Speaker 1: Hallo, beautiful yighborhood. Hope you're having a great start to
Speaker 1: the week. I mentioned last week that I'd realized since
Speaker 1: a lot of us have been in lockdown, I thought
Speaker 1: we would have more time to listen to podcasts, but
Speaker 1: without the daily commute to and from work, I had
Speaker 1: had less time to listen to podcasts and realized that
Speaker 1: might have been the case for some of you. So
Speaker 1: while I initially got cracking and started delivering two episodes
Speaker 1: a weekly this year that I thought, suddenly, I realized,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I might have been bombarding you guys
Speaker 1: and had noticed some of you were taking longer to
Speaker 1: catch up, so that I announced that I was going
Speaker 1: to take a couple of weeks of just re releasing
Speaker 1: episodes for Yays of our Lives, so there'd only be
Speaker 1: one new episode per week. But I also asked you
Speaker 1: all to let me know if I was desperately wrong,
Speaker 1: and quite a few of you sent me messages saying
Speaker 1: that twice a week has been lovely and a really
Speaker 1: nice distraction during some really challenging times. So I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that I was wrong. For those people who think that
Speaker 1: I was right and who are having trouble catching up.
Speaker 1: We should have messaged me, because now the voices have
Speaker 1: been louder and have won. I will release a re
Speaker 1: release one more episode today, but then return to the
Speaker 1: normal schedule from the next episode. I was going to
Speaker 1: take a couple of weeks of just doing re releases,
Speaker 1: but I will have a fresh one for you on Thursday.
Speaker 1: But for now, I've got one more re release for you,
Speaker 1: which has been one of the episodes that's brought me
Speaker 1: the most eya this year. I've actually listened to it
Speaker 1: quite a few times just for my own personal reasons,
Speaker 1: because our guest is just an extraordinary human being who
Speaker 1: brings so much lightness but also covers such serious issues
Speaker 1: so well. I mean, I've already obviously you'll rehear the
Speaker 1: intro again, so I don't really need to ramble on here.
Speaker 1: But a couple of you shared the episode last week,
Speaker 1: which reminded me that it had been such an impactful
Speaker 1: episode for so many of you, and that if anyone
Speaker 1: had missed out on it, it would be a great
Speaker 1: time to catch up. So re releasing that one today
Speaker 1: and then back to the normal schedule, and hopefully there
Speaker 1: might be a few other reshares in the coming months
Speaker 1: or weeks, but generally only if a guest drops out,
Speaker 1: or if it just is yeah, if the schedule gets
Speaker 1: too tight off for whatever reason. Otherwise you'll have two
Speaker 1: episodes a week. Hope you're having a wonderful week and
Speaker 1: seizing your yay.
Speaker 2: Happiness can only really come from within, and we're not
Speaker 2: going within to find happiness because I think a lot
Speaker 2: of us are a shit scared of what we're going
Speaker 2: to find. You know, if we just stop for a
Speaker 2: little bit. I mean, we're so busy, we can get
Speaker 2: really stuck sometimes in negative emotion and self doubt and
Speaker 2: all the stuff we've talked about, But it is so
Speaker 2: important for him that no feeling is final.
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 who found lives. They adore
Speaker 1: the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day
Speaker 1: will bear all the facets of seizing your Yeay. I'm
Speaker 1: Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned
Speaker 1: funt who swapped the suits and heels to co found
Speaker 1: matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bar. Cca is a series
Speaker 1: of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring
Speaker 1: the self doubt, challenge, joy, and fulfillment along the way.
Speaker 1: While it does happen a few times in every episode,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can sometimes hear when I've forgotten that
Speaker 1: we're recording for the entirety of a chat because I'm
Speaker 1: enjoying our guests so much. You've had a sneak preview
Speaker 1: of how much I admire Hugh van Kylenberg in The
Speaker 1: Yeas of Our Lives a few weeks ago, when Abby,
Speaker 1: Jelmy and I bondered over how obsessed we are with
Speaker 1: his wit and wisdom, and this episode took that obsession
Speaker 1: to another level. Hugh strikes the most beautiful balance between
Speaker 1: endearingly self deprecating and calmly authoritative, navigating effortlessly between hysterical
Speaker 1: laughter and deep exploration of mental health and personal tragedy.
Speaker 1: His family's journey with mental illness is both heart wrenching
Speaker 1: and heartwarming, and what he has turned that experience into
Speaker 1: the Resilience Project is changing the world for the better,
Speaker 1: from classrooms to AFL clubs to wherever you're listening right now.
Speaker 1: Through presentations, school curriculum events, and his thought provoking book
Speaker 1: with a second coming very soon. Hugh uses humor, vulnerability,
Speaker 1: and storytelling to support the mental health of Australians through
Speaker 1: the pillars of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness. With cricket references,
Speaker 1: puns and relatable stories of plenty, he is changing the
Speaker 1: way we talk about resilience and wellbeing and is quickly
Speaker 1: becoming one of my very favorite people in the world.
Speaker 1: Like all our guests, Hugh didn't wake up one day
Speaker 1: with the clarity of purpose that he has right now
Speaker 1: and takes us through all the dots that didn't connect
Speaker 1: until he looked back years later with hindsight. From professional
Speaker 1: cricket to school teaching and laying gas pipes before traveling
Speaker 1: to India for love. Everything about this man is fascinating
Speaker 1: and I couldn't be more excited to share his passion
Speaker 1: and energy with you all. I hope you enjoy and
Speaker 1: laugh as much as I did.
Speaker 2: Sure as I didn't do my head, I don't think
Speaker 2: it matters, but it's all over.
Speaker 1: I love it. You are the most endearingly self deprecating human.
Speaker 1: I've read your book so many times now, but every
Speaker 1: time I read it, I have such a kut chuckle
Speaker 1: about how when you first went out teaching and had
Speaker 1: a class of grade five girls, the first question you
Speaker 1: got was why your eyes so googly? They're not even
Speaker 1: that googling, but it makes me laugh.
Speaker 2: So the best thing was, like all the girls. Now
Speaker 2: the girls are like, oh, don't say that, they'll look
Speaker 2: like going. That is a very good question. I also
Speaker 2: like to t hear the answer.
Speaker 1: Well, normally I would kick off now by asking what
Speaker 1: the most down to earth thing is about you, which
Speaker 1: is even more interesting for people like yourself, whose name
Speaker 1: and work with the Resilience Project many of us have
Speaker 1: heard of, giving you not just a glossy social media profile,
Speaker 1: but one associated with incredible altruism and mindfulness. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're definitely on a pedestal in my books. So I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily expect you to be so down to earth,
Speaker 1: but you are, and that's what makes your writing so impactful.
Speaker 1: You can just deal with such heavy topics in such
Speaker 1: a light and hilarious way.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, for that. That's a very that's a
Speaker 2: very nice thing to say. I hope, Sarah, I hope that.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have lots of famous people on your podcast.
Speaker 2: I definitely don't think I'm a famous or well known person.
Speaker 2: So I hope that absolutely everything about me is down
Speaker 2: to earth like everything. But I'll tell some things that
Speaker 2: are not down to earth about me. There are a
Speaker 2: couple of things that are not. I know this is
Speaker 2: the opposite of what you're asking, but I do it
Speaker 2: the best because I'm doing it because I feel. I
Speaker 2: hope that absolutely everything about me is down to earth.
Speaker 2: I hope every interaction people having me is very down
Speaker 2: to earth. However, and I'm going to sound like a
Speaker 2: bit of a flog from Melbourne here, but when I
Speaker 2: get my coffee every morning, I really need it. My
Speaker 2: order is a strong lat a three quarters full, and
Speaker 2: if it's not three quarters, I get really upset, Like
Speaker 2: I just it is extraordinary how often it's like four
Speaker 2: fifths or like stop it, yeah, it's like fifty five percent.
Speaker 2: It's not I just go looking and go that's clearly
Speaker 2: not three quarters, Like you must know it's not three quarters,
Speaker 2: and I get really upset. I'm not quite the person
Speaker 2: who can excuse me if you do this again. It's
Speaker 2: not three quarters, but I get really upset about it.
Speaker 2: So that's one thing that's very much just not down
Speaker 2: to earth about me.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: So there's one. Here's another one for it. And I
Speaker 2: only realized this morning because I was thinking about this
Speaker 2: is looking through some of your questions. But when I
Speaker 2: go to a cafe, I really like to be sitting
Speaker 2: up against the wall so I can see everything. If
Speaker 2: that's not down to it, I can't have my back
Speaker 2: to the play. I need to know who's coming him,
Speaker 2: where people are coming from, what's going on. And if
Speaker 2: I can't, if I can't get a seat in my
Speaker 2: back to the wall, I'll go and find somewhere else.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a bit that's not down to
Speaker 2: earth at all.
Speaker 1: You're such a diva. Who knews you're basically Mariah Carey.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a funny story. This is not really
Speaker 2: answering your question, but I just thought of it the
Speaker 2: place I get coffee from, and I thought of him
Speaker 2: because they always know my three quarters, always like they're amazing.
Speaker 2: It's in Collingwood in Melbourne, in a it called Sackville
Speaker 2: Street and I go there every morning. They're meticulous with
Speaker 2: their like anyway it's called a coffee or a coffee.
Speaker 2: It's like one word and then coffee. I've never known
Speaker 2: how I meant to say it. This guy, this guy
Speaker 2: the other day was messaging me because we wanted to
Speaker 2: He wanted to catch up about something. I was like,
Speaker 2: can know as we can do that. I said, I
Speaker 2: will catch up the coffee. He goes, yes, sounds good.
Speaker 2: And he said where should we go? And I said
Speaker 2: we'll go to a coffee and he goes, yeah, mate,
Speaker 2: totally on board the coffee idea.
Speaker 1: I've already agreed to the coffee. Let's move on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's like, yeah, I'm mate, totally on board. Where
Speaker 2: And I said a coffee. He goes, okay, I'm made.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to drink coffee. You. I just need
Speaker 2: to know where. And I was like, oh, yeah, the
Speaker 2: place is called a coffee.
Speaker 1: That's such a dad joke, me saying, so I've got
Speaker 1: this guy in the podcast today. Oh who who? No,
Speaker 1: Hugh who?
Speaker 2: It's when you order? When I order like takeaway food,
Speaker 2: I just say my son's name or on my wife's names.
Speaker 2: I can't. He is just impossible anyway.
Speaker 1: It's not even that unusual. I love that you're like
Speaker 1: the human embodiment of resilience. But these two things in
Speaker 1: life just absolutely make you crumble. And one is just
Speaker 1: a pure fraction math problem, like four fifths is very
Speaker 1: close to three quarters. But you're just like I cannot no.
Speaker 1: I cannot too.
Speaker 2: Much milkdaugh too much milk. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you even can notice the difference between
Speaker 1: three quarters and four fifths in a coffee cup. But
Speaker 1: I can see you're just like, you know what, gratitude empathy,
Speaker 1: But like, fuck that. If my coffee is not right,
Speaker 1: I swear to God.
Speaker 2: There will be no gratitude your lot.
Speaker 1: There, and there will be no empathy. I mean, the
Speaker 1: fractions are clear, they're clear, Use a ruler, sort it
Speaker 1: out the.
Speaker 2: Amount of times exactly, humantotie. I put in my order
Speaker 2: and I look at the person going, I know you're
Speaker 2: not gonna get this right. I just know like you're
Speaker 2: not listening. You haven't listened to the strong bit, you
Speaker 2: haven't listened to three quarter, whatever it is. I just
Speaker 2: I just know this is not going to come out
Speaker 2: to one. But I'm meant to be the guy who's
Speaker 2: like empathetic and I'm not when it comes to coffee.
