the start of my day, and
Speaker 2: there's this little annoying dickhead in the back of my
Speaker 2: brain going always a little further and I take the
Speaker 2: stairs instead of the elevator.
Speaker 5: But those kind of things be useful.
Speaker 2: They do move the needle in my life, and I
Speaker 2: hope in other people. I find the same thing with
Speaker 2: that stair verse elevator thing. It always and you know, sadly,
Speaker 2: the lots of veterans Ben Tim and I included, have
Speaker 2: got mates that lost their legs in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Speaker 2: I look at that and I think, well, you know what,
Speaker 2: I've got legs.
Speaker 4: I'm going to use them.
Speaker 2: And it's just a reminder these small things like to
Speaker 2: it sounds a little bit silly to be grateful for
Speaker 2: having legs, but it's a recalibration that we underwent and
Speaker 2: you come back, and certainly I did, with a completely
Speaker 2: different view of everything here and this newfound appreciation and
Speaker 2: this complete recalibration all the stuff that we take for granted,
Speaker 2: because that's human nature. When you're living a comfortable, middle
Speaker 2: class existence and then you see these other experiences and
Speaker 2: it changes things all of a sudden. If you can
Speaker 2: realize just and if you can be grateful for the
Speaker 2: little things in life, it changes that whole mindset. And
Speaker 2: it's so positively correlated that optimism and that gratitude is
Speaker 2: so positively correlated to resilience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, gratitude is so important. And not to take
Speaker 1: away that people are facing a lot of challenge at
Speaker 1: the moment. There'll always be stories of trauma that's worse
Speaker 1: than yours and better than yours and whatever. But just
Speaker 1: to have a little bit of an awareness of perspective,
Speaker 1: I think is really important.
Speaker 2: I think that is a really interesting balance that you know,
Speaker 2: part of what we're talking about is not belittling what
Speaker 2: you're going through, because as Dan said before, it's not
Speaker 2: a competition, it is real. These stressors are real, and
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be saying, oh, we shouldn't be stressed by
Speaker 2: a lockdown because you know, carbleg just got rolled and
Speaker 2: imagine being a prominent female in the Afghemstein infrastructure now.
Speaker 2: But by that same token, you know, having that awareness
Speaker 2: to provide that counterbalance that what we've got is pretty good,
Speaker 2: you know, being able to be grateful for it you've got.
Speaker 2: I think they're actually nice counterpoints to one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's hard to find a middle ground, I think
Speaker 1: with all the noise going on at the moment, but
Speaker 1: important to be aware of balancing out the two before
Speaker 1: we move on to the last section, which is taking
Speaker 1: your identities completely away from the you that is productive
Speaker 1: that has titles and just goes back to pure joy
Speaker 1: like the unburdened wonder about the world of a child,
Speaker 1: for example, And that's my favorite section because we indulge
Speaker 1: in it so little.
Speaker 3: Just a guilty pleasure.
Speaker 1: Question for me is around the idea that I've talked
Speaker 1: about this book so many times, and people listening are
Speaker 1: going to roll their eyes because they know how often.
Speaker 3: I talk about it.
Speaker 1: But there's a book called Emergency Sex, which is about
Speaker 1: the four you guys might have heard of it, the
Speaker 1: four UN workers who end up meeting each other in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti,
Speaker 1: like the big nineties and early two thousands disaster zones,
Speaker 1: and how they fight for their life to get back
Speaker 1: to stability and safety and their family. They make it back,
Speaker 1: and then they hate it so much that they have
Speaker 1: to go and find another war zone. And it's so
Speaker 1: interesting to especially for someone like me who's so fascinated
Speaker 1: in international conflict and war zones, how you can adapt
Speaker 1: to your body to chaos and to adrenaline and it
Speaker 1: can become so addictive, not because it's sexy, like I
Speaker 1: think that's a bit of an over glamorization, because it's
Speaker 1: traumatic and it's horrible, but you can only think of
Speaker 1: the minute you're in and you're so needed. You're within
Speaker 1: a structure, you have a clear sense of what you're
Speaker 1: meant to do each day, and it's I can imagine
Speaker 1: so difficult to leave that and then recalibrate to calm,
Speaker 1: which people have outside of the military. They grow up
Speaker 1: in chaos and then they can't have stable relationships or
Speaker 1: they you know, are used to adrenaline and they don't
Speaker 1: know how to rest. Are there any parts of that
Speaker 1: life that you miss?
