- Creating your own happiness whether or not the rest of the herd chooses happiness.

- How dopamine is about getting needs met and the attachment theory.

- Awareness and observations around endorphins and our experiences

In the podcast we explore together:

12:25 How you have to commit to creating happiness for yourself?

14:58 Why do we want dopamine and how it works for us?

19:07 How do extrinsic and intrinsic rewards work for us?

25:13 The theory of cynicism 

28:14 Our oxytocin is wired by our own past experiences

40:40 What are the ways of getting serotonin?

1:01:33 How we get to self-regulation could be harmful or helpful?

1:17:35 Where there is rigidity, there is dysfunction because there is a lack of adaptability

Together we unpack...

• How we can heal and unlearn how we have been taught to suppress emotions in our relationships.
• The differences in needs between masculine and feminine energies and how this impacts relationships.
• How to make your partner feel safe and connected through the see, stop, soothe model.

In the podcast we explore together:

13:00 ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ How we Have Been Taught to Suppress our Emotions from a Young Age

17:30 Validating Feminine Energy

24:00 Invitation Versus Obligation in Relationships 

32:50 What Helps us Feel Safe or Not Feel Safe in Relationships

42:50 Getting Out of Our Heads and Into our Bodies

50:50 Learning and Earning Relationship Skills

54:50 Language Needles

1:00:50 The See Solve, See-Saw of Insanity

1:04:00 Masculine Energy 

1:11:00 Women Do Not Need to Shrink Themselves to Accommodate Their Partner

1:17:50 The Three Stages of Love
1:30:00 Pathways to Healing

CONNECT WITH Remi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Remi.Sharon.Pearson/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/remi.sharon.pearson/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/remi-sharon-pearson/

Website: https://www.remipearson.com/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/remi_pearson

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RemiSharonPearson

Resources: 

· Upcoming Events at The International Coaching Institute www.thecoachinginstitute.com.au/trainings

· Phone The Coaching Institute - 1800 094 927 

· Feedback/Reviews/Suggest a topic be discussed - askme@remipearson.com
 

Follow The Coaching Institute:

Website: https://www.thecoachinginstitute.com.au

Matthew and I discuss the ways we show up for our significant other and how we can provide safety and security for them in our relationships, and moreover how to grow into better people and partners for them now and throughout the turmoil of life.

I would love to know your thoughts…

You can also go to

https://www.remipearson.com/ or listen to Perspectives podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcast for the full episode.

Subscribe to Perspectives: https://tci.rocks/youtube/remi-pearson

Other Ways We Can Connect:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Remi.Sharon.Pearson

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/remi.sharon.pearson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/remi-sharon.pearson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/remi_pearson 
 

Together we unpack:

- What conscious parenting is

- The power of taking responsibility for your own relationship with parenting - The different narratives that are available to us if we choose for them to be

In the podcast we explore together:

05.19 How We Start Our Parenting Journey

10.45 How Do We Become Aware of our Egoic Behaviours?

14.46 The Point of Conscious Parenting

18.05 The Dominant Narrative of Hierarchical Parenting

28.08 Embracing a New Narrative

32.31 Acknowledging your Inner Child

35:56 Creating Less Reactivity

Dr Shefali Tsabury's Australian Tour: 

Perth 

– Sunday 24th April 2022, 10:00am – 

2:00pm AWST BelleVue Ballroom – 

21 Mounts Bay Road, Perth WA Adelaide – 

Tuesday 26th April 2022, 10:00am – 

2:00pm ACST Adelaide Town Hall – 

128 King William Street, Adelaide SA Brisbane – 

Thursday 28th April 2022, 10:00am – 

2:00pm AEST City Hall, 64 Adelaide Street, Brisbane City QLD Sydney –

Saturday 30th April 2022, 10:00am – 2:00pm AEST ICG Sydney – 

14 Darling Drive, Sydney NSW Melbourne 

– Tuesday 3rd May 2022, 10:00am – 2:00pm AEST 

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) – 1 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf VIC 

Dr Shefali Tsabury's New Zealand Tour: Auckland, NZ - Wednesday 6th May 2022, 10:00am - 2:00pm NZST Life Venues Auckland 25 Normanby Road, Auckland 1024 

In the podcast we explore together:

3.52 Four Thousand Weeks 

9.10 Time is a Tricky Master 

20.37 Dealing with Distractions 

27.35 Compassion to Ourselves 

38.44 Experience Moments vs Remembered Experiences 

48.22 Cosmic Insignificance 

Join me on my #Perspectives podcast with Oliver Burkeman; the author of the book '4 Thousand Weeks'. 

He has won the FPA's Science Story of the Year for a piece on the mystery of consciousness as well as the Foreign Press Association's Young Journalist of the Year award.

We discuss:

- Time as a Tricky Master

- Dealing with Distractions

- Cosmic Insignificance 

Throughout the entirety of the conversation with Oliver we spoke about the relationship we all share with time. His book, '4 Thousand Weeks' speaks of the ways in which we spend our 4 thousand weeks; the average human life span. 

I shared with Oliver an instance when I attempted to be present to the creative process and not the outcome. Throughout the exercise I counted a couple hundred distractions within a 3-hour period. I had to stop counting because I realised that we subconsciously start giving other things our attention. Distractions and procrastination are a part of everyday life that we must deal with.

Our conversation was deeply philosophical. We unpacked the meaning of life, how we give our own meanings to things because meaning is subjective. 

We discovered that there needs to be a balance of both not wanting to waste time but with an attitude of self-friendliness that we give to close friends. You want your friends to happy and enjoy themselves, but you also want them to aim high and not waste the talents and gifts that they've been given.

Learning to be compassionate to ourselves is necessary part of life otherwise we will constantly be hard on ourselves for 'wasting time'.

We explored 'Cosmic Insignificance' which in short explains how the decisions we make every day are hugely insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. And that it is liberating to think this way because we can now pursue the things that we find 'meaningful'.

Finally Oliver shared some tips on how to tackle your goals and tasks to wrap up how hugely insightful interview. You can check it out below :)

Remi mentions dan gilbert + dean kamen but not any particular work

https://www.google.com/search?q=dan+gilbert+experiences+momennts&rlz=1C5CHFA_enAU954AU954&oq=dan+gilbert+experiences+momennts&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i10i160.12400j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.google.com/search?q=dean+kamen+nobel+laureate+remembered+experiences&rlz=1C5CHFA_enAU954AU954&sxsrf=AOaemvJD2vxhdvUXHasax5GVXb6gQg9uFw%3A1637032376612&ei=uCGTYdfKJJb6rQGuqpSYBg&oq=dean+kamen+nobel+laureate+remembered+experiences&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAM6BwgAEEcQsAM6BQghEKABOgcIIRAKEKABOgQIIRAVSgQIQRgAUJ8VWOoyYKw0aABwAngAgAH6AYgB_h-SAQYwLjE4LjSYAQCgAQHIAQPAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjXhqzq9Jv0AhUWfSsKHS4VBWMQ4dUDCA4&uact=5

[00:01:00] [00:00:00] So that was our conversation. Michael Gerber is a beautiful, beautiful man, beautiful soul. We've had many conversations since then about business and what we need to be thinking about. And over the years, Just getting to know the way he thinks about it is just wonderful. Now in parallel to,  Michael doing what he does

[00:01:32] I was building my business. So I wanted to just talk directly to you about, for those of you who are in business or you work in a business, what the thinking has been  behind building. One of my businesses, which is one that's probably the most well known, which is the coaching Institute and how it's been in parallel with the E-Myth and some of the models and messages that Michael shares.

[00:01:57] So if you're into thinking [00:02:00] sustainably scalably replicability about your business and you know, that staying in the practitioner. Zone the technician's zone is probably gonna run out of road. Certainly if you go on holiday, so does your income, if you want to take a break, so does the money, you know, if you realize that there is an inherent flaw in that model, then stick around, I'm going to share with you just some of the ways.

[00:02:26] I applied the E-Myth as I built The Coaching Institute. So I started out as a coach, same as literally hundreds of thousands of other people around the world is studied selling my time for money. So I would sell an hour session. For a fee. And I think when I first started, it was a hundred dollars per hour and I would acquire a client.

[00:02:48] And in beginning they didn't stay too much because I really didn't. Wasn't very good. That's a very good reason for them not to stay. Ah, then the beginning stay a little bit more. They started perceiving a lot more value in what I was [00:03:00] doing, which is great. And as my skills grew, my experience grew at the number of clients that wanted to stay with me, began to grow.

[00:03:07] And in a very short period of time, I had. A very full list of clients. I think I'd moved my fees. It's very difficult for me to remember 18 years ago, but probably around 250 to $400 an hour, again, still an hourly rate for my time. And it was very bespoke. So it was very much as coaches know, and a jeweller would be in the same position.

[00:03:30] This is very unique  conversation. So you focus on what the client wants to achieve. You tailor, make your coaching and what you bring to it based on the client's preferences and where they want to head and what they're wanting to attain from an experience in the coaching journey and the coaching initiative.

[00:03:48] So it's all very one-off. And of course, as I'm doing it, I can't record the sessions because of very clear confidentiality guidelines, which makes. Perfect sense. So there was no [00:04:00] replicability there, there was no scalability..

[00:04:17] And as my fees went up and as I started work with more business coaching clients and leaders in different industries, and my fees were around 400 to 550. Can't really remember now they began to get a recording and they'd get key notes from the session. So I'd go through the recording, make sure I got the keynotes or I'd take them and I'd reflect.

[00:04:38] Back to them, the key, not just key outcomes and commitments, but key messages in terms of who they're being and what to maybe reflect on as they go about their day and bring some mindfulness to it. So began to systemize for each client, but still no replicability there. If I stopped doing the coaching, as Michael Gerber says, if I stopped doing the, doing the, doing [00:05:00] the, doing everything stops the whole.

[00:05:03] The whole thing is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. And so I became very aware of this very early. And I began to think in terms of having read the E-Myth five times in my first 12 to 18 months, based on the E-Myth, where is the replicability here? Where is it that I can systemize so I can step back. And it isn't me needing to be prison for every single minute of money earned.

[00:05:29] How do I leverage what it is I'm learning, what it is I'm creating, what it is I've got experience in now and create a leverage. I don't ever call it passive income. My goodness. There is nothing passive about it. It's earned. How do I create leverage in terms of leveraging my time? How do I leverage my skill?

[00:05:49] How do I leverage my testimonials and success stories? How do I leverage my passion? How do I leverage my ability to seem to learn this in a, quite [00:06:00] a delightful, playful way? How, how do I leverage my style as in my style of coaching, all of those questions began to be my priorities. So instead of thinking, how do I get my next client?

[00:06:13] My focus a lot of the time was how do I leverage all the criteria I've just listed? And instead of scrambling for the next client, I was thinking in terms of. My next client is, how can I leverage that? So I became about the success story, the testimonial, the referral it always became, this became the stepping stone for some form of leverage.

[00:06:38] So I started building my leverage muscle, if you like, because I was really comfortable. I was. Any more money that I'd ever earnt in my life, I was learning so much. I love, love, love working with my clients and everything I was learning was beautiful and just went to the heart of what I believed I was here to do.

[00:07:00] [00:06:59] So it wasn't like I've just got to dump on my clients and never work again for time for money. And I just, as long as I can just make money out of what it wasn't ever like, that it was just. This is beautiful, but this is not sustainable. And I knew it wasn't sustainable. I was about 18 months into my journey or probably a little less.

[00:07:18] I had. 50 clients. I think it was just under that, that I was working with over a period of a month, some weekly, some fortnightly, some monthly, I had 50 clients on the waiting list who had paid in full upfront. Many of them in full, I remember one day taking $50,000. So $10,000  in deposits from five new clients, all knowing I couldn't work with them for another three to four months and great that they coming and I've leveraged my skill and I'm feeling uncomfortable because I can see the floor I'm leveraging my skill and leveraging my experience.

[00:07:58] I'm leveraging my [00:08:00] success stories and it created more work more of me needing to do so. I was becoming more entrenched in what I was doing, more committed to what I was doing because I had clients on a wait list going from months. And the more I leveraged what I was great at, the more success stories, more testimonials, and the more better I got at leveraging marketing.

[00:08:23] The greater the wait list. And so I was literally perpetuating me having to sell my time for money. And I was just chasing constantly every single day back-to-back client sessions. And the problem with that I realized, and probably you already have is if you've got back-to-back coaching sessions, where do you work?

[00:08:42] On the business. So I had worked on creating more of that, but that in itself, that solution, so to become very successful and economically incredibly successful in that space was creating its own problem. It was creating. And you [00:09:00] problem in that I was getting very time. Poor money was going up. Time was going down.

[00:09:04] Whereas when I began, time was up, money was down now had completely reversed. And so there was always a rush every day, a scrambled to seal the clients to try to do the marketing, to Take care of the administration take care of the finance, which I was terrible at at the time there was this constant chasing.

[00:09:22] So my success became my number one problem. That's, that's how I view it as I look back on it. And I think I saw that at the time as well, but it was wonderful and it was great working with so many clients. I loved every minute of it. Awesome. And I just remember one Friday afternoon, I'd done back to back clients for solid week.

[00:09:39] It was Friday afternoon, my last coaching session. And for the first time ever are a member zoning out of being fully present for my client. I still kind of feel guilty about this. I remember zoning out and actually having a thought this isn't sustainable. I literally thought about myself. In the midst of a coaching session, [00:10:00] whereas right up until then for over a year, if I'm in a coaching session, it's all about the client.

[00:10:06] And I just fade away. And here I was having a moment where it's about me and that was really disconcerting for me. And it was quite unsettling. I didn't do anything about it in the session, of course, but over the weekend, It was a lot to process that I had. It was like being at warp speed  if anybody knows Star Trek here or whatever it is you going at warp speed.

[00:10:26] And then you drop out a warp. I was coaching to me is warp speed. Is this beautiful other otherness? It's his, the dimension. And I felt out of it into regular dimension and I felt the ickiness I can feel it now. So I thought that's feedback. I need to really think about what it is I'm going to commit to moving forward.

[00:10:45] I've now learned I have a skill around this. I have experience around this. Now. I have many, many referrals, many people who love the message who are enjoying my style. So unless I continue to experience the same [00:11:00] problem and maybe more moments falling out of phase. I need to really think about what it is I think working on the business is, and that was the biggest wake up call for me.

[00:11:12] It was a wonderful gift at the time and in hindsight. So what I did was I began to figure out how do I do one too many? And you're probably hearing these go well, that's obvious it wasn't obvious to me at the time. So I started figuring out one too many and I started figuring out. This is all pre zoom Skype.

[00:11:35] Any of this, it literally was trying to work out how to do a recording. Cameras were ridiculously expensive. There was no iPhone care. None of the technologies that we take for granted today. So really was becoming a technical issue, solving one to many. And remember there was not really that much internet marketing back then either.

[00:11:55] This is wiggling back dinosaur time. So it was, how do I [00:12:00] reach people to know there's going to be a workshop and then how do I leverage the workshop and repurpose it? So I record it, transcribe it, turn it into lesson plans for the next facilitator, turn into a workbook of the third training gets run again.

[00:12:14] And so that became the journey parallel to that. I began to leverage my skill. As a coach and as a network or a marketer, and I was bringing some quite large gigs and I began to put together a coaching agency. So that was my second attempt at leveraging. So I began to have an agency of coaches, I think at the peak, we had 30 coaches and I was earning 25% commission off every hour of coaching.

[00:12:41] I was able to grow. Give them, which is really good deal because the coaches didn't have to do any marketing. All they had to do is qualify by I had about 12 criteria for coach to qualify, to be part of my agency. I could refer them to the work, as long as it was a match of the client. They [00:13:00] didn't have to market.

[00:13:00] They said shop and start coaching. So that was tremendous. And that had about, as I said, 30 coaches peak and I earned  and tremendous money from that. And that was really learning the power of leverage because that was me leveraging skills other than time for money. So I had a agency of coaches around the world, mainly in Australia who were.

[00:13:20] During the do, and I was coordinating it. I was managing the contracts. I was managing the website. I was managing them getting matched to clients. The third version of this that I began to think about play with and utilize was building a product. So I built my various, I still even on the market anymore, which I think may be a good thing, but it's called empower.

[00:13:41] And so I build empower. I lost money for the first month ever in the history and only month ever. My businesses lost money. Was the month I built empower. So back in the day, it was down to office works to get the CDs. By the jewel case, I printed my jewel case covers myself. [00:14:00] There was no professional way of doing that.

[00:14:02] And then I had to replicate all the CDs and it was a 12 CD set with workbooks to back it up. And I started what was the right? I think it was two 97, $297 Australian. I think I began selling that. So if I had a workshop. I would sell, Mpower and it was empower the magic of you. I think it was. And so the, and that did not create a lot of income, but it was me learning leverage.

[00:14:28] I didn't mind learning the lessons. I consider all businesses are  schools. And so I was learning the power of leveraging my skill into a product. The fourth way was I began workshopping. With coaches who wanted to build their businesses. And so instead of working with them individually, which they would have been happy to have done to have hired me, I began bringing them in for group sessions.

[00:14:52] And now I reflect, there were two types of sessions. One was how to build your business, which I helped them with. Another one was coaching skills. There [00:15:00] wasn't much coach training in Australia at that time. And I filled that gap. And again, I recorded it. I didn't turn that into a product. For whatever reason, but I began recording it.

[00:15:12] So I had all these different ways of thinking about leveraging. This is in reflection. We learning the skill of leverage, and I began to create this rule for every hour in, I had to work an hour on my business. And so I began to balance my coaching hours, which now the fees were quite high. An hour of coaching.

[00:15:33] required  an hour working on my business. It could be building a product working on the agency. Taking the agency. I think we went into the United States a little bit as well with it. How to leverage workshops and repurpose them just any way I could thinking about working on it, or it could be just expanding the website.

[00:15:55] So the offerings on the website, didn't just include my time for money back in the day when it was [00:16:00] just me and associates. So that's how it first began to transition away from me. And so my coaching hours came down a little bit as I began plugging into doing workshops for some global companies, which was great tremendous opportunity to learn workshopping skills.

[00:16:19] Now, as I did that, that immediately presented itself to me, what I needed to teach myself. So I went immediately and did the most advance speaker training I could find, I did the most advanced coaching training I could find I trained in NLP. I started getting trained in family therapy systems. It just everywhere I went it was about, okay.

[00:16:40] The skill really is the ultimate leverage the skill and the experiences of coaches. The ultimate you put the time in you build your skill and your experience, and you get the testimonials that forms really the. platform from which everything else can launch. So I just began investing more and more [00:17:00] in this so that this could get replicated in many more ways.

[00:17:05] That's how I looked at it. So as I said, speaker training as much as I could  NLP family therapy, advanced coaching business skills. I did anything I could do. I trained my brain, realizing the ultimate leverage was here. The real estate between my ears. As result of that, I began to get more efficient, efficient, and effective at filling workshops and running them.

[00:17:31] And at having people want to come back and at re-purposing them. And so that began to expand. The agency began to drop away. Empower definitely dropped away. Me working ahead of record, the sessions dropped away and the other leverage points dropped away. But me teaching coaches clearly became a passion of mine, me teaching coaching.

[00:17:58] Very clearly was my [00:18:00] song very naturally. So I trusted that and I didn't, you know, I wasn't thinking I'd make more money in, for example, business coaching, which I would, I thought, but that's my passion and that's clearly, there's a market there. And if I can leverage myself, then I can fill that space in the market.

[00:18:20] And so that became, began to flourish. That's where I began to put my energy, my time and my working on the business into which became the coaching institute.com.edu. We're going to be moving that. I think we're going to keep the  Coaching Institute and we're also going to move to the international coaching institute.com.

[00:18:40] So ICI. But I don't know if they're both going to go in parallel, but the ICS give you the next iteration and the next version of even more leverage. But anyway, let's stay with this. So the coach Institute came about, so I moved from back in the day. It was Sharon Pearson, associates.com.au Then it became the coaching institute.com.au because I realized [00:19:00] if I kept my name and I know my name changed to Remi Pearson  but back  then it was Sharon Pearson that if I kept that name, then it was always going to be me that will wanting to hire.

[00:19:11] And it was constantly going to have to be bespoke   very tailored made, and very special to each client. Which beautiful for the client, but very, very limiting in terms of my time and what I wanted to do. So the Coaching Insitute Institute resolved the name problem, because now clients are getting the Coaching Institute, which is, which is no longer.

[00:19:34] Promise of me personally, but a promise of what I've produced. And so within that I built programs. I had a leadership program that I sold into a number of companies. I still ran it. I never quite replaced myself. We'll learn how to in that area, which is a shame I'd like to have done that I ran an NLP trainings.

[00:19:53] Then I did replace myself in the NLP trainings, which was fantastic for awhile. While what else? [00:20:00] Are those personal development in there. And then always what remained was me teaching coaches. And that began to flourish. Very clear. So all this other stuff was going on. I think I would have made easily a million dollars profit in the year that this was happening, which was tremendous from my, when I began, when I was making $0.

[00:20:19] So I had that happening, but I was just getting so much more mindful and connected to how was the dollar produced, who was responsible for producing the dollar that. Became so important. And so what I began to do, so I developed at the Coaching Institute three different programs. If you're a coach, you develop three different programs.

[00:20:39] You don't have to teach coaches. You can teach any group in the community, but it's three levels, three different price points, three different levels of access to you. The bottom level has the least in the beginning will still have access to you because you're running it, but he should have the least access to you a little bit more at the middle level and the most access at the top.

[00:20:58] And you may add a fourth level, which is [00:21:00] purely access to you, which would be where I am at more. The client can hire me for three months for $50,000. Kind of thing. And anyway, let's go back. So I began with practitioner, advanced practitioner, master practitioner, levels of coach training. I ran all of it. I was doing all of it, loved it because I knew I was building a business for the first time, from the beginning based on creating a turnkey system to replace myself.

[00:21:29] So practitioner, I focus there the beginning level, I think back then it was a certificate four of life coaching. And not the practitioner coach. I think it was purely through the registered training organization stream. Now we have both, but anyway, so I had the practitioner I ran, every class, had every class recorded, had them all transcribed.

[00:21:52] I turned them into lesson plans and facilitated guides criteria for success. And I began recruiting my first facilitator [00:22:00] to run just that class. I monitored that class to make sure I meant the benchmarks. If it didn't, I gave them feedback until I met the benchmarks. I had them fill out a form after every class showing that hit the benchmarks, that classes now leveraged.

[00:22:15] And I did the same for, I think it was 24 classes at the practitioner level. Then there's the mentoring at that? level your receive a mentor, two mentors for three sessions, each a total of six sessions. I think that's how it is now, but that's what it was then. Okay. I mentored, I had trainee mentors watching me.

[00:22:33] I had criteria documented on what they needed to bring andan entiretie a checklist of three pages. And I only delegated mentoring once that had been attained practitioner I'd replaced myself. And then I found a trainer. So you probably know him, Joe  Pane and  he began to run the, the training upfront. Now there's already a flaw in the model.

[00:22:57] Because the worst number in business is the number one [00:23:00] and having one trainer, he can run one training. That's a flawed model. Now it's been like there for a long time. We're moving towards changing that with the ICI, but that's where I didn't follow the E-Myth because I wanted to keep the show of that live training.

[00:23:17] And so right there, I've created a single point of failure in the business. So that's the note to self. The number one is the most dangerous number in business. One person doing one thing. That's if that's not replicable and scalable, you've got your first problem. So I did that and then I did the same for advanced prac.

[00:23:36] I do the same for master prac and again, live trainings, single points of failure so doing that freed me It meant I haven't counted recently, but back then, it would've meant 150 hours of coach training was being delivered. That wasn't me. And I think it went up to like 200 hours. So [00:24:00] there's literally hundreds of hours of coach training going on every month at The Coaching Insitute 

[00:24:05] and I don't know the schedule, it's not my job to know the schedule that's happening because of this leverage I took care of earlier on. Now, if you work in an organization, you got to think the same way, the single point of failure. Is it documented? Is there criteria for what you do that if you were to delegate it to somebody else will leverage your skill at creating the system, they could start doing it.

[00:24:32] Or have you got the situation where you're beautiful at what you do skilled at what you do, but if the organization or you were empowered to hire someone else to do it with you, because the workloads grown is a systemized, could they come in and now benefit from how you've replicated yourself? Or are you going to have to spend hours and hours and hours and hours not leveraging your time, trying to do [00:25:00] your own.

[00:25:00] Function and teach them everything from scratch, because you did not document that's on you. That's the power of this. So if you leverage well, you can move forward in the organization. If you don't think in terms of leverage, how do you move forward? Because the moment you afford say you get promoted into a different role or a more senior position, but you haven't leveraged your skill and experience into systems that person's going to be dropped in, have no idea to succeed, and you can't succeed at managing them because you're going to spend your whole time doing a for them.

[00:25:36] Correcting them having to explain it to them is this Chinese whispers, mess that I see too many times and none of it is necessary. So I encourage wherever you're at whatever you're doing. Think in terms of your skill being leveraged. Into a system and don't design it for your personality. Don't design it for your flare.

[00:25:58] Don't design it because it [00:26:00] suits you design it for the next person who's going to need to step in and do it as well as you and replicate those results. That's the key mission. And that's how we get to experience our true selves because at truest cells can't be experienced in doing the, doing the, doing the doing and never be at a step back and see how we're doing it and empowering others to do it, or being able to let go of some of it

[00:26:25] cause it's actually not as effective as if we don't step back. We don't ever get to critique the work, which is doing it and we're doing it. And there's, to me, a level of insanity to that, unless that's your thing and which guys. Do your thing, but if you're still listening, I'm guessing it's not. So if you're creative and you've got flair about you even more, so you need to find a way to break it down into a system.

[00:26:48] And you're probably thinking, but it's creativity. Like I used to with coaching it's coaching. It's so personal. I don't know where it's going until I'm coaching. Actually, there is a system. There is a system for onboarding a client for how do [00:27:00] you open the session? How you get curious about where the client wants to go, then there's a whole bunch of techniques that can help the client get there that you can document and how to wrap up session how to forward thinking to the next session, how to put the whole coaching.

[00:27:13] This is all I have systemized. All of this many, many times, whatever role you've got, especially if you're telling yourself it's high creative, it is on you to start breaking it down into its component parts and ask yourself. What's the first thing I do document it. What's the second thing I do. Document the beginning.

[00:27:34] You might just have three to five or seven big steps, but then start filling out those steps. In more detail, you might just have step one, walk into the room. Step two, appraise the layout of the room step. If you're doing interior design, step three, think about color. I don't really know, but let's say it's that.

[00:27:52] But then on the, each of those headings, those categories, you start filling in with more and more detail. You've just created your very [00:28:00] first leveraged system. So then when you bring on board, another interior designer, they are going to follow the system. And so it becomes not the Remi Pearson   system for interior design.

[00:28:10] I don't have one, trust me, it becomes the whatever unique name you give that system. And that system becomes replicable. I was I have a beautiful massuer who comes to my home. I won't name her because I don't want, what she's about to do is very personal to her. But I was, I did some business coaching while I   was getting massage and.

[00:28:31] It's easy to think. A massuer is very personal can't be replicated, but there are that we worked out, there are things that can be replicated. They went through. What would that replication process look like? And then who would you onboard to trust with having a go at your system? And immediately as result of that my massuer worked out, her income would double within six months just by taking care of that leveraged moment.

[00:28:58] So whatever role you've got. [00:29:00] I would question and start thinking about what we're don't don't do the easy thing I couldn't possibly leverage. Where could you leverage? What can you leverage in your home? I leveraged my wardrobe. My wardrobe has done by color, length and design. The whole thing when I go in is literally a system.

[00:29:18] So I know where to pull the coordinates from the whole thing. My kitchen is so small, but it's exactly the same. It's done by. I need to go. If I go to it's so many to get to breakfast, it needs to be easy to reach, not too much effort because its the morning if you're making tea and needs to be around that station.

[00:29:36] So it's ease of just the whole thing. Think through in terms of systems and then bring the same to your role. Now, as a result of doing that, now I'm thinking of going the next level with ICI international coaching institute.com. And we haven't launched a yet, but where we're hitting. Is removing all of the single points of failure and really focusing on mentors and facilitators.

[00:29:57] So it's a tremendous opportunity for great [00:30:00] coaches if they want to get involved, because we're going to be focusing on the mentors and facilitators who are going to bring to life this fully systemized, a way of transforming people from, I want to be a coach to being extraordinary coaches. So. That's how I brought to life.

[00:30:20] E-Myth revisit. Thank you, Mr. Gerber. Very grateful. There is always another level. I know that. And that's wonderful. I own a number of businesses that to different degrees have been. I call Gerber-ised  so I own a carwash, definitely that has had the E-Myth put across it. It's very, very systemized. It is very replicable as a couple of other businesses to different extents where this is occurred and it makes all the difference because everything then becomes more predictable.

[00:30:50] Income becomes predictable, which is a gift. If you're in business, you'd know this. Where the results are going to come from becomes predictable. We get very good at [00:31:00] certain skills. We don't have to get good at everything. That's a wonderful gift to give ourselves. And as we specialize and get very skilled in this one specialty, we get easier.

[00:31:11] It becomes easier to market, and it's easier for people to find us because that's what we're known for. So all these other things that I started working on began to drop away because. This is our core. We teach people how to become transformational coaches and that all began 18 years ago. So I hope this has given you a case study or an example of how to think about the E-Myth and the other works of Michael Gerber. [00:32:00]

We discuss:

- The long game

- The benefit of thinking long term

- The concept of optimising for interesting

Dorie Clark is a human being who has thought strategically about her career and about cutting through the noise to be heard.

My favourite topic in the world is learning how to think strategically and more effectively. It's not what to think, it's about how to think, and that's what Dorie has written about in her book 'The Long Game'. My conversation with Dorie was brief but interesting until the end. We discussed how to build and position our brand, how to craft our message and how to get the most strategic leverage possible so we can maximise returns on our effort. We discussed brand building vs revenue profit and the flip side to that coin. How with choosing to build your brand is more costly but results with better long term results. That fed into our discussion of the benefits of thinking long term. How the person we will be in 20 years time will thank us for the decisions we make today. How that you never say "I wish I didn't go to the gym yesterday".

I loved our conversation on 'Optimising for interesting' and how we should spend 20% of our time exploring the things that interest you. This is particularly helpful for people who don't know what their passion is and don't love their current work. This can lead to you figuring out more about yourself and how you operate.

In the podcast we explore together:

 

4.51 Brand building vs Revenue pursuit 

5.45 The long game 

12.53 The benefit of thinking long term 

17.47 Optimise for interesting 

25.17 The 4 waves framework 

30.00 Strategic leverage 

We explore:

- Fighting Ignorance with Knowledge

- Universal Manipulation Tactics

- Critical Race Theory

Dina McMillian graduated from Stamford University with a PhD in the nineties and is one of the smartest women you will come across.

My conversation with Dina was far reaching. A lot of the work she does now is in programs and discourse around Critical Race Theory and Domestic Violence.

We discussed the systemic racism that Dina faced in her time at Stamford University and the empowerment her mother gave her to face ignorance with knowledge.

Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech was a pivotal moment in both of our lives. To judge a person by their character rather than the colour of their skin was a value we shared together passionately.

We explored everything about domestic violence, from vulnerability, pleasure and pain to the tactics and backgrounds of abusers. Dina set me straight on some of the naive ideas I had around abusers.

Finally we finished with Critical Race Theory, the implications it has on our society as a whole and the ramifications of anti racist training and shaming.

In the podcast we explore together:

0:00 Introduction

6:00 Social Psychology

10:00 Systemic Racism at Stamford in the 90's

12:20 Fighting Ignorance with Knowledge

21.04 Martin Luther King Jr.

28:00 Resilience equals Survival

32.16 Domestic Violence from the Social Psychologist Point of View

52.10 Telltale Signs of an Abusive/Manipulator.

1.12.00 Critical Race Theory

1.31.00 - Bias is Natural and Normal

For more information about Dina McMillian:

• Podcast - Unmasking The Abuser (Podcast)

• Book - But He Says He Loves Me: How to Avoid Being Trapped in a Manipulative Relationship (Book)

• Contact - unmaskingpodcast@gmail.com (email)

• Youtube Channel - Healing The Rift (Youtube Channel)

• Youtube Channel - Dr Dina McMillan YT Channel (youtube)

• Matin Luther King’s – I Had A Dream Speech - Martin Luther King - I Had A Dream (Youtube)

Today, on the #Perspective podcast join me with Kristina Karlsson; the Founder and Creative Director of global Swedish design and stationery business, kikki.K

Kristina is an inspirational woman with a lovely story. It was a pleasure to hear from her and the journey of moving country, figuring out what matters most to her. Which ultimately led her to creating kikki.k. 
 

We discussed the importance of starting before you are ready. If you have an idea or a dream, you need to go for it and work it out along the way. You'll never have all the answers in the beginning.

That led us to the value of being optimistic and confident in making mistakes and learning. Education is so vital in growth, and you must consistently reinvest in yourself to continue to grow. 

'Systems lead to expansion'. We explored how the development of good systems reaps the benefits in the long run and allows for businesses to expand.

We finished with a discussion of our values and shared advice to others with aspirations; 

'Live your dream!' And act, don't wait, because life is short. 

In the podcast we explore together:

5.40 What Matters Most?
10:55 Start Before you’re Ready 

26.30 Be Optimistic & Confident in Making Mistakes & Learning From Them 

29.00 Systemise to Expand 

36.00 Value your Education, Reinvest in Yourself

43.15 Embrace your Impatience

1.00.36 Live Your Dream 

1.05.50 Life is Short, Don't Wait

LINKS:

1. YourDreamLifeStartsHere.com

1. “Your Dream Life Starts Here” – Kristina Karlsson

https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAECMYzAjrM&gl=AU&hl=en-AU&source=productsearch&utm_source=HA&utm_medium=SEM&utm_campaign=PLA&pcampaignid=MKT-EDR-apac-AU-1003227-Med-pla-bk-Evergreen-Jul0121-PLA-Audiobooks_HealthandFitness_General&gclid=CjwKCAjwvuGJBhB1EiwACU1Aidb-KAycyvEl1eOwNwu2QzSQNz4zQu1SqFi-P0axpvGCyODP6fy0iRoCmnkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

1. “The Wealthy Gardener” – John Soforic

https://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Wealthy-Gardener-John-Soforic/9780593189740?utm_source=googleps&utm_medium=ps&utm_campaign=AU&gclid=CjwKCAjwvuGJBhB1EiwACU1AiXa_JRVOod3_G3oCzPixE3XvcgqR8nYC_WKGPglgR5p5MgcLnQ9Z7BoCAXMQAvD_BwE

1. “The Power Of Now” – Ed Carroll

https://www.audible.com.au/pd/The-Power-of-Now-Audiobook/B00FGF9FXM?source_code=M2MORSH051016002X&ipRedirectOverride=true&gclid=CjwKCAjwvuGJBhB1EiwACU1AiRz-xOVK_cYw7XusmRR04tSoWercMo8F5bFeFeEUfg8DKnr2VK7_XhoCVNoQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

1. Instagram: @KristinaKikkiK

https://www.instagram.com/kristinakikkik/

Today, on the #Perspective podcast join me and a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and brain researcher who was voted one of the Top 20 movers and shakers in leadership development in the world, Dr. Srini Pillay.

Srini has a naturally inquisitive mind. He is always asking questions, wondering and pondering how and why things happen the way they do. We discussed a vast array of concepts and ideas that are truly inspiring. 

We explored the power of perspective. Embracing ambiguity; right vs wrong, good vs bad, diving into the concept of naive realism. Opening our eyes to different interpretations. 

I believe our discussion of the consciousness will be of particular interest to others. The concept of god and the relationship we have with our own consciousness. How we interpret meaning, the decisions we make, the feelings we feel, are all a matter of perspective. 

How do we decide who we let into our minds and surround our beings? As leaders, who do we keep close and push away? How do we better understand others?

In the podcast we explore together:

4:15 - Introduction to Srini and the work he is doing.

10.09 - Naive Realism and Perception; good vs bad, right vs wrong.
15.25 - God & the Consciousness.

24.37 - Leaders in the Flow State.

29.30 - Embracing Ambiguity.

45.18 - Why Good Leaders make Bad Decisions.
50.00 3 Star Michelin Restaurant Story about Connection, Understanding and Respect. 

MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE: 

1. Does Practice Make Perfect? – Brooke Macnamara 

https://www.parsingscience.org/2019/10/01/brooke-macnamara/ 

2. Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions And How To Keep It From Happening To You 

https://tci.rocks/srini-podcast-book 

3. Business Review on "Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions" 

https://hbr.org/2009/02/why-good-leaders-make-bad-decisions

Open your mind to this conversation, it's truly fascinating!

[00:09:00] I present to you, Mr. Peter Singer. Thank you for joining us today. 

Peter: You're very welcome, Sharon. It's good to be with you. 

Remi: Thank you. So, I'd like to get started. I'm really curious to know what you're currently thinking about and working 

Peter: on right now, I'm working on a revised edition of Animal Liberation.

That's a book that I first published in 1975. It's never been out of print but the most recent edition really is from 1990. By that, I mean, there are, there are editions which looked like this or recent. There's 2009, when I think exactly that's, that's one of the paperbacks, it does have a new preface and it has some additional material at the end, but the basic text in between the preface and the supplementary material at the end.

Is pretty much unchanged for 30 years. So that's not good, obviously. If you want to keep up with what's going on in terms of factory farming kinds of experiments that are performed on [00:10:00] animals and of course the impact of climate change and what that's done to our thinking about eating meat.

We really, you know, I really need to make some changes, a lot of changes to the book. So that's my current project. 

Remi: Well, I wasn't going to stop it, but we will. And we'll talk about it. Animal Liberation and your book, you released it in 1975 and the landscape of animal liberation or animal welfare was very different than can you paint a scene of what it was like and what was the impetus for writing this one ended up being a completely transformational book for animal welfare around then.

Peter: Well, price is one way of getting people who are listening today to see how much the scene has changed is to say that my interest in animals and my thinking about the ethics of what I was eating got started just a few years before that in 1970 to be precise. When I happened to have a conversation with a fellow graduate students.

So, I was 24 [00:11:00] years old. I was, I'd been to university in Melbourne and then I'd gone to Oxford to do my graduate work. And I happened to meet a fellow Canadian who when we went in for lunch, asked if there was meat in the sauce on top of the spaghetti. And when he was told there was, he took a salad plate instead And so after we'd finished our conversation, we were having I asked him what his problem with meat was.

And you know, I think this was really the first conversation I'd had with a vegetarian. Maybe he was the first vegetarian that I'd met or perhaps I'd met some Indian vegetarians for Hindu reasons, but certainly the first person who I'd met a vegetarian, who just had a straightforward kind of ethical answer to that question that he didn't like the way we treat animals and didn't really want to be complicit in the way animals were being treated.

And so, you know, anybody who. Listening to that. I was been a university. You can hardly get their head around the fact that you can be 24 years old and not have met a vegetarian and not really thought about that. [00:12:00] But that's how it was. And that's pretty much how it was in 1975 when the book came out.

And you know, people did find it very strange to see a sort of serious argument about why we shouldn't be eating meat based on concern for the animals. Because you know, if people thought about animal welfare at all, they thought about dogs and cats maybe about horses, but they didn't really think about chickens and pigs and calves.

Remi: Yeah. Part of what you described when you talk about that book and why it came about, which I really loved was it was a very sentimental attitude in the movement at the time. And the way you felt that you could contribute to the movement was with. You didn't say clear thinking with rationality. Can you speak a little bit to that for those rare individual, listening to this podcast who doesn't know who you are or the work that you've contributed to our planet and to our thinking, what was the thinking back then that led you to believe this is where I can contribute.

And maybe this will be a way to start [00:13:00] introducing consequentialism and utilitarianism and some of your other philosophical bedrock. 

Peter: Right? So, in terms of, you know, how I can contribute it was sort of somewhat accidental that I ended up doing philosophy. I had gone to university planning to study law and then an advisor thought.

Find the law course a bit dry. And why didn't I combine it with an arts course? So, I started doing combined dance law course. Then I got to enjoy the outside of it more and I got offered a scholarship to go on with graduate work in that field Went into philosophy. I enjoyed it. I found it interesting.

But you know, it, wasn't going to make a significant contribution to the world. I wasn't, you know, I couldn't say that that was my primary motivation at that time, but this was the late sixties and then early seventies. And of course, there were a lot of radical ideas around and radical political movements including opposition to the war in Vietnam, which I was part of in Australia.

[00:14:00] And then there was the civil rights movement, the black liberation movement. And so, there were ethical ideas floating around and it was always more the ethics and political philosophy side of philosophy that I was interested in that was. Where, where it makes a difference, I guess, where it has an impact on the way we live directly.

So that's, that's why, when, when I started thinking about this issue of animals and then as you correctly say at that time there wasn't a real animal movement or in so far as there were anti-cruelty organizations mostly appealing to people's sentiments. So, there would be cute pictures of puppies and kittens and asking you to help rescue them, something of that sort.

But there was, there was nothing really saying that even if you don't love animals there are still something seriously wrong about the way we are treating animals. And I never did think of myself as an animal lover and I still don't. But I do think that there are things very seriously wrong about [00:15:00] the way we treat animals and on a vast scale.

So this is not a small issue, right? When you take account of the fact that there's over 70 billion animals raised and killed for food each year, the great majority of them indoors in factory farms. It's the very major issue. 

Remi: One of the things I like about sentimentality when it comes to animal welfare is it can get the conversation started.

So, you have a very rational and I'd love you to speak more about utilitarianism. Aspect to it, which I really admire, but I didn't get to my 18 years ago, I became a vegetarian and vegan for a while. I didn't get there because of the reasons you've given that it's the right thing to do. And it reduces the most suffering or increases the most pleasure I got there because my health suffered, and I went on an elimination diet and I needed to find recipes for a vegan.

And there were barely any 20 years ago. And in reading recipes, I read about animal welfare. So, the way I got there was very indirect. So, what role do you think can be [00:16:00] played in sentimentality or in other roads that get us to the conclusions you've come to?

Peter: Well, of course, a lot of people do get to these conclusions through.

Love for animals in one way or another. One of the greatest campaigners in the late 20th century for animals was a man. I got to know called Henry Spira. And, and he was a great social activist working for blacks in the American south and for underprivileged people everywhere. But he only started to see animals as underprivileged when a friend who was going overseas, dumped a cat on him.

And he never really thought about animals, but basically the cat seduced him. And, and, you know, more or less around that time, he came across some of my writing and that, that did help. But you know, yeah, without the cat, maybe we would have lost one of those great container campaigners.

I'm not putting down a love for animals at all. I think it's a, it's a great way to get people to understand that animals are individual beings, that their lives can go well or badly for them. [00:17:00] And that we should be caring about them. We shouldn't just draw the boundaries of moral concern around our own species.

So yeah, it definitely plays a good role, but you know, you asked about my utilitarianism. So philosophically I hold the view that the right thing to do is the action that will have the best consequences and by best consequences I, and the classical utilitarian’s mean do the most to promote happiness and reduce suffering.

So, from that it straightforwardly follows that given that animals can suffer at least many animals can suffer We ought to be including them within our concerns of, of what we do. And we shouldn't just say, well, morality is only for humans. You know, there are some people who say it, but many more people who think that, but you know,  we certainly think when it comes to humans, that even if you're not particularly rational or nevertheless, you can, we, we still think, we think humans have a certain moral status [00:18:00] that makes it wrong to do things to them, even if they lose or never have the higher cognitive abilities.

But when it comes to animals, we say, well, they, you know, they don't think they're not, self-conscious, they're not autonomous, they're not moral agents, all of these things. So, so they don't really can't. But I, I think, I think that's just a mistake and it's, as I say, not something we consistently apply within our own species.

So we shouldn't use it as a way of drawing lines between our species and other species. 

Remi: You speak really eloquently about species ism and particularly around chimpanzees. I remember back in 2014, there was an article you wrote in this book that you've written, which I love the ethics in the real world.

And you're speaking about the rights of a chimpanzee and in 2014, I understand it went to court in Europe to get a chimpanzee, to have human rights. Talk about how the logic of utilitarianism arrives at that point, where we elevate [00:19:00] that's really poor choice of words to the same level as how we prize human life.

Peter: Yeah, well, as I say, I think it is a critique of, of drawing the boundaries of rights just around species and it's saying. There are other things that matter. Now, now this particular case you mentioned was based on a chimpanzee and chimpanzees do have kind of capacities to, to think, and to reason to a certain extent and solve puzzles and there's research showing that they anticipate things in the future.

They're thinking ahead as well, not to the same extent that we do, but significantly. So I think the chimpanzee was really taken as a kind of test case and basically challenging the courts to say, well, how is it that we're saying all human beings have rights irrespective of their mental capacities, but he is an animal whose mental capacities are clearly superior to that of newborn babies and superior to that of some [00:20:00] profoundly intellectually disabled humans.

And yet this chimpanzee doesn't have rights. Why, why should that be? So, I think that's basically a way to try. Bridge the Gulf that both. Law and popular morality place between humans and animals. And I think the thinking is that if you can do that for chimpanzees, well, we'll also bring some of the other animals closer.

And although the 2014 case in, in Europe didn't succeed, there are other cases going on. And right now, the New York state court of appeal, which is pretty high Cape the highest court in the New York state system is going to hear a case on behalf of an elephant. Who's been very miserably in prison.

Solitary for many years in, in a zoo in New York. So that will be interesting. And I mean, it just the fact that the court has agreed to hear this case is something of a breakthrough. I think it's the, the highest [00:21:00] level court in the English speaking well anyway, to, to hear a writ of habeas Corpus which is an ancient legal writ for, you know, basically it says, give me the body, you know, show me if, if the king was holding someone who, you know why, why can't, why can't you give that person over to me?

Why are you holding him? And it's it's if the court says it does apply to an animal, that would be something of a breakthrough. 

Remi: How do you think the animal liberation movement is doing since 1975? It's obviously come a long way. There's a lot more vegans. It's more normal conversation. Sit down in a restaurant and San vegetarian are men.

What I began being a vegetarian 20 years ago, it stopped conversations and restaurants had nothing. I remember traveling Italy and couldn't find anything but rice to have. It was so strange all those years ago. That's really basic and anecdotal. How far do you think the movements?

Peter: Well, it has come a long way in, in that respect and the understanding of people choosing [00:22:00] not to eat meat or even to be vegan.

And what that means. People wouldn't have understood what the word vegan meant 40 or even 20 years ago. So, it's come a long way. There it's come a long way in terms of having some political influence and being recognized by governments as a group that they ought to listen to, that people do care about.

But it hasn't come that far in terms of changing the conditions, which got me to think that what we're doing to animals is, is wrong and wrong on a vast scale, because there are still billions of animals in factory farms. The conditions might have improved a little bit. Might've been tweaked a little bit with some regulations in some countries.

Particularly the European union has banned some practices that unfortunately still exist in Australia and still exist in much of the United States. Although there are now seven states, including California, that don't allow hands to be kept in cages. For example, so, so we're making [00:23:00] progress, but it's been a long time, you know, it's, you couldn't say it was rapid progress, unfortunately.

And I'd like us to move forward a lot faster. 

Remi: My, if I was queen for a day, I would declare that all ever twice had to be renamed, slow to houses and had to have glasses. 

Peter: Well, exactly. In fact though, we could just do it with webcams. Now we really have the technology. We don't need glass walls and why not factory farms as well.

You know, why not everywhere where animals has, why not laboratories? Why doesn't the public have a right to see what's going on in these places? Yeah. 

Remi: Al morality seems to move with proximity and morality meets. It goes up. If we approximate to the suffering, we have a view on that suffering, but the suffering this at a site where I can not having a view of, but it is the same suffering that is contributing to our choice of what we can eat or whatever.

We need to close the proximity gap and suddenly your ethics will be. 

Peter: Yes. [00:24:00] I have, I hope so. I hope we can do that, but you're right. We, we like to look away from things that are unpleasant and we just continue doing, supporting them indirectly because essentially buying a product of the animal exploitation industry is all the support it needs from us.

And we continue to do that. But if somebody says, you know, do you know what life is like for an animal and a factory farm? A lot of people would just say, no, don't, don't tell me, I don't want to know your spoil my enjoyment of my next chicken pig or whatever it might be. 

Remi: Hmm. Thank you, Peter. And can I also, just on behalf of my team here, who just loved that you're here.

Thank you for the movement you created and how far you have fought for a cause that matters so much. It's this is going to go to three, 400,000 people, and I'm sure I speak for a lot of them saying you're extraordinary and your philosophy and the views. Put forward in the face of controversy and you still just hold the line.

I think it's extraordinary. 

Peter: Well, thanks very much. [00:25:00] I don't see that controversy as a reason for changing your, your views. Good arguments might be, but they're not controversy, but I certainly appreciate the opportunity to communicate with your 300,000. Yeah. 

Remi: Yeah. I think it'll probably be more with Peter Singer.

Yeah, I think that's the bottom baseline. I, what I want, we got into an, a liberation because that's the work you're working on now, but what I've been thinking about, if I was to talk to Peter singer, the question I want to ask him, which I puzzle over is how do you determine what's right or wrong or good or bad?

I struggle even with utilitarianism and perhaps we can speak about it through that frame, or you can bring some themes in, but how do you think about what's good or bad or right or wrong? 

Peter: Well, I do think about it through the frame of utilitarianism. That's something that I, I came to obviously over a period of time and I think about it very often and you know, you're certainly not the only one who doesn't find that easy to accept.

And there are [00:26:00] other very good philosophers who take different views. And of course, I listen to them and take a look at why they hold the views they do and why they don't accept utilitarianism. And that that's an ongoing debate and, and it should be, that's what philosophy is like, we don't try and enforce conformity or agreement.

We encourage open debate because that's the way in which we better understand our own positions and the positions of others. But for me you know, somebody. Ideas like, like rights or duties. I want to know where they come from and I don't get good answers. And in fact, when you ask people, well, what rights do people have or what do you do and rights clash.

I don't get very clear answers on that. It's not that I'm opposed to talking about rights whether it's human rights or animal rights, but I think they have to be derived from something. And when I ask myself, what can they be derived from? It does seem to me that the only possible answer is a [00:27:00] better.

Better lives for all of those beings whose lives can go well or badly from their own internal perspective. And that really means being super conscious beings who can feel something, and you know, feel pain or pleasure have a good day or a bad day or good life or a bad life. So, I think we that's, that's how we should be thinking about things and we should be thinking about things, not just.

For ourselves or our country, or even for our species, but for all Sandy and beings. And not just for those who are there, here and now, but also for those who will exist in future, as far as we can predict the future. And of course, to go back to what you were saying a few moments ago, not just for those who are in close proximity, tourists, but also those on the other side of the world who might be complete strangers.

So, so that's the kind of framework that I use. It's it's one that's impartial between Sandy and beings, just giving [00:28:00] equal consideration to their interests. Whatever those, where the interests are comparable or similar and trying to do what you can to make the world a better place in those terms.

Remi: Okay. So, I guess the reason for my question is I'm noticing there's a lot more advocacy these days for hurt feelings being worthy of stopping a message. And then I listened to what you said about. Good and bed in another interview you did. And I'm finding a conflict between the two. How do you not hurt someone's feelings?

If you have a controversial idea? And if we agree that meant to be doing the least harm, does that mean we stopped saying it? At what point does this moral code kick in? How much hurts feelings are we allowed to tolerate or cause something? 

Peter: Well, there's no answer to how much hurt feelings in general, because it depends on what's on the other side.

So certainly, we should not [00:29:00] gratuitously hurt someone's feelings. And a lot of the nastiness that you find on social media, where people do abuse each other and sling off is, is quite wrong because it's not serving any real purpose. You know, maybe people are letting off steam for themselves, but it's not serving a purpose.

On the other hand, when it comes to controversial ideas, if the ideas are ones that have the possibility of. Being right. And of making a positive difference to the world then I think we should be prepared to accept a certain amount of hurt feelings. I don't think we can say that you can't express an idea that might hurt someone's feelings, because it would be hard to say anything new or different if that were the case.

Right. So a lot of the things that we now take for granted, you know like let's say the idea that people were the same sex orientation, or to be able to marry that would have been regarded as [00:30:00] extremely offensive to many religious people who thought that this was a terrible perversion and contrary to God's will.

And so on, you know, we wouldn't, you could imagine those people. Took the standards of today saying, well, you know, we, we have to make sure that nobody is allowed to express those views. We have to cancel them if you want to use that so that these dangerous and perverted views contrary to God's will don't get into the community.

But obviously that would have been a bad thing to do. So we have to be prepared to accept that if ideas are serious ideas that have the potential to make a difference in the world and a positive difference, we have to allow, I think, ideas to be exchanged and to be argued about. And that's the way in which we find out what is right.

And what isn't, 

Remi: the way I'm seeing it is. If we're not willing to explore bad ideas, we risk not ever getting to the good idea. Cause I don't always say what I mean the first time, as well as I want to say it when I'm building a program [00:31:00] here or something like that, but it leads to an idea of significance down the track.

But if it wasn't that to flourish in the beginning, when it was very misguided or completely off base, it never would have come to fruition and touched people's lives. Surely, it's an imperative that this idea of freedom to explore different ideas that may conflict with somebody else's needs to be encouraged.

Peter: Yes. I agree entirely with that. And not only do we need to have, you know, criticism and discussion to refine our own ideas and improve them, but even if somebody you know, even if an idea is correct, I think people don't really understand why it's being held, unless you allow somebody to object to it and then somebody else will respond to that objection and lay out the reasons why we hold this at it.

Because if you don't have that, it's just like a dogma. It's just something. Well, this is something we all believe, but why do we believe it? You know, do we allow it to be [00:32:00] questioned and challenged? And has it withstood those challenges? If it has, then we have an answer to why we believe it. If it hasn't, maybe we don't have any.

Remi: How would you describe the state of the academy right now, given the amount of controversy around controversial ideas and professors being canceled or younger people in the academy being feeling intimidated. How would you describe the state of play and what is it you would like to see? 

Peter: Yeah.

Terrible as it's sometimes being painted, but it's certainly also not as good as it could be. And I do count myself fortunate that I'm not standing at as a young academic without any security of position in, at this particular time because who knows, I might not have gone further. 

Remi: So I'm thinking of one idea you may have had that came up in Germany that perhaps wouldn't have been that helpful if it was this time.

Peter: Right. So you're talking about my ideas about parents having the [00:33:00] possibility of euthanasia for their severely disabled infants. Yes. That's that? That's certainly a vote, a lot of controversy and still occasionally does. Yeah. I haven't seen arguments to suggest that I was wrong, but perhaps I have come to realize that People are not always as well informed about the prospects for their disabled children as they should be.

And so now when I talk about this, I encourage parents to make contact with organizations, for people with the disability that their child might have, and try to learn more about what kind of a life prospect their child may have, or. So, so I, I have learned something from that controversy anyway, even if I haven't completely changed my views, but but to get back to your question about, about the academy, I've been disappointed that some of the, he does have academic institutions have not stood up for freedom of speech as firmly as they should have and have yielded to protests and petitions and so on.

When I think they shouldn't [00:34:00] I'm, I'm fortunate that when I was appointed to Princeton in 1999, there were some protests because of my views about euthanasia and abortion as well. And one. Members of the board of trustees that is the governing body of Princeton called for my appointment to be rescinded.

But the president of the universities stood up strongly for academic freedom and was supported by every other trustee on the board. So I'm glad that that happened. And I'm pretty confident that that would happen again at Princeton with the president that we have today. But obviously there are some other academic institutions around the world where people don't stand up in that way.

Remi: How would you like to say it other than the latest standing up, what would be the invitation that you would put out that perhaps we need to stop bringing back into academia or introduce for the first time there? 

Peter: Oh, so I think what we need to bring back is a greater respect for freedom of thought and [00:35:00] discussion and somewhat less sensitivity.

To people being offended. I think that that has been taken too far and people have extreme stances on things that have caused offense. And that certainly wasn't, wasn't the case when I was starting out as an academic. So yeah, I'd like to see more robust discussions. I'd also like to see less political partisanship in a way.

I, I have a feeling now that people. Let's say if they're progressive, if they're on the left side of the political spectrum they feel they have to adopt the whole package of positions. You know, I certainly consider myself on, on, on that side of the spectrum in many areas, but I don't feel that I have any obligation to support everything that's said.

And there are some things that are said by people on that side that I will, will disagree with it. And I think it's much better to respond issue by issue than to take [00:36:00] up a whole group and say yeah, well, this is what progress is believed. So this is what I do. 

Remi: Let's throw religion in there. It, I would say maybe that as religion goes down, secularism comes up, nothing's changed in the human beings, desire to connect, to belong and to know what they stand for.

As religious dogma decreases all the dogmas seem to increase. Do you see any parallels? Is that anything you've given thought to? 

Peter: I've certainly given thought to in a way, I suppose the resilience of religious belief, which you know, if you'd asked me 50 years ago whether it would be as strong today as it is, I would have said, no, I think it's, it's on the decline.

And it's particularly in those nations where people have high levels of education, it will continue to decline. But that, you know, that hasn't happened. Maybe it has declined somewhat over that period and it, depending on which country you're talking about. But, but part of the reasons for [00:37:00] that resilience is I think, as you say, people have a need to belong.

And the question is for some people they're a church or mosque or synagogue has been that place. And is there really something. That can replace it now. I think that's, you know, again, that does vary from country to country and the strength of your institutions that you might be part of and your group of friends, but I think it's, it's part of the reason why secular view hasn't become more or less universal among, among people with some education.

Remi: Hmm, morality seems to be difficult for humans. We seem to wrestle with it. What are your thoughts on how to bring a moral frame to decision-making? How do you approach morality? What are your thoughts on it? And perhaps throw into the mix sentimentality and your thoughts on that? Because we do seem to squish them all up together, 

[00:38:00] Peter: right?

We do. So one of the things that I think about when I approach moral issues is I try to distinguish my gut responses what you might call a yak reactions from my reason judgments. So. You know, I think we are clearly evolved beings. We have evolved from social mammals over millions of years.

We have, you know, our closest relatives of the other great apes because we are also great apes. And we know a lot more now about the behavior. Great apps and of other social mammals. And we also know a lot more about what goes on in our brains. When we're asked about moral dilemmas, there've been scientists like Josh green.

Who've asked people moral dilemmas while they're having their brain scanned and see what pits of their brain are active at that particular time. So we know now that we have these kinds of instantaneous responses to descriptions of certain situations [00:39:00] which, which visceral, which we might say no, that's wrong, but I think we also know enough to say these are biologically evolved.

These helped our ancestors to survive and to reproduce and. Ensure that children survived for millions of years. And so they have been to some extent hardwired into a psychology, but that doesn't mean that they're the best way of approaching questions in the 21st century where things are very different.

And this goes to one of the things that you said earlier about when we're in proximity to people or to animals for that matter, we'll respond much more strongly than if we're merely thinking about. Distant strangers or animals far from, and that's because for all of those millions of years, we lived in small face-to-face societies.

Most people think that that humans lived in groups of between one and 200. So we [00:40:00] knew everyone in those societies. It was a lot of mutual helping, obviously, where you help them. And they helped us in times of need. And we responded to them, but we didn't really know or care in the same way for people who might be living just on the other side of the mountain Ridge of our valley.

And so we, you know, when, when, when we now have much greater ability to assist people on the other side of the world and we're in, we're much more interwoven with them, as of course the pandemic shows. We didn't get the pandemic from within Australia. It came from outside. Then we, we, we have to change.

We have to think on a larger, more global scale and that kind of small group morality that is still wired into us in some respects really needs to change, or we need to change the decisions we make so that they do have a broader focus. 

Remi: How does that reconcile with your views on border management, international [00:41:00] border management?

Peter: Well, I think there are two things that I want to say on this one is that as I said earlier, my morality is quite impartial and the interest and wellbeing of somebody who comes from the other side of the world shouldn't catalyst for that reason and the interest and wellbeing of my fellow Australians.

But at the same time, I recognize that that is a rational take on the issue, which. For most people is not going to be, be dominant. You know, they're, they're all capable of taking that view of it and maybe they have some attraction to it, but they also have this more visceral response that you know, strangers are not as good some way as the people that I know and associate with.

There's kind of a certain element of, of xenophobia, of fear or hatred of, of strangers that I think still. Resides within many people. And I regret the fact that it [00:42:00] does, but we can't just ignore it. I think we can't just say, well, so let's open our borders that would not lead to a good situation because of the hostility of many people in, in any countries.

It's not particularly about Australia in, in any countries to an influx of a large number of strangers, particularly people who don't look like them or don't, you know, have different religions or different customs. So so in a democracy anyway, I think that I, I, I do not advocate that governments take a sort of open borders stance.

That seems to me to be. To be a mistake. And obviously the political parties that are more likely to do that would be the political parties that I have more sympathy with and whose policies I generally endorse. But they are not going to achieve office if they take that stance. And so therefore not only a good policy on accepting asylum seekers and refugees would be lost, [00:43:00] but good policies on climate change, good policies on greater assistance for disadvantaged people within our own country.

Better policies on foreign aid. All of those things would be lost. And that's why I understand that politics is a matter about what's possible about a compromise between what your ideals are and what you may be able to achieve if you're successful. Political elections. So, so that's, that's why I don't really take the stance of saying that any, any political party that restricts intake of asylum seekers is doing something wrong.

Remi: Okay. One of the comments you made in another interview I was listening to was that to let the borders come down into kind of color countries recently, hasn't worked that well, and it has it wasn't in a phobia, you addressed, it was a market decrease in the quality of living. And there was a struggle within that country to reconsolidate the amount of help they had to provide so [00:44:00] rapidly.

Do you still hold that view or. 

Peter: I'm not sure which interview you're referring to your 

Remi: country in my mind. Cause I've only referred. I've only reviewed 20. We'll leave it out. That's okay. And edit out. I have that power. So one of the things I want to talk with you about is you said on Andrew Denton, and I'm going to quote you to get it correct.

That if you and your wife had a child with down syndrome, you would adopt the baby out. I would love you to talk about your thinking on this from a utilitarian point of view and have our viewers understand your mind because your rationality is so clear. And I really curious about how you come to that and.

Yeah, how you come to that. 

Peter: Right. Okay. So I think that probably is what we should do, but to be fair, since it's only me talking, I don't want to really talk on behalf of my wife. She has her own news, which don't not necessarily identical with mine. So, so let me just say that I'm speaking. [00:45:00] So I know about the kind of person I am, but I would like to have a child who I can have eventually, obviously not, not immediately when they're very small, but who I can have the kind of conversation that you and I are having now with.

And I think that's unlikely with a child with down syndrome. So to me it would not, it would be a shadow hanging over the relationship. Children with down syndrome and people with down syndrome can be very loving and warm and close. But it would be a shadow over the relationship that I think I would always feel some regret about that.

My child would not grow up to be the kind of child that I could regard as fully an equal in terms of thinking about issues about in the world and thinking how best to help the world and to make the world a better place. So that's why I think I, I said that now, you know, some people are probably the discussion arose from somebody asking me, given that I think that parents ought to have options of euthanasia for severely disabled newborns, whether [00:46:00] I thought that was the right thing to do in the case of someone with down syndrome But what I I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about parents having that option is children whose lives are going to be ones of, of suffering for themselves and where you're not likely to be able to find adoptive parents who would love and cherish that child.

And, and I don't think Dan syndrome is one of those cases. It's, it's certainly not necessarily a situation of suffering for the person with down syndrome. They can enjoy their lives. And because as I say, they can be warm and loving children and people there generally are couples who would be willing to adopt them.

And that's particularly, so now it wasn't. So before we had a test for down syndrome in utero, because during pregnancy, because. Then, of course we had a lot more down syndrome, children being born and perhaps the number of children being born my guidance at some times, and in some places being greater than the number of parents willing to adopt a child with [00:47:00] down syndrome.

But, but now that we do have those tests and there are far fewer children with down syndrome being born I think you could find loving adoptive parents. And that would be the best thing to do in those circumstances. As I say, if you had parents like me, who would rather not bring up that child, but would have had another child who might be able to meet, meet the expectations that I just mentioned, 

Remi: the reason I asked you that question is got nothing to do with my views on that, or really your views on it.

It's just, I find it remarkable that you say these views. When I see so many academics, not saying. In any way, anything controversial, they are playing this really safe phage line. And every time I listened to an interview by you, and by now in my research, it's quite a few, you speak so plainly and clearly about your views without any hesitancy.

How do you get to that? Or is that question just completely redundant to you? Because of course you should speak this way. [00:48:00] If this is the truth you've come to using or philosophical, philosophical stance I'm standing here going.

Peter: You know, like I probably wasn't born like that. I did adopt fuse, which were out of the mainstream reasonably early on as, as we've been talking about, including becoming a vegetarian, when that was a very unusual stance to take. And then I also wrote something else. I hope we'll get time to talk about the obligations of affluent people to give to people in extreme poverty and how best to do that.

So I defended those stances and the then I got into these discussions about euthanasia, which arose, I suppose, out of my questioning of the doctrine of the sanctity of all human life, because the doctrine of the sanctity of all human life, if it doesn't embrace the sanctity of non-human life, obviously as a, a speciesism kind of doctrine, it draws this line on the boundaries of species.

And I wanted to challenge that and that got me to. Fuse that we were just talking about, [00:49:00] but I felt that you know, well, if I'm a philosopher, I should be prepared to speak up and give reasons for these views that I hold and show why they're part of a coherent and defensible set of moral views. As I believe.

Remi Your mind is phenomenal. And I would love to speak with you now about effective altruism. Thank you for the segue, Peter. I was looking@thewebsitegivewell.org and the philosophy behind it. Please share with our viewers what you consider effective altruism to be. And then we can unpack it a 

Peter: little bit.

Right? So effective altruism is both a philosophical view on life and a social movement. The philosophical view on life is that one of your aims ought to be, to make the world a better place. Obviously, most of us are not saints. We're not going to divide ourselves a hundred percent of the time to making the world a better place.