Speaker 1: Well that's fair enough. I mean I love that, I
Speaker 1: love that you just own it. You're like, look, I'm
Speaker 1: incredibly resilient for all things except the fractions of my coffee.
Speaker 1: You got to know yourself, You got to know what
Speaker 1: makes you yay and well as you know, the first
Speaker 1: section of every podcast is your Way to, which is
Speaker 1: early trace back through all the chapters before the one
Speaker 1: that we often walk into in your life today, where
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's so easy to assume that
Speaker 1: you always had as much direction and purpose and clarity
Speaker 1: as you do now, But most of the time that's
Speaker 1: not the case. We all came from somewhere, through many
Speaker 1: different twists and diversions, and you have the most fascinating story,
Speaker 1: I mean, a cricket career to a bachelor of education
Speaker 1: to India, like so many different dots that connect now
Speaker 1: with the inside, but that maybe didn't at the time.
Speaker 1: So take us back to young Hugh Grathorn primary carey
Speaker 1: Baptist grammar. What were you like at school and how
Speaker 1: did you you know, enter into your first career aspirations
Speaker 1: as a cricketer, I.
Speaker 2: Can say, because you're a lawyer, weren't you? Was that right? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's so like you're so articulate and so well researched.
Speaker 2: It's like it's you can put on this whole fu
Speaker 2: entrepreneur act. But I can see that, I can hear
Speaker 2: the lawyer like articulate research points exactly. So yeah, it's
Speaker 2: funny that you say that about like joining the dots,
Speaker 2: because it's so true. A lot of people like would
Speaker 2: say to me, oh, like you've managed to get to
Speaker 2: this point in the results project, like has this always
Speaker 2: been your ambition? And I can look back on my
Speaker 2: life and join the dots and go, yeah, that made
Speaker 2: me do that. Then I did that, and that made
Speaker 2: me do that, and because of that, I did that,
Speaker 2: and now we have the results project. But I felt
Speaker 2: very lost for a very long time, like a very
Speaker 2: long time. I gosh, as a primary school kid, I
Speaker 2: was incredibly shy, like painfully shy, and dreaded situations where
Speaker 2: I was going to be surrounded by people that I
Speaker 2: didn't know too well because I just was like I
Speaker 2: don't know what to say, I don't know how to
Speaker 2: talk to people.
Speaker 1: I'm Google. I mean, what am I going to do
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: I've got googly eyes.
Speaker 1: Like Hugh even am I? I mean, who am I
Speaker 1: very good?
Speaker 2: You're very good with this? Punch must be very popular
Speaker 2: with dads because like dad's love a good pun, and
Speaker 2: this is littered with punts.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean's just it's just endless.
Speaker 2: So yeah, primaries will get very shy. I love sports
Speaker 2: so much, and if it wasn't for sport, I don't
Speaker 2: know how it would have made my way through it.
Speaker 2: That was kind of what I got confidence from in
Speaker 2: primary school. I can't remember. I don't think I wrote
Speaker 2: about it in this book. I'm writing another book at
Speaker 2: the moment, and I think that's rather recently. But I
Speaker 2: actually remember that when I was in grade three, we
Speaker 2: were playing Tiggy. We went into the toilets to hide
Speaker 2: me and some other kids and we're hiding likest of
Speaker 2: just giggling. I saw myself in the mirror, and I remember,
Speaker 2: I actually remember this is so we had a moment
Speaker 2: of going, oh, I didn't think I looked like that.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm just so disappointed with a while
Speaker 2: look that was it. Nine. I was like, oh, damn,
Speaker 2: I wish I was like I thought I looked more
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Of shock to see them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, ah, that's not what I wanted
Speaker 2: to look like. And I was disappointed. And so I
Speaker 2: did tell you that story. Not so people go, oh,
Speaker 2: the poor guy. I just remember feeling like, ah, I
Speaker 2: don't think I'm like I think I'm a very good
Speaker 2: looking person, and I'm also very shireale. So that's not
Speaker 2: a great combo like so, but I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people go through that, like insecurities. We all have
Speaker 2: insecurities that we feel from a young age. Now were
Speaker 2: my insecurities like I'm pretty shy and also I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm a very good looking person. Also I had
Speaker 2: a beauty. I also had a beauty. My my sisters stunning,
Speaker 2: and my brother's just the most beautiful man on the earth.
Speaker 2: So I think that was like glaring, like a big
Speaker 2: thing for me was like I don't look like and
Speaker 2: I remember I actually remember Mum saying once and I
Speaker 2: love Mom, She's amazing and she meant this in a
Speaker 2: nice way. But I remember Mum saying, oh, sorry, darling.
Speaker 2: We just got better as we went along, didn't we
Speaker 2: Because they were like the young.
Speaker 1: So the Resilience project came from that statement, like that
Speaker 1: was the beginning of it all. I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to grow a thick skin from.
Speaker 2: Now to totally. But the point of that is just
Speaker 2: that I remember at primary school like shy, but at
Speaker 2: sport was I was like, I love my sport. Went
Speaker 2: to secondary school very much. I love going to secondary school.
Speaker 2: After about year nine when I was a bit more
Speaker 2: comfortable but found my voice and loved sports still and
Speaker 2: schools loved it, and I was I saw myself. I
Speaker 2: see a psychologist quite regularly and she said to me
Speaker 2: the other day, she said, you were built. You were
Speaker 2: designed for secondary school. Like absolutely love social situations, very
Speaker 2: good at sport. And that for me was like, you know,
Speaker 2: captain everything at the final year of school and having
Speaker 2: a school all this, like did all this stuff that
Speaker 2: I and then I and this is the I'm not
Speaker 2: saying not to show off. But then then I finished
Speaker 2: school and I went to UNI, and I was so lost,
Speaker 2: like I was just desperate for recognition, desperate for achievement.
Speaker 2: I couldn't achieve anything because there's no people don't sew
Speaker 2: something into your blazer for doing well at.
Speaker 1: UNI a certificate of participation for everything.
Speaker 2: To you do well at UNI, and like I remember it,
Speaker 2: I was doing studying Psycho you straight out of school
Speaker 2: and getting like an assignment back. I did really well,
Speaker 2: and the teacher didn't even like eye contact with me,
Speaker 2: just like dumped it on my desk and didn't say
Speaker 2: like well done, that was awesome, just dropped and I
Speaker 2: was like, hello, is something to say well done? Like
Speaker 2: no one was patting me on the back ever, And
Speaker 2: I just felt very lost outside of school. And I'm
Speaker 2: just saying this because a lot of people, I think,
Speaker 2: look at the Resilience projeck and go wow, like gosh,
Speaker 2: that's such a big thing now. But for a long time,
Speaker 2: I had no idea what I want to do. I
Speaker 2: remember feeling very lonely as well. I'd broken up with
Speaker 2: my girlfriend from school, who was she was just awesome,
Speaker 2: loved her. Were a very new classic high school romance,
Speaker 2: likely together for a couple of years. It was like
Speaker 2: so in love. She ended up breaking with me. Breaking
Speaker 2: up with me, she went to college and was very
Speaker 2: popular with everyone at college, and I remember going, oh,
Speaker 2: hopefully we could get back together. And then she started
Speaker 2: dating an AFL footballer, and I was.
Speaker 1: Like, oh my gosh, it's all over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all over. She was dating Jeff White, who
Speaker 2: played for Melbourne Football Club. This is going back a
Speaker 2: long time. But I was like, oh my gosh, how
Speaker 2: well there goes? Anyway? So I just felt so down
Speaker 2: and so lost, And when played cricket in England for
Speaker 2: a bit and loved that, came back to do primary
Speaker 2: school teaching. It wasn't until I started doing primary school
Speaker 2: teaching that I felt like I started to belong somewhere again.
Speaker 2: But even that, like we all have psychological needs, right,
Speaker 2: We haven't need to feel loved to feel like we
Speaker 2: belong for status and for validation. There are psychological needs.
Speaker 2: Like we know about our physical needs food, water, shelter.
Speaker 2: If I took those away from you wouldn't live too long,
Speaker 2: and our psychological needs are just as pressing. So when
Speaker 2: I look back on my life, I realized when I
Speaker 2: left school, I didn't feel like I was getting many
Speaker 2: of those, like I'd lost my long term girlfriend, so
Speaker 2: I didn't feel very loved. I was not being told
Speaker 2: every day at school I was amazing at sport and
Speaker 2: popular blah blah blah. And then I shouldn't feel like
Speaker 2: I belonged anywhere, and so I kind of belonged. Is
Speaker 2: that a word I belonged?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: It is. Thank you? Yep, good?
Speaker 1: Are you okay? Mate? Struggle? No, I love it so much.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think I felt very lost for a
Speaker 2: long time. And it wasn't until I was I think
Speaker 2: I was when I started teaching in a school. I
Speaker 2: felt really good again. It was great, but I just
Speaker 2: had this feeling inside of me like I would love
Speaker 2: to do more than this. I don't know what, but
Speaker 2: I feel like i'd love to and I had no
Speaker 2: idea what it was. So it wasn't This is age
Speaker 2: twenty seven, twenty eight, and I wasn't thinking I'd love
Speaker 2: to start this movement where we help people to feel happier.
Speaker 2: It was just I went to India because my ex
Speaker 2: fiance wanted to go there. We'd been together for about
Speaker 2: five years I think at that point, and she said
Speaker 2: I'd love to go and travel, and I said, I'd
Speaker 2: much rather stay in Melbourne because my friends are here
Speaker 2: and I like playing football in the winter and cricket
Speaker 2: in the summer. So I don't really know. There's no
Speaker 2: time I can really go sorry, And I became apparent
Speaker 2: that she was going definitely, and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: lose her, so I went, yep, Okay, I'm coming. And
Speaker 2: didn't really want to go to India, but her father's Indian,
Speaker 2: so she wanted to go there. So we went there,
Speaker 2: and then a few weeks in she kind of said,
Speaker 2: I think we should do some volunteer teaching, and I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know about that, but we'd ended
Speaker 2: up doing it, and I'm so iowed so much for this,
Speaker 2: but we ended up in this village of people where
Speaker 2: like I had nothing like and you've read about this
Speaker 2: in the book, and I won't go into for too
Speaker 2: long because most people probably know the story. But people
Speaker 2: sleeping on the floor, people you know, know electricity or
Speaker 2: I had electricity, I couldn't afford to have it switched on,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, And yet they were the
Speaker 2: happiest people I've ever met in my entire life. And
Speaker 2: the whole time I was there, I just couldn't stop
Speaker 2: thinking about my little sister, Georgia, who was diagnosed with
Speaker 2: a mental illness age fourteen and are EXI and Nevosa
Speaker 2: body image issues. She stopped eating and it ravaged her
Speaker 2: and it ravaged our family. And when I was in India,
Speaker 2: I was remembering as a kid, when I was so
Speaker 2: much as a kid, like late teens, I remember thinking
Speaker 2: to myself, I wish I knew what I could do
Speaker 2: to help mom and dad and my brother feel happy again.
Speaker 2: Like I knew my sister's mental illness was way beyond me.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to do to help her, but
Speaker 2: I remember thinking I wish I knew what I could
Speaker 2: do to help mom and dad feel happy. And when
Speaker 2: I was in India, like literally ten years later, my
Speaker 2: sisters still you wouldn't say she was totally healthy. At
Speaker 2: that point, I was there just thinking, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: like there's something here, like these people are onto something.
Speaker 2: They are onto something. And also I think we do
Speaker 2: a bit wrong back home. I think we're doing a
Speaker 2: little bit wrong back home. And so I guess that's
Speaker 2: where the resulience projects started. I lived there for three months,
Speaker 2: did everything these people were doing. Came back to Australia
Speaker 2: and I was like, right, I would love to share
Speaker 2: with everyone what these people do because we're doing so
Speaker 2: much wrong.