Speaker 3: Do you miss all of that? Kind of that kind
Speaker 3: of crazy like action and jump out of.
Speaker 2: Helicopter beautiful And I like that that emergency SEETX that
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen a movie called Whiskey
Speaker 2: Tango Foxtrow with Tina Fey in it as well, Like
Speaker 2: that's super cool.
Speaker 1: And I've seen all of them. I've seen all of them,
Speaker 1: ben all of them.
Speaker 2: And even in our professional work, we do a lot
Speaker 2: of work with crisis management, and even though the context
Speaker 2: is terrible in an exercise or a real life in
Speaker 2: a fatality on an industrial side or whatever, people do
Speaker 2: tend to rise to crisis. And there's a couple of characteristics. One,
Speaker 2: all the bullshit, your American Express bill, your dead, all
Speaker 2: that stuff just fades away because you've got this one
Speaker 2: crystal focus so important, so you've got a really clear purpose.
Speaker 5: Generally, people arise.
Speaker 2: There's obviously all the neurochemical sort of responses that you know,
Speaker 2: including natural opiates that give you a high relation to
Speaker 2: those sort of stresses. So there's a lot of good
Speaker 2: stuff going on, but I think it's important to recognize
Speaker 2: that that is not the normal, you know, and particularly
Speaker 2: your body's reaction to that. It's not designed to be chronic.
Speaker 2: It's supposed to get you through for that stress period,
Speaker 2: and so even though it does feel great in the moment,
Speaker 2: I think that recognition that you can't chase that dragon forever.
Speaker 5: It doesn't kind of work like that. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: For me personally, I'm just super thankful, genuinely thankful to
Speaker 2: have had the opportunity to experience those kind of things.
Speaker 5: I'm super thankful I got through in one piece.
Speaker 2: I'm super thankful, you know, I haven't had sort of
Speaker 2: bad issues.
Speaker 5: As a result of it.
Speaker 2: But I'm also I think can recognize that, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't need to keep chasing that even though it
Speaker 2: was excellent, that it's not any enduring or sustainable way
Speaker 2: for me to live my life. There's another brilliant book
Speaker 2: to add to that list of references. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you've seen this one. Sarah it's called My War
Speaker 2: Gone By. I miss it, so I can't remember the author.
Speaker 2: Ben you might know that, but it was a UK
Speaker 2: bloke who ended up falsifying some war reporter documents just
Speaker 2: to get over to the Bosnian conflict and from Yugoslavia
Speaker 2: and just got so involved and had such a sense
Speaker 2: of purpose there and that camaraderie amongst other war reporters
Speaker 2: that he just couldn't fit back in back in the
Speaker 2: UK and found himself more and more and then I
Speaker 2: think he ended up heroin addicted. But it's a pretty
Speaker 2: sad but very powerful, full story of exactly that same thing.
Speaker 2: And as been said, you know, I had imagine every
Speaker 2: one of us had the same experience of that, just
Speaker 2: that complete flow state when you were engaged in say
Speaker 2: something like a combat environment or responding to a casualty,
Speaker 2: where that is your entire focus. The remainder of the
Speaker 2: world just disappears and you know you are completely in
Speaker 2: the moment, and in that respect, it's a very mindful
Speaker 2: sort of state to be in and you are one
Speaker 2: hundred percent focused, and it's addictive. I found it quite addictive,
Speaker 2: that rush of being in those high pressure environments using
Speaker 2: your skills at the point of end from a medical perspective,
Speaker 2: for me, was the most professionally satisfying thing I've done
Speaker 2: to date. But with that comes that constant activation of
Speaker 2: all your stress hormones and you recalibrate to that hyper alert,
Speaker 2: hyper anxious state and it's like reving a car engine
Speaker 2: at five thousand revs constantly. It's got to break down eventually.
Speaker 2: But yeah, as Ben said, I think it's great to
Speaker 2: have had those experiences, and then it's just a matter
Speaker 2: of I think, as you move on realizing that you
Speaker 2: can't get back there, and you probably don't want to
Speaker 2: get back there because there's no future in that.
Speaker 5: Well for me.
