Speaker 1: What does it take to make someone give up on
Speaker 1: their dream? Which straw is it that finally breaks the
Speaker 1: camel's back? For Hugh van Kylenberg, a simple but critical
Speaker 1: mistake in his calendar almost spelt the end of his company,
Speaker 1: The Resilience Project before it had truly begun. But more
Speaker 1: about that later. You might be familiar with Hugh through
Speaker 1: his work with the Resilience Project because nearly half a
Speaker 1: million school students in Australia are currently doing the Resilience
Speaker 1: Project curriculum, and about the same number of adults are
Speaker 1: doing it too. You might have also come across Hugh
Speaker 1: through his brilliant podcast The Imperfects, where he speaks to
Speaker 1: high profile people who share their struggles and imperfections. Now,
Speaker 1: given Hughes work, you're probably expecting a chat about how
Speaker 1: Hugh stays resilient, but instead we cover all sorts of
Speaker 1: other things, like how he builds a rapport super quickly
Speaker 1: with people, what the major turning points for the growth
Speaker 1: of the Resilience Project were, and how he minds his
Speaker 1: life for great stories to share with his audiences. Because
Speaker 1: Hugh really is a master storyteller. My name is doctor
Speaker 1: amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of
Speaker 1: behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work
Speaker 1: a show about how to help you do your best work.
Speaker 1: So Hugh had had a shocker of a morning on
Speaker 1: the day that we recorded this interview. But having a
Speaker 1: one on one chat in a studio is really nothing
Speaker 1: compared to the stadiums of several thousand people that Hugh
Speaker 1: would normally address as part of his job. So I
Speaker 1: was keen to know how does he get himself into
Speaker 1: the headspace he really needs to be in when he's
Speaker 1: just not feeling it.
Speaker 2: I've got so many stories on that. I mean, I
Speaker 2: grew up on. I mean I built the Resonience Project.
Speaker 2: It started off doing presentations in primary schools because as
Speaker 2: a primary school teacher and I thought I can do
Speaker 2: good presentations to primary school kids. That's an audience I'm
Speaker 2: used to and I know how to engage them. And
Speaker 2: so that's how it started going to primary schools and
Speaker 2: it grew so well, I was going to say so quickly.
Speaker 2: Didn't grow so quickly, but it got to a point
Speaker 2: after a few years where I was doing four or
Speaker 2: five one hour presentations a day to huge audiences, so
Speaker 2: I'd go like it was ridiculous. I just couldn't say
Speaker 2: no because I'd had two years where no one was
Speaker 2: interested that the thought of saying no to people, it
Speaker 2: just was so I'm not doing that. I'm just going
Speaker 2: to say yes to everyone. And I would say ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the presentations I did, I turned up in
Speaker 2: a mood of just I can't do this. I've just
Speaker 2: got nothing here. But there was no method or anything.
Speaker 2: I did. It is my favorite thing in the world
Speaker 2: to do. I know it's a weird thing, but public
Speaker 2: speaking is. I just love it. Ever since I was
Speaker 2: a kid at school, not very primary school it terrified me,
Speaker 2: but in secondary school I looked for opportunities to do
Speaker 2: it because I just loved it. So I think I'd
Speaker 2: often start. I'd get up on stage in front of
Speaker 2: I don't know what was the last one I did.
Speaker 2: We're so up in cans A few weeks ago we
Speaker 2: had all these schools bust into the Performing Arts Center
Speaker 2: in Cans. So it was about twenty five hundred nine
Speaker 2: to twelve year olds were coming in and it was
Speaker 2: the third one for the day. It was so hot
Speaker 2: the air conditioning had stopped working in this and it
Speaker 2: was Cannes. It was so hot, and i'd been on
Speaker 2: the phone to my wife. We'd been chatting about stuff
Speaker 2: with our kids. She was having a really rough time.
Speaker 2: She's very pregnant. And I felt so bad that I
Speaker 2: wasn't at home. I just I was so down to myself,
Speaker 2: going I shouldn't have done this. I should be at
Speaker 2: home with Penny and the kids. And as I'm on
Speaker 2: the phone, I'm watching all these kids just walking into
Speaker 2: the hall and I didn't do anything. I think it
Speaker 2: was about probably two or three minutes in. I just
Speaker 2: saw a kid who was sort of he wasn't near
Speaker 2: a fun he was kind of sitting in the middle
Speaker 2: some and I just looked at him and I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: my gosh, I don't know what this kid's story is,
Speaker 2: but he clearly needs this right now. And I kind
Speaker 2: of in my head was thinking, you're presenting for this kid,
Speaker 2: and there's two thy and five hundred kids here. Maybe
Speaker 2: he's the only one who get something out of this,
Speaker 2: but he needs this right now. And it did, but
Speaker 2: I didn't. There's nothing I did consciously to go, come on,
Speaker 2: switch on, you need to I got up there begrudgingly.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I hope that people in kens doon't
Speaker 2: hear me say this. But I was like, I can't.
Speaker 2: I don't have the energy for this. But then I
Speaker 2: saw this one kid, and you never know. There's the
Speaker 2: thing about podcasting which you probably find you never know
Speaker 2: the impact you're having. I don't think you really know.
Speaker 2: I mean there's sometimes I bum into people who say
Speaker 2: I've listened to every episode and I needed this so
Speaker 2: much in my life, and if I didn't bump to them,
Speaker 2: I would have known that. So I think sometimes it
Speaker 2: helps to remind yourself of the people who potentially you
Speaker 2: know I've I've been going back many years. I was
Speaker 2: much younger when I started it, and I did have
Speaker 2: more energy. Naturally, I'd noticed now as a forty two
Speaker 2: year old that it's it can tack it. It's a
Speaker 2: young person and game I think public speaking at that volume.
Speaker 2: But for me, I think it's just trying to identify you.
Speaker 2: I think it do you know what it is? I'm
Speaker 2: just I'm stumbling around my answer a bit here, but
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's coming back to your why,
Speaker 2: like why you're doing it, because for me, my why
Speaker 2: is to help people to feel happier. And I think,
Speaker 2: no matter how exhausted I am or whatever day I've had,
Speaker 2: I'm very connected with my why, like why I'm doing this?
Speaker 2: And I think I didn't think to myself, come on
Speaker 2: to you, what's your why? Why are you doing this?
Speaker 2: But I saw a kid who looked like they just
Speaker 2: needed it so desperately. There was a ten year old
Speaker 2: who had tears streaming down their face, you know, like
Speaker 2: and that's a big thing for a ten year old
Speaker 2: to do in front of all their peers. And I
Speaker 2: just remember thinking that, kids, why I'm here today? Like
Speaker 2: that that's, you know, that got me through that presentation.
Speaker 2: So I guess it's a strong connection with you why.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting what you say about your why,
Speaker 1: and that really shines through in your work that I've
Speaker 1: seen of your work, that you are very connected to it.
Speaker 1: And I feel connected to my why. But I still
Speaker 1: have many moments and days and engagements where I'll be
Speaker 1: doing speaking or something that requires me to be in
Speaker 1: a certain state and I'll just be so in my
Speaker 1: own head and focused on me and not on the audience.
Speaker 1: So practically speaking, how how do you stay in touch
Speaker 1: with your why when you know mentally you're struggling.
Speaker 2: That's such a good question. I think sometimes I have
Speaker 2: to be honest. I don't always do it. I had
Speaker 2: a corporate presentation for a group of people I won't
Speaker 2: say where they're from, but before that, so I got
Speaker 2: there at six in the morning because they were finishing
Speaker 2: night shift and they'd been working since ten at night
Speaker 2: and they were a group of tradees. And one of
Speaker 2: them said to me as I was about to start,
Speaker 2: he said, hells this go for mate, And I said
Speaker 2: it's an hour and he said, do it in half
Speaker 2: an hour, and just like walk off. Another guy walked
Speaker 2: past and said I just said, now I'm going to
Speaker 2: be sleeping through this, and other go I can't repeat
Speaker 2: the language, but another guy it was just and I
Speaker 2: just thought, I don't want to do this, like I
Speaker 2: just don't want to be here. And it was awful,
Speaker 2: Like it went for an hour, it felt like three
Speaker 2: hours for me, and there was no point where I
Speaker 2: was thinking, come on, get in touch with you. Why,
Speaker 2: why are you doing this? You're trying to help someone.
Speaker 2: I just I'm sure there were people there who In fact,
Speaker 2: I know there were people there who needed it and
Speaker 2: by the end we're benefiting from it. But I was
Speaker 2: just thinking the whole time, I just don't want to
Speaker 2: do this. So there are times, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to make it sound like every time I get up
Speaker 2: and perform it's like I'm in touch with my whye
Speaker 2: no matter what, I can get through this. There are
Speaker 2: times when I really struggle as well. There's a thing
Speaker 2: I do I've noticed a lot, which again it's it's
Speaker 2: a subconscious thing. I never deliberately sat down and went
Speaker 2: this is a good thing to do. But before I present,
Speaker 2: I'll often watch the people come in, and I'll watch
Speaker 2: their body language, and I'll try and identify people that
Speaker 2: I think are going to really enjoy it or really
Speaker 2: need it and really benefit from it, and I sort
Speaker 2: of focus on them because it's very easy to focus
Speaker 2: on people. I mean, I don't know how relatable this
Speaker 2: is for people who don't present, but you'll see some
Speaker 2: people come in and you can tell from the start
Speaker 2: they just don't want to be that event. This is
Speaker 2: this is what work, you know, corporate stuff. They've been
Speaker 2: told they have to do it, and you can see
Speaker 2: them their body language and and just going what is
Speaker 2: this about? And while am I listening to this guy?