But I think it's reasonable to [00:50:00] ask people, certainly people who are not struggling to survive to have that as, as one of their aims and Then the question is, so how do you do that? Or how do you do that most effectively? Because if you're trying to make the world a better place and you say, well, I've made the world a little bit better by donating to a certain charity, let's say, and then someone else points out.

But look, let's say you donated a thousand dollars to that charity. That's good. But don't you realize that here's another charity that could have helped twice as many people or could have done 10 times as much good with that thousand dollars as the one you gave to. And if that is the case, and that very often is the case, then it seems a mistake to donate to the charity that does less good.

So effective altruism is about. Get the most out of your resources. And I gave the example of donating, cause that's an easy example, but your resource might not be money. It might be [00:51:00] time that you can put into volunteering or helping or particular skills that you have that you can develop to help in one way or another.

But whatever it is, I think we ought to be thinking about how can I use them as effectively as possible. 

Remi: And would you like to speak about givewell.org? And I think there was another organization that you helped to establish. 

Peter: Is that right? Yes, certainly. Yeah. givewell.org was the original organization that started assessing charities, not just on the basis of their paperwork or whether they were well run or how much they spend on administration, but on the basis of what impact were they having?

How much good were they doing? And, and give well, pretty early on decided that at least as far as charities helping humans are concerned, we can get the biggest bang for our buck by helping people in extreme poverty in low-income countries. And you know, they've done very thorough research on that.

My, my only criticism of [00:52:00] GiveWell was that they were pretty narrow in a sense they were very nerdy because of the kind of research that they did. And they were not particularly user friendly or appealing to a broad audience. So, when I, after I wrote the life, you can save which the first edition at which came out in 2009, 

Remi: just given away.

I understand. 

Peter: Sorry, I'd given 

Remi: away the book. You've just like chronically. Yeah, let's do a plug. So, the name of the book 

Peter: is if you can save there's a brand-new edition, well, 2019 edition anyway, very new. And I am now giving it away either as an eBook or as an audio book. And the audio book is each chapter is read by different celebrity who volunteered their time.

So like the actress, Kristin bell, or the singer songwriter, Paul Simon, or the BBC personality, Stephen Fry, they all read a chapter. So yeah, you can go to the life, you can save.org and, and you can download [00:53:00] it for free. And that organization, the fact that there is a life, the life you can save.org came out of the book because a guy called Charlie Breslow contacted me after reading the book.

He was someone who had a very successful business career but had never felt fully satisfied in his business career. And it always felt he wanted to be doing something that was more in accord with the values of helping people. And. He basically said that he was still working at that time, but he basically offered to retire from his business career and devote himself.

I think he was in his fifties at the time to establishing this organization. And, and that's what he did. I'm chair of the board, but he was the chief executive for many years. He just stepped down to a slightly less intensive role. And we now have an Australian called Rick Vic strum as the as the chief executive of the world organization and also working in Australia.

Of course. So. Yeah, as I was saying, that organization is designed to be broader than GiveWell [00:54:00] to disseminate the results of give world's research and a research by some other organizations that followed give well in doing that kind of impact related research. And we will be increasingly doing some of our own research as well, but I think it's, it's designed to have a broad appeal and to encourage people to think about their charitable donations and to go to the website and you can look at about 20 recommended nonprofits that we have there.

And you can donate to them through the website and a hundred percent of your donation will go to the organization. We're just providing the service without taking any commission or anything like that. So, I hope people who are thing you've done anything well, we'll have a look at that and find the organization.

You know, they like, and that suit their interests. They're all good ones. And they're all ones where unhesitating any record. 

Remi: And you recommended them based on a rationale you've literally studied how effective they are and getting the dollar to the [00:55:00] personal, the cause that needs the help rather than going on administration or any other costs.

Peter: Yes, that's right. It's, it's, it's the value you get which might be saving the lives of children by preventing them dying from malaria, or it might be restoring sight in people who are blind and can't afford to get cataracts removed, or can't afford to treat and prevent other forms of blindness or providing surgery for young women.

Who've given birth without medical assistance and have damaged the uterus and develop what's called a fistula, which means that there's a hole between the bowel or bladder and the uterus, and they leak feces or urine through that. And, and their lives basically are ruined in those circumstances unless they can get some surgery and the surgery is not expensive.

It's a few hundred dollars and you can give a young woman her life back. So, there are, you know, we we've looked at all of those organizations and we're confident that they are using money. That's donated to them with very high effective. 

Remi: My understanding this is in the public domain, Peter. [00:56:00] But if you don't want to answer, that's fine.

I did read in ethics in the real world. You believe we should talk publicly about our charitable donations. So, I'd like to invite you. Cause I think I do know how much you give to make a difference. It's 

Peter: phenomenal. Yeah. I'm, I'm giving somewhere between a third and a half of my income. Look, I'm, you know, I'm fairly fortunate.

I'm Professor at Princeton university I'm half-time now because want to spend more time in Australia, but you know, professors are well paid there and I have some other earnings, obviously, you know, you've shown some of the books, I own some royalties and so I'm pretty comfortably off. So, you know, that's not a level that I'm recommending for everybody.

That would I recognize be extremely tough for many people. What I do recommend is and it's, you can find it in the book, the life you can save. If you want to download that copy from. The website I recommend a kind of program, massive scale of giving. So, people are on fairly modest incomes. I suggest they start with 1% [00:57:00] just to be giving something.

And if they get comfortable with that and feel that that's okay and it's something worthwhile that they're doing, and they build up from there. And on the other hand, you know, people who are very comfortably off, I think they can certainly get to the kind of level that I'm at. They can donate a third of what they're giving perhaps.

And you know, guests, they will have less cash, but, but basically the research shows that consumer spending isn't really very satisfying. The long run, you know, people get a bit of a boost when they get this exciting new car or whatever else it might be, but it, it wears off whereas the fulfillment from knowing that you're helping people and doing something good in the world, doesn't wear off it.

It gives you a kind of a harmony between your values and your life. But I think is very raw. 

Remi: This question may be too pointed. It may be, need to be an open question, but I, since I don't think you do pride, but it is an equivalent for you in how you live your practical ethics. So [00:58:00] completely, 

Peter: Look, I'm, I'm, I'm not really proud of what I do because I mean and, and, and, and, you know, I look, I could be doing better, as I said, I'm not a Saint.

So it's, I use the term fulfillment, I think as well. You know what I feel I feel that I've done a reasonable amount of good in the world. I feel I've used the talents and capacities that I had a well and in a positive direction. And I'm satisfied with that. 

Remi: You speak of being a hedonistic utilitarian, but I'm hearing meaning is more prevalent in your decision-making.

Peter: Yes. So when people talk about hedonism, they tend to have this image of the pleasures you get as being central pleasures, pledges of food or drink or, or sex or lying on the beach in the sun or something like that. You know, and they're all good. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not [00:59:00] putting this down at all.

They are positive, but I think we are the kind of being that seek something additional to that, not instead of, but additional and that is a kind of fulfillment or meaning in our lives. I think that's just the kind of beings that we are. And that is a kind of pleasure as well. You know, we shouldn't think of pledges as only those physical ones.

There are intellectual pleasures and I'm not sure whether you call just kind of satisfaction and intellectual pleasure. Exactly. But it, it, it is a, a sense of meaning pleasure in finding meaning. 

Remi: Hmm. One of the things I'd love to chat with you about as we come to the end is the general of controversial ideas, which I believe has launched.

Is that correct? Well done. That's awesome. So, let's give credit to the three of you. It was yourself and two other academics that kind of helped this come to fruition. Would you like to mention their names? I've got them here, but I'm going to mispronounce. 

Peter: You're probably thinking [01:00:00] of Francesca Minerva is an Italian academic who has herself been subject to abuse and physical threats for articles that she's published.

And I'd have to say the original spark of the journal came from her. She talked to me about it and we also talked to Jeff McMahon. Who's a professor of moral philosophy at Oxford university and a good friend of mine. And it's the three of us who are. Put this together. Essentially because we all believe that ideas are important.

It goes back to what we were talking about before, about the importance of being able to put forward different ideas. It is an academic journal, so it's not for everybody to just publish something in, but we send out all of the articles we received to experts in the field and we get their reviews of those articles.

And if they think that they're well-argued and rigorous, we will accept them. Sometimes I say, yes, button needs to be revised here or there. And then if the revision comes up, we accept them. And quite a lot of them we [01:01:00] reject. But yeah, we have published the first issue. It's an online open access journal.

We've had some donors who've made that possible. So, you can go to journal of controversial ideas.org, and you can read the first two. You can also support the general if you feel like doing that. And the other particular feature, cause of course there's lots of academic journals is that we allow authors to publish under a pseudonym.

If they're worried about being subject to abuse or about damaging their career prospects. As we were talking about before and of the, we have 10 articles in the first issue and three of those authors chose to public to publish under a pseudonym. 

Remi: Hmm. And the purpose of the general of controversial ideas is to provide a.

Safe place a voice for ideas that have been pushed out of the mainstream that perhaps you feel and think and have assessed need to be heard or worthy of discussion. Have I captured the 

Peter: purpose of it, right? Yes. We want to provide a sort of way in which ideas can be [01:02:00] expressed, even if other forums are close to them.

And in fact, one of the articles, not one published under a pseudonym, but one of the other articles the author put a little note there saying that this article had been accepted by a journal or positively reviewed anyway by the journal. And it looked like it was about to be accepted. And then after the murder of George Floyd and the concerns, very proper concerns of course, about racism and the editors seem to have second thoughts and Then rejected it.

So it is by no stretch of the imagination article it's discussing cultural traditions involving black face involving people coloring their faces and whether those are always wrong or sometimes defensible. But you know, that's an example of something that I think is a good, well thought out article and as a site in no sense of racial statical, but something that journalists didn't want to touch after in the last year or two, 

Remi: how's the funding [01:03:00] going?

How's it going? 

Peter: We've certainly got enough to publish the next couple of issues. So, we're going to be around for a while and I hope that as we publish more, we'll get more support from people who will like what we're doing. 

Remi: We'll include links to everything we spoke about Peter, and to all your major works as well in the show notes.

So, our viewers can access more of your thinking, which I think would be just marvelous. Is there anything we haven't spoken about as we wrap up that you feel is worth mentioning or you think maybe one 

Peter: want to there is one more thing actually, and I'll, I'll show it to you. This is, this is my newest publication.

I can't say it's exactly my newest book because I didn't write it. I edited; it's written by this person Abu Laos who lived in the second century in the Roman empire. And he wrote this really funny bawdy novel about a man who by magic gets turned into a donkey and What he experiences is a donkey.

And it is, it's very funny, but it's also very empathetic to [01:04:00] animals, quite surprising for something written in the Roman empire. So, I hope that your readers will pick it up and 

Remi: enjoy it going in the show notes as well. For sure. Peter. Absolutely. You're so good doing that. That's so fun. Look, thank you so much, Peter, on behalf of my team who are all raving fans of you and people aren't in the building says 30 raving fans in this building.

We're excited that you're chatting with us. And as I said, this is going out to a lot of people be so pleased that your voice is amongst the many and much of the noise that's going on with such clarity. And we such a beautiful Clarion call to live a life of. Practical morality. You're a good kind, man. I studied you at university last year.

I read your book last year and I never dreamed I'd be. So, I'm a bit of a fan. 

Peter: Terrific. And congratulations to you on building up that audience for us. Thank you for what you're 

Remi: talking about. Keep up the great work. I will take care of the introduction in my time to not waste your time. Please go with our blessings and our kind thoughts.

[01:05:00] Peter: Thanks a lot, 

Remi: sir. Bye bye. Bye bye

[00:00:00] Hey and welcome to this week's episode of Perspectives I am your host Sharon Pearson, and we are joined today by an extraordinary guest who has done some remarkable work in a field that is maybe to some of us, a little left of center. Her name is Tania de Jong and she is the founder and executive director of Mind Medicine Australia.

And she has done some phenomenal work in moving forward, ensuring that some psychedelics and MDMA may becomes legalized within Australia for therapeutic purposes. This is a topic that I find truly fascinating,  Tania is  executive director and co-founder and board director of Mind Medicine Australia. And it is a registered charity acting as a central node for regulatory approved and research.

[00:01:00] Psychedelics. She is identified in the psychedelic invest top 100 influential people in psychedelics, and she became interested in the resurgence in psychedelic research field after searching for ways to manage your own mental health and her own wellbeing. And we talk about this in the episode, she explains and walks us through her first psychedelic experience and how it transformed her with the support of her partner, Peter, she set out on a quest to have a therapeutic experience, but being able to do this in a safe and legal setting, which as you probably know around the world, isn't that easy to accomplish, have to experiencing this life-changing experience.

She realized the potential of these medicines and she very clearly and distinctly calls them a medicines, not an illegal substance. And she also makes it clear here that MDMA and the psychedelics we talk about are not addictive, despite what we may have heard in the moral panic that can be attached to conversations like this.

So she's on a mission to help [00:02:00] alleviate the suffering caused by mental illness in Australia that she truly believes is not necessary. And when you hear us have this conversation and you hear about the stats and what's been achieved in clinical trials around the world, right now, there are over a hundred clinical trials taking place around the world, including at John Hopkins, one of the most renowned research facilities in the world.

And when you hear these results and we'll include in the show notes, links for you to get more information and maybe to some research as well. So you can see for yourself how profound an impact. that  these medicines combined with therapy can have on people who are suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, even eating disorders.

It is, mind-blowing what I've been learning. She also is part of my Mind  Medicine Australia helps to and has phenomenal facilitators, helping to train the facilitators of tomorrow, the psychiatrists and psychologists and the therapists who will, when this becomes legislated within Australia [00:03:00] guide people who want to experience a transformation from the depression or their anxiety or their PTSD, and the team is training them entire process of how you can go through this therapeutic process.

This is not an advocacy program for taking drugs. illegally is not an advocacy program for going to a rave, getting smashed and not drinking water and becoming a statistic. This is a conversation based on current research in 2021, and it is really exciting what the future holds. It's so great that you're joining us today.

Tania thank you so much. I'd love for you to share with our audience a little bit about your journey as to how you got here to having that as your backdrop, Mind  Medicine Australia, if you would please. Sure. Look that's a really long story, but I mean to cut a long story short well my drug of choice has always been singing.

So I have always [00:04:00] loved singing and it's been a wonderful form of meditation relaxation. There'll be entertainment connection, so many things for me. therapy  so I've never felt the need to have any drugs of any kind. And I've never, in fact, I've always been quite anti-drugs. And so it is, it is surprising that I do have this as my backdrop, but I guess to cut a long story short, you know, I'm the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.

My grandmother invented the foldable umbrella in Vienna in 1929. So you know, innovation is very much in my blood and I have founded two previous charities to Mind Medicine Australia, plus about six other creative businesses as well. And I've been a performer before, you know, all of, all of my sort of adult life, even though I was told, never double that having singing lessons at the age of 14 and.

But I also, I did a law [00:05:00] degree and I've always been extremely entrepreneurial. And so, you know, I sort of, I guess, become the serial entrepreneur and as I've evolved and growing I become interested in different things and there's just sort of been this yeah, I mean to where I am today, where I'm, you know, a co-founder and executive director of Mind  Medicine Australia, and those still you know, I'm very passionate about my work as both a performer singer and speaker, and some of the work that I do for collective healing.

A lot of the event production work I do as well is tied in to  this. So in a sense, it's bringing together a whole lot of different things that I do. But Mind Medicine  Australia is, is certainly all consuming. Like it's taking a lot of time up for me and my husband. We do this pro bono and we also do, that's the question I get that you do all these other things, [00:06:00] but why that is the backdrop, that's what I'm interested in.

How did you arrive at a place where make getting, helping and facilitating the movement for psychedelics to become legal for medicine? Or how did that happen? Yeah, so that really happened because I've always been interested in hacking myself. So, you know, I've, I've tried lots and lots of different things, different diets

you know, I tantra   mantra cryotherapy my therapy, you know, hyperbaric oxygen all sorts of different retreats, relationship, work personal development. And physical sort of stamina sort of modalities that I've always been really interested in. And I never heard about psychedelic assisted therapies until about five and a half years ago.

When I read a blog of Tim Ferriss, who's one of the great donors and investors in this field and he announced that he was donating a [00:07:00] hundred thousand US dollars to impure colleagues to trial of psilocybin   assisted therapy to treat depression. I'm not, I don't suffer from depression myself, but I certainly know a lot of people who are suffering with depression.

I've worked with a lot of people who are suffering with depression. And so I clicked on the link was to an article by Michael Pollan in the New Yorker magazine called the Trip Treatment  and I read this article and it was about, in fact,  profiling, a Jewish man who was going to an end of life, probably had a terminal diagnosis, but he had been experiencing, I think, some transgenerational trauma.

And I had also. Being experiencing that I didn't really know what it was. You know, I'd have some strange dreams from time to time where maybe I was, and this was awful, you know, where I standing in front of a Nazi firing squad and things like that. And I'm thinking, well, where is this coming from? You know, this is, [00:08:00] I wasn't there for that.

And so I felt that there was, you know, parts of my psyche, I guess, that were still carrying some of this ancestral trauma. And so when I read, you know, about this guy's sort of remission conditions and things, I thought, all this sounds amazing, you know, like amazing. And so I said to my husband read this article, I think we should, don't do this treatment.

Hey, read it. And he said, oh, you know, it sounds interesting, but he didn't take any more interested in it, but he said, well, if you want to organize it, just go ahead. And he generally does say that about a lot of things. And so I then reached out to Dr. Robin Carhart Harris. Who's one of the leading researchers in this field who was mentioned in the article and asked him if there were any healthy patients trials that we could participate in because we don't have a mental illness diagnosis, but there weren't any taking place in the, in, in Europe at the time.

And so we were eventually referred to a [00:09:00] guide in the Netherlands and we then flew to the Netherlands where we worked with that guide and had a massive medicinal dose of psilocybin yeah, I've been pure psilocybin, which was preceded by Syrian Rue, which is a MAOI inhibitor. So the protocol was called silhouette, Cisco, which was a combination really of psilocybin and some of the effective well scope because of the Mio inhibitor Syrian ruined.

This was. A huge experience. Like we were literally shot out of   our bodies into other dimensions, into the multi-verse you know, journeys, this journey that we went on. And of course our journeys were entirely different. Peter's his father had committed suicide when he was thirteen  also. So, wow. You know, we all carry trauma either directly or indirectly.

I think we're all carrying a lot of angst and grief along with us. And particularly now I've never felt so much [00:10:00] that way, carrying as a, as a collective and disconnected and huge disconnection and, you know, wonderful thing about these medicines is the enormous sense of connectivity that they bring, you know, the sense of being connected to yourself, to others, to the planet.

I really is very profound and the healing that waits. Was enormous. And it's not that we were really ill or that we weren't not functioning or anything like that, but we became much better functioning. You know, I thought I was creative before, but you know, like I've been able to join the dots and understand things that I previously was not able to understand as well.

Yeah, it's, it's really a profound effect. And it's improved our relationship, enormously, our relationships without families colleagues I think we've become, you know, more grounded more authentic is less ego in the way because I experienced and we both experienced like [00:11:00] play ego dissolution.

So if I may, what that was like was when I taken the medicine. And I deliberately call these medicines cause that's what they are. These are ancient medicines. You know, they've been with humans since beginning of civilization and you can see the history of these medicines in ancient, Greek, and Roman cultures in the archeology.

You can see the mushrooms and things like that. Ancient drinks like Kiki on that were taken to alter people, states to, to take them into these, these little ordinary states and. They've been in indigenous cultures since the very beginning. And they still are, of course being used in indigenous cultures completely legally in Mexico, south America.

I mean, these medicines are illegal in the Netherlands and no range of other places. It just seems so ridiculous to me that, you know, you can go out into your garden or a field, and there's all these [00:12:00] psilocybin mushrooms, which contain the mind altering substance. And yet if you eat that mushroom, if you pick it and eat that mushroom, then that's, you know, it could end up with you being prosecuted and put in jail or whatever completely ridiculous when you actually go into your garden and pick a poisonous mushroom and eat it  and die.

Whereas you could eat these mushrooms and completely be healed of many of, you know, the things that we're struggling with in suffering within this human Carnation that went, that we're in. So yeah, it was, it was Extremely profound experience. We came out of it saying that not only was it incredible for us, but that will set up for charities between us before Mind Medicine Australia.

And both of us just said, well, you know, you can provide housing. You know, my husband's a [00:13:00] founder of women's community shelters I'm  the founder of the Song  Room and Creativity  Australia, and that with One  Voice program to provide creative programs, wonderful social inclusion applies, you know, you can provide all these things to people who are suffering disadvantage of some kind or another, whether it's homelessness, unemployment, disability, whatever it is to be, you know, feeling older and more isolated.

But the fact is if a person has a mental illness, Of some kind that there's some sense of anxious, depression, whatever it happens to be trauma that they carrying along with them. If you cannot get to the root of that trauma, it doesn't matter what else you give them, because actually they're not going to feel better and they're not going to be able to lead a fully meaningful and contributing life.

And imagine if that's a gift that we can give to people that they can feel, you know, connected and, and more whole more of themselves. If that's a gift [00:14:00] we can give people, then we should give that to people. And we shouldn't withhold it from particularly from people who are suffering. But of course we shouldn't withhold it from anyone because it's our birthright.

These plants are on this planet for a reason. They are a medicine they contribute to our wellbeing, our sense of wholeness, oneness unity with, you know, self and others. I mean, how could we deny people the experience. Traveling into altered dimensions and experiencing the 95% of life that we actually don't say on the daily basis, we started really, after that first experience, meeting a load of the researchers reading a lot of the trials that were going on and familiarizing ourselves with the space.

Then we started going to conferences and events around the world. A year later, we did another ceremony experience, I guess, with the same guide and it was even more profound. And then we were just completely [00:15:00] convinced. We were just like, well, everyone needs to have access to these medicines who needs access to them.

And we also looked at what was not going on in Australia. Really. There was very little going on in Australia. There were, you know, an amateur  psychedelic society. And that sort of thing, but there was, you know, a tiny handful of researchers who were interested in this space, but there was really nothing.

We had nothing to offer. We were acting in Australia, like it was 1970 and Nixon had just declared war on drugs. I was thinking in Australia for so long. Yeah. It's out of date by 50 years. So, and now there is research in Australia because the thinking around this is come full circle. So thank you. I'd love to just add a little disclaimer here.

I have a little caveat for anyone listening, who perhaps is still perhaps thinking the way I used to think, Tania so this is for anybody who's thinking [00:16:00] like I used to think this is not us advocating, taking any drug. However you want. We are not advocating use of drugs that you buy off the street. We're not suggesting that we be irresponsible with what we have in your conversation about.

Is using psychedelics something like perhaps MDMI, which is a different category of therapeutic medicine or a psychedelic like psilocybin for therapeutic purposes to help in the healing process. Ideally with a trained therapist, who's trained in how to guide you through a really extensive process, because I've now watched the movie.

You, you had on that around the Israel study that was done, and I'm familiar with a number of the protocols now and how to help someone resolve trauma and the kind of stats these results are producing. So I invite you if you're an audience member thinking I never want my kids to do drugs. We are not advocating your kids do drugs.

I mean, I think it's important also to say  to everyone who watches listens to this [00:17:00] is that everything is about the context. Everything is about the context in which a medicine or drug is used. So, you know, morphine, which is. Used often in the hospital, but you know, if you take it recreational it's, it's no good heroin on the street is no good, but it's using the anesthetics when you go and have an operation in the hospital.

So everything is about your intention and how you use that medicine in an intentional way for healing or whether you're using it just to get off your face because you can't deal with your trauma. It's leading you to become an addict, an addict in something else. It's important though, to say that these medicines are extremely safe and non-addictive even in recreational environments, they considered to MDMA particularly and psilocybin in their pure GMP pay grade form are considered extremely safe in recreational environments

[00:18:00] whereas alcohol is by far the most dangerous drug to self and others. And that's been proven in multiple trials and studies around the world. So. We are talking about medicines that when used intentionally under the guidance of, you know, a supervise guide or therapist can truly transform your perspective on life and certainly create enormous healing for a range of conditions, not only including depression and anxiety and trauma, but are now being trialed for addiction.

And they, the, the results for treating addiction the results are incredible  yeah. End of life, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, anorexia and eating disorders. Alzheimer's now cluster headaches and of course, PTSD  and so we're seeing these medicines now being trialed for. An enormous variety of conditions.

And my [00:19:00] belief is that they will be trialed for even a broader group of conditions as time goes on, because the way that they reconnect brains on neural pathways is so significant that that, and that sense of connectivity is so important to a person's healing. And really these medicines help to empower us, to become agents for our own healing, rather than taking daily pills or relying on a psychotherapist for the rest of our lives.

And this is nothing against the wonderful psychotherapies that are there. It's simply saying that there are treatments and with  two  to three medicinal treatments combined with a short course of psychotherapy, 60 to 80% of patients across 160 recent trials are going to remission. Now you compare that again.

30 to 35% remission rates from current treatments for depression, or just 5% remission rates for [00:20:00] post-traumatic stress disorder. And it comes back and if they suspend treatment, it returns. Yeah. And let alone all the side effects and the withdrawal comes through these medications and so on. So in this case, we're saying that mental illness does not have to bail.

I said that there is a cure for many patients available, not for all. This is not a panacea for all. And nor are we saying that current existing treatments don't work for some patients, they do. They just don't work for the majority of patients. And we have a mental health crisis. And this is one of the reasons why Peter and I, as philanthropists and social entrepreneurs are putting all our money and time, energy into these, because the impact.

It's enormous. The potential impact is huge. Like Mind Medicine  Australia, and other organizations, like it, have the potential to change and save the lives of millions of people yeah, who was suffering - there is  1 million [00:21:00] soldiers in the us, struggling with PTSD as we speak and traditional old school therapies are not resolving it, but the results they're having five years later, 53 to 50%, 7% of them have cannot any longer be classed as having PTSD.

Yeah. In the recent phase three trial of MAPS with both veterans, first responders and also others suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder straight after just three medicinal doses of MDMA with a short course of psychotherapy. 67% of those patients have gone into remission. And it's expected that as they integrate the experience, it's important to say psychedelic assisted psychotherapy means the medicine, the psychedelic with the psychotherapy, the medicine on its own.

It's not going to be fully effective. Anyone out there. I just say that as a word of caution, that you need to do a proper integration process because the insights that [00:22:00] you will experience using these medicines are profound, but to capture them and bring them into your lives, your relationship, relationships, your work, whatever you need to bring them into all elements of your life takes integration.

It takes work with a therapist to bring those learnings in and to then make the changes that you need to make in your life that are going to relieve some of the suffering and, and help you to experience what is really here, this beautiful life that we've been gifted by our parents. It's just such a gift.

And it's, it's a terrible tragedy that most people can experience, I guess. That you know, and this is really, really the reason why we set up Mind Medicine in Australia is because we have this mental health epidemic in Australia and globally that is, is just getting worse and worse. You know, pre COVID in Australia alone.

We had one in five Australians with a mental illness, one [00:23:00] in age being prescribed antidepressants, but one in four older adults and one in 30 children, as young as four. Now that is a terrible indictment. You know, we are over prescribing these medications more than just about any other OECD patient. And furthermore, you know, what we're seeing is that, you know, these statistics suggest that one in two of us will suffer a mental illness in our lifetimes.

And we can't continue to overmedicate people in the way. Is occurring at the moment. Well, the medication is suppressing a symptom, whereas the therapies that are now on, in studies around the world, a lot of studies in the world are dealing with the core of it and resolving the core issue. So the symptoms will, I'm no longer required.

There's one story I heard about, I think I'm going to attribute it to Rick Doblin, who is one of the major leaders in the world in this research. I know you have a relationship with him. I think [00:24:00] it was him. I'll give him credit for it. My apologies if it isn't him, whoever that is. And he said one of the first experiences of it was a soldier who experienced PTSD and had for years, 17 years, I think it was.

And he held onto the PTSD. He realized this when he was taken through the therapeutic process and on his very first trip, I think it was MDMA but I can't remember if it was psilocybin he came to realize that he was staying in stress to honor his dead comrades. I'm going to get emotional.

And only in that very first trip, you mean the requirement is you have therapy, then you have a trip, some therapy trip therapy, trip, some therapy at the end. So it's three trips with therapy back-to-back he did the pre therapy, did this one trip and realized the only reason he held onto his honor is dead comrades Chrome rights.

As a result of the psilocybin, he became his dead comrades and saw his life through their eyes. And in the moment of seeing his life through their eyes, he realized they'd never want [00:25:00] that for him. He dropped out of that very first study and years later, any symptoms of PTSD are completely resolved and now he works assisted.

People experiencing trauma. And that's just to correct you by the way. I think that person who is MDMA therapy, not psilocybin thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Assisted therapy is the one that's used for post-traumatic stress disorder, psilocybin therapy therapies used for depression and development as well, so perfect.

And they were able to drop out of the study. And so I don't need, there is the trips aren't needed the therapy and they've had years of therapy and putting aside whatever issues we have around this, let's pause and take in this. What looks like in any other category, if it wasn't criminalized, we would consider miraculous and worth pursuing with all our might

the world would be transformed if it was doing this for anything else that had [00:26:00] illegal substance around. Totally. That is a transformation. Their life is changed and saved because of this. Let's pause and think, well, maybe we need to change our views of it. Our preconceptions that come from the 1970s or late sixties and realize what's shifted in the world now, which I love.

I love the shift. Well, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And you know, if you think about it, that the existing treatments, most of them are based on science that is over 50 years old. I mean, in what other field of medicine are we so stuck in the past and why are we running towards these treatments? You know, so the Brigadier general of the veterans in, in the U S said, you know, based on the data and facts, we should be running towards these trends.

If this could even save a handful of lives, but it can save literally. Millions of lives. So why aren't we doing that? I think it's turning now. So let's just take a moment and talk. It was [00:27:00] really bad in the sixties. So one of the lines, I think Rick said, but again, I think I'm giving him a bit too much credit.

I think it was Griffiths said in the 1960. So it was used in a lot of clinical trials back then, as you know, Tania it escaped over the laboratory wall and made it out into the counterculture and the counterculture getting hold of it meant that the, all the negative stories in the myths began to be produced around the world.

That's how we heard these stories about if you took it, you would stare at the sun until you went blind. It's a complete myth and a lie that was created to create fear amongst it, which forced it way underground for way too long. But we're talking today because that landscape is no longer the landscape we find ourselves in.

Absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting. So even though I didn't know what psyilocibin   was, and I didn't even really know what psychedelics were, to be honest. When I did this, there was still, obviously some of those messages that stigma was flying away because I wasn't even aware that I had it, but I was like, am I going to go crazy?

Am I going to have a heart attack? Is, you [00:28:00] know, so they, you know, they sort of, these myths are very strong. And so one of the really important roles of mine medicine Australia is to actually dispel those myths and to focus on the science and the data. Because when we focus on the funds and data, it's absolutely clear, like, you know, the risks attached to these medicines are actually extremely low.

There has not been a single adverse event with thousands of patients. Who've undergone either psilocybin or MDMA  sister therapy. Over 160 trials, you know, no one has become a drug addict before because of them. In fact, many drug addicts and smoking addict addicts smokers have, have actually been able to like their addictions have gone because of these treatments.

So yeah, it's, it's really yeah, it's amazing how we, we sort of turned things upside down didn't we, you know, so that alcohol  was not made criminal cigarettes were not made criminal [00:29:00] and cocaine and meth amphetamines and all these really dangerous drugs, you know, the people can access very easily and yet yeah.

But yes, what is really great is we are seeng  this Renaissance now and. It's brand has brain rejuvenated, Tanya. So leading the way, just so we can get some facts out there for people listening. Who've never heard about this Renaissance. That's been going on. John Hopkins has been conducting studies for a while.

Now. NYU is conducting studies. Studies have now begun in Australia. There's millions of dollars of funding. It's not a lot, but some, but one of the stories I found most interesting was Tim Ferriss was talking last year in 2020, as result of a a citizen   philanthropy, there is $30 million in private funds to pursue clinical trial stage three trials.

In the effectiveness of psychedelics in therapeutic settings that tells me the tide has [00:30:00] turned on this conversation finally, to enable people who need the help, who are suitable for these types of therapies can get the help. And just to be very conservative, there is complete recognition. Not everybody is suited to this.

There are some personality types and some, I think it's remind me, what is it not suited for? So, so at the moment, schizophrenia and bipolar excluded those with incidences of psychosis, but many of the psychiatrists actually believe that over time, as you know, these medicines are studied further, those conditions also be able to be treated.

And I do know  instances of people who. have been  So because they haven't been accepted into the trials because of those conditions have gone underground where they, the borderline of bipolar and other conditions and have actually healed as well. But at the moment they're excluded from the trials and, you know, at time it will just take time.

And the more that we invest in you know, research in this space, [00:31:00] but also the more that actual access is granted, so that we can click data as people go through treatments. And that's one of the things we've really fast-tracked in Australia is that these treatments are currently available through special access scheme pathways.

And what that means is that a doctoral psychiatrist. You know, it can work with a treatment resistant patients. So a patient who's tried two or more other treatments that haven't worked and who is very ill and potentially could be suicidal, but certainly is very ill. And the doctor and psychiatrist applies to the TJR regulator to treat that patient with either psilocybin or MDMA assisted therapy.

And the TGA has been granting those treatments. In fact, I don't believe they've knocked any back since last June, so that's a federal approval, but then the doctor then needs to get an approval in the state to treat the patient. And in some states there are still these recreational use laws that prevent the [00:32:00] medicines from being brought in because they're seen as drugs instead of medicines.

So what we need to make sure occurs is that there's a national standardization, a permit system put in place in every state of Australia. That means that doctors can. Bring those medicines in to treat patients in clinical environments, that's completely different to a recreational use setting. And so, you know, again, this comes down to context and unfortunately the states are not making this distinction between the use of the medicine in a medical environment to treat a patient who's really unwell and potentially save their life versus someone who's going underground to access 

you know, they drugs what's the resistance around it. Given it's moved so far forward in the United States. So in the United States, the FDA has last year declared it for breakthrough status, which means it's a breakthrough. Which is a breakthrough [00:33:00] medicine. And what that means is they give approval to fast-track the different stages of clinical trials that need to occur.

So we can start helping people as soon as possible Australia, I, to, to medicine that that could be vastly superior to existing treatments. It's a very good nation. Yes it is. And where are we in Australia? Yeah, so we have the SASB approvals taking place trickling through, but yeah, yeah. We need to get through some of the state barriers, which we're working on, but also in Australia, we've put in submissions for the rescheduling of both MTMA and psilocybin from schedule nine, which is prohibited medicine, which implies it's dangerous and of no benefit, which is completely wrong and is simply based on the politicization of president Nixon in 1970.

Yeah. Two schedule eight schedule eight meaning controlled medicines. So that means the medicine would be used in clinical environments under the supervision of trained practitioners. And that's where this medicine [00:34:00] should be sitting if not schedule four. So in Australia, we have a number of medicines and schedule a and schedule four, which are far more dangerous than either psilocybin or MDMA and schedule four schedule four is a more, slightly more accessible, still controlled, but slightly more accessible.

But we have medicines like ibogaine, which is used to treat very heavy drug addicts. It's a psychedelic medicine also, but it's far, far more, you know, No potential far more significant effects on the heart and so on. Whereas psilocybin and MDMA do not, as I said before, there's been no adverse events with their use whatsoever.

And you know, they continually come up in files, like for example, these a recent trial that has been undertaken in pure college directly comparing an SSRI, an antidepressant with psilocybin [00:35:00] assisted therapy. And in that trial the 60 patients were either given two doses of psilocybin with psychotherapy or a daily dose of a esetelgram which is an antidepressant.

And at the end of the trial twice, So twice as many of the patients in the psilocybin group went into remission, as that is to tell a prime group, they also had less side effects and less suicidal ideation. So what we're seeing is that in every single trial, these treatments are showing themselves as to be far more effective and actually safer than existing treatments because yeah, and again, they don't treat the symptoms, they treat the core.

It's a long-term resolution, not a suppression. Correct? Correct. And this is all about curative medicines, not just palliative medicine, about, you know, finding a cure so that person can then, you know, become fully aware of what has been their trauma or their challenge. And they can get through it [00:36:00] themselves.

Just coming in, obviously with competent therapists is extremely important. It is important to note that a lot of the existing treatments do have negative effects for a lot of people, they can lead to suicidality in some patients and their side effects significant as, as many of us will know. And also it's, it's a known fact that it's extremely difficult to withdraw from antidepressants if you've been on them for, for awhile, and that can create its own problems.

So we need to be very careful. And Mind  Medicine Australia says, you know, we say six days. As expanding the treatment options available to medical practitioners and their patients ensuring that these treatments become a first-line option. So that if you go to your medical practitioner, they will discuss a range of statements with you disclosing full risks and benefits.

One thing we hear about often is that doctors don't fully disclose the, the side effects of antidepressants to their [00:37:00] patients, and that should be happening. You know, we should have full disclosure to all patients, and then it becomes a decision for the doctor and patient as to what's going to be the most effective and safe treatment for that patient on a case by case basis.

It's not just this broad brush stroke that everyone who comes in, you know, who's feeling a little bit sad, just gets given an antidepressant script and, you know, success for us. We'll look at, look like first-line treatments. Secondly, that the remission rates are very high. And continue to be very high and that the right treatment protocols are put in place for all patients.

And finally that these treatments are accessible and available to all Australians, no matter where they're based, their financial circumstances. So a big part of our focus is setting up this ticket in psychedelic assisted therapies. And we've had our first cohort go through [00:38:00] 46 psychiatrists, psychologists, GPS, physicians, therapists, mental health nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, counselors.

And so they've already gone through and many of them have rated the course as the model. Life-changing and important course and the most brilliant  training they've ever undertaken. We have a world-class faculty and as our second  intake commences, and a couple of weeks and is nearly full. And then we have probably up to four intakes in 2022.

The demand is huge. And so this is preparation for what's coming because you anticipate the laws are going to need to start keeping up with all the other research around the world. The research now is reasonably your refutable it's trials have been complete. The stats are  in, we can't argue with these ridiculously successful.

Absolutely. But also a lot of these therapists are able to start working with patients now, so they can do, you know, they can help prepare patients who are [00:39:00] going underground because it's not illegal to do that. They can provide integration to patients. Who've used the medicine. They could work on trials and they can work with their patients who are getting SASB special access scheme approvals.

So in actual fact, the therapists who are being trained and getting the qualification now the front run is in this space and they're the therapists who will gain first access also to be part of, you know, some of the trials and, and other pathways that become available. And St Vincent's has started its own trial.

I think last year is that right? They've done. They have some funding for a trial. So we part funded a trial at St. Vincent's, which is for end of life anxiety and stress caused by a terminal diagnosis. That's going through about 30 patients. It's similar to some trials that have been conducted overseas at New York university.

And.  Johns Hopkins. And [00:40:00] the interesting thing is that the one at New York university, which I mentioned before, which was an inspiration for me in terms of actually trying to spice it up was what was really interesting about that trial was that 80% of the patients went into remission immediately from the end of life, stress and anxiety, and were able to, you know, it continued.

But what is remarkable is that after four and a half years, the researchers went back to those patients. And not only were the majority of them still alive, but all of them were still in remission who was still alive. Wow. That's a whole other study. That's a whole different study. That's got to be done.

That's staggering. I didn't know that. That's right. Yeah. My mind is blown. That's incredible. We probably should've done this sooner. Would you mind touching base for our audience members? The difference between MDMA whose full name? I cannot pronounce, no matter how much I researched. And let's just talk about psilocybin, which is an [00:41:00] element of magic mushrooms.

Can you just share the difference basically between the two? Yeah, so MDMA is known as a empathogen. So basically what he does is it's actually not a traditional psychedelics. So what it does is when you have the MDMA you feel very warm and loving and connected, and unfortunately MDMA has been very vilified because it's been used a lot as a party drug people at music, festivals and so on, but.

Young people are getting when they think they're getting MDMA is an adult rated substance. In fact, in a lot of the capsules that people think is MDMA there's other substances and sometimes is no MDMA whatsoever, which is what leads to those headlines, further drug deaths from MDMA which is unfortunately not what's actually happening.

And it's also known for the audience. If they haven't heard MDMA ecstasy or Molly, that's the straight kind of name for it. Yeah. [00:42:00] Fortunately ecstasy and Molly have go a bad name    because making it at music festivals at rave parties and so on in combination with other substances often with dehydration kids staying up all night and that can lead to really bad effects.

But MDMA and it's pure GM P pharmceutical grade. Substance that's used as a medicine and a medically controlled environment creates enormous empathy and trust and safety for the patient, where they are able to talk about their trauma with the therapist in a very safe and loving environment. And what the MDME does is it reduces the activity of their Mikela, which often triggers a fight or flight response.

So when a therapist normally gets you to talk about your trauma, that can re trigger a re traumatize, you, which can make you worse in effect, you know, I'm sure we've all spoken to people. Who've suffered with trauma at one time or another way we try to talk about the trauma and they either [00:43:00] burst into floods of tears.

race out of the room can become very emotional and it can become very problematic. But what happens with this is the patient's able to talk about their trauma. They're able to accept what has happened and to move forward with their lives. And be healed. And, you know, in the case of the phase two trials with MAPS it 105 patients, all of whom had been suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder for an average of 18 years, just three medicinal treatments.

With a short course of psychotherapy, 52% of them went into remission immediately, but 67% after 12 months with full integration. So you can imagine the suffering that they had experienced, then the remission that they achieved. And that's what it, those 5% from existing treatments, how can we not give that gift to people?

You know, it's, it's extraordinary. So MDMA provides an incredible therapeutic [00:44:00] window in which competent therapists can work with a patient. I'll just mentioned to the audience for MAPS the multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies. Yes. And then psilocybin is the psychoactive component of magic mushrooms.

It is a traditional psychedelic medicine that has been with humanity since the beginning of human civilization. And what it does in the brain is it's, it helps to bypass. What's called the default mode network of our brain. The default mode network of our brain keeps us stuck in very rigid stuck thought loops, particularly with suffering from depression or anxiety or some form of trauma.

You know, I'm not good enough things weren't work out for me. My life is rubbish. No one loves me and I actually share, and I will provide a video that you might like to attach with. Interview [00:45:00] that people can watch that gives some further, further guidance, but the wonderful philosophic is that it it really can expand to what's known as our five T H two-way receptor, which is a serotonin receptor in our brain.

And the psilocybin floats beautifully into that receptor and it creates this therapeutic window. So that in effect, what happens is when you take the psilocybin, the default mode network of your brain is sorta goes to sleep and you get the sense of incredible neural connectivity. And I'll provide you with some scans of FMR.

I. Yeah, good scans down on some patients with depression that show in the placebo. So for patient with depression, they have very limited neural connectivity. You know, these rigid, stuck thought loops, but with the ingestion of the psilocybin, they experienced this massive neurogenesis, this neural [00:46:00] connectivity where different hemispheres of their brain start reconnecting, they experience increased neuroplasticity, and that allows this connectivity, this sense of oneness to take place.

And again, creates a therapeutic window where a competent therapist can work with that patient post the treatment because the patient in the silicide and experience, isn't an entirely altered state. They will usually experience some form of ego dissolution. Yes. And it will no longer be Tania or Sharon.

It'll be one. Yes. You're part of everything. Everything feels part of you. It's a wonderful, wonderful feeling. And from that experience, you can then start to come to terms with some of the things that are holding that. Yeah. So in my case, would that look like was I traveled completely out of my body. I actually saw these three boxes that had the word ego in them with a red cross for them.

And I kept [00:47:00] saying ego, I please get out of my way, get out of my, go down the drain. And actually  below is three boxes where drains, they sewage look like sewage pipes or drains. And I kept trying to push my ego down the drain. That was what symbolism was of what I was saying. Once I had pushed my ego down the drain, I was then able to journey further with my experience where I just became one with everything and everything became a part of me.

And if you have the right. dosage of  each of the medicine, which you will always have in a medically controlled environment, then you will hopefully inevitably experience that. Now with some people that may take time, you know, if a person has been on antidepressants for a number of years or decades, it may take more experiences with the psilocybin, for to get a breakthrough like that.

So it's arguable that some patients are gonna need more than two or three medicinal doses of these medicines. [00:48:00] And only time will tell, you know, as we do more research and work out more of the protocols for treatment, I think it will become obvious what different patients are going to need in terms of those in terms of support, in terms of how many doses

and so on one of the ways Sam Harris describes it is he strived for years to have that experience through meditation and taking it was MDMA helped him experience what the whole experience could be with meditation, which he now says he experiences through meditation. So it's almost like you get to the end point also.

That's what it feels like to be fully the one. And then now he meditates to that to knowing that reality, he actually did his first psilocybin experience. I think at the end of last year, you should go and have a look at it and you might want to share it with, I did watch that. I thought it was fascinating.

He did MDMA years ago in psilocybin last year and his friend instructed him. I won't actually talk about the instructions. Y'all watch the we'll [00:49:00] listen to the audio cause he has a great disclaimer and I think that's important. The other thing I think that's with touching on is if we keep holding onto 1970s attitudes around this and bring 1970s attitudes to it, I want caution and I want clinical studies and I know you support, let's do it in a very methodological way.

That's exactly how to do it. But any moral panic around this to me is looking really fuddy-duddy should this absolutely especially, well, for two reasons, one of them is that firstly, these medicines and particularly the mushrooms and some of the other psychedelic plant medicines are readily available.

And so, you know, the people suggest that, you know we should somehow withhold these from people is actually very short-sighted because what will happen is, and what is happening now is that the longer that these medicines take to be above ground and in medically controlled environments, the more people will go to [00:50:00] the underground and take risks to get better because people will do anything.

So, you know, like we only get one life, one short line, these medicines really reiterate that well in this incarnation anyway, you know, so the fact of the matter is if people are really sick and they've been suffering for years and decades, they are going to do. And as, as there's more many media articles about these treatments, they'll just go and find the treatments.

Now, there are many underground practitioners who are outstanding and hopefully they'll find them, but there's as inevitably happens in any sector that is taking off they'll also be Cowboys that come in and who will put up their shingles and who will put themselves out there as psychedelic assisted therapists who don't have the experience either with dosing or holding the space or integrating patients properly.

And then there could be adverse events that do occur. [00:51:00] So we need to accelerate access to these treatments as fast as we can. It's just imperative that you know, we do that now. And of course, you know, there's plenty of space to continue research in this space. At the same time, the two are not mutually exclusive.

We can provide access and start training all these veterans and first responders and others, our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers, our employees who will also many of whom are suffering. Especially in these, you know, coming out of post COVID world where we're seeing the terrible harms that have been done, especially to children and young people and older people as well.

Who've been. And we need to provide solutions. The elephant in the room is the lack of treatment innovation for over five decades. That is what we need to be talking about. Not about more tele health, not about training more psychiatrists and psychologists or more antidepressants. It can't be just more and more antidepressants when the success rate is so low and [00:52:00] placebos often perform nearly as well.

If not as well, when there is an urgency. Well, I would I mental health crisis beginning. So, you know, so yeah, so we need to get away from these attitudes of 50 years ago, you know, it's, it's 2021 right? Well, there hasn't really been a breakthrough in mental health since 1980s and nineties when antidepressants hit the market really full force.

So if you haven't had a transformation in that entire sector, yet mental health is getting worse and worse and worse. Surely if we have a potential pathway and again, it's not a panacea, we're not saying it is for everyone. It's not suited to everyone. It needs to be done under controlled conditions with a very well-trained expert guide with all those caveats, it becomes a point.

I think it was just a political football, right. And, you know, and, and it's great to say the Australian government actually you know, supporting files. And in fact, you know, the 15 million that the Australian government has announced [00:53:00] is actually larger than any other government in the world has actually announced.

That's fantastic. We're out of the fuddy duddy category. If you look at it now, Sharon in Australia actually. The potential to lead in this space, the latest in this space, we've got fantastic scientists. We have amazing researchers, amazing medical doctors who really care about their patients and want to get them well.

And I should also say that there's a massive market opportunity for Australia. You know, the market is in valued. Like it's, it's like some estimates are as high as $200 billion marketplace for psychedelic medicines over the next few years. And we're seeing startups sitting up every, you know, almost every two weeks since Peter and I started Mind Medicine

so there's one of the challenges though that you can't patent the MDMA stretch all the psilocybin structure so startups are coming in so [00:54:00] big pharma isn't necessarily. Yeah, it's going to be funding it, which is why there's so many individuals who are funding it right now to make a difference in the world.

They're literally doing it as a charitable donation. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we certainly do that, but there's also startups. Commercial startups will pro profit startups around the world. Probably more than 50 now, who are listed on various stock exchanges who are investing in reinventing the molecules, manufacturing, new medicines, rollout of clinics and so on.

So there will be for-profit models where people will make a lot of money, but we say it's really important to do then ethical way. And, and we hope that the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors can work effectively together to make sure that these medicines don't get priced out of, you know, out of the market.

I mean, so that, you know, anyone can get access to them, not just wealthy people, cause that would be a travesty. Thank you so much tenure. I really appreciate it. I find this conversation truly fascinating. I do follow what you do. I have attended the [00:55:00] videos that you've been sharing, the the study out of Israel.

I watched that and I was really interested in it. Congratulations. The other thing that I was thinking is I might be able to send you some of my, I've got some beautiful songs and recordings on my record albums. Some of which have been informed by. You know, my experiences with the medicines and some of the insights that I've received.

And so I'd love to share them with you anyway. That'd be great. Thank you. That's really kind of, you send through the links because I think that to be informed is to stop moral panic, to be informed is to understand how we can support people who are suffering unnecessarily. So anything that we can do to access the information that's going to decode our brains from 1970s, thinking to where the current research is, which has a lot of credibility.

A lot of  legitimacy in the world is the political groundswell is going to shift the attitude towards it is going to shift until I believe in our lifetime. It is shifting. I mean, this is inevitable, like within the native cities, [00:56:00] yes. Medicines will become much more readily available. Not only I think, will they be available in the middle?

Yeah. Environments, but over time, they'll become available to those who are seeking personal development, creative development,  Tania  lovely connecting with you. I really appreciate your time. Where can people find out more about what you do and the movement, if they just want to start  paying attention to this as what's coming in the future?

Absolutely. So, you know, we'd love you to look at our website, mind medicine, australia.org. We are a registered charity, so please if you can donate small and large donations all  make a huge difference in the mission to make these medicines available. And to heal the suffering that's occurring. Yeah.

So please support us. Look at our learn section on our website. Join our chapters. We have 30 chapters around Australia, New Zealand attend our events. We have lots of free webinars. We have a global summit in November. Register if [00:57:00] you're a therapist registered for the certificate in psychedelic therapies just get involved.

Reach out. We also have volunteering opportunities and we also do advertise, you know, we're expanding a team. So we have some wonderful jobs coming up. Fantastic. Congratulations on how far it's come. They were looking for a general manager at the moment, so, wow. Okay. Good plug. I love it. Fantastic. All right.

Well, I recommended I follow you and your work and I've, as I said, attended a couple of your classes. I think it's fascinating work and it's unbelievably important and significant. So thank you so much for your time Tania I really appreciate. Thank you, Sharon. Fascinating talking with you and I'm thankful.

That'd be great. Thanks so much. Thank you.

[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of  Perspectives. It's such a pleasure to join you. And I want to thank you for being with us. I really appreciate you. I got interviewed the other day and I got to brag about our view is, and I think you're fantastic. So it's great that you're here today. We have a very special guest, especially if you're Australian centric.

So his name is Tony Nash. You may know him as the man who co-founded Booktopia. It is a very large online book seller here in Australia. It's massive. It's where I do my business, which I didn't get to tell Tony in the interview, but Tony is just a great guy. He's a real pragmatist. You're going to enjoy.

He's very down to earth approach and nature. When it comes to building such a successful business, it is the world's largest online and offline book retailer. In the world, which is quite the achievement. I think it's fantastic because obviously everybody's minds go to Amazon, but Amazon's focus as Tony reveals is an inbox now.

So they've [00:01:00] carved out this phenomenal niche themselves with some entrepreneurial thinking, pragmatism seeing gaps in the market and just figuring out obsessing about what the customers want. He created the business with his brother, Simon and friend, Steve. And they're starting budget on Google ads was $10 a day.

They deliberately did not make a profit until 2016. They started in 2004 did not make any profit to two 16. We talk about that in the interview, and that was deliberate because what they wanted to do was to keep funding the growth that was required to take care of their customer demands. It turns over in exists.

I think it's over $200 million a year. Now it's been listed in the AFI Bow's fast hundred, eight times the only company ever to achieve this feat from 2009 to 2017, it's been voted bookstore of the year. They've moved into publishing as well. We didn't get to talk about that as much as I'd liked, but that's a really interesting new niche they're carving out for themselves.

It has [00:02:00] won the New South Wales Telstra Business  of the Year the Australian Telstra Business Award People's  choice Award we were a finalist in that. I remember that. They've been a finalist seven times in the Telstra business awards and they are state, it stated that Australian authors and titles are a key focus for this company.

And you'll hear that come through. When we talk with him, they completed an IPO in 2020 during the first year. Did you believe he'd ever say this the first year of this global pandemic and our response to it? They did an IPO. So initial public offering, they went public and their capital raised successfully.

They did an 11 week launch from decision to IPO, which I think is fantastic. They hold nearly 200,000 books in stock, ready to ship. They sell an item every 4.8 seconds. Their warehouses in excess of 10,000 square meters. Their main rival apparently is Amazon. Even though Amazon is in Australia, Booktopia is just doing gangbusters, going from strength to [00:03:00] strength.

We talk about teams, culture. We talk about what it takes to build a business very much this theme of pragmatism and keeping your head and focusing on the customer and figuring out where the sale is going to be made because everything else up until then is talk and with no further talk from him.

Here is Tony Nash. So you've been going now, you began in 2004. How would you say if you were to describe right now, how you got here? Rather than telling me what you did. How did you get here to be in this position where you are now with Booktopia mostly, for me, it feels like one thing led to another. So I'm very horizon point driven.

That means that I have a clear picture of where I want to get to. And I may not necessarily know that that's. How to get there, but by having that horizon point to me it's more like a mountain range beyond the mountain range that I can see in the [00:04:00] distance and going, right. We've got to get to X and at the moment we're turning over 200 million.

So therefore, what have I got to do to get to 300 million? But before that, of course it was getting from 100 to 200, from 20 to a hundred and so on and so forth. So if you work your way back then that's that's quite often when I think about the driving force, it's like, if someone said to me, come on, let's, let's get on a boat and go for a trip.

And, and, and where do you want to go? And I say, look, let's go east. Well, we can end up in Alaska. We could end up in Antarctica and you got, what can you be a bit more specific? And it's like, well, New Zealand, north or south island and north, so Wellington or Auckland, Oakland, Ryan and I were in Oakland.

Well, you know, the where the marina is, where we're going to where they had the America's cup, that's where we're going. And all of a sudden everything gets clear. And, and that to me is a lot about having that destination that then creates a level of [00:05:00] thinking, which gets you into action. Okay. So you start with the end in mind, which is what anybody who's an entrepreneur who's successful and not successful starts with that's.

I imagine that's part of it, but there must be more to the soup because. It's not as simple as just set the intention and the horizon line cause a new horizon line keeps presented itself and that horizon line is always further away and to get to their new horizon line, the challenge is always unique because the once you've conquered one horizon line, you've conquered those challenges.

The next horizon line is completely different. Challenges are required for you to overcome. Can you talk about that? Yep. So where the Where the engine sits in terms of how we fire up and what we do comes from asking one question every day, what do our customers want? So even though there's an end point in mind, it's still coming from the point of what do they want, because that will determine what we do to get where we need to get to, to the horizon point.

So that's how it feels to me. In [00:06:00] terms of, I guess, if you were to use the New Zealand metaphor, it's kind of like, oh, we're going to go in a cruiser or you're going to go on a sailing boat. Are we, how are we going to get there? And, and so that, that would be the next unpicking of the, you know, taking the layers of the onion away.

There are many, many other things though that make up the. You know, who who's on your crew what sort of roles do you need to have or the other we can't afford to have passengers. So who's doing what that comes, that comes into play. If I think about it I've never really used it in this kind of metaphor before, but that makes sense to me.

How are we funding it? So are we, do we want to have more month left at the end of the money or do we want to have more money left at the end of the month? We focused more on cashflow statements in the beginning that we did in profit and loss. There was a very clear growth strategies that I had in mind in terms of, in terms of getting, you know, I didn't want to overgrow.

I didn't want to under, but I didn't want to grow too quickly. So it's slow down there. So it's talking about capital raising [00:07:00] or not capital raising. How did you decide what your sweet spot was for over or under growing? How did you, was it an intuition? Did you have numbers to base it on? How did you go?

Yeah, kind of felt to me, like by growing at around 25 to 30% a year was was a, a stretch that was manageable. But not exhaustive. And so, and what I liked about that, it wasn't lumpy. So every year people were used to beat in the distribution center and customer service, sales, marketing, whoever, like, they just knew that we were growing at a very steady, right.

And I found that to be really helpful in terms of people getting used to, if we were jumped, like. 80% one year with the pandemic, which some companies would have. And then it's only 10% the next year. Overall over two years, you've increased by about 40% a year, 35% a year. But for us having that steady growth all the time, Pru proved that we could bring on [00:08:00] people that we could fulfill the orders that we were getting, that we can manage our cashflow, that we weren't spiraling out of control.

That's how it felt for me. And I imagine if you had overreach, you would have been in danger of not getting the capital funding you needed to bail you out of the overreach. So it wasn't as simple as finding the sweet spot, really the business relied on it because you were profit net, nothing for how many years.

That was extraordinary. Part of the story. Yeah, that was, that was intentional. So to me it was about pushing, putting back into the business, everything that we were accumulating. So having started the business off a $10 note back in. 2004. We we had another business at a time and when I say we I've been in business with my brother and my sister and my brother-in-law and we had another business, internet marketing.

So we were doing consulting work and Booktopia was a little side project for me that got bigger and bigger. So it was about, it was just about getting old that And the beautiful thing for us, of course, it customers paid upfront. [00:09:00] So they, they transacted, they gave us their money. We then hustled as hard as we could.

And then our suppliers, mostly in the book industry is, is that it's 30 days end of month. So in some instances we may have sold the book on the first, second, third, fourth of the month. We didn't have to pay that for, you know, almost 60 days later. So there was an aspect of using our customer's money. They were our investors, they, they handed over their money and we, we worked hard to hire more people hold more stock, write more software, buy more automation.

Yeah. But there were times when we when we moved, when we change facilities, we invested in automation and our suppliers were, were stretched to we, we were late in paying them. We had to continue selling more books to then eventually pay them. And, and then we got to the next level and we finally were able to.

Kind of get some clean air again. And once we'd done through that light not make money for that was until 2016 and that was incredible, but that was on par. [00:10:00] So it was on purpose. It was on purpose. And what happened was we tried to IPO in 2016 we had got to 80 million in revenue and we we went through the whole journey and it was basically like going down to Bondai beach and Sydney on a mid winter's day to try and sell ice greens with a southerly coming in from the Antarctic.

And it was eight degrees because temple and Webster were trading at 15 cents. Then now at $10, a Kogan had flatline over the six months since they had listed SurfStitch was going off. The market red bubble had gone backwards. And so it was there. And then the, the week that we were trying to firm up the price and do our management roadshow, Amazon announced they were coming to Australia and the fund managers all said, well, they're going to annihilate you.

So we're not interested. And, and we had to go away and do go from 80 million to 200 million in the meantime. And so Amazon didn't annihilate, but the one thing I took away from. From that particular process, was that okay. Growth has been great and, and putting all the money [00:11:00] back in has been terrific, but I think we now need to become a little bit more sustainable and, and focus on revenue and profit.

And, and so we, we started to focus on profit and build that up as well. So that then type it out our growth. So we didn't put as much money back in, but we had we still had high double digit growth. We just didn't have as much, but we were then is no one gave us money. If we couldn't raise money ever, ever, ever, ever.

Then we still had our own business too, and we were still funding it then. So they put us in a stronger position and that's why we, we shifted. And I shifted from being a revenue based business. And in the early days of the internet, people really didn't care about profit. They just wanted to know that you were growing.

Yes. But it'd be, I, it was clear to me that especially talking to fund managers, they wanted to know that if they put the money in it, wasn't, it wasn't only going to be potentially capital growth, but it was also going to be dividends as well. In long-term yeah. When you're talking about sustainability, you talk about in terms of the needs to be the cashflow and the [00:12:00] profit.

Isn't sustainability though. Also about stabilizing your supply chains and stabilizing distribution in Australia. Tell me about it. So you had to not invest as much money back in your business, as you had to stabilize a sustainable distribution network. How did you do both? How did you do all of that?

Nope. The way that most people do that is they, they understand their supply chain model and where they can get their product from and how that works. And then they start to order and and build up a level of capacity that Takes into consideration the slowness of whoever whoever's supplying you.

So in our case the, the algorithms that we write to, to order the stock that we needed for the. 150,000 titles that we had in stock was to make sure that yeah, we would buy them out and have zero for a little while, but then it was coming back in now algorithms, cause we've got the funding is to hold as much as we can.

So we, our low tide is well above the zero [00:13:00] point. And so then you do that. What I'm doing now though, is which is more exciting for me having moved from online retailing about four or five years ago, we got into distribution. Now the publishers are appointing us as their Australian distributor. So we go to ourselves, but we also sell to Amazon and Dimmick's and QBD and all the little indie bookstores, whether they buy from us, buy from us.

So we've actually, we've actually addressed that supply chain by saying, Hey. We can hold your books. We can actually sell more if you keep less. And of course for Booktopia we get better discounts because we are the distributor now. And so that's one of the areas. Okay. Thank you. And, and then also we are we're talking to printers, like for example there, there are printers, there's a legal publisher here in Australia.

They print in Sydney, their warehouses in Canberra, which is three and a half hour drive away. So they drive all the stock and all the product down to Canberra, put it in the warehouse. Some PR obviously gets sold in Canberra, but it's mostly in Sydney and [00:14:00] Melbourne. So then it all comes back to Sydney, into Melbourne, right?

What the hell? Like my company is making money out of that. And there's yeah, there's even at the last semester we were very big on academic books and one of the PhD students ordered a book from us, which John Wiley is the publisher. So we ordered it from Wiley. It's a. PhD books are not many are needed.

So it was print on demand. It was printed in Singapore, which is the PID partner. They then ship it to Queensland. Where there John Wiley shed is their distribution center is they then freight it down to us and Sydney and we sent it to the customer. What the hell, how much it's all going to the freight companies?

So my goal over the next 10 years is really to address that Leia historically in the book industry. Cause it's been going for 570 years and certainly for the last several decades, it's very siloed. So the printers did the printing and the publishers did the publishing. The distributors held the books, the authors write, then the literary agents represented them and so forth.

It's very, very silent and I'm looking [00:15:00] at it addressing that without investment in logistics and publishing which we've also stabbed in the last couple of years. And and, and just kind of see if we can remove some of that and have that profitability. Sit with us, give more to the author.

And, and hopefully make the price very compelling to the customer. What you're also doing is taking over proud of the market. That's never been addressed. You're doing something you're making a unique offering that hasn't been available to authors until now. Yeah. And one of the reasons for that is The lucky thing for me is I'm not really a reader.

I actually do. I listen to audio books. I listened to a lot of audio books, but to sit down or because I have ADHD is that I I don't, I was never much of a Raider. So I came into the book industry as, as an outsider, looking at it from a very different perspectives. They had a very, like, this is the way it always was the way it always is.

We're looking across the valley of, of publishing in the book, industry gain, look at our valley and I'm going well, [00:16:00] I'm in a helicopter looking from up here. Or I went over to the other side of the valley, or I sat down through the river through the middle of it and I got a different perspective. And so from my view, I just didn't see it the way that they saw it.

And I just saw other opportunities within that. One of the things that you saw was a belief in a business model. I'm going to say it. Perhaps Amazon may have been on your mind in a couple of those meetings. How did you know to keep going? When this monolith had decimated the U S book market and the publishing industry around the world, how did you, I want to know your thinking.

Cause it's more than a punch that you've done. This is well, in the beginning though, the thing was, is that Booktopia was started with no light bulb moment or insight, or there's a gap in the market. It was just a side project, $10 a day. We used another company to manage our site and fulfill our orders because they had done it for one of our internet marketing clients, Angus and Robertson.

So they built the site for you as well, the first ever ordering. [00:17:00] Yeah, they, we got through our internet marketing consulting business. We got Angus and Robertson. One of Australia's oldest bookstores, their website to the top of Google as a project. And they use this company in Sydney to manage their site and fulfill their orders.

And this company managed 80 bookstores websites. So my brother who had done that project set up a meeting and Christmas of 2003 pitched the idea of, of of us. Being introduced to their other clients and getting them all to the top of Google so they can make more money. And the owner of that company said not interested.

I said, you're not interested in making more money. I said, seriously. And he goes, he goes, no, we build websites. We manage you. We've got this platform that we can, we can get a bookstore website up and running within 10 minutes, 10 minutes. There's a million books on there. And if you sell anything, we pay a commission.

I said, well, that sounds interesting. Yeah. And he goes, yeah, I know, but no internet, only businesses have made anything out of it's all been off the back of a traditional bookstore. So I went away from that meeting. I [00:18:00] said to my brother, he said, what? Wouldn't mind giving that book thing a bit of a guy.

Cause I could see there was very little cost from outside other than driving traffic and, and getting a commission. And, and so I kind of went away from that, came up with the name, Booktopia registered the business and sure enough, this company got the Booktopia website up and running within 10 minutes with a million books on there.

And my brother handled the finances, said. You can stop Booktopia it's gotta be outside of hours. Cause we're doing all this consulting work. And I said, sure. Yeah. So you was selling your time for money as a consultant, not even. Visualizing the vision of what God's hope you could become. No, we had no idea my brother, right.