Speaker 2: Personally as a dad and a husband, it's unsustainable. But
Speaker 2: then it's a matter of what can I do that's
Speaker 2: you know, age and family appropriate to replace some of
Speaker 2: that professional satisfaction without that same kind of toxic stress
Speaker 2: on the body.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's an awesome movie called The Old Angry Shot.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you've seen.
Speaker 2: It's Grant Kennedy and Bryan Brown that it's about the
Speaker 2: essays in Vietnam and it's a real cult sort of
Speaker 2: film and the final scene that it's this story of
Speaker 2: this patrol in Vietnam is says patrol, and they go
Speaker 2: through all these things and then they gets injured and
Speaker 2: all this profound life changing things and they come back
Speaker 2: to Australia.
Speaker 5: The final scene is then going through a beer and.
Speaker 2: They just had this enormous life changing experience and they
Speaker 2: get into the pub and and you've brought's just back
Speaker 2: in Vietnam.
Speaker 5: Yeah, how was it? It's all right, it's rather Thant
Speaker 5: moves on.
Speaker 2: And I had actually a really similar experience coming back
Speaker 2: from my first trip in Afghanistan. I just got back,
Speaker 2: had no one sort of greeted me, you know, I
Speaker 2: would just sort of sort of wandered off and went
Speaker 2: to the Ocean Beach Hotel and caught up with a
Speaker 2: friend randomly and she said, oh, you know, where have
Speaker 2: you been. I haven't seen you around and said, I've
Speaker 2: just been out Afghanistan, and like, you know, I had
Speaker 2: had this profound life changing, first real war type experience
Speaker 2: and she said, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: What was that?
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, she's okay, and then just nder this other conversation.
Speaker 2: It was just it was beautiful in that, you know,
Speaker 2: this was everything and nothing, you know, it was massive
Speaker 2: thing for me.
Speaker 5: But the world keeps going on and that was wonderful.
Speaker 2: But I think that sort of set that calibration in
Speaker 2: terms of the stuff you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's nowhere near the same. But we
Speaker 1: spent a month in Rwanda, working in rural Rwanda, so
Speaker 1: no running water, no anything, working at school, and we
Speaker 1: did a lot of work with of the genocide, and
Speaker 1: even in that at that time, I was still a
Speaker 1: lawyer and I really wanted to go into one of
Speaker 1: the tribunals or some kind of international conflict war area.
Speaker 1: And I actually hated coming back home, like it really
Speaker 1: and I wasn't even even in a conflict zone. But
Speaker 1: the simplicity of their happiness that was my first big
Speaker 1: separation between happiness and success. I came back to an
Speaker 1: incredibly successful life and career and could not be okay
Speaker 1: with it for months. I was so unsettled. I had
Speaker 1: loved that just simplicity of waking up and appreciating nature
Speaker 1: and singing and only focusing on in the next minute.
Speaker 1: But I also think I learned there that when people
Speaker 1: say listen to your body, I agree, obviously it tells
Speaker 1: you lots of things. It's very clever, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: make a take account of adrenaline, because adrenaline tells your
Speaker 1: body this feels great when it's actually most of the
Speaker 1: time not great for you.
Speaker 3: It's necessary.
Speaker 1: But sometimes burning the candle at both ends and not
Speaker 1: sleeping feels great. Sometimes my body says, keep doing this,
Speaker 1: this is amazing. But it's something I think we do
Speaker 1: need to watch out for that. Your body sometimes likes
Speaker 1: things and thrives on things that it can't sustain and
Speaker 1: that aren't maybe great for it.
Speaker 5: I've got to pull you up there, sharing you well,
Speaker 5: oh yes, sorry.
Speaker 2: It's nothing like you. That that comparison thing. You know,
Speaker 2: We've all got to stop doing that. That's exactly like
Speaker 2: our experience. Sorry, yeah, I mean going to regional wander
Speaker 2: is huge. It's huge, and it's it's so abnormal, and
Speaker 2: it gives you this new perspective and it is exactly
Speaker 2: like us going off and experiencing things in our world.
Speaker 4: So yeah, don't do that.