Speaker 1: I had a very similar I actually have been to
Speaker 1: that Laylor Dark region one's I know, and we were
Speaker 1: guided and I wonder I will have to show you
Speaker 1: a photo later by a guy called stans In. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I'm not sure if it could possibly be
Speaker 1: the same stands in, but I mean quite a few
Speaker 1: of them, yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, a lot of I feel like most of the
Speaker 2: people there were called Stands.
Speaker 1: There's probably not the same one. It's probably like John
Speaker 1: or something really common.
Speaker 2: I think I think that's the case. But even more like,
Speaker 2: quite seriously, in the school, I felt like most of
Speaker 2: the kids, majority of them were called Stanson.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well that's really inconvenient then for our beautiful.
Speaker 2: Story. But still that's amazing. I don't think i've ever
Speaker 2: turned to someone who's been to Laila Dark. What an
Speaker 2: amazing place.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely mind blowing, and that trip combined with
Speaker 1: I had a very similar revelation to you there and
Speaker 1: then a couple of years later in rural Rwanda of
Speaker 1: all places, expecting to feel this incredible sense of gratitude
Speaker 1: for and of course that's one level. You have incredible
Speaker 1: gratitude for all the opportunities and technology and access we
Speaker 1: have to education, and then all kinds of privileges. But
Speaker 1: I had that same kind of reverse unexpected revelation of like,
Speaker 1: why is there purer happiness here with kids playing with
Speaker 1: a leaf for twelve hours and adults breaking into songs
Speaker 1: spontaneously because they can't contain the joy and their bodies,
Speaker 1: But they don't have any of what I understood happiness
Speaker 1: to be, which was success and progress and all those
Speaker 1: kinds of things. And it's interesting you worded this in
Speaker 1: the book as you saw the secret to happiness, And
Speaker 1: I felt exactly the same way that the secret to
Speaker 1: happiness was not to attach it to all the things
Speaker 1: that we think back home it's attached to, but to
Speaker 1: not have it attached to an and for it to
Speaker 1: just be in mindfulness and enjoying each other's company and
Speaker 1: the very very simple things. Yeah, it's almost like having
Speaker 1: less you can be happier.
Speaker 2: It's strange, it's very true. I think we've become so
Speaker 2: distracted with feeling like we need more of something in
Speaker 2: order to be happy, Like we need to be earning
Speaker 2: more money, and when we earn that amount of money,
Speaker 2: then we'll feel happier. Then we can buy that car,
Speaker 2: then we'll feel happier. If I could buy this house
Speaker 2: and live in a suburb like this, then I feel
Speaker 2: if I get there's many social media followers, and I
Speaker 2: feel happy. Whatever it is, there's nothing wrong with all
Speaker 2: those things, like they're all perfectly healthy things to aspire towards.
Speaker 2: But I think the problem is we attach happiness to them.
Speaker 2: But happiness can only really come from within, and we're
Speaker 2: not going within to find happiness because I think a
Speaker 2: lot of us are a shit scared of what we're
Speaker 2: going to find, you know, if we just stop for
Speaker 2: a little bit. I mean we're so busy, like you
Speaker 2: look at your calendar, We oh, there's a spare out there,
Speaker 2: I'll do this here, I'll do this here. It's almost
Speaker 2: like we just don't want to be alone, like we're
Speaker 2: worried about and then when we are alone, we just
Speaker 2: grab our phone out straight away and we just get
Speaker 2: lost in our phones. And I think there's so many
Speaker 2: problems in that, and devices are causing some issues for us.
Speaker 2: But I just think we've got to get better at
Speaker 2: just I mean, the things I saw in this village,
Speaker 2: would you already know about? These people were so good
Speaker 2: at just focusing on what they did have, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't much. But my gosh, they just celebrated like the
Speaker 2: things out of the river, like they can get water
Speaker 2: from They had a whole day. We went down the
Speaker 2: river for a whole day. It was one of my
Speaker 2: first days there, and I was like, they said, we're
Speaker 2: going on an excursion to the river. I don't know
Speaker 2: what are we doing there? They said, what do you mean,
Speaker 2: what do we What do you mean we're going through river? Yeah,
Speaker 2: but like what are the activities? What activities are we're doing?
Speaker 2: They what do you mean by we're just going to
Speaker 2: go there? And they weren't joking. They went there for
Speaker 2: the entire day. And I said, so what's the I said, Oh,
Speaker 2: we're just celebrating this, like this is we get our
Speaker 2: water from here. We're so lucky. I was thinking, God,
Speaker 2: what would the equivalent be in Australia, Like would that
Speaker 2: be like if we had a day were order celebrated
Speaker 2: taps like we stopped it just like how good is
Speaker 2: that we've got taps? But I reckon we should like
Speaker 2: how lucky are we to have holes in the wall
Speaker 2: where water comes out at the exact temperature we want
Speaker 2: it as much as we want, Like that's amazing, Like
Speaker 2: if you're in a situation where you have water that
Speaker 2: comes out of your walls and you can choose the temperature.
Speaker 2: Two thirds of the world's population two thirds or a
Speaker 2: third anyway, a lot of people around the world don't
Speaker 2: have that. Like the fact that you do it, you're
Speaker 2: very lucky. But we only notice that when the hot
Speaker 2: water's not working. That's the only time we go. O
Speaker 2: fox sake, you're kidding me, he said, we should be going.
Speaker 2: I like him. I right, this has happened once in
Speaker 2: a year. Once in a year, I haven't got hot water.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Some people never ever get hot water. So
Speaker 2: I think some people say yeah, But these people living
Speaker 2: in countries like that, they don't know what they don't have,
Speaker 2: so that's why it's easy for them. I mean, the
Speaker 2: story I tell in the book is that the kids
Speaker 2: at the first lunchtime said, sir, come see the playground,
Speaker 2: and I said, love to see a playground. They pointed
Speaker 2: at this playground. They pointed over their shoulders at the
Speaker 2: swings that were there was like two chains dangling down.
Speaker 2: The seat wasn't attached properly, and I thought they were saying,
Speaker 2: look how bad this is. But when I looked at
Speaker 2: their faces. I realized I was saying, check this out,
Speaker 2: and I was thinking I remember thinking, yeah, but that's
Speaker 2: because I don't know what they don't have. But then
Speaker 2: the local high school, which you probably saw in your travels,
Speaker 2: it's called the tick Say School has beautiful pikerment and
Speaker 2: these kids walk past it every day. It doesn't bother them.
Speaker 2: When they get to their school, they're like, well, this
Speaker 2: is what we've got. How lucky are we? So I
Speaker 2: think the more time we spend focusing on what we've
Speaker 2: got and not worrying about what we don't have, the
Speaker 2: happier it will be.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I love the way that you describe how stunts
Speaker 1: and uses this like you would say this, look at this,
Speaker 1: and every time they'd point at all the things like
Speaker 1: shoes he had, and he was like this, like, look
Speaker 1: at my shoes. And how many people you've since told
Speaker 1: that story to, even like AFL football is now write
Speaker 1: this on their wrist to remind themselves of how lucky
Speaker 1: they are to have the things that they have. And
Speaker 1: it's really really simple, A simple word in like the
Speaker 1: cutest little Laylor Duck accent that brings you back to
Speaker 1: that idea that we are so incredibly lucky and we
Speaker 1: take all those things for granted in the quest for more,
Speaker 1: and I think you put it as the if and
Speaker 1: when kind of approach to it.
Speaker 2: And then if I buy this card, that I feel happy.
Speaker 2: Doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Attach your happiness to those things, and it will always
Speaker 1: be delayed and they'll always be something more. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying kind of the journey and the process, you'll always
Speaker 1: have happiness because they end up delaying it until sort
Speaker 1: of some random sequence of events totally.
Speaker 2: And I just so people don't I'm not saying so
Speaker 2: over on, try and be more like me. I struggle
Speaker 2: with this stuff just as much as the next person.
Speaker 2: Like I've caught myself recently, I've been stuck on Instagram
Speaker 2: looking at like garden design, landscape design, because we're getting
Speaker 2: like we're getting the back guard landscape and I'm looking
Speaker 2: at these different designs, going if we could get that
Speaker 2: done by summer, then summer's going to be awesome because
Speaker 2: I'll be sitting out there in that area. Then I'll
Speaker 2: be doing this and I'm going hanging a minute. You
Speaker 2: talk about this every day, I know what all happen is.
Speaker 2: I'll get the garden done. I'll be sitting out there
Speaker 2: and I look around and go, right, what next if
Speaker 2: we do that. We need to get that, need to
Speaker 2: get the front garden done. When the front gun's done,
Speaker 2: then everything's going to be great. And then we'll do
Speaker 2: that and I'll go right. A really good mate of
Speaker 2: mine has got this beautiful place in the mornings in Peninsula,
Speaker 2: and he's put so much work into it the last
Speaker 2: couple of years and it's amazing. And he sent you
Speaker 2: a message the other day and he said, you must
Speaker 2: be so happy. You sent me a picture of the
Speaker 2: kids having a great time out in the pool and
Speaker 2: said you must be so happy. And he said, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm feel so ashamed. I've gone down the exact path
Speaker 2: you talk about every day. I'm started to look at
Speaker 2: better houses now like I'm now looking at like we
Speaker 2: need more land. This isn't enough land for the kids.
Speaker 2: He said. It's ridiculous. Like if someone has showed me
Speaker 2: a picture of my place ten years ago, I'd go, well,
Speaker 2: I've got it made. I'm set. We're never satisfied.
Speaker 1: And I think it is a really fine line between
Speaker 1: it being okay to aspire to more that not taking
Speaker 1: away from what you have, and it is a really
Speaker 1: subtle difference between those two things. But being aware of
Speaker 1: that difference, I think is the important thing. And another
Speaker 1: thing I love about you and how you tell your
Speaker 1: story in such an endearingly self deprecating way. As I said,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of Mark Manson's kind of abrupt reminder
Speaker 1: in the subtle art of not giving a fuck that
Speaker 1: not all of us are special snowflakes, and not every
Speaker 1: kid should get a trophy for every achievement in school.
Speaker 1: I personally think every child is a special snowflake in
Speaker 1: their own way, and that you know, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with telling them that. But it did make me think
Speaker 1: about how easily others could assume that you were born
Speaker 1: with this special vision and clarity of purpose that you
Speaker 1: knew would positively impact hundreds and thousands of people. But
Speaker 1: it sounds like the young Hu had no idea what
Speaker 1: a special thing you'd end up creating so many chapters
Speaker 1: down the track. So how did it all unravel into
Speaker 1: what the Resilience Project is today?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. There are so many lessons looking back
Speaker 2: now that I feel like a really available for people
Speaker 2: who are wanting to try and create their own whatever
Speaker 2: it is you're try to pursue your purpose or whatever
Speaker 2: it is. But there are so many points to be
Speaker 2: very honest with everyone where I tried to get out
Speaker 2: like but wasn't successful. So like, I think I had
Speaker 2: my greatest passion in life. And there are so many
Speaker 2: things I am not good at. But one of the
Speaker 2: things I've always been okay it is public speaking. I've
Speaker 2: always loved public spaking, like at school, anypportunity to public speaking,
Speaker 2: I just loved it. And I think it's because when
Speaker 2: we're in our darkest moments as a family, we would
Speaker 2: watch mom and dad love Billy Connolly the comedian, and
Speaker 2: they'd put Billy Connelly on and would all watch him.