Speaker 2: Why am I going to listen to this guy? But
Speaker 2: then you can also see people walk in who who
Speaker 2: you just know desperately need it, and so I will
Speaker 2: focus on them before I get up, and I just
Speaker 2: think this is fair. Yeah, I think I often in
Speaker 2: my head, I'm almost like dedicating it to a group
Speaker 2: of people in the audience that I know will need it.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a little bit different when I'm doing
Speaker 2: the big sort of shows around the country. I can't
Speaker 2: see anyone, It's like, but everyone's bought tickets to that,
Speaker 2: so I'm assuming they want to be there. So I'm
Speaker 2: pretty happy that I feel like over that. But I
Speaker 2: think it's I think it's just I'll identify people that
Speaker 2: really need it. I guess, well, I think need it.
Speaker 1: You're really great at storytelling, and I can imagine from
Speaker 1: the type of work that you do there are probably
Speaker 1: stories that you've told hundreds of hundreds of times, and
Speaker 1: I imagine when you're creating new keynote speaking or show material,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure, I think, you know, to
Speaker 1: create you great stories that are going to have an
Speaker 1: equal amount of impact in some way. What's your process
Speaker 1: for crafting a story and you know, thinking about the
Speaker 1: key moments.
Speaker 2: It's a lovely point you bring up. I think a
Speaker 2: really important thing for anyone who presents as part of
Speaker 2: their job, whether it's you know, you're doing PowerPoint presentations
Speaker 2: at work. I know from doing this for you know,
Speaker 2: three or four a day for the last ten years.
Speaker 2: Not every day Monday to Friday, that is, but I
Speaker 2: don't do it on the weekends. But I know from
Speaker 2: when I'm doing my presentations and my talks the point
Speaker 2: that people, so people will lean forward and they listen
Speaker 2: when you're telling stories. The second you start telling them
Speaker 2: statistics or I'll give them practical strategies, that's when they
Speaker 2: get their pen and payper and start writing, because they
Speaker 2: know they'll forget that stuff. People don't forget stories. We
Speaker 2: love stories of human beings. We love them and we listen.
Speaker 2: We don't know. No one's ever taken notes when i'm
Speaker 2: you know, no one's saying, oh, his sister got sick
Speaker 2: when he was fourteen, and then she went to hospital
Speaker 2: and then he went to India, and no one's taking
Speaker 2: notes for that. But they're taking notes. So the more
Speaker 2: stories you can put into any kind of presentation you're
Speaker 2: doing that. I just it is the most engaging part.
Speaker 2: So stories are crucial that they're just and that's what
Speaker 2: the Resilience Project is built on. It's it's storytelling. That
Speaker 2: that's all it is. We're just story after story after story.
Speaker 2: This is going to sound really strange. I don't and
Speaker 2: I know this is an unusual way to do it.
Speaker 2: I don't really have When something happens to me, I'll
Speaker 2: go and talk My wife and I have the exact
Speaker 2: same sense of humor, and so I'll go and tell
Speaker 2: my wife the story of what happened during the day.
Speaker 2: When something happens with my with my phone, I've got
Speaker 2: a section which it says talks podcasts and books, And
Speaker 2: if something happens, I'll just what's a good example. I'm
Speaker 2: putting myself on the spot here. Well, that's right. So
Speaker 2: yesterday when I went to get petrol, the guy next
Speaker 2: to me, so the guy behind me, as someone else
Speaker 2: if I could fill up their petrol tank whle they
Speaker 2: went and did some shopping in the and I was like,
Speaker 2: does it go serious? And he said, mate, I've got
Speaker 2: someone I actual He said, can you fill up my
Speaker 2: tank while I'm just and the guy's like, he's serious anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 2: can you just anyway? I guess. So somehow got this
Speaker 2: guy to fill up his petrol tank while he went
Speaker 2: in to the shopping. Now that may not feature in
Speaker 2: anything I do, podcast, book, or but I think every
Speaker 2: single day stuff we all see stuff that happens that
Speaker 2: he's either funny or interesting or weird or emotional or
Speaker 2: moving or I was on the way to work the
Speaker 2: other day and I there was a guy on Alexander
Speaker 2: Parade in Melbourne, which is five lanes, and so that's
Speaker 2: it's a pretty common place where people will wash your windscreen.
Speaker 2: Money for wash your windscreen four money is what I
Speaker 2: meant to say. And this guy was walking down the
Speaker 2: middle and everyone was saying no to him, and I
Speaker 2: was I felt really bad, but I didn't have any coins,
Speaker 2: so I didn't want hm to say no. I want
Speaker 2: to tell him why. So I wound the window down
Speaker 2: and I said, and I said, sorry matter, I haven't haven't.
Speaker 2: I haven't actually got any coins on me, and he
Speaker 2: didn't hear me, so he came right over to me.
Speaker 2: He said, so it was that, and his head was
Speaker 2: pretty much almost like it was right at the window
Speaker 2: and the window was down, and I, for some reason
Speaker 2: I wanted to prove I didn't have coins. So I
Speaker 2: lifted up the center console. I said, look, I don't
Speaker 2: have any coins. I lifted it up, and sitting on
Speaker 2: top of all the pile stuff was a twenty dollars note.
Speaker 2: And he looked at it and I looked at it,
Speaker 2: and we said I looked at each other. It was
Speaker 2: this really awkward thing, and I was like, I guess
Speaker 2: I don't need this twenty dollars, and so I gave
Speaker 2: it to him. But the second the second I gave
Speaker 2: it to him, tears just streaming down his face. And
Speaker 2: he said, I will wash your windscreen twice. I said no, once,
Speaker 2: it's fine. He said I will wash it and so anyway,
Speaker 2: he washed it thoroughly and then he is I said
Speaker 2: that's enough, mane, I'll do it again. And he went
Speaker 2: around the other side of the car and he covered
Speaker 2: it in so and then the lights went green. Every
Speaker 2: I started to beat me. So I had to drive
Speaker 2: off with soap like my wish. I couldn't see where
Speaker 2: it's gone anyway, I just I remember when I when
Speaker 2: I got home, I'd sort of wrote that in my
Speaker 2: phone under talks. I put it in I think potentially talks. Now.
Speaker 2: It may never pop up in a talk, but I
Speaker 2: look over it every couple of weeks. I look over
Speaker 2: the stories I've put in there, or they're just under
Speaker 2: the headings, and just think, where could this work in
Speaker 2: the podcast setting for the Imperfect? Could it work at
Speaker 2: a talk? Could it work with my next book? I
Speaker 2: don't really know, but I just have them there and
Speaker 2: I just think about them. I tell Penny this and
Speaker 2: I sort of gauge her reaction to see how she responds,
Speaker 2: because she's very honest. And then if Penny laughs a lot,
Speaker 2: what happens is they go into this part of my
Speaker 2: brain where this is such a weird analogy. But for
Speaker 2: people who've been to London before, you will know. If
Speaker 2: you're anywhere near sort of Heathrow, planes will circle, They
Speaker 2: go around and circle, and then they're called in to land,
Speaker 2: and every I think it's every minute and a half.
Speaker 2: I went to England to play cricket and I remember
Speaker 2: playing a ground near near Heathrow, and for the whole
Speaker 2: day it was like I said, yeah, every ninety seconds
Speaker 2: a plane will land, But you can see them circling
Speaker 2: London on a clear day and they land. That's how
Speaker 2: I feel like when I'm on stage. I have all
Speaker 2: these stories just circling, and when it's appropriate, I'll bring
Speaker 2: one of them into bring one of them into Land.
Speaker 2: And I don't know which stories I'm going to tell.
Speaker 2: I never know. It's just looking at the audience or
Speaker 2: trying to feel what the audience is into. I've got
Speaker 2: three or four standard stories that I'll always open with,
Speaker 2: and they're all very different stories, and I'll which story
Speaker 2: resonates the most with the audience. And then let's say
Speaker 2: it's a story about a guy. When I was doing
Speaker 2: a guy. When I was doing a I was doing
Speaker 2: his Zoom presentation once and a guy tried to write
Speaker 2: a message to his mate in the Zoom prison, but
Speaker 2: he accidentally had it on public. There was four hundred
Speaker 2: traders in this presentation. The guy said, hey, johno, who
Speaker 2: does this poke remind you of? And we also know
Speaker 2: went oh shit, my look alikes are never good. And
Speaker 2: I tried to move it so I couldn't see Jono's answer,
Speaker 2: but John Ooh was really quick, and Jho wrote, this
Speaker 2: guy is a dead ringer for Steve Bashemi. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you know Steve A. Shemi, but he's famous
Speaker 2: for playing ugly people, and that's his role. That's what
Speaker 2: it says on Wikipedia. Yeah, villains and ugly people. That's
Speaker 2: his role. So anyway, I saw that that's one of
Speaker 2: my opening stories, and I will if that gets a
Speaker 2: really good response. I've got a whole lot of self
Speaker 2: deprecating stories that I think this audience will like, there's
Speaker 2: a story about my sister's mental illness. And if that
Speaker 2: seems to get like because there's this there's this noise
Speaker 2: people make when they respond to it, it's like this, oh,
Speaker 2: when they're really feeling that part of the story, the
Speaker 2: heart break of that story, my sister's mental illness. If
Speaker 2: I feel like that's really resonated with that group, I've
Speaker 2: got a whole lot of stories that a lot, a
Speaker 2: lot deeper than a Steve mashem you look alike, you know.