My brother read the sales plan. You'll you'll sell one book for the first three months and then it'll go to two and then it'll go, right. This is awesome. This is awesome. And my brother finances gave me a budget of $10 per day to start. What did you spend the $10 on? I've been dying to ask you that question.

Google ad words. I was a Google ads, Google ads, but I didn't [00:19:00] go for search terms like books or bookshop or, or or, you know, those kinds of generic terms. I went for authors and titles and sent them deep into the site because they had already used Google to do a search. So I sent them to where those books were and it took me three days to sell my first book.

And that was the total sales for the day one book. At the end of the month, I had done $2,000, but by the fourth month, I was up to 30,000 a month by the end of the year, a hundred thousand dollars a month by the end of two years, $200,000 a month. So We kept publishing distribution back then they, so that, that company that managed our site amazing, they took care of it all for a commission.

That's all right. Yeah. Well, they, we got a commission for generating a sale, so it was a white label system. They had 80 odd stores that they were managing and they, they did Angus and Robertson, Collins books bunch of other independent bookstores. And, you know, we were one of them and then we quickly became one of their largest and it was once we got to [00:20:00] around 2 million in revenue we could see that there was something going on here.

And I went through the Australian booksellers association annual conference in 2006, and we were still doing the internet marketing. We were still using this other company. And I came back from that and I said to the family, these guys have no idea what's going on. We got to go out and do this ourselves.

And because of my background before internet marketing I was, I. Sorry. I was a recruitment consultant for the competing industry. And before that I was a computer programmer and my brother-in-law was an IBM software engineer. And so we had the confidence to build our own site, which we did. And in 2007 beginning of 2007, three is after we had started Booktopia.

We parted ways with the other company when it moved into a small warehouse in Sydney, 500 square meters, next door, a brothel. And not that we knew that when we moved in, we had found out later and then bought some shelves on eBay. Hi, hi to warehouse manager rang the publishers and we said, it's assets.

Booktopia, we're [00:21:00] turning over 2 million a year. Never heard of you. Because all our orders have been going through this other company. So we've got basic terms, basic discounts, and we still did our consulting work. So it wasn't until two years later that we could finally say, all right, Booktopia is turning over.

I think it was around 7 million. So we could stop doing the recruitment or the internet marketing. So we could focus on the, the Booktopia business. What were the publishers saying to discuss, to offer you such lousy terms? When you clearly, the volume you were moving was bigger than any one bookstore or brand in Australia, we were only doing 2 million, so there was nothing there.

In fact, I remember getting a letter from PSM, the education publishers to say, as you're an online retailer and have no overheads, your discount will be 10%. Now at that stage, I think we had about 10 people working in the business. I looked around at our warehouse and our shows and our people. What do you mean no overheads?

I just think that it's some sort of smoke happens by magic. And so [00:22:00] it took quite a while. It took I would say another five or six years for them to really get their head around what was going on. And they started to shift because it was a very archaic industry where you know, where they they controlled everything.

And, and so w once we got to 30 or 40 million in revenue, we were starting to you might've negotiated a little differently, probably. Yeah. I just got some discounts, improved terms improved once we, of course, you know, paid our bills and, and, and put more volume. Yeah. What was it like signing that first contract on the first warehouse, still working in your other job that wasn't too scary?

It was $1,500 a month. Yeah, I think so. It was not much more than what we're paying for an office in, in north Sydney. But it was. We didn't hold any stock in the beginning. So we literally took orders from customers. And we would order it from the supplier would come in, you know, a few weeks later, five weeks later, eight weeks later, and people were [00:23:00] bitching and complaining saying, you don't like you guys suck.

I should have bought from Amazon. And it was about a year after we had gone out on our own. So almost four years of being in the business, there's one book had been selling really well at because the author had been on Oprah and it was the wife of Jerry Seinfeld, Jessica Seinfeld and, and America had sold out of its 300,000 copies and HarperCollins in Australia had 200 copies left.

So I said to my brother and brother-in-law, we shouldn't buy all of them then no one left, but except us. So we did, and it arrived into our warehouse. And imagine what keen to a bookshop where there's only like one book on the shelf or that yeah, that's how a bookshop looked at that time. So, so when this order, when an audit would come through the site, we just pick it, pack it and ship it.

And the feedback from everyone was, wow. What great service you guys are really quick. And I, I said to the others, you know, to kill a Mockingbird is sold every single month for 50 years. Why, why are we ordering it in? And what else is there? How to win friends and influence people, power positive thinking, thinking very rich Harry Potter, Dr.

Zeus. So a little warehouse that was supposed to be more of a cross-docking kind of thing [00:24:00] really started to fill up. And then after a couple of years, by 2009, we had to move out of there to, to 2000 square meters. And we thought, well, this will last us five years, the five years that ran out of space after two years.

And then we take another 2000 square meters. And at this stage it's all manual handling of every book. Yeah. Yeah. Except we had, we bought one packing machine that in the middle and someone would have the one in, just put it through and we'll come out with a package wrapped around. And it was in 2014, seven, seven years ago when we moved to 10,000 square meters.

And that was a pretty big league. We were turning over 40 million. And we moved here. And that was where we invested initially 5 million in automation and then, which was conveyed as in more packing things. And then, and then over the next few years we invested another 5 million in, in automation to improve our capabilities.

And then that got us to around 150 million in revenue by the beginning of 20 [00:25:00] 2020. And that's when we did our first raise, how, how did you come to the decision to do the crowdfunding? Can you talk a little bit about that? I think our listeners would be really interesting interest in how Boulder moved.

That was to even consider it. Was it over a glass of red that you came to that decision when you're on MBMA how did you crowd go to crowdfund? Talk about that. So what happened was when the IPI didn't happen and we had when you do an IPO, there was there's a lot of costs involved and we accumulated those costs and then we never raised the money to pay our first costs.

What I recommend to the listeners, if they are looking at it is definitely. Accumulate the money for the capital raise rather than trying use it out of the proceeds of your business, because that really stretched us. We had a couple of million dollars in costs that needed to be paid down and that put pressure on our suppliers, which meant that we were putting, being put on stock because we couldn't pay them.

We had to sell so more and it was a very tricky period to navigate and our way through to get that's not how you want to do an IPO. Yes. Well we [00:26:00] didn't have much 80 million in turnover, so we didn't have many other options, but yeah, that was our learning, our lessons and learnings on that period. So then once that didn't happen, we didn't look at a trade sale.

So we, we engaged a company from Seattle to go around the world and talk to companies who might be interested in buying us because we were on track to under a million in revenue. We got no interest there, so then, okay. That's that was done. And then we the business was continuing to grow and I felt well, you know, one of the reasons why we wanted to IPO in the first place is that our customers are our hugest fans.

They've been our investors all the way through buying books from us. And that's why we wanted to list. So I knew some guys who did had the crowdfunding platform and I reached out to them and I said, look, how about we do raise some capital through you guys. And so we we had some conversations and we said, we already had a prospectus that could be used reused to go to market with.

And, and so we, we did that and we were going to be able to raise a few million dollars out of that. [00:27:00] And the reason why we didn't was because we also did a road show with a guy who has a company called wholesale investor. And we went to Sydney, Brisbane, and Singapore presenting ourselves to to invest at the investor community.

So this was alongside the crowd funding and through those. Those events I did end up at the top of the Sheraton at 11:30 PM, edging my way to the back of the room. Cause it was so noisy standing next to this guy who we get into a conversation and he came out to Booktopia gave him a tour, told him where we were at and he goes, I think I know a guy who might be able to help you out raise some capital.

Yeah. And then this guy, mark Peyton from ifs G capital came out. We really liked each other. He came into the business three to four days a week working inside. And that's the one thing I feel at that time, it felt like the problem or the reason why we weren't getting any any results in terms of raising capital is we didn't come from the capital markets and other companies who had been [00:28:00] succeeding, had someone there.

Either an investor or a CEO or something who had come from the capital markets and can talk the talk of the, of that part of the world. And so, so he came on and there was things that were missing in terms of some of the modeling that we had within our books. That's helpful, more profits. So we've made some changes to some of the things that we've been doing in terms of postage and so forth, and made sure that we upped our profits slightly.

And then within six months we had completed an $8 million raise. And then we also added to that $12 million of some senior debt that we had had for, we ended up having for about 11 months until the IPO, and that enabled us to, to invest in the automation that we needed to get to the next level. So that was, that was how come the crowdfunding came into play.

I still won. 10 11. I wanted to have our customers own a piece of booklet. Exactly. I love that. It's a really inspiring message. How was it received by your customers? [00:29:00] W well pissed off in the end because we, we closed it off and and, and went through the traditional because we were going to raise a lot more money, which is what the business actually needed rather than, you know, three to 5 million.

But they, they loved it. And those that were going to invest More than most people that were investing 5,000 and more we're invited to be on the priority offer for the IPO. Yeah. And that, that would have been great. The head away to have P feel part of the story that was unfolding. I'm interested that when you went looking around the world, there were no potential buyers.

Was that because you feel you were under in terms of what those potential investors may have been looking for, what weren't they seeing that this is a stable, sustainable replicable completely. It can only scale up because all you're doing is supplying to customers, not consulting clients. So the scalability is obvious.

What was the gap? That's a tricky one to [00:30:00] answer. Cause there's two types. There's obviously private equity firms who have got a specific mandate and they'll, they'll be looking at businesses in a very. Two dimensional way going, okay, where are they geographically, geographically? Are they based? What's what vertical or sector are they in?

And a variety of other things and being Australian and growth, they care about growth trajectories, tremendously. They're going to show how they can make the money in five years. Yeah. The Australia was not part of their geographical mandate or, you know, what, what they were looking for for those that were in publishing.

Because we're e-commerce and because of the value that we, and Amazon and others at LaSeon and so many other businesses that are out there based on it's a very different valuation than a publisher or a traditional business is based on. So they, they struggled to get their head around the multiples.

So the multiples are higher. Yeah. Yeah, because not according to them though, no [00:31:00] traditional businesses there was there was little appetite there, so it just, I mean, interestingly for me after the IPO didn't happen because many reasons, but one was because Amazon was announced that we're coming to Australia.

So I reached out to the Amazon through that process. And personally, directly, I reached out to the Amazon M and a team and I said, are, you know, here we are, we're turning over a hundred million a you interested in. I said we only buy businesses that we don't care what revenue you're doing. We don't care how much profit you make.

They just have to be aligned to our three to five year goals. And I said, well, where Australia's biggest online book retailer, you guys sell books with turning over a hundred million and we're on track to get a 200 million. And you're saying that we're not aligned to your three to five year goals. I said, To myself, not to them.

Thank you for that insight information. I will take that away and on. That was really helpful because we were seeing that Amazon was moving away from books and have been doing that globally. And [00:32:00] even though they're still the biggest book retailer, the publishers and the evidence was there, that they actually were moving more into a tech company rather than a supply chain and logistics fulfillment business.

That was a very inspirational conversation to have had. So that's led you to decide then and there to do IPO again, or what was your thinking that time just to, were you always going to keep it in the family? What led you to decide to IPO again? Was that a turning point moment or what was the turning point for you?

For us, it was always about how do we get money off the table? So we build a business and my brother is always, he's two years younger than me. I'm the CEO and have been he was, once we got past 50 million, it was big enough. He was happy to still leave it at 50 million revenue, pay a dividend lovely business.

Thank you very much, but that's not what our, it, he may say. That's not what I wanted, but it's actually not what our customers were wanting from us. And to be fair. And yeah. And when you say that, can you just slow down? So I assume you mean by that you had to [00:33:00] provide a bigger range and faster. Is that what you mean by what our customers wanted?

No, it's just that more people were transitioning online and therefore more people were coming to us. What do you do say we don't want you to buy from us. We, you need to stay at 50 million. No, they, they continued to To want to transact with us. And that's what was fundamentally, we kept doing what we were doing.

More people were moving online. We were, and we did it well. So, so Simon, my brother, he, he was ready to retire, which he did just before the IPO. But part of that whole that whole journey, that goal was to how do we get money off the table? How do we convert the value of the business? So the family can know, can be set for, you know, how many generations who knows.

We knew that we had done the hard work. There were many ways to, would have been happy to sell it to someone if the price was right. But that, that wasn't the way it worked out. So when we did the capital raise at the beginning of 2020, which is quite funny because I'm assuming one who is the founder and chairman of champ [00:34:00] benches and He was it wasn't through champ.

It wasn't through private equity is to resign personal investment and a consortium of people who came in with him to make the $8 million investment. Six weeks later, the pandemic hit. And I remember meeting out with him and looking at his very grave and grey face going, what have I just done? I've just put what was money into a company.

And we're being hit with a global restructure and, and it turned out to be one of the best investments that he's been the best investment. He made that. If you're online and you must've known it at the time, I'm going to throw that credit to you. Everyone has to go home. They have to have things to do.

Now. That's not in the moment. In those days. When I, when I reflect on it, there was no guarantees who knew with the postal service stay open with, would we be able to deliver, how, how devastating was it? How, how did it, was it transmittable by, by a book? All these things, [00:35:00] there was still a lot of dust had to settle.

Got it. So but things very quickly, we worked out that we were on the right track and sales kicked in excuse me. So, so what happened was we we were never planning to IPO. In that year we were going to wait a whole year because the investment that we had that they had made in us was to, to, for us to.

Increase our capacity by adding more automation. We want it to go from our capacity of 30,000 books in and out per day to 60,000 out per day and an hour. That, that was a project that we'd been working on for some time and why we did the raise and that wasn't going to go live until the end of the year.

So pandemic hit and we didn't have that in place. So we wanted to we wanted to get that deployed, get it optimized, and then be able to say to the market look how much profitability we have now. Look at the scale, look at everything else and, and have, have the runs on the board, but everything was very [00:36:00] uncertain and.

E-commerce had moved from the wings to send a stage theater had been darkened and the spotlight was on e-commerce and we decided in August let's do it. And basically we did an 11 week IPO. Yeah, it was bloody quick. And that helped actually it helped so well because we could nothing was as long as a piece of string, everything goes, no, no, don't worry about that.

We'll just, you know, just do this, do this. And so we stripped a lot of a way decisions were made quicker. And we, we were fortunate to a degree because we tried to IPO four years before and we still have that Pathfinder, which is the pre prospectus document we have We had, we had appointed out chairman four years before and we, he and I liked each other and he stayed on for those four years as our unlisted chair of Booktopia.

So he'd been to our monthly board meetings. He had heard us discuss everything. I'm assuming Wong had joined us as a board member [00:37:00] already at the beginning of the year and had met with me already. Well, before that, as we discuss the plans for the business and he was on as a director. So, so there was already quite a bit of.

Knowledge about our business quite often, when you try to IPO, which is what happened last time, you're appointing your, your non-executive directors. They're going into the due diligence process and the DDC meetings which is due to the due diligence committee meetings with the lawyers and with the accountants and so forth, doing all of the due diligence to then get their head around what your business is.

They have a cultural match or a philosophical match about how to, how to do it. Exactly. So you had, so your feeling is, and your perception is it was successful this time around partly because you had the right people around you who already up to speed with how you were doing it. No, because it was like going down the Bondai beach on a mid day.

So ice creams, right. We were oversubscribed four or five times. The value survey on the valuation of the business is [00:38:00] 300 in 15 million. And when we started probably four or five months before, it was probably more like 200 million. So e-commerce was e-commerce was really hot and we had the product and to be fair, even though a businesses value today at around 350 360 million, we're very similar in size to temple and Webster who have got a market cap of 1 billion.

We've got a, we're much bigger than Adobe beauty and their market cap is in the mid 400. So we, we knew we had a very, very good business. And, and so what we've been able to do is get some money off the table. Like we had planned the school that the family still owns at this stage, I think over 40%, 45% of the companies, which is, which is Terrific.

And we were able to sell down and, and and bought some and great institutional funds onto the register and very passionate about a business we're in for the long term and also the retail customers as well, who are now. So we, we did accomplish, it was very helpful to have the pandemic [00:39:00] accelerate.

E-commerce exactly. What was the biggest challenge you've faced in your first 10 years when you had made a conscious decision not to make profit? It was 12 years. What was the mental challenge? Not the physical challenge of making sure you had enough money and money, but what was the biggest challenge you faced for you?

I never feel like I haven't like them. The question I get asked often as, you know, what keeps you up at night? Nothing. I hit the bed, I got to sleep. So I'm I don't feel like that. It's this, you make it sound like it's it's you know, it was a big burden or that it was heavy or that it was like, oh my God, I, you know, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but we did it.

It's it's never been like that. I don't think that way, I think, okay, this is what you've thrown at me out of left field. Never expected it. Okay. How are we going to deal with this? Because we will, and, and that's, that's one of the attributes that I have, I think, [00:40:00] I think so, which is quite helpful. I think maybe the things that I don't, and this is the way that I explain it when I do my keynotes to entrepreneurs and, and hopefully anyone can get this you know, through this, just through talking about it, is that Yeah, I've got a, I've got a good friend of mine.

She's she's in credible talent, but she rides the highs. Like she, she has a great month or like win an award and like, she's just not there. Right. And then something doesn't work out and it's just like, blah, she's just bitching, incompliance. Right. And then she's up again. And she said, you know, I get exhausted just watching her go along this journey of like a roller coaster.

Like we, we list on the, on the ASX. So we win the Telstra business award of the year or whatever. It's like, I, yeah. That's how I celebrate very little, you know, a fist pump and we're on track. And then when something doesn't work out, so the distance that I travel, right. Modulator is very flat. It's very modulator.

[00:41:00] Very rolling. Rolling Hills. Yeah. And so I'm not, I'm a peaks in the valleys. And I think for me that, that. Solid being solid and, and not being. And actually she and I caught up only the last couple of weeks because I told her exactly what I what I tell people in, in I gave her that and she goes, you know, I've, I listened to that and I I've stopped myself sometimes and going, I don't need to get that pissed off or agitated or aggravated.

And she, even, she, she heard me, she listened. So that was but I that's the way that I do it. And I think anyone that is in business, particularly as a business owner you get stuff thrown at you out of left field that you do not expect. The government will contact you. The regulations will change.

The ASX will have a view. Yeah. In our, in our warehouse, the first time we moved in here, we moved in mid winter. It was called, of course it's a warehouse, but then it hit summer and it was 42 degrees in the warehouse. And then everyone struggled and it got to winter and everyone was fine. And then it was coming around to summer and they [00:42:00] were going to complain to fair work and it was okay, what do we have to do?

Well, we're going to have to strengthen the stress into the ceiling and we've got to put these big jet engines. Two of them that are going to cost $600,000 and that'll keep it at 28 degrees and get all the hot air out. Okay. That's what we've got to do. You didn't expect it was an extra cost, but that's what you do.

And you, you, you just keep pushing through that. That's that's that's what it is to be in business. You've got to say, bring it on. You also gotta be pragmatic. So the biggest challenge I faced, so you didn't really face my, my biggest challenge when I built my business in the first 10 years was my inability to trust others.

As much as I trusted myself, I could do everything better all the time. And that was my biggest thing to get over. It's just that I know best. So therefore I should do best or interfere and just learning how, when to let go when it's not abdication, but delegation, which taught me systems. That was my biggest challenge.

And is the only way we go. We're nothing like you. We do [00:43:00] over eight, we do eight figures, but to get to my first eight fears, I had to overcome my own BS about what others could do around me and how to build a team and what culture means. Yeah. That's interesting. So I do talk about that in my keynotes about Shlomo.

So he, he also had an online bookstore and Booktopia, and his company started a similar time and we were turning over about, I don't know, five, $7 million. And I keep in touch and I called him. I said, man, how you going? And he goes, all tidy, terrible. I said, what's the matter? And he goes, well, I've had 18 angina or texts in the last three months.

Wow. You're kidding mate. What's why. And he goes, well, you know, my wife and I were working 18 hours a day, six days a week. And and I said, how many people have you got working there? Cause he was turning over 2 million and we had, I don't know, maybe 12, 14 people. And he goes, oh, and there's my wife and I, and two casuals.

You're joking. He goes, why don't you hire more people? [00:44:00] He goes, well, they just never do it as good as us. I said exactly, but at least they're doing part of it and they're taking it away. So if it's at 80 or 90% or 70%, but that's more because I'd come from a recruitment background. And I 14 years in recruitment, I understood hiring people.

I understood what it took to bring people on board and let people go and so forth. So it was, it's been very much part of me as bringing people on and empowering them to, to give them the opportunity to grow with the business. So that was not one of the things that that I had to, that I, I had to NGO or challenge like you, you had to do.

But I will share one thing with you, which I think has been really valuable to me when I was a recruitment consultant. I had contractors it contractors working for me and. I had 15 of them. And I went and did this course with Robert Kiyosaki, the guy that wrote rich dad, poor dad, about seven years before you wrote that book in the course called money in you, I did that.

Or you did that. Okay, [00:45:00] great. You know what I'm talking about? 1992. And, and what happened was it was actually, I went in there because it said money, but in the end it was more about you. You probably have the same experience. And so, so I came back from that course, having had some great insights about myself, because the problem I had with my recruiting was that I got to 15 and then.

I would drop back down to 11 contracts and then I came back up to 15 and then I dropped back down to 10 to eight and it just, I was stuck at this invisible ceiling. And then I had some breakthrough realizations about myself that I realized how I was self sabotaging or my thinking was not this certain.

Right. And I went from 15 to 30 contractors in three months. Yeah. And then I got stuck there and I'd got back down to 24, 25 that got to 30 and then down to 20. So then I went back and did another one of these courses called creating wealth. And I had another breakthrough and I got to 45 contractors and I'd get back then.

[00:46:00] And I was stuck at 45 and then I did business school for entrepreneurs in Hawaii in 93. And then I had more breakthroughs. And then I ended up with about 110 contractors working for me. Now, the reason why I share that story with you in particular for entrepreneurs, because I talk about, and I make up, I make up the scenario.

And if you can hear me out, imagine if you owned them as Alrighty. I actually. Was presenting to a group of jewelers. My friend is in the jewelry business and I S I said that, you know, imagine you're in a Maserati and they all looked around the room. Yeah,

well, that was quite a, that was not the normal reaction, but imagine you're in a Maserati and Maserati being an Italian sports car, quite often, it needs to end up in the workshop. And, and this particular day, there it is. You've got to drop it off and a mechanic needs to work on it. He gives you the loan and the loan is a 15 year old to Dorothy it.

And you've got this very important meeting that you need to get to. And it's [00:47:00] in double bay or it's in Toorak if you're in Melbourne. All right. And you've got to get to this meeting and, and you, you get there and when you arrive there, It's a little restaurant cafe that you're meeting this new, big client that you're going to pitch to.

And, and you think, well, I'll just pack in the back straight and I'll walk around and there's no parking spots and the light is light. And if you do not get there on time, right? It's a reflection on the opportunities, but there's only one spot available in front of the cafe restaurant. So you pack 15 year old two-door theater in front of the restaurant and you get out and you look at the client and they're looking at you and you're looking at the car and they're looking at the car and you're going, I mess it, rati.

This is not, this is not my car. It's not, this is not who I am. Right. You got to get out of that car as you is not. About the car, right? You are not your car. You are not your wife. You are not your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend. You are not your kids. You're not your kids' academic results or their [00:48:00] sporting results.

You are not your footie team. Even though one of my best mates thinks he's the Richmond tigers. He is not the Richmond tight, the Richmond tigers. And, and with Booktopia. Right. I am not. Booktopia. OPR is listed it's Booktopia that was listed when it wins the Telstra business awards. It's Booktopia. And I remember when I started it and I was walking through the apartment and pass the room where I was doing my work in, and I stopped all of a sudden in front of the door because I felt this boom, boom, boom.

I felt the baby. Like I could feel the hopper business. I remember when it crowed. I remember when it took it to the steps. I remember when we went to daycare for the first day, I remember when it went to primary school and high school and went to university and went out on its own. And because I see it as a separate organism and I'm thinking all the time, what does it need?

What does it need right now? Who does it need to have in its team? What funding does it need? What nourishment does it need? What [00:49:00] space does it need? Right. I am not. I have not overlaid my own ego and my own belief systems about myself onto my company, which is for me. I honestly, I can honestly say to your listeners that one of the reasons why Booktopia has had for from 2008 to 2000, 20, 30% plus company, and you guys, right.

And its revenue is because of that is because I have not identified myself as the business. It's its own organism, it's its own thing. And I I'm sure that that's how Jeff Bezos and others think about their business. It's unencumbered is enabled to, to flourish, overturn a core because if it, if it was me and I had to overlay my own ego on it maybe we'd be at 60 or 70 million because that's all I could.

You know, imagine of myself, it's been a very interesting aspect to the growth and the success of the business. Have you made mistakes with hiring with someone has brought their ego or their own [00:50:00] insecurity into it and tried to move it in a different direction or a bad direction or a self-serving direction?

Not that because I'm, maybe I'm waiting. Maybe I'm just way too dominant in terms of my vision. I do empower people to get on with it. They, if they know what they need to do, and I'm not saying I'm, I'm not micromanaging. I think people who've worked here will attest to that. So this is what we need to do.

Go away and make it manifest it, make it happen. So they have a lot of scope there, but I, I don't feel like I've been. Now that we have a board there's that aspect in terms of being listed, of course, non-executive, they can have their inputs, but I think one of the reasons that's the beauty of the Booktopia business versus say an adore beauty is that you know adore beauty, Kate has stepped back new CEO.

She's very talented actually to kneel. But it's a, it was an IPO led it was a private equity led IPO. They already own quadrant owned 60% of the business. That's not the situation here, so people are investing in [00:51:00] Booktopia and see Booktopia because of the vision that I am the executive have not necessarily that it's transitioned more towards, towards you know, a, an investor led business.

So You know, Jeff Bezos owns 10% of Amazon. That means 90% is owned by everyone else. It's still quite a large number, 180 billion us in, in personal wealth. But it's yeah, it's, it's I think that's one of the things, so I don't, I didn't experience that. And I, I understand the question that you asked, but I've never felt like I've been.

Railroad I've certainly made mistakes. I've certainly learnt from certain things where I've been able to pivot and change and, and go, yeah. Okay. That didn't work. So let's, let's move on and let's do this. I'm sure you get a lot of questions about your mistakes. I'm generally pretty interested to know what are you most pleased about in terms of strategic thinking?

People will say you only learn from your mistakes. You don't learn from your successes. That is not true. I've learned stacks from when I'd make a good strategic decision, and I'm going to keep doing [00:52:00] that. Where did your strategy really serve for you to get to where you are now? As you look back in hindsight, you can think, ah, I see now why that really contributed.

It's asking that one question over and over. What do our customers through through asking that and exploring that and be curious, curious around it, holding stock, investing in automation all the things that we've done to, to. Complish that has, has led us to here. So I think that that has been one of the the most insightful and valuable things that we were able to hold onto as a, as a, a guide along the journey people ask me, is they all the time, the same thing, actually oddly enough I give them the tour of the facility.

So they see all the automation and the robots and the automatic packing machines, conveyors, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books everywhere. It's like, they go crazy. And as we were walking back towards the office, they say, oh, you must be so proud how proud you must be. And I say, [00:53:00] I say to me, I said to them, this is pride to me.

Imagine yourself in a pitch black room where you can't even see the hand in front of your face, that you. You know, when you take a step forward that you're on track or off track, simply by the way that your foot strikes the ground. Nah, that doesn't feel right. That that's where I'm going to be. That is pride to me.

So it's very, very internal. It's very internal. It's a very, yeah. Internal sense of knowing they say that in the money in you, I remember that flip chat that height was on track only 3% of the time and 97% on you know, correcting and re and reconnecting back to be on track. So it's a bit like that.

So yeah, I'm the successes to me in terms of some of the things that have come that have come through is, is like, is that knowing that you're on track? Knowing that that, and that, that you're not, you're not there yet. Like one of the thing with the IPO people asking me, oh, you must be, you must feel fantastic.

It must be [00:54:00] great to list. And like I could tell by the way they were asking, it's like, this is kind of feels like you finally made it. And I said at the ASX, in my, in a speech to the people that were there, I said, I said, here it is. This is the way it feels to me. It's like being on the tour, de France you're on the 10th stage.

And the IPO is the 40 kilometer go banner, where you've got still 40 Ks to get to the top of the mountain to finish the stage. And after that, you got an another 11 more stages before you get to the sharps Elisa. When you get to drink champagne with your mates, go 20 kilometers an hour and, and make it to the finish line.

I said I said, this is just assigned to say, you're on track and you want that in your revision mirror really quick, because it's focused on whatever you got to do next. And that that's how that the IPO and many of the other things that we've accomplished as well, Telstra business awards, so forth, I'm sensing from you.

And I'm sure it's coming through to our viewers. You ha you've become more of you through this process. And not [00:55:00] less of you. I see a lot of business owners have success. I would call a successful or a business that's in the public eye and they seem to magnify aspects of themselves that perhaps they wouldn't be pleased with.

As they look back, I have a sense that you're pleased with. As you look back of you becoming more review in the aspects of you that you like about yourself. It's I would, I would put more of that down to marriage. Nice. Yeah. You know, my wife and I have been together for almost 10 years. My son is 18, so yeah.

I never got married, but I I'm a father and and my ex works in the business. My wife was married before, I've got a 15 year old stepdaughter and, and I, I would say that re you've got a lot of hope and you've got a lot of you know, imagination about why you want to marry that person and be in that relationship.

But I can assure you it is at times you do not feel like you're going to be married the next day. And that [00:56:00] divorce lawyers are going to be, I going to be cold in, but you talk it through and you love each other and you keep discovering, you know, how you're, how you're connected and you know, what's not working for you and why what's going on for you.

And it's it's businesses. Life is like that. It's, it's a, it's a, an emotional. Marriage of, of, of achiever accomplishing something together and, and that it's easy to bail out and go, you know, I'm pulling the rip cord and I'll see you back down on the ground. You know, I'm out of this one, it's going to crash and burn or you're in it for the longterm.

So, so I have no there's no guarantees that cath Catherine and I are going to be together. We just are in it every day. And Y that's how businesses is as well. It's like, you've got, you've got, you're dealing with issues and you're being, you're being asked to step up and learn and challenge yourself.

And, [00:57:00] and and that that's, you know, that you're either, you're either invested in your own personal yeah, that's what I'm sensing in. You, you either are invest in becoming the best of you and you bring that and business requires that. So does marriage. You've got to want to bring your best to it for the best of it to flourish, or it's not going to be the best.

It's going to be some facsimile that just can't sustain. That's right. Add on top of that parenting, would you even take you at a whole nother level? But I think, I think for me that even one of my best mates product from when I went to high school, he goes, Tony, I know you from, I know you from high school Chatswood high school, just a typical, you know, public school.

And he goes, how the hell did you end up here? Like what? I know that kid. Right. It's impossible to think that you're the guy, but it's just that personal mission that voyage of discovery to find out more and ask those questions and to go deeper and [00:58:00] understand yourself and unpack. I liked, I liked to do personal development workshops.

I did many of them just with Robert. I did tons of different ones to me now being in businesses like a personal development workshop, being in a marriage and being a parent is like a personal development workshop to act like it's not it's to let down the other team, you'll let down your business. You let down your wife or your husband, you let down your kids.

If you don't see this moment as an opportunity for ourselves to grow, cause then we put it on them and it's up to them to change it's up to them to do bad, or it's up to them to stop it rather than saying, what can I own in this? That's what I got from my personal development. How much of this can I look within rather than.

I can easily point don't get me wrong, but how much can I look within myself? If there was an entrepreneur starting out today, what would you be talking with them or mentoring that mentoring them about other than the basics and getting the fundamentals in play? Most of the time when I meet entrepreneurs what's missing [00:59:00] is that the point of cash?

Where is someone going to hand over the money to that's something. And I'll share with you a story. When I was at business school with Robert Kiyosaki in 1993, I The course of 16 days, it was incredible. You at 7:00 AM and you're running team, you finished at 2:00 AM and your marketing teams. He flew people in a crisis, many different subjects all through the, through the 16 days.

I learned so much and it was three years before I started my own company. But during, on one of the days as a, just as a process, as a, as a challenge at the break, he sent us out and said, what I want you to do is I want you to go out there. And we were in Hawaii on the big island of Hawaii, and I want you to go out there and sell.

And if you got a dollar bill in your pocket, just take it out. That was 150 in the course, just go around and sell it. And if you, for the point of integrity of the process, if you could be the, the one being sold to, if you feel like you want that, then you got to hand over your dollar. And I went out and I was in recruitment.

So I went out hard and strong. Like we've got the [01:00:00] best business, we've got the biggest, we advertise more in marketing than anyone else, Ellison in the newspapers. And we, we attract more candidates and so on and so forth. And I was just saying all these. You know, it was really intense. And I came, I came back in after that, I had not made one back test as a really hopeless, you know, I'm the best salesman in my company that that really sucks.

And so I walked back into the room and the course goes on the next break. He does the same thing. I changed my tactic and I, I'm more loving, you know, I listened, we listened to our candidates. We, we understand what they need. We talk to our clients really looking for what they want. And we, we do, it's like a matchmaking service and people were much kinder in the feedback this time around tenure.

I really love what you're saying, but no, I don't think so. I went back into the room and go that price that's really sucks. I hate that prices I'm in the best salesman in my company. And so of course goes on. Then we take the next break [01:01:00] and I do something completely different. I sit in the corner with my arms folded and my legs crossed and I said, well, you can go and get stuffed.

Right. That didn't work either. Can't believe it. Yeah. While I was sitting there and got into myself, you know what? I just, this is not right. What am I not thinking? What am I doing here? That's this is, I've got, something's got to change. And while I'm sitting there, I realized, oh my God, two years ago, I remember I did that.

That remedial massage course, I can go out and offer a massage. So the next break, I offered three minute massages for a dollar. I made four backs. And seriously, when you ask that question, in terms of entrepreneurs, it's about really understanding where the Kashi is. So when, when we had our before our internet marketing business, we had a chat software company and the.com crash.

And we were not, no one was interested in putting chat software in the website. We couldn't pay ourselves a salary. My son had just been born. My [01:02:00] brother and brother-in-law his families. They, I mean, they did, they couldn't earn any money. My parents were giving us a bit of money to make it through. And I was speaking to a web designer asking them.

How do you, how do you get to the top of Google? Like if we were at the top of Google for the software that we had, which was chat software for the internet, how do you get to the top of Google as someone does a search? Cause they'd been going for a few years and getting more and more popular. And he told me what to do.

And I was I was talking to this lady about getting into, to use chat software. And she said to me, look, I'd love to chat to people. I just need more people coming to my site. And I said, well, I can get you to the top of Google. You say, well, give me a proposal. So I did for $500 and did the job. And she was very happy.

We were in such dire straits. I was talking to the largest car rental company in New Zealand about using our chat software. And the similar conversation occurred. I'd love to chat to people, need more people. I can get you to the top of Google. Give me a proposal this time. I put one in for 18,000. Yeah. I spoke to him for an hour on the phone, all the things we're going to do, changes website, drive traffic and previous business.

And at the end of the hour, he said, all right, let's do it. [01:03:00] Put down the fan, turn to my family. I said, shit, we're in big trouble. Now we have no idea what we're doing. Yeah. But it was that experience in Hawaii with the $1. That made the difference, because I knew that that's where the money was and letting go of what we actually originally had and pivoting very quickly to go for the money is one of the most important as they talk about testing.

Correct. And, and like in the beginning, just because you think you have an idea and you've, this is it, and it's your passion and you spend a lot of time and you came up with a name and you bought the URL and maybe the website a lot of time over it. Right. You've got to focus on the cash because that's what we'll pay you.

That's how we built Booktopia we went from perfect. You can go to archive.org, look at the way back machine, put it in booktopia.com.edu. And you will see what Booktopia looked like in 2004, you can get, it takes an HTML photograph of websites around the world and see what we look like. [01:04:00] You will see what we looked like over the years and you go, my God, that's a bit embarrassing, turning over a million dollars.

Right. That's really, really important. You've got to get up and running and the money has got to come. You've been asked just to finish. You've been asked, you said, you've asked this question a lot. What keeps you awake at night? I think your obsession is what keeps your customers awake at night. And because you answer that question really well, you keep expanding.

Yeah. What customers, I never thought about it, but so you've been talking about, you think about what your customers want. That's your obsession. It's not about what you want, which is what people ask you about your obsessions, where it needs to be. What's right. For the customer know what's right for me.

Yeah. And at the end of that you get rewarded. To get the things that you want perpendicular to what your intention was. And that is to get your customers what they want. Absolutely. And that, that is your quest. My first personal development was Jim Roan and I'm going to [01:05:00] mangle his quote, but he said, help enough.

People's dreams come true. And yours get taken care of. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks so much, Tony really appreciate you. They wonderful. This has gotta be a part one. It's gotta be a part two. I've barely scratched the surface. I am respecting your time. But I'm holding back on the five other thoughts I've got going, but thank you so much, Tony.

You're really, really kind. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome to this epiSo,de of perspectives. I am going to be your host today. I am Sharon Remy PearSo,n and today we're going to be chatting with ex former Olympian, Lisa Forrest. Who's written a wonderful book called Glide I hope you've had a chance to read it. So, you may remember the Moscow Olympics in 1980 were ground to a hold or had So, much controversy, , because it was the Olympics that the politicians wanted to boycott.

And Lisa swam at the Moscow Olympics and subsequent to that in the Commonwealth games here in Brisbane in Australia, she became a household name because of that shoe in not, she was 14 years old when she did her first Commonwealth games, what a remarkable human being. She was captain of the Moscow Olympic team, a small band of

athletes that went in the face of death threats, controversy, news [00:01:00] headlines going either way, slamming them or supporting and celebrating them. Her family was receiving death threats during this time. And after that, as I mentioned in, I think it was 1982, she swam and won gold two gold medals in the Brisbane Commonwealth games with the home crowd, just going crazy for her after her retirement, from swimming at the ripe old age of, I think, 19, she went on and had an amazing career as a journalist.

She was on the midday show. I think it was with Ray Martin set afternoon football. She had her own shows. She went on to a show called everybody on the ABC TV and So,me other shows as well. She alSo, trained as an actor in New York, but all the way through this, there was another narrative going on. So, the external looks amazing and shiny and filled with success and applause and gold medals.

And under the water, there was So, much more going on. I mean that metaphorically within Lisa and So, in Lisa's book glide she talks about the challenges she was facing [00:02:00] going on within her, within facing her emotions. , What it meant to be mentally tough as a 14 or a 16 year old, not wanting to feel that tough.

She talks in glide about how to be mindful and filled with compassion. When it seems everything around you, all the stimuli coming your way is telling you to be any other way. And now she works as a mindfulness coach and a mindfulness trainer teaching the principles of compassion and mindfulness. As she describes, it's two wings of this beautiful bird and how to navigate life in a way other than being a perfectionist, other than being tough, other than never facing her vulnerability.

And seeing as weakness, she paints a very different landscape about how we can be and how we can navigate the beauty and the joy of life. And her message is very inspiring. I must say reading the book, there were times I was thinking when, when this hero being Lisa find within her, that it was always within her and I won't give you the [00:03:00] punchline, but the epiSo,des worth hearing about how she transformed her internal dialogue, her internal narrative, So, that she felt as beautiful on the inside as her life looked on the outside.

And here she is Lisa forest. So, where are you? Are you in Sydney? Yes, I'm in Sydney. Yeah. And we live in the inner city and Redfin. So,. We've been here for oh, more than 20 years. So, you could buy a place under half a million in Redfern. We did back then not

I grew up in the Northern beaches in Sydney, but my mom grew up in the inner city. So, my Nana was living here all her life. So, we were, we went between the two all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic, great stories from Sydney. I felt, I don't know Sydney really, except as a tourist. So, you introduced Sydney and there was a lot of, a lot more heart to it.

The way you wrote about it than I've imagined it to be, which was beautiful. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. You mean in terms of the eDee Whyladies growing up [00:04:00] by the beach? Yeah, I was very lucky. I mean, it is a charmed, you know, way to grow up and I was just lucky, like dad was the Bondai lifesaver. And then, then at a certain point he decided that he'd rather rather board ride, , or ride a board.

And So,, yeah, he, they had a place at Newport. , before, long before I was born and back then there was no sewage or anything. It was just a holiday place. So, mumand dad would drive the caravan up there for this block of land. And then once I decided to get married and have kids, they moved So,rt of back towards  where there was a school and a bus route and, you know, all that So,rt of stuff feel.

In So,me ways you, you, your parents were sung heroes in your book, but I think even more So, they were an unsung hero. A theme in the book was their heroism in how they were just So,, self-sacrificing and placing you center in your dream center to their world. So, I thought that was. Beautiful the way they've done that.

And my hat goes off to them. That kind of parenting. It's [00:05:00] interesting, isn't it? Because we talk about helicopter parenting now, and yet they were, you know, when you use the word self-sacrificing they just cause certainly for dad. , I think we were his world. Like my, my dad was a shy kind of, you know, he was really happy in his own world.

He's a surfer, he was a swimmer. He didn't really need a lot and loved where I grew up and obviously loved mom. And then we came along and he was, he worked on building sites and we just were, you know, we were his world and we still aren't really like, you know, he will say if I go to visit him and be like, you know, see you next week and he'll say, can't come So,on, enough love at the same time, they weren't helicopter parents.

And it's just more, if I was interested in swimming, which, you know, I showed an interest from that first day down at the DUI ladies, then, you know, he'd helped me do it. And likewise. , you know, if, if I wanted to, whatever it was in terms of, , training, he would get me there. And m and dad, obviously m was at home, you know, covering the other side of things while dad was taking me to places.

And, , and [00:06:00] yet at the same time, I mean, , just before the Commonwealth games in, , in Edmonton, at first Commonwealth games, before those trials, I was really. Like exhausted this one particular night, we were training very hard. We, we trained back then in the way that no athlete would train now. But, , but I said to him, I got out of the pool and I was in tears.

I'd been in tears, in training because I felt I wasn't meeting the mark and I got into the car. I said, I'm retired. It's not worth it. This, this is no fun. And he dropped me off at home. I went up into the house to have dinner and he turned around and went back to the coach and said, she's giving up. There was no trying to talk me into it.

It was just okay. And even as you know, like I kind of leapfrog my parents in terms of experience. Once I was traveling, I was on the other side of the world from 14, for nearly three months. And they were back here all the time. And So, it got to the point, even in my teenage years where I'd say, you know, ask dad a question, he'd say, I don't know, love whatever you think.

You know, he wasn't, he just was, he was like, I don't know. You know, I'll help, I'll support you, [00:07:00] but I don't know what the right thing to do is. So, I remember, I think of that a lot in terms of raising my own So,n, you know, I just he's in Canberra, he's just moved to the ANU. And, , I certainly miss my parents a lot.

So, I said to him, we'll come down. As often as you need us, there'll be a point where you don't need us. And that's when you know, it's you tell us and we'll be around as much as you need it. So, it's that kind of, I think that that's the So,rt of stuff that I got from m and dad that So,rt of give them roots and wings, roots and wings.

That's what we've got to give to them. So,me wings. I think we should talk about that when we get a little bit into your story about what you've got to say about parenting, because you've touched on it in, in glide. And I really enjoyed that. There was a little pieces of narrative. I thought you want to go further there.

That's the next book? Well, it's funny. Cause I've told a lot. I mean, now I'm the, I'm a parent of an adult, right. Is 18. He's in Canberra and I've often is So,mething that's always fascinated me. I I've watched people in my time. I just friends and stuff like how, who are the people who really get on [00:08:00] well with their parents?

And what is it about both your parenting and them, I guess that that makes them want to be. Oh, gives helps to balance that relationship, but have So,me talked about it and friends keep saying, you've got to write about that. You've heard about events because everybody is having that challenge. Oh yes. I've heard So,me stories.

So, Lisa let's do the formal part. You're extraordinary. You have extraordinary CV that for anybody who doesn't know you is worth chatting about. So, congratulations on your successes. And I hope I trust. I'm sure you look back with a feeling of. Even though we're going to talk about So,me of the other stuff that's come up for you as a result, or you must look back with a sense of, I did that.

I did that at 14. That was me. I'm remembering me at 14 to you. It's one of those things that it hits you at different times. You know? , when I wrote my first book making the most [00:09:00] of it, , it was, you know, in the lead up to the Olympic games in Sydney. And, , until that point I'd been running hard from that So,rt of swimming kind of prove that I was So,mething else.

And So, suddenly in this lead up to Sydney, I had a whole lot of friends. I lived in the inner city, nothing to do with my sport life at all abruptly. So,, you know, I'd done that. And they were all saying to me, as in the lead up to Sydney, you went through all this X 16. And at that point I was like, yeah, I did.

And even the, I mean, m and dad, they were, , Because the boy, you know, the Olympic games, my Olympic games is boycotted or the attempt to boycott, there was a whole lot of drama around it. So, that idea of kind of being even the parents of the Olympian was very different back then. So, m and dad stayed in a hotel for four days.

I think m had found, you know, So,me hotel for them, the Volo were going to the Olympics. And So, there were visitors there and they were, when they finally chatted at breakfast and they said, oh yeah, our daughter was an Olympian. Your daughter's an Olympian. So, even they got to feel this So,rt of pride of that.

But at [00:10:00] different times, things, things all pop up and I'll say, oh yeah, you know, such and such, I'll tell a story and like really, oh, oh, So,mething else you've done.

So, let's start back. You, you became a champion swimmer at the age of 14. I'm trying to remember me at 14. And what I thought was a big deal. And can you paint a picture if you can recall. What was in you to be that disciplined? So, I think Edmonton was your first, 1978, the first Commonwealth games that you re you represented Australia.

Congratulations. And you had a silver medal in the, in backstroke. That was, I think, tended to be your specialty 200. Can you introduce us to how you could be? I don't wanna use the word discipline, So, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, what it was that led you to be able to achieve that that's as [00:11:00] vague as I can make it to let you fill in the space for us.

Yeah, well, discipline was there, but the discipline came because I loved it. I loved to swim, and I was very lucky in that., when I was about, about to turn eight, my brother decided that he wanted a fiberglass. So,, Ford, my dad had been an old Bondi lifesaver. You know, we used foam pool lights of boards back then in between the flags.

And dad said, you must be able to swim 400 meters before you can get a fiberglass board. So,, he began his campaign down at the DUI men's club., I lived on the Northern beaches of Sydney and m and the neighbors took him down there. They were members. And So,, he went down, and he got his name in the paper, you know, and the results of the manly daily.

And So,, I decided I, I love to swim, and I'd learned to swim, you know, So,rt of a for. I was the oldest sister, So, I guess there was So,me pride., and So, I headed down there, you know, from, the next week. , but true to form, I was a bit of a crier. I was quite shy., and So, the moment that I burst into tears on the blocks before my first race, 25 meters, that looked a [00:12:00] lot further away than I thought it would be.

, the DUI ladies had a policy. They did not let little girls walk away, crying, fearing that they might not be able to do it. So,, they put it on an older girl, jumped in the water immediately and said, come on, sweetheart, you can do this. And So,, she walked, you know, the gun went off. I threw myself in and she walked backwards all the way down the pool to get me to that 25-meter line, always encouraging, you know, come on, sweetheart, come on, sweetheart.

And of course, by the time I got there, well, you know, I, I cried all the way or the ladies t told me that, you know, they love to tell the story that in her first race at the Dee Why ladies, Lisa Forrest cried all the way to the finish, but I forgot that, you know, once I got there and So, I was down there the next week, It, I was just, you know, obviously there was So,me talent there, but, , my moved really quickly, I, I So,rt of almost won, , the under eight 25 meters of butterfly a couple of weeks later in the first, in that first, in that first couple of months, I taught myself to do butterfly from Shane Gould's book, swimming the Shane way.

I broke a state record at 10. I won state championships at that [00:13:00] age. So,, I was at my first nationals at 10. I went to get So,me experience, So, I just loved it. And I, I loved the training and I think swimming is a beautiful sport for shy people because you do not have to be a member of a team. You know, you can So,rt of talk to people in your own time.

And So,, I was the oldest in my home, but at the pool I had older brothers, big brothers, you know, and they were lovely. And I just, I loved it. So, yes, there was discipline, but, you know, even I think, you know, grit has been defined as So,rt of passion first and then perseverance. And So,, I really was just lucky that I found the love of this beautiful sport.

And, that you were validated by people, I think at that young age to have So,mething where you are validated, regardless of how you perform is a very nurturing experience. I think we do not all have. Totally like you cannot separate the two, that first race. So,, by the rule of the DUI ladies was that you had to swim three club races to enter a [00:14:00] championship race.

And,So, the first championship race, as long as I swam the club race, and the third day I could enter the under eight 25 meters of butterfly. And, and the, and So, I nearly, I nearly won it. I came second two ago, but Jenny Horner and her older sisters were in the club. The m was a secretary. They were Dee Why lady style.

I came from nowhere. And So,, this was a big deal, I guess. I remember still the, the, you know, the, not friction, it was the wrong word, the excitement that it ignores. And therefore, who was the president? You know, suddenly people were telling me where I could go to stroke correction classes in the winter and learn to put my face in the water, doing freestyle.

Cause I was an under, you know, nobody taught you big arms and bilateral breathing back then.and So, suddenly I had done So,mething that was. Impressive, and So, yes, that comes with it. And I was alSo, very lucky because I had really gentle kind of older coaches and they were very nurturing.

I didn't ever have anybody who yelled at me or who kind of [00:15:00] talked about being tough. I never heard the word, you know, later on, we'll get to that when they go and get So,me of the tough get going, which I loved. But back then, it was just, I think I trained hard, and I liked it. So,, there was never any need to yell at me, but I didn't ever have coaches that were just So,rt of ridiculous for a young perSo,n.

You know what I would call ridiculous. So,, I had nurturing, you have a gentle spirit. And So, that was nurtured when you were younger. So, that gentleness was able to survive perhaps longer than it does for So,me other people who do not have that same nurturing kind of mentoring. Yeah. Well, why would you persist if you were in a program that.

, you know, the loose hold you, or So,mehow made you feel that you weren't enough or, you know, that So,rt of whole idea that if you don't show any income, encouragement, then you know, they'll want to try harder for you. You know, that kind of, well, I've seen film footage of that happening with gymnast, listening to all the stories now, the gymnast, but likewise, you can find it in swimming.

You can find it in all So,rts of places. You [00:16:00] did find it at Edmonds. Well, even then, you know, I mean, I think that,  I swam for Australia at a time. It was very stressful, and people were under the coaches were under a lot of stress. The whole world had moved on and we were still using, you know, techniques in the 1950s.

Although I was lucky at home, I had a home coach that wasn't, he was using the more modern techniques. And So,, it was Tracey Wickham. So,, we had the answers, and we just didn't have, you know, it was a really great learning experience as a teenager because you're watching adults. There is an obvious way that we have to go, and the adults are not a lot of the adults aren't going that way.

So,, what makes you an adult that doesn't want to change? I think as a young perSo,n, I even then, I was like, I'm not going to be an adult who will not change, who won't adapt. And So, yes, I, again, there was So,me stuff going on, So,me really tough coaching about that. So,, people who don't want the story. So,, you went and you're on the team.

You're 14 years old. You'd had this nurturing [00:17:00] mentoring until then and only encouragement and positive positivity and do what you want to do and everything that is meant to happen for a young child. And then you had to go away for months training. I'm Australian captain Honolulu. Yeah. All the time in the post, 1976, when we hadn't won a gold medal for the first time in four decades at the Olympic games and the girls in the pool.

But the blame really it wasn't there wide that you talk about, , So,fas view, as you don't know, the book we're talking about is glide by Lisa forest. There's this scene that I just found harrowing for you, where you were expect, you had expectations of how, how it might be. You'd never done it before the accommodation was lousy.

You were treated literally like you weren't first class or worth. Championing and bringing out your best. It was immediately, you felt must've felt like an afterthought in the whole thing that you were not even there to be you and swim for [00:18:00] you. You were there to reclaim and redeem them. It felt like you were there for their redemption, because for those who don't know, Lisa and the other swim light women, swimmers, the girls walked in and began to be berated about what would happen and how they'd be sent home.

And what was the list of possible transactions? Same time. If you did not train hard enough, if you missed a session, if the girls put on weight and we weren't allowed to eat desserts because essentially the, you know, the Australian girls that didn't win in, in Montreal, even though they were racing east Germans or drug takers, I had filed because they were undisciplined and overweight and.

And So,, it's set up immediately that So,rt of fear of, particularly for a good girl who, you know, wants to please everybody. that kind of fear of, oh my God, what might happen? So,, yeah, in the first week, cause we're in the dorms in Hawaii at the, at the university of Hawaii. And So,, I'd never even eaten in cafeterias and I've had, you know, at home just eating a couple of, you know, meat [00:19:00] of So,me So,rt, a good meat and three veg.

And I went into a cafeteria where. You know, worried about putting on weight, like what there was only mince or, you know, kind of things, creamy So,rt of So,urces in pastors. And So,, for the first week, I only ate salads because I was So, scared of putting them away. And at the same time I was joking. Now, Mr.

King, you know, is passed away, but it's not to say that he wasn't gentle. He wasn't nurturing because he was lovely. And he did really like me. I felt like, but he was old school. So,, we got there on the Monday. I started six kilometer sessions by, I had beautifully tailored five kilometer sessions at home, all tailored around swimming to a hundred backstroke did most of my sessions in backstroke.

By the end of that first week, we were swimming eight and nine. Kilometers per session twice a day, I was eating salads. So, suddenly then we're like, oh, we need to look up to her. She's you know, she's doing she's she's you know, she's So,mehow not, she has not coping. So,, but in that way, it was more kind of eating.

I did not dare tell him. [00:20:00] Yeah, I was 14, but there was 15 year olds. There were 16 year olds in that's how it was back then, I think until babies, like interesting listening to. And many of the girls now talk, whether it's just the goals in the workplace or the goals in, you know, in sport, the gymnast and things like that, we just accepted it as what you needed to do if you were going to swim for Australia.

Yeah. And I, I, when there was I tell the other story of Debra Foster who won the a hundred backstroke, I won the 102 hundred backstroke to make the team. But with that training, by the third week, I was visiting a new neurologist in the hospital because I would be shooting headaches. And I mean, now you'd probably call them migraines, but there were three attacks in the pool.

I had no idea what was happening to me. And So, I didn't do my best, but all the time Deb was in that water in that pool saying. Not, not mistaking, not I'm not doing that or she's do go slows if she wasn't allowed out. So, she was that little bit older and she was just used to questioning an adult, which I had never learned to do.

And now, [00:21:00] eventually that was certainly the way that I parented my So,n to question adults being polite, but you are allowed to question. So, that was So,mething I had to learn to do. And she won that one hundred backstroke. She was always in once we got to Edmonton, she won the Commonwealth games race. So, I was like, right, there's a different stream, the way I'm approaching this and the way she's doing it.

And she's doing what she needs to win, because for all of the stuff about not training hard or not being disciplined or questioning, she did the job she was sent to do. And I was like, I need to be like her. And So, it clear, there was no lack of discipline or training had on anybody's behalf. Everyone was So, desperate to.

Make Australia proud, make their families better. You bring So, much to it. You're there to do your best. You're not there to goof off. You didn't work all these years as a child to fly all that way to goof off the mentality to me is mind blowing. Yeah. And that, that was part of the mentality that a lot of the 76 girls that were over the hill, I mean, back then over the hill was [00:22:00] 16.

You didn't swim through til, you know, there was, how were you going to swim in the amateur days? And support yourself unless you are from a wealthy family or you went to the university universities in America. So, even though we were understanding that that, that 16 wasn't the PKG, there was this feeling that the girls had gone to Montreal because they were over the hill and they'd just gone for the trip.

So, that fear of just going for the trip alSo, was that kind of came in later on for me of not wanting to be like that, but it's ugly and junket, you weren't even allowed to leave the training area. I know. I know. And you tell people that now, right kids now, the sport, the athletes now, we're just like what?

I mean, I think I talk with schools once my first book came out. I'd tell these stories and you'd have, at first I thought the, I was talking to your nines and I'd say to the teachers, are they bought, they must be bored because they were not responding. They're not bored.

Bribing Dickensian times is you're back in the [00:23:00] dark. And these were the amateur days. Yeah. So,metimes I think, wow, there were So,me advantages to that in the sense that you did have to swim while you're young, and then you got on with life. There wasn't this. Oh, how long can my career, you know, keep going for?

, So,, when I finished at 19, lots of my friends were, you know, just at university and just kind of knew. So,, you were not 27 going into a workplace, not having done anything else, you know? So,, there was So,me advantages to it. And I think So,metimes alSo, just the advantage that you start from love. I started from love.

There was nothing in it for me, all for m and dad. So,, I wonder So,metimes with parenting, whether there's more in it for the parents and alSo, the lack of endorsements back then would have meant there was a lot lack of So,cial media, a lot Le I mean, we've just described awful in terms of those four weeks, but a lot of your space in your mind was yours.

You didn't have So,cial media, you had press headlines, but there are only once a day. So,cial media is this relentless mill of [00:24:00] 24 hours a day. Having opinions on people's lives that we don't know you don't, you didn't have any of that. I think about them today to be that age in the face of So,cial media endorsement deals, not wanting to let anybody down, I would have been incapable at 14 of having the maturity and the responsibility to understand what I was undertaking.

I, So,cial media would have defeated me. To be in your position and deal with So,cial media, especially with Moscow Olympics, which we're about to go to just the relentless nature of the hate messages and the judgments. It's just excruciating for a child. Yeah. And it, and that, because I had that time, what we did was, you know, I wrote a lot of letters and really that was the beginning of me feeling that I, or knowing that I could write, because I often get So, many compliments about the letters that I wrote and many ways that helped me, I wrote because it helped my homesickness.

So,, if So,mebody sent me even a car, they'd get a long letter [00:25:00] because it just suit, it was So,othing for me. So, later on when I was able to tell stories or feel as though I could write, it came from that because people would say, I love your letters. You know, you talk, you write like you talk or tell a great story.

So, that alSo, came out of it. And I think alSo, for me just, you're able to So,rt out a lot of emotions when you put down on paper. And even now I was, I was at a dinner last week and there's So,me there were, families or parents there whose kids were going to in Melbourne. There are a couple of, I guess, they're private schools where the kids go in year nine and they don't actually have any contact.

They have to write letters and stuff. They take all the phones and everything away. And I think it's a really wise thing. You know, I, I don't know how they manage So,cial media these days. The kids you'd have to have really be really strong and putting it away or not having a phone. Well, they consider it more addictive than crack cocaine to a child's brain.

That's how does any child have the conscious [00:26:00] living ability? The, what we spend a lifetime learning, they've got a, has a child, and alSo, represent Australia. I just, whose who signs up for that? Now you then went to Moscow. Congratulations. I had, I was around then and I remember it. I remember So,me of the headlines.

I can't even imagine what it was like for you. So,, you, So, again, if you could set the scene for So,mebody who's perhaps not familiar with what happened with anything, but an ordinary Olympic games. Yeah, sure. And I mean, that was a lot when I wrote my book boycott, which was my first non-fiction book about the Olympics.

You are not alone in that people would come up to me after and say, well, I was around, but I don't know what I was doing. I just don't remember it being like that.  and So, essentially the So,viets invaded Afghanistan and the end of 1979, , within the first weeks of January, the, , The president of the United States, Jimmy Carter had called for a boycott and Malcolm Fraser, our prime minister, along with Margaret Thatcher and a whole lot of other prime ministers said, yeah, we think that's a great idea.

, [00:27:00] we'll, we'll go along with that. However, Malcolm Fraser, wasn't willing to make that decision himself. And likewise, Margaret patch to the British Olympic committee said very early on, they were one of the first in March. We're going, you know, Mrs. Bachelor might know a lot about politics, but she doesn't know anything about the Olympics.

So,, get lost essentially, but we were much quite gentle or not quite as willing to, go against the government. Our Olympic Federation took quite a while. So,, it wasn't until May the 23rd that those 11 men met and voted six, five that we would go. and during that whole period. So,, at first I hadn't the first, like in the first couple of months, the trials were in March.

So,, it was just. No point worrying about So,mething until you actually make the team. And then once I made the team in March and I was alSo, named captain of that team and you're 11, So, suddenly it was not, you know, how would you go, but why should you go? So, you're talking to the media here. I am the 16 year old, getting a very fast lesSo,n on geopolitics where Afghanistan is for God's [00:28:00] sake.

, and alSo, just, you know, explaining to the, you know, the community, why we should go and why I should feel for my little dream when the world was trying to fight communism. , and you know, you could, as I tell the kids, you could swap communism for terrorism. The communists were coming to take away our way of life.

And, , and that, you know, that's how we prepared really. And So,, it was a matter of just. You know, training, for this event that you hope that you would get to, , I'd be at home doing an English,  you know, assignment. I get a phone call, you know, there was a perSo,n from the, it was a journalist, you know, never ran.

It's just put in a hundred thousand dollars to the Olympic campaign because all the sponSo,rs were dropping out. So,. Wow. And how do you feel? So,, I'd give my feeling of that. So,mebody who was supporting us. Great. Yay. Go back to my English assignment, but alSo, within the. That So,rt of first week really, I've been made captain.

We then started getting death threats. So,, we had a whistle by the telephone. That's what the police, recommended that we do. So, at least we could blow the whistle [00:29:00] really loud. Want one of these cold. And I think So,metimes even in So,cial media, like at least when you had a phone call, you felt had agency do So,mething.

Whereas with the So,cial media stuff you just bombarded with if you had the relentless nature of it. Yeah, we were lucky in that sense, but again, it was, my parents were just very, they're just very common sense. People like, well, I was allowed to go to the footy and I was, I'd go to training and I'd go to the Olympics, to the movies, the friends, and eventually.

There was in that period where we first started going to see bands, you know, back in those days, you didn't have to, you could So,rt of be the bouncer, let you in all and split ends. And, and then, and then we got on the, eventually got on the plane to go on the 1st of July, but it took, it was the 23rd of May. And then, and then there was another meeting, the AOF agreed to one more meeting with the prime minister and he tried to convince them again. And then they voted again.

I think the vote was even less. It was more like [00:30:00] seven, seven, three. So,. So, the, the AOF was really, the members of the Olympic committee were pretty angry by that point, that Fraser kept pressuring them when he'd said that, he wouldn't, and of course the government was giving money to sports and to individuals to withdraw never given government money before to athletes.

And So,, the first time that the Australian government ever gave money to Olympic athletes was to withdraw from the Olympics. So, it was crazy. It was a crazy time. It made sense at the time, I don't, I wasn't, I was your age exactly your age. And I never questioned the media. Lisa, I just read the headlines and read the articles and believed it all.

So, whatever the media was saying, I didn't, it never occurred to me to question the message the way we can today and the way we do well. I think that was it. I think it was probably part of the times when you are, I guess, you know, you talked about So,rt of being young, but you become much mature in ways that, you know, So,me ways and not [00:31:00] in others, So, So,rt of emotional maturity and maybe going out with boys and all that stuff.

I wasn't. So,, mature in that way, the normal things that people were doing at that age. But then in other ways you were, So, you were part of a history of athletes. I knew about athletes that had protested things like,  you know, the, say the Springbok tour and stuff like that. So, there had been protests and, or course there were older athletes around that.

I was following that. I, you know, I respected all the particularly, you know, the Chris Ward was, there were older guys on our swimming team. They were very active, Martinelli was very active. So, I wanted to be, you know, I, I was prepared to do whatever we had to do to get there alSo,. I mean, I came from a labor voting family, So, that was much easier.

It was pretty much split down liberal labor lines. You didn't have a lot of independence back in those days. So,. You know, there were people who believe that you did what the government told you to do. And yes, of course, if you were as a labor government, labor voting family, Malcolm Fraser had sacked Gough Whitlam.

So,, the outrage that then he should be trying to stop their daughter going to the Olympic [00:32:00] games that was fueled and there. So,, there was no question that I was going to be supported to go, but for a lot of athletes who lived in liberal voting households, it was very stressful. And I know if the rowers, even though the rowing body themselves were furious, they were traditionally conservative, but furious that the government should think they had a say when they didn't contribute to anything.

So, in sports like that, they would take the athletes out of their homes and put them in camp to keep them safe, not safe from their own families, but to at least protect their decision to go. Right. Wow. That's a lot to put on kids. That is interesting. I don't know how you had the ability. Did you have any media training, the ability to take sitting around the table?

What do you think? I should say mom, or, you know, you've kind of worked out, although not, not really. Like I was, I didn't think that I sit a whole lot. I don't think I was all that,  bolshy.  I just, I like, I look at the goals today. And [00:33:00] well, it just, even the, you know, the kids that are protesting the climate, climate change and they're So, beautiful and nice, So, well spoken and they can debate really well.

I don't think I was that sort of kid. I was, we didn't have that Sort of training. It was like that. Well, I think we should go because, you know, it's not really fair. And you know, we're still, we're still trading wool and wheat and we knew that kind of stuff. So, we were still trading with these people. So, why shouldn't the athletes go?

And, you know, the sport is about bridging gaps. And So, we were true to the Olympic ideal of meeting, you know, meeting everybody and treating one another in the same amount of respect. And of course you did, you know, you met a communist and, you know, he was handsome.

We were out in the world in a different way to others. So, that's amazing story. What an experience for you. Do you look back on that time and how do you reflect on that time today? Oh, just lucky. You know, I think particularly when I was writing boycott, I thought. How incredible [00:34:00] to be able to go through that experience and then be able to write about it.

, I mean, I felt that there was quite a lot of responsibility to tell the stories that nobody, a lot of people had not heard, you know, the women's hockey team that were there was the first time hockey was going to be, and women's at the Olympic games and they'd been promised by their association that if the AOS voted for them to go, then they would go and the AOF voted on Friday.

That we'd go. And on Monday, you know, they read in the newspaper that in the interests of Australian hockey, they'd being withdrawn all. But by the way, we, you know, we're going to send you off to another inch, another international meet, like who'd want to go to another international meet rather than the Olympics.