Speaker 2: And I would see Mum and dad like in tears
Speaker 2: of laughter, which is a very refreshing change from tears
Speaker 2: of pain looking at my sister's mental illness. Right, So
Speaker 2: I would watch Billy Connelly and go, that is the
Speaker 2: way you make my mum and dad happy. And you know,
Speaker 2: we all we also desperately want to make our mum
Speaker 2: and dad happy and to have feel like we have
Speaker 2: the affection of love of our parents. So I became
Speaker 2: very fascinated with that, with speaking in public and how
Speaker 2: that how much joy that can spread. So from a
Speaker 2: young age love that obsessed with that. But then I
Speaker 2: didn't think there are any jobs you could do as
Speaker 2: a public speaker, right Like I thought stand up comedian.
Speaker 2: Now I'm not doing that. That's like I'd love to
Speaker 2: but not quite funny enough. And so I just I
Speaker 2: don't know watch my job would be, but I always
Speaker 2: thought i'd like to do that. I went through teaching
Speaker 2: and had this idea. Came back to Melbourne and a
Speaker 2: friend of mine said, do you want to speak to
Speaker 2: my class about what you did in India? And I said,
Speaker 2: I think'd be pretty boring, but I'm happy to come
Speaker 2: and do it. Went along did this talk. I didn't
Speaker 2: plan it. I just had a few photos to flick
Speaker 2: through and I'll never forget the look on the kids' faces.
Speaker 2: I remember she said they're a pretty full on class,
Speaker 2: so be prepared, and I was saying, that's fine, yea,
Speaker 2: I'm a teacher. There's no hys. But there was no
Speaker 2: classroom management in that hour. It was the kids that
Speaker 2: are captivated. And I got in the car afterwards I
Speaker 2: was like, WHOA I am buzzing from that like that
Speaker 2: was awesome. I remember think I'd love to do that
Speaker 2: every day, but unfortunately that's not a job going around
Speaker 2: and telling that's not a job you can do. So
Speaker 2: I went back to teaching for a couple of years,
Speaker 2: but I put into practice all the principles I've learned
Speaker 2: in India with this group of year twelve kids who
Speaker 2: are a very difficult group of kids to teach, and
Speaker 2: I saw the impact it had on them. A guy
Speaker 2: I knew said I'm starting a business. I'm going to
Speaker 2: inspect to corporates if I would, if you think you've
Speaker 2: got something to about, if you want to come and
Speaker 2: join me, I said, yep, no, rise and that he
Speaker 2: was a wonderful guy. His names Dave. Did it for
Speaker 2: six months, but we had no It just wasn't going
Speaker 2: to work together because I wanted to do schools, he
Speaker 2: was doing corporate. I didn't quite work out. So then
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, now I'm a fish. I joined him,
Speaker 2: but now it's not happening. I don't have a job.
Speaker 2: I'm a fish on my own. I've got to make
Speaker 2: some money. So I called my old school where I went,
Speaker 2: I called this carry Then I called the school that
Speaker 2: I taught at and said, can I come and give
Speaker 2: a talk? It will cost I think I charged like
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars I think for an hour, and I
Speaker 2: remember thinking that's a lot of money. But anyway, hopefully
Speaker 2: that can play that. And I just loved it. It
Speaker 2: went so well. I was like, all right, this is me.
Speaker 2: This is my full time thing now. And then I
Speaker 2: started calling other schools and they were going, sorry, who
Speaker 2: are you? And you? Yeah, so where have you done
Speaker 2: your talks? I said, Carrey and mild and they went, yeah,
Speaker 2: where have you done it? There wasn't your old school
Speaker 2: and where you care it? And I'd go, oh no,
Speaker 2: you'd be the first. And everyone's like, yeah, come back
Speaker 2: in a year, let us know how you go. And
Speaker 2: no one would have me. I think I did like
Speaker 2: a talk a month and I'm down to zero dollars
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh my god, I love this,
Speaker 2: but it's just not going to work. Like it's just not.
Speaker 2: But then every now and again i'd get these little wins,
Speaker 2: like a school. I actually went, can you come and
Speaker 2: do three talks today? For these three yep, No, I's
Speaker 2: done speak about this, and it'd be something I don't
Speaker 2: talk about at all, but i'd go yeap naraws, that's fine,
Speaker 2: I talk about that, and just sort of just said
Speaker 2: yes to everything. I remember one day, driving five hours
Speaker 2: to I had a student session in the morning in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: I had nothing on for like a while, but a
Speaker 2: student session in the morning, and then I had to
Speaker 2: get to Portland by three o'clock in the afterno it
Speaker 2: was a five and a half hour drive. Then I
Speaker 2: had to get back to Melbourne to do a parent
Speaker 2: talk like a thirty nine of us. I was like,
Speaker 2: drove to Portland and back in the day and did
Speaker 2: three sessions, and I just I was like, I cannot
Speaker 2: say no to anything. Just you have to say you
Speaker 2: striving it in. But even then after two years it
Speaker 2: wasn't enough. I also felt quite lonely because it was
Speaker 2: me doing it by myself, Like after a couple of years, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can do this anymore. So
Speaker 2: I actually applied for a couple of jobs. I think
Speaker 2: it was a job at Headspace doing something in their
Speaker 2: school program. I was like, I'll do that, and then
Speaker 2: I didn't get that job, and I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, if I can't get that job like so.
Speaker 2: And then I think there was a job at Cricket Victoria,
Speaker 2: like education manager. I was like, I'll get I'll apply
Speaker 2: for that. I didn't get that job. I was like gosh,
Speaker 2: like no one wants me, Like I don't have a girlfriend.
Speaker 2: I like like, I can't get a job and no
Speaker 2: one will see me speak. I was so lost. But
Speaker 2: here's the thing. Back then, I was not oka vulnerability,
Speaker 2: so I didn't let anyone know. I was like, yeah, fine,
Speaker 2: loving it. Life's awesome, Life's so great. I wish so much.
Speaker 2: At least to my parents, I've been a bit more
Speaker 2: honest and said I feel so lowly at the moment,
Speaker 2: like I'm very single and no one wants to have
Speaker 2: any to do with my program, Like I've just got nothing. Really,
Speaker 2: But I was to mom and dad, I was like, great, yeah,
Speaker 2: so many good things happening, which was yeah, yeah, which
Speaker 2: we all kind of tend to do. But looking back,
Speaker 2: I'd be a lot more open with and a lot
Speaker 2: more self deprecating them more like here that things are flying.
Speaker 2: I've got no work and I don't have a girl friend,
Speaker 2: so it's good, you know, Like if we could take
Speaker 2: the piss out of souls a lot more than we do.
Speaker 2: But then it just slowly started to very slowly started
Speaker 2: to I would go from one talk a month to
Speaker 2: one talk every fortnight, then to a talk a week,
Speaker 2: and then in two thousand and by two thousand was
Speaker 2: in two thy eleven I started up. By twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: I was doing about fifteen talks a week.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I was like, I collapsed at us on a stage
Speaker 2: in two thousand than sixteen, and it was the end
Speaker 2: I'd done. It was my fifth talk for the day,
Speaker 2: seventeenth for the week or something, you know. That was
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I went through two or three
Speaker 2: years of no one wanting to know me. All of
Speaker 2: a sudden everyone wants doing me talk. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to say no to anyone. Want to kept doing this
Speaker 2: like that's proper resilience, you know. And I wasn't really
Speaker 2: looking after myself, but I've sort of jumped ahead a
Speaker 2: little bit in the story. But it just took off,
Speaker 2: like it just from the outside it took off. It
Speaker 2: was a lot of hard work, like a lot of
Speaker 2: hard work, and I think looking back on it, when
Speaker 2: people ask what was the secret to it? I worked
Speaker 2: very hard at something I think I was good at,
Speaker 2: Like I worked very hard at public speaking, something I
Speaker 2: already was quite good at. And so I think, if
Speaker 2: people think I want to do my own thing, have
Speaker 2: a think about what is something you are very very
Speaker 2: good at and does the world need it? Like is
Speaker 2: there a dollar in it as well? Like there's always
Speaker 2: a commercial reality of this stuff. So I felt like, yes,
Speaker 2: there's a need to talk about mental health in a
Speaker 2: very different, refreshing, lighthearted, kind of not all lighthearted, but
Speaker 2: accessible way. And I put my blood, sweat and tears,
Speaker 2: so much tears into this program. But it was something
Speaker 2: I was I think naturally good at, which definitely helps
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: I think there's so much in that, like, particularly when
Speaker 1: I was rereading the book the second time, actually i'd
Speaker 1: forgotten how much of the timeline was way earlier than
Speaker 1: I thought, because you do sort of forget when you're
Speaker 1: describing it like it just took off. But actually, this
Speaker 1: is why I love having these conversations, because it didn't
Speaker 1: really just take off. You had to stick at it
Speaker 1: for a long time and believe. And this is when
Speaker 1: you believe you've got a good idea when people reject it,
Speaker 1: like it takes an enormous amount of resilience to still
Speaker 1: believe that you will find people who will be the
Speaker 1: right people who will believe that it's a good idea.
Speaker 1: And often when you're ahead of the curve in redefining
Speaker 1: a way of thinking or a product or a service,
Speaker 1: you will get a lot of rejections at the start
Speaker 1: because it is so different. So I think it's so
Speaker 1: important to remember that most people who do something differently
Speaker 1: do face a couple of years often of it not
Speaker 1: going too well.
Speaker 2: And just sticking with it, yeahal and.
Speaker 1: Being able to push through that self doubt of like, actually,
Speaker 1: I think this is what the world needs. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't realize it yet. H. But then also at the
Speaker 1: other end of the spectrum, most people in the beginning
Speaker 1: of their journey also then when it does take off,
Speaker 1: go the other end of the spectrum completely can't say
Speaker 1: no because they've been a yes person to get there
Speaker 1: and then burn it out completely. And I think those
Speaker 1: both of those sides of stuff you don't hear about
Speaker 1: as much in the telling of the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that, and I there's so many
Speaker 2: things in that, Like I for two years I did
Speaker 2: emergency teaching three days a week or two days a week.
Speaker 2: That is the loneliest, most brutal existence on the earth.
Speaker 2: Like you think about when you're at school and an emergency
Speaker 2: teacher turns up. You just go, we are going to
Speaker 2: ruin this person's day. We're going to ruin this. We've
Speaker 2: got the next hour to ruin this individual. We don't
Speaker 2: care who they are. And so I did that for
Speaker 2: like three days a week to try and pay the
Speaker 2: bills while I was trying to make this work. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't just like swinming around to corporate functions and
Speaker 2: being a keynote speaker, like and then you finish, like
Speaker 2: you'd finish a talk, the one talk out for a
Speaker 2: week and then just like you by yourself. I like
Speaker 2: my office was my bedroom and I'd go home and go, okay,
Speaker 2: that was that cool. And it's pretty lonely, and like
Speaker 2: as I said, I don't think I've admitted this before
Speaker 2: any of the chats I've done, but there were there
Speaker 2: are two or three times I tried to get out.
Speaker 2: If I got those jobs, like I wouldn't be doing
Speaker 2: this right now. And this is speaking in Melbourne on
Speaker 2: last Friday night. I think Abby was actually there on
Speaker 2: Friday night at at the Convention Center. It's twenty four
Speaker 2: hundred people and I had him for two hours. It
Speaker 2: was only meant to go for an hour of twenty,
Speaker 2: but I was so good I just kept going. But
Speaker 2: I was sitting backstage before and Mum said, hey, Mum,
Speaker 2: message He said, how are you feeling? And I wrote
Speaker 2: back and said, it's pretty amazing. I'm actually living my
Speaker 2: dream right now, like this is getting up and standing
Speaker 2: up in front of an audience like this, this is
Speaker 2: a dream come true. There are so many times that
Speaker 2: I tried to get out to not pursue it, and
Speaker 2: I was heartbroken. So it's funny you just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like, I mean, here's the other thing, the
Speaker 2: other thing you brought up, which I think is really fascinating.