Speaker 2: And I just have these stories that are I've written
Speaker 2: them down, I've tom of the penny and if they
Speaker 2: pass a penny test, then they're in my brain somewhere
Speaker 2: and I'll bring him in to land at the right time.
Speaker 2: I guess now, that's not a very reliable example, so
Speaker 2: I wouldn't recommend people do that. I've just had again
Speaker 2: to use a flying reference, which I've never done ever before.
Speaker 2: But I've had that many flying hours of being up
Speaker 2: on stage presenting, you know, And I learned with kids,
Speaker 2: which is which is the toughest, the toughest audience you'll
Speaker 2: ever have. So it works with kids, and now I
Speaker 2: can do that with adult it's a bit better. I'm
Speaker 2: giving you a long answers today.
Speaker 1: Hon Gosh, that's amazing though, So you're not necessarily following
Speaker 1: a script from beginning to end.
Speaker 2: I never never, I grew up watching I grew up
Speaker 2: watching Billy Connolly, the Scottish comedian who Mum and dad
Speaker 2: were obsessed with him, and I realized they used him
Speaker 2: as a way of I mean, with so much pain
Speaker 2: and heartache in my family, with my sister's mental illness
Speaker 2: when she was really see in and out of hospital,
Speaker 2: and the one thing that would make Mum and dad
Speaker 2: smile was Billy Connolly. We had these video cassettes and
Speaker 2: Mum and Dad woud stick him in probably once or
Speaker 2: twice a week, and would sit on the couch and
Speaker 2: I would watch him, and then I've watched Mom and
Speaker 2: Dad and think, how is this possible? They were in
Speaker 2: tears like an hour ago, now they're in tears are laughter.
Speaker 2: This guy's unbelievable, and his format was very He would
Speaker 2: get on stage and he just tells story after story
Speaker 2: after story, and he often will get lost and say
Speaker 2: what was I talking about? And they'll say, like, don't
Speaker 2: why am I telling you this story? And They're just
Speaker 2: things that pop into his head. So I grew up
Speaker 2: on that, and I think, you know, from a psychologists
Speaker 2: point of view, I just always wanted Mum and Dad
Speaker 2: to feel happy. So I think I've mimicked his style
Speaker 2: because I just saw what he did for Mum and Dad,
Speaker 2: and I as a big fan of his. I love
Speaker 2: how when I go to his shows, I think I
Speaker 2: don't know what he's going to say. He doesn't know
Speaker 2: what he's going to say. So this is a unique experience,
Speaker 2: and so I've tried to mimic that it's not overly relateable.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't recommend people get out there and go, well,
Speaker 2: let's see what stories are. I've done it for many
Speaker 2: years with because when I started with primary school kids,
Speaker 2: I was this story, then this story, then this story,
Speaker 2: and I use photos as my people go how do
Speaker 2: you remember all that stuff? I use photos in the background,
Speaker 2: the photos of my prompts to get me through. There's
Speaker 2: like there's a vague structure, but yeah, it's for people
Speaker 2: who are going to spend time presenting. I'd recommend when
Speaker 2: something happens to throughout. I mean, every day something has you.
Speaker 2: It's you go home and you tell your partner about
Speaker 2: something that happened. If it stands out as something that
Speaker 2: was you know, could could somehow relate to what you
Speaker 2: talk about, or what you're presenting about, or your work
Speaker 2: or what you're interested in, just write it down the
Speaker 2: note section on your phone and come back and visit
Speaker 2: every now and again. Tell a story to your partner
Speaker 2: or your housemates, or tell it to your friends and
Speaker 2: see how it goes, and you'll get better at telling it.
Speaker 2: You'll get better at telling it.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the imperfect your podcast, and
Speaker 1: I was saying to you before we started recording. I've
Speaker 1: known of it for a while, but I only first
Speaker 1: listened to it a couple of months ago, which treated
Speaker 1: me to reach out because I've just become obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: I think it's so I'm going through the back catalog,
Speaker 1: so I'm not actually up to date with the most
Speaker 1: recent releases. I highly recommend it though. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I've heard you say which I found really
Speaker 1: unusual because I don't have this as an approach. Granted,
Speaker 1: topics are really different. Like you're talking to your guests
Speaker 1: about really personal personal moments, moments where they're they're sharing
Speaker 1: things that you know, I guess you know, are quite vulnerable,
Speaker 1: quite exposing for them things they probably haven't talked about
Speaker 1: in many or any other places. I would imagine in
Speaker 1: the work that they do. Where does I talk about
Speaker 1: work and productivity? Let's less personal. But you said that
Speaker 1: you will always meet up with a guest that you
Speaker 1: don't know for a coffee before I can you tell
Speaker 1: me about that and that that initial coffee where you
Speaker 1: are I guess building that trust and report.
Speaker 2: I can give you a great example from yesterday. So
Speaker 2: I caught up yesterday with Libby Trickett, the full time
Speaker 2: gold medal swimming legend, and so she came down from Brisbane,
Speaker 2: and I feel like with the stuff we talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm asking Libby to broadcast to a lot
Speaker 2: of people her darkest moments, in her toughest and she
Speaker 2: spoke about some really full on stuff yesterday. I feel
Speaker 2: like she needs to know that I really care. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've never met her before, but I do really care
Speaker 2: about her experience on our podcast. I do care about
Speaker 2: her and how she comes across and the whole experience
Speaker 2: for her. So I feel like an hour we had lunch,
Speaker 2: No sorry, I had lunch by myself because she came
Speaker 2: down from Brisbane and she's got three girls and she
Speaker 2: was so excited to get away from the house for
Speaker 2: the day. So she got there early, had lunch byself,
Speaker 2: sat there in this cafe and Melbourne and just had
Speaker 2: and then I turned up. She had a smoothie while
Speaker 2: I had lunch, but we talked about a whole lot
Speaker 2: of stuff that we just built. This really nice after.
Speaker 2: She's got the most beautiful smile. That's sort of what
Speaker 2: she was famous for. Was this smile. This like quintessential Aussie,
Speaker 2: you know, swim my blonde hair, this lovely smile. It's
Speaker 2: it's such as I describe it. It's like a very
Speaker 2: there's a word I'm trying to think of. But I've
Speaker 2: had four and a half hour sleep last night, come
Speaker 2: to me during this podcast and coming.
Speaker 1: Down, I'll just drop the.
Speaker 2: Word in disarming, disarming. There you go. It's just this
Speaker 2: like but anyway, in that hour, I felt like we
Speaker 2: built this really nice rapport that when we went and
Speaker 2: sat down and recorded and I asked her about the
Speaker 2: darkest moments of pairing and her parenting and her postoninal depression,
Speaker 2: it wasn't like I was doing it for content. We
Speaker 2: had an hour, It's not a huge amount of time,
Speaker 2: but there was an hour of like, I get a
Speaker 2: feel for what this person's like. He's not doing this
Speaker 2: to have great content. He's doing this because he wants
Speaker 2: other people to hear this story, because it will help
Speaker 2: other people. And I think people don't sort of care,
Speaker 2: I said, old saying, but as a teacher, always been
Speaker 2: friend of mine met people don't care what you know
Speaker 2: until they know that you care. And I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm always trying to you know. The first one I
Speaker 2: ever did it was Missy Higgins and caught up with
Speaker 2: Missy Higgins, and I was so nervous because just such
Speaker 2: a huge Missy Higgins fan. But I was I remember
Speaker 2: going there, going I just wanted to know that I'm
Speaker 2: not trying to get a story. I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: find I don't want to be a clickbait type interview.
Speaker 2: I don't. I just wanted to know that this is
Speaker 2: coming from a very genuine place and it's a safe
Speaker 2: place for her. So and then when we caught up,
Speaker 2: it was the first interview I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 2: I just remember during the interview thinking, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 2: I'm so glad we caught up beforehand, because I would
Speaker 2: feel I would feel a bit uncomfortable. She was sharing
Speaker 2: the stuff around her anxiety and her depression just without
Speaker 2: like completely cold, never met before. So I felt like,
Speaker 2: I do feel like it's it's when you're having conversations
Speaker 2: like that, it's nice to have.