So, for those girls and Some of the stories of the intimidation that people experienced at work,  you know, in the homes, that was, that was so interesting. So, I felt, , very you're lucky. And of course, like back then, I can still. Feel if I tell the story of we were in training camp in France for a week, and then we [00:35:00] flew into Moscow and I still, I get goosebumps now just thinking about it, the moment that the plane began to send into Moscow, and you're going behind the iron curtain and Robert Ludlow l sort of territory, I was a reader and you know, you're in this incredible world.

So, that was, you know, the experience of going to Moscow back then when nobody did, that was So, rare to go behind the curtain and then your ex and Basil's and the Kremlin. And it was, it was extraordinary. I also, feel for the athletes who couldn't go because you have a short shelf life back then you've picked after four years of training to qualify and get two Olympic games.

You maybe don't have another game in you all your life for these kids. Some of them has been spent building up to that year as 1980. That's when I'm going to peak, everything I've done for the last four years is for this week, and then they couldn't go. Yeah. And then the very thought of can I like in, for gymnast, can I be good enough in another four years?

[00:36:00] That's questionable. Can I maintain this regime for a nut that's eight years of devotion to get to qualify simply because these games meant you couldn't go? I can't even imagine some people have, they're looking back now with a feeling of loss or maybe regret, and they've had to do So, much in their minds to so often the burden of regret.

That must be in them. Yeah. Oh look, I mean, and you know, as we'll talk about there's, there's, what's going on outside and there's what's going on inside. And I know people called me afterwards one swimmer who, , she withdrew, but didn't realize that you could get any money. So, it wasn't as though she was just felt as though she couldn't do it.

And she, she chatted to me for the book. And then she called me when the book came Lisa, I thought it'd be okay. And she said, I picked it up. I went, I bought it in the bookshop. And then I, I started reading it when I was still in the, in the shopping center. And she said, I just had to stop and sit down and just cry.

You know, we hold on to all sorts of things and we don't [00:37:00] realize, oh yeah, the stories of girls who, yeah, the hot tub, you know, one of the hockey players I spoke to, she thought she'd get, she was six. She wasn't much older than me thought she'd get to the next games. And then wasn't selected oh four and ah, just those stories and even, you know, the stories, the different athletes, the pressure they were under at home.

And of course, there was no sports psychology then. So, it was this thing that people went through and you didn't talk about it? No, because. the sports bodies, certainly didn't want to think about it. Like, even, like, when I wrote that book in 2007, I spoke to John Coats and he spoke to Gough Whitlam.

He decided that, he wouldn't show the minutes of the meeting back in 1980 of the greater ARF. So, that was the biggest, it was the whole Olympic movement that was meeting, I think in April, it was the annual general meeting. That's right. And they were going to vote then, and they didn't. And So, they held, Sid Grange held an in-camera meeting So, that people would speak freely.

And I wanted to see [00:38:00] those notes, but he spoke to golf or Don code spoke to golf and golf said should wait 30 years because there would be people embarrassed in sport today, embarrassed about the way that they had voted. you would have been able to buy them. The book was out, but I remember Pat Garrity, , John Coats does honor the Moscow Olympians, , very much So, he wasn't part of the AOF back then, but he was on the sideline feeding stuff in to the younger members of the IOF and, and the,  he, he had at the annual general meeting when it was 30 years after Moscow, he invited me and he, by the Pat Garrity, who was ahead of what was called Siemens union back then, and the unions had So, me come in support of us because the sponsors were dropping out.

And So, pat got up and had no problem talking to reminding everybody what it was like for us and you could feel the tension in the room then, like they didn't want to be reminded of what had happened.  [00:39:00] and look, that's, that's everywhere. Isn't it? If we talk about how, we're treating our first nations people, we don't have the maturity Somehow or the capacity to be able to hold Something that happened then and just go.

Yeah, I've changed my mind and I; I wish that I hadn't been, I wish I'd known more. I maybe I've voted another way or whatever it happens to be, but instead we directed a Sort of frustration that Somebody should be bringing this up and that I should have to feel uncomfortable about it. And yet that's maturity, isn't it being able to hold all that arises and actually just reflect on it in a way that's mature and, sensible comments.

Yes. And we only do that at the rate that we're prepared to do that we can't. Hasten maturity. We can't hasten adult hood, no matter what the number it is, how old we are. there, I was speaking with my husband this morning, we're having a cup of tea together. , and we're just sharing the things that we think is so common sense today.

[00:40:00] And we know our us taking responsibility, and we know that it's maturity that was beyond us five years ago, Lisa. So, I never judge anyone who struggles with what seems to be the way it is that cognitive dissonance. I’m really respectful of that, that can't be broached just because I think they should or because I think they should know better.

No, and that's right. I agree with you. Totally agree with you in that sense, I guess the no, what I'm, what I'm speaking about more is. Yeah, well, that's where compassion comes in is we have to, we need to be compassionate. Everybody has come from a different place. And So, their way of relating to the world is based on the way they've been brought up and the way, you know, certain emotions have been allowed to be expressed in their home.

And so forcing it on somebody else you're right. Is and it's counterintuitive because people shut down even more. So, it's that kind [00:41:00] of, you know, I'm not going to think that way because I am just So, angry that you've even made me feel uncomfortable and we can talk about that mindfulness.

And at the same time, you’re right. In terms of, you know, where I think that as a, I think that as a nation, I think is as parents, even the notion that, we will all get older, does that mean we all grow up and what is growing up and what is maturity? And I think that it's, we're in a really interesting place, I think, too, in terms of a Society in that.

How is it being encouraged, you know, growing up or somehow it's a negative, like, I guess we, you know, we love you and we sort of honor all of that, but I'm in that, , transitional period, if you like and what I meant in terms of menopause, but I've learned that the Japanese split second spring, So, I've been exploring, you know, what the second spring is and how you are able to move into the second spring and enjoy it.

And I think a lot of that comes from, [00:42:00] or the ability to enjoy your second spring is that you were able to be present and, explore all the things that you wanted to explore in the first, in your first spring. I think it's also, letting go the  of letting go of what you didn't and letting go of what you can no longer.

Yeah, absolutely. That's right. And that's a real skill. It is. It's, it's one that you you'll take your last, all take my last breath, still trying to feel. So, we dived into where we're heading, but I just want to make sure that our viewers also, know that you won. I think it was two gold medals at the Brisbane Commonwealth games.

Congratulations. Thank you. Was the training there? A Software experience? I can't quite remember what you said about that. And what had happened was no, by that point, I knew that I had trouble with my thinking. , and So, I was but nobody talked about anxiety or anything like that. , but what had happened also, was that by the time [00:43:00] I just before the Olympic games or before the Commonwealth games, So, it was it was a bit of a, , not knowing how to relieve the pressure that you were putting on yourself because I'd won the silver medal.

That first time I had only when I was eight years old and I saw those girls at the Olympic games in 1972, and I thought I want to do that. I'd made the calculation that 1980, I don't know that it had been decided it was in Moscow at that point. But 1980, I would be 16. I'd be in year 11. That was the games I could go to and get on with the rest of my life.

But once the, still the medal happened in 78, everyone said to me, oh, you'll go one better in four years. So, suddenly that is extended. Oh yeah. I'll go before your time. And it's been So, well, I must say at the time, but anytime I want to travel Somewhere. Yeah. Comprehension of the magnificence of  a home.

Yes. But I was sort of struggling cause I'd done my HSC that year before I'd taken time off as m wanted. So, I finished in the top 10% of the state did my age, that was up to the [00:44:00] Olympics and then went back into the pool, , to, you know, go one better at the Commonwealth games. , and So, even though I felt like I had all of the reasons that I should be motivated, you know, for the first time m would, and dad would be able to see me swim for Australia.

And I was trying to go one better and win a gold medal and all these sorts of things. I just had this heavy weight on my shoulder, and I did not know how to relieve it. And then, Rocky. Rocky three was released in the cinema just about a month before the training, the trials. Now I've been something like the dog.

I was really struggling, and I was like, watch the pool. That's what, I couldn't understand. Like once I was in the water, I was fine, but it was in between those sessions. I was torturing myself and then Rocky comes in and it's pretty specific to my moment. 

He used to team traveling and he'd he'd beaten Rocky. And of course, Mickey he's trying to sort of died in it, spoken in scenes of that movie. And Apollo creed [00:45:00] comes back and he's training Rocky. Cause he's pretty angry with the way that, you know, clubber Lang sort of behaving. But Rocky is just not there.

And, and then, you know, his beautiful wife, Adrian sort of forces him to tell her what's wrong. And he says, I'm scared. You know, I, I I'm, I'm scared. And, and she says, look, you know, In the years ahead where it's just going to be you and me and you can handle losing, but you can't handle walking away. So, I'm in the cinema.

I thought I would just be going into enjoy Rocky. And So, it tells the story of the champ coming back. And I think, you know, I was able to process things. I didn't even know how to say and I walked out of that cinema. And if I was, if you like in flow, like we didn't have a word for that, but suddenly I heard no doubt.

Rocky had reminded, you know, my body and my mind that I knew how to win. And So, I was just on a roll from that moment. Everything became easier. My just my energy was back. And I came second at the trials in both 102 hundred. And it was, you know, it was kind of interpreted as like, oh [00:46:00] yes. So, then you know, that the successes have now moved into their rightful place.

And that was a bit, but I had, I was babysitting So, badly that I knew I was just like on the way up. So,  it was really interesting. And So, you know, it all went So, beautifully. I won the a hundred, which I never expected to do, and that was just pure thrill and sort of just, oh, elation and surprise and all of the joy that comes with something So, unexpected, but the 200 was interesting because it was more.

No, it was the rice that I was expected to win. So, on the other side of that, or once I'd won, I didn't have that same elation. It was always interested me. I seem to just be So, kind of like I'd done it. It was a sense of satisfaction because later on I learned that contentment and satisfaction, it's almost a neutral feeling.

It's not something that we try to strive for in many ways. And So, I sort of was a bit surprised by that, but nevertheless, I've won my gold medals and later on, I would learn through mindfulness and compassion. Oh, right. That's contentment. And it's okay to just be in that [00:47:00] place. It just means the job well done.

So, did you question yourself, not feeling more excited at winning? Oh, that was not, I mean, it was it, I was, I still remember being on the, you know, at the end and m and dad had jumping up and down and I was like, try, please skip that. I was like, nah, it's nothing there. It's more just, yeah. I did it. No, I did it after all those four years, I hung in and I got there and it was done.

It was, it was still, I would say happy. And, and content, I think, I think she's right about in glide and I love this is we tend to discount neutral moments. We discount the neutral emotions and I often have people a lot Saturday. So, you excited. Cause there's lots of good things that you cited. I don't want to disappoint you, but that's not the word.

It feels we're heading there, and it'll be what it'll be. But I've, I really have tried to knock off the extremes because I don't want this in my life. I want more this, about the externals. It, [00:48:00] it seems exhausting to live on a rollercoaster of extreme emotions. So, I do get what you're saying. I'm just surprised you had it So, young, a feeling of.

Yes. Oh, I think, well, I was scared of it because it doesn't feel right. Does it? It should be. I should have been like, I wasn't a hundred, there was that. And yet it wasn't. So, he just was like, no, that's not there. So, just did and what it is. And then I felt the same way. I remember again, when I was pregnant with my Son.

I felt like it was because I was 38. It had happened in the first month. My best friend had been given no time to live. And I was like, when you're waiting for lease, they get pregnant or, you know, try. And we thought it'd be months because I was So, old, not old but old for having a child. And and yeah, that feeling of, , when it actually happened.

And I remember driving along South darling straight after, I'd gone to tell mom and dad, and it was this beautiful pink sky. It was sort of June. and it was Twilight. And I remember thinking, wow, how have I managed this? Like, I, I want to go to the Olympics. I got there. I wanted to write a book. I got there.

I [00:49:00] wanted to be a sports reporter. I did that. I always actually didn't manage to be pregnant and have a baby, which has not been on my bucket list at all. You know? And, and there was that feeling again. And I mean, I must say I was a bit scared. Like, what if I don't want to do anything else I'm now that I don't have to fear it.

And I had a similar feeling just Mother’s Day, you know, just gone past. I was actually by myself. My son was in Canberra. He's studying down there. My husband was with his mum She'd had an operation and I was just with my sister. We were up at Lennox head and my son, husband was only 30 minutes away, but I had this beautiful morning of, I work early and I thought, oh, I'll just go to the cafe and read this book that I was really enjoying.

And I was sitting there in, you know, in the cafe. There's lots of young pair of parents with young kids and I was feeling So, like, my job is done. I've raised a beautiful boy. Yeah. Nope. Everyone keeps telling me, you know, how terrific he is. I think he is obviously, you know, his girlfriend's best friend said to me, I couldn't ask for a nicer guy for my gut, my best [00:50:00] friend.

So, you know, you've done the right thing by the girls, which is really important, I think when you're raising boys. , and it was that feeling of, yeah, you can, I was not scared of it at all. It was just that really still feeling of job. Well done. You guys good on you? Yeah. So, I think that learning not to be scared of it, as you say, well, I think it's worth sharing the viewers now, why that's such a big deal in your life to get to that point, because glide, whilst it talks about the highs and the lows of the external world, I think the conversation is worth having with you now is there is a very different narrative going on within you during this time.

And maybe I'm putting words in your mouth that I just get the sense that you've been wrestling with. You. All through that journey. So, you are not just competing in a race, you were competing with yourself with how you suppressed emotions with how you denied yourself, the painful thoughts that I can't even imagine how you go out from [00:51:00] the blocks planning to win when this isn't working for you.

And for a while there, your mind did not work for your success for your ultimate supportive view. No, no. And I didn't know that until I know that you are sort of conscious of it, but I didn't know what to do with it. I knew once Rocky had changed my thinking, like I told journalists after I won the, those gold medals that.

, but I had trouble with my thinking and Rocky changed it. So, I knew that I also, knew before the Olympic final, which is, you know, I've spoken about it before, but sitting in that reading room, I heard the thought, I don't know how to do this. And I was, So, I was like, of course you do. And I'm wrestled, I thought myself on my own and kind of created, I mean, I guess you might call it a panic attack now.

I don't know, but, and was able to steady myself and kind of get myself out there in a way in a way that was effective until I got into that, into the, onto the blocks. But yeah, So, I had this one, I called trouble with my thinking. And then, So, the book before glide was a teenage novel set [00:52:00] in the circus.

I'd never written fantasy before, but I thought I'd have a go. And I just, again, took myself down into spirals of doubt and I knew all the time. I think it's one of the fortunate things I suppose in that I knew that it was internal. I knew it wasn't Something, there was nobody else to blame with somebody, something that I was doing.

And So, I started, I signed up to a coaching course at first, a live coaching course because I thought, well, there's lots more modern techniques now that obviously what was happening back then, wasn't modern. And  that was great, except that it was another goal setting force. And I didn't need to set another goal.

I wanted to be content with the goals that I kicked if you like because I had to you know, as a, a, to go and do some coaching as well, in order to practice, you know, to get my cert four, I actually realized that I wasn't the only one who had that, what I called miss never enough inside my head.

So, I had these two competing voices. If you like, I have this Smiths or I'll have a go at that. You know, like that seems interesting. I'd like to write a book or I'd like to be an interviewer. [00:53:00] And So, I've got her, she's always there. And then I had this miss never enough. And. And I had that, that, that first start that we described of the Dee Why ladies sort of encouragement, I didn't, I'd forgotten about that.

Yeah. What I, what I, I thought that all my success had been a result of that. My coach sports psychology back then was. Mottos across the top of the Blackboard. And my favorite motto was when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I was introduced to it at 13, at 14, I was swimming for Australia and like, right.

That's it, that's it. But as you know, as I've said, by that third week at training camp in Hawaii, I didn't know how to. Where's the motto that said I've been tough enough. And So, more often than not, I was driving myself into the pool into sort of exhaustion and getting sick. , and by the time I had Terry gaffer, Paul, as a coach later on in the lead up to those Commonwealth early Olympics and Commonwealth games, he would tell people that, you know, you got to be careful of it cause she'll drive herself to illness.

And now we know that that never enough story. It's just called the language of scarcity. You [00:54:00] know, we all have it from the moment we wake up in the morning, didn't get enough sleep. Don't have enough time. Don't have enough money, don't have enough respect, don't have enough willpower, don't have enough, nobody, you know, fill in the blanks.

, and So, that's the language of scarcity and why we're doing that. We're just draining, you know, the parts of our brain of the world where we're draining the sort of the drive section of the brain, but we're just feeding them the stress hormones all the time. Cause. You know, your, your, your podcast is called perspective.

Like the capacity to stand back and say, hold on a minute. There's another way of looking at it. This is a really a powerful skill. So, I did the course. And then through that coaching course, I was introduced to, I did a webinar. It was non-compulsory on something called mindfulness based stress reduction.

Yeah and I still didn't get it at the end of the class. I was like, I didn't see why I have to sit still. I have to sit down and meditate. I don't get it. So, I suppose it's worth mentioning here. Up until then you had replaced X. You used exercise as a way not to be with [00:55:00] yourself. And I wonder how many people listening to this insert your choice of distraction here.

So, you don't have to be yourself. And you also, mentioned in glide the study where, how long can a participant sit in a room alone? And they're told there's a buzzer there. They can press that will give themselves an electric shock. And some people didn't even last five minutes, they'd rather give themselves pain.

Then sit quietly with their thoughts. Sorry. An incredible university of Virginia. I think it was always blows me away. And the people, most people was, majority of people would rather. Give themselves the stimulus of pain, the distraction from just being still with their thoughts. And there's the other one too.

So, that, that I thought the other one that was interesting was I think it was the Harvard study. It was around 2010 now, So, it's quite old, but it was you know, many, many people with, uh, an app on their phone. So, every So, often would pop up and say are you, is your mind on task or is it  [00:56:00] are you distracted?

And they were, I think it was 48% of the time we were distracted, and the distraction was not helping us be happier. Because, yes, you might be thinking about that next holiday Inn. I don't know, Somewhere beyond our shores one, you know, in one day. , but then there may be all, well, it's not fair. Why I'd love to go and maybe some fears about the coronavirus or whatever it happens to be, you know, imagination kicks in.

So, yeah, So, that's, So, I wrote down the name, John Kabat-Zinn and, , and suddenly, , Uh, So, I went to that's right after the website, I, a webinar, I went to audible and I looked up all the books a bit, maybe this John Kabat-Zinn has a book. And of course, he was the grandfather of mindfulness. So, he had millions of books that lots of them were, were abridged.

So, I chose the only unabridged book and started listening to it. When I went walking the next morning, he had vintages the adventures of mine finished. It's no longer available on audible by the way. Cause I wanted to read it on audible before [00:57:00] our chat. Okay. I think, yeah, I think it's on sounds true now.

Cause then I went to find him. Yeah. Now you tell me, well, it was interesting cause I went looking for it. Eventually. I actually emailed Don Kevin's in LA called the center for mindfulness to get his approval. So, it was tricky to find and, they were surprised actually. I think that it was on audible at the time.

Anyway, the story was that. I didn't go walking the next morning, chapter three starts with a basic breath meditation. I'm supposed to be sitting down, I'm walking saying, thanks So, much, but I can, I can just feel my breath and walk. And, and he says, okay, So, we're going to feel the breath. And so, you know where I'm feeling the breath and he said, now you might be thinking this isn't too bad.

You know, I'm, I'm, I'm feeling my breath. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's what I'm thinking. And he said, well, that's great, except that's a thought, and we're not trying to think. We're just trying to feel the breath. So, let's just let go of the thought and come back to the simple feeling of the breath.

And I was like, what did he say? I can [00:58:00] let go of the thought by coming back to the breath. And I, I mean, I was on the corner of Oxford street and Moorpark road up the top. I almost did circles. Like, why didn't Somebody tell you this? 30 years ago, when I was sitting in the ready room before the Olympic final, that I could let go of a thought, by coming back to the feeling of the breath, it's hard for sorry for the mind to do that, but it is possible.

It is tough to do, but it's hard. It would have been hard for you in that you trained yourself to disconnect from your body. Your body was just a weapon or a tool to get you down the pool. I didn't read up. I think our veggie greatly, you'd never learnt or experienced being in your body. You were here knowing what you had to do, inverted commerce, what you felt you had to do, but at no time had you taught yourself or had the experience of, of being exposed to this idea, all of me is here.

Not just the bit. That's got to think my way through this panic. And I bet I hope I don't [00:59:00] let it. That is an all of you. This just became a tool. I think my feeling, as I read at least was everything below here was simply a weapon or a tool to get the job done. The next job, the next job, the next job, even exercise was treated that way.

And So, to just have that ability, did you do it successfully in that first time? I can't imagine you did that. You actually sat and felt your body. It would have been an alien surreal experience to even know that was a, that was a conversation you could have with yourself. , certainly I think that one of the, definitely privileged to this, although I, I think one of the things that I found interesting about practicing mindfulness is that I could.

I did not know that I could learn to regulate an emotion and exactly the way that I had regulated myself through, through a race. So, I trained my body to remain a quant is or to maintain equanimity. And when I, you know, it was screaming with pain or my thoughts were like, I don't want to, you know, I, I [01:00:00] want to give up on, not that I ever thought about, but you know, toward the end of a race, when it's really, tough, I trained myself to stay, keep stroke long, keep your breath long.

You know, you're checking, checking, checking, checking time. And I didn't know that I could do that with an emotion. The moment that I was feeling anxious, as you say the trouble with my thinking, I didn't have trouble with my thinking. What I have is what we all have is a habitual way of thinking that gets us.

We learned when we were little, but this protected us somehow the way that we behaved, protected us and kept us loved, or kept us in contact with those that we needed. And what I didn't realize was that. It was just a habit to actually stop myself from feeling as you say, but if we can drop into the body, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, I've now reframed, you know, in terms of when the going gets tough, the tough drop into the body and feel what they're feeling, you know, and it comes to an emotion, right?

And So, if I'm feeling really worked up, then it's had there's something going on in the body. So, can I drop into the body and just feel what's going on? So, [01:01:00] you're absolutely right. I had no connection. It wasn't the breath meditation that I had such trouble with. But when the body scan, he had a, he had a body scan at the beginning of chapter five and I started doing that and I was like, I can't feel anything.

Oh, I must be doing it wrong. So, I didn't, I didn't do it eventually. Once I started doing mindfulness based stress reduction, I, the body scan is the first two weeks. I don't know. I was just like, I can't feel anything what's going on. And So, I was So, excited when finally I felt the tingling, my big chest. I was So, disconnected from this, that it took me a long time to actually come back into my body.

And now, you know what, I just, I have so, much more,  oh, well, I can just do it all the time, which is really nice. I could just a skill now. And I think that when you say about whether you can do it or not, I think one of the wonderful things about this whole practice of mindfulness and compassion is that it's really like advanced common sense.

What a psychology is known as advanced common sense, [01:02:00] but it's really forgiving.. So, yeah, the mind wanders it's going to wander that's okay. The moment you wake up and find out that you are not in the present, come back to the body, come back to the breath, come back to a sound, whatever it is that you have chosen as your anchor.

And I found that I call myself a recovering perfectionist. Like I just think it's a beautiful practice, perfectionist, because guess what? We're not perfect. So, I had this idea that I had to be perfect when I was a teenager. Of course, we don't. We can't. One of the quotes you put in the book that I love is between stimulus and response.

There is a space in that space is our power to choose a response by Viktor Frankl. That's one of my favorites as a coach that is pretty well, my central philosophy that there's a stimulus and that immediate what I call reactivity. Right. Their activity that creates the mess, the drama, the noise in our lives, or distracts us, or [01:03:00] prevents us being a true cells.

You don't get rid of that. You pause and you start noticing there is a space before that where all the gold is, the treasure is in that pause. I'm saying that to myself right now, as much as anything I know we have to remind ourselves all the time and what I really love about this, that one of the, I think, you know, we call it a superpower.

I, well, I do its curiosity because once you, when you're practicing, you know, mindfulness, it's just an awareness practice. Right? So, being aware of rod is arising right now in this moment. So, you know, I might be, you know, oh, in my mind, am I talking too fast? I have a tendency to talk too fast. I'm checking in with that all the time as I talked to you.

but rather that the way to actually, well, that that wasn't necessarily the best.

So, it's more. Exactly. Yeah. So, I'm just all just making sure [01:04:00] that in my body I'm breathing, I'm feeling my body in the chair. I'm feeling my feet on the ground. And yeah, it's more of that moment where, yeah, you've, you know, you're in an argument with your husband and, or your son and something is on the tip of your tongue, but it's say it, you know, you're going to wreck your marriage for the next 24 hours or maybe forever.

So, that capacity to go, I'm feeling, what am I feeling when I say what's going on? That's curiosity. So, the tension, when the stress hormones are activating is we're contracted and the moment we go what's happening. As you say, like if I'm talking too fast okay. By my shoulders, I just actually let my shoulders down.

Can I just actually be with my breath? Can I just feel what I'm feeling? Say it's anger or frustration, or, you know, your children are not behaving in the way that you want to. Can you actually just come back? What's going on in my body? And the moment we turn curiosity, fear into curiosity, of course we open up and we're able to, the contraction goes, we've got space between stimulus and response to actually then choose the best way to respond [01:05:00] in that moment.

For me, it's also, I'm going to add a dollop of, and give myself the pores to recognize one of the hardest lessons a human being can ever, ever. Yeah. Yeah. I think I know what he going to say was not the reason for my response. Ah, yeah. Well, Some that's right. The stimulus is never the reason for the response, as hard as that is in the moment, but they, but you don't understand, but if you knew what happened, if you knew what they, they should never, all of those moments, however, extreme it is, this is So, tough.

We still have a choice. And that's what Victor Frankel gave us. That was his gift of that book. The choice is not in the stimulus happening. Not necessarily shit's going to happen. The choice is in how we respond over and over and read, choosing and re choosing and re choosing. Yeah. And [01:06:00] understanding, oh, sorry to interrupt you.

That understanding that it's, it's actually triggering something yeah. From the past, from another time. Yeah, exactly. And just being able to forgive yourself for that moment ago. Oh, right. That's interesting that that's a rising. Yeah. It's got nothing. People, nobody is going to behave in the way you want them to have the time.

And I think that's, that's, you know, that's what the butter observed. You know, two and a half thousand years ago, life is inherently unsatisfactory because unfair everything and, you know, painful Sometimes. And there's going to be moments of joy and there's going to be moments of incredible beauty all around us.

If we are open to it, if we're stressed, then our, you know, our attentional resources are So, narrow and So, focused on that stimulus. Perhaps if we can look around and go, wow, you know what a gorgeous state is outside. I can hear the birds. I know I'm alive in this moment. And I'm, I'm feeling my body and what an incredible thing the body is that I don't know if you'd have to pay attention and it will breathe for me.

Yes. You know that there's, there's [01:07:00] where you start to, you have agency, as you say, you've got, you're empowered. You actually can. And I think that's what's So, that's what appealed to me because as an athlete, You know, you are training your body. It's, you're interested in that. You've got, you've got an awareness practice already.

So, the capacity to actually go, oh, well actually I'm training my mind as well. It's just like doing a bicep, like anything else that, , and I think once you understand that, that in fact there's a whole lot of things. There's a whole lot of things I can't control. This is something I can control and it's right here.

I'm going to be limited. I'm going to be rigid in that control, but I can control my response and I can, well, I can even set up an idea, have an ideal of the way that I want to respond, like a belief about how I want to be in the world. , and I think that's, you know, we're talking about second spring that there's So, many people that you hear going, oh, I'm not noticing anymore.

I'm not this anymore. And you go, well, actually we had a friend, a mother, she was just reading about, [01:08:00] she was reading about, you know, menopause and all the things that were going to go wrong long before she like them to say, no, no, one's noticing me anymore. And then I sort of one day for a coffee, he said, this bloke said to her, she walked pass it's okay.

Love things. Aren't that bad. So, we can carry stuff in aside that might not have anything to do with what's going on. Use this moment, reflect your what wasn't and what isn't one of the things my husband and I on a good day, do we take this? We take this quote between stimulus and response. There is a space.

And if one of us says something that could call, create. We decided this reactivity because of what they say, I'm not going to say they caused my reactivity. Although, when I gave with him, listen, I want to win. He caused my activity. It depends. I'd have to know that there's something that he does says whatever, and I can feel our activity.

What we're both doing now is stretching the paws [01:09:00] out. So, instead of it doesn't happen all the time. So, anyone's listening, thinking we're nailing that no Florida as Florida is, but more and more, we're expanding the pause. So, I might, if he says you know, a thing that I think is incredibly dominant offensive, you know, which is what he's going to do is never me.

, I'm going to slow down the pause and say, I can feel myself about to really fire out right now. I'm just going to give myself a bit of space and I'm just expanding the pause in slow Mo and I say, we need to slow down as speaking. We need to breathe. Cause right now I'm about to do my thing, which will mean you'll do your thing and this pause will be gone.

So, this to me is the game changer for every relationship, not just with ourselves, but with others. And I've done it with a couple of friends, as well as that, man, I can feel myself hating and rushing into that space right now. [01:10:00] And I do it in coaching as well, by the way, lacer. I'm sure. I'm sure you do as well.

Okay. something you just said, then I can feel something came out from me rather than a response straight away and think I'm coaching you. I'm going to acknowledge this is me right now. They're just rushed to expand in the space. So, I'm just going to take a couple of breaths, sit with what came my way and what came up for me, feel what I'm feeling.

And I'll let you know when I'm back and fully present and capable of giving you my very best self once more. So, we're learning to really slow down that pause and articulate what's going on in their paws. And I do it in my coaching and I do it, my relationships, and I do it with myself. Mm mm. , Soon after I started practicing, So, eventually I did sit down or for the, breath meditation and, , uh, and then my husband noticed you know, a big a change and somebody [01:11:00] started doing it.

We have  a pretty strong practice together in the sense that he not that we always do it together, but we are on the same wavelength. And I think that that makes a huge difference because you start listening to the wisdom of these kinds of practices. And I mean, we have always had, we've been married for 21 years, So, we have kind of.

Joy fun, , you know, a great romance. We wanted to have, you know, a great romance. We've got that as our goal. And So, if we're not we're not there, then we always check in with what's, you know? , but I think that the, it just, it, that you are both practicing and actually understanding that yet thoughts will take you away and it's not the place that you want to be.

And you keep coming back to the center. I think that as you say, is, it just becomes second nature to just take a breath or to say, or even to say Something like, I'm So, sorry. I should not have. Yeah. You know what, I'm really sorry to actually say sorry, in the moment. [01:12:00] And to know, and to admit that, you know, like my dad used to say, I don’t know, I don't know where we are right now to actually live in that I don't know was a lovely, , you know, powerful place to be.

And the beauty of the one good thing, if you like out of the lockdown last year is that my son was doing his HSC. And, blood came out in April and of course, all of the, you know, the bookshops closed down, all the events closed down. And So, I think out of, I don't know, it's feeling sorry for his mom.

So, he red blood. And So, he said to me, m, m, can we meditate one day? I said a basic breath meditation. And I said to him the next day, do you want to meditate? And he said, m, you know, if you want me to do it, I wouldn't do it actually died in the 10% happier app, which I use as well. Like, and So, they were giving three months free at the time.

So, he then sat down and he meditates every day. And the beauty of that, even when you have a teenager, I mean, obviously a 17 year old. So, an older teenager is that the conversations that we then have. [01:13:00] About what's arising and what's going on for him. And the thoughts that he's, you know, , that are coming up and particularly, you know, as we got towards the HSC and the doubt, you know, the things that get in the way about peace, if you like, or our ability to be in the moment and to be in flow, which is, you know, flow is that where skill and, and, , and, , challenge and challenge meet, you know, in that beautiful, concentrated place.

And So, to actually be able to name what it is, oh, this was the thought that was coming up. And, and likewise, you know, I, I, we always talk about getting into the body and I think that it's talk about mother guilt. Like, oh, no, I wasn't practicing when he was practicing, but I keep saying, you can come into the body.

So, can you come into the body? And he gets frustrated with it, but we know that, you know, we know that's the place to be because. Then once you see that slows you down, as you say, you're back in the present, again, you're not racing with your thoughts. And, it’s such a, I think in [01:14:00] that way, just being aware, the awareness of what is arising at any particular moment, So, that you know how to proceed in the wise as possible way.

That is a skill that all of us need. Yes. And with compassion, we need to get to compassion. It's the only pathway to peace. Yes. Yeah. Everything that's going on within ourselves. Pretty well. Global. It's all true. So, you describe a bird in your book in glide. You said there's a bird that has two wings and one wing is mindfulness.

It's that pause and what you do with that pause and how you fill it with presence to self. And I'm paraphrasing obviously. And then the other wing is built on compassion and particularly self-compassion which the DYI ladies brought you when you're a child and then you unlearned it and then relented.

That's how I envisioned you would totally. Yeah that I didn't realize, , until we were in that place of, , I thought, [01:15:00] well, I'd stopped. I was doing the course. And then uh, mom approached me about her. About whether I coach teenagers and I was really new to it at the time and I didn't own her teenager was self-harming at that point.

And so they were with,you know, professionals in that sort of area. So, they were beyond my, what I was skilled at the time and so but we did get to talk about how the anxiety might've taken hold, and it was a sort of similar story started in a running race at school. , I was swimming, right?

So, it got done really well got all the way to the state championships and then balked at the final. , and So,, uh, the m said to me, oh, we thought, well, it's one thing to have natural talent, but another to have, , temperament, if you don't have the temperament, there's nothing you can do. And So, the parents didn't uh, make their child run.

, and then after that, all sorts of problems, just the anxiety, just balked at doing anything new and anxiety, tension, depression, and time of school, and then the self-harming. And So,, and of course at that point I [01:16:00] was. I was sort of processing what I heard. I'd been telling the story of the DUI ladies for a good 15 years at school, always as a kind of quaint way of how I started in the sport compared to these professional days, you know, down at the beach, Sandy, all that sort of stuff, waves coming in over the rock rockfall , and suddenly I was like, oh my God, temperament can be trained because I know because my temperament has had been trained.

And then with that story, I then remembered not just the DUI ladies, but there were another, like four times from the age of 48 to 14, where I was in tears before stepping up to the next, challenge and Someone was kind. Someone offered me, walked beside me, held my hand, told me a story, did Something that helped me overcome my fear, encouraged me.

It's an old-fashioned word and enable courage to take on that next challenge. And of course, once I did the, the joy of achieving Something and the satisfaction is there.and so, I realized that actually I called it [01:17:00] can-do kindness at first. And then that's what I learned is the, essentially the definition of compassion, which I thought was always weak.

We talk about compassion overload and all this sort of stuff. It's sort of a weakness that you feel too much for other people, but in fact empathy or the way that I've learned it is empathy. Is that internal sort of circle. If you like, there's two circles. So, you empathize with what's going on. So, the DUI ladies empathize with my idea that I might drown put a girl in the water, So, I wouldn't drown.

And So, then the rest of it is all in your head. And So, encouraged me on, So, there's empathy in the center and then an outer circle of courage and high action. And I think that that's where she's mentioned that two wings of the bird. It wasn't, my analogy is it's been floating around for a while, but mindfulness by itself can be pretty cold and also, it can be authentic.

Whereas compassion is the ability to actually. You know, be in connection with other people if you like. And So, I think the compassion, compassion is the heart. You know, it's often said that the mind creates the abyss and the heart creates the [01:18:00] bridge. And I think that mindfulness and well, Jon Kabat-Zinn would say that in Asian cultures, the heart, there is the same symbol for the heart and the mind.

So, if you're not thinking, if you're thinking of mindfulness without compassion, you're not actually thinking properly of what it means. And even with that that capacity to say, like in that moment, you're, you're in the ready room you're facing three-ish Germans and the thought comes into your mind. I don't know how to do this, which is essentially what happens the capacity to go, oh, it's okay.

That's just natural. That's human. Our brains have a negativity bias. That's the way we've evolved. It's normal that you would be feeling like this. Okay. We're going to be able to get through this. So, that capacity to say to yourself, in those moments, come on, sweetheart. And you can do this without fear. So, definitely I was saying, come on, sweetheart, you could do this when I was trying to meet eight and nine kilometer sessions, but then that's also, the ability to say, hold on a minute, what you need right now is to be able to speak up and say, that's not what I do at home.

And I was waiting for somebody else to do it for me. So, it's not like compassion is [01:19:00] always rolling over. And just being able to just doing what somebody tells you, if the capacity to say. This is unfair. It's going to take some courage, but I'm going to speak up now. Yeah. One of the things for me with compassion is it gets mistaken for weakness.

And I think the word vulnerability is worth mentioning here Brene brown speaks beautifully about vulnerability and what a necessary ingredient in this. There were many moments in your booklet where I felt your vulnerability and So, clearly, and it was just those moments. If only you had known to say, this is normal, what I'm feeling is okay, you can sit with what you're feeling right now, and nothing has to change.

You are not in any way broken, nothing needs fixing that's right. And isn't it a gift to give it to your clients when you coach it's. I don't think the coaching research talks about it nearly enough to bring normalization and acknowledgement [01:20:00] that where they're at is absolutely normal. the first time it was ever said to me, I burst into tears with relief.

I was 37. The first time it was said to me, my dear friend, Jen said I was going through a big challenge, which is that, of course you're feeling fear. Anyone in your situation would, you're facing a new level, you're breaking through a boundary. How could you not feel what you're feeling? And it never felt such a relief.

It all just fell off my shoulders. I'm normal. I, I thought I was the only one who was this loser person worrying about things. Everybody else was just getting the whole planet needs a big dose of normalization, acknowledgement validation of where you're at. Just. That's mindful compassion to me that is mindful compassion at its best.

When you see the person where they're at and you fully normalize and embrace it, what a gift. Yeah. [01:21:00] So, we, how did we somehow get away from that? That's what's interesting. Isn't it? Like, how is it that we, cause I think that my grandmother who's now no longer with us, she would have been able to do it. You know, I wonder about that and I don't know, or maybe not.

No, cause I've met, maybe I'm imagining it because she was, you know, not in my tribe, but no, no. And I think So, how does that happen? Well, I think that's also, that kind of, you know, well, there's all of those many, many different mottos, if you like that, you know? I mean, the idea comes from this. Yeah. , my son has taken, So, he got into meditating and the Stoics, I've read a bit more about the Stoics recently.

And I think that there is. it's that element of control. That's kind of interesting cause we, because when we talk about the ability to control how you respond to the world, we're not talking about controlling or we're not talking, not talking about it in a, in a rigid way. We're talking about, [01:22:00] as you say about being vulnerable and being like the tree that bends with whatever's going on, being flexible.

And, and that's what, I think I went, did it. Wasn't in the book. I went looking for the word, , What was the word? It was resilience. I think it was. And I'd always thought resilience was about toughening up. But in fact, when you look at the meaning of the word resilience, when it comes to a substance is something that's flexible and something is able to bend and move and shape.

And I think that's what we're trying to, that's what we're talking about in terms of control, being able to be economist with whatever's arising. Okay. There's this very strange situation. Last year was weird. Now we've got another weird year when it comes to waiting for vaccines and whether or not we open.

So, can we sit with that? Not knowing and still, as you say, it feel vulnerable, but also, feel empowered that we can manage. But we can manage what's going on. And I think we've never been further away from that as a culture. I don't think we've ever been for the, [01:23:00] I'm sure you study CBT as I do cognitive behavioral therapy and the Stoics, and, you know, to be an effective coach.

These are the types of narratives we need to be familiar with, but the more I'm familiar with that narrative, the less I see it social media, or I see it in the media or a suit in the way politicians speak, or even just how people yell at each other, this basic beautiful Frankel's saying everything's in the pause.

Everything's in that space. The power is in the space. That's, people's immediate reactions. Are there faster and quicker than ever. The fast comeback is everything and got your media meat, meatier, and the gotcha tear down. And the shaming that is all the absolute, complete reverse of everything we're discussing.

Yeah. Radical, radical what we're doing. And I think that's why mindfulness is So. You So, it's scary for some people and it's not embraced. I mean, it's easy to kind of dismiss it as a, as a fad, or it's easy to go to the next gimmicky thing if you like, because it's faster mindfulness time. [01:24:00] It actually slows things down, but also, it, it, , it brings you back to, oh, what am I, what can I take responsibility for?

Well, that's the hardest thing to do. And I think that's, and I certainly don't think that I'm pro in that don't, don't even asse that at all, but it's, I don't, my husband doesn’t.

know what you're talking about.

I know, I know. So, that's but even things like recently I read, you know, we have the second highest uptake of antidepressants in the OACD, in the country that we live in. And the thing we say is, is because we're finally acknowledging the problems. It's not just that it's now we focus on problems and mindfulness and compassion tells us where our focus goes.

The energy will flow and we'll get more of that. And I'm, over-simplifying a whole bunch of neuroscience here, but it's worth looking at cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness [01:25:00] studies, and the research Joe show, the neuroscience research shows. We will get an experience, more neural pathways about what we focus on than anything else.

So, it's worth making a really conscious decision about what we pour into this and what we allowed to take residents here, because it's very easy to do that spiral. I've done that we all have. We all have. I remember seeing Lindy Chamberlain speak one year at the conference and she even, you know, this was long before I'd met mindfulness, but she talked about the fact that you know, up here is like her lounge room.

And why would she let. People in her lounge room, they're going to say horrible things to her. And So, she was disabled to keep it up. That's the way that she survived, everything that she survived. Well, she did a bit of joke, keeping it out on her behalf. Then I did, because the way they spoke about her, I remember that the way the media.

Because she seems so, stoic and a woman and a mother is not allowed to be [01:26:00] stoic and the judgments and the conclusions that were breached. I saw the power of the So, interesting para the pools could have been done with them a lot, or we touched on at the beginning of our conversation. It wasn't necessarily as much of your book as I, I, I'm looking forward to your next book, this idea of helicopter parenting and, , it's called lawn mower parenting now as well, where you parenting apparently is where you clear the, the path ahead of all obstacles.

You smooth it out. So, we have an example of it here. This is very anecdotal, but we literally occasionally have a parent phone up and question us about our, our place of. Work and whether or not their child, we literally have parents wanting to interview us oh, behalf of the fan. And we just very plenty. So, you, I just made it clear that your child can't work here because we're employing them.

And if they're not responsible enough to handle this conversation, they are [01:27:00] not responsible enough to work here. And we literally have parents justifying how we don't get to say that we've actually now started getting up. You are making your child unemployable, and I'm saying it, I'm saying it as clearly as that Lacey making your child unemployable.

If you think you need to smooth every obstacle out of their way, you are building a child who will not be capable of ever being told no of ever being told you haven't met the standard of ever being told. That's not how we do things around here. Because all the glitches have been smoothed by these parents phoning us.

Would you care to where do we go with that?

Yes. so, I remember my son first hearing, the term helicopter parenting and he was about 12. I said, what's that mom? And I explained it to me. What about? And he said, nah, he said, Joel, like a cargo plane. You come in, you drop the price and then you [01:28:00] go,

my husband heard him. I'm thinking in my mind, got planned. He put us at a nice sleek jet.  you turn that into it,

but it’s, look, how much do we think about our own parenting when it comes to parenting our children? I think that's, what's really interesting and certainly. You know, if you read my story, dad, my parents was certainly the sort of parents. If you showed interest in something like I did, like my brother did in Soccer, , then they would get you there to wherever you wanted to go, but they weren't, , in, So,, , you know,  reliant on you, , being, uh, you know, being a superstar swimmer that they weren't supportive of you.

So, I always say, you know, now you hear all of the stories of abuse in sport and, , even, you know, Some at a pool and, you know, I was a kid who [01:29:00] and dad, dad would take me in the morning, you know, at four quarter to four quarter to five, we first started, , when I first started morning training with Carla, but he'd sleep in the car or go for a run himself.

Like I never had parents that sat beside the pool and watched it. And you felt So, sorry for the kid whose parent was sitting by the pool watching it because they were, , They were usually when the parent left, they were the ones that were marking up in the pool. So, I didn't want to be there, you know?

So yeah, I think there's more to it as well. It's the parent who needs, this is sweeping generalization, but I do see parents who need their children to succeed for whatever reason, but the story the month before the month, like in a couple of weeks before the Commonwealth games, Charles, like by then I'd come second at the open nationals.

And the charter backstroke I'd broken state records all the time. So, I was in a good position to try to make that, to almost make that team. But I was exhausted this one night in the pool, and then I was still in tears. I was in tears. I was trying to. Complete the set that my coach was asking you to do.

And I was [01:30:00] in tears afterwards with that, I felt like I'd let my coach down. I was just swimming terribly. And I said, this is not fun. I don't want to, I don't want to do this. And, , he, , he took me home cause it was about 15 minutes from the pool was 15 minutes from home. I walked up the stairs to go and have my dinner where mom had kept it warm.

And he went back to the pool to tell coach that I wasn't, that I was  retiring. , and So, then he came back with a story that, , Peter, my coach had told him about, about mark Spitz and apparently mark Spitz had wanted to retire just before he w I think he, , it was the a hundred freestyle. I wasn't gonna race one hundred freestyle, I think, at the Olympics, you know, before, because he might be beaten, whatever it was.

There was some story where he'd almost walked away from the challenge, and then he didn't. And So, dad told me this was then he had his greatest breakthrough, , at that moment. And So, dad told me the story that it was still left up to me. So, I slept in, and then I went back to the pool and I think that's really important, but.

Look, what you've done. You developed intrinsic motivation, [01:31:00] whereas a child who only do it because the parents involved that's extrinsic motivation, and every study shows the more extrinsically motivated. We are the less, we're going to be able to sustain ourselves through the Rocky roads that are inevitable in anything.

But the story you giving glide that I love is the time that the parent I'm going to miss quite you. So, help me out here. There was moments where parents didn't want their kids to be in tears. So, you were in tears with fear and overwhelm or stress or exhaustion, but your parents left it to you. What do you want to do with that feeling?

You have actually a story in here where parents literally said, how could you let your child cry? That anything to avoid having the child feel discomfort. And then you in further, for Some of these parents, it was not wanting to feel their own discomfort as their child cried. And this comes back to this stimulus response conversation, child cries respond with shutting down the is making it better, making it right.

I think you're really So, clued in here that [01:32:00] pause. Okay. Is it okay for my child to cry right now? Is this a manageable pain? Is this a manageable discomfort? Is this given their developmental stage Something they can work their own way through and sit with and then come process and come through. Do they need my assistance?

Not do they need it to be stopped? Yeah. And I think you spoke about that a little in the book later on. I thought that's such a good point. You know, when is it that we stop the tears or when do we make the discomfort go away? Yeah. How long can we manage our own discomfort for, to allow the discomfort in another and still call it compassion?

Mm mm mm. Because I was surprised at that response. I'd been telling you, as I said, the story about the DUI ladies often in different, in different areas. And then it was only in the last few years. Yeah. But I told the story about, you know, I think I was asked about motivating your kids and motivating teenagers.

And that was the first time it happened. But then it happened a few times subsequently when I went and spoke it, you know, in front of a different, you know, [01:33:00] groups where that response was, God, how could you, how could your parents that you cry? I couldn't stand letting my child cry. And I was like, Yeah, totally left field.

Like, well, you know, I was like, yeah, of course. When I had walked away, I didn't like physical culture. I didn't do it. So, m probably didn't , it wasn't that she was, I dunno, but yeah, she's certainly letting me go. But the DUI ladies wouldn't I think that's a really interesting thing that they understood what was going on because it happened all the time at the pool.

They always saw kids So, uncomfortable. And then you had to a way of getting through it. I think that's the important thing. Cause as you say, like the beautiful week, I mean we talk about mindfulness. There's four foundations of mindfulness and that second is feeling

l feelings of pleasant and we move away from what's unpleasant. And So, when your child cries, of course, there's a feeling of [01:34:00] unpleasantness in you because you don't like to see them in plain. But I, you know, I, I remember one time my son is in year seven, he'd gone to his, high school by himself.

The other boys had been cheated and went off to Sydney boys and, and he went to some of the more local high school and he'd got into the selective stream, but I didn't believe in tutoring. So, he was by himself and then he was struggling with friends. And So, I was concerned because that had been in year seven and we were swimming and all that sort of stuff.

And he said to me, one day in the car, m, Sometimes I just want to be able to tell you something without you feeling the need to fix it. Yeah. And that's, you know, we all fall into that trap because we were caring people, but we are in a situation now, I think, as you mentioned, children, you know, God, we're talking about consent.

Consent surely is the ability just to say here the word, no, and be okay with it. Yeah, yeah. Or feel a feeling and be okay. That that person is having. But if we've got a whole lot of young people who don't [01:35:00] know the word feel, haven't felt haven't heard the word. No. Then in that moment, when things are really, you know happening that's which I'm not, I'm not condoned kind only, but this is what we need to step back and take.

We need to practice no, in a whole lot of other situations that aren't So,, , you know, acute, if you like. , and I think that's something that we're not addressing and, and, , I've heard that w what you described, I've heard that before, where parents are calling employers to check, can you imagine, I remember speaking at a school once I was there to talk to my year 12, the year twelves about the sort of the creative writing piece they had to do.

And, , it was the first time that Some of them, Some of them hadn't had their forms signed by their parents to, you know, to say that they could come and hear me speak this year, Eleven's becoming year 12 and they were stopping Some, the school was stopping Some of those students who hadn't had their form signed from coming to Sydney.

And that was the first time they'd been held accountable for not getting something done. And the way that the, , [01:36:00] you know, the teachers sort of expressed it before I spoke was. , well, what happens if you pulled over on the side of the road and your car hasn't been, , registered? You can't say our m didn't do it.

What are you going to tell the policeman? And So, I told the story there that my son was in year seven at the local high school, and he'd lost 40% on an assignment that he put in. Cause he handed it in two days late and it was 20% each day. And the, yeah, that would like, but didn't the school call you?

And I was like, well, no, it's not about

So,, , So, that balance of, , being there being supportive, but not, , stepping on too many toes and letting them discover things for themselves, I think it's incredible. And I was, we were really pleased, , when last year, , he decided that, , our son decided he was going to go to the AMU or apply to the IMU because he'd read a study, said that the most unhappiest and happiest cohort in a society is 18 to 24 year olds who are [01:37:00] still living at home.

So, he decided he would live out of home. Good on him. I'm just thinking about the repercussions of why that is. And that's a really, that's a good study to know. I can think of So, no reasons. Yeah. Well, I think also, we talk about initiation that when we talk about things you were allowed to do, like, you know, there's that whole, the hero's journey type thing, the Joseph Campbell stuff where they're supposed to progress.

Yeah. You're supposed to, you know, yes. I was at 16. I was a captain of an Olympic team and it was stressful, but talk about a way to be initiated into growing up into speaking up for yourself into a whole lot of really good things. So, as a, as a, as a, in terms of personal growth, it was an amazing thing if situation to be, , To be part of, and, and I, and at the same time, we're alSo, going out, we were going to bands.

We were trying to get into the local pub, but like, you know, I know that it's not seen as the db thing to do, but at least we were, I think now [01:38:00] God, what about if kids were just distracted by the band playing, they might not actually be drinking quite as much. You know, they didn't leave the spot to go and get a beer.

Not that I was drinking cause of swing for Australia, but we're crowded in wanting to hold your spot. You were close to the band, you know? So, there were a whole lot of things we were allowed to do then was okay, exactly. And stranger danger. They actually have laws in 14 states in the United States where it is illegal to have a free range child, which means a child catching public transport without an adult supervised is against the law.

It's illegal. Yep. Yep. You literally can be arrested as a parent for neglect. If you're. And So, in Japan, they have the opposite So, that you have entire systems of schooling where you're not allowed to bring your child to the school. They all have to use public transport. They can stick together. It's absolutely fine, but they're all expected to learn the independence.

And then in the schools, they have to clean their own school. They have to. Prepare the meals, keep the toilets [01:39:00] tidy. There's this sense of respect for the community space and how they operate within it. And then I go to the American extreme and more the Australian extreme where there's no expectancy around that at all, that would never be a narrative that would be created here without outrage about personal rights and violating my personal choice and freedom to express and well, hang on, maybe there is a middle path here.

Let's come back to mindful compassion and must be a middle path. something can be drawn from these two ideas instead of opposing and being adversarial drawing from each and landing in a space. That's going to work for these children to know that their minds, their hearts, their feelings, and their bodies can be United, that they can be fully whole bodied in this moment.

And own this moment and then phoned me up and asked for a job where they're putting their parents on the phone.

, you would have the same, not quite that, but the same thing where people come to you [01:40:00] and say, what can I do? My kids are experiencing anxiety and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I'll say, come to my course, come into MBA. So, I want them to, because once your nervous system has settled, then that will help your child.

And most of the times I don't have time. I don't have time. And they want their kid to be fixed. So, that's the pattern. This isn't every parent. So, if anyone's listening every parent, every child all the time, please don't make it that simple as what we're saying, understand the nuance of what we're saying without it constantly having to be said, but whenever a child comes, a parent sends a child will say, it's the parent that needs the lesson just, yeah.

And I think that we need to, you know, the, the, our kids, , the things that we're talking about in terms of our teenagers or even out, you know, the, the whole thing about the millennials that's been learned. That has been learned from the society that they live in from the parenting, from, from all of the, , inputs, if you like, [01:41:00] you don't just wake up one day and have, , be a sort of person who thinks that m needs to call an employer.

Yeah. That has happened. And, and we, you know, we, I heard a story the other day about, , what was my, my niece, , and has cousins that live in America who go to a school where there are children who identify as what's called furries. So, they're dogs, they get around on all fours. I'd never heard of this before.

And my immediate reaction is, oh my God, like, what is going on there? What are the parents thinking, Ababa, all this other stuff. And then I was sitting, you know, at a cafe, you know, a couple of days ago, I'd heard the story and there's one family with the kids sitting, eating their food while the kids are on an iPhone iPad, then there it is.

And there's another group where the dog is sitting on the lap of the person at the cafe. Me thinking, well, maybe it's a really. , normal response to what these kids are seeing that in fact, the dog gets a lot of attention and a lot of pain. Yeah. Kids [01:42:00] are not. So, it's really interesting what we, I think as, as, and I think that we raise it, the village raised the child.

It's not just the parents think it's a conversation that, oh, it's So, interesting. Just that. , the things that, you know, our parents just would think is So, strange. , and yet now has become, become normal. I've just, you know, seeing that side of the pool, if you like, it needs to be, I think it needs to be okay to question this.

Like, there's going to be people who are seeing now about the comments about ferry saying, don't you judge, everyone's a letter for it. Well, hang on. I am allowed to question it and we need to keep having conversations and credit culture where our questioning it is is as permitted as someone doing it.

Right. Well, I think it's also, important. I think I tell the story, I was judging it first and then go back and you start, hold on a minute. Can I see this in another way? And right beside me, there's another perspective. I think the capacity, as you say for yes, we are meat. It is absolutely human. I mean, junk habits in, you know, we talk about [01:43:00] the Mo the, , you know, we're concentrating on the breath.

Our mind goes off the breath, and then we notice that and come back to it. But we come back to it. Non-judgmentally now that means that we can't be well when we start to watch our minds, we're full of judgment, but it's the capacity to hold the judgment and go. That's interesting that I have judged it in that way.

Can I find another way to look at it, as you say to be we, there is a natural reactivity. Can we notice the reactivity not judge it and then go, oh, how interesting can I see this in another perspective? And that's the skill. And as you say that capacity to sit with Somebody who has done metrically opposed in terms of politics or what they believe, and yet still find common, you know, common humanity, that's So, important, but it's being lost.

And like, I think what we practice it's about bringing people together, even though we may have diametrically opposed views. It's still going to be interesting and say, yeah. Wow. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. One of the things I think about [01:44:00] judgment is I normalize it. , people come to us to train, to be coaches saying, oh, but I'm too judgmental.

Of course you are. Our instinctive part of our brain needs to make fast judgements to know that it can survive this moment and get through it and maybe hopefully belong as well. That's what our instinctive brain is aiming for after thousands and thousands of years of conditioning, that judgment that immediate judgment is designed for our survival and for us thriving in a community where basically breeding.

Is survival. So, given that natural, that pause becomes even more important. So, the judgment is going to be there. Well, hang on. Let's not act on that. Let's know that that's in me no matter what. And then let's do the second and the third and the fourth response and see what else is available after the fast judgment, because that fast judgment is going to beat logic every day, how we've survived.

Yeah, exactly. And we did a great job. If we're sitting here, our ancestors survived, everything. They survived. You and I, [01:45:00] our parents, parents, parents, friends going back tens of thousands of millennial millennial survived, literally tigers. Hmm, we talk about how we feel the flight fight response because of an imaginary tiger.

They actually did survive that. So, it has to be So, tightly wound up in us to feel survival instinct. If you're living today, you are the most prone to survive because that instinct in your ancestors is the most, most developed. Those whose survival instinct was not that well developed. Didn't survive and not sitting here today.

So, of course, we're going to feel instinctively negative or worried or anxious or stressed on, and then it becomes beautiful mindfulness that you teach, or how can we counteract it, not get rid of it. How can we balance it out and notice we are So, much more than that. Yeah, and I think that's where mindfulness does receive it.

It's it doesn't have a great rack in that sense. It's all about relaxing. It's all about getting rid of stress or getting rid of thoughts. [01:46:00] And it isn't what the beauty of mindfulness is the awareness and the compassion of what is arising compassion for ourselves as human beings, as you know, in perfectly perfect human.

, but with the capacity still to act or respond in the best wisest way for all of us, you know? , that is, that's the, I think that's why it's such a great skill. And should I wish it was taught? I think it is with you is tell us about the work you do, how . Yeah, So, I don't know, or I speak, , I teach, tend to teach people out of school now more than in school.

I think, , you know, places like smiling mind and are, , Smelling wine and you know, not a Headspace, you know, they're doing great stuff in school. I think they've got Pasadena to, to actually, , Do it on scale, but yeah, just that, , oh look, I think like you, you know, you, the beauty of being able to help, you know, a [01:47:00] university student, who's absolutely at their wit's end, they've got one assignment after the other.

It's just coming at them and they just don't feel as though they can manage and that they're getting themselves into a panic and that capacity, that ability to help them hold what's going on and realize, oh, it's just a feeling. It's just a story that I'm telling. I can actually just sit. I can breathe my way through it.

I've got, or I've got, you know, a skill I can walk, get up, go for a walk, see the sunshine, feel it on my skin. , take a deep breath. Oh, okay. Now I see a way through the assignment. I can see what I couldn't see before and then come back to it in a much calmer place. And, , and we see it all the time. You see it in the clients that you, you must coach that.

I see it in the people that I, that I teach or that I, you know, essentially I'm on the part. So, we're teaching one another in many ways, because you will learn as much from the people that we work with. , and. And I think that, , it's, uh, it's So, nice. It’s just So needed right now. It is. I agree. And I also, want to turn off social media.

I want to teach mindfulness compassion, [01:48:00] not on social media, social media last year. , I've got it right here. I did. It was interesting. When I went to live in New York, I studied X. Right. And that was my first thing. Oh, I'll, I've got to work out. What's going on. I'm somehow disconnected from my body. It was very interesting when I started, but, , yeah.

But the beauty of it was that, you know, back in 1990 it's New York was a self-help capital of the world. We didn't have it here, of course, but there, but I couldn't get through a whole book. I'd think I'd much rather read fiction. You know, all storytellers are about they're about showing human behavior and you walk in someone else's shoes, you know, the old Atticus Finch thing.

And So, then when this came out, I don't know if you've ever, you read it, the living sea of waking dreams by Richard Flanagan. So, he came out though, I don't know, maybe October last year and, , the disconnection in this book it's unputdownable and yet it's just So, incredibly powerful. And I think fiction has a wonderful power, a wonderful way [01:49:00] of doing that, that you just like, I, I, I'm supposed to be on social media to promote my book and everything.

I'm not going to be interesting. The, the, just the pain that those people were in, it was, it's a bit of magic realism. So, you have to go with the idea that a woman is losing parts of herself, and then her so is disappearing in front of her. And. And then the disconnection of course, with buyers, with, uh, with, , with nature, it's really wonderful.

It's powerful help to disconnecting from social media. I love reading. I really have no trouble. I recommend this book glide by glide, taking the panic out of modern living by you. I have no trouble finishing whole books. I want to know the narrative, the hero story arc I'm I really respect what it takes to.

Craft a book because it's all those troubling thoughts and experiences you've got to create into a narrative. I think that's a wonderful thing. So, I, I am who I am today because of the journeys people have had prior to me. And they were, they were gave [01:50:00] me the privilege of accessing their experiences. I know I am who I am today because I was able to draw on the books.

I've read the experiences that others have had that have contributed to the choices I can make in that pause. If I, I think still enough, I think like it was the same thing. It was like not the same thing. So, it was more, it was my ability to actually shift into, into that self-help space. I don't think I was ready to say I was.

I think particularly also, at that time you were reading stuff that, you know, it's your mother's fault that you are the way you are. And it was that sort of stuff. Like, I'm not, I don't want to blame somebody else, but then it was that era of. Of self-help stuff that down. Whereas now I understand now what they're saying is, okay, we've been conditioned.

And So, it doesn't, we can forgive, you know, everybody, , has parents that are imperfect So, we can forgive them because they were doing the best with what they had. And we are now doing the best of what we have, but we can take responsibility for what's arising in our stuff. That was my response to that, [01:51:00] but certainly fiction.

I never had trouble, but at that time I was also, wanting to write a book. So, I hadn't planned congratulations. And we haven't mentioned that to have you as you've written five books. So, yeah, that's just phenomenal. Now, Lisa, is there anything you feel we haven't covered that you'd like to talk about? I don't, I think generally, , is there anything, I guess the one thing that I would say is that.

The trouble with my thinking got in the way of joy, not in the way of me enjoying what I love to do. I've been So, fortunate in my life that I started with swimming. I found swimming. I loved it. And then the journalist that I was traveling with said, you should be a sports reporter because I was always writing.

So, I love to write, I love to interview people. I love to write books. I love to, you know, go to acting school, live in New York. I've always done things that I really love to do. I've never really worked in that sense that I haven't enjoyed, but it's So, it's more than [01:52:00] the thinking of the trouble with my thinking got in the way of my joy.

And So, what we can talk about, you know, goals and, you know, doing achieving and all that sort of stuff like in the, in the end, I think that we're here to. Have a beautiful time or had the best time we can have with what's going on. If we can be aware there's going to be stress, we can't take it out of our lives.

And also, there's good stress. You know, there is stress of the challenge that we want something that we'd like to achieve. But, if we are the more aware we are, the more present we are, the more we can catch joy and beauty on the run. And I think that's what for me, what these practices have given.

That's fantastic. Thank you So, much. Where can people discover more about your Lisa and the work that you're doing? you can go to my website ever mind.com.edu. if you'd like to, , dot com.edu, if you'd like to inquire about [01:53:00] upcoming courses or about, , Private coaching.

My book Glide is available in good bookshops and or@booktopia.com.edu as well. Thank you. 

oh, it was fantastic. I was So, pleased for you. That's how I found it. I just thought it was fantastic. Good on you. Thank you really. You know, it was really, yeah. I mean, I think when you discover Something like this, it's like coaching, like, oh, there's a way through this. We don't have to be having a bad time.

We can actually see ourselves from those things that are causing us stress. A lot of the stuff, a lot of it's inside and the more you can free yourself from that, then not happy in your life. Yeah. Beautiful. Final words. Thank you, Lisa. Really appreciate you. Our pleasure. Pleasure was mine. Thank you. [01:54:00]

[00:00:29] And later at the Family Institute at Northwestern university, Richard began his career as a systemic family therapist and academic. So his background is definitely in family therapy. He's very familiar with attachment theory. Now he has developed this methodology, this beautiful body of work it's grounded in systems theory, and he's developed a therapeutic technique called internal family systems therapy or IFS also known [00:01:00] as parts therapy.

[00:01:01] And he developed this and he shares at the beginning of our conversation, how it came about. He was working with clients who claim to recognize they had several components or sub personalities or parts within themselves, which is separate from having multiple personalities. It isn't that. So he began to focus on these relationships amongst the parts within his clients.

[00:01:23] And he began to notice that there was systemic patterns in the way they were organized in every client. He observed that his client's parts were often rebellious or troublesome or overly controlling. And when they weren't attended to they could get a little out of control. So you've, you've ever had part of you that perhaps flares up a little bit too much, or part of you that's over controlling what needs you've got the perfectionist streak in you, or you're a little bit too anxious for the occasion or you find yourself particularly reactive.

[00:01:56] Well, this is really for you because what Schwartz [00:02:00] observed is that if we paid attention to our internal narrative and we really tapped into the truth of us, there was an essence of us, a truth or a truest self-amongst all the anxiety of the controlling or the playing out or the anger or whatever it was.

[00:02:18] And there was a beautiful self within, and that if we can have our paths feel safe and when they're allowed to relax and when the clients are allowed to experience their truest self and begin to realize they can trust themselves. And love themselves and feel compassion for themselves, that whole beautiful journey to self-compassion.

[00:02:38] Then what can happen spontaneously is the qualities of confidence and openness, compassion, love, clarity, calm, courage, begin to show up and it's in all of us. No, one's the exceptions. So from this beginning of working with clients in these beautiful discoveries, internal family systems or IFS came about in [00:03:00] the eighties, I love it because it's non pathologizing.

[00:03:03] It's really aligned with coaching. It is based on truth. It's based on honesty, encouragement and acceptance of all of us and true compassionate at the deepest level is no judgment. There's no rejection, there's no pathologizing any of it. And that through this journey of acceptance and compassion and embracing us with a technique and in the podcast, Dick works with me as a client and you will see the technique play out how we can be in touch with our truest selves, that centred itself that's in all of us and reach out to a part of us.