Speaker 1: I know, love it. Thank you so very last couple
Speaker 1: of questions. The last section, as I mentioned, is all
Speaker 1: about play and what you do to help yourself detach
Speaker 1: and get a brain escape, and just I describe them
Speaker 1: as those activities that make you forget what time it
Speaker 1: is when you go back to that mindful focus, but
Speaker 1: not for a professional outcome, not for like winning or
Speaker 1: getting better or self development. And the example I use
Speaker 1: is I spent a really long time going for walks
Speaker 1: with my dog but listening to a finance podcast, or
Speaker 1: I'd have a bath and I'd try and learn a language,
Speaker 1: like I just wasn't letting myself enjoy for the sake
Speaker 1: of enjoyment. So what do you guys do other than rollerblading? Too?
Speaker 4: Honest?
Speaker 5: I would love to crack out the roller blades again.
Speaker 4: I can't now you've gone and ruined it for me. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I have to wear a mask. We're wearing masks anyway,
Speaker 4: aren't we. So might be the perfect time.
Speaker 3: You should do it. I'm going to see you rolling.
Speaker 2: Over like, oh, it's more socially acceptable. I've cracked out
Speaker 2: the skateboard again with my eight year old and.
Speaker 3: So Paris twenty twenty four. Here we go.
Speaker 2: No, No, there'll be none of that. Yeah, maybe my son.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I enjoy skateboarding. I mean anything that
Speaker 2: gets into that flow state like you're talking about, and
Speaker 2: the beauty of that is you don't need to be
Speaker 2: good at it, you just need to be you're operating
Speaker 2: at the level of your capability. And so I've started
Speaker 2: playing the piano a little bit. I love woodworking. I'm
Speaker 2: shit at it, but I've built a home bar in
Speaker 2: my man cave and I'm constantly working on that and
Speaker 2: there's no right angles and nothing quite lines up, and
Speaker 2: it's all sort of rusty the term I'm using. But
Speaker 2: I just find that immensely satisfying. And when I'm building something,
Speaker 2: doing something with my hands, when I'm skating with my
Speaker 2: little guy, when I'm trying to learn something on the piano,
Speaker 2: that's for me that turns off that sort of monkey
Speaker 2: mind that the fault mode network.
Speaker 4: And I do love to meditate. I love to lie in.
Speaker 2: Ice baths these days. I find that just outstanding. In
Speaker 2: other way, it's hard to think of anything else when
Speaker 2: you're in an ice bath. You're just focused on that moment.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so there's a whole range of things that
Speaker 2: don't need to be those high adrenaline type things to
Speaker 2: get into that flow state. It's just something challenging yourself.
Speaker 2: And yeah, maybe I will crack out the roller blades again.
Speaker 1: I love that you mentioned you don't need to be
Speaker 1: good at it, because I think that suddenly turns like
Speaker 1: we turn all our hobbies into jobbies, Like I get
Speaker 1: so like, oh I like this, so I better be
Speaker 1: professional letter like I better go to Paris in twenty
Speaker 1: three four because I love skateboarding and it's nice to
Speaker 1: just let your sop off the hook, like it has
Speaker 1: to be something that you're not good at, because that's amazing.
Speaker 1: And I love the ice bath thing too. We had
Speaker 1: wim Half on the show last year. He screamed the
Speaker 1: whole episode. He screamed, he was just so excited about life.
Speaker 1: How are you good? Like how many kids?
Speaker 4: You have?
Speaker 3: Three kids? Like it just yells everything so invigorating.
Speaker 5: I'm a big wim Hoff fan.
Speaker 2: I love the breathing and I love him a friend,
Speaker 2: and I have downloaded the same version of him doing
Speaker 2: the guide ever breathing.
Speaker 5: And you know, just his his little comic bee this moment.
Speaker 2: And you know we will say that to each other
Speaker 2: in the in the funny Dutch chessh like it's it's
Speaker 2: so it's so much goodness.
Speaker 5: But for me, my happy place is drawing. I've come
Speaker 5: to it late.
Speaker 2: Same thing learning a new still I think is like
Speaker 2: cool and humbling and.
Speaker 5: All that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But ge that that is just so meditative and so restorative,
Speaker 2: you know. And I kind of like the fact that
Speaker 2: at the end you've got something like Dan's Bar. You know,
Speaker 2: there's there's a tangible sort of artifact at the end,
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe it's not the it's definitely not
Speaker 2: the best, you know, but it's something that's.
Speaker 5: Kind of a byproduct of your kind of flow state.