Speaker 1: That what are you doing though practically to elicit that
Speaker 1: that comfort? Oh great question those people have with you.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because like I would just sort of
Speaker 1: comment because we've been in a room together now for
Speaker 1: I don't know, half an hour or something like that,
Speaker 1: and you're like you come across as a very sort
Speaker 1: of warm and open kind of person, very naturally, and
Speaker 1: I imagine that a lot of it is just simply
Speaker 1: how you are like unconscious. But if you were to
Speaker 1: unpack it practically, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's such a good question. I don't know. Let
Speaker 2: me I want to do yesterday with Libby. So so
Speaker 2: with Libby yesterday. I don't know. You'd have to ask
Speaker 2: her if this is a good thing to do. But
Speaker 2: I talked at her for the first fifteen minutes about
Speaker 2: how disastrously bad my last two weeks have been, so
Speaker 2: I had it as this. I went to So I
Speaker 2: had a week with the Queens and State of Origin team.
Speaker 2: I was on their camp for their build up for
Speaker 2: State of Origin one, which was a really exciting thing
Speaker 2: to do. I've been like ted Lass, so I have
Speaker 2: no idea about the sport though, so that was a
Speaker 2: bit of a strange experience. But I then went flew
Speaker 2: to Newcastle and then to Woo and Gong to do
Speaker 2: two shows. And I've had this assist on my eyelid
Speaker 2: for about a month and I keep thinking, when I
Speaker 2: have time, I'll go and see someone about it, but
Speaker 2: I just haven't had time to go and get an appointment. Anyway.
Speaker 2: I woke up having been away from home for a week.
Speaker 2: Penny had covid Elsie, my daughter had COVID. Penny was
Speaker 2: eight months pregnant, and I wasn't overly popular fair enough
Speaker 2: for not being at home, and I said I'll be
Speaker 2: home in a few days. Of a few days, and
Speaker 2: I woke up in Sydney having done a Newcastle Sorry
Speaker 2: the wool Ongoing show the night before, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: open my eye. It was stuck closed. I couldn't open it.
Speaker 2: I said, what is going I literally was trying to
Speaker 2: prize it open and I couldn't open it. I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: I think this is bad and live Nation on my
Speaker 2: touring that that look after me when I'm on tour,
Speaker 2: and they have got this rock doctor who just like
Speaker 2: he just he I didn't eve need to have appoint
Speaker 2: with it. I took a photo of it like me
Speaker 2: trying mine and send it to him And next minute
Speaker 2: I've got an appointment with an eye specialist. Turned up
Speaker 2: with his eye specialist who was on the way to
Speaker 2: play golf. He'd like he was in his golf clothes
Speaker 2: and he said, I'm really sorry. I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to give you four of the most painful injections you'll
Speaker 2: ever have in your life into your eyeland. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm not great with pain. And I just my hands
Speaker 2: started shaking straight away, and he said, and then I'm
Speaker 2: going to now you might have edit this out. I
Speaker 2: don't know, just in case we heads up. If they
Speaker 2: haven't edited this out, and you're squirmish, squirmish is that
Speaker 2: a word? Squamish? Squirmish? If you squirmish, don't listen to this.
Speaker 2: He said, Then I'm going to turn your eelid inside out,
Speaker 2: clamp it. I'm going to get a I'm going to
Speaker 2: get a scalpel, and I'm going to cut all the
Speaker 2: way along inside of your eyelid and scrape everything out fromhim. So,
Speaker 2: because all your glands are blocked up, I'm going to
Speaker 2: scrape out your glands. And I said, ah, that sounds awful,
Speaker 2: and he said it's extremely uncomfortable. And I said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to do a show tonight and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't really care. I need to get this out now.
Speaker 2: And so I went through the procedure. I had this.
Speaker 2: So the first two injections into my I remember going,
Speaker 2: oh gosh, that really hurt. And then he and I
Speaker 2: was like, that's one of them. He's a right that
Speaker 2: is one of the most and then he said, okay,
Speaker 2: so this next one coming up inside your elid, this
Speaker 2: is how this is as bad as it gets. And
Speaker 2: it was, and I was trying to look away, but
Speaker 2: it's like and he said, look, please look at the needle,
Speaker 2: please look the nets. Anyway, so why am I doing
Speaker 2: this story? So he scrapes it out and does that,
Speaker 2: and then I had an eye patch on all that afternoon.
Speaker 2: I was in so much pain. Got on just before
Speaker 2: I go on stage, I took the I took the
Speaker 2: eye patch off, blood went everywhere and as I go
Speaker 2: on stage in Newcastleven cleaned my head. I'm up on
Speaker 2: stage and I'm thinking, oh, I don't feel well. I
Speaker 2: feel quite sick, not like nauses. I felt like aches
Speaker 2: and pains and feverish. And I, for some reason my
Speaker 2: brain was like, it's because of what you went through today.
Speaker 2: You're a bit traumatized. As I'm talking, I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I feel realistic. Got off stage, went straight back to
Speaker 2: the hotel. When wake up feeling so sick, how to
Speaker 2: fly back to Melbourne. As I'm sitting at the airport,
Speaker 2: I'm about to get the plane, I went, hang on
Speaker 2: a minute, oh, no, this could be COVID. And I
Speaker 2: hadn't thought about it because I was so traumatized. Miss
Speaker 2: I thing, and so I was like, if I do it,
Speaker 2: hang on flies but everyone's getting on the plane. I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't ever, I can't. There's no tests here.
Speaker 2: How do I do a test? Is this he responsible
Speaker 2: to get a plane here? Now I bead I'll be fine.
Speaker 2: It will not be COVID. Got on a plane, sneeze
Speaker 2: the whole way like I was wearing two masks, poor lady.
Speaker 2: I get in the car and I did a test
Speaker 2: when I got it on the way home, and I
Speaker 2: had COVID. So Penny had COVID, Elsie had COVID. I
Speaker 2: think Benji had COVID. I had COVID. We had assessments
Speaker 2: for out Sun with his all this stuff he's going through,
Speaker 2: and it was like the worst. This is a long
Speaker 2: story again, but anyway, I told Livy trigg at this
Speaker 2: story right well, soon as we got there, she said
Speaker 2: how I And I said, I've been better and I
Speaker 2: told her that story. Looking back, it's not why, but
Speaker 2: looking back on it, maybe it builds some kind of
Speaker 2: like oh, like someone's empathy or just like I'm very
Speaker 2: keen always when I meet people to I'm worried people
Speaker 2: have this persona of like, oh, he's been a successful
Speaker 2: public speaker. He's like a very confident and successful I
Speaker 2: don't that's not me. Like, I don't want people to
Speaker 2: ever think that. I don't want people to think I'm
Speaker 2: want a pedestal. Ever, I don't ever think I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I don't look at myself and go, Wow, what a
Speaker 2: successful person. I don't think that. I don't I want
Speaker 2: people to know that. And I think I'll tell people
Speaker 2: about my failure's a lot of my stuff ups and
Speaker 2: my hardships, and I think that maybe builds empathy. I
Speaker 2: don't know. But anyway, we got on really well. She
Speaker 2: shared some stories of stuff that she was struggling with.
Speaker 2: So again I'm doing to make a very long story short.
Speaker 2: I think being vulnerable with people. I'm so sorry about
Speaker 2: being vulnerable with people. That's how you do it. And
Speaker 2: I when we caught up, we talked about how hard
Speaker 2: we find parenting, the struggles of parenting. I remember catching
Speaker 2: up with I was on Travis Poke, the a for footballer,
Speaker 2: and we we I mean I actually did already know him,
Speaker 2: but we caught up just to talk about it before anyway,
Speaker 2: and it was either zooms during lockdown, but we talked
Speaker 2: about Travis ha dad had passed away and we just
Speaker 2: talked about that a lot, and I just listened. Mainly,
Speaker 2: I can't relate to that, but it's it's vulnerability is
Speaker 2: so connecting.
Speaker 1: It reminds me. I heard Tim Ferriss talk about how
Speaker 1: he starts his uh his like interviews, this is like
Speaker 1: before he hits record, and he said he'll deliberately share
Speaker 1: something that shows vulnerability to build that instant rapport with
Speaker 1: So that's that's interesting.
Speaker 2: But I think it's what I've done throughout my entire life,
Speaker 2: I think, and I don't know where I learned it,
Speaker 2: but I feel like I've always I just feel like
Speaker 2: it's just a deeply connecting thing. I've always shared way
Speaker 2: too much. Whatever's in my heart. I just share with
Speaker 2: everyone all the time. And I think that's a struggle
Speaker 2: right now with what we're going through with our son
Speaker 2: going through getting assessments done for what he's struggling with,
Speaker 2: and my wife saying this is not We're not You're
Speaker 2: not sharing this, you know, And I was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: you're right, this is his story one day to tell,
Speaker 2: but it's so and I so want to share it,
Speaker 2: but it's not. It's his story, so I'm not going
Speaker 2: to share it. But but I have this instinct to
Speaker 2: want to share everything. I'm finding difficult. I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but it's it's worked, especially with what we do professionally.