[00:03:36] That's perhaps felt not as loved. We can reach out to it with love. And you'll see in that it's real, it's not a role-play as I do that. And they're beautiful consequence of that when that part realizes that it is loved and accepted and hasn't been rejected it's now evidence-based IFS is evidence-based has become widely used as a form of psychotherapy.

[00:03:58] You’ll hear in the podcast how [00:04:00] it's going to be rolled to coaches, which are things really exciting. He's published a ton of books. One of the books that I've devoured, and you'll hear on the podcast, I've read this a number of times is Internal Family Systems   therapy by Schwartz Swayze. The Mosaic Mind I must say is a little bit more for the therapist.

[00:04:16] So it wasn't really applicable to me as much Internal Family Systems   therapy by Schwartz. He's also got a beautiful audible that I do parts of it most days called Greater than the Sum of our Parts    and he's done other works as well. And I he's also got courses available online at the moment. The beautiful thing about this is his energy.

[00:04:37] You're going to. I'm sure feel as I did with him, he's got a really great energy. A beautiful energy is a very open soul, very accessible to chat with about it. And we have quite a long conversation about IFS we unpack what it is, what the parts are and their different functions within us, what our centered selfies and how important it is to recognize is in all of us, [00:05:00] we self is about how we can bring it into our daily practice.

[00:05:03] And then what we do is we look at how we can bring it alive in our coaching practices as well. If you're a coach, I believe it's fabulous for leaders, for parents, for anyone who wants to relate at a different level. And I believe its truest gift is it's compassionate pathway to ourself. And so here he is the man himself, Dr.

[00:05:23] Richard Swartz. It's so great to have you with us today, Dick, I know there is going to be many people around the world interested to hear this conversation. I know there's also a lot of coaches who are going to be a thousands of coaches will be listening to this, curious about how we can incorporate what you've developed into coaching.

[00:05:40] Could you start with sharing a little bit about yourself and how you came to be at this point for Sharon? Thank you for inviting me. I'm, I'm honored by how supportive you are of IFS and yeah, it's it's quite a story goes back about 40 years. I I [00:06:00] just graduated from a PhD program in marital and family therapy and I was one of those obnoxious.

[00:06:08] Family therapist that thought we found the Holy grail and wanted to prove that. And so in my effort to prove it, I did an outcome study with a eating disorder called bulimia. That was sort of new on the scene back then and found that we could reorganize the families just the way the book said to do it.

[00:06:30] And still many of my clients didn't realize they've been cured and they just kept going. So I got frustrated and started asking what's going on? Why are you still bingeing and purging? And they started to teach this to me and they would talk to this language of parts. And they would say some version of when something bad happens in my life.

[00:06:54] It triggers this critic. Who's now calling me all kinds of brutal names [00:07:00] and the critic brings up this part that feels totally young and empty and alone and worthless. And that feeling is so dreadful that almost to the, the rescue comes the binge to take me away. But the act of the binge brings the critic back.

[00:07:16] Who's now calling me a pig on top of the other names. And that, of course it brings back that young, empty, worthless feeling. And so the bit the binge has to come back and to me as a family therapist, this sounded familiar. It sounded like an inner system that interacted actively inside of my clients, but it also sounded scary at first.

[00:07:39] Cause I thought, boy, maybe these, these young women are sicker than I thought, you know, maybe they're more like multiple personality disorder until I started listening inside myself and then I've got them too. And some of mine are as extreme as there is particularly the critic. And I have [00:08:00] my own binges I  did

[00:08:02] so. with that I started to just explore. And I was lucky in that I hadn't studied intra-psychic process in other theories so that I had to just be curious and just keep letting my clients teach me. And one of the things that was a hard thing for me to learn at first was that these parts, aren't what they seemed

[00:08:28] and that actually there aren't any bad ones, so that it took a while, because at first I was thinking they were, the critic was an internalized parental voice and the bench was an out of control impulse. And when you think of it, that way, it's limited how you can have your client relate to that either you try to get them to stand up to the bench or control on, stand up to the critic or control the binge.

[00:08:56] And as I was doing that, I encourage clients to do that. [00:09:00] They would get worse. But I didn't know what else to do. So I'd say stand up stronger control more until the first client that I was aware of that had a sex abuse history and cut herself on her wrist and insisted on showing me the open wounds, every session.

[00:09:18] And I decided we weren't going to let her out of my office until that cutting part had agreed not to do it to her that week. And so after a couple of hours of badgering, the part it finally said it wouldn't and I opened the door to the next session. And now she's got a big gash on the side of her face.

[00:09:37] And I gasped at that and just spontaneously spit out. I give up, I can't beat you with this. And the part said, you know, I don't really want to beat you. And that was the turning point in the history of this work, because I changed out of that controlling place to just curious, [00:10:00] why do you do this to her?

[00:10:02] And the part talked about how, when he, she was being sexually abused, it needed to get her out of her body and it needed to contain the rage that would get her more abuse. And so I shifted with that now. I'm not just curious, but I have an abiding respect and appreciation for the heroic role as part of played in her life.

[00:10:26] And as I got to know it more though, it sounded like it was still living back in that time. Like it, it didn't realize she had grown up and wasn't in that kind of danger anymore. So with all of that, I started to really change my view of these parts. And now 40 years later I can safely say that there aren't any bad ones.

[00:10:49] Like I said, that that's the nature of the mind to have them. We all have them. They will be called thinking, is them communicating most of the time? [00:11:00] And it's, we're born with them. They they're valuable assets to us as we develop in life and trauma and well cortical attachment injuries, which would be bad parenting basically forced them out of their naturally valuable States into roles that can be destructive and also freeze them in time and give them what I call burdens, which the definition which are extreme beliefs and emotions that came into your system from some kind of a trauma and attached to these parts, like the COVID virus almost and drive the way they operate afterwards.

[00:11:48] So to heal them. We learned that you have to get them out of where they're stuck in the past and you witnessed what happened to them. And then. Help them unburden release these extreme [00:12:00] beliefs and emotions, and then almost magically though transform immediately when that happens. So anyway, that's a long answer that dig.

[00:12:08] Yeah. That's a great answer. I just want, I was curious because I have read the story of how you began. I'm curious. I think you may have addressed in one of your books. What was it like for you back then? 40 years ago, discovering Internal Family Systems when your specialty had been external, as we see family therapy, what were your colleagues saying?

[00:12:29] What was, what was the lay of the land for you as you began talking about multiple voices in people's heads? I'm trying to imagine it's the seventies. Yeah, well, it was early eighties, early eighties. My apologies. What was the narrative going on around you with your colleagues, as you seem to have made this discovery of an internal world?

[00:12:55] You know, I was attacked. Isn't probably the best word, but I, I got a lot of criticism [00:13:00] from both sides. My family therapy colleagues felt like I was betraying the cause because family therapy, a pendulum swing away from psychoanalysis or psycho traditional psychotherapy, where you spent a lot of time focused on the individual and their intra-psychic process in family therapy said, no, we don't need to do that.

[00:13:23] We can change everything by just changing these external relationships. So a lot of my, and I, you know, I was building in that field. I coauthored the basic textbook. That was the most popular textbook by then. So a lot of my colleagues saw me as a traitor and were pretty vocal about it. And then I developed it in a department of psychiatry at the university of Illinois at Chicago.

[00:13:54] And it was a very psychoanalytic department. And the, [00:14:00] one of the big luminaries in that department took me to task claiming that I, I was fragmenting people by having them focus on these things and that I was dangerous basically, and tried to get me fired. So, so yeah, it was a rough ride back then. And, you know, in retrospect to get through all of that, I had to rely on parts of me that could be arrogant and didn't care what people thought and just said, I don't, you know, and, and we're very protective of other very vulnerable parts of me that felt really worthless.

[00:14:41] And we're. You know, mortified that people would be judging me that way. Yeah. And so it wouldn't have been papers produced. There wouldn't have been a team of colleagues that you could talk with about this, your entire narrative was with your clients, and then there's literally [00:15:00] your there's known unknowns.

[00:15:01] And then there's all the unknown unknowns and you were dealing with nearly all unknown unknowns. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty lonely for quite a while. And then I started getting the courage to talk about it more. I started to draw students who were very interested and so we, we had a little kind of study group where we'd compare notes, every session.

[00:15:23] And, and some of them actually contributed quite a lot in the early stages of this, a woman named Mitchy Rose in particular. And, and so that really helped when I felt like. I had a kind of support. Yeah. Good. I'm pleased  I can't I'm imagining back then. If the feedback you're getting is from clients saying one thing and your colleagues is saying another, the internal conflict for you must have been the greatest because external acceptance from your colleagues when you're in the role you're in, is what you'd always [00:16:00] measured your progress by until then.

[00:16:01] And now there, none of that existed, none of what you'd counted on, you could rely on anymore. Yeah. You know, I, I come from a very scientific family. My father was a high powered medical researcher, physician, and he always talked about follow the data, even if it takes you way outside your paradigm. And if, if you're consistently getting this data, even if it's some totally controversial just stay with it.

[00:16:35] And that was a huge lesson for me. And he, he was quite supportive even though it all sounded kind of bizarre to him too. Yeah. Good. So can you talk us through what I F S is internal family systems? Can you give us a snapshot in your own words? So those who are unfamiliar can have a deeper sense of what it is.

[00:16:58] Yeah. So [00:17:00] it's been a form of psychotherapy, but it's also becoming more and more a kind of life practice. And  we are trying to bring it to other groups like yours and it Involves some basic assumptions about people that are different than the most common assumptions about human nature. One of which is that it's, it's the natural state of the mind to be multiple and to have what we call parts and that each of these parts are individual personalities that have a full range of emotion and belief and thought and, and interact inside in a system.

[00:17:42] And that that system is can be studied and, and transformed and that these parts, aren't what they seem, that they're all valuable and forced into extreme roles. And also that [00:18:00] just beneath the surface of these parts that I've talked about is what I'm going to call itself, which is a kind of essence.

[00:18:09] That is in everybody can't be damaged and knows how to heal. It knows how to heal these parts once you access that stuff and knows how to heal external relationships also. And, and so a lot of the IFS has become helping people access that essence. And in that state begin to relate to these parts and to relate to their intimate partners or relate to their, the people that work for them or that they work with.

[00:18:44] Or so to, to encourage what we call self-leadership both internally and externally. And I stumbled on ways to access that very quickly. In most cases, Hmm, the way I look at IFS [00:19:00] is it's the easiest way I've found to help me with my inner reactivity. That's that's what IFS has given me. It's the fastest way and the easiest way I've found to help me process my reactivity might, if you want to call it triggers, I don't like that word, but my inner activity.

[00:19:20] So I don't play it out on the person I'm with, or I don't play it out on what I think is the source of my upset instead. The gift for me is if I think the source of the upset is someone else to me, IFS tells me that is a gift for you now to have the opportunity to look within. And I have fish hoses, how to look with them because there are plenty of modalities, Dick that say go within, but they don't tell you how it's like meditate or sit with it or let's see what counts.

[00:19:50] That's not helpful. And as someone who's been doing this for a while, it's just doesn't help me. So I, this is showing me the steps of, okay, that I, that [00:20:00] can't be the source, but that is a lesson. That gives me the opportunity to go within and we'll walk through the process of that hopefully, and then I can then deal with my reactivity instead of thinking they have to change.

[00:20:12] It's a gift and an opportunity for me to grow in that area, beautifully said Sharon. And in that way, you're using the other person as what we call a tormentor  tormenting, you, they're mentoring, you tormentor with a hyphen between the tor and the mentor. They're messaging you about what you need to heal.

[00:20:34] And, and also in our crazy language, you're following the trailheads that that person has put in your face, which are emotions and thoughts and impulses that if you focus on it, We'll take you to a part that needs your attention, that needs your health stuff. Yeah. So just slow it down there. [00:21:00] So the way to my understanding is the way to know that a trail head, a trail head is a thought emotion of physical movement that you intended or didn't intend.

[00:21:11] It could be a sensation. It could be a visualization. It could be a, just a, a thought feeling. Any of that are opportunities or what IFS would call a Trailhead to a part. And there's nothing bad about it. That's the thing. It's not that we're, there's no bad parts in all the years you've been doing this.

[00:21:31] There's not a, you've never come across a part that wasn't lovable ultimately, and we couldn't feel love for that's. Right. And I've worked with people who, you know, whose parks had made them do heinous things. I spent seven years working at an agency for. Sex offenders. And we, we do this work in prisons now with people that have murdered people.

[00:21:54] And even those parts, when you have the person find it and focused [00:22:00] on it, and instead of fearing it or hating it, curious that those parts will tell their secret histories of how they were forced into the roles they're in and how they carry the burden of their perpetrator’s energy. That drives them to want to perpetrate

[00:22:16] right. And so on. And so on. What was your, I don't know if this is putting it on the spot, but what was the recipient recidivism rate after working with IFS on people who'd done those crimes? Well, we didn't do real good outcome studies with it. You know, anecdotally the people that I know of it really well, but we don't have a clear outcome study.

[00:22:43] So I'm loathe to say more than that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So someone listening, because I'm familiar with it. I don't want to make too many assumptions about what people know. Yeah. So we'll just slow down there. So a part is a Trailhead is a thought, a feeling, [00:23:00] a sensation, it's a visualization, it's a voluntary movement or ambulatory movement, which is an indicator.

[00:23:05] We could meet a pad. And in IFS we want to meet that part can you walk us through the types of parts there are? Cause I, I, I know there are types of parts and once people get familiar with the world that we're about to build for them, it's really fun to play in that world. It's joyful to know how to go inside and translate what we're saying into activities.

[00:23:31] So can you walk us through, let's just start with the basics, the types of parts. Yeah. Well, again, I'm a systems thinker, family therapists. So as my clients where we're describing this landscape to me, I started to look for distinctions and the big distinction that leaped out immediately was between.

[00:23:54] There was some parts who were quite young and sensitive and [00:24:00] because they were sensitive inner children, the traumas affected them the most. And so they would wind up carrying, you know, it would be like an inner little girl inside of you before she got hurt. You loved her. It was, she gives you all this delight in the world and the desire to get close to people and playfulness and creativity.

[00:24:25] But after she gets hurt, now she carries the burden of emotional pain or terror or shame or something like that. And now you don't want anything to do with her because she can make you feel as bad as you felt during the trauma. And she's still stuck back there. And so you consciously or not. Lock her up inside in a way we call exiling and try to just move on, just move on.

[00:24:58] I know [00:25:00] like the US and Australia is kind of just move on culture, like rugged individualists. And so you think you're just moving on from the memories and the emotions from the trauma, not knowing you're locking up your most precious qualities and in doing that, so these, we call them exiles. And when you get a lot of exiles, you feel much more delicate, and the world becomes much more dangerous because all kinds of things could trigger those parts.

[00:25:35] And when they get triggered, it's like flames of emotion are going to totally consume you and overwhelm you and make it that you can't function sometimes. And so then a lot of other parts I recruited. Into becoming these protectors to try and contain those exiles and protect them from the world. And some of them do that by trying to [00:26:00] manage your life so that the exiles don't get triggered.

[00:26:03] They, they manage your relationships so that you don't let anybody get too close, or you don't let people, you depend on get to distance or they manage your appearance so that you don't get rejected and they manage your performance. So you did a lot of accolades to counter the worthlessness that the exiles feel.

[00:26:25] So we call them managers, it's one class of protector. And then despite the best efforts of these managers, you still get that the world still has a way of breaking through those defenses. And an exile comes bursting out and that's a big emergency. So there's another set of parts, protectors, whose job it is to deal with that emergency right now.

[00:26:51] Like I've got to get away from this feeling or it's going to kill me. And so they are the ones that do the bingeing, [00:27:00] the impulsive reactive, like the reactive part of you, you were talking about and they don't care about the collateral damage to your relationships of your body. They just got to get you away and do it immediately.

[00:27:15] And so that's the other class of protector. So that's a pretty simple map. And again, I want to reiterate that these aren't descriptions of the actual parts it's descriptions of the roles they're forced into, and once released from these roles, they often do something entirely different. Sometimes quite the opposite of the role there.

[00:27:36] It's always valuable. But, so that is the little map managers, firefighters, both of whom are protetors trying to protect and contain these exiles. So can we go through an example with someone who might be experiencing anxiety? Can we create a construct of a person? So our viewers can get a sense [00:28:00] of what an example of that could be.

[00:28:02] And I'm happy to share my example. If you can share an example of those three inactions,

[00:28:07] we could, we could also role play it if you wanted, or could actually work with your anxiety, if you have any

[00:28:13] yeah. Well, let's make it real. And I did think about something that, and I very carefully didn't do any work on it. I did not do any ifs and yes, I'm more than happy to demonstrate it because I have an inkling. I have a Trailhead. Which is a thought feeling that I'm happy to

[00:28:30] let's do it. So what's the thought feeling a feeling here in my gut, sometimes high in my gut and sometimes low of righteousness or needing to be right. Needing to correct and make it right. And there's a tension around it. Dick like there's a tension, like I want to, this has gotta be right. Yeah. And it's got to happen right away, right?

[00:28:59] [00:29:00] Yes. There's an urgency to it as well. Yes. There is an urgency. So as you notice all that in your gut, Sharon, how do you feel toward that part of it?

[00:29:13] I don't feel anything towards it just yet. Hang on.

[00:29:18] It just is what other ones do you, it just is, you don't have an attitude about it. You don't want to get rid of it or you, you just, just noticing. No, I want to understand it. I want to understand it. It just is. And I would love to understand it. I certainly don't feel anything negative towards it at all.

[00:29:37] It's part of me. Right. So focus on it again, down there and let it know. You're curious about it and just ask what it wants you to know about itself and wait for the answer. Don't think of the answer. Just wait for an answer to come from [00:30:00] that place.

[00:30:01] I'm here. I want to be heard. Okay. Are you open to hearing it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let it know. You're ready and just see what it wants you to hear.

[00:30:19] It's hard. I work hard is a lot to think about part works hard. Yeah. I'm I'm just hearing what it's saying. I work hard is a lot to think about and, huh,

[00:30:37] it's a tough job. Someone's got to do it.

[00:30:40] And Sharon ask it, what it's afraid would happen if it didn't do this love job.

[00:30:46] Get judged.

[00:30:48] Yeah. So you'd make a mistake and get judged or how would you get judged

[00:30:54]is it okay? That I take a moment. Cause I'm really, it takes a while for this to happen for me. [00:31:00] Yeah. I'm just going to go inside and be. Sure whenever you need,

[00:31:07] there's a sense of it would get criticized if it didn't get it right. It wasn't a sentence. It was a feeling. Does this match? Yeah, it does make sense. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Let it know that that makes sense to you. You can understand that. And how are you feeling toward it now? I feel really compassionate.

[00:31:32] I'm giving it a big hug. We'll let it know that. Yeah. Perfect. How's it. How's it reacts to melting, melting into me. That's great. It's like

[00:31:50] call the weight just, yeah. Yeah, that's great. [00:32:00] Yeah. Maybe ask it how old it thinks you are

[00:32:04]10.

[00:32:05] Yeah, so maybe when you were 10, it needed to worry like this, but let it know how old you really are. You don't have to tell me

[00:32:15] I’m going to fudge it a little bit, but I get what you're saying. Yep.

[00:32:19] And see how it reads. Okay. See how it reacts to the news that you're not telling anymore.

[00:32:25] It’s in. Awe just, wow. And it's looking up like, wow, it's amazing. You're so old.

[00:32:35] Yeah, but let it know. Well, it's finding it funny that I'm that old,

[00:32:45] but let it know that since you're not 10, you can do a lot more anticipating and, and controlling the world than you could bear. So you can rely on you [00:33:00] a little more than it thought it could and just see how it reacts to that idea. It's just hugging me.

[00:33:07] It’s like the easiest hug. Like I've done some parts work before, but this one's just like, of course you're here. That's right. Yeah. Ask what it would need from you going forward to really trust it. Didn't have to work so hard

[00:33:28]to know that I love it.

[00:33:31] That that's the strongest message I've got from wow.

[00:33:37] To know. I love you. Yeah. Yeah. So, Sharon, are you, are you good with that? Can you reassure that? Yes. Yes I am. So tell the part, you're going to do that for it.

[00:33:54] Yep. I'm doing it right now. [00:34:00] Fantastic.

[00:34:01] It’s so good.

[00:34:03] Just love this love and playfulness and excitement. I can't even explain it, but there's excitement and there's freedom and there is

[00:34:20] playfulness like

[00:34:22] almost to show off playfulness. Wow.

[00:34:25] Wow. I'm just telling you it. It's amazing and loved. That's great. So does that feel complete for now?

[00:34:36] Feels awesome. Dick. I don't know how to recognize complete, but it feels amazing and so close. There's no distance now between us. There's this we're a team. That's great.

[00:34:57]and then tell the part [00:35:00] just that you're going to follow up on it every day. You're going to remind it that you love it at least for a month. Yeah, yeah,

[00:35:11] yeah. And then when you're ready, come on. Back outside.

[00:35:14] It’s just fantastic. Yeah. It was a great example and

[00:35:23]I feel amazing.

[00:35:25]Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. It's a great demonstration of the work I'm still there a little bit. Just enjoying. I don't want to drag you away. Yeah. I just feel really tingley oh my God. My fingers feel electric. That's what we call self energy.

[00:35:54] When you fall apart like that, it opens the channels for this energy to flow through your body. [00:36:00] I read about it and I was feeling kind of ripped off. Cause it never happened for me when I've done my parts work be for, I guess I feel a little tingley and it's all electric. It's like yeah. That when you touch static, it was all static all down my hands.

[00:36:24] Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So that'll be more accessible to you now. Cause that that little worry part was blocking it. Okay. I just need to have people know who are watching this. This is real right? This is very extraordinary feeling. It's still there. It's a very healing energy. And that's part of how, you know, when yourself is in your body, because you'll start to feel [00:37:00] more of that.

[00:37:02] So everything feels like it's static and electric.

[00:37:06]I know you know this, but this is I'm having quite the trip right now.

[00:37:11] Wow. That is extraordinary. Thank you. Thank you. It's a very happy, happy to do it with you. Oh, wow. Okay. Coming back. And that just stays. I just get   to have this. Yeah, you gotta keep taking care of that little, little part. And there might be other parts that'll block it at different points for different reasons.

[00:37:42] Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's just there. It's just in you and around you. It's so good. If you're not feeling it, then you just track down the part that's blocking. Okay. It's like the best [00:38:00] investigation you can ever do for yourself on yourself. That's how I look at it. That's right. Wow. It's very powerful data.

[00:38:07] That is, that feels extraordinary. Yeah. As I, you know, as I go through my day I'm noticing how much of that I'm feeling and if it cannot feel much, I'll just find like there are my, you know, usual suspects in my forehead and on my shoulders and I'll notice them and I'll just remind them they could relax.

[00:38:30] And then I just feel it moving into my body. Yes. Yes. I've started doing that with a couple of parts. I visit them every day and have been for a month and we're getting a really well, but this level of charge, this is new. Hmm. Wow. Okay. Next question.

[00:38:51] I feel a little high. Is that something that's been said to you before? Yeah. Yeah. [00:39:00] Especially when you, when you helped a key part, because the part is feeling so great. You're just feeling the delight of this little, this little one. Okay. Let's call it a delight and not high, but I'm feeling a little high.

[00:39:19] Okay. Okay. So one of the things I'm going to have a go now at where I wanted to hit in this conversation. Thank you so much for that. That's. Wow. Wonderful. I'm going to have that old day with me. That's just tremendous. And I will visit every day. So I heard that's a great example for people who are watching or listening on how powerful and wonderful this is to me, it's joyful work dig.

[00:39:44] When I go in and follow the trail head and find the part and what I love, and I hope that's demonstrated is it would be so easy on the surface to judge that part oh my God, you need to knock it off. And why am I always so blank? And [00:40:00] I wish I wasn't and Oh God, I've done it again. And instead, if we now know how to embrace it and get to know it and find out its positive intention, we realize all along, it was on a team, but it was doing it at the age at which it learnt how to protect us.

[00:40:19] That's exactly right. Very well said Sharon and I was kind of surprised when I asked you how you feel toward it. That you didn't say something like that. I'm annoyed by it. I wish it would go away because most people do. That's the first thing most people say they do. I've been doing a bit of work in ifs for a while.

[00:40:38] I'll, I'll give you the heads up. IFS I think even before I knew I Fs, I realized I've got to love all of me. And one of the things they teach in coaching is we to reject any emotional or aspect of ourselves is to reject ourselves. And the past to self love is to accept all of us, even the bits that we don't understand or [00:41:00] relate with.

[00:41:01] That's partly why I'm so excited to bring this to coaching and why I'm so excited to talk to you because I think in some ways more than psychotherapy ifs is a really good match for the philosophy. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that. Cause I'll share with you soon. How I am bringing. Ifs or aspects of it for nonclinical populations to coaching, because there are aspects of it I've already pulled IFS we starting to put into the curriculum and I'd love to chat with you about it.

[00:41:31] So we've got exiles who see the world is dangerous possibly, and they're pro probably more delicate than we have the managers or protectors who have no tolerance for fear or shamefulness or emotional pain. And they'll do anything to hide the exile it's almost like they're a guardian is the way I picture them.

[00:41:51] That's right. Yeah. There's a lot of common manager roles. So there is, there are managers that keep you in your head all the [00:42:00] time and don't let you feel your body and keep you an intellectual. And then there are managers, particularly for women who take care of everybody. So, and never let you take care of yourself.

[00:42:13] And there are managers who are scan for danger all the time. Are a little hypervigilant and so on and so on. And you know, there's a lot of comp and again, they're just the roles. These like yours was just forced into, but what they should, and then we have   and then we have a firefighter above that whose role is if the exile breaks out, they're going to come in and they're going to suppress it.

[00:42:42] And they don't care who they hurt, how they lash out collateral damage means nothing to them. That's right. Yeah. Which means there's a built-in polarization between managers and firefighters, because managers are [00:43:00] all about keeping you in control and pleasing everybody and firefighters do the opposite most of the time.

[00:43:07] Not always. And so that's what I was saying earlier with the bulemic  who the binge part was her firefighter. And then the manager was attacking her for letting the binge take over like that because it would, you know, make her heavy and so on. And so most of us have that kind of battle going on inside between managers and firefighters.

[00:43:34] And that battle becomes self-perpetuating because the more shame these inner critics, which is another common manager role give you the more they shame you, the more that goes right to the heart of these little exiles who feel even worse now. So that makes the job of the firefighter even more important.

[00:43:57] And then the, so you're in that vicious [00:44:00] cycle. So I'm picturing somebody who has say they can't control the temper for example, if I was to put that in IFS narrative, I possibly would sense. See what this gives me, Dick, this is another great gift of it. You'll never see anybody else the same way again, because if you see someone angry, you know, you're probably seeing a firefighter, which means their exile is feeling unsafe and the protector didn't do the job.

[00:44:28] So there's a lot more compassion now with interactions instead of just judging it or blaming it or rejecting it, you can observe it from a compassionate detachment. Bingo. Yeah. That's beautiful that you're really getting it. I'm very impressed how deeply you've got the model. Cause that's right. It's almost like you have x-ray vision in the sense that you see past the, your opponent's protectors to the vulnerability and the pain and the terror and the shame that drive those [00:45:00] protectors.

[00:45:01] And you can have compassion, which doesn't mean you don't, you don't stand up to that person, but you can stand up to that person. From Self we haven't talked about this yet, but we're getting to self definitely. Okay. So the, as I was seeing this in everybody, this was like the same person would pop out when parts would open space.

[00:45:25] I started to catalog the qualities that would, would come out in that person. And that would be things like calm and curiosity and confidence, compassion. And as you're getting the, I'll begin with the letter C courage, clarity creativity and connectedness, and three of those confidence, clarity and courage means that self can be very forceful and clear and can take a stand.

[00:45:58] But with compassion [00:46:00] with, with also with compassion. And that's, you know, when I work with leaders, I'm working with lots of social activists now. And many of them have these very angry, judgmental parts that they do their activism from, that motivates them. And we're getting those parts to relax similarly to how we had your anxiety part to relax and trust their self to do their activism.

[00:46:27] And when they do that, they're just much more effective activists. So could we go so far as to say some activists are activists, because they don't know how to manage their internal journey? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of activists got hurt somehow or had a trauma and had a part say, I'm going to make sure this doesn't happen to other people.

[00:46:54] Yes, that's driven them, which is great. You know, it's, [00:47:00] it's, it's great that it's got them where they can do this, but it also polarizes. Well, the problem with it is activism. When it's taken to the extreme, in the terms that IFS is, it's a firefighter who will shame someone else cause they don't care about clinical collateral damage.

[00:47:18] So they will shame. They will tear down. They will try to destroy someone metaphorically because they are coming from a place where they haven't got in touch with the part that needs the healing or they getting a keep using the world as a landscape to resolve, which only can be resolved through this internal journey.

[00:47:41] That's right. Yeah. That's right. So yeah. So I'm helping them regain the trust of those protectors, helping the self. Get trusted again by the protector to lead just to the way yours did. Yeah. And then we're also which [00:48:00] we didn't do, but we're also going to what the protector protects and healing and that isn't necessarily the domain of coaches.

[00:48:09] Exactly. Yeah. I'll talk to you about that in a moment. We'll talk about true self now, and then I'd love to chat with you about how coaching and coaches can integrate IFS because I do see some very strong parallels that are beautiful. So the, our Self I call it our true self in our trainings. You call it the self with a capital S can you walk us through, can you introduce us to this phenomenal, remarkable truth that we all have a Self it's?

[00:48:41] Fantastic. Yeah. I just stumbled into it because my family therapy background. I was trying to get clients to have a different kind of conversation with these parts. As I was learning about the parts from my class, once I got hip to the fact [00:49:00] that they're not what they seem and that they deserve to be listened to, I was trying to get my client to get curious and interact and have a dialogue much the same as you got as you did with your parts just now.

[00:49:14] And I was finding that as we were saying earlier, maybe let's say I'm having one of these bulimic kids have tried to talk to her critic and it's going okay, because she's staying curious, but suddenly she's angry at the critic. And then the critic gets defensive and escalates and. It reminded me of family sessions, where I'm working with a teenage girl and her critical mother.

[00:49:42] And as I'm having them try to get along better, she suddenly the girls gets angry at the mother and you looked around the room and you see the father is cuing her, that he disagrees with the mother too, and she's fighting his battle for him. And so we [00:50:00] taught his family therapists to get him out of her line of vision, get them to step back in the room and create a better boundary around the mother and the daughter.

[00:50:09] And when you do that, the girl settles down and they do have a decent conversation. I thought maybe the same thing's happening in this inner system is I'm trying to have my client talk to her critic, a part who hates it has come in and is doing the talking. So I started asking clients, can you find the one who just jumped in and is so angry at the critic?

[00:50:31] And could you get it to step back in there? Basically the same intervention or relax or open  space and as they would do that, cause I was amazed that people could do that. It would just suddenly they would turn into this other person who had a lots of curiosity, calm compassion for the target part and things would go really well.

[00:50:58] And I could get out of the way and [00:51:00] they would just take over the session because they knew how to relate to that part of the heli way. And when I would do it with other healing it was like the same person popped out. And so at some point I started asking what part of you was that? And they'd say some version of, that's not a part that's me, that's myself.

[00:51:22] So I came to call that itself of the capital us to distinguish it from the common use of the word self, which is. Me as a whole person. And now, again, 40 years later, thousands of clients later, thousands of people using this all over the world, we can safely say that that is in everybody and can't be damaged and it knows how to heal.

[00:51:46] And, and as we were saying earlier, that's a big deal. It's amazing. And it, and it's there in everyone. There are no exceptions. So for anyone who's listening, who's got huge, soft doubt or the challenges around self-esteem or the [00:52:00] convinced that somehow they've got a flaw you also have this centered self that is filled with calm and clarity and compassion that is filled with a sense of connection and creativity and curiosity and confidence and courage.

[00:52:17] It is innate in all of us. It cannot be damaged. It cannot be taken away. It is innate in every single person. There are no exceptions. And now for the person who's listening, thinking. Yeah, but I am the exception. You're even, you are not the exception. It is in you.

[00:52:34] That’s right. And, and it's just beneath the surface of these parts, such that when they open space, it's just pops out. And, and as you were experiencing earlier, there is an energy to it, a vibrating energy that your body, and it's, you know, its what people meditate to get to, but this is a quicker way to get to, and then not [00:53:00] only get to it, but actually from it begin to lead your life both internally and externally.

[00:53:08] And this is the real key. Let's walk through ana scenario    so I, if I know someone who's very, very defensive, for example, and they hearing a scenario going, why don't feel very centered? I don't feel the eight C's can you describe just your hypothetically, how is their centered self or their true self hidden?

[00:53:28] If it's somebody who has described this person as defensive, they are overly protective. They're highly self-conscious. Yeah. It's what we call blended that the defensive part has blended with their self. And thinks it has to sort of like your little worried part plans with you sometimes and makes it, so you don't feel very secure.

[00:53:53] The parts have that ability they can, they can take over and you can suddenly see the [00:54:00] world through their eyes when they do that. And so a lot of the work is just convincing them that they don't have to do that. And as, as we found, they're often stuck back in times when they, they did need to do it when you were 10 and are not aware that they don't still need to do it.

[00:54:23] So, so the defense would go ahead. So I was going to say, and it's not that they take over the center itself. I don't want anyone hearing thinking the center itself can be hijacked. Or in any way co-opted to work for a protect. It doesn't, it is sacrosanct. It is sacred within, as soon as the seat of our consciousness, it is unblemished through all of time, but the protectors take over and it takes a back seat.

[00:54:51] It is no way blemish though. Yeah, yeah. In a sense they, they can take over and and partly [00:55:00] because it can happen so quickly that they blend with us, that we're not even aware of it. And we just start to look through at the world through their perspective until you start to get hip to it. And you notice, so I, I work with lots of clients who, who have a lot of very extreme, protective parts that they're quite blended with.

[00:55:26] And so gradually I help I say no, that isn't, you that's this. Defensive part. Let's get to know it. And as they get to know it, then they get a little separation from it. And then as they separate from it, they get a little more access to sell. And then if something happens that, that the defensive part gets a, I know you don't like the word triggered, but what's the word you reacted reactive.

[00:55:56] Yeah. If it takes over again, [00:56:00] now they kind of notice it's taken over. Whereas before they wouldn't, they would just be that part. And instead of going with all of its paranoid stuff or whatever it's saying, while they notice it's taken over inside, they can kind of say, it's okay, I'm here still. I can, I can handle this.

[00:56:24] And so that becomes the way to handle your anger rather than all the. You know, affect regulation skills that you have to learn all that stuff. Yes. And the way you put it, Dick is we're going to learn to speak for our parts instead of from them. And I love that distinction. So rather than just feeling reactive and then acting on that reactivity, it's that cause and effect, I feel it.

[00:56:51] So I'm going to say it it's hang on. I feel it reassure it, remind it that you're here and you've got [00:57:00] this and then speak for it. And to say I'm feeling part of me is feeling whatever it's feeling and thought of me is feeling tense right now. Part of me is feeling upset with the way that you put that and it's really feeling uncared for.

[00:57:15] So I'm just going to take a moment. I'm going to breathe into it because right now I feel like part of me wants to lash out. But there's a bigger part of me that wants to maintain their connection with you. And that's a very different scenario in the conversation with someone you love. This is just coming from that reactivity with the justification and the heat that we can feel.

[00:57:36] Yeah. I I'm continually impressed with how deeply, you know, the model. And so I'm very happy about that, but that's okay. Be a good opportunity to just do this internal family systems therapy by Schwartz and Sweezy, is that the one you recommend? Yeah, well, that's for therapists, but coaches would get a lot out of it too.

[00:58:00] [00:57:59] It's the second that people want to get. I really have been studying it Dick because I've found it very joyful way to getting I am a meditator and I'm a very poor meditator. I'm the first to say that. So finding IFS and realizing, I now have something to bring to my meditate. My daily practice has been very energizing for me and I enjoy doing it now, whereas before it's been quite a challenge.

[00:58:26] And so there's been a lot of joy around that internal journey now because of the guidance that you've provided. One of the things I love about self is in many traditions, in fact, all throughout history, in the spiritual traditions, the Self is a witness, or is a is silent and still, but for you Dick and   IFS the self is very active.

[00:58:47] And shows up and doesn't just witness, can you just flesh that out a little bit? Yeah. Again, you said it really well, and that's a lot of what spiritual traditions are [00:59:00] designed or try to achieve is to have you in that witness consciousness, where you're noticing your thoughts and emotions. You're not bonded with them and you're noticing them maybe from a place of acceptance, but you're pretty passive.

[00:59:15] You're not active with them. You just kind of witness. And for me, it's not compassionate to watch suffering beings’ parade by. So if you think of these as merely thoughts and emotions, it makes sense to separate and just witness. But if you think of them as suffering beings, which is what I feel like they are.

[00:59:39] Yes. Then no, you're not going to just sit there and watch them. You're going to go and try and do what you did with your little one a minute ago. And you're going to become an active leader that they can trust because most of these parts are quite young, even the ones that seem so smart and, and protective [01:00:00] are, you know, usually not more than a teenager and they aren't equipped or run a whole person.

[01:00:09] They actually, when they see that you're not 10 and that you're a good deal, older,

[01:00:16]they get, they get a lot of relief from that. Cause it's like Lord of the flies, you know, it's like a bunch of little kids just trying to make it. And here comes some adult and they, Oh my God. Okay. Yeah. I love it. It's fantastic. One of the things that I'm loving is my daily practice. So if I was to talk about ifs in terms of outcomes, it brings me closer to flow.

[01:00:44] What Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi   talks about that state of flow. To me, it's about helping me experience balance on the inside and on the outside. It helps me know that my outside world is an opportunity for me to learn more about how I've [01:01:00] created my inside world. Is there anything else you would add in terms of that in terms of IFS just regular daily practice?

[01:01:08] Yeah. It's also fascinating as you're finding, you know, who knew there was all this stuff going on inside of you. That is so interesting. And so, so that, and the more you heal these very, very vulnerable exiles. Then the more, the whole system relaxes. And so the goals that  IFS there are four, one is the liberation of these parts from the extreme roles they've forced into, which is what we did really quickly with your a little one.

[01:01:44] And then and then helping those parts start to trust self-more as the leader, both internally and externally, and then re harmonizing the inner system. So not only the parts [01:02:00] liberated from their roles, but they begin to get to know each other and work together. And you'd stopped noticing them very much because they're just doing what they're here to do.

[01:02:10] They're doing what they're designed to do. And it's almost like, I don't know if you ever saw the murmuration of starlings that. With those videos, check it out. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's like, they're working as one organism and you feel much more integrated and there's a kind of beauty to that. And then you can be in the world in a much more integrated way so that your, the things you used to fear doing, you just don't have the same fear about.

[01:02:46] And and that's a lot of what I'm doing with activists and, and you know, the things you used to rely on these intense protectors you don't need anymore. And so you can, like we were saying earlier, [01:03:00] you can see the pain that drives people like Donald Trump and, and, and all those extremes, even while you're not letting him ruin the country.

[01:03:12] And, and then you also are no longer, so afraid to get really, really, really close to an intimate partner cause they can't hurt you in the same way. And so, yeah, there's a lot to be said about it and also you can get hurt, but handle it. It doesn't create this massive flare. It doesn't become an emergency Dick.

[01:03:38] That's the difference for me, I'm still going to get hurt, but it's just not going to turn into an emergency. That's right. It's not going to be an emergency. And when I get hurt, I know to go to the part that was hurt yeah. And comfort and hold it in the way you just did rather than locked away. So that's, that's, we're trying to [01:04:00] bring this to education.

[01:04:01] So the kids learn at an early age. If I get bullied, I don't have to exile the part that got hurt. I can embrace it and unburden it in the moment. Yeah, that's important. So let's talk about coaching and ifs. I can see some really beautiful parallels and some synergies there. One of the first things that I've took from ifs immediately into my coaching.

[01:04:25] So I coach some clients is the beautiful, compassionate sense that whatever's coming up for them. There is going to be compassion for that. part acceptance, not tolerance. It's not even tolerance, it's acceptance and embracing and understand that that part of them was geared at that stage of their development to do the job the best they could.

[01:04:47] And the moment we can relieve them of that job and find out what they'd prefer to do, they then have just co-opted the sense itself. Now has somebody else on their team to help them be all they can  [01:05:00] be. Because I believe coaching really is. I don't think coaching is goal setting. I believe, I think that's so superficial.

[01:05:07] I believe coaching's truest purpose. It is truest core is to help us become our truest selves, to bring us closer to, to knowing, experiencing, and expressing our truest self. That centred self  you speak of. So to me, coaching and IFS works well together because it's a pathway to that. I totally agree with that.

[01:05:31] And very well-spoken. Yeah. It's exactly what I agree with. Another parallel I see with coaching and IFS is this we're talking, we're taught in coaching and NLP. Neuro-linguistic programming that any sign of resistance in a client is poor communication on the coach's part. Whereas IFS turns that completely around and I've embraced it immediately because it's just so it resonates so strongly.

[01:05:56] It's resistance in a client is smart [01:06:00] by the client because there is a part a particular part that isn't feeling safe in that moment and is quite rightly spoken up. And that's an opportunity, again, a Trailhead for us to go and visit that part and do what we do. And I just find that it's got so much flow in it rather than saying, Oh my God, I've communicated poorly when I'm with a really defensive client, because after a while, how do you get in how many hoops as the coach?

[01:06:28] Do I jump through before I say, after all, actually the resistance is really in the client and this is very freeing now to know where to look for that. That's right. And some of that comes from, there was a point where I, where clients were having really bad, like backlash experiences after some of my sessions.

[01:06:51] Yeah. And I started to realize these are delicate ecologies that I'm mucking around, and I better really learn the lay of the land [01:07:00] and how to be an ecologically sensitive Explorer with them. And so the map I described earlier came out of that. It came out of sort of necessity if I was going to keep doing this.

[01:07:14] And what I learned was protectors often have a really good reason to not let you in. And, and if we just try to trick them into letting us that isn't going to either it's not going to work or they're going to have consequences later. Yeah. And so we learned to really respect the pace of the protectors and to get to know them first and honor them for their service and let them know.

[01:07:47] That we're not going anywhere without their permission. So they're the boss and it's our job. It's our job to make a case for why it might be in their best interest to let us [01:08:00] do some of this. But, you know, they know better than us, the potential damage that could happen inside. So we're not going to push them.

[01:08:11] And they've been doing only that job all this time. It's not like they know how to do something else, just because we think we know best. As you say, we have the same goals. We have a very non pathologizing. We share a very non pathologize sort of positive sense of human nature that we convey to clients.

[01:08:33] And at the same time, I think I have has. Offers a language that helps people admit to things a lot more easily. You sell hope Dick because there is a truest self that is in all of us. So we coached the truest self rather than trying to fix something that is incredibly freeing [01:09:00] that is tremendous. That's right.

[01:09:03] And I'm doing a lot of work around racism now in the US and so it's one thing to listen, you know, to have a reaction inside that's racist and think, Oh my God, I'm a racist and shame yourself to death. And to try to lock away the parts that say that, and it's quite another to have that same reaction and then think, Oh, I've got some parts that carry the burden of racism.

[01:09:31] I'm going to get to know them. And, and I'm, it doesn't mean I'm a racist, I, myself, isn't a racist, I've got some parts that carry that legacy burden. So let me just get to know them and see what they need to be able to unload that. And so that's what I'm trying to bring to that whole conversation too. So not only is it make for an easier convert easier to admit to things like that, [01:10:00] but it also you kind of know that you aren't these extreme things that are going on inside of you.

[01:10:06] You're much more than that, but it's also not labeling the person, which I just can't. I don't understand how labeling a person is helpful. I shaming anyone, regardless of it has never helped anybody heal or brought them back into the fold. So anything that helps remove shame and up the compassion. That's the direction we want to start getting the narrative going in.

[01:10:31] It must be the language of compassion. That's the only path we're going to make progress. Totally agree in that, that goes both for inside and outside. If you're working with a client as a coach and the client has a lot of anger, let's say, or yeah. And you're afraid of your own anger, or you have an attitude about your own anger, [01:11:00] then that's going to play out in your relationship with the coach, with the client, or if you're afraid of your own exiles and your client gets very weepy or vulnerable vulnerable, it's going to be very hard for you to stay with them.

[01:11:15] You're going to try and perk them up, you know, or somehow it gets them away from that. Or if you're driven by people pleasing, you're going to bring that to the coaching and not want to challenge the client. It's just, there's so many ways we play out on the client. That's right. So this is a very practical way to get to know all those parts and change those interrelationships.

[01:11:40] And then you can be with people no matter how they are. That's it. One of the gifts Dick just to bring this towards the end. One of the gifts in this I've been teaching attachment theory for some time to some of our coaching students. This is a very different message to attachment theory. And [01:12:00] to me, IFS is the placeholder.

[01:12:02] That must come first. And then you can draw on attachment theory to perhaps indicate where the parts may be. But can you just talk us through how that is? It is quite different. Yeah. I liked the way you put that because. There's much. I love about attachment theory. I think it's a huge gift to humanity. And there is this presumption in it that unless you had a certain kind of parenting during a critical period in your childhood, you don't have any of this stuff that we're calling Self

[01:12:37] you have to get it from somebody from your wife or husband or, or from your therapist. At some point it has to come from an interaction it's not inherent in us. And that, you know, I was a big believer in attachment theory when I started on this journey. Yeah. And it wasn't until I started seeing self in [01:13:00] people who had horrible, horrible childhoods, there was no way you could account for self-showing up this way based on, on what their childhood was like.

[01:13:11] And I started have started thinking. Maybe this is just in us. Maybe it doesn't have to come through and interact. And I also, I'd like to think of IFS as attachment theory taken inside because self becomes the good attachment figure to these insecure or avoidantly attached part. I love that. I love that.

[01:13:36] So that rather than the therapist becoming that or the coach becoming that attachment figure, you're actually promoting the person to become that attachment figure to themselves. And the gift in it, Dick is with IFS the client does the work for themselves. With themselves. You may have an external guide.

[01:13:57] Who's the coach or the therapist that you do the [01:14:00] journey. So you realize how truly empowered you are because every step you take in every step you make its you. No one did it. You can't say my God, you're a great coach. I did that. That was my center itself showing up that's phenomenal. Yeah. And people can do a lot of it on their own.

[01:14:18] So people are, I work with a client, we'll have a good session and then they'll go away and, and follow up. And the first 20 minutes of the next session, they're just telling me everything they did on their own with their parts. Then we go on a little more. So it's empowering. So what are some daily practices?

[01:14:42] So anybody's listened to this podcast. What are some daily practices we can do straight away to come closer to our truest self or at eight C's? Yeah. So a lot of what we've been talking about is doing a U-turn in your focus. Like, are you doing it, [01:15:00] but also why? Oh, you turn so. As you go through the day, you just kind of noticing your inner reactions and particularly noticing the more extreme  lines.

[01:15:12] And instead of acting, based on those reactions, you're using them as trailheads to find these parts that need your attention. And you don't have time during the day, or, you know, in the situation you're in, you kind of bookmark that you say, Oh my goodness, okay, I've got to follow up on this. And then you talk to your coach and your coach helps you follow that trail had defined the part that needs to be healed and, and, or needs more from you or need like we just did.

[01:15:49] And so then life, rather than being so full of things you want to avoid or things that are so irritating. [01:16:00] Everything is Oh, okay. Another f-ing growth opportunity, you know, it's, it's true. All these can help you grow. Yeah. One of the ways I use it in my daily practice stick is I check in with myself throughout the day.

[01:16:17] Am I coming from my center itself? The eight C's or if I'm expressing something that's not one of the eight C's that's to me, an opportunity to reflect on me and what it is that I might be bringing energetically that's causing some imbalance or lack of harmony in this moment. It doesn't mean, so always do something about it.

[01:16:34] I'm not, I'm going to be human. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, you go, you go for it. Don't be the 8 C's  cause I just feel dramatic or whatever. But at least I know now where I'm coming from, whether I'm grounded in me or I'm being taken over, allowed myself to be taken over by this reactivity is the way I look at it.

[01:16:56] So to me, it's a lovely gauge to just check in for myself [01:17:00] on where I'm coming from and my intent in this moment. Very good. Yeah. And that's true for me too. I'll check on the agencies. I also have a few other markers that people are idiosyncratic in this, but I'll check. Do I have a big agenda right now?

[01:17:17] And if I do, then that's a definition of part. Okay. Just step back. Just, just let me handle this or I can tell I'm very auditory so I can tell by my tone of voice, like right now, there's a nice residence of self in my voice when we started out. Probably not as much. So I'm just kind of noting this  how's  my voice right now.

[01:17:44] And then this energy that you experienced for the first time now, I'm just like, do I have much of that energy going okay. It's not just open space, let it all come in. Wow. I love it. I really [01:18:00] encourage anybody viewing this. Who's intrigued  by the inner journey and wondering how to go about that.  IFS is a beautiful, gentle, compassionate, loving meditation to self.

[01:18:11] And there are lots of meditation stick that I've been. Checking out and just experiencing for myself, it's part of my daily practice, but for anybody who wants to get more involved with IFS where would you want to send them? Yeah. So we have a website of course, which is surprisingly ifs-institute.com.

[01:18:32] And on it, there are lots of books. Like the one you talked about and videos. And we also have a, a year subscription online program called the circle online circle program, which is you get a lecture from me every month and from some other trainers. And a lot of people start out doing that. I am coming out with a new book in [01:19:00] July called No Bad Parts through sounds true.

[01:19:05] And that that's available for pre-order now. And yeah. And so we were saying earlier, at some point we really want to start training programs for coaches right now, coaches can join our training programs and there are IFS trainings going in Australia. And but I want to make it coach programs exclusive for coaches that has a curriculum based on the needs of coaches.

[01:19:36] And so we're actively working on that. Well, we want a program that's for nonclinical population. Really that's, that's what a coach would want to tap into the non-clinical aspects. Whereas of course your work comes from very much the clinical end of the spectrum.

[01:19:51]The other thing I recommend is Dick helped me with the title. Is it called the Sum of our Parts it's called Greater  than the Sum of our Parts [01:20:00] that's it? And that's through. Sounds true also. So that's on my that's that's on my audible and I go to a meditation with you daily every day. My favorite is the pathway one.

[01:20:14] This one I've taught some of my coaches really. Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one. I love that. Richard, you are a delight. I am so, so thrilled that we got to have this conversation. Finally. I'm just so delighted with the work that you're doing and I can't wait to see what you'd bring to coaching and what we can do in that space.

[01:20:35] Yeah. I've loved the conversation too. I had no idea that you knew so much about it and were so into it. So it's been a great joy for me. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you, Sharon. And you're a delightful person too. Thank you. I appreciate you're very, very kind. 

[00:01:00] [00:00:00] Sharon: [00:00:00] Everybody welcome to this episode of Perspectives. I am so thrilled to introduce today's guest to you. You may have heard a little bit of his voice before you may have recognized his voice, and I'm not going to reveal his name because I truly believe nearly all of our viewers will know this man have read his book and hopefully be applying some of the messages that are in it.

[00:01:25] He is an extraordinary, innovative, extraordinary human being. He's so warm and generous. He's an entrepreneur. He's definitely a thought leader. He's the author of so far and counting 21 books, including a mega selling business book that really is considered probably, the most important, if not one of the most important business books in the world ever written, he published it in back in 1986, he did a review of it in 1995, and it has been selling as a bestseller since [00:02:00] then, which is incredible. The Wall Street Journal named this book, the number one business book of all time.

[00:02:06] It sold millions of copies. Its expertise has been applied throughout businesses throughout the world in 29 languages, the world's number one, small business guru because of his series of books. And since founding his organization and a number of different companies, he has served in excess of a hundred thousand small business clients, helping them successfully transform their business, including my businesses.

[00:02:38] His dream is to transform the state of small business worldwide. This is of course, Michael Gerber. He's a fabulous human being. We met way back in 2006. We were at a convention together. I had a very baby stage. He had a much, a biggest stage and I managed to catch him just as he was going on stage. And I shared with him a challenge I was having.

[00:03:00] [00:02:59] Straight out having just met me. He said, you need to get over your narcissistic urge to be on stage, being the only one who can deliver that thing that needs to stop right now. Then he swept off onto stage and I thought all hell, Michael Gerber, there he goes. Then later I got into a smaller room. I paid the upsell.

[00:03:17] I got into a smaller ring. That was just 20 of us. And I was the only one who asked questions. I apologized at one point for taking up the whole time, but I had Michael Gerber for an hour. So he's book, the E-Myth, is obviously the book I was speaking about . The E-Myth and the message he gave me has been the backbone, the vision, the guiding posts for how I've built my coaching businesses.

[00:03:44] I credit the systems at our businesses. And how I've replaced myself in my businesses with Michael Gerber and his message in the E-Myth. It is considered one of the top business books ever written, but he's written others as well. So we're going to be talking in this conversation [00:04:00] about The E-Myth Revisited, Awaken the Entrepreneur Within and Beyond the E-Myth.

[00:04:04] And I'm going to be asking him at the end about what is a legacy. The message is so simple in the E-Myth and in the books he's written yet seems so smoky to too many people. I really trust this podcast, helps anybody viewing it, how to think about their lives and their businesses and how they are creating their legacy.

[00:04:26] And here he is without further await awaiting, Mr. Michael Gerber. Hey, Michael. Hello. 

[00:04:35] Michael: [00:04:35] How are you? I'm good. I'm fine. How are you? Well,

[00:04:46] well, you're wonderful. 

[00:04:50] Sharon: [00:04:50] I've been doing my reading. Wonderful. I read them in sequence. I read The EMyth Revisited, then Awakening the [00:05:00] Entrepreneur Within and then Beyond the EMyth in 2016. And I noticed the, the story act -was that by design? So I noticed the hero's journey that you had in the three.

[00:05:15] Was that a deliberate or my just over noticing something that wasn't there. 

[00:05:23] Michael: [00:05:23] First of all, you're not over noticing anything. I can absolutely promise you that. On the other hand, the books showed up at the time they were called to show up. So, no, I didn't plan from the very beginning at revisited that I wouldn’t be right.

[00:05:44] Awakening the Entrepreneur within I didn't plan it - it just showed up. So I might say that my entire history has [00:06:00] been simply, it just showed up and I, I, so I'm not going to take credit for some grand scheme. Yeah. Um, all be it that the grand scheme does exist.

[00:06:17] Sharon: [00:06:17] It is. So to me, there's the ordinary world. So in the hero's journey, I think you're familiar with Joseph Campbell's work in the, yes, the hero has a thousand mass or a hundred mass, a lot of mass. This one is ordinary world to me, pointing out why ordinary world should be painful to us. And we'll oversee, unpack this in more detail for our viewers who aren't familiar with your work, which would be staggering, like three people.

[00:06:43] But to me, this was ordinary world pointing out why the problem is and why staying there should be painful. And then you give indications on where the extraordinary world is. Then we get into this book and you really paying a great and magnificent picture of the universe. When you [00:07:00] get out of ordinary world and into extraordinary world.

[00:07:02] And in this one, you show us how to be your own hero, which to me is the ultimate mythological journey that ultimately, we should be inspiring ourselves. So by the time we get to this book, I almost felt like a graduate. I felt like I was I'd graduated too. 

[00:07:20] Michael: [00:07:20] Well, it's wonderful the way you envision it.

[00:07:25] Um, the way you've interpreted it. And I say, it's wonderful because you're bringing your own experience to the listener, to the reader, to the thinker, the dreamer, the storyteller, the leader, you're bringing your own experience to it. And as you bring your own experience to it, you're bringing that internal life forum that has revealed itself to you.

[00:07:52] Sharon: [00:07:52] Yeah, that's how I saw it. And it meant a lot to me that I felt that you were with me as I built my business all those years ago. [00:08:00] So it has been very significant to the building of our businesses. E-Myth is where it began for me. The E-Myth is required reading for entire (TCI) curriculum. So, so far that would be in existence.

[00:08:13] That's literally tens of thousands of people. I consider it. The first book people should read when they're endeavoring to start a business. Because as you say in the E-Myth, don't start the business until you recognize yourself and what you're going to do wrong. If you don't have this information. So to me, it's you, you don't start the Monopoly game until, you know, the game to me, you don't start the business until, you know, the game you're about to play.

[00:08:41] And most people start not even knowing the game they signed up for. They're playing Scrabble when they're actually playing Monopoly. They don't 

[00:08:50] Michael: [00:08:50] even know what a game. 

[00:08:52] Sharon: [00:08:52] Yes. 

[00:08:54] Michael: [00:08:54] Because they don't even know what to game. They're completely absorbed [00:09:00] in self. And not self in the, with the great S but self with the little less, I'm doing it, doing it, doing self, doing it, doing it, doing itself, then want to be doing it doing itself.

[00:09:16] And it's such a tragedy. It's such a tragedy because we both know, we all know as we're speaking about this year, um, that, that little self, um, absorbed as he or she. Um, invariably is, um, misses the whole point of self and it is a tragedy and it breeds a tragedy and we become absorbed in that tragedy to the point where there is no future beyond that little self, as I say, doing it, [00:10:00] doing it, doing it, doing it busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.

[00:10:04] So yeah, they're unaware of the game. We're about to play. And that's what revisit it was all about the game we're about to play. And my primary aim, my strategic objective, my organizational strategy, my management strategy might, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I’m working on it, not in it, working on it, not in it, working above it, beyond it and so forth and so forth.

[00:10:32] And that's the key to this game that you've been playing you individually had been playing and then you've been inviting every single one of your clients I presume to play. 

[00:10:49] Sharon: [00:10:49] Yes. Yeah. I really took on board a couple of times. You've said particularly about coaches because obviously one of the business I have is a coaching school.

[00:10:58] Uh, [00:11:00] Coaches to me. And I do want to unpack the E-Myth and talk about the principles of the book for those who aren't familiar with a malicious dive into what really struck me, Michael was - I think coaches have the biggest entrepreneurial seizure of them. All practitioners who think the skill is the business, the doing of that coaching session of selling one hour of their time is the point is missing the point.

[00:11:27] And Michael I've been saying for 18 years, 18 years, I have been speaking this language of how are you replacing yourself? And we designed the program. So anybody who wants to replace themselves can, but still do you notice people's, uh, vision. To letting go of the technician. You must see it the way I see it.

[00:11:50] They're just holding on so tight to their hourly rate. Yeah, of 

[00:11:55] Michael: [00:11:55] course. And it's been that way since the very beginning. And it [00:12:00] continues today. Um, the solar preneur thing, um, which is, um, sort of agreeing there's an entrepreneur. Um, within that, just to get beyond that so that we can get back to doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it, and creating this whole mythology.

[00:12:26] That is so destructive of the solopreneur. Um, there is no such thing as a solopreneur. There never has been. There never will be. It's simply a guy doing it, doing it and doing it, doing it and missing the entire freaking point. So yes, that you've been so invested in driving your students beyond that at the coach level and with the clients of that coach, speaks [00:13:00] magnitudes about what you've been attempting to do.

[00:13:06] I don't know how successfully you've done that. Other than to say that I know you've succeeded at growing an enterprise. Yeah, upon that. 

[00:13:18] Sharon: [00:13:18] I think we hit some success. Well, okay. So we have lots of success with the people who hear the message the way I heard you. So I simply am an advocate of that message that I heard from you all those years ago, because I studied the E-Myth when I started my business and the way I feel about it, Michael if this I can, in all conscience know I have the successes I've had with my coaching school.

[00:13:42] If I hadn't given my students, the reason why I have this success. So for every minute we teach them a coaching skill. I have to, I also match it with one minute. So for every hour of coaching skill, there was an hour of training. And how to think about working on your business because I [00:14:00] canl conscience it two decades later.

[00:14:02] So I've had all this success because I built an enterprise that replaced me. I haven't worked to my business for nearly 10 years now, whilst I just taught everybody else had to just be stuck in their businesses. So the message has been very consistent, mainly for my conscience, because I couldn't look at people and say, I want you to sell your time for money, because that will help me.

[00:14:23] So the message has been there all the way through the people who come to us because they want to feel great about themselves. That's what they get the people who want to have some part time income. That's what they get. People want full-time income and just love coaching the practitioner. I encourage them to stay in their lane.

[00:14:40] You don't have to become an entrepreneur. You don't have to replace yourself as long as you know that when you go on holiday, so does your income, and that's what you want to sign up for. We will teach you that. And then there's the next cohort who say, well, I'm going to learn the skill, turn it into a system so I can step back and [00:15:00] replicate myself.

[00:15:01] So we have four distinct groups throughout our programs. 

[00:15:05] Michael: [00:15:05] I got it. To me, in my mindset, so to speak is to continually challenge the first, the second, the third to come face to face with the fourth. Yes, because in my heart, my soul in my spirit, that when one fails to do that, they fail to take themselves on to the degree that is simply waiting for them to do that.

[00:15:46] And when they fail to do that, they're failing to bring to those students, their coaching, the true spirit that is possible, [00:16:00] once they awaken to it. So it's like each and every one of them, the first and the second and the third. And then the fourth is simply a potentially a movable object, who I'm determined to upset.

[00:16:30] Sharon: [00:16:30] That's it perfectly 70%. So a hundred percent start here, 70% end up in the fourth cohort. We just the whole time just,

[00:16:43] Michael: [00:16:43] and you're saying, and you're saying, join me. Yeah, that's what you're, it's an invitation. It's not an exclusive creation. It's an invitation. Join me, join me. I live in a world you've never [00:17:00] seen before I live in an experience you've never had before. Join me, join me. I know you enjoy where you are. I know you feel safe where you are.

[00:17:11] I know you feel productive where you are and all of those are self-righteous and probably true, but they're not the game that's waiting. To be played info. Yeah. Discover who you could potentially bring to this table in order to transform the state of the people you're engaging with every day. So you get to do that.

[00:17:45] And so, because you get to do that, what else are you going to do? I mean, what else is 

[00:17:55] Sharon: [00:17:55] there to do? What else is there to do that to [00:18:00] me, you, you are the song that needs to be sung and everything else is the harmony. So the message of the E-Myth revisited to me is the major song. It's the backbone that should guide any movement towards building a business.

[00:18:14] And I know you had your own epiphany Michael, many years ago, not too many years ago, it was like yesterday, but you had your first epiphany when it's incredible story. If anybody who anybody, if the millions of people could possibly not have read the E-Myth revisited, the I'm speaking to two people right now, there is a moment in their book where you share that you, you knew there was a piece missing.

[00:18:37] And it was a blinding flash of this is so obvious once you saw it. Can you tell us, do you mind repeating that story? Because I think it's an might 

[00:18:47] Michael: [00:18:47] I can, uh, you're going to have to lead me into it. 

[00:18:52] Sharon: [00:18:52] Allow drop a few more breadcrumbs for you. It's the moment you realize this in [00:19:00] 1977 and you walked into a McDonald's hamburger joint.

[00:19:03] Uh, 

[00:19:04] Michael: [00:19:04] not enough. Okay. Well, sure. It's more than enough. I walked into a McDonald's hamburger joint to get a hamburger. And I suddenly came to realize that this McDonald's hamburger joint was significantly beyond what I went there to get. What I actually got was the realization of what a system truly meant.

[00:19:42] I became enraptured by the. Possibility that I could do the very same thing in short, that I was going to create the McDonald's of small business development services that McDonald's of [00:20:00] small business coaching services that McDonald's of small business consulting services. And my dream, um, truly came to me at that point that I'm going to transform the state of small business worldwide.

[00:20:15] And the only way that could be done is if I did what Ray Kroc did at McDonald's. So yeah, I saw the franchise and I fell in love with it. I realized that it was the first time I'd actually understood it as I did in that very. The library compelling moment. It struck me. And it's true when I say this, that this is how it happens with entrepreneurs.

[00:20:53] It finds you, you don't find it, but you have to be [00:21:00] a blank piece of paper. And beginner's mind at the process ensured there has to be something completely out of the way. You have to be completely open to the possibility that something astonishing is going to happen to me and that something is finishing is waiting to happen.

[00:21:20] So when you talked about your realization, something astonishing happened to you, as you experienced the E-Myth revisited and allowed it to take you in. It was that Holy moly experience. It's that sudden seeing. And that sudden seeing is unlike anything else that happens to us. And thank God it's happening.

[00:21:53] Sharon: [00:21:53] Thanks. I'm glad it happened for me, but I have to say, Mike, I see a lot of people who see the message here, the message you grew with the [00:22:00] message and then ignore it. So they're not having to me the obvious of epiphany. 

[00:22:05] Michael: [00:22:05] No, of course they ignored because they're afraid of it. They're afraid of it. You understand?

[00:22:13] It's just, it's just that they're afraid of it because they are challenged by it to become someone they're terrified. They'll never become. I can't do that. I can't do that is what rises within them. I can't do that. I can't do that. And what if I did, what if I did, what then? What would happen? You follow me.

[00:22:44] Sharon: [00:22:44] Yeah. And it's also, I don't know how to do that, but of course. 

[00:22:48] Michael: [00:22:48] Yeah, of course. I don't know how to do that. I've never done that. I have no idea, but 

[00:22:53] Sharon: [00:22:53] yeah, all I've done is sold my time for money. I don't understand that it could be any other way. [00:23:00] Well, 

[00:23:00] Michael: [00:23:00] I see that knowing my time for money is so hard anyway.

[00:23:04] Yes. Yeah. It's so hard. And it, I mean to then think about going beyond spelling my time for money and actually creating a methodology through which everybody could sell their time for money, meaning replacing myself in that. It's just. Far too threatening. 

[00:23:29] Sharon: [00:23:29] Hm. And I do notice that people who have, are exposed to the message long enough, eventually start hearing it sometime for you use walked into McDonald's for me, I picked up the E-Myth and I met you for the very first time.

[00:23:43] That was enough. But for others, repetition becomes, starts breeding familiarity, which breeds more comfort. I have noticed as people have moved throughout programs, they get more comfortable with the idea of letting go of the tightness and starting to look at the, on instead of in the business. Have you noticed that [00:24:00] as well, that sometimes familiarity helps the epiphany become a reality?