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing, And it's interesting that they're very tactile things
Speaker 1: that you can't be on your phone or multitasking at
Speaker 1: the same time, it's like precludes that opportunity, which is
Speaker 1: generally what I gravitate towards. What about Like, do you
Speaker 1: guys ever watch Netflix? Do you actually you know those
Speaker 1: people who are like I don't even have a TV?
Speaker 1: Do you watch stupid shows? Like do you do anything
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? We've just my wife and I've just come off
Speaker 2: the back of like it wasn't really binging, you know,
Speaker 2: we sort of limited to an episode or to Parks
Speaker 2: and rec I love Amy Poehler and I mean not
Speaker 2: in that but that kind of human So yeah, definitely,
Speaker 2: I was going to say guilty pleasure, not even guilty, but.
Speaker 3: It's just a pleasure.
Speaker 5: It's just a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly the same. I don't watch a lot of TV.
Speaker 2: We don't have it on a lot in our house,
Speaker 2: and I'll generally prefer to do other things, but yeah
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 5: I dance to one of these guys.
Speaker 3: He's got a life. Wow, get off the show.
Speaker 4: Wrong?
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that people, especially from Wellness, We're like, we didn't
Speaker 1: have a TV in our home, and I'm like, I admire.
Speaker 3: That so much.
Speaker 1: You are enlightened human being. But I am binging the
Speaker 1: shit out of a seven series at once, Like, what
Speaker 1: are there any military shows that you've seen that you're like,
Speaker 1: that's the closest representation. I always ask this question because
Speaker 1: I think I want to rewatch it. I've watched them
Speaker 1: all like eighty five thousand times for me.
Speaker 5: Actually, ID angry shot the one I mentioned before. It
Speaker 5: is better to get.
Speaker 2: In terms of not glamorizing and capturing the mess and
Speaker 2: the madship and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 5: I loved Zero Dark.
Speaker 4: It's just going to say the same thing.
Speaker 2: You know, Yes, this is the ubl Ray, but there's
Speaker 2: about five seconds of gun play in the whole movie,
Speaker 2: and that to me is the whole certainly my experience
Speaker 2: with the targeting game, that it is about that sort
Speaker 2: of preparation, and it's all those unsung heroes that are
Speaker 2: doing the intelligence analysis and the imagery and the human
Speaker 2: mesdients and all of this sort of fusion, and it's
Speaker 2: one step forward, two steps back. There's uncertainty, there's a
Speaker 2: ton of risk in improving these things, and there's you know,
Speaker 2: that that kind of political layer to it that to
Speaker 2: me really encapsulated I guess a lot of the contemporary
Speaker 2: special ops experience, and you know, it finishes with super
Speaker 2: cool court mvgs and playbooks and and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff, but ninety five percent of it is not.
Speaker 2: It's that frustrating sort of slog hard work builder. I
Speaker 2: think also the way they depict that final raid was
Speaker 2: awesome in that it wasn't that typical explosive everything goes
Speaker 2: exactly to plan. It was confusing, and there was engagements,
Speaker 2: and there was pauses, and there was you know, what's
Speaker 2: going on here, and so it was sort of I've
Speaker 2: said that exact same thing a number of times when
Speaker 2: people have said you know what looks most like real.
Speaker 2: I think that movie probably portrays it the best.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you guys said that, because I love
Speaker 1: that movie so much. But I noticed that, unlike most
Speaker 1: Hollywood blockbusters, there's no music in the raid. It's very quiet, yeah,
Speaker 1: which makes your senses heightened to them breathing and what
Speaker 1: you would imagine they would actually hear, which is nothing
Speaker 1: just the wind or each other's voices, just saying numbers
Speaker 1: and codes like It was just so interesting because usually
Speaker 1: that wouldn't fly in a Hollywood movie because our attention
Speaker 1: span is so short.
Speaker 3: We'd need like color and black hawks all the way.
Speaker 1: But it was dead quiet for like twenty five minutes,
Speaker 1: which I liked about the movie.
Speaker 3: I thought it was really great.
Speaker 2: Wells and I have had this ongoing discussion the fact
Speaker 2: that we did need soundtracks, Like you know that our
Speaker 2: actual raids in Afghanistan would have been so much cooler
Speaker 2: if we had all this track, And unfortunately, the sort
Speaker 2: of upshot of that is it would probably be more
Speaker 2: like the Benny Hill than music.