Speaker 2: What I do professionally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can relate to that. Something I think about
Speaker 1: quite a lot, having having been through a divorce, and
Speaker 1: there's obviously two sides to every divorce. Is I want
Speaker 1: to share it openly, but also I want to be
Speaker 1: very respectful of my x and also going you know,
Speaker 1: like one day, like Frankie has no interest in my podcast,
Speaker 1: even though I try to tell her it's amazing and
Speaker 1: it will help her at school in year three. But
Speaker 1: I always I really struggle with that because I feel
Speaker 1: like you don't hear too many people who have some
Speaker 1: kind of a platform talking about something as horrible as
Speaker 1: going through a divorce. And I feel like I've learned
Speaker 1: so many lessons, but then I'm always I'm kind of
Speaker 1: censoring myself, going what's appropriate and what's not appropriate?
Speaker 2: How do you I've child with that quite a few
Speaker 2: times I've been pulled up by a few people an
Speaker 2: awful feeling. But as a couple of examples, I would
Speaker 2: tell a story about a really well on individual who
Speaker 2: heard me speak and had their back turned to me
Speaker 2: for a lot of it. And I was sharing that
Speaker 2: story and someone came up from their workplace and said,
Speaker 2: as a sports person and said, that is someone professional
Speaker 2: you're going to invite into our workspace and you're sharing
Speaker 2: a story about and I get why you do it,
Speaker 2: but it's unprofessional. And I thought, gosh, that's so true.
Speaker 2: I used to just it was a throwaway line I
Speaker 2: just had about an ex partner of mine about it
Speaker 2: was just a joke I was making about how I
Speaker 2: used to do whatever she wanted because she was the
Speaker 2: boss and so. And someone came up to me and
Speaker 2: they didn't know my ex. But I said, I think
Speaker 2: that's really unfair. I think it's really unfair that you
Speaker 2: said that, and I was I hated that feedback, and
Speaker 2: I said, I was thinking, what an idiot. Look, it's
Speaker 2: none of their business. I don't get what the point was.
Speaker 2: It's just a joke, I'm but I stopped saying it
Speaker 2: and I realized it's because deep down I actually realized
Speaker 2: that were right and I agreed with them. And so
Speaker 2: that is a delicate one for me, and that I will.
Speaker 2: I work with a lot of sports people who'll share
Speaker 2: their stories with me, and I think I can't, thinking
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, this should help so many kids if
Speaker 2: I could share this. And early on when I was
Speaker 2: doing this stuff, I just told their stories like I
Speaker 2: just I would say, I've they're working with this person
Speaker 2: and they've been going through this. I wouldn't tell the
Speaker 2: details of it, but like a very high level version
Speaker 2: of this person struggles with depression. And then and then
Speaker 2: someone said to me once, Oh, that's so nice to
Speaker 2: them to give you permission to share that story, and
Speaker 2: I thought, oh geez, and I went, yeah, it's really nice.
Speaker 2: And I thought, nah, do you know what they never did?
Speaker 2: And I just went and said like and again, I
Speaker 2: didn't give way too much, and I think I I
Speaker 2: didn't even say the person that I said to who
Speaker 2: they played for, and that I really well known play
Speaker 2: It was almost obvious who it was. And I felt
Speaker 2: like that was me in sort of hiding your identity,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't really so I filed at that a lot,
Speaker 2: and I think, I remember I've seen a psychologist. Well,
Speaker 2: I did a lot. I haven't for a while, but
Speaker 2: I need to with the third child coming up that
Speaker 2: and I spoke to her about that at length, and
Speaker 2: I said, I'm really struggling with this. I have these
Speaker 2: great stories that I know will help people, but there
Speaker 2: are other people's stories. And she said, what you need
Speaker 2: to do is imagine that person's in the audience and
Speaker 2: how did they feel. She said, It's as simple as that.
Speaker 2: Because some of the people I can't ask for permission
Speaker 2: because I don't I won't ever see them. Agin yea
Speaker 2: someone come't to me after a talk and say, share
Speaker 2: their story, and I'll think, oh my gosh, just extraordinary,
Speaker 2: But I don't have their details to cat say, do
Speaker 2: you mind if I share that? And she said, well,
Speaker 2: just picture they were there watching you. How would they
Speaker 2: feel about it? Are they comfort with your sharing that story?
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what I've used and it's changed
Speaker 2: the way I present massively because I had a lady
Speaker 2: come up to me. That's how I opened my second
Speaker 2: book with the story. A lady came up to me
Speaker 2: after one of my shows at the Convention Center, which
Speaker 2: is a bit like twenty eight hundred people. And I
Speaker 2: was doing a book signing for my first book, and
Speaker 2: there was a lady waiting in the queue, and she
Speaker 2: had six young adults there with her and it was
Speaker 2: her turn. She said, you guys wait here, and she
Speaker 2: came up to me and she just started crying and
Speaker 2: she said, I had my last round of chemo today.
Speaker 2: And she said, I don't have long left. I don't
Speaker 2: have long left. But I brought my three kids and
Speaker 2: their partners because I want them to embrace this stuff
Speaker 2: when I'm no longer with them. Can you please sign
Speaker 2: these books and tell them how much I love them all?
Speaker 2: I was a really and I gave her really. We
Speaker 2: had a long and very silent hug. She's very frail.
Speaker 2: There wasn't much of her and her hair was literally
Speaker 2: falling out, you know in the book when I sign it,
Speaker 2: I remember and I didn't get I didn't get her details.
Speaker 2: I never she just left and I remember, I think
Speaker 2: I don't ever know her name, And it was it
Speaker 2: was such a vulnerable moment that so I felt so
Speaker 2: connected to her, and it inspired me to I was
Speaker 2: pretty good. In two thousand and nineteen, I was so
Speaker 2: exhausted at that point, but it just gave me so
Speaker 2: much energy to keep going, knowing that it reaches people
Speaker 2: like that. Anyway, I wrote that story up for my
Speaker 2: second book, and I had this long thing of like,
Speaker 2: do I I don't have a mission to share the story.
Speaker 2: It's a very moving story. Her kids might read this.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're going to read the book
Speaker 2: is this? And I had this my psychologist that just
Speaker 2: pretend she's going to read this, she might be like,
Speaker 2: she might read it so right in a way that
Speaker 2: she would be very proud of. And so I wrote
Speaker 2: it that way. And then amazingly, six months later I
Speaker 2: got a the Resilience Project and an email of the
Speaker 2: blue from her daughter who had read it and just said,
Speaker 2: I just want to let you know very tragically, Mum
Speaker 2: passed away three months just before we book came out.
Speaker 2: We had tickets for your Large Loaves show and Gelong
Speaker 2: but we couldn't go. But thank you for sharing mum
Speaker 2: story in the way that you did. And she turns
Speaker 2: out this lady's an incredible woman, incredible She set up
Speaker 2: life surf, life saving programs for disabled kids around Australia
Speaker 2: and she was in a remarkable woman. But again, long story.
Speaker 2: But I think for me, it's about pretending those people
Speaker 2: are in the audience. And when I pretend my ex
Speaker 2: was in the audience, I went, no, she would hate
Speaker 2: this story. It's so unfair to her because I'm sure
Speaker 2: there was a reason she was like that a lot
Speaker 2: of the time. You know, I need to be I
Speaker 2: needed someone to really sort of control me. So yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: but again long answer.
Speaker 1: We will be back with you in a moment talking
Speaker 1: about how he built the Resilience Project to having almost
Speaker 1: half a million school students doing his curriculum, and we
Speaker 1: will dig into what some of the major turning points
Speaker 1: were on that path to growth. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: more tips to improve the way that you work, I
Speaker 1: write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things
Speaker 1: that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging from
Speaker 1: software and gadgets that I'm loving through the interesting research findings.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot com.
Speaker 1: That's how I Work dot co. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the Resilience Project, which is your business, and you
Speaker 1: were saying before, you've got four hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: students across Australia doing the Resilience Project curriculum, and then
Speaker 1: you've probably got an equal sized number of people working
Speaker 1: in corporates doing the curriculum. And you started the business.
Speaker 1: Was it twelve or thirteen years ago?
Speaker 2: It's hard to answer the question because I didn't even
Speaker 2: so I have no idea about business. I have absolutely
Speaker 2: no idea. I'm the least business he type person to
Speaker 2: ever come across, so I really have no idea. But
Speaker 2: so when I started a business, I didn't even know
Speaker 2: that's what I was doing. I said, I want to
Speaker 2: stop teaching and I'm going to go and do talks
Speaker 2: at schools. And people say, you're doing your own business.
Speaker 2: I go, I know I'm doing that. I'm doing talks
Speaker 2: at schools. I didn't even get I didn't even know
Speaker 2: how to get an ABN. I didn't understand that. I
Speaker 2: didn't so very steep learning curve. But I you're sorry,
Speaker 2: I interrupted while you're asking the question. So what year
Speaker 2: was that? What year did you start?
Speaker 1: Not a business?
Speaker 2: Two eleven was my Yeah, twenty eleven I started turning
Speaker 2: up to schools and trying to do talks basically and talking.