[00:24:05] Michael: [00:24:05] Well, yes. I've noticed it because they become more familiar with the store. My co-author of the E-Myth HVHC. Contractor, Ken Goodrich when he started with the events, not when he started as an HPAC contractor, but when he started with the E-Myth and that's after he failed as an HVHC contractor, he read the book, then he read the book a second time.

[00:24:41] Ken Goodrich read the book 39 times. Yes. Yeah. Think about that. 

[00:24:46] Sharon: [00:24:46] 39 times. I read it five times in my fifth year in business. 

[00:24:54] Michael: [00:24:54] You're as crazy as I am. What can I? Yeah, but it struck me, it [00:25:00] struck me, it struck me, it struck me and each time he read it, he saw something more. Each time he read it, he saw something more.

[00:25:08] So each time he saw something more, he was capable of thinking beyond where he was to grade something he'd never done before. Yeah. So yes, I have seen that. I know that. I've heard that again and again and again and again. Unfortunately, and sadly, I just don't hear it enough. I wish I could hear it.

[00:25:35] A million times, you understand that literally we could transform the state of entrepreneurship worldwide. You and I could actually do that to a degree. Never imagined possible before. 

[00:25:54] Sharon: [00:25:54] Yes I 

[00:25:55] Michael: [00:25:55] do. Yep. If somehow, if some way we [00:26:00] were able to literally drag them, kicking and shaking and whatever they were to get them to do the first thing.

[00:26:12] And then the second thing, and then the third thing and in the process of get, getting them to do the first thing and the second thing, and the third thing. Suddenly the fourth thing would get done almost on its own. 

[00:26:27] Sharon: [00:26:27] Yes, that's right. And that in and get out of the inertia the way I see you've got to get out of the initial inertia.

[00:26:35] It's like getting a rocket ship out of gravity and the rock, the energy it takes to get the rocket ship going is massive. And I get that first burn is hard, but the burn gets easier as gravity gets less. And eventually we're just, it's automatic. But people got to get past that first rocket burn. Cause that burn, it hurts.

[00:26:54] Michael: [00:26:54] Yes. And they've got to get past it. There's no question, but they have to get past 

[00:26:59] Sharon: [00:26:59] it [00:27:00] and they have to go through 

[00:27:01] Michael: [00:27:01] it. Yeah, yeah. Right. You can't do it for them. You can't do it for them. You can't do it for them. You can't take that pain away. Yeah. That's cheating but the truth is once that pain is experienced, once they break through that barrier, it takes them the next step and the next step and the next step.

[00:27:31] And suddenly they're in a liberation stage, which is a state all of its own. Yeah. So our job, your job, my job, your job, more than my job now in these days, um, your job is to see that through. Yep , no matter what your job is to see that through your job, isn't to say. But it's too difficult for it's too difficult for your [00:28:00] job.

[00:28:00] Isn't to pass that your job is to pursue that with everything you've got. 

[00:28:08] Sharon: [00:28:08] Yup. Yup. I love that. I can you share with our viewers plays Michael from the E-Myth a little bit about this fatal assumption, the assumption that if we understand the technical work, that somehow we'll have a business model, can you share this fatal assumption, which I really think is the entrepreneurial seizure that you talk so beautifully about.

[00:28:28] Can you introduce our viewers to your thinking around that? 

[00:28:32] Michael: [00:28:32] Well, the fatal assumption is that if I can do what I've set out to do, then it will liberate me to do more. Um, and it's just not true. Um, I had this great [00:29:00] conversation with a wonderful partner of mine and there is a. Process that is called for it to awaken the entrepreneur within that requires one to think turnkey, if one is ever to do turnkey and until one does turnkey, one will never become turn key.

[00:29:40] Yeah. So it's a process. One has to engage in that is transformational. I've said to Mark saying it to you. I'll say it to the world that the word is transformation. [00:30:00] Transformation is the key transformation means. To go beyond what I know to be true, discover what I will never know how to do until I've passed through that window of

[00:30:29] transformation. Okay. Um, transformation is what occurs and it occurs to a degree that is in some sense of the word, um, terrifying. That's why most don't it's terrifying because what we're really asking people to do is to become [00:31:00] who they aren't, not who they are, who they, aren't not who they are. When I talk about a blank piece of paper and beginner's mind to become who you aren't rather than who you are.

[00:31:20] And there's no experience that will enable one to grow comfortable with the possibility of becoming who I'm not, who I'm not is everything that's waiting in. The wings speaking. In a strange language,

[00:31:50] somebody who is caught up in who I am,

[00:31:58] tragically [00:32:00] consumed by who I 

[00:32:01] Sharon: [00:32:01] am. And by what I do by what I do is by what's in front of us, not what's who 

[00:32:09] Michael: [00:32:09] I am is what I do. What I do was, yeah, I am. That's why I say until I,

[00:32:18] until I truly understand it, turn key. I will never become turnkey. And until I become turn key, I'll never truly understand the transformation that occurs in that. Not glib moment. Yeah. Now I don't know whether that makes sense to anybody we're talking to right now. 

[00:32:53] Sharon: [00:32:53] I'm going to give you an example of it now.

[00:32:55] So I remember our conversation. So we had two conversations that day. There [00:33:00] was the conversation where it was the narcissistic seizure that you slapped me for. That was fantastic. And then we went into a smaller room cause I bought a ticket to your very elite room and it was, I always get into the smallest rooms wherever I can, Michael, where the biggest investment is going to be the smallest room, which means the most access Michael, there were.

[00:33:18] 1520 people in that room. And not one person asked you a question. I was the only person who asked you a question. It blew my mind. So I had this whole hour of you mentoring me in front of 20 other people. I'll take it any day of the week. It was fantastic. So we discussed when we're about to share with you.

[00:33:37] I, what I did to build this business and it's turned over hundreds of millions of dollars is the following. I started out with the E-Myth. This is a true story guys. I started out with this book and Michael's advice, which I'm happy to share right now. It's basically the E-Myth. And I was a technician knowing I was a technician with very little skill [00:34:00] in anything I needed.

[00:34:02] I set out, in the E-Myth the skills I needed in advance. So ahead of me, Michael, I had a blueprint of all the categories of skills I would need. To follow your message. And they were all empty. None of them had anything written in them. I didn't know how to do any of it. So, business skills, marketing skills, sales skills, leadership skills, delegation, project management, skills, performance management skills, finance skills, seven categories were blank.

[00:34:33] And I didn't even have coaching skills. So, I had this blank. So, they want, I did was I began filling in where I was. So, I started getting some coaching skills and developing speaking skills. As I did that, I began documenting what worked. That was my first move towards replacing me. So, every step I took that worked with a client and was really successful and quote on, because I was very, very successful coach.

[00:34:59] I [00:35:00] documented, as I documented it, I put it into a system. I was creating my first client fulfillment system. Didn't have the language for this, but that's what I was doing. This is for anybody listening, it's not just coaches, its consultants, practitioners, justas anybody who thinks they are stuck in the, doing the, doing the doing it.

[00:35:19] Isn't true. So I began documenting it. Then I began looking for patents in the system, Michael. So I knew it'd be a progressive turnkey system that someone else could walk through. Then I began having little groups. Exactly. As you did testing and asking them, what is it you want? What is it you need? How is this going to work for you?

[00:35:40] What's your greatest fear? What's your greatest concern. What's keeping you awake at night. And I began building that into the system. Then I had my first training where I charged for it and I started revealing it and I got more feedback. And as I did that, I began building the skills in the other seven areas.

[00:35:58] I went from zero to a [00:36:00] million dollars profit in two years. In my fourth year, I made $4 million following a 300 page book and one hour of your advice. So that's somebody who had no coaching skills when they began, I had to learn all of this and at the end of that, so at the 12 year mark, I had an entire vision for myself and we get to talk about personal transformation.

[00:36:24] In a moment, I had a vision for myself. Michael is one of the things you said to me was, it's not a business transformation. It's a personal transformation. I had no idea what you meant, but I went away and thought about it. So what is the personal transformation I need? I need to grow into the person who can handle this because today this person can't handle any of that.

[00:36:44] I can't handle. Having a team. I couldn't handle the finances at that level. So I had to grow personally to keep up with what I expected to be my legacy in my business. And I had a 12 year plan to replace myself. And on the [00:37:00] 12th year I walked out of my business and I'd replaced myself. And now haven't worked in this business.

[00:37:05] That's doing better without me in the last eight and a half years, simply by following all of these steps. So I am the biggest advocate that this is doable for us. 

[00:37:17] Michael: [00:37:17] So you've just described the evolution of an enterprise, a company of one to a company of 1000. You've just described beyond the E-Myth the evolution of an enterprise from a company of one to a company of 1000.

[00:37:32] You literally did it. Yup. Yup. By step by step, 

[00:37:37] Sharon: [00:37:37] by step, by step by step. 

[00:37:39] Michael: [00:37:39] Yep. Exactly. As I defined it, In that book that you bought for $12. So hear me, 

[00:37:51] Sharon: [00:37:51] I paid $500 for that hour with you.

[00:37:57] Michael: [00:37:57] You spent for that hour with me, [00:38:00] but we never spent any more time after that. You took it. You got it. You did it. You took it. You got it. You did it. I want to say to you how extraordinary. That is how extraordinary that is and what a gift that is to every single human being you work with and your company's work with since and what a gift that's going to be when you actually go beyond that too, because while you've arrived at a space and a place that very few people will ever arrive at, you're still on your way.

[00:38:47] Sharon: [00:38:47] Yes, 

[00:38:49] Michael: [00:38:49] you are still on your way. Yeah, and that's gotta be immensely 

[00:38:56] Sharon: [00:38:56] exciting to you. It's wonderful. [00:39:00] Rereading your books makes me realize the gaps that we have, that we haven't taken care of everything. So we're doing what you did recently. We're going back and relooking and redefining how this needs to be based on your message.

[00:39:13] So my husband and I J JP and I we've spent the last three days discussing your books. We've both been devouring them again and asking ourselves questions about our businesses based on, we just were Gerber-ing everything. Just so you know, the, every business we have, I don't know how many we own. We're Gerber-ing all our businesses right now, that's become part of our new policy in the company.

[00:39:37] Michael: [00:39:37] I love it. I absolutely love it. 

[00:39:41] Sharon: [00:39:41] So let's go right back to a very basic step. There are three levels of thinking the way. Michael sees things. So there's the technician, the doing the, doing the doing there's the manager who is meant to monitor, manage and measure the systems that make the, doing the, doing the doing possible.

[00:39:58] And then the [00:40:00] entrepreneur who has even stepped beyond that and is leading and inspiring the manager to manage the systems and to bring the vision to life. What do you see is preventing people moving from technician? Let's just get them to manager. Let's just get them to that first step. What do you think the block is?

[00:40:20] Or what's the biggest challenge you see that we can help them with? Well, 

[00:40:24] Michael: [00:40:24] the biggest challenge is actually expecting them to, okay, so hear me. The reason they don't is because we don't expect them to. So in most organizations, there is very little expectation of the evolution. Of the enterprise, Eric, we have a technician, who's doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it.

[00:40:50] They're either bad at it. They're mediocre at it, or they're good at it. And a handful of very, very small handful are expert at it. [00:41:00] What Ben, nobody wishes to do is to take the expert at it. And move them on to become a manager of that, because we don't want to lose the results they produce as an expert at that.

[00:41:16] So the thing that's missing in the organization is literally the expectation that everyone moves, 

[00:41:23] Sharon: [00:41:23] that you're really shortsighted, 

[00:41:25] Michael: [00:41:25] everyone moves, and that means up or out 

[00:41:32] Sharon: [00:41:32] up or out. Yep. Or across I've had people in my company who decided they're not going to ever be an expert in that thing. And they've go found another thing in our company where they can bring their passion to lighter.

[00:41:43] We can be. Yeah. 

[00:41:44] Michael: [00:41:44] But you understand, you asked the question, so what what's missing and what's missing is the expectation that everyone moves 

[00:41:56] Sharon: [00:41:56] in their own business. What's missing for them. Why, [00:42:00] why does a coach just stay 

[00:42:03] Michael: [00:42:03] Included, that is, it's never been a mindset that effectively says I'm only going to do this until this occurs.

[00:42:16] I'm here to make that occur. In short, I'm not here to make this occur continuously. The system is here to do that. I'm here to move beyond that work, to grow that work to the point that that work can work an exponentially greater degree than it's capable of doing right now. I'm here to grow my enterprise.

[00:42:44] I'm here to grow the company. From a company of one to a company of 1000. So there is not that there. And if that's not there, it doesn't happen. You understand it, it has to, it has to live in the [00:43:00] mind and heart and soul of the individual we're speaking to. So how does that occur? Yeah, that has to occur through the interface that individual has with a leader.

[00:43:18] So there has to be expectation that everybody moves. Everybody moves. Yeah. His expectation is that most people don't in short that if I can find somebody who's really good at this, I want to keep them doing this because. Not doing this means they're going to be ineffective at doing that. Yes. So the expectation is an inhibitor.

[00:43:55] Sharon: [00:43:55] I think this is same for business owners, all for technicians who are in their own [00:44:00] businesses. They don't have that expectation of themselves. Even though they hear the message there.  I come across a lot of people who can't envision how they would move out of selling their time for money too.

[00:44:14] They don't know what to work on when I say work on your business. And even when we explain the steps, which are all available, they still seem to have this gap that that can happen for themselves. 

[00:44:26] Michael: [00:44:26] Well, of course it's. Yes, but yes, but yes, but as you heard it, you know, it, you recognize it. And it's right there in the way of anything magical happening.

[00:44:39] Um, there is no magic possible when the, the thinking about it is so steroid sterility of that position, one takes that is so inhibiting. Yeah. [00:45:00] So that's why very, very simple. That's why so transform that. And you suddenly find yourself in a new world. 

[00:45:08] Sharon: [00:45:08] One of the things you talk about beautifully and passionately about Michael is none of this is for business.

[00:45:13] All of this is for life and that this is a personal transcending journey to get there. You definitely think very, big picture. I love the way you think the big picture you see that if this mind isn't operating at that level, none of this doing. The way we want to change, it can happen. You speak about transformation and transcending that we need to work on our lives.

[00:45:39] If we expect our business to transcend as well. Can you speak to that a little bit? I love when you speak about that, because I do believe my business is there to support the life I want to have it isn't that my life is my business. 

[00:45:54] Michael: [00:45:54] I had a wonderful conversation, a continuing conversation in, [00:46:00] with a small group participating in what we call Radical U.

[00:46:04]  Radical You is our new school, for awakening the entrepreneur within ordinary people. And, I created a small group as a test of students who were going through the normal curriculum of Radical You. So they can get some experience of feedback in the conversation that's awakened in each of these weekly classes.

[00:46:41] And this particular conversation arose within a lovely gentleman from Israel who happens to be a real estate agent, independent agent. And I introduced him to my [00:47:00] co-author of the E-Myth real estate agent. And he said to me, a few meetings back. He said, when he met him, he simply took it for granted that the guy knew something that he would be best.

[00:47:25] Committed to learn, but he never truly appreciated the profound, profound impact that it could have on him. He said, I feel so ashamed that I didn't value the profound life force that just meeting that man would bring to me. [00:48:00] Yeah. And he said, it just struck me one moment. It was like this own, my God.

[00:48:10] He's talking about my life. Yeah. He's not talking about real estate. He's talking about my life. He continued to say that. And all of the experiences he's shared in this group, I have about 23 students in this group. They all come, we all come together every other week. As he's sharing this, he is sharing this with tears, and this is a man in his early fifties.

[00:48:49] He's describing the profound meaning of this to his life, to his [00:49:00] relationship, with his children, to his relationship, with his wife, to his relationship, with his clients, to his relationship, with his work. And he's describing this. With such passion that is so far beyond

[00:49:24] income so far beyond. 

[00:49:28] Sharon: [00:49:28] Yes.

[00:49:33] Michael: [00:49:33] Okay. It says though, when you say, how could I possibly have been alive in this work without what he shared with me? I felt so ashamed. He said today

[00:49:55] too. So missed the point. Hmm. [00:50:00] So when we speak about that, It's far beyond any language we can bring to the task. 

[00:50:13] Sharon: [00:50:13] Yes. Yes. I love that 

[00:50:15] Michael: [00:50:15] life, Michael. It's my life. My God. It's my life. You're speaking about not my job. 

[00:50:30] Sharon: [00:50:30] Yup. How I view me? Who am I? And I'm not the task in front of me. I just not, I'm the legacy.

[00:50:39] I'm the vision. I'm what I'm. If I don't inspire me, I'm not doing it right. I've gotta be my inspiration. That's what it is to me, Michael, 

[00:50:50] Michael: [00:50:50] if I don't rise to this occasion, To experience the [00:51:00] eloquence of it. I've missed everything. 

[00:51:05] Sharon: [00:51:05] Yeah. And it's worth saying for anybody who's viewing this or listening to this and not getting it it's worth pursuing until you get it.

[00:51:14] Just start with the E-Myth Revisited or go to Radical U.com and just start somewhere with exposing yourself to this type of thinking. That's what I did, Michael. It was very foreign to me. I'd been raised on sell, sell an hour for 25 bucks. So that sounds just mind blowing. I just trained my brain in your thinking when I began.

[00:51:42] I just trained my brain in how you thought about it. So I read this book many times. I just kept thinking, how would my, how do I need to look about this? So I'm applying the E-Myth. Am I letting myself right now down right now, because I'm not thinking about this in terms of a visionary. And I just kept challenging myself because you give so many ways to [00:52:00] look at it.

[00:52:00] Michael, it's doable for all of us. If we're willing to stop stagnating on yesterday's thinking and challenge what goes in here, it's all about how we think. Everything we build is an idea. That's all it is. It is not the next widget that we're turning out. It's the idea of what that widget represents.

[00:52:19] That's the widget, is a widget to a technician, to a manager and as a system and to a visionary and a later, and our entrepreneur, it is freedom. It’s a widget it a fricking widget. 

[00:52:33] Michael: [00:52:33] Well, and the only thing that you folks who are listening to us ramble on right now need to know is it's all real. You understand, this is not something were concocting out of thin air.

[00:52:50] It's all real. It's real for us. The experience is alive in us. And what we're saying to you, and this is [00:53:00] what's so important about is it can be alive to you as well. And if it isn't. You're paying an enormous price for the loss of it. 

[00:53:14] Sharon: [00:53:14] Yes. 

[00:53:15] Michael: [00:53:15] You just got to do the work. You just got to do the work. Hear me.

[00:53:19] You're just got to do the work. And the beauty of it is it's all spelled out for you. It's a freaking system. 

[00:53:27] Sharon: [00:53:27] It is a system. Let's talk about that. Yes. So one of the things you say is systems enable you to keep your word. I believe, systems equal trust. Consistency in systems, equal trust. And I think that's parallel to the way you look at it.

[00:53:44] If something is chaotic, unreliable, inconsistent, made up on the spot, I don't believe that person's put the thought into it necessary for me to entrust them with my dollar. My dollar goes two way. There is consistency, [00:54:00] stability, replicability, and sustainability. That's what I'm looking for. Then I know there's the potentiality for a relationship in business.

[00:54:09] Michael: [00:54:09] Yes. And that exists right now, um, with everything you do. Every single day and anyone who's sitting here with us right now can put their faith in that because it's worked for ordinary people in extraordinary ways, again and again, and again, and again, it's the system stupid. That's the genius of McDonald's it's the system stupid.

[00:54:37] You're going to have 37,000 stores throughout the world doing one thing one way called our way McDonald's way and produce and replicate that identical experience again and again and again and again and again, which means that you and I can do that. [00:55:00] And hear me if I'm saying, which means you and I can do that.

[00:55:04] Holy moly, what else do I want? But the integrity of that fact, that I've just stated that you and I can do that. We can, we can do that. And we have, and that's, what's so absolutely exciting about that. We have done that and now you 

[00:55:26] Sharon: [00:55:26] can. Yup. That's true. We're going to move into awaking, the entrepreneur within, and I love what you say on balance.

[00:55:34] I you're the first person I've met, who feels the same way I do about balance. I believe FA it's a figment of our imagination. I think it's arbitrary. Eight hours, eight hours, eight hours. You don't go on holiday and do eight hours, eight hours, eight hours. So why in your real life do you do eight, eight and eight.

[00:55:50] If your passions flowing and you've got the vision, you just do the foot. What do you want? You want people who want balance to me, to worried [00:56:00] about, , stability and sameness and stagnation. Is there anything you'd want to speak to about that? Michael? We want to wake up entrepreneurs who are listening.

[00:56:11] Michael: [00:56:11] You hear me hear me? Uh, let, let me speak to it in a prophetic way. That the entrepreneur is actually four distinct people. Yes. A dreamer, a thinker, a storyteller, and a leader. The dreamer has a dream. The thinker has a vision. The storyteller has a purpose and the leader has a mission. So our job, because I'm saying we're going to awaken the true entrepreneur within every human being who says.

[00:56:50] Helped me the job is to discover the dream, the vision, the purpose, and the mission. So that's what we do. What [00:57:00] we call it the dreaming room. We engage an individual, any individual who says, take me there, take me there. If you dare take me there. I want to discover what you mean. When you say the dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller, and the leader.

[00:57:19] I have a dream. I have a vision. I have a purpose. I have a mission. Take me there. And what we do in Radical U is to take an individual through that process.

[00:57:30] Sharon: [00:57:30] That's 

[00:57:30] Michael: [00:57:30] right. That. One can say I have a dream. In my case, my dream was to transform the state of small business worldwide, have a dream to transform the state of small business.

[00:57:44] Worldwide. Every single human being on the planet must have a dream. Because without a dream, it's just what it's just doing it, doing it, doing it. [00:58:00] So I'm saying we're going to awaken the entrepreneur within every human being on the planet by discovering your dream. And I've written it down to transform this state of blank worldwide.

[00:58:14] Yup. What's your blank. And simply the question, what's your blank. That's the great result you're here to produce. That's what a dream is a great result. You're here to produce. The second is your vision and your vision is the form your company is going to take. So in my case way back then in 1977, I had a dream to transform the state of small business worldwide.

[00:58:45] My vision. Was to invent the McDonald's of small business consulting services. Get it McDonald's was that template, the model that [00:59:00] I utilized in order to envision the company I was setting out to create. So I had a great result to produce my dream, to transform the state of small business worldwide and the vision of the company to which I would achieve that result.

[00:59:19] And that was my vision. The next question became, so what's my purpose. The dreamer has a dream. The thinker has a vision. The storyteller has a purpose. My purpose was to make certain that every single small business owner who was attracted to my dream and to my vision could effectively become a successful as a McDonald's franchisee.

[00:59:47] Get, it could become a successful as a McDonald's franchisee. That was my purpose. And finally, my mission. My mission was [01:00:00] very, very straightforward. It was to invent the business development system that would enable me to realize my dream, my vision, and my purpose, the dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller, the leader, get this to the degree you engage in that process.

[01:00:19] Michael, I have a dream. My dream is to transform the state of blank worldwide. I have a vision. My vision is to invent the McDonald's of blank 

[01:00:31] Sharon: [01:00:31] to achieve, 

[01:00:34] Michael: [01:00:34] to fulfill the dream. I have a purpose. My purpose is to attract and et cetera, and so forth in order to be as successful as blank. And my mission was to invent the system that makes all that possible.

[01:00:53] You got it. Turnkey. Yep. Absolutely. Replicable. Yes. [01:01:00] And they're in resides awakening. The entrepreneur within the heart of that book is the process that I've just sketched out and the opportunities that make it possible to literally invent a company that could be scaled just like Ray Kroc scaled.

[01:01:23] McDonald's 

[01:01:25] Sharon: [01:01:25] well, the moment you have a dream, like you just said, the moment, your dreams, that big, you got to lift yourself out of the technician. You got to lift yourself out of the doing and the join because it's so beautiful and magnificent. It's got legacy in there as well. 

[01:01:42] Michael: [01:01:42] Yeah. Or you can say my dream is to make a hundred thousand dollars a year.

[01:01:51] You understand you suddenly have gone from being a dreamer. Yeah. To being something significantly less than [01:02:00] that, because the dream is never about me. The dream is about it. I'm here to transform the state of the world. I'm here to awaken the spirit of imagination. I'm here to become a entrepreneur world-class to a degree I'd never imagined before.

[01:02:26] I'm here to pursue the impossible through a process that makes it possible for me to achieve it. So. The job isn't to satisfy one's small instincts. Yeah. The job is to take them beyond 

[01:02:51] Sharon: [01:02:51] it's not our job. And when we do this is not about solving the immediate problem we have right now, the problem we have right now is not anything to do with the dream.

[01:03:00] [01:02:59] The dream is about others. It's who we're going to serve. It's how are we going to make a difference? It's how are we going to leave a footprint? The problem we've got now, I need cash right now that can't be turned into a dream. Cause that's not that soul about lack and hoarding and hyping and wanting a solution and feeling crisis and urgency dreams are built on way past that.

[01:03:23] So we can set a hundred thousand dollars goal and think that's a dream. It just can't be so 

[01:03:29] Michael: [01:03:29] effectively. We're really saying I'm here to awaken the dreamer within you. Yeah. That's what you were saying to every single person who comes through your doors. We're here to awaken the dreamer within you. We're not here to make a successful coach out of a perspective, entrepreneur.

[01:03:46] We're not here to create a successful doer, um, in, in inhabiting the life of a successful creator. We're here to discover the creator within the [01:04:00] creator, within the Imagineer, within, as Walt Disney called them. And that's who we're here to pursue with everything we've got. Now, hear me. That's gonna scare the living daylights out of you because the one in you who is terrified of not becoming successful in our ordinary life.

[01:04:27] Is going to be absolutely blown out of their socket when I say, yeah, we're not here to do that. Anyway, we're here to step beyond that anyway. And the process through which we do that is very much like the process that a US Navy seal does.

[01:04:53] Sharon: [01:04:53] You don't get a bell, you don't get to tap out. 

[01:04:58] Michael: [01:04:58] Yeah. But I'm not [01:05:00] good as that. I'm not as big as that. I'm not as exceptional as that. No, of course. You're not. None of us are, but we'll be, you will get the degree. You simply say I will. So if you have the determination to become someone you're not. We have the process to which to enable you to do that where there's a will.

[01:05:31] There's a way if you've got, we got the way, if you've got the will, we've got the way that's effectively what you're saying to every single person who comes through your door. If you've got the will, we got the way don't believe us. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Let me show you. Mary, did you have the will, Mary Johnny?

[01:05:53] Did you have the will? Jodi, did you have the will Jerry? Did you have the will? 

[01:05:59] Sharon: [01:05:59] Yeah, we say to [01:06:00] everybody, we said, everybody bring you and your willingness to give it a go. We will take care of how it unfolds because we get so many people asking before they join. How does it work? How do I fly? What do. If you read them, don't worry about it.

[01:06:17] The, how is all has been taken care of for years, for decades, we've got the, how it's a proven methodology, your ability to apply what works instead of letting your ego take over and thinking you're going to know best. And you want to find your own way. We're going to save you years, absolutely years. If you just follow this methodology versus trying to figure it out for yourself.

[01:06:40] Michael: [01:06:40] Yep. 

[01:06:42] Sharon: [01:06:42] You also talk about comfort versus challenge. 

[01:06:47] Michael: [01:06:47] Oh, I do. 

[01:06:48] Sharon: [01:06:48] You do God. I should put myself in a position where I'm challenged. That is a direct Michael Gerber quote and you had just sneak in awakening when you're 69 years old and you [01:07:00] felt like you'd been asleep up until then. So that was before, beyond the E-Myth terrace chair with us.

[01:07:05] What the second epiphany was please.

[01:07:09] Michael: [01:07:09] Well, well, you understand that my entire life has been challenged Every single thing I've ever done has been a challenge,, because I was never prepared to do it because I didn't know how to do. If I had known how to do what it would have already done it. I didn't know how to do it, but I never allowed that to stop me from pursuing it.

[01:07:37] So the pursuit of it was key. The pursuit of it was key and it revealed itself to me, pursuit of it was key and it revealed itself to me. And in the revelation of it, I changed. So in the revelation of it, I changed. It's [01:08:00] not because I changed it's because it changed me. Hmm, every single one of you have to understand that it's not about you.

[01:08:10] It's not about what you know how to do. It's not about anything you are prepared to do. It's about opening your heart and mind to it, to understand it will work. It's wondrous way on you. When you make yourself available, it's making yourself available. It's like saying to Sharon, Sharon I'm here, I'm yours.

[01:08:37] Teach me, and then doing what you're being taught to do. And as you do what you're being taught to do, it's going to speak to you. And it's going to say things to you. Nobody's ever said to you before, hear me you're in for a shock [01:09:00] because the world isn't what you think it is. Hmm, the experience. Isn't what you believe it to be.

[01:09:08] The opportunity is nowhere even close to what you imagine. It will be. All of this is an exercise that takes you beyond who you are to discover who you potentially can rise to be speaking to you. Come play with me, come play with me, come play with me. And suddenly you say, Oh my God, how come I never seen that before you follow me?

[01:09:45] It's so extraordinary. And you have this experience over and over and over and over again. I know you do. I know you do because you pursue it. In exactly the same way as that. I have you pursue it with [01:10:00] everything you've got. And when you don't, you pay the price for not having pursued it with everything you've got, then something happens, something happens, it's a revelation.

[01:10:13] And that revelation is an exquisite and you can then turn to every single person around you and say, Oh my God, you'll never believe what just happened. Welcome. And there 

[01:10:26] Sharon: [01:10:26] it is, Michael, I'm going to ask you this question. You talk about legacy a lot, and I believe we're here to inspire ourselves. How are you going towards fulfilling what you believe your legacy potentially could be?

[01:10:43] Michael: [01:10:43] Well, what can I say? We already have every human being has a legacy. Um, it's right there right now. Um, you can't avoid it. You can't ignore it. Um, every [01:11:00] single one of us has a legacy and that legacy is either failure, success beyond success, beyond belief. Um, it's in so many different ways and shapes and forms, but every one of us have a legacy.

[01:11:15] Um, mine is what I ultimately end up having done. And I don't know yet what that is. I 

[01:11:29] Sharon: [01:11:29] love it. 

[01:11:30] Michael: [01:11:30] You understand? I have absolutely no idea yet actually is. Do you realize that just in this conversation, my legacy could have been altered to a degree beyond anything I ever imagined it's possible to become.

[01:11:51] That's how I envisioned in view my life. I love that every single day is [01:12:00] contributing to my legacy and I have no idea, nah, everything that I've done with all the people that I've moved with, ever, all the moving and shaking and making and breaking all of that step one would have to say, well, Gerber, you certainly certainly must have a clearer idea about your legacy than most of us.

[01:12:27] And I'd say not. 

[01:12:31] Sharon: [01:12:31] I love it. 

[01:12:34] Michael: [01:12:34] I know the day I done the day, there will be one. Yeah. I just don't know what it is. And it's as exciting to me right here. Right now at this moment. To think about that as it was the very first day I began on this band. 

[01:12:59] Sharon: [01:12:59] Yeah. [01:13:00] Just wonderful. I am driven a lot by thinking about when I'm way too old to do anything about it.

[01:13:11] I want to make sure I look back and I did it, whatever that brave thing is, whatever that inspiring thing is when it's too late, I don't want to be left with all those moments that I could have embraced. And I turned away for ease or comfort. That's what challenge means to me to do the thing that's going to lift me.

[01:13:31] So when I, in that moment, when I take my last breath and I made the person, I could have been it's may the gap isn't there. That's what drives me, Michael, that's me being my fullest truest self in my last breath. The could of been is who I am. I want that to be the same thing. 

[01:13:50] Michael: [01:13:50] I got it. And God bless. And may your wish your will come to realization.

[01:14:00] [01:14:00] But you have no idea what that's going to look like. Absolutely none. Thank God. 

[01:14:09] Sharon: [01:14:09] Yes. 

[01:14:10] Michael: [01:14:10] Thank God you have absolutely no idea what that's going to look like. It's being born at this very moment. 

[01:14:17] Sharon: [01:14:17] It is 

[01:14:17] Michael: [01:14:17] at this very moment. It's being born so 

[01:14:25] Sharon: [01:14:25] wonderful. You're a wonderful human being, your energy and your sparkle and your generosity.

[01:14:34] Is it something you've cultivated or is it just how you came out? So it 

[01:14:40] Michael: [01:14:40] just showed up. So what can I get? And it's been a delight. Thank you for having me here. Um, thank you for the conversation. Thank you for the honor of your pursuit of the impossible, utilizing my work to the degree that you have and going beyond my work [01:15:00] to touch the lives of thousands upon thousands, upon thousands of people, may you be blessed, um, in the most, absolutely phenomenal way possible for what you've done and what you're about to do.

[01:15:15] I've loved it. 

[01:15:15] Sharon: [01:15:15] Here's the same for you. I loved it as well. Michael, where would you like people to get in touch with you and to discover more of your work? You mentioned radical you, can you share a little bit about where we can find that and what we can expect? 

[01:15:28] Michael: [01:15:28] Just come to Michael E, Gerber.com michael@michaelgerber.com.

[01:15:33] And just say, Hey, I heard you speak to Sharon. I just heard you talk about all these wonderful things. And we'd just love to do with love, to do with love to do it. And I know that Sharon will find a way to make it happen. And if she doesn't, I will say 

[01:15:54] Sharon: [01:15:54] exactly right. 

[01:15:56] Michael: [01:15:56] They've got that promise on the table.

[01:15:58] Um, just let's leave [01:16:00] it at that. And we'll find many, many ways to, um, tell your world and world your tilt.

[01:16:14] Sharon: [01:16:14] Thanks so much, Michael. [01:17:00]

00:05:15           How Sophie Started with Amazon

• How and why Sophie chose Amazon as her online business partner and her life before Amazon wasn’t sustaining or fulfilling her.

00:08:01           Online marketing options

• Sophie’s take on affiliate marketing and view of online marketing methods.
• Who can you trust on line?  
• We discuss the ups and downs of online platforms

00:11:26           Product Selection

• We unpack ideas on product selection for success
• Sophie explains her thinking around what makes a great product

00:11:45           Why you should avoid the ‘most popular’ products

• Why it’s important not to ‘follow the mob’ when choosing products
• What kind of thinking should you adopt when choosing a product

00:15:36           Why you should never tell anyone what Amazon products you have sold that have made millions of dollars.

• Sophie talks about her experiences with copycats and why you should stay low key about your products.
• How she has launched over a thousand different products 
• How to keep away from the competition and embrace the low competition product niche

00:22:20          How she made $33,000 in a day in sales

• Working full time Sophie’s Amazon business started to take off.
• When did she decide to skip the full-time job?
• Do you have a business or a product?

00:23:01           Daring to dream big

• Making the move from full time work into the business you love
• Taking risks, having courage  

00:29:11           Adapting The E-Myth approach in business

• How The E-Myth massively changed Sharon’s’ business The Coaching Institute

00:30:53           Trade Markets

• Searching outside of China for products around the world

00:33:14           Intellectual property and creating supplier relationships

.

00:37:41           Learning from our environment

• How what can you bring to your business success from previous experiences is important -what you should pay attention to

00:43:12           Selling the business

• When you get a million dollars for your online business where and how do you live?

00:45:36           Self care

• The importance of managing self-care, balancing life and family
• Handling and tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty to figure our way through it and to give ourselves the time and the space to develop the skills in the ambiguity is how we grow.

00:54:43           Starting out on Amazon

• what kind of time would you need to set aside? What would your thinking need to be?

Gloria Steinem said, too many people are looking for the right person instead of trying to be the right person. My guest today is Dr. David Richo is a renowned psychotherapist he's author of 20 books. And he's been working in this field for 50 years and still practicing. He is a beautiful human being. 

You're going to love this conversation. His work emphasizes the benefits of mindfulness, loving-kindness and personal growth. And in this episode, we are going to discuss the book that I have just loved, which is ‘How to be an Adult in Relationships’.

We're going to talk about the five A’s - attention, acceptance, action, appreciation and allowing and how they are the key to true intimacy.

I have read the book and really enjoyed it. My husband and I are working together through the exercises in the book right now and really approaching it mindfully and very slowly. We are taking big pauses and making sure that we're are not bringing what we might've done before we read the book, to create some new levels of intimacy.

We've been married for 28 years and I don't think this process comes naturally to people necessarily. I think there's so much debris piled on top of us over the years that whatever part of our spirit or a soul had access to this early can get buried. What I love about David Richo’s book is how he invites the spiritual journey as well as the therapeutic journey. In this podcast we have delved into:

The mindfulness journey and the pathway to intimacy

How David Richo found Buddhism and the impact it had on his work as an introduction to something spiritual in a new way.How we advance on our spiritual journey toward being a person of integrity and love and how through mindfulness you can turn that reflection inwards and start to become an adult in the relationship. And that's the pathway to intimacy.
 

We speak about the journey that invites us to reflect within and how that journey is so integral to the message in the book, teaching us to become aware of our needs first and then our fears of having them fulfilled, instead of pushing these feelings aside.
 

The irony that informs so many relationships - we look like we're really wanting intimacy, but at the same time, we could be fearing that same intimacy because of what it entails, which is becoming vulnerable, letting ourselves be seen as we really are. With all our warts and wounds.
 

We focus on The 5 A’s – ‘How to be an Adult in Relationships’ explores five hallmarks of mindful loving and how they play a key role in our relationships – from our childhood with our parents, through to our intimate partners: Attention to the present moment; observing, listening, and noticing all the feelings at play in our relationships

Acceptance, acceptance of ourselves and others just as we are

Appreciation, of all our gifts, our limits, our longing and our poignant human predicament

Affection, shown through holding and touching in respectful ways.

Allowing, life and love to be just as they are, with all their ecstasy and ache, without trying to take control.
 

How to manage when you don’t receive the 5 A’s in childhood – letting go of the anger, the healthy path out of childhood into adulthood.
 

How you know you are ready to be in a relationship?

Being ready is becoming an adult first. Then you can have an adult relationship one in which there is love. To do your own personal work to get you to be the best partner you can be. That's how you know that you have a real commitment, not the wedding ring or the big day.
 

Drama thrives on adrenaline. Whereas the true intimacy thrives on oxytocin, our hormone of closeness. If you are keeping things at a fever pitch and it's always a big drama going on. There's always a big conflict, which can't be worked out. And when you're doing that, you might ask yourself, do I really want closeness or do I, or what am I actually just looking for?
 

The See Model – the way to ask yourself and analyse what is getting you so upset or reactive? Using the acronym SEE – is it a shadow – is it my ego – is it from early life.

Ego is one of the most vicious enemies of intimacy - ego, and how that affects relationships. The ego fears that you won't be acknowledged as you need to be, to the rest of the world but it's also the fear that you won't be able to handle not being given the special treatment that you think you deserve. We discuss the practices that can help you get out of the ‘solo act of ego’ in relationships.
 

Anger is a strong energy -instead of blaming in anger, where can we go to within ourselves to achieve a healthy response? Grief and anger, learning to work within and avoid being stuck in anger.
 

The Heroes Journey to Redemption

David and I both love the mythological journey, the hero's journey to redemption. And I see the elements of this in the book by design strongly. The hero’s journey starts out externally and then the moment when the hero is truly transformed is when they realize that which they sought outside was always within them.

How to be an Adult in Relationships sets out a beautiful mythological heroes journey we can learn from and invites us to reflect and enhance our relationships.

I really trust you enjoy this podcast and this conversation with Patrick Lindsay. He is a phenomenal human being and a very compassionate man. I'm a big fan of his work and researching this podcast, getting to know his work and getting to know him has been a real joy.

Patrick Lindsey has had a long career in print and television journalism both here and overseas. He's been a TV presenter, a producer, film maker and a writer, and he's become one of Australia's leading non-fiction authors publishing over 21 non-fiction books.

He is a professional observer who writes on topics that are close especially to Australians and New Zealanders and around the world.

He shares inspiring messages of wisdom through his motivational series that he wrote for his grandchildren. And he reminds us that within us we have the power to change our lives for the better - he’s definitely the eternal optimist.

He's doing amazing work. He's has a new movie coming out shortly, the home front, which is a film looking at what we can do to support returned serviceman. During the podcast we talked about going to Gallipoli and Kokoda and we look at those wars and those campaigns, we talk about the philosophy of war and what it means for us today and the fortune we have today, which is almost self-evident. We do a little bit of Trump ranting, which is always good for a podcast. We look at politics and the effects of social media on it. We touch on that. We talk about this, the way he thinks and how he approaches things.

I was in a cafe, I think it was only yesterday and I was crying, reading his book, The Spirit of Gallipoli. It overwhelmed me and I was surprised at how many people didn’t know the story. And there are so many stories to speak of that we didn't get to cover in the podcast as much as I'd like. So I do recommend that you go and read this book.

I appreciate the cynicism and the questions we asked today about the folio of war and the folly of sacrificing ourselves in another land for a piece of land that we've never heard of before. And in no way, is that to disparage or take anything away from soldiers who volunteer to go and support and defend our nation and the places that need them. I’m really just so honoured that they do that for us every single day.

Our discussions raised the question about drafting, if that would be introduced again today. How would we be? What would we say? What would we do? How would we look at it? What would social media say? What new device would be created? Who would go? Would women go? Once a soldier said it was your national duty. When I think about how few people know the story of Gallipoli today, and know what it meant for those diggers, what they lost and what they did and what they sacrificed and what they had to do, it’s heartbreaking.

All the rules about what we believe about institutions and what they can ask of us now has changed so radically from this a hundred years ago. Interesting questions. I do love interesting perspectives.

And this podcast to me at its heart, it's about different ways of thinking. I just enjoyed so much chatting with him and I trust you get some value out of meeting and getting up close with Patrick Lindsey.

Highlights include:

In the podcast we will talk about:

Behind the creative process
So many of you will be pleased to hear more about the behind the scenes of his creative process and what inspires him. He looks at his life as a continuing journey, an exploration and a belief that it is never too late, there is always something to learn.

Bouncing back, be a twig
His latest book is called Be Resilient and speak to a world figuring out a way of enduring and then bouncing back post COVID.

Patrick thinks the analogy for being resilient is ‘being a twig’ , A green, healthy twig that that can blow in the winds and always bounce back. Because to be resilient you have to have a healthy mind, a healthy body, you know, a healthy spirit kind of thing, a sound, one of those. He refers to the great stoics and ancient Greek and Roman philosophers.

Resilience and a sense of duty in today’s world
We talk about the sense of duty during the past world wars and discuss how this has changed in today’s age and the plight of the modern veteran and how Patrick has come to be inspired by so many stories are of stoicism and a resilience, of personal sacrifice and of bravery.

Strategy and leadership in war
We explored the role of leadership in war, the structured Japanese, the fierce training of the Australians and their adaptability and the wonderful lessons learned from the guys who just ‘stepped into the role of leader. And how after war they went back into society and resumed their lives - they didn't then say, okay, I've just spent five years being a warrior and how with the help of their mates they were able to survive.

The role of authorities and support for returned soldiers
There is a point of view of modern veterans, they feel an adversarial relationship between them and the structures that support them - having been sent away, having been damaged, having comeback with physical and mental issues and things like that, Patrick expresses his view on this and the toll of mental illness on the returned service man and the danger of unresolved issues.

The Spirit of Gallipoli, Churchill and the front line
We talk about the bravery of great leaders in war and the sacrifice of the soldiers.

The change in journalism from legacy voice – to 10,000 opinions.
You can never go back to an innocent time when legacy media decided the message back in the day, when you were a journalist, you were part of legacy media, you were the voice.

Now there's 10,000 other voices, right behind yours, giving a contrary message. And none of them agree. We don't even agree on the facts now then learn how to a great, how to get to a point of, we don't even do with the fixed.

Be resilient and thrive – rational thinking
Patrick talks about his books, Thrive, the most recent was is inspired by having optimistic messages that are worthwhile. We explore rational thinking. Sometimes we need to take a critical look at it. Have we simply adapted another's viewpoint? Is that really driving our thinking? Have we rushed to a conclusion? Don't treat all thoughts equally.

We open up this episode by talking about how we both handled having to change our business models radically.

As some of you would know, I’m very grateful and proud of The Coaching Institute’s four-day transition online. After early indicators of how the market was going to shift, including, of course, how only half the room in our New Castle event showed up, we had to forgo face-to-face training. Everyone had to do it, if you wanted to stay afloat.

As mentioned above, the evolution, if you will, for Karen and co began with postponing their largest event yet to February 2021.

“I was on the phone every day to venues. I could see the impacts. I could see it's like a tsunami coming ahead, but in slow motion,” Karen describes. “We just need to deliver this event. And then we can deal with COVID after. But... that did not happen.”

After doing so and unfortunately having to let a lot of her team go, it felt like a steep downhill battle. “We were staring down the barrel of 2020, not an event in sight…2020, it was going to be our year. 10 years of hard work just disappearing, you know, just crumbling in front of you.” We then talked what changed. In two simple words: mindset & perspective. Karen explains that she was initially fixated on the question: How do we survive and make it to February 2021? (This was March 2020.)

“We’d go into work every day, optimistic that we can control the things around us. You know, the entrepreneurial mindset. And then punches – left, right and centre. You walk into, well, actually there's a lot more things out of our control.”

Upon this realisation, it was then about flipping the question to: How do we build a business that does not have to rely on this event in February 2021, no matter what happens and what are we in control of?

It was about tapping into what they had. Which was (a) an incredible network and community of CEOs and business leaders that trusted them; and (b) their (existing) digital platform, that Karen describes what was once a bit of an “unloved child”.

First, their network. “We went out to the CEOs and business leaders and we said, right, what do you need to know right now? What is going to help you get you through?... How can we help you? How can you help us?”

They took part in and hosted many CEO roundtables, and Karen gave a shout out to the advice and guidance she got from Mark Bonchek and Jim Collins. (This is why you should always aim to be in the smallest room.) By April, they rocked their first virtual, ticketed event with Jim. A huge win for The Growth Faculty was that like with TCI, their international audience expanded – no geographically live events equals no geographical limitations.

When I asked about what successfully launching this first event was like, I love what Karen shared: that it was all about iteration after iteration. They knew they still had a long way to go about, so it was all about figuring out what works and what doesn’t – or as I like to say, testing and measuring.

For them and many of us, the biggest challenge to being competitive was the free content posted everywhere throughout the virtual world – everywhere. “But when it's free content is a different style of delivery. So we were relieved. We stuck with what we do best and deliver the best content. So we were really grateful for that and we thought, okay, there's something in this.”

Then they took things up another notch…membership subscriptions. (And spoiler alert – they got an outstanding result that Karen reveals in the episode!)

Karen shares that interestingly, she hired a head of digital innovation back in mid 2019 who helped set up their membership platform. “Prior to COVID, it was that project waiting to be worked on. COVID forced the hand where you got no choice and thank God we had this all set up.”

Little did they know that it would soon become the game-changer for the business.

“I've always had this thought about membership in the way that I would love to include all my events in a membership. But in the live event situation, every single event is so different. Then all of a sudden we've got these kind of virtual events and I'm like, you can control the costs. Let's go. I know what I'm up for.”

For me, necessity is the mother of invention. This strategy worked unbelievably well for everyone in our space.

Now it is The Growth Faculty’s business model moving forward, and I love that. That’s got sustainability. What’s even better is that Karen and her team are not undoing the knowledge she’s built over the years. It’s not a start-up mindset.

What has helped businesses like Karen’s and The Coaching Institute successfully pivot is the long-term thinking.

The initial scramble is inevitable. But the scramble is not sustainable. I see too many business owners still doing the scramble. You’ve got to build the foundations of the new business (model). Karen agrees that substantial changes have to be taken on early, because as is becoming clearer, “there is no going back.”

Back to the Beginning

After that quick dive into how we’ve been in the past 12 months, I invited Karen to return to the beginning to satisfy my curiosity on how it all began with The Growth Faculty.
 

After university in the early 90’s, Karen travelled across the globe to the UK and landed her first event management job with her friend who was bringing Anthony Robbins (yes, that’s the one and only Tony Robbins) to London for the very first time.
 

In the sparse group of three, she was involved in every aspect of making it happen, and describes it as “insane, but fun”.
 

When she eventually returned to home-base (Sydney), Karen settled into events management for the Certified Practising Accountants Association (CPA). She describes that this was the key to her learning the art of pulling programs and industries she knew nothing about together.

While her time in London taught her the logistical side of event management, this was the other half, the content aspect.

Tying it back to becoming an entrepreneur, she says she always had the urge to start her own business; driven by wanting to “design her own life”, “replace her job” and so she “doesn’t have to answer to anybody” – she says with tongue-in-cheek.

We laughed that that’s indeed what we believed we were in for.

Our conversation is continued in the next episode of the podcast, where we dive into Karen’s entrepreneurial building phase, and what that reality was like for her.

If you love learning about how successful businesses do their thing, this is the podcast for you. I trust you find inspiration. x

We open up this episode by talking about how we both handled having to change our business models radically. 

As some of you would know, I’m very grateful and proud of The Coaching Institute’s four-day transition online. After early indicators of how the market was going to shift, including, of course, how only half the room in our New Castle event showed up, we had to forgo face-to-face training. Everyone had to do it, if you wanted to stay afloat.

As mentioned above, the evolution, if you will, for Karen and co began with postponing their largest event yet to February 2021.

“I was on the phone every day to venues. I could see the impacts. I could see it's like a tsunami coming ahead, but in slow motion,” Karen describes. “We just need to deliver this event. And then we can deal with COVID after. But... that did not happen.”

After doing so and unfortunately having to let a lot of her team go, it felt like a steep downhill battle. “We were staring down the barrel of 2020, not an event in sight…2020, it was going to be our year. 10 years of hard work just disappearing, you know, just crumbling in front of you.” We then talked what changed. In two simple words: mindset & perspective. Karen explains that she was initially fixated on the question: How do we survive and make it to February 2021? (This was March 2020.)

“We’d go into work every day, optimistic that we can control the things around us. You know, the entrepreneurial mindset. And then punches – left, right and centre. You walk into, well, actually there's a lot more things out of our control.”

Upon this realisation, it was then about flipping the question to: How do we build a business that does not have to rely on this event in February 2021, no matter what happens and what are we in control of?

It was about tapping into what they had. Which was (a) an incredible network and community of CEOs and business leaders that trusted them; and (b) their (existing) digital platform, that Karen describes what was once a bit of an “unloved child”.

First, their network. “We went out to the CEOs and business leaders and we said, right, what do you need to know right now? What is going to help you get you through?... How can we help you? How can you help us?”

They took part in and hosted many CEO roundtables, and Karen gave a shout out to the advice and guidance she got from Mark Bonchek and Jim Collins. (This is why you should always aim to be in the smallest room.) By April, they rocked their first virtual, ticketed event with Jim. A huge win for The Growth Faculty was that like with TCI, their international audience expanded – no geographically live events equals no geographical limitations.

When I asked about what successfully launching this first event was like, I love what Karen shared: that it was all about iteration after iteration. They knew they still had a long way to go about, so it was all about figuring out what works and what doesn’t – or as I like to say, testing and measuring.

For them and many of us, the biggest challenge to being competitive was the free content posted everywhere throughout the virtual world – everywhere. “But when it's free content is a different style of delivery. So we were relieved. We stuck with what we do best and deliver the best content. So we were really grateful for that and we thought, okay, there's something in this.”

Then they took things up another notch…membership subscriptions. (And spoiler alert – they got an outstanding result that Karen reveals in the episode!)

Karen shares that interestingly, she hired a head of digital innovation back in mid 2019 who helped set up their membership platform. “Prior to COVID, it was that project waiting to be worked on. COVID forced the hand where you got no choice and thank God we had this all set up.”

Little did they know that it would soon become the game-changer for the business.

“I've always had this thought about membership in the way that I would love to include all my events in a membership. But in the live event situation, every single event is so different. Then all of a sudden we've got these kind of virtual events and I'm like, you can control the costs. Let's go. I know what I'm up for.”

For me, necessity is the mother of invention. This strategy worked unbelievably well for everyone in our space.

Now it is The Growth Faculty’s business model moving forward, and I love that. That’s got sustainability. What’s even better is that Karen and her team are not undoing the knowledge she’s built over the years. It’s not a start-up mindset.

What has helped businesses like Karen’s and The Coaching Institute successfully pivot is the long-term thinking.

The initial scramble is inevitable. But the scramble is not sustainable. I see too many business owners still doing the scramble. You’ve got to build the foundations of the new business (model). Karen agrees that substantial changes have to be taken on early, because as is becoming clearer, “there is no going back.”

Back to the Beginning

After that quick dive into how we’ve been in the past 12 months, I invited Karen to return to the beginning to satisfy my curiosity on how it all began with The Growth Faculty.

After university in the early 90’s, Karen travelled across the globe to the UK and landed her first event management job with her friend who was bringing Anthony Robbins (yes, that’s the one and only Tony Robbins) to London for the very first time.

In the sparse group of three, she was involved in every aspect of making it happen, and describes it as “insane, but fun”.

When she eventually returned to home-base (Sydney), Karen settled into events management for the Certified Practising Accountants Association (CPA). She describes that this was the key to her learning the art of pulling programs and industries she knew nothing about together.

While her time in London taught her the logistical side of event management, this was the other half, the content aspect.

Tying it back to becoming an entrepreneur, she says she always had the urge to start her own business; driven by wanting to “design her own life”, “replace her job” and so she “doesn’t have to answer to anybody” – she says with tongue-in-cheek.

We laughed that that’s indeed what we believed we were in for.

Our conversation is continued in the next episode of the podcast, where we dive into Karen’s entrepreneurial building phase, and what that reality was like for her.

If you love learning about how successful businesses do their thing, this is the podcast for you. I trust you find inspiration. x

[00:01:18] Sharon: Stop the stress levels. Be gone. You can try it, come over.

So I have a dream book. Yup. I have, uh, Good ideas and innovations book. Yeah. And I have my daily diary. Yep. So I like paper because then I like to write just the little special, quirky things that have happened on the day. So today I will just write in the podcast and a couple of funny things on with Matt tried to enjoy myself in that.
Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. And then I have an innovations book. Yep. And then I have my let's get for real about the yearbook. So this takes me probably 14, 20 hours over a month and a half. I've been thinking about it since last November. So I usually kick into thinking about it in November. How's the year going?

How have I shown up this year? Yeah. What am I pleased with? What have I brought to life or experienced? Um, where do I feel? Perhaps? I didn't. Bring all of me. And then I start and I still haven't worked out when we need to go into themes, but then I try to work out my theme for the next year. So every year for 17, 18 years, I've had a theme for the year.

Just a single word or a couple of words. Yeah. So one year it was for example, health. That's turned up a couple of times and now the year it was fierceness. Um, and now the year was adventure. The worst theme ever. I chose John and I chose the thing one year of, um, consolidation. We thought we'd consolidate our debts, spent that you're in investments that we did.

And sometimes one theme last for two years, I like emotional truth. It really suits me, really reflect you on who am I? Who am I being? How am I showing up? Am I being true to this moment? Am I being present to this moment? It asks a lot of me. And a lot of this comes from mindfulness. Yeah. Yeah. The beauty of mindfulness.

It's not. Panacea mindfulness does not fix everything, but in terms of being, I think you're working on presence being present. That's your thing for the year being present to the moment that's being mindful. It's noticing this moment and not trying to change the moment. Think about another moment, thinking about where you go to change.

As a result of this moment, I was with a friend yesterday and she said sometimes when she's sitting outside and she's grounding, now you sit outside with that shoes on and you're grounding. And she has a little time. What would she use to do is be present to the moment, be mindful of the moment, but recently she's noticed it's become.

What am I going to do? And that's not mindfulness. And I think that's what you're wanting to experience this year. It's being present to what is.

[00:04:27] Matt: Yeah. Yes. It's interesting how I think the first thing that I learned when I got into personal development, uh, about 10 years ago was mindfulness. And I've added on so much more competency in so many other areas, but this year I just feel like I just need to go back to yeah.
That mindfulness it's because it's the foundation of everything. Like you said, it doesn't fix everything, but I think that without it it's much harder to progress.

[00:04:51] Sharon: Well, I dunno. Do you relate to this? I am going back to mindfulness now, two decades on. And I probably [00:05:00] did it again about 10 years ago because I ran really hard for my goals.

I was saying to my friend yesterday, you know, I'm really good at hitting the target, give me a goal. I'm going for it. I'm going to really work hard to do what needs to be done to have that thing, be it a sales result or something I've mastered this company, whatever it is just I'm good at going for the target.
Yeah. But in that I sometimes lose me. And so it's almost like I'm still going for Tireds and it's not, but it's not, instead of, I want to notice me in this moment. Yeah. As I go for the time. So is that what you're noticing? Very much

[00:05:38] Matt: And I, and I talk about this in the school, a lot that a theme needs to be a match for where we are in our journey and our goals.
And the first theme that I said was discipline. And that was when we had a conversation where I said, I wanted to be a trainer here. And you said, well, you know, I think the attitude was kind of like everyone says that, which, which now I completely understand. [00:06:00] And you said bridge the gap between who you are in real life and who you are, who you need to be on stage.

Which was the beginning of a journey of saying, okay, well, I can't just talk about these ideas. I need to make them a reality. When at that time I wasn't really learning on a regular basis. I wasn't learning every day, like how I learn now. And I wasn't feeding in everything that I needed to fit in. You know, every everyone's busy, everyone's got something.

[00:06:26] Matt: Towards the style of like dicking around probably. Yeah. Versus. Waking up. I started waking up every morning and I would do study for at least an hour, maybe two hours. And I pushed through a lot. And I think that without that year, I don't think that I would be here now as a trainer because I would have fallen short on, on, I remember the first day when I said gave me a training on my own.

Give me a, no, I can do it. It wasn't just a fluffy, which I see some people do. Yeah, I'm ready. It's like, you're not ready. Yeah. Yeah, but I put it in the Senate recently. Totally. I put in so much effort. And so now I'm still putting in effort. But it's a different kind of effort. It's like, it's more of a, I feel as a speaker and as a trainer, I'm more like maintaining and improving little ways and being inspired by ideas.

And I find that the thing that helps me the most is to be more emotionally connected to myself and the people around me and that I can really be that demonstration. But I think if I set that theme. 10 years ago, it wouldn't work. My theme was present. Annoyed me.

[00:06:25] Sharon: It was stuff that wasn't going to move you

[00:07:33] Matt: Why aren't you doing the work?
Well, I'm cause I'm meditating. "

[00:07:36] Sharon: I want to be mindful to the moment. Well, good for you that doesn't get you on the stage. So you've got to have the hard skills with the soft skills. And I think a lot of this, the way I look at it as a bit of backfilling. So what are the hard skills that I can learn?

So I enrolled in a program, get good at a skill studying online. Studying online course, whatever it is. And then, okay, so I'm bringing my being to it, but what being.

Am I missing and can I now, cause I got the hard skill. Can I stop bringing more subtlety, nuance aspects and angles of myself that I hadn't really explored before?
Because I'm now confident enough in the competence to explore more of me. And I think that's a great way to do it the other way around. I struggle a little bit. I need to have the tiger. I need the hard target. And then I backfill with the beingness. So my future self is a hard target. Then I backfill it over the years with who?

My beingness. So I have my theme and I'm playing with creativity for 2021, uh, emotional truth again, which I really like. I have pain. Oh, I should show you. I've gotten the here. I've just had the best time I did this wild Emile. I'm just so happy with. Yeah, but

[00:08:42] Matt: You're actually really good. Thank you really good at painting. Just remove that from the photos.

[00:08:47] Sharon: Really good. I really enjoy you. Won't remember I said that. No, exactly. Sorry. I love, uh, so it could be creativity and martial truth. It could be, honoring self, which I think is also a reflection of mindfulness and being present to the moment and bringing all of me. So I'm playing with those things, but I usually have the theme first, so that's been weird for me cause I've been working on it for three months, two months haven't landed.

Right. Then I work on a kind of a purse purpose statement. So I Remi see, hear, feel, or know that the purpose of my life is. And it could be for example, to be a loving and passionate woman or for me it's to be now to be my true self and to explore how to express that. So that's unbelieving. That's my purpose.

It is most of our purposes. Uh, I never have a purpose to be happy. That is a doing, not a being, there's a difference. So I play with that for ages. I've landed on this for three years now and it hasn't needed to move. So I'm pretty, I had the first purpose I Sharon see, hear, feel, and know that the purpose of my life has to be a loving and passionate woman who inspires others.

Playfully. I had that for 15 years. Loved it. Fantastic. So now my pivots has had a bit of a change, so, and I do that and it doesn't have to tie to the theme necessarily. Cause the themes is exploring different ways of bringing this to life. That's what my purpose does, Matt it's. If I'm being my purpose, which is to be my truest self, and express that with courage and compassion.

3:00 Matt: So I I'd love to start with the frame that most people think about goals at this time of the year as new year's resolutions.
I think that is the most common way to do it. Yeah. So it's the beginning of the year. And I think it's, it's easy to get excited about a goal at the beginning of the year, because you haven't done anything yet. You know, you're in that kind of fantasy world of I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this.

[00:04:02] Sharon: I don't know the stats on goal setting, but news resolutions. Most people quit them before the end of the first month. Yeah. The majority of people are more than 50%. Yeah. So, well, first year I think people set new year's resolutions when they're drinking.

[00:04:15] No, I'm kidding. But I imagine that it probably has something to do with it. Oh, they're in that state, like you said, a fantasy land where everything's possible and I'm going to be so different this year, instead of figuring out the behind the scenes stuff that we're going to talk about today, that means we stick to it for the whole year and feel even better about it at the end of the year, instead of feeling worse, also a lot of new year's resolutions, which I don't do.

[00:05:12] Matt: So one of the things that I find really interesting and especially in today's world is the lack of, um, accepting personal responsibility in just in culture. Uh, there's, there's a culture rising that doesn't agree with personal responsibility. It doesn't make sense to me, but do you think that's a component of why a lot of people don't achieve their goals because there's so many people that think, well, I'm going to, I'm going to drink less. I'm going to eat less.

[00:05:52] Sharon: all as we think that we're at the Beck and call of external forces?
Yeah. Our news [00:06:00] resolution doesn't have it yet. We don't have any, right. It can be nurtured. You there's nothing nurturing it. There's nothing. Yeah. Fertilizing it, yeah, that metaphor goes a long way. It nothing's, there's no sun on it because the sun's blocked out by all the reasons why we can't. So if the resolution it's easy to make the resolution and then just forget all the reasons why we didn't in the previous year, but if we don't deal with all the reasons why we did in the previous year, we're just heading into the same year.

[00:08:10] Sharon: So when we go through my dream book, it's ridiculous, the detail it's pages and pages breaking down and really thinking about what would make this ideal, what needs to shift or stop major. Around physical health. When we get to it, say one of them is to be more flexible. It's just the smallest thing. It's just do five minutes more of yoga.

Yeah. My big goal would you believe is when you do downward facing dog is to get my heels on the ground. Because my hamstrings, aren't very flexible. I've been trying for a year. That's great. So I'm still, well, when I started, I had about that angle, so about 45 degrees, really? I feel. Yeah. Yeah. And now I'm halfway through between 45 and ground, whatever that is.

[00:08:54] So yeah. That that's like the slowest journey ever, but it's a small thing that I can control and influence. So it is about what we can control, influence what we can persuade ourselves we can impact and be proactive about versus what we're going to externalize.

[00:09:09] Matt: One of the things that I love doing the school here is using the metadata omics profiling tool and the profiling tool gives a really interesting insight.

[00:09:18] It looks at breaks it down into four major categories for people that don't know about it. Um, and then breaks it down into, I think it's, um, 32 other little sub categories. And one of the traits that I find really interesting, I can't remember the name of the trait, but essentially what it is. It's what you were talking about.

[00:09:32] It's the ability to critically look at our strengths and our stretches. Yep. Um, do you think that when that is low. That's going to hinder someone's ability to be able to achieve goals, because when I'm listening to what you're saying, I'm thinking that's great. But I reckon there's a lot of people that just don't think, well, what, what needs to change?

[00:10:00] Sharon: the question has to be who do I want to be? It can't be, what do I want? Yeah, it's going to be here too. I want to be, yeah. All my goals that we're going to go through today, you have the goal setting strategy is based on who do I, who am I going to be?

[00:10:13] And I've been doing definitely two decades. So there's been, you know, what is it they say, if you want to fly from here to Hawaii. Not that I would right now, but if I was, you just need to be 2%, of course, in your arriving in the Atlantic or somewhere bizarre. Right. So it's just the 2%, each moment just adjusting each year.

[00:10:33] So over two decades, if I adjust me by 2%, if I grow in an error by 2% a year. Yeah. That compounds. That's a massive amount of change over two decades. Yeah. Rather than use resolution, which is it's got to all happen. I'm more into the incremental and just rather than what I want to have, it's who do I want to be?

[00:10:52] And then when I decide, and I pretty clear on my future best self, when I'm clear on my future, best self, which I put stacks of time into, then it's about, well, what would I be? What would be expressions of that? And it could be, for example, to be my future self is to continue being great at wealth creation.

[00:11:12] What would be an expression of that? And then I figure out, well, it would be to save a little bit of money into the investment account or whatever it is. So the doing or the having can't happen until I'm clear on. Who I need to be or who I want to be or who I'm growing to be. I don't have to get there this year.

[00:11:28] It's not a resolution. It's a lifetime. It's a lifestyle. I'm not planning to nail this. This year. I've got a lifetime. I think that's very important. Like there's no place to arrive this year.

[00:15:29] One of the things that I wanted to, um, ask you about this is something that I find very, very important for me. And I find it a massive problem in a lot of people, both lives is the inability to face. What is screwed about your life? Well, I see that as like a, it's like it's a cancer in people's mind, just to say, well, say for example, you're really overweight.

[00:15:49] And you don't face it. And I watched an interview the other day with, um, I don't know if you like piers Morgan, but I watched an interview with him is an interesting dude.
 