Speaker 2: His feedback when people say no to and you get
Speaker 2: told no or you have people giving your negative feedback,
Speaker 2: and this is I think this is quite a well
Speaker 2: known set of quote, but like everyone will want to
Speaker 2: give your feedback, Like everyone wants to feedback, and whether
Speaker 2: it's people you know or you don't know, and if
Speaker 2: it's not someone you go to for advice to me,
Speaker 2: like I don't give a fuck what you think. I mean,
Speaker 2: I do. No, No, that's not true. I do. I
Speaker 2: do give a fuck with it. I don't want to,
Speaker 2: but I can't help it. But I'm not going to
Speaker 2: take it on board. So this is I listened to
Speaker 2: a podcast with Jerry Seinfeld and he said this thing
Speaker 2: that I So there's a chapter in the book which
Speaker 2: you would have read a few times now called dealing
Speaker 2: with Critics or dealing with Criticism. I come on what
Speaker 2: we called it, and it was all about how like
Speaker 2: basically the way we can deal with people saying negative
Speaker 2: stuff about us, and how we just got to step
Speaker 2: over and move past it and we're better than it.
Speaker 2: And Brenda Brown's thing about like you know, let it drop,
Speaker 2: let it fall to your feet and then step over
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff, and I love that.
Speaker 2: But when I listened to Jerry Seinfeld's take on feedback,
Speaker 2: I was like, gosh, I don't actually live and breathe
Speaker 2: what I wrote in that chapter, Like I want to.
Speaker 2: I wish I didn't care what people thought. I wish
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I don't know. You say I
Speaker 2: don't care, but I do. And this I've realized it's
Speaker 2: actually fueled me massively. I've had quite a few people
Speaker 2: have the journey. You say stuff like, there's another organization
Speaker 2: in a similar space to us, said to me, we're
Speaker 2: already doing curriculum. I don't get why you're doing curriculum.
Speaker 2: Your curriculum is not great anyway, because we've actually think
Speaker 2: this is not good with the curriculum. That's not good
Speaker 2: with your curriculum. Our curriculum is already in school, so
Speaker 2: you actually shouldn't be doing this. And I was so hurt.
Speaker 2: This is what happened. I was so hurt. For like
Speaker 2: a week, I reckon by there. I thought that'd be
Speaker 2: good people who'd support what I was doing. I was
Speaker 2: so hurt by it, and I was so shattered by it.
Speaker 2: And then the next week I kind of just let
Speaker 2: that sink in, and two weeks by two weeks, I
Speaker 2: was like fuck that, Like, because of you guys, I'm
Speaker 2: going to make our curriculum so much better than yours.
Speaker 2: And it drove me to our curriculum is now, when
Speaker 2: we've got three hundred thousand kids around the country doing
Speaker 2: our curriculum every single day. I employed five writers to
Speaker 2: come in and actually rewrite the different elements of our
Speaker 2: curriculum We've got now, I got a full time lady
Speaker 2: called Lea who is amazing, who just does this full over.
Speaker 2: Our curriculum can always changing it, always up there, always
Speaker 2: making it better. If it wasn't for those people who
Speaker 2: told me they thought the curriculum wasn't good, it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be what it is now. And so I think sometimes
Speaker 2: you've got to if you're the person who in like,
Speaker 2: if you care what people think about you, that's also
Speaker 2: why you're doing really well in life, because it's a
Speaker 2: nice like. It shows that you're you know, you're a
Speaker 2: human being. You're sensitive where all can be sensitive. Let
Speaker 2: it hurt you, let that happen, and then be strong
Speaker 2: enough to just cop it in the face. And then
Speaker 2: you a couple of weeks you say, Okay, fuck you
Speaker 2: because of what you said. I'm going to make this
Speaker 2: whatever it is, I'm going to grow because of what
Speaker 2: you've said. And I realized, looking back, that's what's happened
Speaker 2: to me. I've been driven by people's hurtful comments so
Speaker 2: many times. I've got countless examples.
Speaker 1: And it's funny how I talk on the podcast so
Speaker 1: much about self doubt and your in a critic and
Speaker 1: negative self talk is so destructive. But actually, what I
Speaker 1: haven't spoken about as much, but you've made me really
Speaker 1: reflect on, is that it's not just self doubt, it's
Speaker 1: actual just external doubt, like there will be people along
Speaker 1: the way who don't believe in what you do. And
Speaker 1: I also think you know that quote that comes back
Speaker 1: all the time of like sometimes not getting you want,
Speaker 1: not getting what you want is a brilliant stroke of luck,
Speaker 1: the fact that you weren't allowed to get out if
Speaker 1: you had been, if we'd have been up to you
Speaker 1: the Resilience Project, we would have all been deprived of
Speaker 1: that in the world. And I think sometimes like it's
Speaker 1: not just self doubt, it's also external doubt that you're
Speaker 1: going to get But that doesn't mean that it's not
Speaker 1: a good idea. It doesn't mean that what you're doing
Speaker 1: isn't a value. It just means that those particular people
Speaker 1: aren't your people. But if you hadn't, if the world
Speaker 1: hadn't conspired to make sure that this program came out,
Speaker 1: you could have easily been toppled and it never would
Speaker 1: have seen the light of day. So I think if
Speaker 1: anyone is in that early phase where they're doubting themselves
Speaker 1: and have people around them doubting you. It's not the
Speaker 1: be all and end all. That doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: should stop in your tracks, like go and find other
Speaker 1: people who do think it's a good idea and make
Speaker 1: those the people that you surround yourself with, and like
Speaker 1: you said, turn that external doubt into fuel totally, Like
Speaker 1: you know, it can be something that fuels you. It's
Speaker 1: not that you ever want self doubt or overall doubt
Speaker 1: to go away. I agree. I think it's a sign
Speaker 1: that you're not complacent and you're invested enough to care
Speaker 1: about doing a good job and filling an actual gap
Speaker 1: and providing a good service. But just don't let it
Speaker 1: dictate your decisions.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally. I love that so much, and I mean
Speaker 2: that I also loved it. I don't know that you
Speaker 2: talk a lot about like you're in a critic and
Speaker 2: your negative self talk, and like I have that all
Speaker 2: the time. Like we started the national tour last week
Speaker 2: in Adelaide. We had two nights in Adelaide, then Perth
Speaker 2: and Melbourne. The half an hour before I went on
Speaker 2: stage in Adelaide night one, I almost started writing down
Speaker 2: the stuff. I was thinking, like this is just funny,
Speaker 2: Like this is getting ridiculous. Like I was thinking, this
Speaker 2: is you haven't done this in a year, you will
Speaker 2: have forgotten how to do this. Who are you to
Speaker 2: be speaking to all these people? Why have all those
Speaker 2: people given up a night to come and speak to you.
Speaker 2: It was like it was so brutal what I was
Speaker 2: telling myself. And then I'd have those moments of like,
Speaker 2: shut up, what are you like? This is what you
Speaker 2: love doing, This is your favorite thing in the world
Speaker 2: to do, and now you're dreading it. And then part
Speaker 2: of me is like you could go home, Like you
Speaker 2: could go back to the hotel, you could just get
Speaker 2: in a car and go, and like you're probably saving
Speaker 2: these people an hour and a half of their life
Speaker 2: if you do that. So like you're in a critic
Speaker 2: you can get out of control. So I was especially
Speaker 2: my wife and I go, I'm not in a very
Speaker 2: confident headspace right now, and she's like, wellmo'st wrong, And
Speaker 2: I was like, well, it's not ideal sixteen hundred people
Speaker 2: sitting outside waiting for me. Anyway, it turned out to
Speaker 2: be fine, but yeah, negative self talks, it's brutal.
Speaker 1: And something I loved from the book, which I imagine
Speaker 1: if something Penny says to you all the time is
Speaker 1: actually by you letting yourself doubt overcome you, it's actually
Speaker 1: selfish because you are depriving the people who are out
Speaker 1: there who need to hear your particular message, which is
Speaker 1: why they're there. The fact that you didn't even want
Speaker 1: to write a book because you were like, oh, what
Speaker 1: have I got to say? Like how is this going
Speaker 1: to be useful? And Penny sat you down it was like,
Speaker 1: that's Selfishue. You are depriving the world of a book
Speaker 1: that they need, which now, as you know, if you're
Speaker 1: writing a second one, I mean you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: tell the printer that Abby and I need one print
Speaker 1: run and everyone else in the world needs another one.
Speaker 1: There is always someone out there in the world who
Speaker 1: needs exactly what you have. So by you letting yourself
Speaker 1: out overcome you, it's a selfish act because you're depriving
Speaker 1: the universe of your special skill which no one else
Speaker 1: can even if other people had come up with the
Speaker 1: you know, gratitude, empathy, the mindfulness matrix or methodology, like
Speaker 1: the way you deliver it with your unique you know
Speaker 1: wit and self deprecation and storytelling, Like even if someone
Speaker 1: did the exact same thing and use the exact same wording,
Speaker 1: they still wouldn't deliver it in the way you did.
Speaker 1: So by you not doing that, you are depriving the
Speaker 1: world of something special.
Speaker 2: So I think that's that's very nicesome to say that.
Speaker 2: I but you make a good point when it's about
Speaker 2: other people, not yourself. Ben Crow, who a lot of
Speaker 2: people about. Ben Cardamone amazing man, says when you are
Speaker 2: interested rather than interesting, when that's your focus, life becomes
Speaker 2: really beautiful. And it's very true, very true.
Speaker 1: Another thing I found really interesting reading is that, And
Speaker 1: it's so funny because I say this exact thing is
Speaker 1: I've gone from being a corporate where I had like
Speaker 1: not just a five year plan, but a fifty year
Speaker 1: plan really to not having a five minute plan. So
Speaker 1: reading that you have no five year plan but a
Speaker 1: moment to moment plan, I was like, Yeah, here's my people.
Speaker 1: We are in a society where that relentless forward motion
Speaker 1: and progress and next and bigger is quite irresistible and
Speaker 1: growing a movement now that is so large, I mean,
Speaker 1: you sold out the convention center three times over. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you're doubting that you'd even get a couple of people there.
Speaker 1: What is next? And how do you do you have
Speaker 1: to resist that it's become bigger than you and sometimes
Speaker 1: is growing faster than you can control. Or you know,
Speaker 1: what are your big goals for what's next? Or are
Speaker 1: you just happy to sort of let things unravel and
Speaker 1: see see where it goes.
Speaker 2: It's a great question because I don't I haven't really
Speaker 2: thought about it too much. Like, I mean, I have
Speaker 2: a team of sixteen seventeen people here seventeen now, and
Speaker 2: there's a couple of people here whose full time job
Speaker 2: is what's next for us? Like, what are we doing next?
Speaker 2: What is our strategic plan? With an incredible girl, Kim
Speaker 2: Smiley who just joined us, who she's all about us,
Speaker 2: toreet strategic plan for the next three to five years.
Speaker 2: So but for me personally, I've never thought about it.
Speaker 2: I just and you've read this in the book, but
Speaker 2: I really feel like if you properly nail every moment
Speaker 2: that you're in while you're in it, like really give
Speaker 2: it your full respect and attention and effort, then life
Speaker 2: will kind of take care of itself. So I know
Speaker 2: I write that in the book, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: but I'm sure for a lot of people there's huge
Speaker 2: benefit in having a five year plan, and I certainly
Speaker 2: wasn't saying to people, don't go and do your five
Speaker 2: year plan or whatever it is. I think it's good
Speaker 2: to have that. But for me, what works best is
Speaker 2: just to be good and be as good as you
Speaker 2: can at each moment. And it's hard, and even saying that,
Speaker 2: I feel like a little bit of a fraud in
Speaker 2: the area of my life that I care most about,
Speaker 2: like my kids. Sorry, oh no, I need to apologize.