Speaker 1: Okay, So eleven years ago. I'm so impressed, having heard
Speaker 1: of the Resilience Project and having read about the work
Speaker 1: that you do, that you've grown to the scale that
Speaker 1: you have with a relatively small team over a relatively
Speaker 1: short period of time. And I'd love to know what
Speaker 1: were what were the major turning points or tipping points
Speaker 1: that you can kind of attribute back to doing something
Speaker 1: that got to the next step for lack of growth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think a lot of people look at
Speaker 2: it and think, gosh, it's just this huge overnight success.
Speaker 2: It's just massive, and it's everywhere. But the first three
Speaker 2: years were lonely, really lonely, and there was quite a
Speaker 2: few times I tried to get out and tried to
Speaker 2: applied for jobs elsewhere because I was just I hated
Speaker 2: how lonely it was just me, and there were so
Speaker 2: many no's and not many yeses, and it was just
Speaker 2: so many setbacks after setback and stuffed up so many times.
Speaker 2: I remember there's one point where I was thinking, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty much done. I've been a year and a half
Speaker 2: and I only had five schools booked for the year,
Speaker 2: and it was just literally five presentations for the sitting
Speaker 2: around at home in this like tiny bedroom in viz Roy,
Speaker 2: I can't afford rent, and I'm just think, what on
Speaker 2: earth am I doing. I was doing a lot of
Speaker 2: emergency teaching to try and pawer bills, which is any
Speaker 2: emergency teachers listening. It's a horrible existence, it really is.
Speaker 2: And so I was quite down. But the biggest school
Speaker 2: in Victoria, Hallibrey College, said would you come and speak
Speaker 2: to all our year twelves. I said, We've got three
Speaker 2: different campuses and you know this goes well, we might
Speaker 2: roll out to other year levels. Huge opportunity, and I
Speaker 2: booked it in and I spent the whole week preparing it,
Speaker 2: and I was so excited about it, and I was thinking,
Speaker 2: this is I was doing all these things I've like,
Speaker 2: come with the hour, come of it. You know this
Speaker 2: will be my moment, like, oh well, this will be
Speaker 2: the moment that I look back on and go. I
Speaker 2: really made it work from this day on, and Halo
Speaker 2: Re signed on and all the other schools did. And
Speaker 2: I remember sitting in my bedroom at my desk, pretending
Speaker 2: I didn't know much to do at this point. But
Speaker 2: the day before the talk and I got a phone
Speaker 2: call from this guy is named Nick, I'll never forget him.
Speaker 2: And the second I answered the phone, I knew it
Speaker 2: was bad because I could hear hundreds of kids' voices
Speaker 2: in the background. And he said, okay, he just wanted
Speaker 2: you far off. We're just how far away are you?
Speaker 2: And I said I'm sorry, as in for the presentation.
Speaker 2: He said yeah, And I said so I was in tomorrow.
Speaker 2: We're good for tomorrow and he laughed and said, no,
Speaker 2: it's erously how far off you? And I said, I've
Speaker 2: got in my calm. I'm not joking. I've got my
Speaker 2: counts tomorrow. And he said, you are effing kidding me.
Speaker 2: And he said, I've got three canvases bussed to a
Speaker 2: location here. You telling me you're not coming And I
Speaker 2: said I can be there in and I could get
Speaker 2: there in an hour. And he said the bus is
Speaker 2: leaving it now, mate, And he said, that's right. I
Speaker 2: don't work what to do with fifteen hundred kids. Thanks mate,
Speaker 2: and you hung up. And I'd never felt so sick
Speaker 2: in my entire life. It is the worst. And I
Speaker 2: was just and I looked in the emails and he
Speaker 2: was right and stuffed up. That was with my mistake completely.
Speaker 2: And then amazingly. He called me. He's got Nick called me,
Speaker 2: and that was Nick. Franny called me later that night
Speaker 2: to just say, look, it's fine, we got by. We're
Speaker 2: not gonna be able to reschedule it, obviously, but but
Speaker 2: but we did. It's okay, thank you anyway, and I'm
Speaker 2: sorry to He was really really lovely guy. He was
Speaker 2: very forgiving, and I just oh, I was so down,
Speaker 2: and I just thought, well, that's it. If I can't
Speaker 2: even book in the right day, this is not for me.
Speaker 2: And so then I tried to find other jobs, but
Speaker 2: couldn't even get another job at the point and at
Speaker 2: that time, and so things like that happened. But that
Speaker 2: prompted me to find to straatewa, go, I need someone
Speaker 2: to organize me because this is not only got four
Speaker 2: bloody talks for you, and I couldn't even turn up
Speaker 2: to one of them. So as soon as I could
Speaker 2: afford it, I found a PA person or like, they're
Speaker 2: very hard to find, really good admin people. But I've
Speaker 2: take me a long time. I've got the best in
Speaker 2: the world now in Sarah. But all the way along,
Speaker 2: what kept giv me going was that I loved when
Speaker 2: I was up in front of people presenting, and I
Speaker 2: knew that it was. There's a lot of things in
Speaker 2: the world. I'm not good, so many things I'm not
Speaker 2: good at, but I know that I'm that I can do.
Speaker 2: And whenever I did it, I've got this feeling of like,
Speaker 2: these people love this. It's going to work. It's going
Speaker 2: to work. I again, I was still three years in
Speaker 2: thinking this is probably not going to work. And I
Speaker 2: was outside of school about to go in and do
Speaker 2: emergency teaching. And I've been up since five in the
Speaker 2: morning waiting for the phone for the ring to say,
Speaker 2: this is the school you're going to, And I'm sitting
Speaker 2: out of school that I hated going to. I just
Speaker 2: hated it. I had that feeling like when I was
Speaker 2: a kid not wanting to go to school. It was
Speaker 2: like that in the car going and you get paid
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars for the day to work
Speaker 2: so unbelievably hard an emergency teacher. And as I'm I
Speaker 2: was just about to turn my phone off my phone
Speaker 2: rang I was literally getting it open to turn off,
Speaker 2: and this lady ring, she said, Hi, I don't know
Speaker 2: what you talk about. I'm at a conference in Ararat
Speaker 2: I've got five principles here the keynotes spare gus and
Speaker 2: turned up. My friend gave me a number. Could you
Speaker 2: be here within an hour? And I said I can
Speaker 2: better an hour and a half and she said no way.
Speaker 2: And I went into the school and said, sorry, I
Speaker 2: can't make it today even though I'm here right now.
Speaker 2: And they said you are never welcome back again. And
Speaker 2: I said, that's fairy. I totally understand that, but I
Speaker 2: need to do this. And I went to this and
Speaker 2: I went to this conference and I was fifty principles
Speaker 2: and I got up there and thought, well, this is it,
Speaker 2: like this is this is quite literally make or break
Speaker 2: for me. This doesn't work. I'm never going to this
Speaker 2: will never work. And it was. I had my phone
Speaker 2: in my back pocket and it was buzzing the whole
Speaker 2: way through, and it was people sending me emails from
Speaker 2: the audience booking in for me to come and speak
Speaker 2: at the school. And we booked in forty eight out
Speaker 2: of the fifty schools. In the next In the next week,
Speaker 2: forty eight out of fifty Principles booked their schools in.
Speaker 2: So then from a school point of view, it was
Speaker 2: on and it was it was hectic, and it was
Speaker 2: very stressful and it was all of a sudden, but
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to complain because I had this other problem,
Speaker 2: which was I'm too busy all of a sudden. Three
Speaker 2: years in and then about probably two years later, I
Speaker 2: remember a guy I was at cricket when I was
Speaker 2: playing cricket and a guy I come up to me
Speaker 2: and he was my one of the dads from from
Speaker 2: the team I'm playing, and he introduced himself and he's
Speaker 2: a lovely guy and he said I was Brian feeling
Speaker 2: where that's what I did, And I said, I trained
Speaker 2: people in resilience. He said you should come to a
Speaker 2: workplace and I'd love it. And I said, I it's
Speaker 2: not really for adults, it's for kids. I said where
Speaker 2: you work and he said, oh, the Melbourne Storm And
Speaker 2: I thought he meant the staff there, and he said, no, no,
Speaker 2: the players. I said, oh, I don't watch rugby league.
Speaker 2: I'm an AFL person and he said it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: And I said, I'm not really sure this is going
Speaker 2: to work. And he said, well, if it doesn't work,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work, just try it at least. And I
Speaker 2: remember getting there about a week later and I'm the
Speaker 2: biggest men I've ever seen in my entire life turn
Speaker 2: up and they sit there in five minutes in Billy
Speaker 2: slide up, who's one of the grast pies of all time.
Speaker 2: Stopped me. He said, mate, this is fucking amazing. Keep
Speaker 2: going And I said I wasn't going to stop, but
Speaker 2: they getting itay, And I remember that point going, this
Speaker 2: is interesting, like these boys are loving this. And the
Speaker 2: next week I went back. They said come back next
Speaker 2: week to another presentation and the head of well being
Speaker 2: for the NRL was there and he was in the
Speaker 2: background I didn't know who was introduced himself at the
Speaker 2: end and he said, can you do this at every
Speaker 2: single club? I want a talk for all the staff,
Speaker 2: all the players, the under twenties on the right ends
Speaker 2: under sixties so and all the partners. Only five percent
Speaker 2: of six presentations at every club in the next six months,
Speaker 2: can you do it? That was a turning point. That's
Speaker 2: where all of a sudden it became elite. S board
Speaker 2: is five percent of what I do, but it's one
Speaker 2: hundred percent of the publicity that I get. So you know,
Speaker 2: the start of I did hundreds of interviews about state
Speaker 2: of origin and it's a week of my year. That's it.