14.12: THE 10 PER CENT FACTOR
—Asked where she’d like to be at the end of the session, Sasha says “if we go down the DDGs, it would be that I can look back and experience her childhood in reality, rather than in the frame of I'm a terrible [mother.]
—Sharon says “there's some pretty good research showing just recently that your parenting amounts to maybe around 10 per cent of your daughter. There is no research supporting what you’ve been telling yourself.”
—Sasha had been thinking it was 100 per cent: “Wow. That’s a relief. So what's the other 90? Cause it's the nature nurture discussion. So it's more nature. Well, what have I been so worried about then? Seriously, 10 per cent. Oh my goodness.”
—Sharon says it’s genetics: “Your daughter was going to be who she is and she's going to be different to your other children and nothing you will do say or worry about will change that.”

—Sharon: “See to me the way you've been thinking about it, you just love her so much. You love your children so much. You want the best for them. You want to be your best for them. I only hear love in what you've been telling yourself. I hear love and compassion and care. That's how I'd be framing what you've said to yourself over these years.”
—Sasha says that is “so true” … “possibly I'm overcompensating for my own childhood, um, which wouldn't be wildly inaccurate.”
—Sharon: “Look how beautifully you approach it, the care you bring. I don't know that there's more that could be asked of you in this. I don't know if there's anything more beautiful about parenting than what you're demonstrating. Genetically we are going to be who we're going to be. What a gift. It's mind blowing. It's freeing.”
—Sasha says if 90 per cent of her girl is her, “my job in this is to purely and simply support her to be her. Well, if I known this nine and a half years ago, would have made my job a lot easier.”
—Sharon says the 10 per cent research should be at the top of the list if everybody had a parenting cheat sheet: So my view, and there's some research to support this is teach your kids, compassion, passion, openness, and warmth. And you’re good to go. Says Sasha is giving her daughter a role model: “Your kid’s going through some stuff she was going to go through. She'll come through it with compassion, passion, warmth, openness, and love. This is her experience. You can role model how to navigate the experience and how to be when she comes through it, but she's going to have it.”
—Sasha: “What a simplified purpose that I have is just to model those things and to allow her to have those things and to teach her how to do those things.”

23.92 THE COMPASSION QUESTION
—Asked by Sharon if she could demonstrate more compassion for herself, Sasha says she is “learning that in parenting. I think I've got fairly well licked elsewhere” and talks about her other two daughters.
—Sharon: “You don’t need compassion when they're going goings easy, darling. No, I'm calling you out. You feeling compassionate towards yourself about how you parent the kids that are easy to parent big whoop.”
—Both talk compassion and Sharon invites Sasha to read Neale Walsch’s The Little Soul Story with her daughter. Sharon: “Compassion is the antidote to fear. Compassion is the antidote to the guilt. So literally this is designed for you to learn compassion. Raising kids that are easy to raise is not you learning compassion. It's only when we're tested around the attribute that we get to know how to access the attributes. So there's a huge gift in that.”
—Before coaching Sasha used to wonder why she wasn’t more compassionate: “I've recognized that it's because I didn't have compassion for myself.”
—Sharon: “Just create a scenario where your daughter's doing her and go to that and realize the service you do to her when you go to compassion, doesn’t even have to be an expressed compassion. It can just be. Holy F in your head, I am being tested to the max right now. This would be that time that I said, I need to feel compassion for me and just go to that space cognitively until you feel it.”
—Sasha: “I'm drawing a blank slightly on that. When she's doing her in a way in which I'm finding it challenging, I have the internal dialogue of, Oh my God, we're here again.’ She feels frustrated and impatient: “Why is this every night? Why doesn't she realize that the more that she asks of me and the more that she pushes the more impatient I become?’ That is kind of the judgment that comes. And I've said that to her.” She feels dread: “There's a rejection of her neediness as well. I find that I've given as much as I can give … but she doesn't know when enough is enough. And I think that's what I'd love for her to learn. So when all of that's going on, um, to go back to what you were saying, I then have compassion for myself for the feelings that I've had around the situation. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Perfect. Okay.”
—Sharon says Sasha is “doing so much to be a great mum” and
“then she's still not blah. And kids, you know, if they're going to have us learn anything, they're going to have us learn I've got to be patient with myself a little and be patient with you. So just feeling all that is normal and to not allow or yourself to feel that or deny that is to deny you. And that can't be compassion.”
—Sharon says Sasha is “rejecting” herself quite early in the process and Sasha agrees there’s “definitely” an element of ‘what else do I need to do here?’
—Sharon says at that moment Sasha needs to feel compassion for herself: “I feel like crying. I feel like yelling. I feel like drinking. I feel like yelling and blaming my husband. I feel like doing a whole bunch of things that aren't that functional. Me tapping into all of me right now seems fricking impossible. That's it, that's when compassion's needed … because it's the only thing that will guide you.”
—They discuss humanity and that “we are love.” Sharon asks where Sasha’s humanity is for herself.
—Sasha: “Great question. You’ve nailed it in the sense that I'm trying so hard that because I'm not seeing the direct result. I then go, ‘Oh well that means that I'm not doing it right, because I'm not getting the right result’, which is a rejection of my humanity, because I'm never going to be able to control all of that. And I'm never going to be able to have all the answers to her or to me. And I think that's what I've been chasing is if I just find out that next thing, maybe that yes, it will make everything fine and dandy.”

35.65: THE PATTERN PLAYING OUT
—Sharon notes a lot of people think if they fix one thing (lose a kilo, have another $1000 in the bank) all will be fixed but the solution is compassion.
—Sasha agrees she’s trying to find the magic bullet “and I don't believe in the magic bullet” and there’s no compassion in the scenario for anyone.
—Sharon: “I guess the invitation is the inside job, rather than looking like you're doing everything on the outside. I don't think there's anything left on the outside that you can attempt.”
—Sasha: “The irony of this conversation is mind blowing because I happily explain this to my clients and happily guide them into the internal journey. And, you know, I guess, I guess that's lovely evidence that I'm not perfect. It's actually excellent.”
—Sharon “loves” that Sasha just saw herself with humanity: “And if we bring it back to your daughter and you wanting to be there for her and help her navigate this, if you can demonstrate passion and compassion and warmth and openness and love. And all of those states or traits are only required when they're being tested, but you can go to them.”
—Sasha says her “warmth and compassion” take a dive when things aren’t great. Says the 10 per cent revelation has helped her clarify that “in some ways that I'm only 10 per cent” of who she is becoming. of her overall early childhood experience. Talks her DDGs again, in the late evening or early morning hours: “I feel like it's almost that last piece of beating upedness that I I've tended to enjoy doing for some bizarre reason. I'd like to look back on that time in a more positive way.”
—Sharon: “For what purpose?”
—Sasha: “Reality. I’d like to recognize where I was and recognize that I was doing the best.”

42.86 “I’M GOING TO PUSH YOU A LITTLE BIT”
—Sharon: “I’m wondering if we can bring the same compassion frame to this. I sense I'm hearing you on something else?”
—Sasha needs to sit on it a minute as something comes up. “Right. I'm trying to fix that so that it doesn't have to be there anymore, so that it's cleared. So it's done. Where I'm not taking that compassion is it's linked to, I've broken her. It's that I have compassion for my experience, but not necessarily for my actions, I guess, or my lack of actions.”
—Sharon: “Not your actions, it’s the fear that the actions have caused harm. No matter how much you try to not on you. Now, I'm going to push you a little bit. You might've sucked through that whole period. There's every possibility it was sucky parenting. It was the best you could have done at the time with what you knew and what you were capable of. And now, you know better. And I think I'm going to go this way. My spatial anchoring is reversed. So you're this beautiful person that's resolving your past. You weren't all of who you consider yourself to be. And that you're asking me to eradicate cognitive dissonance. Nup. Have it. Realize you're human. If you're only going to be compassionate when you're bringing your A game and you're on and you switched on, that's not compassion. When you’re a blithering mess on the floor, out of breath … be compassionate for that woman and recognize the gap and embrace that gap. That's the journey. So I will not take away any of your imperfections. I will not coach you to soften them. I will not reframe them. Let's deal with the compassion gap rather than getting rid of the gap.”
—Sasha: “I love that so much because the dissonance I thought was what we had to close. But the dissonance is just a journey, isn't it? And then I bring the compassion to the part where I haven't been, or haven't been able to, or have been choosing not to whatever it is and that dissonance is okay. Because that also demonstrates my growth and it demonstrates how far I've come in this. Thank you. That's a massive gift, a massive gift in allowing the suckiness to be there. Yeah, because I've been wanting to get away, moving away from wanting to get away from that because it's not who I perceive myself to be.”
—Sasha “can already see the massive potential in actually keeping the dissonance rather than trying to close it. Cause that's not based in reality, actually closing that is me rejecting that experience of all of us and me rejecting myself.”
—Sharon: “I want you to know I'm into you knowing that you can suck. I don't have this benchmark where you've got to have it all together for me to be into you.”
—Sasha: “That would be awful. And that's precisely what I've been doing to me.”

50.88: LAYERING WITH COMPASSION
—Sharon invites Sasha to go back to a time when she suspects she sucked and “layer it with compassion or however you want to interact with compassion of the person you were becoming and are becoming.”
—Sasha imagines a time: “You can see how out of control I felt inside and stood there as myself and gave myself a hug because she needed that so much. That's a beautiful … you’re right. That's exactly the antidote to the judgment of self.”
—Sharon: “The invitation moving forward … perhaps do that process for yourself and then just get on with your day. If you did one or two a day, you'd be done in a reasonable period of time. And then you'll just start figuring how to replace it with something else, because you're going to need to do something else. Once you've cleaned, embraced, loved each of those moments of you you’re goinjg to want to do some other stuff in your thoughts.”
—Sharon says it will become automatic for Sasha and “you startito future orientate yourself rather than this past orientation. It's only muscle memory. So as much as you feel, you need to address it, go forth. And then as the void appears as it will inevitably start filling it with the direction that you want to start moving yourself. Start pre-framing. I'm going to need to be compassionate in a week because pretty sure that's when I'm going to need it. “
—Sasha: “Yeah, that's so cool. I mean, gosh, I already know possibly bedtime tonight is the next tier of compassion.”
—Sharon: “And you're doing this for you now. The beauty of it is you're modeling and demonstrating for your children, which is great. But do it for you because, it's the oxygen mask analogy. It's filling up your cup.”
—Sasha says “exactly the path forward for me. The 10 per cent is mind blowing and then the rest is the compassion and giving that to myself and readying myself for filling the void with not only the compassion, but then also the idea of what the possibilities are in those darker moments. Oh gosh and just allowing myself a bit more grace for goodness sakes. Like that's a massive gift in itself.”
—Sharon: “So you see or saw perfectionism, I'm going to say where we started the session I see you being loving and caring and wanting the best for your family. if the pathway to you experiencing that is compassion, that's perfect.
—Sasha: “It's a very simple approach that I can shift very, very easily. It doesn't have a multitude of steps. One concept. I love how you met my need. Thank you. And I think that's the constant question. How can I bring more compassion to this? Thank you. Self first, then to the situation.”

—Sharon welcomes Blair and introduces him as someone who as “created something out of what seems to be nothing … I love meeting people who know how to think about how to solve problems and to think outside the box and to build something that's worthwhile and they care about.”
—Blair reveals when he was 17 he lost his father to heart attack. When he was 23 his mother died after a two-year battle with cancer which is “your worst fear as a kid growing up … it’s probably one of the most terrifying things I’ve been through.” He compares his father’s sudden death with his mother’s experience: “My dad was gone overnight and didn't get to say goodbye. Um, but mum, you know, got to say goodbye, but at the same time, having the pain of watching someone slip away like that. So I don't know which what I would choose.”
—Blair talks how he “loved” brands, “even a six, seven year old. I think that came from my dad … a lot of that was sort of squashed out of me through school. Um, it was when mom and dad passed away, it was almost a bit of a reset, to be honest, it was like that. I had really no expectations of what I should do.” He dropped out of uni and his mother approved: “She said , ‘You weren't meant for university, go and build your own thing.’”
—He moved from the suburbs to Port Melbourne where he started his tanning salon, so without his mother’s death “I wouldn't have started the business. While I'd trade it all to have my mum back, um, it really kicked me into that.”
—Sharon says Blair’s “playground is right here in your head.”
—He agrees: “I’m always looking at the next thing. It gets tiring after a while, because I don't know if I'm ever going to be satisfied, but then at the same time, I don't think I'd want to be because I enjoy, enjoy chasing the next thing. And that's, that's where I find my enjoyment. It's not about, it's not about the end goal.
—Sharon asks one message from Blair’s father than has stayed with him.
—Blair: “He just used to say to me that I could do anything. He just believed you could do whatever you needed to. So I definitely got that from him. Mum was definitely a lot more pragmatic than that. She was a psychologist. It didn't matter who mum was speaking to. She was, you know, she was the same person all the time. Just a really calming influence. My dad a lot more high pace, a lot more, ‘What's next?’”
—Blair doesn’t like being the centre of attention: “At high school, I would do anything to skip school. Yeah, it's really been I reckon the last six years where I started to feel confident talking about the things that I care about and the things that I would like to have an impact on.”
10.21: Building a brand
—From the start Blair and partner Shaun Wilson knew they wouldn’t “represent the personality of the brand” because the positioning is female-oriented: “We needed someone that could talk directly to that young consumer.” Molly Quinn, who worked in the tanning salon, looked after social media early on: “She really, I felt typified the voice. Fun, engaging, never said a bad word about anybody. It was just a friendly face. And that’s what I wanted to be the front of Bondi.”
—Bondi Sands has been “a very quick journey”, Blair says: “We've just been so aggressive with what we've wanted to do with the brand. We had a global view for this brand from day one. We believed we could be the number one selling self-tanning brand in the world from day one. And I think we used to talk about that before we even sold one product.” Vision came true last year when they launched it to the US: “Once you've achieved a big goal like that it frees you up to then think about what's next for the brand. It doesn't always become solely around numbers and how many products you sell. It's more about know, how do we look to give back, or how do we do, how do we build a better business? So I think that's been, that's been an interesting progression for the brand over the last 12 months.”
—Sharon asks what it was that told Blair and Sean they would have a number one product.
—Blair talks genesis, saying the direction around wanting an Australian branded self-tanning product went back to an experience he had playing basketball in the US when he was a teenager and “that bronzed Aussie was just such a strong perception of Australians all around the world. So that, that stuck with me.”
—Sharon: “When did you realize that was a branding proposition? Because it's one thing to realize there's a perception of Aussies, but it's another to convert it into a branding proposition.”
—Blair opened his salon in 2006 and four years later started working on Bondi Sands. “And it was really at that time that we really started to understand that, you know, the Australian lifestyle that was very well known all around the world. So that was really just connecting the dots. We chose Bondi probably because the most famous beach in the world, but I think to Australians, it felt like that was an iconic Australian image that we could sell to the world.”
—At the same time he was doing customer research in the tanning salon. “It was getting to the point where we couldn't fit any more clients in. And I would start suggesting products that they could buy from a local pharmacy that they could just buy off the shelf. And so you're getting all this feedback of, ‘It doesn't last long enough, it stinks or the color is bad’. So I still look back at that those seven years as you know, some of the best market research you can ever do. I think we know tanning consumers better than anyone in the world. And it does come back to those seven years of talking to customers every single day.”
—18.23 Connecting the dots and evolution
—Sharon says not everybody would have made the connections that Blair did: “You don't know until you look back why it was smart. Is that how you see it?”
—Blair: “I definitely look at it as smart. I do connect things a lot on a daily basis. Most of your next steps in life comes from obviously where you are today. Most of the things I've done have come as evolutions of the occupation that's come before. So that salon moving into Bondi Sands was really an evolution, it wasn’t a brand new step.
—Sharon notes Blair was looking at going bankrupt after the Victorian government outlawed tanning salons and while others did, he was entrepreneurial enough to spin the demand for tanning into a fake tan product.
—Blair says Bondi Sands was in motion before the tanning bed ban. “That's one of the things that Sean and I do very well with Bondi. We're always thinking what's next, what's next? The amount of products we bring to bring to market and the speed that we do that that makes us an incredibly tough brand to compete with because we're constantly pushing out something new and in today's modern age where people are just on social media, they're wanting to see something new. I think your consumers need to see that you're trying something new. You're looking to further yourself and that's what we do as a brand.”
—Blair says Bondi Sands has developed “very organically” and that in their initial brand presentation back in 2011 they had sunscreen on the slate. They eventually launched a couple of years ago. “So we had directions really built out for how this brand was going to roll out probably six, seven years ahead.”
—Sharon notes Blair earned his stripes doing suntanning six days a week, every 15 minutes. He says, “around races time it was like some of the girls were there spraying until 11 o’clock at night.”
—Sharon recalls working seven days a week for two years, burning her own CDs, doing all my own production for the vision that I had. I knew there was a bigger vision there. I didn't know where it was going to go. I didn't have it as clear as you did. But I knew it involved. I've got to get out of the one-on-one and into the one to many.”
—Blair talks the early days, handling customer inquiries, packing orders and walking to the post office to post them: “Definitely not the most efficient way of spending my time. But, um, that was, that was just what we had to do in the beginning … something that was highlighted to us very early on was that people did want to support an Australian brand. You know, it's funny. We just never saw that it wasn't going to work. I don't mean to come across arrogant. We never entertained that it wasn't gonna work. We knew our product was great. We knew it was good value.”
—They had early challenges and one product failed stability and it turned green out in the marketplace: “I had some interesting moments in the beginning.”
—27.57 SALES STRATEGY AND PARTNERSHIPS
—Blair talks Bondi Sands relationship with their biggest retailer Priceline: “We remained exclusive with them for close to five, six years before we went anywhere else.”
—Sharon notes Bondi Sands has been “so careful to price competitively for your demographics so that everyone can afford” and Blair respond: “Yeah, it was funny. Like a lot of people talk about our pricing and ask about the strategy and it was, there was no strategy. It was literally, I believed our consumer was 17 through 20 year old females. I believe that a lot of them probably would have spent spending pocket money or money from a casual job. Um, and so I wanted them, I wanted those consumers together to come in and buy our product and get some change from a twenty dollar note.” Said three main pillars were built around the product: Australian made, affordable and accessible. “That's their values that we still adhere to, regardless of what territory we go into.”
—Sharon notes they keep coming back because of the quality and price point.
—Blair says one of the issues with brand development now and new brands coming to life through social media is “it's all about the marketing and not about the product. Um, you know, you see very few brands coming to market today that spend the 18 months like we did developing our first range. There’s become a bit of a disregard towards brands that are are built out of repeat purchase. We have a 92 per cent retention rate globally. So we know once we get a product, someone starts using Bondi, they'll stay with the brand because it's hard to match that quality at that price point.
—Sharon talks TCI’s retention model where clients pay a monthly retainer. “So the more that builds up, that's more of a measure of how we're doing. And we've got a stick rate of like 96 per cent. That I only had to acquire a raving fan once, and then they stay The cost is in the acquisition.”
—Blair’s fiancée buys “so many” brands online and “every time she buys something, she’s disappointed.”
—33:12: Where Kylie Jenner fits into the picture
—Sharon notes Bondi Sands paid Kylie Jenner $270,000 in 2018 for a single Insta post that was a hit with her 112 million followers, ensuring a great launch for the product in the US market.
—Blair says Kylie had used the product before she was approached was “incredibly exciting.” Says the strategy around it was they wanted to show American retailers they were willing to invest and that Bondi Sands would support them if they put the products on their shelves.
—Asked how many ads on old school TV he would have had to have paid for to match the Jenner result, Blair says around the same time they launched a product at Coachella at a private estate at Palm Springs and Emily Ratajkowski turned up: “We actually got more PR out of, out of her, turning up to our event. Um, and it was close to a billion reach off the back of people just resharing the fact she was at our event.”
—Says while influencers have been “a huge part” of our strategy, they want to do it in an “organic” way: “We do like to align with people over long periods of time and not just have them doing random posts. Obviously with Kylie Jenner is’ts an expensive process to have a long-term engagement.” They launched around the same time as Instagram, which was “a modern gold rush for brands.”
—Talks influencer Steph Claire Smith, one of Australia’s biggest influencers and now an entrepreneur. “Back in 2013 we were meeting with our PR agencies and it was at a time where people were starting to emerge that may have had 30, 40,000 followers on Instagram. So our PR agency was suggesting a lot of influencers to us, but at the time they were more celebrities that had jumped on Instagram quickly. There wasn't a lot of people that were just everyday people that had built a following. So we were getting presented with people like Margot Robbie and there was huge costs associated with someone that just because she was a legitimate celebrity.” Steph Claire Smith bought and posted about a product and you know, it was kinda like, this is the goal. That's the type of girl that we would like to represent our brand. And then it turns out she had 140,000 followers. The investment to get all that on board with our brand was a fraction of what a traditional celebrity was at the time. Apart from the cost saving what was important to us was that these people weren't engaged with her just because she was a celebrity, they engaged with her because they related to who she was. Um, so that was why we bought Steph into, you know, become the face of Bondi Sands.
—Since then they’ve used over 1000 influencers around the world. The business likes to align with someone for months to build credibility. “We wanted these people to be almost seen as though they were brand representatives of ours, not just someone to reshare some content.”
—40.00: To market, to market
—Blair says the brand people buy says something about who they are: “A lot of times we'll launch a new product and we don't have to market it to a lot of the people who follow Bondi because they believe in what we produce. So they will always buy a new product. And I always talk about a brand to consumer relationship is no different to a friend to friend relationship. You buy into brands that represent who you are and who you feel you're aligned with. So I think, yeah, when people skip over that brand development and building that brand equity, you're missing the most important part of building your brand.
—Sharon: “It’s not just selling product. I call it giving a shit.” Asks Blair where Bondi Sands is heading.
—Blair says becoming the number one brand globally was “a great achievement to tick off the list.” Has allowed them to think even more broadly than before and the business is now a credible brand in skincare as well as self tan: “I'm looking forward to taking more responsibility for the category that we're in, in terms of whether it be eco-friendly products, better sustainability, packaging, the product, the right way, the right ingredients, representing the brand in the right way. I feel like the exciting thing for Bondi now is we can help create change potentially around sustainability. Um, and that's something that's gonna be a big driver for us over the next two to three years, that's going to incorporate, um, potentially a bit of a rebrand, brand new packaging throughout our whole range, which is 60 products. We're looking into new territories.”
—Sharon asks if he has much to do with the team and he says it’s more Sean’s remit. Says some of the struggles they’ve had is around bringing in team members into the US who are all American: “So their perception of the brand is, is so different to yours. They still need to take responsibility for their own territory, but they need to really understand the brand heritage and understand where you're going. They need to understand the Australian way of life. They need to understand, you know, that, okay, this may not be the way you talk but this is how we talk as a brand.”
—Talks the “world first range” coming in January that is a new and very different direction for Bondi Sands. It will the sun care partner for the Australian Open in 2021, in a three-year deal with the “iconic platform.”
—51.00: Creating
—Sharon asks Blair what his creative process is.
—Blair: “It's different all the time I find, and if I'm looking for inspiration on something or I go looking for product ideas, they don't come. It's always an evolution of where we are today.” Talks 2016’s Tan Eraser product and how it came about and how one product often leads to another. In 2018, the Aero Express product became the fastest selling product in Priceline history, regardless of category.
—Sharon notes “creativity for me is problem solving. You got to go where everyone else hasn't been yet.”
—Blair talks misconceptions around creativity and that he believes it’s “the most under-utilized superpower the human race has. People always ask me, like, how do you become creative? I'm not a creative person. I feel like anybody can be a creative person. It's just a different mindset. And I think it's, it's as simple as asking questions.”
—Sharon says her “most hated” comment is, ‘We’ve always done it that way’ … “If we've been defending a status quo, what a waste of energy.”
—Blair says when someone is explaining ideas to him, “I'll just keep asking questions. And at the end of these discussions, you always ended up with a better idea or a better concept. So I think, yeah, creativity is so important and it can be utilized in any, in any field. And it's not to be confused with talent.”
—Sharon talks deduction and induction thinking and says Blair is an induction thinker: “You naturally go to what could be, which is the reason why a suntan salon for you was not the end of the road in the industry.”
—Blair is “not always interested in what other brands are doing. I want us to get an idea of trends and categories, but I'm not going to be fixated on what a category does because that's just, well, what happened yesterday. You know when you create a new product that there's no data to support that it's going to work. So it all comes down to how you create it. How you tell a story. It's one of the things that we try to get our brand team to do is just to think outside of what you've been told on a daily basis that works. The way my dad brought me up was very much like that. He just believed that if you wanted something, you had to go and create something to get there.

PART TWO:
Zero: TKTK

—Blair says his dad was “always asking questions. Talks about living in the UK when he was a kid and his father owned a business importing Australian goods. “I’ve always loved watches and cars. And there was a, a calculator watch that I wanted. It was about 11 pounds. We didn't have much money at the time. So I'd just have to work at my own way to to get it. And, um, my dad had a whole heap of Vegemite and peanut butter at the back of the store. And, um, so I took that and I cut up one of the boxes and made like a little tray and went and sold the whole lot. I made about 33 pounds and I bought the watch. Dad was like, ‘You can’t take my stock and just sell it’ but deep down I think he loved it. And I think that that really set something in stone for me, that it was like, well, if you want something, there's an opportunity to go and get it. You just need to go and do it.”
—Sharon says for most people, “the reason to dig a hole for themselves is they think the problem is going to be solved by staring at the problem. I won't get the answer there.”
—Blair says he has had push back from his team in the past over new ideas “But you know, this is what consumers want to see. They want to see new things from the brand they love. There's been, you know, ideas that have been dialed down or diluted. And then two years goes by and then you go, well, that, wasn't what it should be. And I've learned to trust that now. I think if f you're going to push a new idea, it needs to be as out there, or as forward-thinking as it possibly can be because by the time it gets to market you then dial down by cost restrictions and retailers and marketing expectations and claims and all those things. So if it wasn't something that was really out there in the beginning, it's going to end up being very boring by the time it gets to market. So that's something I always think about like, is, is it enough to love that, that first idea? Are we going big enough in the beginning? Cause I know it's going to get stripped away.”
—Sharon says her best ideas have come from “really bad ideas or horrible situations because I've had to be so inventive. One of my sayings is when my back is to the wall, the best in me comes out. So I, my most creative and innovative when I have to be, because then I'm just going to come charging through the walls.”
—Blair enjoys the development process: ”That branding side, that creativity side has been there since I was a kid and I. But do get a buzz out of it.” Talks new hair growth brand Growth Bomb.
—Sharon notes he loves a project: “I don't think you even feel you have a business as such, you have big projects and you always need the next big project.”
—He says male influencers don’t really work for Bondi Sands: “Women like to relate to who's given them the message so I think that's why women buy into influencers more. I think men buy more into brand message and the old school marketing.”
—Talks their hybrid strategy of building a brand on social media but also looking at mass ways of marketing: “So, you know, just because something's worked in the past, doesn't mean it's gonna work for everything. Um, and it's about learning and adapting.”
—M
—Blair says in 2015 Bondi Sands was “all about girls in bikinis” and “now I think you're seeing people now find their niche and become experts within those fields. And now that's what people, consumers are wanting. What followers are wanting from these influencers is they want to want to see a level of expertise about what they're talking about, not just posting a nice photo.”
12.48: School’s out for creativity
—Sharon says creativity isn’t encouraged in schools, and discusses a study that shows kids have one hundred percent creativity when they start school and within five years it’s dropped drastically.
—Sharon: “I believe the lack of creativity is one of the reasons why we have so much trouble having dialogue that's mature in society now. And when we don't trust ourselves and we don't trust our innovation and our ability to think and analyze and critique, we rely on authority. And when we rely on authority, we have to blindly believe it because we don't have any criteria. So authority becomes the substitute [00:15:00] for us thinking creatively.”
—Blair: ”Starting to become creative is a very simple thing. And I believe is about just asking questions. That's it.”
—Sharon disagrees: “Not all people know what to do with the answers. If you don't know what to do with the answer, it can't go into your neural net to produce something different because it's basically orange plus cloud equals dog.”
—Blair: “Uh, I think it's just about getting that frame of mind, first of all, the first part of it is, is just trying to think in a way where there may be more. It's just accepting that there may be more than what you've been told.”

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—Kate wrote the book over six months, getting up at 5am and setting herself a word count: “I just enjoyed so much getting into the science of ageing, but also thinking about some of the social context of that. And at that time I wasn't working full time, but part of the reason I was able to write his book is because, you know, I've done a science degree, a medical degree and a specialization and a PhD so I already had a lot of the knowledge I needed. It was one of those things. I just felt like it was, I felt like it was an important thing to do. It was really meaningful to me.”

—Sharon asks Kate’s philosophy of health and wellbeing, which “isn’t just try and fix it when it’s broke.”

—Kate: “I work in a hospital, so I do a lot of fixing when it's broke, but I mostly work with older adults and it is just the most incredible gift to get that wisdom and perspective that comes at the end or towards, you know, after many decades of life, you know, people in their eighties and nineties they've lived, they have so much understanding of what is important. Don't get me wrong. Physical things are really important aspects of health, human, sleep, nutrition, exercise, but we also need to find a framework and find motivation and find things that are important to us to actually feel like doing those things. And one of the other things about working with people in his age group, you also know that life is finite. It does not go forever. And that's one of the most important things as humans that we need to come to terms with.”

—Kate says it’s important to have a framework for how we can make these decisions to improve our chances of longevity, but also do it in a way that is putting importance on the here and now, on getting enjoyment, including emotional health and social health in how we construct wellbeing.

—Sharon asks if Kate is able to bring her philosophy into what she does within the Australian health care system.

—Kate: “One of the things that I often ask my patients is what is important to you and what matters to you.”
—She’s looked into factors including visitors to older people and they make a difference to physical recovery: “One area that's been studied particularly well is optimism and people who are optimists are more likely to make a good recovery after a heart attack. People who are optimists have more of a feeling that they're in control. And feeling that things they do matter. So after a heart attack, they're more likely to take the medications they prescribed, but there's also some other evidence that people who are optimists, it actually does have some biological effects. So it's that really interesting intersection between the psychological factors and the biology coming together affect the way our body works.”
—Sharon asks how much of the Australian system allows for prevention. Reveals she was diagnosed with stage four endometriosis as a teenager: “It really woke me up to a system that was designed just to get cut it off, cut it out, drug it … I actually had one doctor tell me once, ‘If we cut the nerves, you won't feel the pain as it kills you.’ Not saying that's the standard practice. But that was my experience. And it made me realize this is a very reactive system. Where do you think the system sits now compared to my experience many years ago?”
—Discussion from both about how infectious diseases were the main cause of death 150 years ago. Kate: “There was no antibiotics, no hygiene. There was less public health, less water sanitation, no vaccinations.”
—Sharon mentions the doctor who pioneered the sterilizing of surgical instruments.
—Kate says “in Australia, we spent a relatively low proportion of health budget on prevention” and “it’s still an ongoing issue and we don't have enough funding for allied health, the supportive management of conditions.” Says the public health system sometimes offers good holistic health care. “General practice is so underfunded compared to what we get and the way the Medicare rebates work, they get paid for seeing more patients, rather than for spending more time with patients. And when you're running a business and you've got expenses, it's got competing priorities there.”
11.32: CHURN AND BURN
—Sharon refers to Kate’s funding explanation: “How can that be?” Asks who is going to listen to older adults who want to spend more than five minutes with their doctor, talking, and bemoans the lack of simple contact like supermarket checkout operators: “So older people now, having been challenged by technology, are being told that they can't see anybody ever. And then they go to the GP and it's in five minutes, seven minutes turnaround, where do they just land and just be, and they're not going to Zoom it up.”
—Kate talks COVID: “For the next indefinite future, you know, we need to have a strategy that means everyone can get quality of life back and hopefully we're heading towards there soon, but it certainly has been a byproduct of what we've been doing. This epidemic of loneliness and loneliness has its own health problems.”
—Sharon: “I think masks added to this as well. I'm seeing people having less eye contact. Um, I'm noticing some people who are older, shying away from people.”
—Kate: “People who are older with health conditions are right to be scared of a virus. And in some ways, masks are a way that we can make a bit more connection because they do make things a bit safer.”
—Sharon: “I don't know if I agree with you on the mass, so I, I understand why we've got them, but I find older people wearing a mask, not be able to see that I'm smiling, they're avoiding me.”
—Having worked on the coronavirus wards, Kate supports wearing masks, particularly indoors, but says wearing masks have “impacted on my care for all the adults” because it’s harder to communicate. Praises specialized age care nurses doing “amazing work at overcoming that side of things.”
—Kate says “hopefully we don't have to wear masks forever. I'm looking very much forward to when we get those vaccines.”
—Sharon isn’t big on a vaccine and feels one is two year away and “will only be as effective as the flu” shot. Notes we haven’t had an effective coronavirus vaccine.: “I want a 15 minute result test. It’s the game changer for me, it's 15 minutes. Just everyone coming to work and getting tested. Have your life. When you get to the airport, 15 minute test again, repeated when you land that to me is going to free us up a lot quicker than a vaccine.”
—Kate is a “vaccine optimist” having read the research and summaries on trials: “And while we haven't had a coronavirus vaccine before, there's never been a lot of scientific or incentive to develop a coronavirus vaccine. My concern with the rapid test is they may not be accurate enough.”
22:17: INCREDIBLE HUMANS AND ‘GOOD’ GENES
—Kate says that while 2020 has been “really hard, it's just been the most incredible display of where humans are so amazing. You know, because for most people, their individual risk of getting coronavirus and getting it badly is small, but everyone's seen as a society, what we need to do is the best for everyone and made these sacrifices and you know, no other animal is capable of doing that.”
—Sharon asks what it was like working on the frontline in an aged care coronavirus ward.
—Kate: “Personally, it really made me dig deep on my own mental wellbeing strategies, and the way that I apply a lot of what I've learned from my reading, the stuff I've written in my book. to my own everyday life. And so, you know, things like I walked to and from work, which is about four kilometers. And it was really good to have that time to debrief. I actually leaned into exercise, you know, I made sure that I really kept that up. I made sure I had a good sleep routine to be really focused and present with my family.” Coming home to her children was a great circuit breaker: “Children are so amazing at being in the moment and being really present.”
—Sharon says Kate did the oxygen-on-planes technique: “You took care of yourself so you can take care of all of us.”
—Kate: “Yes, self-care isn’t a dirty word anymore. We all go through stressful and hard times in our lives and it is important that we find things that work for ourselves to get us through.”
—Sharon says one statistic in Staying Alive fascinated her: In 1900, we died at the average age of 31 compared to 18 now in developed countries and 71 across the board.
—Kate notes a lot of that was infant mortality, bacterial infections, maternal health. Says her own grandmother would have died if she had given birth 50 years earlier than she did because of placenta previa. Says “public health stuff which is often a bit invisible shouldn’t be dismissed” like understanding cardiovascular risk factors by having blood pressure and cholesterol checks.
—Notes they “seem so mundane. But the things that we can intervene on can improve longevity and decrease the chance of getting chronic diseases. There is a lot of genetics of ageing is really interesting, but I think it's really important that for the vast majority of people genetics are not an absolute sentence to which how you live, how long your life is going to be.”
—Sharon asks how the attitude that health issues are genetic has been perpetuated: “What am I missing here?”
—Kate says while most centenarians do have excellent genes … for the majority of us, you know, when you just look at that life expectancy gain in such a short period of time, that's not our genetics. That's all to do with getting better health measures.” She doesn’t recommend finding out if you have increased genetic markers for dementia: Yeah. And I, you know, even things like whether you get some genes, give people a much more increased likelihood of getting dementia. And you can, you know, say to swap away on your cheek and gone, find out you've got this, generally as it increase your chances: “whether you've got them or not, you still need to eat right, exercise, sleep, challenge your brain. If you've got the lowest risk that doesn't mean you can take up smoking and spend all your life watching Netflix.”
—Both discuss survivor bias.
30:51: THE HEALTH BANK
—Sharon says her endometriosis was a “wake up call” that made her dedicated to her health care: “I've literally spent decades now being as best as I can be in getting the research and being on top of it. I see other people, it's almost like, no matter what happens, they still feel they don't have a say in it.”
—Kate: “One of the fundamental flaws in the whole idea of prevention is that it's an abstract future. None of us actually knows what’s going to happen in 10 years, twenty years. And people don't often articulate that in their everyday choices but we balancing that up and that's why I think it's so much more important to focus on a definition of health that's really present, that's much more about enabling you to engage in your life. That you can physically and mentally do what you want to do and so then it makes it important in the here and now. And you know, my take personally is I'm not willing to make any major behavior changes to my health that I don't get benefits from.”
—Asked by Sharon if she means now, Kate says yes: “You know, things like I'm, I'm very, I'm very active. I exercise a lot, but the thing that gets me up in the morning and going for my walk and my run, isn’t thinking, ‘This is decreasing my chance of dementia.’ It's because I'll be in a better mood after I've done that.”
—Sharon says she agrees and also invests in her health bank for her old age, which Kate says is “fantastic.” She invests in heart health and is fascinated by telomeres, which are the caps at the end of each strand of DNA that protect our chromosomes, like the plastic ends of shoelaces. Without the telomeres, DNA strands become damaged and our cells can’t do their job. As you get older, telomeres shorten.
—Sharon: “And when they get really short, that's the game. So what I've been interested in looking at is research and studies around how to prevent the shortening of telomeres.
—Kate is across the research. “And I think what's really interesting with this is that it's again, the physical factors, but there's also factors linked with psychological trauma. Yeah, they can shorten telomeres as well. They're completely integrated. And you know, even saying something is all in your mind where, you know, your mind is still a part of your body. And I think it's so good, interesting that it gives us this idea of, you know, a measure of what's been going on.”
—Kate adds a small caveat: “We need more longitudinal studies of telomeres. And so there are some studies showing, you know, children who've been under psychological stress have shorter telomeres which is really disturbing, but we, we don't entirely know what that means for their longterm health outcomes.”
—Sharon (“paraphrasing terribly”) says studies showed that they had more chance of heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure, and heart issues.
—Kate doesn’t like to “overly worry” people.
—Sharon finds it “because I did experience trauma when I was younger. And so I found that study empowering because I thought, okay, so these are the things I need to make sure I prevent happening in my life. Which is why I studied positive psychology. It's why I do what I do.” Asks if there is potential that psychology can physically express itself: “What do I need to do to ensure that it's not inevitable and I don’t become the stat?” References an “incredibly empowering digital formation” that made her think, “I just need to lift my game with those areas of my life. So my diet, I just really manage my health, my wellbeing, the whole thing. I'm looking all the time because I don't want the potential to become probable that's the way I look at it.”
—Kate says Sharon has a “fantastic ability to look to the future and make these changes yourself.”
—Sharon asks why that is often the hardest step.
—Kate: “Look, it's interesting. And that's where I think as well with people when I'm talking about is trying to get them to make some lifestyle changes to help improve health and wellbeing. It is often about saying to someone, you know, ‘What's important to you?’ and helping them feel that they are worth doing it for, helping them feel empowered, helping people have motivation to do something that is hard. Because you know, changing habits is hard. Take quitting smoking. Smoking is hugely addictive.
—Sharon asks why it's hard to change a habit: “Is there a pattern there on what people are resisting or what's going on for them?”
—Kate says particularly in health people often have entrenched behaviors and beliefs. “It's not so much saying to someone do your exercise. Everyone knows exercise is good for them. It's saying, you know, what's important to you. If someone says, ‘Well, I love spending time with my grandchildren’, okay, being active is really great for that because then you'll be able to keep up with them. And so it's framing it in people's lives, in what matters to them. What's going to add value each of them. And I can't prescribe that.”
—Sharon says studies are clear that intrinsically motivated people are going to do better than the extrinsically motivated every single time: “I sometimes wonder if people who don't take the actions that are really self-evident, that they don't maybe feel had the same level of hope as others. Maybe I am an optimist! So I wonder if some people who don't take action don't have the level of personal agency or don't perceive themselves as being empowered in that area as much as perhaps others do.”
—Kate: “Oh a hundred percent. And sometimes that comes from life experiences. And, you know, if someone's had a really hard disadvantage childhood, their life experience is that they don't have a lot of agency. And so it can be something that someone's learnt, you know, if someone's been throughout their life, that's in a marriage where they're very much under the control of someone else.
41.46: TELOMERES 2.0
—Sharon asks how we extend telomeres and cites “like, 25 clinical trials … non-supplement, what is it that you would suggest to help increase that?”
—Kate: “One thing with ageing, it is multiple cellular processes.” Says one study she read had experts on ageing “trying to get a consensus statement on what ageing actually is.” Adds that “again, there’s multiple factors happening. You know, our cells are more likely to have DNA errors as we get older. Telomeres might be a bit shorter, which can also contribute to genetic instability. We've got less stem cells, so we're a bit less able toreplenish what we need. We've got more cells that our senescent, which is when they've had some damage. They're no longer replicating, but they're still kind of sitting there, um, affecting all the other cells around them. The thing is they also got some really important roles, so they have roles in tissue healing, and they've even got roles in embryological development. But if you accumulate too many of them with age, they start to cause problems. And so aging really is it's multifactorial and it's related to a lot of really essential underlying biological processes. And so with all of these things that I've looked at in my book, they affect telomeres but they're also going to have effects on other parts of the cellular aging process as well.”
—Sharon loves that Kate wrote about gut health: “I am just the biggest fan.” Raises the “mind blowing” subject of “gut bugs that have their own neurology transmitters.”
—At university in the mid-2000s, Kate wasn’t taught about gut microbiology. “And now we realize that no, actually it is so important. Everything that's going on down there, it's this whole other huge component of health that was a complete mystery to us until very recently. And so your gut bacteria want to make the best home possible for themselves and they do that by producing their own neurotransmitters. They produce their own products that affect our colon cells that make things better for themselves. And so there's all these really interesting links coming out now between gut health and neurological disease.”
—Sharon thinks medicine is catching up on gut health what we’ve been learning other fields. 20 years ago doctors recommended antibiotics for her candida but she chose a different pathway which “gave me amazing health. Am I going too far if I say gut bugs can cause depression, are we there yet on that?”
—Kate says “We’re close. And there's some studies linking a high-quality diet and lots of vegetables, healthy fats, like fatty fish, low ultra-processed foods, linking that with actually being a treatment for depression. My take on things like this is if I have someone with issues like this getting them eating more vegetables is a pretty low risk strategy.”
—The one thing that helped Sharon’s health most was dumping processed food and sugar 20 years ago. I was diagnosed with depression and I was given antidepressants, four different scripts I was given, and I'm not suggesting this to anybody else. My experience with this is reacting to what's going on, not dealing with how I got here. And that's where I made these major changes in my life. It's why I became a coach. Cause I didn't feel empowered with suppressing. And that's when I dumped sugar, processed food alcohol for two years. Um, what else? And up started exercising, what a concept. And I won't say it's gonna work for everyone. This isn't me being a doctor. All the disclaimers here. It's just for me that it was the pathway that taught me so much about how much I can impact me. It was so empowering for me. After years of surgeries with endometriosis and ovarian cysts, it was 20 years, just to empower myself that way was an incredible feeling. Every day I feel gratitude for having my health, knowing what it felt like back then not to have that.”
—Kate: “Having [ultraprocessed foods] as a routine, part of the diet. There's so much evidence now that it's terrible for your health.”
—Sharon doesn’t eat white foods, notably flour and sugar. I’m off white wine because of the sugar. It’s like I have a hangover. I’m kinda grateful I have that.”
—Kate has the same sort of thing but sometimes just wants a piece of birthday cake: “It's weird getting a food hangover, but as well for me, nutrition is such a positive in my life. I love food. I love eating. It's just such an important part of what we enjoy every day. You know, sitting down with my family and sharing a meal. Sometimes we sort of focus so much on nutrition as being this, you know, we’re denying ourselves. When you focus on eating mostly vegetables doesn’t mean you can’t have a lot of flavour and variety.”
—50.14 WHITE OUT!
—Sharon says when you stop adding salt and sugar and trans fats which she hasn’t had in years, food is a little bland for seven days.
—Kate says if she eats ultra processed food it tastes terrible to her but they activate certain reward pathways: “We call it ‘want more’ foods in our house.” When you start eating real food, you realize how much more flavor is actually in that rather than what you thought was flavor.
—Sharon ays Staying Alive walks you through great dietary choices. Asks what you are going to replace unhealthy food with: “Not what are you taking away, what are you going to do instead?”
—Kate says the way we speak to each other about lapses is important. “We'd never speak to our friends in the way we speak to ourselves and focusing on the good things you've done for yourself is so much more motivating and social powerful and not, you know, uh, I had some cake today, that means the day is a write off. It's terrible. No, it just means you had some cake, that's it? You know, it doesn't mean you're a failure.”
—Sharon says making the transition is tough but once you've made it, having the cake gets harder to do because the environment starts looking different.
54.06: INFLAMMATORY ISSUES
—Inflammation is one of Sharon’s favorite subjects when it comes to anti-ageing, a phrase Kate isn’t a fan of because we are all ageing (and Sharon isn’t against it!)
—Kate says the immune system is “so fascinating” and absolutely essential. We need an immune system that is able to have a good inflammatory response to threats … but then we also need it to switch off again.” Says the immune system is impacted by factors including exercise, sleep, stress. When people are older they lose a lot of reserve so things that might not have such an impact on you when you're more robust have a much more significant impact. And we know that people who are frail have higher levels of inflammation, so their bodies seem to be under stress. And it's still a bit of a chicken or the egg type thing of whether it's the inflammation drives ageing or the ageing drives inflammation.”
—Sharon talks epigenetics and genetics.
—Kate notes women generally have stronger immune systems than men. The downside is that women are a bit more likely to get autoimmune diseases. “But all of the things that we think of as know chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, dementia, they're all linked with higher levels of inflammation.”
—Asked the “little things” we can do, Kate says it “comes back to these same simple strategies: getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising and maintaining your psychological wellbeing are all factors that seem to have positive effects on how our immune system.”
—Sharon makes a point of getting in nature every morning. Sharon says her number of infections have plummeted since she’s been healthy: “And I'm looking at what have I done? And it's really, I am moving differently. Moving, taking care of my mindset. So nature being a good friend to me has really helped and I’ve taken care of what I'm putting into my body. So I take care of what I look at, what I think about and what goes in my body.”
—Kate notes Sharon knows what works for her. And that's the thing. This book has got a lot of scientific evidence in it, but it's also got to be how we apply it to ourselves. And it comes back to that really central message that it's, you know, prevention is an abstract concept. We've got to make it matter to us in the here and now we've got to find a way to reconcile wanting good health in the long term with creating joy today. And so we do individual strategies.”
—Sharon says she follows people like Kate on Instagram and people who are older who are examples of taking car of themselves and thriving and striving and are still going for the dream.” Does yoga, as does her mother. “We'll send each other, which yoga class we did that day, little moments like that and developing new habits for us.”
—Kate says there are negative perceptions that somehow people who are older stop having ideas or stop mattering. Discusses David Attenborough, in his 90s, who went on Instagram for the first time and had two million followers in two hours: “I followed him. I think he's amazing. I mean, you know, Jane Fonda, who I was listening to an interview with her recently and she's 82 and her goal was to spend two 82nd birthday in prison, you know, getting arrested for protesting climate change. Like well, living her values. And I thought, well, if they get rid of this idea that people are not as capable, just because I've lived more.”
1.02.26: WHAT DOES A 90 YEAR OLD LOOK LIKE?
—Sharon was asked what someone who is 90 years old looks like in your mind's eye: “And then a bunch of people describe them all they're hunched over and they're frail. No way. They've got their shoulders back. They're out walking with someone and they're real and they're gardening and enjoy it. I think if we have a vision of how we used to be that age, that's what we kind of aim towards.” Notes there are “dedicated areas” in stores for how for how women should dress when they are older. “I’m going to dress the way I feel. There is not going to be a moment when I'm going to make less input and just think a house dress and slippers.”
—Kate says a common trait is centenarians admit they “don’t take rubbish from anyone.”
—Sharon references late US Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 99-year-old businesswoman Iris Apfel who have “cool characteristics that I admire. They stand for what they believe in, they're not trying to prove anything except how great they can live their lives. They're my heroes. I just think they're fantastic. Who are your heroes?”
—Kate says she spoke to a lot of academic leaders in her field for the book who are “past retirement age and they're still at the absolute top of their field. That's absolutely inspirational to me. ‘Cause that's what I want going forward. My work really matters to me and I wanna be, yeah, I want to keep doing it. “
—Sharon references Kate’s noting towards the end of the book that women are more likely to have symptoms dismissed than men.
—Kate: “It still happens now. I've called out colleagues on unconscious bias as well. And it's one of these things that people in, especially what they call atypical heart attack symptoms, which is really problematic because, you know, if you just say to the population of women, if they don't have the same symptoms, it doesn't make it men and not the norm. So this, that has actually significant impact and women do have longer life expectancy than men, but when having heart attacks are less likely to get the highest standard of treatment.”
—Sharon asks what we are doing to fix that.
—Kate says “there's a lot of work going into it at the moment from the heart disease side of things” and notes what is interesting is “in an emergency department where they had more women, so women tend to be better at diagnosing this in women, but in emergency departments with more women, they teach their male colleagues to get better at it. And so it's one of these reasons, you know, gender equality, but also diversity in medicine is medical training.”
1:07:27: SOLUTIONS
—Sharon talks diet recommendati0ns, blue zones, and how she is “leaning towards the Mediterranean with a little bit of an Asian kind of diet … what are some of the general recommendations you make in terms of what we should be putting on that beautiful platter to connect with family and eat healthily?”
—Kate is very much focused on us eating meals, not macronutrients, and we need to have a holistic approach to food, not a reductive approach.. some people talk, ‘I'm going to cut carbs.’ Well, Carbs are a teaspoon of refined sugar, but carbs, you know, lentils have carbohydrates in it and it can be in the complex chains of carbohydrates that take ages for our bodies to break down. I try and make things really simple and understandable and achievable and nutrition can be spectacularly complex. And the one thing you can take away from the sheer number of diet books is there is no one right solution for everybody. And so what I would say is make most of your day, you know, most of your plate, try and have vegetables on it.
—Sharon has looked at research around plant based diets “which is definitely me” and those focusing on protein. Both are getting great results, “which I find fascinating.”
—Kate says there is more evidence around a plant based diet, and says a traditional Mediterranean diet is not a lot of meat. It’s mainly fish, salad, vegetables. References the Okinawa diet where Japanese people don’t eat a. lot of meat.

—Kate was raised in the 80s and 90s on diets more focused on low fat than the old meat and three veg English fare, which Sahron says “The roast with the Yorkshire pudding in the potato, and then maybe some boiled carrots that had been bloated 20 minutes.”
—Sharon is “full fat, butter, olive oil. I can't gain weight. That's the other thing I find amazing. My weight goes down or stays the same. Olive oil has been the greatest gift from my diet ever. It just makes me feel amazing. Where are you?”
—Kate uses olive oil “all the way” on salads and things and every now and again has nitrate free bacon: “By and large preserved meats are not good.”
—Sharon praises Kate’s sections on sleep, anti-inflammation, the Vega nerve, cortisol levels, the holistic attitude about community and friendship and connection and mental health: “Do you want to talk about that a little bit about how that plays a role in what you're noticing in people who have longevity and feel great?”
—Kate: “Look, the one thing I'd say when people, you know, they've reached their eighties and nineties, when I say what's important to you, they never say, ‘I want to live as long as possible. They always tell me other things going on in their lives, you know, but one story of a man who I saw here, he wanted to get better from pneumonia because he’d always gone dancing with his wife for the last 17 years. And that was what was driving here, mental health. Isn't just the treatment of mental health disorders, like depression and anxiety. And that's obviously really important, but feel positive emotion. And so putting more positives in thinking again of health is not just something, you know, the absence of disease, but something else.”
—Kate says it’s “really important is to distinguish happiness from pleasure. And I think if we just go and seek out pleasure for our entire lives. It's really important to have a little bits of pleasure in our day, you know, but humans, I think we have a deep need for something more than that. And, you know, happiness is this sense of living our values. And when I say people who are older, who are really thriving, that is really integral to their lives.”
—Sharon mentions her masters’ thesis is about hedonic happiness versus meaning happiness. “For me, it's about having a sense of purpose.” She and husband JP have a purpose and value every year “and then actions that are aligned with that and give us joy. So moment to moment decisions become easier, right? Because they're really integral and completely aligned with what we value, what we stand for, what we're fighting for, what we invest in mentally and emotionally.” They bring it alive during lockdown by going to a different city or place at home with food and costumes. “So last session, we went to Balthazar our favorite restaurant in New York. We had French food and French music and I dressed French and he had a French hat on. Um, I think this Saturday we're going to Tuscany a bottle of olive oil delivered from Tuscany. And that gives us a great sense of meaning it's very pleasurable and it does take care of feeling pleasure, but we've really invested in what we care about, which is our intimacy and us being close together, and us feeling that intimacy in a fun, playful, silly way.”
—Kate: “And one thing in a wing people get older, they generally actually get happier.”
1:17:07: PROJECT THREE, SIX, 12
—Asked what it’s about, Kate says it’s women’s health and wellbeing courses specifically aimed at women who are 40 plus, and you want to make some positive changes to their health. So it's got a strength training component. It's got recipes, and it's also got some health education. There are also webinars covering exercise physiology.
—She created it because of the focus on weight loss for women, “and I wanted to focus on people actually getting healthy again. And so trying to make people actually feel that these things are enjoyable and valuable in themselves and to not face a lot of the barriers that women face to looking after themselves.”

RESOURCES:

Dr Kate Gregorevic:
Twitter
Instagram

Staying Alive:
https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760785536/

Doctors who pioneered instrument sterilization:
https://tci.rocks/instrument-sterilization

Endometriosis:
https://tci.rocks/endometriosis

Telomeres:
https://tci.rocks/telomeres

Gut bugs with their own neurotransmitters:
https://tci.rocks/gut-bugs

Candida:
https://tci.rocks/candida

David Attenborough:
https://attenboroughfilm.com/

Jane Fonda:
https://tci.rocks/jane-fonda

Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographyGinsburg.aspx

Iris Apfel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Apfel

Mediterranean diet:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/mediterranean-diet-meal-plan

Project Three Six Twelve:
https://www.projectthreesixtwelve.com/

https://www.instagram.com/drkate_gregorevic/

https://www.instagram.com/macmillanaus/

Sharon introduces a “very dear friend of mine” who she met about ten years ago and has stayed in touch with: “He’s a phenomenal human being and thought leader.”

—Classic rags to riches story, that today sees him regarded as one of the world’s leading behavioural mindset experts. John has built five multi-million dollar companies, written two New York Times bestsellers, sat next to Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show and worked on eight movies including 2006 hit The Secret. Founder of Neurogym and his latest book Innercise promises to help people recognise and release emotional blocks. We talked about all things mindset and overcoming fear and procrastination. It’s a very inspirational conversation dedicated to being the best selves we can be and fulfilling our truest potential.

—Sharon notices people in this space are geared up for short term and not to be in the game in 20 years. They are very excited about volume and big numbers on the front end but not about the stick rate and longevity: “I find it hard to mentor them. I am the reverse. All our attention is on the back end, making sure the experience is so good they only want to stay and rave about us.”

—John says the internet space where you can market to everyone in the world and “say I can make 200K in a weekend … the greed factor comes in, and you are thinking about that new car or second house or amazing trip. You are making decisions based on what your lifestyle may be like today and it’s sexy to think of that vs how am I going to build a business which is recurring and repeatable.”

—Both discuss how they met probably ten years ago: Sharon “managed to corner” John for lunch after one of his events. She had read The Answer. “And you were curious and open. That’s one of the things I fell in love with about you, wanting to brainstorm about how do we make it bigger and better. Can you talk to openness and curiosity and how it’s playing out for you?”

—John has been on Larry King’s TV show eight times and asked Larry what makes him so good at what he does: “He said two things that were really interesting. Number one, I ask the questions the audience wants me to ask because that’s what they’re thinking about. Two, I am just insatiably curious and I just want to know stuff and have a full idea of the things that are of interest to me.” References the saying ‘success leaves clues’, saying 90 per cent of what makes successful people successful is the same and 10 per cent is different: “That ten per cent is a big clue so I am fascinated by finding little things and big things. Ways of understanding that things that work for you may not work for me.” Says a mentor told him to give as much as he can to help other people: “I seek to be a go getter but also a go giver. I’ve discovered I can’t outgive the universe.”

—Sharon recounts how when she started out as a coach 17 years ago she told a potential client she didn’t know if she could give him what he wanted until he figured out what he valued. A lot of times that match gets reversed, people thinking, ‘How do I get the sale?’ instead of ‘How can I serve you?’ To me that values conversation is the only one that matters if you want to do well for a long time—how do you provide value and how do you show up ready to give it?” Asks John to speak to the attitude of generosity and giving.

10.16 ATTITUDE OF GENEROSITY

—John recounts how when he first got into selling 40 years ago as a real estate agent his mentor told him not to come into the office if he was thinking how much money he would make but always to think ‘How can I serve somebody on the end of the phone?’ Selling is doing something for somebody, not to somebody. That was my first frame I learned about selling.”

Second lesson was when he wrote The Answer and it became a New York Times bestseller. Copywriter Jay Abraham asked why John was giving away so much amazing content: “Forget about how many copies it sold, the number of people that ended up buying programs, coaching, consulting, because of that book … it was millions of dollars. So whenever you put that much value into the marketplace, people get a charge to see that. Baseball players, cricket players, football players they don’t hold back. They play full out, put it all on the field. Put it on the field and watch what happens.”

—Sharon looks at it from a perspective of ‘If I have your back, you’ll have mine.’

—John says as people get older and wiser, “the more you show up with your authentic self to really help others. Everybody wants their best foot forward. Why not put it forward with an open heart, a giving spirit so you can enhance somebody else’s life somehow without trading? I’m not trading, I am giving, there isn’t an expected return. I am going to give because it’s the right thing to do. Operate from a place of abundance rather than scarcity.”

—Sharon: “The more I give and that’s received with love and respect the more I want to turn up, vs someone who is very reserved with me or still wanting to suss me out.”

—John says the people you give things to might not be the ones to give anything back, which is fine: “Can you believe that we just got invited to a week-long trip to Sardinia on this 150 foot yacht of this person we just met? That is a giving we didn’t expect.”

—Sharon notes John is talking this year about helping people overcome procrastination. She says procrastination 27 years ago cost her ten years of her life: “It cost me a feeling of joy about my life, it cost me a lot about my health. It cost me feeling I could live a full life.”

—John discussion his passion “being the neuroscience and neuropsychology of stuff “ and says procrastination is an effect of one of three causes: an arousal mechanism in the brain of about one per cent of the population, self image, self worth and self esteem, and fear. “So we have all these unconscious patterns that are activating the brakes of our lives and that’s what causes procrastination. So if you work on understanding which one or two or possibly three you are, then you focus on the cause then eliminate it.”

21.29: PROCRASTINATION CONTINUED

—After Sharon notes procrastination is the outcome, almost a symptom of the internal neurology, John talks about self image: “Who would you have to believe you are in order not to procrastinate? As soon as we start to shift the questions we ask ourselves … and stop minimising ourselves and create a healthy self image that matches the vision and the goal we want, the resistance starts to go away.”

—He says you can use affirmations and declarations, and mental contrasting techniques to retrain your brain. He says if you tell yourself that was the old me, this is the new me, 100 times over the next 100 days it is possible to “activate neural networks” in the brain: “I’m building a brand new neural network that overrides the old network, possibly, that is actually how we do it.” Compares it to an actor who learns a script by practicing over and over: “What are the tools, techniques and processes you are using right now to become the person that’s capable of achieving his or her goals? Most people have the goal but they don’t have the process by which they become that goal and create that unification between their head, their heart, their gut and their behaviours.”

—Sharon asks John how much mental rehearsals have played in what he has created.

—John pulls out his Exceptional Life blueprint and says he refers to its 43 pages of pictures, prayers, goals, visions every day. He also has it on his phone: “People ask, ‘Why do you do it? You’ve already achieved so much success.’ It’s because I’ve achieved so much success that I want to maintain it. If you get into really great shape physically as soon as you stop you get out of shape. Why would I want to take neural muscles that are strong and weaken them? Why would I want to stop doing the things that work?”

—Sharon shares the analogy that works for her that she’s looking to build a mental muscle around. “I see a country road that’s all grown over with grass, it’s rutted. Do I want that or do I want a smooth ride? The only way I’m going to get the smooth ride is if we keep driving there eventually it’s going to become smoother. That’s really worked for me for nearly two decades, this mental rehearsal idea. Sometimes the dreams are really big and they seem a stretch but I don’t have to be all of that today. I just need to mentally rehearse heading in that direction. I never could have dreamed that 17 years ago but I could mentally rehearse the next step and the more I rehearsed that the more comfortable I got with it and the more real and possible it became for me. This landscape is rich enough to carry me forward.”

—John notes Sharon’s visual is all based on the science of neuroplasticity, where our brains are wired to create new networks. “Think of mental rehearsing as developing a … neuropath and the more you create it the more you can add more ‘neu-roads’ to them and reinforce them. So that’s the science of neuroplasticity, we’re making new connections every day.” Discusses the default mode network which “becomes the new way of being … if we want to achieve a greater level of success we have to change the patterns that are in our brain, and that’s when you can ask questions to change the perspective. You can behave differently, you can use mental contrasting, mindfulness, visualisations, meditations, affirmations, declarations. The key is to understand we will never outperform out own hidden self-image and if we do the lottery effect comes in and we sabotage the success.”

29.57: SOMETHING PROFOUND

—Sharon says one way she does it is to have people around her who she aspired to be like or who inspire her. At the beginning of her coaching career she was curious about how others created their success and often travelled to the US where people “were having these conversations every day. It was nothing for them to think about doing well. It was an expectation and not a hopeful wish. They weren’t self- sabotaging so it became normal for me to ask that question for myself. So I kind of took a two-step path to get there until it was okay for me to feel that way about me.

—John talks mirror neurons activating: “Anything you can read, watch, listen, be in the environment of successful people you aspire to have lives like, do it. That is one of the tickets to success. I eliminated all people in my life who are physical or emotional or financial vampires. I don’t want that in my environment anymore. I know what it was doing to my brain, including somebody I loved very deeply as a family member.”

—Sharon: “If there’s anything I put my trajectory and life down to it’s trying to become self-aware. People I want to be around are striving for self-awareness, striving to know themselves, to be in touch with who they are and who they want to become. That is almost the most important conversation we can have as human beings: are we nurturing an environment in here to allow ourselves to know ourselves and know who we want to become, the best version of ourselves we can become?”

33.28: AWARENESS GIVES US CHOICE

—John talks how awareness gives us choice and choice is what gives us freedom. He discusses deliberate conscious evolution: “We’re in a place right now where we have learned more about the human brain in the last ten or twenty years than we’ve known in five million years of humans evolving on planet Earth. We can deliberately manipulate our brain to evolve faster than normal and we’re just entering that era now.” Talks augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, hologram technology. “For the time being here’s still stuff we can do to become more aware, to be mindful, vs being a victim, and that’s really what gives you a freedom, to know I can choose my thoughts, I can shift my emotions on demand if I learn to and I can act or not act based on my deliberate choices.”

—Sharon notices people joining TCI now are proud of not just breaking away from negative thoughts but from seeking approval of others.

—John: “It comes back to insecurity … I’m going to stretch here. The majority of people in the world don’t have a healthy environment to grow in. It’s an environment of scarcity.”
if we are wired unconsciously or on subconscious levels to have a scarcity mindset or a fear-based mindset at the core of how we operate, that’s going to win out over logic and information. Information doesn’t make people change.”

—Sharon: “How do we help someone who is recognising this pattern in themselves?”

—John tells the story of being 19 and being in trouble with the law and leaving high school in Year 11: “I didn’t do well in school, I was doing breaking and entering and doing drugs and selling drugs.” His brother set up a lunch with a real estate developer called Allan Brown in Canada’s Toronto. Over lunch Allan asked John his vision and goals for life: “I want to get a job, get my own apartment, I’d love to buy my own car.” Then he was asked at what age he wants to retire and how much net worth he wanted. “I said I want o retire at age 45, I want a net worth of three million dollars. I want to travel the world, I want a Mercedes Benz, I want to retire my parents.” (He was inspired by Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous.) Mr Brown asked one question: “’Are you interested in achieving these goals or are you committed?’ And I said, ‘What’s the difference?’ And he said, ‘If you are interested you will do what’s easy and convenient and if you are committed you have to upgrade your knowledge and skills, you have to have beliefs that match the goals you have, you have to create habits to achieve those goals.’ And that was the beginning of my career as a real estate agent and someone who built an 85 office, 1200-person real estae company over the next ten years doing four and a half billion a year in sales. One question, one answer, one lunch, one decision.”

44.40: TAKING ACTION AND COLONISING MARS

—John talks the other commitments Allan Brown had him make: moving cities, paying for a real estate course and the excuses he tried to make to get out of those: “The power of commitment and the power of a decision, having the right mentor who really cares and having a path to follow.”

—He says other than colonising Mars we now pretty much how to achieve anything we want to: “We know how to start a business and make it successful, how to become a coach and make it successful, how to have a great relationship and sustain it, how to write a book and make it a bestseller. Do we know the how to of just about any goal we can think of? If the answer is yes, that means the blueprint exists and if the blueprint exists, the how to is not your problem. The commitment is. If you are committed to a solution, a different life, a better life, the answer of how to already exists. The fact you may not know it is irrelevant.”

—Sharon notes that is “very very powerful. What do you say to someone going through the ‘but’ and the ‘and’ … there comes a point where you hear the message enough and it just comes upon you to just seize your life for you.”