Speaker 2: Like my kids. I need to get better at that,
Speaker 2: really showing up for them, like I'm running around a
Speaker 2: country do earliest talk, which is great and I think
Speaker 2: one day they'll be quite proud of that. But what
Speaker 2: they see right now is that I'm not a home enough.
Speaker 2: And when I am home, like my phone's going berserk,
Speaker 2: and it's like trying to keep up with his emails
Speaker 2: and Slack messages and Instagram dms and the penie. A
Speaker 2: long chat that went out we went out for dinner
Speaker 2: on Saturday night, and a long chat about like we've
Speaker 2: got to we need to get better at this like
Speaker 2: we need to between five and eight, we're just going
Speaker 2: to keep our phones in the car because we Yeah,
Speaker 2: why am I even going down this path? Oh that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well actually that was my next question anyway, that
Speaker 1: the paradox of doing something that you love and having
Speaker 1: a message that's so important is that the proliferation of
Speaker 1: that message then sometimes becomes more important than the message itself,
Speaker 1: which I think is the irony of many people who
Speaker 1: work in the area of yeah, wellness or mental health
Speaker 1: or you know, resilience, or any kind of self betterment
Speaker 1: area of life. And I was going to ask, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you find that balance between I came into
Speaker 1: this because I wanted to teach people about the importance
Speaker 1: of mindfulness and putting your phone away. There's a whole
Speaker 1: chapter on social media and how to manage that in
Speaker 1: your life, but for you to deliver that message, you
Speaker 1: have to be on that platform, and that paradox is
Speaker 1: really confusing.
Speaker 2: Just as a side note, I love the command you
Speaker 2: have of the English language. It's very impressive. Ah, I
Speaker 2: really liked washing to speak. I was just reminded of
Speaker 2: that as you were speaking then. But I think I
Speaker 2: go through stages where I'm really good with my kids
Speaker 2: and really practice what I preach, but I do find
Speaker 2: moments where you know, I'll be seeing the dinner table
Speaker 2: and five minutes later, I realized I haven't listened to
Speaker 2: it anyone search because I've just done a talk to
Speaker 2: wherever it is, Like, I remember, we had an amazing,
Speaker 2: amazing forty eight hours of Port Adelaide Football Club. I
Speaker 2: was just I wasing from when I came home, and
Speaker 2: it was all about what I was changing about was
Speaker 2: just like just just enjoy the little moments to pop
Speaker 2: up because and they're all talking about the moments that
Speaker 2: they are so lucky to have, so grateful to have,
Speaker 2: and I was joining in and some really vulnerable stuff
Speaker 2: in there. And then I'm seeing around the dinner table
Speaker 2: with my family and I'm just still thinking about the
Speaker 2: session with the Port Adelaide guys and I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: their stories, and I was like, no, come on, like
Speaker 2: this is exactly what spent for. Like you've been there,
Speaker 2: You've had that experience. It was great, But these are
Speaker 2: the people in needgy in most right now, and here
Speaker 2: you are thinking about Port Adelaide Football Club. So I
Speaker 2: think I do pretty well with it. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: going to be a stage as well in my life
Speaker 2: where Penny and I have always said that it is
Speaker 2: so unfair that she Penny's so career driven, She's so
Speaker 2: intelligent and has so much to offer the world. Right now,
Speaker 2: she's offering everything. She has two kids and home, and
Speaker 2: there will be a point where she goes to work
Speaker 2: and I'm a full time dad, and so I have
Speaker 2: that thing in my head at well, like, well, I've
Speaker 2: got another three or four years to give work everything,
Speaker 2: and then there'll be a point where it is my
Speaker 2: job to stay at home and she goes and pursues
Speaker 2: her career. So there's also that in the back of
Speaker 2: my mind of like we'll give it everything now, but
Speaker 2: then these are such beautiful years. A four year old,
Speaker 2: the one year old. I mean, it's hard, but it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Like it's just like our one year old daughter. This morning,
Speaker 2: we're all seeing on the couch and she crawled over
Speaker 2: the three of us. This is like for twenty minutes
Speaker 2: and kissing all. She'd go mut m and she'd kiss
Speaker 2: many that. She kissed me and Benji and she gets
Speaker 2: Penny and we were just laughing at it. When she's
Speaker 2: going to stop, and she just kept doing it, do it,
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, we didn't get much sleep
Speaker 2: last night because of her, But my gosh, this is special.
Speaker 2: Like she just kissed me twenty times the last half
Speaker 2: an hour. She's not going to stop, Like we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to stop it. She can't stop it.
Speaker 1: She's got like red raw lips and.
Speaker 2: Exactly. So I don't even know what I was talking about,
Speaker 2: but I think it's a.
Speaker 1: Juggle, right, everyone's struggling priorities and no one gets it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I feel like with this national tour
Speaker 2: and me away from home a lot, I just got
Speaker 2: to make sure. Like my mom said to me, it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful message. She pulled me up. I was on
Speaker 2: my phone in front of the kids, and she said
Speaker 2: something like you're not home enough as it is, like
Speaker 2: when you're here, you can at least And I said, nah,
Speaker 2: you're right, and she said, no, bit. I know you
Speaker 2: talk about the impact on the kids, but I like
Speaker 2: you're missing out. You're the one, she said, because when
Speaker 2: I was your age and he was and you were
Speaker 2: his age. My mom said to me, I saw everything
Speaker 2: you saw. I smelled everything you smelled. I heard everything
Speaker 2: you heard. I was there with you, and because of that,
Speaker 2: now I have so many moments of joy. You know.
Speaker 2: I walk past the jasmine bush and like, I'm almost
Speaker 2: in tears of joy because I remember when you're a kid,
Speaker 2: you're so obsessed with the smell of jasmin bushes. So
Speaker 2: we go and try and find jasmine together for you
Speaker 2: to smell. And she said, I have those moments now,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure you're going to get those when
Speaker 2: you're older, because you're not properly living everything that your
Speaker 2: son and your daughter are living like we used to do.
Speaker 2: So my aim, and I'm saying this publicly so to
Speaker 2: hold myself to account, my aim is when I am
Speaker 2: at home, I am going to properly be there for
Speaker 2: the rest of this year.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really beautiful, But it's a process, right, Like
Speaker 1: that kind of prioritization doesn't happen by itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the best thing for me is to
Speaker 2: leave my phone in the car. I know for me
Speaker 2: that works. Leave my phone in the car and when
Speaker 2: I get home and I can get it out again
Speaker 2: after the kids are gone to bed.
Speaker 1: I just had a week in the Northern Territory and
Speaker 1: we didn't have any signal, but also no charges, so
Speaker 1: we had, oh, well time, no clocks. The indigenous culture
Speaker 1: has no concept for time, so they believe you wake
Speaker 1: upunrise and you go to bed at sunset. And we
Speaker 1: were forced to surrender to not having even knowing what
Speaker 1: time it was, and it was the most enjoyable, really present.
Speaker 1: I'm still now kind of resisting coming back to it
Speaker 1: because it was so freeing to not need to know
Speaker 1: where you are in time and space and the date,
Speaker 1: and like it's unrealistic obviously to be like that all
Speaker 1: the time. But once you kind of let go of
Speaker 1: your phone, you don't want to back. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: want it back.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, totally, yeah, it's yeah, what
Speaker 2: a great experience that is for you.
Speaker 1: Oh well, now I just want more of it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: do I want to be a bush woman and just
Speaker 1: like retire into the wilderness. A little bit before we
Speaker 1: moved to the last section. One thing I did want
Speaker 1: to touch on briefly, and I think for anyone listening,
Speaker 1: the most impactful and powerful way to hear Hugh's take
Speaker 1: on mental illness and this area, which is so incredibly
Speaker 1: important especially now, is just to read the book because
Speaker 1: you mentioned me being having a good command of the
Speaker 1: English language. The way that you describe your sister's experience
Speaker 1: with anorexia, your family's experience around that, and then your
Speaker 1: wife's OCD as well, and the way that manifest is
Speaker 1: so relatable. And I think if people don't know quite
Speaker 1: how to explain the experience to someone who hasn't experienced it,
Speaker 1: they have no chance of having empathy towards that. But
Speaker 1: you explained it in a way that I felt made
Speaker 1: it a lot more accessible to understand as an experience.
Speaker 1: And once you understand empathy and you know that it's
Speaker 1: not you know, her trying to you know, Georgia trying
Speaker 1: to get attention, or she's not just being annoying for
Speaker 1: the sake of it, like she actually has a mental illness.
Speaker 1: I think the whole book just covers it in such
Speaker 1: a powerful and relatable way. I know it's probably not
Speaker 1: enough time to go into it, but is there anything
Speaker 1: you'd like to say about mental health at the moment?
Speaker 1: And I know the work you've done in football clubs
Speaker 1: in particular has touched a lot on how at risk
Speaker 1: people are these days of suicide, particularly men and how
Speaker 1: much the Resilience Project has helped a lot of people
Speaker 1: intervene at an earlier stage, just so important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all about prevention. That's kind of the space
Speaker 2: we're in. The Mental Health Commission found that only one
Speaker 2: percent of funding goes towards preventive programs. It's ninety nine
Speaker 2: percent of funding goes towards like what happens at the
Speaker 2: other end when it's really bad. So we've always been
Speaker 2: about prevention and teaching people things I can do to
Speaker 2: make sure they don't go down that path. So I
Speaker 2: think for me, the thing I'm biggest out at the
Speaker 2: moment is so the whole AUOK campaign. It's a wonderful,
Speaker 2: a wonderful, wonderful concept, and it has done so much
Speaker 2: good the more that I think about it, though, I mean,
Speaker 2: they never I don't think their point is to say
Speaker 2: you need to use the words Areuoka. I think the
Speaker 2: words iook are a little bit intimidating for a lot
Speaker 2: of people. And so there's a couple of things I
Speaker 2: want to say. I think I wrote about Luke in
Speaker 2: the book, and you would have known the chapter on
Speaker 2: you would know the chapter on Luke. A score of
Speaker 2: my career club who took his own life used to
Speaker 2: call me every month in the winter and just say Helen.
Speaker 2: He was an autistic man. He's held on to a
Speaker 2: cricket season and I'd say it's four months, and he'd go,
Speaker 2: that's a long time by. And and then a month later,
Speaker 2: I held a cricket season. It's three months. That's a
Speaker 2: long time bye, and he called me. He called me
Speaker 2: about two weeks before the season started once and said,
Speaker 2: Helen to cricket and I said two weeks and he
Speaker 2: said that that feels like a long time for me
Speaker 2: right now. And I remember I remember thinking to myself,
Speaker 2: oh shit, is he okay? That's that's a pretty grim
Speaker 2: thing to say. I was like, he'll probably find a
Speaker 2: bit awkward if he's If he's totally fine, I say,
Speaker 2: you're okay, it's pretty bit awkward, I'll and I hung up.
Speaker 2: I've seen a couple of weeks and I didn't ask
Speaker 2: him if he was okay. And then I remember telling
Speaker 2: Penny and Penny and said, do you want to give
Speaker 2: him a buzz just check? And I said, I think
Speaker 2: he's fine. I think she said, well, do you want
Speaker 2: to catch up? But then maybe catch up with him
Speaker 2: and just and I said, I'll see me a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks, should be fine. And two days later I
Speaker 2: get a phone call from the president of our club
Speaker 2: letting me know that he'd taken his life. And I
Speaker 2: was thinking, my god, my work is mental health and
Speaker 2: even I didn't say you're okay, like and then I
Speaker 2: was thinking, oh, this is how hard it is. But
Speaker 2: this is this is the opposite of having a go
Speaker 2: at are you okay? It's wonderful. I think for a
Speaker 2: lot of us, the question is not are you okay?