Speaker 5: We went through.
Speaker 2: I think the one I wanted was the immigrant song
Speaker 2: by led Zeppelin, Come out of the Dust with the
Speaker 2: big biking will cry and dumping guitar, Like, yeah.
Speaker 3: You should be able to choose your own song as well.
Speaker 1: That just comes on every time you like come out
Speaker 1: of a cupboard or something.
Speaker 3: When you come out on your rollerblades.
Speaker 1: Hey, I lived in Paris, I went to UNI.
Speaker 3: It sounds po for a year.
Speaker 1: And the cops there's it's a quarter called the Murray,
Speaker 1: which is like a very flamboyant artie, you know, and
Speaker 1: the cops only in that suburb roller blade in the
Speaker 1: tightest uniforms, but they're legitimate police on roll blades.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what if they go on the lawn.
Speaker 5: Downstairs.
Speaker 2: It's funny you say that because when we're having that
Speaker 2: rollerblade discussion, and I must admit I have not thought
Speaker 2: about roller blades. But then I realized, the only adult
Speaker 2: I've seen rollerblading in the last about that time.
Speaker 5: Is a French to that Lucy. His kids are at
Speaker 5: our school.
Speaker 3: Cops. There you go.
Speaker 5: It could be an ex cop, but he genuinely looks
Speaker 5: like he's loving it. It kind of looks fun. But
Speaker 5: I think you have to be French to get away
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe I think you guys can get away, but
Speaker 1: That's the other thing. It's so interesting when people talk
Speaker 1: about fear of failure all the time. We talk about
Speaker 1: a lot on their show, imposter syndrome, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: I always say, if I told you no one would
Speaker 1: ever know that you failed, would you care about failing? No?
Speaker 1: Their worth isn't questioned if they fail at something in private,
Speaker 1: which is the same as like, once you give yourself
Speaker 1: permission to look like a complete idiot, you.
Speaker 3: Enjoy life so much more.
Speaker 1: Just own that you're a dag, and then you don't
Speaker 1: care what your plata is because you don't care that
Speaker 1: you look like an idiot.
Speaker 3: I feel so much more fun.
Speaker 2: And paradoxically, you look less like an idiot when you're
Speaker 2: able to own it and not pretend you're just cool.
Speaker 5: You know, like, yeah, it's funny totally.
Speaker 1: When you get rid of the dreadlocks and you drop
Speaker 1: your pant length a little bit, you're just a whole
Speaker 1: new person.
Speaker 2: It come back, ironically, photos of I've got a great
Speaker 2: one of you standing with your back facing each other
Speaker 2: at one of your parades and you're in you know,
Speaker 2: you're in uniform.
Speaker 5: You're high and tight down at RMC or it must
Speaker 5: be an RMC.
Speaker 3: I think iron.
Speaker 2: Haircut wise, and I've got this shoulder length just horrid
Speaker 2: looking Raddy hair. It's not in Dreads at the time,
Speaker 2: but it's shoulder lengthy earrings in I've got these gaudy
Speaker 2: white sonnies and yeah, it's good.
Speaker 4: It's a good contrast of.
Speaker 1: Probably fake Oakley's. Remember those fake oakleues.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Nice.
Speaker 1: You got to unearth some of these for the episode.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to use your like proper fancy headshots.
Speaker 1: They're going to be all old, cringe worthy photos just
Speaker 1: for the dad. Second last question, which I think you
Speaker 1: should answer for each other, what are the most weird
Speaker 1: quirky things about you that don't normally come up in
Speaker 1: conversation and that you didn't let slip in the book?
Speaker 3: They're more embarrassing.
Speaker 4: The better tread lightly here.
Speaker 2: There's probably embarrassing stuff from our youth that probably doesn't
Speaker 2: need to be dredged.
Speaker 3: Up, or it absolutely does.
Speaker 1: This is the best part of the whole episode, the
Speaker 1: random ship that comes out when you just dig a
Speaker 1: little deeper.
Speaker 2: I think Dan's his story ends well, but I think
Speaker 2: Dan's love life, the ploduc of his love life, has
Speaker 2: been quite interesting, as fully declare. It started off with
Speaker 2: me looking very jealously at the fact that that A,
Speaker 2: I think you jumped before you got expelled, but you
Speaker 2: basically left under a bit of a cloud from our boys'
Speaker 2: school and went to a co ed school and discovered
Speaker 2: that you had a bit of game and tore it
Speaker 2: up ahead of you and still hopeless and so yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's paradoxical, Sarah, because this was the role blading phase.