Speaker 2: So that was a big turning point. And then when
Speaker 2: I have enough. What I found was whenever I all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I went from having no money to
Speaker 2: all of a sudden's a feud bit of money in
Speaker 2: the business account, and I thought, wow, this is good,
Speaker 2: this is I need this. I haven't earned money in
Speaker 2: a couple of years. And it was instant because I
Speaker 2: don't have a business brain, but I thought, I think
Speaker 2: I need to put this back into the business to
Speaker 2: take the next step. And that's why I started employing people.
Speaker 2: And I always thought to myself, get people who heaps
Speaker 2: better than you, like just and not having an ego.
Speaker 2: It was like putting parking your ego. I found a
Speaker 2: CEO whose name is ben Wardman, and he's extraordin and
Speaker 2: his I mean I basically gave the control over to him.
Speaker 2: I said, do what do what you other it to you?
Speaker 2: You run this business, told me where to go and talk.
Speaker 2: I'll go and talk there. Call me when you want
Speaker 2: support with stuff, but this is your business effectively, and
Speaker 2: I handed over to him because he's much better at
Speaker 2: running businesses than I am. And he's done and he's
Speaker 2: the reason that when COVID happened, we didn't struggle. We
Speaker 2: actually went to the whole new level because we were
Speaker 2: such a diverse business that all we could We had
Speaker 2: digital presentations for schools, we had journals, we had you know,
Speaker 2: because when he started, he said, it's if you get sick,
Speaker 2: we don't have a business, so we need to diversify.
Speaker 2: And I'd never thought of that. I just thought, I'll
Speaker 2: never get sick. What are you talking about? And there'll
Speaker 2: never be a situation where I can't just turn up
Speaker 2: and present to people, and I'll never be too tired
Speaker 2: from doing that. But he diversified us. I've got another
Speaker 2: speaker who's much better presenter than I am for kids.
Speaker 2: He's just extraordinary. Na's Martin Hepple. So I think not
Speaker 2: having an ego is I mean, we've all got an ego, sorry,
Speaker 2: but being able to park your ego and just hand
Speaker 2: over control. I think a lot of people struggle with
Speaker 2: that when it's their own thing. But I just the
Speaker 2: second I'll hand that I've been going and it'll be different,
Speaker 2: It'll look different to what you probably deep down feel
Speaker 2: like it should, and we disagree better and I disagree
Speaker 2: on a lot of stuff all the time. But I
Speaker 2: heard the episode you had with was it David Siegel?
Speaker 2: He was saying how important that is that you disagree,
Speaker 2: and it was interesting listening to actual. I was thinking, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is one of our strengths. We disagree, and often
Speaker 2: we find this middle ground, which is probably the best
Speaker 2: place to be, you know, the best place to come to,
Speaker 2: rather than it being strongly based a decision based on
Speaker 2: what my gut feelers, what his gut feelers, you know.
Speaker 2: So again, there's a long answer, but I think the
Speaker 2: turning points for me have been those little key moments
Speaker 2: where all of a sudden I've opened up to a
Speaker 2: different audience. But also when I've found people who are
Speaker 2: much better at may at certain things. I mean, the
Speaker 2: finance person, my gosh, Helen, their accountant, I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I have any idea about this stuff, and
Speaker 2: I just completely trust her to do it all and
Speaker 2: she's unbelievable. And yeah, So just just finding people who
Speaker 2: are better than you basically and letting them go and
Speaker 2: giving them full autonomy to do their job, controlling them.
Speaker 2: I think that's an ego thing I really do. If
Speaker 2: you're going to expand your business. It's going to look
Speaker 2: a bit different. It just will, and it's going to
Speaker 2: feel different. And it may not have your Dean I
Speaker 2: will have your DNA al over it, but it's going
Speaker 2: to start to present publicly a little bit differently at
Speaker 2: some point. And that's if you want to grow. That's
Speaker 2: just going to happen. So find good people that you
Speaker 2: trust and give them control, give them autonomy, and let
Speaker 2: them go for it. And that's been really powerful for me.
Speaker 1: I was saying before we started recording, I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit obsessed with forming friendships as an adult, and friendship
Speaker 1: is something that I take very, very seriously. And I've
Speaker 1: even developed frameworks in my own personal life that are
Speaker 1: very geeky about how I categorize friendships.
Speaker 2: Which which helps me awesome.
Speaker 1: It's awesome, It's very geeky for a lot of it.
Speaker 1: It helps me make sure I'm investing enough time in
Speaker 1: the friendships that matter, which I think can be easy
Speaker 1: to let slip when you're a parent, you know you're working,
Speaker 1: you've got other stuff going on.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 1: I've loved the episodes of The Imperfect where you've talked
Speaker 1: about male friendship, which I find comes up as a
Speaker 1: bit of a theme in some of.
Speaker 2: Your absolutely does.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, I'm sure this happens very naturally for you,
Speaker 1: although you do talk about the awkwardness as well of
Speaker 1: forming new friendships, particularly with men. I feel like maybe
Speaker 1: it happens more easily for women forming new friendships with women.
Speaker 1: But if you were to unpack it, like what were
Speaker 1: the deliberate things that you were doing with some of
Speaker 1: the newer friendships that you formed, Like with your co
Speaker 1: host Ryan, you have a lovely friendship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have an He's a way and I missed
Speaker 2: him last sight and said, I really miss having you around,
Speaker 2: and I miss the comfort I have of knowing I'm
Speaker 2: going to see you tomorrow nexty. I really miss that.
Speaker 2: So that's one thing, like telling people how do you
Speaker 2: feel about him? Is really powerful. I took for granted
Speaker 2: I played sport for I played cricket from the age
Speaker 2: of I could walk till I was thirty six. And
Speaker 2: when you played a sporting club, you have automatically have
Speaker 2: forty friends. You see him three times a week, you
Speaker 2: love being around me a very similar interest, and you
Speaker 2: just have those friends and then there's their partners. All
Speaker 2: of a sudden you've got like you know, when I
Speaker 2: went to England, it was an incredible experience. I went
Speaker 2: to play cricket. There was forty people at the club,
Speaker 2: half of them had partners. All of a sudden, I've
Speaker 2: got sixty friends. Amazing and I always looked out for Granted,
Speaker 2: now I don't play cricket and I yes. So it's
Speaker 2: like you now exactly what you said before. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: if I want to make friends, there's no where, there's
Speaker 2: no place that I'm obliged to be three times a
Speaker 2: week and spend time with him getting to know them.
Speaker 2: So you actually have to make the time, which is
Speaker 2: a weird thing when you don't really have much time
Speaker 2: as an adult. So Ryan Shelton, I've always looked up
Speaker 2: to him, admired so much. I think he's one of
Speaker 2: the funniest people in Australia. And I would see him
Speaker 2: around the place because we lived used to live pretty close.
Speaker 2: And one day I went up to him and just
Speaker 2: said I he was in a cafe and I went
Speaker 2: sat way too close to him to try and make
Speaker 2: it look like but there's no one else out there
Speaker 2: like it was just so silly, and I pretended I
Speaker 2: turned and I said, oh god, I just want to
Speaker 2: let you know that. And this is true. I said,
Speaker 2: when I'm not feeling good, it's very hard for me
Speaker 2: to do. For me to do my job, I have
Speaker 2: to feel happy to do my job. And I will
Speaker 2: often sit in the car and watch your Instagram videos
Speaker 2: to cheer me up. And then, which is a true story.
Speaker 2: And I told him that, which I think is a
Speaker 2: very again in vulnerability, like it's a pretty vulnerable thing
Speaker 2: to another man, like you really have a big impact
Speaker 2: on my life, and I want to let you know
Speaker 2: that as opposed to I'm a really big fan of
Speaker 2: what you do. I guess I think that's still a
Speaker 2: vulnerable thing to do. But anyway, I was very nervous
Speaker 2: when I do. He could tell I was very nervous,
Speaker 2: and he said, oh, what do you do? And I
Speaker 2: didn't want to make it sound like I was trying
Speaker 2: to talk about myself, so I said, I'd go to
Speaker 2: schools and do talks. But anyway, I love what you do.
Speaker 2: And he said, wow, what do you talk about? And
Speaker 2: we was a five minute conversation, and I posted I
Speaker 2: took a phoight out with him, and I said to him,
Speaker 2: my wife would love it. I took a photo with you.