Speaker 2: Like the concept you definitely ask people eventually, but the
Speaker 2: first question is not are you okay? It's like time
Speaker 2: over with Luke. It's the question is trying to go
Speaker 2: a beer? To like, not are you okay? Do you
Speaker 2: want to tell me? Something? Was because if I'm not
Speaker 2: okay and someone says you're okay, my response is I'm fine,
Speaker 2: and then I'll shut it down or I'll just feel
Speaker 2: like I've somehow made their day worse and I've let
Speaker 2: them down and I'm a drag on them. So time
Speaker 2: over the Luke, I would say trying to go a
Speaker 2: beer and he'd probably say yes, and then we'd have
Speaker 2: a beer, and then half an hour into talking shit,
Speaker 2: I'd say how things mate, what's going on, what's the
Speaker 2: how things at home? Or what's what's happening with work?
Speaker 2: Or that's when you start to get little snippets of
Speaker 2: things where people will let you in. So if you
Speaker 2: know someone who you are especially at a time like
Speaker 2: this COVID, if you know someone who you are not
Speaker 2: totally sure about they just seem to be a little
Speaker 2: bit more reclusive or potentially not engaging socially the way
Speaker 2: they usually do. Don't live with a regret that I
Speaker 2: do that you didn't, and don't say euokay, because I
Speaker 2: just don't think the question works. It's what are you
Speaker 2: doing on Wednesday? Joining to have a coffee? Or if
Speaker 2: you love were exercise, do you want to go for
Speaker 2: a walk? Whatever it is, think what that person would
Speaker 2: like to do with you, suggest it, and then you
Speaker 2: just like chip away, like and don't do it in
Speaker 2: a way they're going to go. Are they trying to
Speaker 2: check if I'm okay? Just ask them what's good? Like
Speaker 2: people love telling their story if you think it's something
Speaker 2: about the kids or their partner, like how's your husband going,
Speaker 2: how's your wife going and let them talk and just
Speaker 2: listen to them. And the very act of sharing what
Speaker 2: you're going through is often all you need to do
Speaker 2: in order to unburden yourself with a shame you feel
Speaker 2: that situation. So that's my I know you said you
Speaker 2: didn't want a long answer, but I've given you a
Speaker 2: long answer, and.
Speaker 1: I know I love a long answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I don't know if you notice, is you
Speaker 2: and Abby have the exact same laugh. Do you know that?
Speaker 2: I know, Yeah, it's exactly the same. When I heard
Speaker 2: when she was on your podcast, I couldn't tell who
Speaker 2: was laughing her. I couldn't tell if she was laughing
Speaker 2: at her own jokes or you were laughing at her jokes.
Speaker 1: It was probably both.
Speaker 2: You had out a bit of wine, I think that's possible.
Speaker 1: But grape juice. Yeah, it's funny though. I think that's
Speaker 1: something really valuable. You said towards the end of the
Speaker 1: book was about vulnerability and that it doesn't come as
Speaker 1: easily to some people, and it does take chipping away.
Speaker 1: It's not like a are you okay, Oh, here's my
Speaker 1: life story now I feel better. Even the story you
Speaker 1: told about Nick Riewoldt, who I love Kath his wife
Speaker 1: was actually in rewinder with us on that trip.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: The fact that he was so resistant, because people often
Speaker 1: don't realize they have the moment of vulnerability, or they're
Speaker 1: not even willing to open up that door. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: does take a bit to even get them in a
Speaker 1: position where they're willing to be vulnerable with you to
Speaker 1: be helped. So I think that's a really important reminder
Speaker 1: that you don't just go straight into it, you know totally.
Speaker 2: That Nick Raewolt story is such a beauty. He's been
Speaker 2: one of my favorite players of all time, and I
Speaker 2: had such a big crush on him his entire career
Speaker 2: then and then, and I don't know him very well now.
Speaker 2: He's a lovely guy. We get on very well. But
Speaker 2: I remember when he first walked into the session. I
Speaker 2: was at sek Kilda Footy Club a bit nervous. I
Speaker 2: was like, where's Nick roy Welt And he walked in, went,
Speaker 2: oh my god, there's Nick ary Walt. And I was
Speaker 2: seeing next to the player welfare manager who organized the talk,
Speaker 2: and he came over. He said hi to me. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my gosh, he's awesome. And then he
Speaker 2: said to the player welfare manager. I don't need to
Speaker 2: be here for this time.
Speaker 1: Never. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure I don't need
Speaker 1: to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he goes, I don't know. I'll go and get
Speaker 2: a rub down or something. It's a better use of
Speaker 2: my time. And I was like, oh, forty years exactly
Speaker 2: now he was. He was wonderful and we get on
Speaker 2: very well now, Nick, and.
Speaker 1: I actually loved reading about how you foann girl. People
Speaker 1: like you're like, oh my god, all these famous people
Speaker 1: that I love that I've been following my whole life,
Speaker 1: and like you're trying to play cool.
Speaker 2: I'm not very good at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm the worst. I'm so bad. So last section
Speaker 1: you'll play ta now. I think you would of all
Speaker 1: people agree that you know, in this whole world of
Speaker 1: productive achievement and progress, that it's so important just to
Speaker 1: play and just to have activities that make you forget
Speaker 1: what time it is and that don't necessarily have a goal.
Speaker 1: Like I think, I try and rest, but then I
Speaker 1: try and win it resting, and I try and like
Speaker 1: a type everything, or I'm like garden and then I'll
Speaker 1: try and like do a gardening course and become like
Speaker 1: a gardening influencer. So I really need to just calm
Speaker 1: down and do things that I'm not trying to necessarily,
Speaker 1: like improve at or do well at. What other things
Speaker 1: that you do that make you just forget where you are?
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny. I wouldn't say they're not attached to
Speaker 2: a goal, but running is my absolute. Like I trained
Speaker 2: for four hundred meters.
Speaker 1: Oh this is your masters. You did the masters?
Speaker 2: Yes, we had the masters. Three weeks ago. We had
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty one Victorian Masters Championships, which is an
Speaker 2: activity I take way too seriously for four year old.
Speaker 2: But I'm training. When I was at school, I loved athletics,
Speaker 2: but then I chose cricket and played cricket tolass thirty
Speaker 2: five and then stopped playing crick and I was like,
Speaker 2: is it too late for athletics. Probably, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to give it a go. And I've ended up training
Speaker 2: with Katrina Bissett and the girls who are training for
Speaker 2: the Tokyo Olympics with Pet of Fortune, Kathy Freeman's coach.
Speaker 2: He's our coach. And how I've ended up in that
Speaker 2: group of girls, I'll never know. They all came and
Speaker 2: they all came and see me speak at the came
Speaker 2: and saw me speak at the convention center and our
Speaker 2: backstage having a drink afterwards, and Penny was meeting them
Speaker 2: all and stuff, and then one of them said, it
Speaker 2: is a bit weird that there's this four year old
Speaker 2: man who chases this around the track.
Speaker 1: That's in any other circumstance that would be really creepy.
Speaker 2: Totally still is a bit of it, but yeah, for me,
Speaker 2: it is the pursuit of trying to run four hundred
Speaker 2: meters as fast as possible. I know it's coll orientated,
Speaker 2: but and it is kind of quite a competitive thing.
Speaker 1: But like I'm like, what doesn't have a goal? What's
Speaker 1: not successful? Oh, I'm training with Kathy Freeman's coach, like
Speaker 1: just casually, It's fine.
Speaker 2: That's what I got me through. COVID was trying to
Speaker 2: like researching sprinting and like spikes and like different training approach,
Speaker 2: is a different gym and like trying. So that was
Speaker 2: a big one. But as far as play on the
Speaker 2: trampoline with my son, that is like that's a really
Speaker 2: special time. We we have this amazing trampline. He's obsessed
Speaker 2: with it. He's really good on it, and I love
Speaker 2: doing things that make him feel self esteem wise. He's,
Speaker 2: you know, you can get a bit anxious at times.
Speaker 2: But we invent the most outrageous games on the trampoline.
Speaker 2: Like there's one of the moment we have a fitball
Speaker 2: and we put in the middle and we just call
Speaker 2: it ballly and the amis is to not get touched
Speaker 2: by ball. And he goes watch you out for balling
Speaker 2: and wherever you jump, the ball goes to so you're
Speaker 2: trying and dodge bally. That's the game of paint at
Speaker 2: the moment. Then we put another one last night where
Speaker 2: you run to the fence, touch the fence, jump on
Speaker 2: the trampoline, run to the table, touch the table, then
Speaker 2: jump off a chair and then you just keep doing that.
Speaker 2: I said, what's this game call? And he said this
Speaker 2: is called run and touch the table and jump off
Speaker 2: the couch and then jump into the chair and then
Speaker 2: John trampline and then laugh and then line on the
Speaker 2: trampline with daddy. I was like, that's a good nae.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great patent, that really catchy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. So the first half an hour that
Speaker 2: my daughter Elsie is a wake for and everyone else
Speaker 2: is still asleep opening the door. It's awful at like
Speaker 2: five thirty in the morning when she gets up, but
Speaker 2: she's just standed the biggest smile on her face, and
Speaker 2: you open the door and she squeals like she just
Speaker 2: cannot believe you've opened the door. And you get her
Speaker 2: out of the cot and I just lie on the floor.
Speaker 2: So I'm still very tired, and just her crawling around you,
Speaker 2: lying on top of you, grabbing all her soft toys.
Speaker 2: She's such an affectionate person. We're very similar. We're both
Speaker 2: very very affectionate people. So we couple each other a lot.
Speaker 1: Stage five clingers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the oh, the two of us. Yeah, Penny
Speaker 2: is not the most affections ot of things. Same with Benji.
Speaker 2: So but Elsie and I just cuddle all the time.
Speaker 2: So that is it. Doing that is like a That's
Speaker 2: definitely a thing where I feel like there's no goals
Speaker 2: attached to it. There's no got to win at this,
Speaker 2: there's no like, got to be the best of this.
Speaker 2: It's just to very lose yourself in, like the love
Speaker 2: I have for my daughter, you know, she's just, oh
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 1: I love kids for that reason. I think that they
Speaker 1: live so in the moment and their needs are so immediate.
Speaker 1: And I've got a lot of friends who have young kids.
Speaker 1: If you if you pick up your phone, they know
Speaker 1: they're excuse me, hello, I want your attention.
Speaker 2: Whereas whereas as adults, if someone pick up the phone,
Speaker 2: we go, I'll do it as well, and then we
Speaker 2: just lose ourselves as well. Whereas kids it's.
Speaker 1: Yes, but I also love with the track and field
Speaker 1: that I think we do get this big barrier in
Speaker 1: our brains. At firstly, we don't want to be agin
Speaker 1: be a beginner at anything. We often think it's too
Speaker 1: late to start things, and we also think like if
Speaker 1: I can't go pro, then this is not worth doing.
Speaker 1: And I think by cutting out all of those activities,
Speaker 1: we miss out on playtime because like if you you know,
Speaker 1: play seems like a waste of time because it doesn't
Speaker 1: take all those boxes. But I think, why lose you're
Speaker 1: inner child, like we've played forever, and the more you
Speaker 1: stay in touch with like we take life so seriously,
Speaker 1: the more you have, you know, a couple of hours
Speaker 1: a week where you just throw your body around or
Speaker 1: do random stuff that is you know, not related to
Speaker 1: your vacation, the better you are as a human, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like it makes you bring so much better
Speaker 1: energy back to your work.