Speaker 2: It seems that you were getting a lot of girlfriends
Speaker 2: while you were dreadlocked roller blading through something in that.
Speaker 2: I think the French get a lot of girlfriends too.
Speaker 2: There's a there's a connection there French.
Speaker 3: And sensitive new age guy. That's what we all want.
Speaker 2: When immediately they're Sarah to a shoplifting incident when we
Speaker 2: were in our.
Speaker 4: Teens, And.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've forgotten up.
Speaker 2: At Ben's wedding, actually I reckon just his early forays
Speaker 2: into clandestine operations that.
Speaker 5: Were not showing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was specially school more than special ops. And yes,
Speaker 2: so there was I think it may have been a
Speaker 2: contest if I'm remembering this correctly.
Speaker 4: Ben Ben had to mate his age.
Speaker 2: I had to mate this mate's brother was was my agent,
Speaker 2: and we'd gone in to see what we could liberate
Speaker 2: from this shop. And anyway, well, I think the only
Speaker 2: reason me and my mate didn't get busted is because
Speaker 2: Ben and his mate were just so overt and had
Speaker 2: caught the attention of the store detective first. And from
Speaker 2: a memory, you got busted with a dozen golf balls,
Speaker 2: a Gumby doll and maybe distraates brothers something along those lines.
Speaker 5: I would like.
Speaker 2: It to have been brothers in arms, because at least
Speaker 2: that it gives some credibility.
Speaker 5: No, it was a dozen golf balls and a company.
Speaker 5: So two things I love. What are you doing with
Speaker 5: a dozen golf called? I didn't play golf.
Speaker 2: And these are stupid things to steal. And the second
Speaker 2: thing is they're really all good.
Speaker 5: Things to steal.
Speaker 2: Like a dozen golf was in a box and this
Speaker 2: is two foot Gumby doll.
Speaker 4: This so the cops, the cops were involved. He's busted
Speaker 4: that the parents have got to be involved. So the
Speaker 4: next step here to now let's you know, why not
Speaker 4: double down. So Ben had a bike which was our
Speaker 4: old man's old bike that he inherited and being done up,
Speaker 4: he'd get ridden to the shops.
Speaker 2: So they to justify this theft, they make up this
Speaker 2: cover story that they'd gone out to get their bikes
Speaker 2: before all the shoplifting had occurred. Someone had their bike
Speaker 2: and said, mate, you are going to go in and
Speaker 2: steal me some stuff otherwise not getting your bike back,
Speaker 2: and so this was the cover story.
Speaker 4: Get down the cops station.
Speaker 2: But the two of them get split up and your
Speaker 2: mate things like a canary. If I'm remating, I think
Speaker 2: I think he had not done resistance to interrogation, or
Speaker 2: maybe neither of you had those skills at the time.
Speaker 2: And and there was different stories that came came apart.
Speaker 4: It was that, but no, let me finish.
Speaker 2: You had aitch good bike in the local lake to
Speaker 2: get rid of it, and so the story.
Speaker 4: Went, you're not mean to blog.
Speaker 2: These things had been busted, had come back out, bike
Speaker 2: was gone, so need to get rid of bike. You
Speaker 2: threw the bike in the bloody lake and then went
Speaker 2: home and ran the story on the oldies brilliant.
Speaker 5: Because the album was so much tied. We wanted to
Speaker 5: commit to Yeah, it was ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Committed so committed a lot.
Speaker 5: It's funny.
Speaker 2: I think we both broke we had the breaking strength
Speaker 2: under interrogation.
Speaker 1: You only got busted because you tried to play your
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin music as you walked into the store behind you,
Speaker 1: like big explosion.
Speaker 2: It was thought experiment called the prisoner's dilemma, where you know,
Speaker 2: like you know the story, you know if you both admit,
Speaker 2: you get something if you're out on your mate.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I think we lived that prisoner's dilemma. We
Speaker 5: both went straight to write on your mate.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to be good at interrogation or
Speaker 1: your story or captivity or alibis or anything to be
Speaker 1: a special operations guy.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 4: Needn't hope is out there. Don't give up hope you
Speaker 4: could end up.