Speaker 2: It was for me and I put on Instagram and
Speaker 2: I tagged him out and he followed me. And I
Speaker 2: didn't hear from him for three years, and out of
Speaker 2: nowhere three years, that message out the blue and said,
Speaker 2: would you like to have coffee tomorrow? I just want
Speaker 2: to pick your brain on something. He was going through
Speaker 2: some stuff in his own life which we talked about
Speaker 2: in our podcast, which was a bit of jealous jealousy
Speaker 2: stuff around his best mate, Homish Blake, who is Australia's
Speaker 2: most popular man, and we talked about that and we
Speaker 2: just had this from It was the most vulnerable conversation
Speaker 2: I've had from the standing start in my life. Like
Speaker 2: he just sat down and I was ready to exchange
Speaker 2: pleasantries and I wasn't even gonna do my thinking of
Speaker 2: being like self deprecating and vulnerable. I was just I
Speaker 2: was just in awe of this person. And he said,
Speaker 2: I'm just struggling with this, this and this, and we
Speaker 2: talked about it and after we caught up, he gave
Speaker 2: me a hug and I'm sporting clubs is like shake
Speaker 2: the hand or a fist pump and then you go
Speaker 2: on your mate good stuff. It was a hug and
Speaker 2: I was like, gosh, that was I didn't say that
Speaker 2: coming and that was really nice. And then we're just
Speaker 2: catching up and catching up, and every conversation we had
Speaker 2: there were quite vulnerable conversations about Then I started sharing stuff,
Speaker 2: and then the podcasts come about, which is a long
Speaker 2: story which I won't today Sou've already told you enough
Speaker 2: long stories. But then what emerged the podcast is meant
Speaker 2: to be about sharing well really famous people's struggle so
Speaker 2: we can all feel like we relate, and it happens
Speaker 2: to that person that I'm okay, I'm not alone. I've
Speaker 2: had a few people message me and say what I'm
Speaker 2: taking from your podcast. It's more about friendship. And I'm
Speaker 2: watching this this because my brother's now involved in the podcast.
Speaker 2: Who's my best mate? But our friendship is Our relationship
Speaker 2: has become so much stronger. Ryan and Josh have become
Speaker 2: extremely close. Ryan and I become even closer, and it's
Speaker 2: because we just have this space where we just talk
Speaker 2: really honestly about how we're going with stuff. And if
Speaker 2: ever someone and it's it's a weird. It wasn't with
Speaker 2: the podcast, we wouldn't do it like we're sort of,
Speaker 2: which is where Ryan said to me the other day, said,
Speaker 2: I feel really sorry for people wo don't have podcasts
Speaker 2: where they can't talk openly with their friends about stuff.
Speaker 2: Because so we invited ham Spake on the podcast Who's
Speaker 2: his best friend? And we're having a conversation about self
Speaker 2: doubt and how much you're talking about how he still
Speaker 2: self doubt, And I thought, gosh, that's really interesting. But
Speaker 2: then I asked him about I asked him about how
Speaker 2: when we'd met many years back, how it was a
Speaker 2: very I tried to talk to him in a cafe
Speaker 2: and I got so nervous. I completely stuffed it up
Speaker 2: and it was so embarrassing, and he actually remembered it.
Speaker 2: And then we had through Ryan had just become friends.
Speaker 2: And Ryan said, I'm just gonna say something. I feel
Speaker 2: a little bit funny about this friendship between you two.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling weird about it because you both love cricket,
Speaker 2: you both love exercise, you messaging each other all the
Speaker 2: time about your exercise. I feel a little bit left
Speaker 2: out of this and I can't offer anything on that topic.
Speaker 2: And hamish or it straightaway said to him, like, when
Speaker 2: you have a second child, it doesn't mean you have
Speaker 2: less child less love for the first child. You find
Speaker 2: this new love. He said, no one can have my
Speaker 2: Ryan love. No one can have that human and I
Speaker 2: got something different, exercise and talk about him. There's things
Speaker 2: that I can't talk to you about that I talk
Speaker 2: to you about. And Ryan's went, it's just so true.
Speaker 2: What Ryan did, which I've learned about with friendships, is
Speaker 2: that he spoke his truth. There's this thing called truth
Speaker 2: verse harmony, which you obviously you probably know about, but
Speaker 2: if you choose. So often we choose harmony in relationships
Speaker 2: because friendship relationships, because we want it just to be harmonious.
Speaker 2: But whenever we choose harmony, there's a little bit of
Speaker 2: resentment that builds with that. When we speak our truth,
Speaker 2: there's no resentment the bills up. So the example I
Speaker 2: gave just there is that on the topic of male friendships,
Speaker 2: was that if Ryan didn't say anything every time Hamishnaber
Speaker 2: catching up or we knew we were catch up, there'd
Speaker 2: be a little bit of resentment there and we would
Speaker 2: have this sort of sour taste around our friendship. It
Speaker 2: would it just wouldn't be good for any of us.
Speaker 2: But he spoke his truth, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: we were able to speak our truth about it, and
Speaker 2: it was gone and our friendships had gone to the
Speaker 2: next level again. I think we speak our truth a
Speaker 2: lot of the time. Were at a work disagreement the
Speaker 2: other day, the first tie we've ever had. It was
Speaker 2: Josh and Ryan versus me, and it was the most
Speaker 2: honest conversation about like how we were, like, I feel
Speaker 2: really uncomfortable with disagree because we've never disagreed before, but
Speaker 2: it was a strong disagreement we had very but it
Speaker 2: was just such a We talked about how it made
Speaker 2: us feel as well. Like Ryan said, I'm feelingly uncomfortable
Speaker 2: because it just worries me that we've got never disagreed
Speaker 2: on stuff like this, and I was like, yeah, it
Speaker 2: does worry me, but I think that like I say
Speaker 2: all the positive about like, but I trust you so
Speaker 2: much that I know it's not coming from a wrong place.
Speaker 2: And it was just really nice. So I think it's
Speaker 2: hard for men to be really honest about how we
Speaker 2: feel because growing up as kids that was not encouraged.
Speaker 2: If we're crying, don't be a girl. Grow up be
Speaker 2: a man. So we go, oh, okay, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to have those those kind of conversations all that's not
Speaker 2: a manly thing to do. But what I've learned in
Speaker 2: my forties is that the more open you are, the
Speaker 2: more vulnerable you are with other males, the more it
Speaker 2: connects you. And sport is a very vulnerable thing to do,
Speaker 2: and you have those moments through sport. They appear all
Speaker 2: the time where you're making yourself very vulnerable just by
Speaker 2: you know, being in a close contest or the stuff
Speaker 2: you're going out of football field or it's a kind
Speaker 2: of vulnerable thing to do and can be quite scary.
Speaker 2: Well what's the times And that's that it connects you.
Speaker 2: But when that's gone, what's going to connect you? And
Speaker 2: I think it's shared vulnerability. Hugh.
Speaker 1: My final question for you is for people that have
Speaker 1: listened to this chat and they're like, I need more
Speaker 1: huge in my life, what.
Speaker 2: Is the best.
Speaker 1: Be able to do that?
Speaker 2: Well, I should probably plug my talks. I've got I'm
Speaker 2: doing my show. Basically, I've got one in Adelaide, two
Speaker 2: in Perth. This is one of the remaining ones for
Speaker 2: the year. One outlaid too in Perth, Canberra, and when
Speaker 2: it's Sydney in the Opera House, I'm doing the Opera House,
Speaker 2: which is terrifying but should be good. And then five
Speaker 2: in New Zealand come out late in a year. So
Speaker 2: you can go to the Resilience Project dot com. But
Speaker 2: are you go to events? You can find them there.
Speaker 2: But if you want to a great free resource I
Speaker 2: think is the podcast. It's so cool that you can
Speaker 2: it always blows. I was listening to your podcast yesterday,
Speaker 2: just going it's pretty cool. This is free, like you
Speaker 2: get this is the stuff. It's amazing. Podcasts are incredibles
Speaker 2: such a whoever invented it, amazing invention, whoever you are.
Speaker 2: I hope you're getting a lot of money from it.
Speaker 2: You're probably not, but yeah, so and then yeah, I
Speaker 2: guess there's books as well, but yeah, if you just google,
Speaker 2: I don't know Resilience Project's there's a lot of We've
Speaker 2: tried to create a lot of products so that we
Speaker 2: can reach as many people as possible the way that
Speaker 2: people will like to be reached. I guess reach a word.
Speaker 2: Yes it is y Yes, I believe it is reached. Hugh.
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed this chat so too much has just been
Speaker 1: such a delight. I could just listen to Hugh tell
Speaker 1: stories for hours, and for me, the biggest thing I
Speaker 1: got from this.
Speaker 2: Chat is I was reminded of the power of stories.
Speaker 1: I loved how you thought about storytelling and you're really
Speaker 1: thought about collecting stories from his day and how he
Speaker 1: thinks about sharing those with the people that he connects with.
Speaker 1: And for me, I've definitely started being more diligent and
Speaker 1: just mindful of the things that happened to me in
Speaker 1: my day that might be worth sharing. How I Work
Speaker 1: is produced by Inventing with production support from Dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: The producer for this episode was Liam Riordan, and thank
Speaker 1: you to Matt Nimba, who does the audio mix for
Speaker 1: every episode and makes everything sounds so much better than
Speaker 1: it would have otherwise. See you next time.