Speaker 2: It was that I couldn't agree more. It was the
Speaker 2: most wholesome so the Victorian Masters. It's like anyone over
Speaker 2: the age of thirty can be part of the Masters, right,
Speaker 2: and everything you just said. Then I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I haven't trained in ages. I'm not gonna be good
Speaker 2: when I start. I'm going to feel very, very out
Speaker 2: of place. Three years later, it's like one of my
Speaker 2: favorite things've ever done. But I was at the Master's
Speaker 2: Championships and I'm watching like eighty five year old men
Speaker 2: do javelin, And I'm telling you now, the guy I
Speaker 2: was watching, if he'd just dropped it, it would have gone
Speaker 2: further than he managed to throw it. Like if he'd
Speaker 2: accidentally dropped it while he was trying to throw it, it
Speaker 2: was like he went half a foot. But he's done
Speaker 2: his big run up all those stretches, and it's just
Speaker 2: like topped out of his hand and he's like looked
Speaker 2: at it and just sort of like hands on his hips,
Speaker 2: did this like very satisfied not and like his wife
Speaker 2: clapped him, And I was like this is this is great,
Speaker 2: like this is what it's played like. It reminded me
Speaker 2: of the primary school athletics where everyone has a go,
Speaker 2: like you all do it every house, you have to
Speaker 2: represent your house in a certain event. It had that
Speaker 2: filter it. I mean, yes, I was taking it way
Speaker 2: too seriously. And I saw my aunt nemesis. I was like,
Speaker 2: I must beat him, I must beat him. So happy,
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the most beautifully wholesome thing
Speaker 2: you could possibly do until I take it way too seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, until you come and ruin everyone's fun. But like
Speaker 1: being too intense. Just before COVID, we started doing gymnastics classes,
Speaker 1: but not like learning gymnastics for like tumbling, like just
Speaker 1: some assaulting into the pit and then trying to get
Speaker 1: out of the pit. And it was no joke. My
Speaker 1: favorite part of the week. Like I would hang out
Speaker 1: to Friday so we could tumble fun.
Speaker 2: I feel like saying unbridled joy, but I actually don't
Speaker 2: know what unbridled means. What is unbrilled?
Speaker 1: I feel like it's got to do with a horse.
Speaker 1: I'm actually trying to get an equestrian related person on
Speaker 1: the podcast so I can have an episode called Seize
Speaker 1: the NA want to do like it. So another thing
Speaker 1: I took Eat Prey Love really seriously. When I got
Speaker 1: into like play a Gay as a concept and went
Speaker 1: to like pottery, and you know, I've been doing all
Speaker 1: the random classes. We went back to do laser Fource
Speaker 1: like that game. It's been so much fun. But I
Speaker 1: want to do a pottery class called sees the Clay
Speaker 1: for Mardi Gras. Last year we did Seize the Gay.
Speaker 1: It's just great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's endless. It is endless.
Speaker 1: It's actually terrible to finish up. Last second, last question.
Speaker 1: Three interesting things about you that don't normally come up
Speaker 1: in conversation. Okay, like weird party tricks or snoring habits, or.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a prolific sleepwalker, which is I mean, I
Speaker 2: think I've talked about a little bit prolific. The weirdest
Speaker 2: shit that is quite scary, Like I remember a year
Speaker 2: nine camp. We arrived at this it was Sea Kayk
Speaker 2: and we got there after dark and the can instructures.
Speaker 2: So it's actually too dangerous to go inwto the river
Speaker 2: to get water right now for a drink bottle. So sorry,
Speaker 2: there's no water. We'll get up in the morning early
Speaker 2: and go and get it. And my tent mate, Coli
Speaker 2: on our vest mates woke up at three in the
Speaker 2: morning and I was standing outside the tent with a
Speaker 2: full water bottle and I said, everyone's down the river
Speaker 2: and he goes, shit, really, you know yeah, and he goes,
Speaker 2: oh gosh. He gets his water bottle and gets out
Speaker 2: and he goes, no, they're not. Everyone's in their tent
Speaker 2: and he said, did you just go fill out your
Speaker 2: water bottle? And I went, I think I'd scratches all
Speaker 2: over my legs from like push bashing through the river.
Speaker 2: We got there the next day. It was so hard
Speaker 2: you have to have someone holding you into the river
Speaker 2: to like get the water out, and I went and
Speaker 2: get it by myself, like sleepwalking. So that's so I'm
Speaker 2: a prolific sleep walker.
Speaker 1: Do you remember it the next day?
Speaker 2: Not at all. I just had scratched on my legs
Speaker 2: in a full bottle of water, so, oh god.
Speaker 1: I sleep eat so I'll find like avocado skins what
Speaker 1: with a spoon like next to haven't and I won't
Speaker 1: remember it at all.
Speaker 2: That well, that's an amazing level of sleep walking.
Speaker 1: Like I will literally, so I don't. I'm not really
Speaker 1: a big sweet tooth. But in a hotel, like if
Speaker 1: there's chocolate, I'll wake up with the chocolate wrapper next
Speaker 1: to my head. Kidding, I don't even eat that. I
Speaker 1: don't even like that chocolate.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. There. That's a good one. This is just
Speaker 2: a really weird one. And people don't believe me when
Speaker 2: I told them this. So the classic primar school thing,
Speaker 2: I asked my mum. But I was allergic to water.
Speaker 2: I was like this boy in the bubble, like so
Speaker 2: sick all the time. And we do this allergy testing
Speaker 2: and I just eliminated all these foods one by one
Speaker 2: and by the end I was having like rice crackers
Speaker 2: and water and buckwheat pancakes. That's all I was eating
Speaker 2: for like three days. Took water out and I was
Speaker 2: and I drank milk and I was. I was fine.
Speaker 2: And so I was allergic to water. It wouldn't kill me,
Speaker 2: like it just I just get really sick and really
Speaker 2: run down and like just basically go to sleep when
Speaker 2: I had too much water. How weird is that? Again?
Speaker 2: So that's something I've never said out loud to an
Speaker 2: audience like.
Speaker 1: This, How do you stay hydrated?
Speaker 2: Well? I can drink water now just but if I
Speaker 2: drink heaps, I still start to feel a bit sick.
Speaker 2: So I get this like purified water, like I have
Speaker 2: this white don't now but I used to when I
Speaker 2: was going to have this like thing on the tap
Speaker 2: so of purify the water when it came through. So yeah,
Speaker 2: how weird is that?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? The diva is next level. You need
Speaker 1: a chair facing the right way, you need a three
Speaker 1: quarter light, and like a special chap that follows you
Speaker 1: around wherever you go.
Speaker 2: That's another one. I'm sure lancing well, half streelanking my
Speaker 2: dad's tree lanking, which which yeah, a lot of people stop. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't look at it's a bit weird, but yeah,
Speaker 2: there you go. I'm very proud half strae linking.
Speaker 1: Man, that's fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's it. That's one for you. What elseo
Speaker 2: I got for you? What else is? I had it?
Speaker 2: When I was in primary school. I had a stutter,
Speaker 2: which people find hard to blow because I'm a public speaker,
Speaker 2: but and from time to time it comes back in
Speaker 2: the worst possible moments. I did the Today Show, my
Speaker 2: first ever appearance on the Today Show. Like Georgia Gardener,
Speaker 2: asked me a question. I couldn't speak, and I was like,
Speaker 2: you've got to be kidding him. I stutter from when
Speaker 2: I was a kid has just come back.
Speaker 1: It's always in like the most inconvenient situation.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, and I've sort of I'm okay with it now.
Speaker 2: But it was just I don't know what happened. I
Speaker 2: remember my brain going, God, imagine you've got to stutter now,
Speaker 2: and then sure enough it happened.
Speaker 1: Because you said that, I reckon, it's your brain like
Speaker 1: manifested it.
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah. Anyway, there you go. There's there's a few
Speaker 2: things that I don't talk about too often.
Speaker 1: They're amazing. Thank you. And very last question, since I
Speaker 1: love quotes so much, what's your favorite quote? And you
Speaker 1: are not allowed to say the man in the Arena
Speaker 1: quote because A it's in your book. B it's like
Speaker 1: ten pages long. And see the last four people have
Speaker 1: had that as their favorite quote, So I'm going to
Speaker 1: make you pick another one.
Speaker 2: And I don't totally like, I do believe it. I
Speaker 2: totally believe it, but it doesn't work for me. I
Speaker 2: can't say, oh, I'm in the arena. You don't have
Speaker 2: a right to criticize me, I still get hurt by it,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't work for me. It's a beautiful quote,
Speaker 2: but yeah, so I thought long and hard about this.
Speaker 2: I when saw a movie Jojo Rabbit. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you saw Jojo Rabbit, and there was a quote
Speaker 2: at the end, and I was there with Penny I
Speaker 2: think it was, and as I was, I just got
Speaker 2: tears in my eyes the second I saw it. So
Speaker 2: the quote is, let everything happen to you, beauty and terror,
Speaker 2: just keep going. No feeling is final.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 2: I do feel like on the top it's just a
Speaker 2: lovely reminder to us that we can get really stuck
Speaker 2: sometimes in negative emotion and self doubt and all the
Speaker 2: stuff we've talked about. But it is so important to
Speaker 2: him that no feeling is final. And but that's the
Speaker 2: same when you're in an extremely you know, feeling so
Speaker 2: happy and like it's not gonna last forever. It's just
Speaker 2: it's a moment, and yeah, keep going, no feeling is final.
Speaker 2: I think that's a lovely a lovely quote.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful way to end. Thank you so much here.
Speaker 1: This has been so delightful. I could talk to you
Speaker 1: for hours. But I feel like the puns will just
Speaker 1: be too forthcoming and you'll hate me. So I'm kind
Speaker 1: of cut myself.
Speaker 2: Off speaking to someone who it is how much I
Speaker 2: love puns. I was running with a girl the other
Speaker 2: day called Abby, not not Abbey Johnny, another girl, Abby Delamote.
Speaker 2: She's an amazing runner, and we were running together and
Speaker 2: we're running along the Yarra and I stood on a
Speaker 2: stick and it was just stuck on my shirt. I
Speaker 2: couldn't get off, and she goes, that's a bit sticky,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't, Like, I couldn't stop giggling for the
Speaker 2: rest of our run, on like half an hour and
Speaker 2: so fast we could talk for one time because I
Speaker 2: love a good punch.
Speaker 1: But thank you hours of fun hours.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, Sarah, thank you so much having me. I love,
Speaker 2: as I said, love the podcast, and love everything you're about.
Speaker 2: So it's a huge honor to be on your podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Oh, thank.
Speaker 1: You so much. The honor is mine. I know. I
Speaker 1: use positive adjectives a lot on this show and have
Speaker 1: even had a not so constructive few reviews for being
Speaker 1: too bubbly, if there's even such a thing. But with
Speaker 1: guests like this, is there really any wonder. I hope
Speaker 1: some of you have caught the spark that I did
Speaker 1: from Hughes infectious passion, vulnerability and fabulous storytelling, and cannot
Speaker 1: recommend more highly that you follow this one up by
Speaker 1: reading his book, The Resilience Project. I'll link it in
Speaker 1: the show notes. As usual, I am always so proud
Speaker 1: when the neighborhood showers our guests with love for sharing
Speaker 1: so generously with us. So if you enjoyed or took
Speaker 1: something away, please share it tagging at Hugh van Kylenberg.
Speaker 1: Get the spelling from the episode title and us, of course,
Speaker 1: so we can reshare. Hope you are all having a
Speaker 1: wonderful week and are seizing your yea