Speaker 3: Very last question, guys, what is your favorite quote?
Speaker 2: I got to go with It's not the Critical Accounts,
Speaker 2: so being the first line of the Theodore Roosevelt. I
Speaker 2: know it's it's been done to death, but that just
Speaker 2: really has resonated.
Speaker 4: With me, particularly for my adult life, just that trying to.
Speaker 2: Let go of that external perspective and like you said before, Sarah,
Speaker 2: just you know, owning it, going with it, doing what
Speaker 2: makes you feel happy. But you know you mentioned Harry
Speaker 2: loves the cave dive and people don't get that that's
Speaker 2: a weird thing to do. I don't get that, but
Speaker 2: I get Harry. He's a magic human being and he's
Speaker 2: just owned it. And like you said, that put him
Speaker 2: on the front page of national international newspapers. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that letting go of criticism and just doing what you
Speaker 2: truly believe in is aligned with your values and what
Speaker 2: you feel is going to make you happy, and not
Speaker 2: listening to the critics, I think is probably for me.
Speaker 4: That's the number one.
Speaker 3: That's such a good one for me.
Speaker 5: I mean, we spoke about it all throughout this episode.
Speaker 5: That always a look further.
Speaker 2: I mean it comes from that Flecker poem which the
Speaker 2: scene is a caravan of merchants heading in Biblical times
Speaker 2: on this treacherous journey, and the master of the caravans
Speaker 2: asking each of the merchants, you know, the spice merchants
Speaker 2: and the jeweler and the person with the rug and
Speaker 2: the embroideries, you know, how are you going? And what
Speaker 2: have you got to take to this destination? Samacant And
Speaker 2: it comes to this group of ragtag people and he goes,
Speaker 2: who are you in rags? And rotten shoes, you dirty
Speaker 2: bed and blocking up the way, and they respond, we
Speaker 2: are the pilgrim's master. We shall go always a little further,
Speaker 2: and that is inscribed on the Clocktawer of the British
Speaker 2: Essays Regiment, alongside the names of all their units fallen.
Speaker 2: So it's really powerful for people within the Special Operations
Speaker 2: community and has become, like I said, a mantra for
Speaker 2: me personally, and I think, a wonderful way to sort
Speaker 2: of encapsulate the kind of secret to what we're preaching
Speaker 2: in resilience. It's nothing big, it's nothing flashy. It is
Speaker 2: exactly as you said, Sarah, just that one step in
Speaker 2: front of the other towards a worthy destination.
Speaker 3: Oh well, what a perfect way to end.
Speaker 1: I feel like you've passed that on to now Vimi
Speaker 1: mantra and hopefully many many people who have sold out
Speaker 1: the book, and also hopefully our reprint is very quickly
Speaker 1: on its way so that more people can start to
Speaker 1: build their own resilient shield. Thank you so so much
Speaker 1: for joining guys, and I'll pop a link in the
Speaker 1: show notes.
Speaker 4: Absolute pleasure.
Speaker 5: Awesome, Thank you, Sarah's being great to chat.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't conveyed clearly enough in this episode. I'll
Speaker 1: reiterate now that I took so much out of Resilient Shield,
Speaker 1: particularly as Lockdown continues to drag on, and hope that
Speaker 1: some of you get yourselves at copy too. I'll pop
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes to wherever there are
Speaker 1: still copies available at the time of releasing this episode,
Speaker 1: along with links to Dan.
Speaker 3: And Ben's socials in case you want to know more.
Speaker 1: Very big thank you to our former guest fellow ex
Speaker 1: sas soldier turned NBA graduate and dear friend Mark Wales,
Speaker 1: who introduced me to the Pronk Brothers for the show.
Speaker 1: I'm continually blown away by the platform this yighborhood has
Speaker 1: created for me to discover and meet new and fascinating
Speaker 1: people every week. I sometimes feel like these chats give
Speaker 1: us a little taste of exploring the world and meeting
Speaker 1: new people from the comfort of our own homes while
Speaker 1: we can't go out and do it in person. So
Speaker 1: I really do hope some of you enjoy that escapism too.
Speaker 3: I hope you're having
Speaker 1: A wonderful week and definding ways to seize your ya