—John says many years ago Sharon shared a story at his Brainathon event about having a little voice on her shoulder: “It’s amazing how many people allow that little voice, the little them, to hold them hostage, not realising it’s time to tell that little person, ‘Thank you for serving me in the past but now you can leave. I am going to step into the bigger vision of myself and find a way to make it happen and fulfil my potential.”

—Sharon says one of the best things that really changed he life was realising that little voice, “that little gremlin”, wasn’t her. “I trained my gremlin to say what it said to me. I encouraged it, I nurtured it, I welcomed it, I paid attention to it for hours. I grew my gremlin into the monster it became. The moment I realised I had been feeding it, I realised I could stop and start nurturing something else.”

—John asks anyone stuck in a self-destructive dialogue to know “the best time to kill a monster is when it’s a baby. Tell it to be quiet, develop this healthy new voice that will empower me and construct a new vision of me.”

—Sharon learned how to become a coach to manage that voice: “I didn’t have huge aspirations. It was, ‘If I could learn to master my mind that would be the gamechanger.’ I had problems around how fearful I was, how unwell I was, how I didn’t create any health or values, I was too afraid to leave my house. There were all these remarkable voices around me but I managed to tune them all out. I spent the next twelve months managing this until it worked for me.”

—John discusses Einstein vs Frankenstein and explains Innercise: “It’s about understanding these are the parts of our brain that make us human and parts of our brain we can learn to manage and master better.”

56.08 FAMILY MATTERS

—John says his mother died in May of the coronavirus, aged 87: “It was a very sad time and I was in a lot of grief.” He said goodbye on a mobile phone and watched the funeral via Zoom. “I spoke to my mother every day for the last 40 years. That was challenging, at the same time she didn’t suffer, it wasn’t prolonged.” He and wife Maria have been doing road trips and working from home. “My business has been great, my own health has been superb, my wife is superb, my kids are great. There are interesting polarities this year, I still feel grateful and blessed every day I wake up and get another day above ground.”

—Sharon shares that her own father died in September and she wasn’t able to go over to Perth to be with her “without spending two weeks in a hotel room without a guard. No fresh air, dealing with losing my father and being alone for two weeks. It didn’t add up so I stayed here and we had a lovely service on Facetime and we spent an hour together when we knew he weas being cremated so we created as much connection and togetherness as we possibly could. Father’s Day was three days before he passed away and I got to have a great chat. I felt I had done what I could and loved him as much as I could. I felt complete around that. There was no regret I was holding onto. It was a really beautiful release.”

—John talks about US mental health expert Dr Ken Druck who wrote The Real Rules of Life: “He says we have this idea of what life is going to be like—get married, have kids, our kids will do x, y and z, and our kids will take care of us in old age. Then all of a sudden something like this happens and that’s the way it’s supposed to happen and that’s the real rule of life. We have these concepts about how it’s supposed to be and this happens. You and I are experiencing something similar about losing parents and we had to accept and surrender and not have anger and resentment around it.

1.03.06 ADAPTING

—Sharon agrees with John that the human race seems to be geared for things in a certain way and to be able to count on certainty.

—He says it “goes back to we prefer to master disappointment rather than master change. And mastering change and adapting right now is one of the greatest skills you have to learn. My belief is we are on this precipice of some major shifts … it’s hotter than it’s ever been. Our political landscape and unrest around the world is really really serious stuff. In the United States this is the first time I could ever understand civil war. I can see how a brother would kill another brother.”

—Sharon notes there’s also less trust in institutions to “latch onto” to give us stability. “I just find blind trust isn’t working anymore. When I was younger I was okay with blind trust and trusted the institutions would take care of me.”

—John: “There’s blind trust and then there’s out brain wants to conserve energy and we are cognitively lazy.” Says now COVID has made people exhausted, including with rules which change constantly.

—Sharon: “I’m exhausted going to get my groceries let alone all the things I have to think about right now. I developed a really clear purpose for this time. I have planned for two year that this will be like this, so I am mentally more prepared for the longer thing. Talks about the purpose she and JP have and asks what John and his wife Maria are doing.

—The Assarafs are all about health and are exercising every day, getting proper sleep and making sure their immune systems are topped up: “First and foremost is spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health.” He is meditating daily and limiting the amount of news he watches. The couple has been on roadtrips and “fortunately we fell deeper into love. We happen to like each other a lot and love each other a lot. We’ve been watching a lot of movies together, and reading next to each other and sharing our thoughts and opinions. This may not sound great, we have deliberately chosen to stay away from certain friends. Some of our friends that may not be as happily married, shall we say, have become psychic vampires.” Wants to make sure his environment is as healthy as possible.

—John reveals what he’s told his sons who are 25 and 23 during COVID: “Times are challenging and tough and this too shall pass. We are a resilient species and this is our time to surrender, to forgive, accept and take the time to become more aware, more at peace with ourselves, healthier, more focussed and this too shall pass. Jim Rohn the philosopher said one of the things you learn about squirrels is they plan for winter. They’re collecting as many nuts as they can in the summer, they are planning a season or two ahead. Work out what you can do in this time that you didn’t have time to do when you were so busy, busy, busy. Now you have a few hours extra a day, what are you doing to become better, more loving, more caring, kind, peaceful, mindful? Don’t keep feeding that little voice that is going to become a monster.”

—Sharon: “This time will pass. I’ve become quite good at yoga, which I never do. I’ve been flopping around on the floor and having lots a fun, it’s been a great opportunity to move through it rather that fighting it.”

—Felicity says writing her book was a “bit of a mission” and she did it all in three months, writing between 8pm and midnight and juggling her three kids: “I’m very proud of it.”

—Sharon was “really intrigued” by the imposter syndrome covered in the book. “You covered things around imposter syndrome, feminism, having it all and perfectionism. And when we put them all on the table and all the choice points we have as women, and then social media, how do we not ever doubt ourselves, how can we not ever question how are not getting it right and why we don’t have it all when these are massive gravitational pulls on how we ‘should’ be thinking?”

—Felicity thinks it’s human nature to doubt yourself and in her experience sometimes it’s good: “It makes me strive more and strive higher. For me, there’s a tipping point. If you are constantly doubting yourself with imposter syndrome or not feeling you live up to expectations, perfectionism, it can be a bit of a slippery slope to your emotional undoing. My book talks about feminism and what feminism promises us as women was having it all really and how we’ve come to realise as women we can’t have it all, not at the same time and still function and juggle everything and look happy.”

—Sharon interjects: “Or be happy.”

—Felicity agrees. “Are we happy? We might try and look it but are we happy? I suppose I just really felt I needed to call these things out. What I put in here has been called out before, women have dealt with these things for many decades. I suppose what I am questioning is what we are adding now is another layer with the wellness industry, with social media and from my experiences of taking to women … I’ve worked with women for two decades in my career and we, I just feel we are at a point now where women are feeling like they have no time to themselves any more. We’re struggling to sleep, we’re cranky.

—When Felicity references “horrifying” statistics from a Jean Hailes Foundation study which surveyed over 15,000 Australian women, Sharon reads them out: 67 per cent of women feel nervous, anxious or on edge, with 53 per cent not able to control their worry. 78 per cent of women report difficulty sleeping or falling asleep. 34 per cent have no time for themselves and 68 per cent feel foggy.

—Felicity is not talking about mental health issues, but “I’m on about all those other women, our wellbeing and our feeling of wellness and facing life. We know it has dips and goes up and down, but a lot of the time we’re not getting help there like we used to and that’s what I wanted to call out and reassure women that a lot of us are feeling like this and with all the things crashing at us, social media, ‘you must drink green juice’, we must get to yoga, must do this, must do that It was tough pre-pandemic and now it’s even worse. There’s an extra layer of worry. Women are like, ‘I’m done, how are we going to cope?’”

—Sharon asks how come men don’t feel the same: “I believe feminism is a great equaliser. Things changed in the ‘70s but this structure of it didn’t change. Feminism is a beautiful ideal but the reality hasn’t really unfolded that way.”

—Felicity agrees. “I think we all agree the tenets to feminism, what feminism means, are amazing and men are on board with that too … but it’s very messy about how do we live a feminist lifestyle. My husband is a great feminist ally but from his perspective he is still trying to work that out as well. He’s juggling a full time job with trying to be a good dad and I’m the same so we’re really in this messy place of we all agree and want to be equal but … we’re still working it out.”

—After Felicity references 1950s housewives, Sharon admits “I am so not built for the 1950s. I am the worst wife. I’m appalling at the 9 to 5 and about what’s expected of me. No wonder Prozac went through the roof … you had to be home and look pretty and wear kitten heels and cook a roast every night.”

—Felicity: “And they were also expected to have an orgasm on the clean kitchen floor!”

9.14: THE PANDEMIC EFFECT

—Sharon asks how COVID will redefine women’s roles again. “Can I rant? Now women are at home taking care of the kids and expected to work and a lot of the time the studies are showing the husbands are locking themselves in different rooms to work and the women are home schooling, managing, doing their jobs, and to me we didn’t make any ground during this period.”

—Felicity references a University of Melbourne study that showed during the pandemic women have taken on more housework, financial worries, cooking, and men haven’t shifted at all. “In many ways the social experiment of working from home has been wonderful, it’s opened up men’s eyes to what women really do at home, the extremes of things they do particularly if they have kids On the flip side I feel they’ve swung completely the other way because there are no delineations between work and life. This morning, my husband was on the computer at 7.30 which is fine, but I’m thinking, ‘It’s 7.30, you don’t’ start work at 7.30.’ Life is rolled into work and work into life. Before we were complaining we couldn’t find enough time. Now it’s just one big mess.”

—Sharon says she knows a few couples where none of the boundaries have shifted and during the pandemic women are still responsible for the emotional burden: “I call it the emotional log. Two people need to pick it up. I’m hearing that’s not happening. Women are still trying to manage the emotional burden for the family which I think a lot of this comes back to.”

—Felicity calls it the mental load, “and absolutely in some cases it has to be the case. Even in my situation, it has to be that way. Tom earns far more money than I do, I worked on a website called WHIMN which sadly was a COVID casualty, I’m still working at News Corp which is okay, but because women make up the majority of part time work, casual work, they are lower down the ranks so they are the first to get cut. More women have lost jobs or had hours cut in COVID than men, particularly younger women or millennial women. I do wonder in five years time where are the gains we’ve made in quality over the last five years, is it going to get worse? There’s a 14 per cent pay gap already between men and women—what will be it be like in five years because a lot of women have lost their jobs.”

—Sharon tends to be a defensive pessimist: “The biggest gap I see is women back at home only able to get part time work and being more normalised so again we will entrench this pattern of women doing all of that and holding the emotional burden even more. Not the cheeriest message but that’s the way I see it.”

—Felicity is seeing it in her neighbourhood, with her friends, through her own experience “because we are all desperately trying to hold onto our jobs. We’re in a recession which is probably going to get worse once Job Keeper ends. For me I just come back to what can I do in my home to still be a feminist role model for my sons and daughter: mum is doing work and dad will unpack the dishwasher. I’m now about raising the next generation of feminist men and women.”

14.32 THIS RIDICULOUS PERFECTION

—Sharon starts on the social media topic and how it skews reality: “We’re comparing ourselves to this ridiculous perfection when we’re surrounded by laundry.”

—Felicity: “What do we do about that? I include a study in my book which shows even if you have a healthy self esteem and you look at someone on Instagram you will subconsciously compare yourself to them even if you are happy with what you look like or you’re happy with what your life is. It’s really tricky to self regulate.”

—Sharon tells Felicity she “didn’t go hard enough” in her book. “I used to be a Facebook addict. Now my team has to give me the code when I am allowed to go in. I go in, I do the post I need to do, I’m not allowed to scroll, I say I’m out and they change the code. I can’t trust me with social media so I banned myself and I’ve outsourced them letting me know when I’m needed to go in … I’m pushing the stop button on it. I’m not seeing it doing anything that’s good for us.”

—Felicity has a “love hate relationship” with social because she works in media “I need to be on social. I get stories out of that. I get some income out of it now. I have to play in that world, but I also need to check myself constantly that this is not real, I got really diligent about unfollowing people if they in a second make me feel not good enough, something about mothering or not exercising or not drinking some whiz bang juice or wearing lipstick this way. Unfollow, unfollow.

—Sharon says she and husband JP have really successful businesses on social “but in terms of my personal mental health, me being on that as a form of connection is not the way to do it.”

—Felicity worked in magazines for 15 years including Cosmopolitan and Cleo and they often got flak for photoshopping covers, even when they were sent direct from a celebrity agency so they had no power over that. “So when I launched Women’s Health and was editor of Women’s Health I was very particular about not photoshopping. We didn’t change waist sizes, thighs, nothing, which is what I loved about that publication. On Cleo and Cosmo we were told we were making young women feel bad about themselves and setting them up for body image issues, but I look at social media and it’s magazines on steroids. There are only a few women you could go, ‘No photoshopping on that.’ There are Kardashian types with their trillions of followers running these through filtered apps and I do think this is really worrying and I do hope by the time my kids who are 7, 5 and 2 are older it’s not around anymore.”

21.18: LET WOMEN BE WOMEN HOW WE DEFINE IT

—Sharon asks where the world took the turn where it’s okay for men to be silver foxes and women are defined by a whole bunch of other standards, “where women put pressure on themselves and other women to be this ideal?” She is constantly amazed by how women seem to define other women and criticise them: “Stop. Don’t do that. Let women be women the way we define it. The moment other women are clawing to pull that woman into their vision we are done, we are not making progress. I find that so galvanising. Let me define me the way I want to define me and you do you.”

—Felicity says previous generations got their fill of human interaction over the back fence and only had a small circle of influence, “our neighbour, our mother-in-law, and that’s who we learned from, shared ideas with. And now we have so much many more infuences coming into our lives. I think it’s become part of our society and part of our nature as women, we second guess ourselves. We have all this outside influence coming in telling us we should do this and that: social media, people in the workplace, regular media, friends, TV, and we can’t help but question our decisions and what we are doing with our lives. We can’t help but benchmark against what other people are doing.”

—Sharon responds: “I think we can help it, and you write about this. The first half of your book pointed out we are not making good decisions and the second half is very much talking about the solutions. We need to know our values and what drives us and we do have an antidote for it, self-awareness. And you talk about it beautifully. Before we get to that let’s talk about how come rather than that someone would bag someone on social media publicly, a woman knocking a woman.”

—Felicity says that is more about the person doing the knocking: “That’s what it comes down to, how do you feel about yourself? So much of what we judge someone else for is a reflection of our own self. If I feel I am looking at someone and judging them and I self regulate and think okay what does that say about me. But I think that takes time. Now I’m in my forties it’s easier to self-regulate than when I was 22.”

27.31 TAKING THE HIT

—Sharon says she doesn’t read “hit pieces. I never look at someone being arrested. I don’t look at ambulances. As soon as I see there is trouble or someone is living their own version of tragedy … they are right now experiencing trauma and to gaze on that, it’s like looking through the curtains of their home so I look away. And that to me is a choice we can all make. Look away or help, but never be an observer to someone else’s pain. That’s how I’m choosing to live.”

—Felicity admires that “fantastic” bit of advice and says she does her bit in writing positive stories. Asked if positive stories sell, she says “the feel good stories do sell but not as much as the [more negative.] You can have a positive uplifting story but it’s that headline that gets you in.”

—Sharon says she believes womanhood isn’t doing us a favour every time we click on a ‘hit’ piece: “We must champion each other. It is so natural for men to pull together, to have clubs and quietly support each other. My husband and his friends, he’s had them for 55 years, they’re amazing, and I don’t always see the same thing with women. We don’t have to worry about having it all if we stop comparing ourselves or worrying about others judging us. The minute we stop that pattern we can choose having it all based on our own terms.

—Felicity talks about the hashtag womensupportingwomen. “Generally we are coming together and supporting each other a lot more than we used to, I feel that’s how we’re going to shift. We need to tell our own stories, tell each other stories, and that’s been probably the most wonderful reassuring feedback I’ve got about the book. I just want it to be a big hug and I have lots of messages for women saying ‘I feel the same, I thought I was the only one struggling, trying to keep my wellbeing afloat.’ In the book I have interviews with Tanya Plibersek, Megan Gale, who talk about their struggle as well. Megan for example says, ‘I look like I have the perfect life and I second guess every photo I put up.”

—Sharon: “She says she hides the truth sometimes at the risk of being misunderstood.”

—Felicity says Megan “doesn’t want people to throw stones and say how can you complain, you look like you’ve had the perfect life, great career, gorgeous husband, two kids, of course you have the perfect life. She says, yes, my life has been good, things have worked out but that’s not to say I don’t also struggle with parenting and self-esteem. One thing I probably learned out of the book is it’s good to acknowledge how we’re feeling. Even though it looks like what we are on the outside might be perfect, everyone is struggling, especially with this pandemic.

33.53 THE HARSHEST THING EVER SAID TO ME

—Sharon says nobody has it made and nobody has it together. ‘One of the harshest things ever said to me—I can’t have kids, I never have been able to have kids—and I was telling a woman once, ‘I don’t know if I feel sad about not being able to have kids but I’m thinking about it’, and she was like, ‘What are you worried about, you’ve got everything’ and I was like ‘Wow, that form of coming at me. That’s every woman’s experience. Mine just happens to be around kids. Every woman has something going on that hurts them, that’s traumatic, that they pine for that didn’t happen. And to judge someone because you think they have it made means they are not allowed to have the problem. That is too much pressure.”

—Felicity often struggles with complaining about anything when she thinks of women in Syria or India struggling with the pandemic: “This is crazy, I have a privileged existence, stop, but you need to feel what you’re feeling before you can help other people. That kind of gave me permission, ‘Okay, it’s okay to feel like this.’ Then you can go support a charity and help your community,”

—Sharon questions the mental health pathway we’re on if we keep being made to feel guilty or for trying to wrestle with the cards we’re dealt. “We can’t just suddenly act like we don’t have those problems because other people aren’t as well off as us. Otherwise we’re just in a race to the bottom. That makes no sense to say anyone who looks like they’re doing well isn’t allowed to be heard. That’s really unhealthy.”

—Felicity talks about women she interviewed for her book who have gone through adversity (Paralympian Kelly Cartwright, mindfulness expert Emma Murray) “and it just comes back to gratitude. Emma said something that really resonated with me: gratitude only works when you truly feel it inside you. So sometimes when I am having one of those ‘my world is caving in’ days, you just have to stop. I have this practice at the end of every day, I write the best thing that happened to me during the day. That could be walking one of my sons to school, getting a story done a day early, having a lovely conversation with my husband. Little miniscule things and it’s helped me get through my days and focus on the big stuff.”

—Sharon talks the rituals she and JP have every day where they share something they’re grateful for and the highlight of their day. Says one of her favourite things in the book was Felicity living a values driven life: “This is my passion. This is how I got to let go of a lot of stuff that used to tie me in knots The need to be the hero and look like I’ve got it all together. Never admit I am flawed or fallible.”

_Felicity lives a values-based life too, “but I would always say they have pretty much stayed the same throughout my life and each year I narrow them down. I used to think I need 20 values and now I need three, if I am a lot clearer and more specific it’s easier to set up boundaries and say no to things that don’t align with those. Every year or six months I think what are the three things that are most important to me this year, friendship, marriage, work, kids. They are kind of like a filter. This year it’s my kids. I have young kids, my career has had to go on hold a bit, I’m still working but not like it was. Often you get lost and think but I want to do that, I like to try everything and so now I am just like be clear, this is what is important.”

41.54 VALUING VALUES

—Sharon says to her the pathway through it is to have a theme for the year so you know where you’re heading: fitness, friendship, travel. “And then I have my values and from that whatever comes up that’s aligned with that I get to say yes to.” Also enjoyed Felicity’s book discussion of boundaries: “Women have very poor boundaries. I think this is key. If you have values but not clear boundaries you’ll trade your values for people pleasing every day of the week.”

—Felicity says as women we love to people please: “I’ll just bake that cake, she needs help with her party, then suddenly you have to do the five tier Frozen cake. I think at times we can say we have boundaries but we can be really flaky with them. I think we fear if we push back and say no that we perhaps are being a bitch, she won’t like me anymore, but I really think if you’re clear and say no you might hurt then when you initially say not but later I feel you gain more respect.” Another thing she learned from the book is the women she interviewed guard their time closely and the women who seem to have a bit of balance and are not overwhelmed have boundaries instead of saying yes to everything: ‘No I don’t want to meet up with the girls this Friday night ‘cos I want to be with my husband.’ That’s something I’ve become a lot clearer about.” Says if you constantly walk away from a friend feeling drained instead energised and uplifted, maybe it’s time to cut them off: “I know that sounds harsh.”

—Sharon says it doesn’t: “Connection for the sake of connection isn’t connection. It actually makes you feel more alone. I feel more lonely in those situations where I am compromising my values.”

—Asked what she loved about the book, Felicity says she learned the line, ‘Done is better than perfect.’ “It comes back to perfectionism and a lot of things we’ve spoken about. Now I’m a lot about getting things done or saying no. I always used to strive personally, I have to do the best work on this story, build the best Lego house, run the fastest. Now it’s 80 per cent. As long as I get my ass to that gym—it doesn’t have the to be the best workout session ever, but I got there.”

—She says ‘done is better than perfect’ can be applied to the minutiae of daily life: “If Tom puts the washing out it might not be how I like it but you know what, it’s done. Onto bigger things.”

—Sharon says the important thing is giving yourself a break: “Self care isn’t having the bath. It’s giving yourself a break. It’s not being measured by that standard of perfectionism. That’s what I’m hearing you say. It’s a much better way to live than I have to be everybody’s hero and it’s all on me.”

—Felicity says that’s where the book came from: “I had been talking to mums at the school gate, my barista, my friends, my work colleagues and this is what I am hearing, that they’re trying to be women that a) we never will be and b) it’s our undoing. If we don’t start talking about it and calling ourselves out and calling each other out … that’s the whole premise of it, we’re all overwhelmed, our wellbeing is suffering but there are things you can do today to help and that can be boundaries, setting values, reconnecting with friends, taking time out. As Yumi Stynes said it used to be a rich lady thing, but everyone can do it. Go to your local caravan park, stay at a friend’s house in their spare room, and if we all go inward for a little while that will help the outward.”

—Sharon signs off: “It’s a timely book that will make a difference. Let’s give up ladies on thinking we can have it all or that we should even strive for that. Let’s have our version of wonderful for ourselves.”

ZERO: CRISIS TALKS

—Sharon was intrigued by Rebecca’s book because climate change isn’t what she’s usually drawn to: “There are only two in my entire ridiculous library.” She wants to know the psychology of the problem and wonders if inventor Thomas Edison could have foreseen 130 years on the problems caused with so much electricity powered by coal. “He and Tesla and Westinghouse created something that changed the planet, transformed our entire experience … and we have to work out if the price we’re paying for it is too high.”

—Rebecca is “as excited about the possibilities of renewable energy as people would have been when they saw the light bulb happen .. they really were looking to make some money and make people’s lives better and that’s where we are with renewable energy today.” What interests her is there are places without electricity still in the world but they have solar micro grids and other renewables, “so in a sense renewable energy is just as exciting if not more exciting, potentially who knows what that means in the next 50 years.” Warns we have to make sure the materials used for solar panels can be recycled and reused: “Renewable energy doesn’t let us off the hook when we think about our connection to the Earth. We need to think about how much we really need, do we need massive houses and overseas trips five times a year? It doesn’t let us off the hook thinking about what kind of life can we live and how do we tread on this Earth. I see some really interesting parallels between those early moments you talk about and where we are now.”

—Sharon quotes Norwegian psychologist Per Espen Stoknes, who called climate change the “largest science communication failure in history” and asks why it matters that we shift people’s attitudes, perceptions and actions when it comes to climate change.

—Rebecca: “He’s right, the level of threat that climate change poses to everybody on the planet has been proven by science to the greatest degree it has been proven … that being said, there’s something about the nature of climate change that makes it very difficult to a World War, an extreme weather event or a pandemic.” Now there are daily triggers to remind us of the pandemic (masks, hand sanitiser in shops) and social cues and government rules around changing our behaviour. “With climate change that doesn’t exist, we can’t see the build up of CO2. Even when we see signs of climate change it’s very easy to justify that in our minds: ‘Maybe that’s natural, that bushfire isn’t connected to climate change.’ It just doesn’t have the immediate threat and because of that the very nature of climate change makes it even more important that our leaders are able to articulate to people clearly that even though this is a threat they can’t see it’s a threat they have to take seriously.” Needs effective leadership for people to connect it with their daily lives.

9.40: THE FACTS

—Sharon lays out why climate is different to weather, noting we are at the tipping point and scientists have agreed since the 1970s we can’t let the world heat up more than another two degrees Celsius without experiencing surging and wild weather events. She notes with melting ice caps “you can’t switch off the melting which is what alarms me … it accelerates and becomes a self-perpetuating retreat of the ice caps and that happens faster and faster. Because we can’t reverse it, all we can try to do now is try to shore up the damage we’ve done, we are passed prevention. in the last 100 years there has been more instability in the climate than in any other time in the last ten thousand years. We have more arid lands, we have less potable water, less farm land we can farm, less reliable sources of living near the ocean because the ocean is no longer acting the way we expect it to act. That is where we are heading in the next 20 years … I totally understand what I just said is a real downer.”

—Rebecca says we know from history that in times of climate unpredictability, “societies which are already under pressure find it very hard to adapt.” Even if we keep the temperature rise at two degrees, there will be famines and people being displaced, and that it will play a role in “driving anti democratic and totalitarian governments.” She uses the pandemic as an example of what happens when something terrible befalls the world and civil liberties are suspended to keep people safe: “It is absolutely clear that societies under an incredible amount of pressure in terms of lack of food and violence, you have the military and other kinds of totalitarian regimes step in. So it is about the weather but it is also about us. How do we respond to extreme situations? You can see it’s a recipe for actual human disasters as well as extreme weather events.”

—Rebecca says we have to think what are the societal and community strengths we have to ensure we can still remain a tolerant and happy society … it’s about how do we strengthen not just our economic capital but our social capital and how individually do we support each other to make sur when these things happen we don’t turn on each other we turn to each other to adapt and be able to build resilience.”

—Sharon is less optimistic than Rebecca: “I don’t think we’ve handled our shit at all well.” Talks the queues that formed when the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews mentioned possible food shortages and says “I don’t really trust that we are geared to handle it being true.”

21.05: WE ARE ON HIGH ALERT

—Says the science, the psychological bias of negative bias means we are geared for the negativity and it’s a natural way we protect ourselves from things that could be bad.

—Rebecca wrote the book to talk about how we need to get prepared for when climate change really starts to bite in ten or 15 years, “how we talk to the people around us, how we really put it on your elected representatives and say you have a moral obligation as a group to protect us. There’s so much work to be done and this is why I moved my entire personal and professional focus towards climate change.” About two years ago she realised she need to prepare her children for the future they face: “I spent years getting them to brush their teeth and learn to swim and do their times tables and make sure I have enough savings to help them get a house. I have a responsibility as a parent to do everything I can to ensure there is an actual viable world for these children with good teeth, who can swim and know how to do their times tables.”

—She believes we have the technological tools but do we have the economic, political and social capital, do we have the emotional resilience, do we have the strong community ties, do we have that sense we live in a society that values our natural environment and values everybody’s life. No, I don’t think we do.” Says right now the ice caps are melting and “the Torres Strait islands are falling into the sea … “I have a lot of anxiety but I also feel a moral obligation to remain optimistic while there is still a time chance and an opportunity to do some things.”

24.28: THE LEADERSHIP ISSUE

—Sharon isn’t seeing government leaders get behind climate change and suspects one lever could be through business. References the Black Rock investment group which is now behind climate change and insists anyone they invest with have an emissions policy: “That has to be the lever, through shareholder advocacy.”

—Rebecca agrees and says there are “exciting movements” locally as well: “First State Super has made very similar commitments to Black Rock in terms of their investments mix. Business and investor groups and big money globally and in Australia is realising the clock is ticking on fossil fuels. The insurance industry has spoken out quite strongly about this and talked about the risks of creating an uninsurable world which is what we are doing. We are at the pojnt where there have to be more levers from every part of our society.” Discusses political backlash and South Australia and the ACT’s move towards renewables. “The problem we have its particularly for national governments, they have to win seats in Queensland to win, so there are some hurdles in Australian politics which are significant.”

—Says it’s exciting when conservative politicians like Matt Keane and Zali Steggall stand up for climate, “but we have to scale this up enormously to be able to make that change in the time we’ve got.”

29.40 THE BUSINESS OF BUSINESS

—Sharon puts it that the Trump government is “incredibly weak” on climate which could filter to other G7 countries and in the face of political inertia is looking to businesses and groups like Climate Action 100 to be proactive with global emissions and help create the political will.

—Rebecca says pressure is needed from all different businesses and tells how Tennis Australia is doing work around climate change because their marquee event the Australian Open is increasingly impacted by bushfires and searing heat which make it impossible to play tennis outdoors. She says the nature of the way politics works in Australia that creates roadblocks.

—Discusses the “synergy” between the Murdoch media and politicians and says climate change deniers are a very small group of Australians: “Very few of us are of the view that this will all be fine and that it’s great we have slightly higher temperatures so we can grow different types of grapes in Tasmania and it will be fine.”

36.15: “IT’S NOT TURNING PEOPLE ON”

—One of Sharon’s concerns with the environmental movement is she feels “judged … I am made to feel I am part of the problem. I had a young person say to me the other day, “We don’t care about the pandemic killing old people because you killed the planet.” Says where there is blame and shame, “it’s not turning people onto wanting to be a part of it. Being yelled at is not the way to win my heart.”

—Asks Rebecca how she would approach it, how we have a reasoned scientific conversation that shifts minds and actions.

—Rebecca says “it’s really important we are all aware of the individual decisions we make in our day to day life, whether we use plastic bottles, have a keeper cup, cycle or drive to work. They can collectively bring about a shift, but when you start to make saving the world come down to whether I have a disposable coffee cup … you are really not getting a sense of where the responsibility lies. We all try and do our best, none of us is perfect and finger pointing about not being the absolute perfect green consumer is not going to be helpful and will turn people away from environmentalism because they think the price is too high.”

—Says research shows the group in Australia most disengaged on the climate issue is disproportionately women on low incomes who are renting, work part time and looking after kids: “It’s not that those women don’t care. I know those women. I meet those women. They are just overwhelmed ad if you say climate change means buying these products and being a vegan they are already struggling. How is it their responsibility for saving the planet and why would you continue to shame them when they already are under an enormous amount of stress? It has no place. The only people we should be trying to shame are the politicians actively stopping progess on renewable energy.”

—Says getting people “to understand as a collective that we are responsible for the Earth we live on and how we leave it when we leave is important, but responsibility is not the same as crushing guilt and shame. We do need to give people a sense of connection between how we live our lives and the consequences, and then we need to move very quickly to effective action. What can you do about it and how can you work to save the things you love, stop too much of the loss of things you love and build a liveable future.”

43.12 THE WOKE PROBLEM

—Sharon notes Rebecca says in her book that environmentalists “come across as too woke. It turns people off. You know it’s an emotions-based energy coming at you, and I don’t need to deal with your emotions. I don’t think we can transform the planet by excluding and shaming people. That’s not the world I want to create.”

—Rebecca: “What we want to do is about engaging people on the issue in a way that makes it feel relevant and comfortable for them. So it’s not just about engaging but acting.” She says shaming makes people turn inwards. Equates it to motherhood and knowing the difference between criticising the behaviour and criticising the child. “We need to do the same with climate communications. We cannot be pointing fingers at people and saying, ‘You are a bad person’ for working in the coal and fossil fuel industries. Those are the jobs they get to sustain their families.”
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—Sharon asks how we win people over, and points to the solutions chapter which is page 235 in the book.

—Rebecca says it was a really difficult chapter to write because there isn’t one argument to win everyone over: “In the book I talk about the climate change script about what is happening. You can put that in front of different people and some will be scared, some will say, ‘Oh my God, this is serious, I want to do something.’ We have to find lots and lots of different ways to tell the climate story to engage people in it.”

—Sharon notes images of violent weather changes apparently don’t work because they cause a feeling of powerlessness, hopelessness and helplessness: “I find that very interesting.”

—Rebecca says peolpe are engaged by seeing the rebuilding of communities after an event, in a way that is climate positive, “so there is that sense of rebuilding out of disaster.”

—As a social researcher, the first thing she wants to do is listen to why somebody feels the way they do about climate change: “They start by saying it’s bullshit and I say, ‘Why do you think that and where did you get those views?’ I am genuinely interested and often I am looking for what are the things that turn people off from the conversation. Is it because it’s too extreme? They feel they are being blamed, shamed, condescended to? Lectured to? They came from a family who always worked in the fossil fuel industry? They are worried about the economy and feel it’s risky to go to renewables? It’s working that out in a non-judgemental fashion. Regardless of how you feel about climate change it shows a move towards renewable energy is possible. They might start walking to work or have solar panels or barely get on a plane, and what we want to encourage is behaviour that is good for the planet, even if people’s views about climate change don’t exactly align with all this scientific evidence. I am very pragmatic in terms of getting everybody to a point, however we get them there.”

—Sharon admits she was “nervous” Rebecca would be “overly emotional” in her book but was pragmatic which made the subject matter very accessible. “You’re focussing on the individual, which I appreciate. I see it as the idea is to get us individuals to focus on who we vote for and to demand those policies in government and insist shareholders listen to individuals. If you do face the science, it’s shocking, dismal, quite overwhelmingly sad where we are heading, especially in poor countries who will get flooded in the next ten to 15 years, no matter what we do now. Individuals can have a voice, that’s the beautiful thing about democracy and capitalism. We are not a lobby group, that’s the disappointing thing, like a coal industry or car manufacturing, so we somehow have to make it so individuals feel connected to the future of our planet in a positive way.”

—In every chapter she talks about the “extraordinary power” not just of storytelling but collective action as a way to mobilise people and engage them, foster what she calls resolute hope. When people ask if they should write to their MP, Rebecca suggest an alternative would be gathering together a parents’ group, professional organisation or workplace of 20 or 30 people and demanding a meeting with the MP. “That is going to be more effective. Groups of people coming in are scary.”

—In the US, conservative groups of bird watchers have strong collective power in climate change action. They are galvanised by increasing temperatures and climate change destroying birds’ environments. “Large groups of bird watchers are terrifying … once even quite small powerful groups come together than can really terrify politicians.”

—52.72 MUSK AND MARS

—Sharon is disappointed that Elon Musk, the “Edison of our times”, is putting so much effort into getting to Mars because he thinks we’ve ruined this planet: “Very poor message, that we need an alternative planet. I wish he would put his effort into renewables instead of how to get out of here. We don’t have Plan B. For leaders like him to put their energy, effort, money and voice into this planet would make a much bigger difference in the challenge of trying to get some momentum going than what he is doing now.” She also wants celebrity voices to get behind climate change, like for like costs in terms of coal vs cleaner energy and “give me a renewable I can get behind. Give me a renewable that makes it easier for me to make this decision to say that this is the pathway forward.”

—Rebecca agrees Musk could be spending his time fast tracking a much cheaper car than his Teslas and that celebrity voices can backfire: “In the end we need lots of and lots of different voices.” A lot of her research now is understanding people’s perceptions of renewables because “people generally agree that they’re the way to go but how do they feel about what are the barriers and downsides of going quickly to 100 per cent renewables in Australia. There’s a lot about making sure the renewables we have are also recyclable, don’t have their own environmental downsides. Coal mines are shutting down anyway, they are either getting too old or don’t have the social licence to continue, and renewables are getting more and more effective and efficient. If you had said ten years ago we could really be thinking about hydrogen as an industry in Australia nobody would have believed you because renewables, we just couldn’t generate that amount of electricity. So an enormous amount can happen in a short time and that goes back to the capacity of humans to be incredibly constructive and inventive, so I have some faith that with the right minds and the right policy frameworks there will be stuff happening … the point you are trying to make is a lot of people don’t understand that and have question marks about what renewables mean.”

—Sharon: “I think the environmental movement has a PR issue.”

—Rebecca agrees. “Absolutely. A lot of it is about messaging and marketing. I started my time in commercial and market research for financial institutions … and I am taking that knowledge and skill into the environmental movement. I am not alone. Communicating about climate change and the solutions to climate change is a massive marketing challenge. It’s not like selling someone a new Scotch Finger biscuit, it’s really tough: ‘I know I want the biscuit now but I don’t know why I want renewable energy now.’ It’s a massive challenge which is why it’s both exciting and terrifying at the same time.”

—Sharon: Puts it to Rebecca that they have “solved it” … “so we’re going to get Elon Musk on board with solving the problems here and bringing his genius mind to the problem we’ve got. We are going to get political will through action, acting locally and getting the politicians to pay attention to it. We’re going to let the coal mines fizzle out, which they are anyway, get really clear messaging on what an alternative source of renewable, clean, recyclable energy is that is like for like if you capped carbon emissions from coal mines, and not be yelled at if someone says they don’t necessarily believe it but to have them greeted and listened to.”

—Sharon adds another solution: “If mothersunited.com became a thing, where every mother signed up and said ‘I am joining on behalf of my children’ … if a billion voices became one voice that would matter.”

—Rebecca says there are already interesting mums for climate action groups and parent groups around climate action which are effective around the world. “What was interesting to me in the recent [2019] fires was realising all the things I love doing with my children at the end of the year, the school picnic and concert and all the summer things, were cancelled because of fires. We spent some time outside but otherwise it was too smoky or hot … and just realising this is affecting how I’m raising my kids. I’m a bit biased here but it was really my love for my kids and my sense of responsibility as a parent which led me to the climate movement and to climate change as an issue and has led o commit myself for the rest of my life. I even got a tattoo. I’ve never had a tattoo. It’s an S. All my kids’ names start with an S so a tattoo of their initials in my hand is a reminder that this is a fight I’ve got to stay in. It’s a very small tattoo and I haven’t told my mother and she would never forgive me. Speaking of mothers and shame and guilt I have not told her.”

—Asked by Sharon if there’s anything else to add, Rebecca loves that Sharon picked up the book even though she wouldn’t normally do that: “If anybody picks up this book and they feel like they could pass it on to somebody who would say, ‘ooh, I wouldn’t read a book on climate change’, encourage them to read it. Hopefully it’s a readable, accessible book on human beings and how we respond to crisis and how we can bring out the best in humanity for the challenge ahead.

—Sharon on the book: “I was expecting to get growled at and I appreciated the tone and timbre of the book and the way you made it very accessible. It’s very much a personal journey.”

—Rebecca notes at the back of the book she included resources including podcasts, movies, sites, reports and guides on how to talk about climate change and manage anxiety around it.”

—Sharon welcomes Sasha, who found their first coaching session (see ‘Mother Load’ Perspectives podcast) and the territory that was covered “absolutely fantastic. There was so much to it.”

—Sasha says the “most outstanding part” of the first session has been “the discovery of so much brilliance in my daughter … in her just being who she is without me needing to focus or change or put some sort of mask on her. It is just seeing her, and there has been some wonderful shifts.”

—She elaborates on the shifts: “I think I was over-indulging in the guilt and the emotions … that would really take me down that journey of guilt and feeing as though she’s not good enough, I’m not good enough, whereas I have not since our session indulged in that.”

—Sasha “loves” that her first session didn’t focus on the origins of her challenges. “I think you recognised I’d done that excessively.” What she found “amazing” was “that reframe of, ‘look how wonderfully my daughter’s doing. She was doing her emotions her way and I couldn’t reach those, and that reframe … really brought out her brilliance and that’s what I wasn’t seeing in her.”

—She laughs and is delighted by how her daughter—the eldest of three—claps back at her sometimes. “I’m loving it. Show me your spunk! I’m like, brilliant, go you, whereas in the past I might have seen that as a sign of disrespect or some other bullshit. She’s bringing more of her and that is exactly what I wanted from this, to bring more of her.”

—Sharon applauds Sasha’s commitment to her family: “You just ran with it. I’m not taking any credit. You showed up ready to go.”

—Sasha admits the day after the first podcast, she “absolutely cocked it up” with her daughter despite having a plan and being inspired and excited: “The next day I reverted straight back into the rigidity, the control, which was excellent because I really learned while I have this new way of seeing things, I’m still human, still learning, still going to mess this up and that’s okay. Messing up is key to growth.”

—Sharon: “Let’s just shine a torchlight on that. You’re recognising the self-awareness is so in tune now to the situation and your play in this is dynamic, you’re recognising where you show up as one or the other. That’s tremendously empowering for you and her.”

—When Sharon notes is sounds like Sasha didn’t do the guilt trip, she agrees: “I realised the forgiveness I’m giving myself.”

9.30: RIPPLE EFFECTS

—Asked if she’s noticed any ripple effects beyond herself to her daughter or family members, Sasha reinforces that she is loving her daughter’s “feistiness” and is “honouring” the deliberate actions she takes rather than adhering to her mum’s “fast talker, fast mover, fast action” qualities.

—Sasha: “I’m honouring the time she might need to process things a bit more slowly. And I’m giving her more autonomy. I’m allowing her more space so she has less resistance. When I’m going, ‘come on, come on’, it ends up being this big power struggle.” Their new “flow” creates “a greater connection between us, whereas I thought if she does what I want her to do that was being connected. It was very messed up but now I have perspective on it.”

—Asked by Sharon about a shift in dynamic just for Sasha’s daughter, not in terms of relating to her mother, she says her own mother is staying with the family after a five-month absence. “She said my daughter has changed so much, she’s less shut down, she’s more joyful, more interested, more communicative. The messaging I’ve been giving her has been, ‘You are loved and you are safe and whatever decision you want to make right now there’s no right or wrong’. I’m allowing her to see her decisions can get messy and that’s okay, she’s always in that safe container of love. I don’t get it right all the time … there’s definitely a weight coming off me, and you’re right, it has impacted the family. There’s less outbursts, there’s less of a power struggle between her and I.”

—Sharon suggests the word “brittle” to describe how the power struggle used to feel. “It’s more malleable,” Sasha agrees. “We’ve sat down and talked values like you suggested … the eldest came up with a list of things that are important to her. Creativity was one. Being kind. Fun. Caring. Communicating. Then she said Lego! Lego is life here at our house.”

17.50: LEGO AND OTHER BUILDING BLOCKS

—Sharon reveals she loves Lego (“an incredibly beautiful thing to do”) and asks Sasha how the mother and daughter are communicating, as noted as an important value by the nine-year-old girl.

—Sasha’s daughter goes to bed half an hour after the other girls and that means she gets special read and snuggle and meditation time on the coach with mummy: “I really love that little half hour with her. She’s reaching out for that more.”

—Sharon: “Good on you, creating that space for her. It’s just beautiful.”

—Sasha: “If I think about how amazing this little girl is and the shifts that she’s made, if I look 12 months ago she was quite shut down and not very communicative and I recognise that she wasn’t allowed this space just to be her because I was so about action and process. I’m enjoying her so much more than I ever had as a result.”

—Sharon loves Sasha’s self-awareness and experiencing joy around her daughter: “Your eyes are alive, so much more relaxed around your face. There’s a playfulness about you, it’s delightful to see.”

—Asked what has come up for her and what she’d like to explore
and discover, Sasha says one thing is she still jumps back into ‘mum mode’ and can still be “rigid” in her behaviour with the children especially when they all need to get out of the house by 8.30am for school.

—Sharon: “There’s three elements to that: why you do that, what it is you do and then really significantly, how you do it energetically? Does that make sense? What you do is very consistent parenting with really healthy boundaries. But there’s a difference between parenting and control.”

—Sasha wants to focus on how she sometimes slips back into old patterns of “come on, fast, fast, I know that rattles everyone. And it would be lovely to again have another perspective shift on how I can get them to do what needs to be done.”

—Asked to share a snapshot of how the morning rush and associated tension is playing out, Sasha says she slips into mum mode but isn’t sure that needs to be unpacked: “I have the opportunity available to me to just shift that, and it’s a choice of how would I go about that … so I am less the martyr and more of a leader.”

—Sharon asks Sasha to paint a picture of her ideal of getting out of the house all at the same time.

—Sasha makes a game of it with her five-year-old (“you’re going to be ready before your sisters!”) so the idea is “bringing the fun and a little bit of adventure” with all of them: “They are over-reliant on me to drive things. The idea would be they know what needs to be done and do it because they delight in the idea of being n able to have control in their own days and ways and how they do it rather than it be externalised. We’re talking about external and intrinsic motivation really, aren’t we? But I’d love them to be intrinsically motivated.”

27.42: THE PLAYFUL APPROACH

—Sharon asks some of the ways Sasha can start shifting her kids developmentally appropriately towards a level of self-autonomy rather than being controlled.

—Sasha has no definite answers, “because I actually don’t know and that’s what’s really cool, it means there’s something really cool on the other side of me not knowing.”

—Sharon asks if there are strengths Sasha can draw on.

—Sasha: “I suppose it would be a sense of you know what you need to do and this is the time frame we’re going to, how about you do the things you need to do when you’re ready to do them, knowing 8.30 is the time we need to go … so it’s about you learning to trust you can do that without me.”

—Sharon: “Where are we on consequences? I’m not expecting them to understand delayed consequences like going to school without shoes but do they understand that it can chew up play time?

—Sasha says they do, “although at the same time that’s where I get dogmatic, so I’m wondering if they know when we need to leave and if they can interweave playing and getting ready then that outcome might be better for them because they have more autonomy.”

—Sharon: “Who says it has to be work then play for an eight or nine- year-old. Maybe it can all be playful?

—Sharon suggests an approach which has clear consequences: “You lose your playtime if you don’t get ready but that’s okay if you want to lose it. Let me know what’s going to suit you best.”

—Sasha: “The way it would have happened in the past is, ‘We are leaving the house now, if you don’t have your shoes and water bottle and lunch you are going without them’ and that would be enough. That’s real fear based and I don’t want that to be the motivation. I want to reduce that.”

—Sharon suggest the playful approach: “’No shoes and water bottle today, okay if that’s the choice.’” That’s true autonomy, making poor choices, it’s just again gauging developmental responses. It’s very easy to be the controlling parents until they hit 13 and can stand up to it, the rebellion is coming anyway. What I’ve been hearing you do which is absolutist is, ‘I will nag, you will be ready, I will have my way.’ Now it’s playing with a bit more of a grey zone and getting rid of that black and white thinking.”

—Sasha notes her girls have “tried to get that autonomy and I’ve undermined it: ‘No, we’re getting ready now, hurry up.’ It’s the undermining of that authority.”

—Asked where she is with planning ahead the night before, Sasha says the kids’ days are “very set up for them” and it’s “not a hotch-potch of disaster. It’s actually quite clear what has to happen” but that her girls are easily distracted by “shiny things.” Her thinking is, “let’s prepare, their thinking is, ‘I’m a child. I just want to play.”

39.50 A FLOW DAY

—Sasha says the days it all “magically” comes together are when she and the girls all sit in the car for the drive to school and sing tunes and “if feels wonderful” compared to the “exhausting” days chasing them up about water bottles.

—She wants it to be replicable and discusses offering a reward for the first child to be ready to leave the house. The idea of the first one to have their bag and water bottle gets to choose a song in the car is raised: “It’s creating a very positive energy for the morning which sets them up for the day.”

—Sharon suggests how she would language it, linking the task to the ultimate great outcome where there is flow and it’s about fun and playfulness: “Who’s thinking about the tune we’ll play in the car? I am.” She suggests Sasha switches it away from being competitive and shakes it up: “Sometimes it’s playful competition. Sometimes it’s just playful. Sometimes it’s goal oriented … I don’t think your eldest is designed for competition so much. She’s more in the flow.”

—Sharon suggests having a Top 5 near the door of things that need to be done, that the kids write up and use as a daily checklist: “So rather than saying, ‘Have you got your water bottle?’ it’s have you checked off the five things.” Rather than have you play micro, I’m shifting the energy away a bit so you’re not having to monitor five things times three. This will have them learn the process of things they’re responsible for.”

48.26: MOVING FORWARD

—Asked how that is sitting with her as a frame, Sasha says it’s “lovely” and that the kids need self-autonomy: “You’re right, making it more fun and focussed on the external outcome at the end of all that stuff we need to do. It’s a pleasure then, we’re in the car, we love listening to tunes. I love that’s turned the focus from leaving the house at 8.30 to when do we get to be in the car and listen to fun songs?”

—She says “another perspective shift has been really lovely. That’s now a strategy I can apply to anything I want the kids to do. Focus on the fun outcome for them, feeling how they can be self-autonomous to get there.”

—Sharon asks Sasha what she is admiring about herself: “Flexibility and willingness and the possibility of focussing on, ‘Ooh okay, now I know how it can be different.’ I can feel my energy behind it.”

—Sharon loves how much Sasha is self-directing. “I’m here to observe this and you get there so quickly. I love your commitment to this and to letting go of this. You’re a little highly strung like me and I love my highly strongness and to have kids in the mix who aren’t that way, what you’re needing to bring to the fore isn’t a natural place for you. I admire so much that you’re doing that. I get a lot of gratification out of ‘boom, boom, boom’, it makes perfect sense to me that I do everything quickly so I can have the fun later. The fact you’re letting go of that … I find it very inspiring.”

—Sharon asks Sasha to move forward to the future and see how it feels, looks, sounds.

—Sasha: “The immediate feeling is that they’re experiencing me in a different way, they’re experiencing themselves in a different way and they have more room to be who they are and develop within that space. I can see them adventuring into themselves more and adventuring more into the world. It’s a focus on the good. I want them to make more mistakes and I want them to learn from that. I’s space and playfulness and joy and the realising of external pressure. So that they can just flourish and be little bubbles in the world.”

—Sharon thanks Sasha; “I dig you so much. Get in touch if something is coming up that you want to celebrate or share. I’m just really into what you’re experiencing and have delight for what is happening for your family. There’s going to be messes, we know that and I love that you’re embracing that as much as the delightful stuff. Truly remarkable.”

—Kate says her fourth book Me First: The Guilt Free Guide to Prioritising You had a “slow start” because it launched amid the first COVID-19 lockdown but it has started to gain momentum because home isolation means “people are working differently and they’re wanting to do things differently and one is putting themselves first, so it’s about Me First.”

—Sharon has noticed the “importance of values” in lockdown and that it’s been a time to reassess about how we want the next stage of our lives to look, “re-evaluating what matters to me … how you live your values can change during times like these. It’s this reset opportunity.”

—Kate: “If you look at COVID from a different perspective it’s been a gift to me where we have been able to step back and really reflect and reframe, ‘How do I feel about this life I’m living, this pace I’m working at, do my kids need to be in 450,000 after school activities, what do we love doing most?’ and it has allowed us to slow down and go back to absolute basics, almost like a global tree change in some respects, and it’s given us a chance to reframe, reprioritise our lives differently. Then it allows it to curate how you want it to look coming out the back end of this. We don’t have to return to business as usual, we can redesign that for ourselves and that’s exciting.”

—Sharon notes it’s the “new normal” and “we have to learn to adapt to this.”

—Kate says she stopped being a lawyer because she “hated” it, and her life “blurred” when she had three children under three. “My first two were 17 months apart and it was the pressure of having twins without any of the glory. “There was a period of my life when I did not leave the house because their sleeping patterns were completely different. I was pregnant as well. I was a lunatic.”

—Sharon notes that “without throwing your ex-husband under the bus too much”, it sounds like Kate was a “one man band” in the relationship.

—Kate says “to be fair, he took a traditional approach to the family unit” and was earning great money for the family as a barrister while she did the parenting, “plus I wanted to work as well so I was juggling that.”

—Sharon: “But the moment you get to that, Kate, you have to redefine the relationship and what it means to be traditional. Traditional is the woman stays home. You didn’t have traditional, you had a very successful career in law. All bets are off.”

—Kate says there were only two occasions her then-husband stayed home from work when the kids were sick. “Partly it was because if he had to be in court he had to be in court but I also had a role where I had be in Sydney or in a meeting on the other side of Melbourne but I was always the one who made it work.”

—Sharon asks how the book, which promises to free up 30 hours of time a month, came about: “I just got this real sense this was you trying to make sense of ‘how do I navigate me having quality of life when people around me aren’t as committed as I am?”

—Kate thinks it’s “typical” of professional women who work and are also mums, “and it’s frustrating and as much as I’d like to be able to solve that whole dynamic within relationships and make blokes step the hell up, I don’t know whether or not there’s a simple solution to that.” Says at speaking engagements she draws a variety of responses: some women ask how to make their husbands step up and not be an extra child, others are “quite aggressive” and ask why she didn’t insist her husband share half the load. “It’s an interesting debate because I couldn’t change that in my marriage and ultimately my marriage ended, not for that reason in particular … but once I was out of the marriage it was easier for me to actual identify that I didn’t get the help I needed and perhaps I wasn’t prepared to have that discussion.”

9.42: You didn’t need ‘help’

—Sharon says it should never have been phrased that Kate needed help: “It’s not all on you, both had sex, both produced a baby.”

—Kate agrees but says there was an expectation “from pretty much all the men around me” —bosses, colleagues, husband—except her father that she be the one to take a career break and manage the children. “To be 100 per cent honest I wanted to be the one. It would be easy for me to say ‘my bloody ex husband never helped out’ but that’s not quite true. I was the one who wanted to stay home when the kids were sick.”

—Sharon: “Women don’t let go but they need to let go.”

—Kate didn’t let go. “If he’d said on more than two occasions he would stay home I probably would have said no because I thought I was better at it, I wanted to be in control, I wanted to make sure they were okay. It’s very easy to bash the blokes but a big part of that was I wanted control of it.”

—Sharon says it’s a sweeping generalisation but a lot of women tell her they don’t know how to let go because their partner is “fumbling about” and the perfectionist in them, the need not to be shamed, the need to be on top of it, won’t allow them to.

—Kate says it’s “too simplistic and lineal “to say there were two people in the relationship and both had sex and produced children. “It’s just so much deeper and more complex than that.”

—Sharon and her husband JP don’t have kids but have spent 17 years renegotiating marriage. “Really we were very traditional, we got married nearly 30 years ago. I did the meals … together we have come back to our values, it’s not on any one of us, he calls me out when I try to stay in control too much. It’s not on the woman to solve her need for control, but I think her life partner or husband can play a role in saying, “I think you’re holding on a little tight” and that’s what JP has done for me.

—Kate says when she was in the “dark times” with three babies under three, if her then-husband had suggested to her that she was being too controlling, “I probably would have lost my shit. Don’t poke the bear.” Adds she thinks in any relationship “we play roles … we play to our strengths. My husband did all the cooking, he was a terrific cook and I hate cooking. He did the gardening, maintenance, fixing things, managed all the finances. That was the stuff he liked and was good at. I had no interest. Then when it ends there’s these gaps. I didn’t know how to open a bank account, how do I get a mortgage, how do I budget. I’d been married for 22 years, we married really young. We play roles and when that person leaves it leaves a gap and there’s a big learning curve.”

17.30 The toxicity is in the rigidity

—Sharon says one thing taught at TCI is clear definition of the roles we play and “I think the toxicity is in the rigidity. My husband doesn’t say ‘you’re being controlling’ and I flare up, he says, ‘how about you leave that to me today?’ He’s on my team in terms of my wellbeing, not in pointing out my flaws. Otherwise it is a conflict, and I can make it a conflict, I can flare up like that, I’m the fire, he’s the flow so when he says, ‘maybe it’s time to sit down’ my reaction is, ‘No, I want to do it’. If I’m in control it manages my anxiety. Letting go and still managing my anxiety is the great challenge and he helps me with that.” Notes that Kate was told by men around her what to do with her career and family but Sharon’s major critics have been women.

—Kate: “It’s confronting and disappointing. We think of it in term of sisterhood, let’s back each other and celebrate each other’s choices and success … one of the big mistakes we make as women is our preparedness to judge each other for our life choices and bring each other down and it infuriates me.”

—Kate said she found it fascinating after her husband decided to leave her there was a “ripple effect” in her small community and people thought “if their marriage didn’t survive, what does that mean for ours?” at people in her small community: “You’re dealing with everyone’s concerns and grief about their own marriages, what the hell guys, I’ve just lost my husband.” Said three women told her within weeks of her marriage ending that she was lucky. That will never leave me .. that sadness about how these women are living. I worry about their ability to live a life that’s genuinely true of how they live their values.”

—Sharon: “Every woman listening, have your own money, it is so important, give yourself your own choices.”

—Kate: “Be yourself, have a great job you love, start a business you love, earn money for yourself. You are not an appendage.”

—Sharon says one of her major drivers is she doesn’t want to get to her dying breath and think she’s about to meet the person she could have been and should have been.

26.40: Don’t compromise

—Kate: “I turned 50 this year and it is a very reflective time and it’s about saying, ‘don’t compromise too much, this is me first, I have the confidence now. If you’re 20 or 30 or 40 I want women to read this book and have that level of confidence I have now. Regardless of what age you are, don’t always put everyone first, put yourself first, be the best person you can be and live this amazing life right now.”

—Asked what inspired Me First, Kate says she played it “safe” in her first book Me Time, which gave a framework to gaining back 30 hours of time a month. The new one is “a lot more opinionated” and has more of the author in it: “This is why you deserve to have that time back and when you do, this is how you should be spending it. Set and create some audacious, fantastic goals for yourself or your family or your career. I’ve been around 50 years now, I’ve worked in the highest levels of corporate, I run my own very successful business, I’m at that stage where I’m phenomenally confident and happy in my own skin, I love what I’ve created and I wish I had this level of confidence when I was 25. It’s about saying, ‘put yourself first. Understand what your values, live those values. Once you have that laser like focus on what’s most important to you, the rest becomes white noise and it’s easy to dial it down. Once you understand what you’re willing to get out of bed for it makes it easy to say no to everything else.”

30:12 The SMART Framework

—Asked the thinking behind finding 30 hours a month of time, Kate talks the five-step framework she developed a number of years ago, called SMART.

—First step is self-aware: analyse your values “and that helps you set parameters of how and where you spend your time.” Acknowledging Sharon’s comment that self-aware is “being honest with ourselves”, Kate says it’s “bigger than our values, it’s what is tripping you up, what’s challenging you. Having that clarity means you can dial down on everything else.”

—Kate talks vanilla values and the essence of your behaviour and suggests people take themselves to “that room of mirrors” and have a good look at their behaviour. “Ask the people around you what they think your values are, the way you live, work, what’s important to you. Ask yourself questions like, ‘If I was sick in bed, what would I get out for? What would I love to be complimented on? If I’m having a conversation with my best friend over a red wine, what are we talking about?’ My things I’d get out of bed for are my kids, my business and my health. Anything to do with my kids, easy yes. If people ask me to do things to do with my kids that doesn’t involve my kids, it’s an easy no. No, Kate can’t be chair of the basketball club committee for the next 800 years. Anything other than those things is an easy no: dating, catching up with friends all the time, they are just not a priority at the moment.”

—One way Sharon looks at values is “what I want to experience more of and what it is I’m not willing to experience anymore. What’s my flashpoint?”

—When Kate goes to sleep at night, one ritual is thinking whether she had a values lived day: “Have I said yes to the things that are important to me? If I’m lying awake at night it’s the times I’m frustrated, bloody hell, I said yes to that and I know it’s not something I really want to do.”

—Both talk trusting your gut. Kate: “People will say if you trust your gut and your inner lens, and if you will, your gut, it’s right but that’s not the case. Your gut is going off muscle memory and it feels right because that’s the decision you made last time and last month and six months ago. I’m very data driven. I’ll make decisions that are data driven then test it against my gut, that helps you make the right decisions. But don’t make gut decisions alone.”

—Sharon: “If you make the same decisions again and again and trust your gut, you’re relying on a flawed plan. My gut was the most unreliable indicator for the first two or three years of coming out of the black hole of not being me. 18 years ago I started realising I’m not being me and I needed to do something about it and my gut was the last place I was going to go. My gut was based on fear, intolerance, judgement, and the need to protect myself from all hurt. Listening to that I’d still be in bed ‘cos it was the only place I felt safe.”

41.40: Step Two: Don’t be ‘busy’

—Second step is Map: Kate recommends mapping a full day or two of your time to see where you’re spending it: “You can’t know what changed you can make to your time unless you know where it’s being spent. From the moment you get up until you go to bed, jot down what you do, how often you’re distracted, when you jump in and out of emails and phone calls. It’s data that will change your life. Most people who come in and work with me … they’re just pinging around like silver balls in a pinball machine, completely reactive.”

—Sharon notes Kate has worked with executives from Westpac, Deloitte, L’Oreal, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and takes them through the SMART framework.

—She’s always amazed working with really senior people that they are so bogged down in delivery they put off strategy: “80 per cent of their time should be spent on strategy. It’s about cleaning the slate, taking away the crap and white noise so they can focus on what they need to focus on. You can’t do that until you map your time.”

—Kate: “I don’t want to see the day that you’re spending on beach in Bali. It’s around what would a typical day look like if it just ran perfectly and smoothly and to your agenda.”

—Three problems she has when working with professionals: They’re not planning to succeed, they don’t have a big five-year plan, they’re not controlling the agenda. They’re being 100 per cent reactive to the loudest noise.”

—It “drives” Kate nuts when people say “I’m so busy,” she says. “It’s this badge of honour, ‘I’m in the busy club’, and it’s not actually something we should be boasting about. Because every time you tell someone how busy you are … really what you’re saying is, ‘I’m so unproductive.’ And that’s what people judge you on. So if people ask how you are, say, ‘I’m great, I’m terrific, I’m enjoying what I’m doing, I’m in the moment, I’m having my dream day, I’m focused.’ You’ll have a better conversation coming out of that.”

—Sharon suggests we all commit “to resigning from The Busy Club” to join a better club like I’m Living My Dream Club: “There are so many more interesting ways to perceive a day rather than I’m busy. It’s so banal.”

—Kate says the “negative concept” of our busy-ness is “contaminating our children and we’re making them busy. Think about our kids and all of those after school activities and rushing around and how many things you ran them to on the weekend, pony club softball, dance, accepting every party invitation—we’re creating a new generation of busy-ness.”

—Sharon: “And getting significance from it. There’s a lot of studies that show … just be careful where you get your significance from, if you draw your energy or significance from bragging about things that lead to you feeling unproductive, it looks good on the outside but the inside is just brittle and really struggling.”

49.12 Step Three: Finding Our Gold

—A is for Analyse: This is where you take your time maps and every task you’ve performed and put it into four categories: musts, wants, delegation or rejection: “Your delegation and rejection is where we find our gold, our 30 hours. It’s about teaching you how to delegate at work, break time down and categorise things. And we cost how you spend your time.

—On the home front delegation falls into two categories: outsourcing (“look at the maps and see everything you’re currently doing that you’re prepared to pay an expert to do—my three rules are they will do faster, better and cheaper”) and insourcing is things that people you live with can do for themselves that you don’t have to pay for (“clean up your floordrobe, unload the dishwasher, cook dinner, feed the dog, walk the dog, put away all your crap … this isn’t a hotel.”) A lot of high-achieving women she works with are “really bad” at insourcing: “It’s almost like they have to compensate for the, ‘Oh, I’m not at home as much so I’ll come home and do everything for my kids ‘cos I don’t have the time to give them quality time.”

—Kate: “We also want to bring up our kids to be independent and resilient and capable.” She says get them to make their beds, “and as long as the doona is off the floor I’m happy. Don’t remake the bed in front of the kid because then you’ve just totally demoralised them in terms of their effort. The five year old isn’t capable of smoothing their doona so it’s going to look like the front cover of Bed, Bath and Table but by the time they get to 12, 13, 14 they will be doing a good job.”

—One of her mantras is, “Family is a team sport.” Everyone has to chip in. “I laugh on the inside and sometimes have laughed loudly on the outside as well when I have speaking engagements someone will put their hand up and say, ‘I love the idea of outsourcing but they’re not old enough yet’, and I ask, ‘How old’, ’13 and 15’ …. There’s a deeper problem. It’s you.”

—Sharon recalls living on a farm for a year growing up, and milking cows at 6am when she was 12. “It was just what I did. I was empowered by the responsibility.”

—Kate says the second part of home front delegation is “look at what your habits are costing you. There are different cost lenses for each task you perform: financial cost (she recommends an app called Harvard Meeting Calculator which will tell you your hourly rate), opportunity cost (what you give up to do a certain task), emotional cost (how you feel about how you’re living) and physical cost: “In terms of financial cost, if your time is worth $50 an hour and you spend an hour on Facebook every day, it is $18,250 of your time a year. Ask, ‘is this the best use of my time?’”

—Sharon adds a caveat that it’s a “gentle process of discussion, moving the boundaries one at a time” with insourcing: “’Maybe it’s time you could have a go at that, you’re more than ready, I’ve been holding you up.’”

—Kate talks manipulation: “I’d rather you be the mum or dad who constantly nags, as opposed to the mum or dad or constantly does.”

59.05: Step Four: Reframe, reframe, reframe!

—R is for Reframe: It’s where you decide exactly what you’ll outsource, insource and reject. Reject includes “silly stuff” we do by habit, including the classic example of people checking their phones within ten minutes of waking up. “You’re living a completely reactive life because your messages, emails, everything on your phone is someone else’s to do list. It’s not yours. That’s people saying, ‘I want, I need, Can you’ and you just lost control of the agenda within ten minutes of waking up.”

—Sharon says if she falls down that rabbit hole of constant accessibility, “I can feel myself getting anxious. How to trigger my anxiety is tell me emails where I could let people down. I don’t have emails now coming to the house, no mobile devices where I can be contacted.”

—There’s also partial rejects, which are things “you do need but you could be smarter about how and when you do them. Yes, I do need to shop for food but not in peak hour, or I could shop online.”

1.01.10: Step Five: Implementation Time

—T is for take control which is “where the rubber hits the road. Start delegating, insourcing, outsourcing, rejecting, focussing on your musts, which are your values-led behaviours and making enough time for Me First, which are your wants. I want to go jogging, I want to see my dad, I want to sleep in. Whatever you want, we need to build ourselves into our calendar and make time for ourselves, then we need to turn up.”

—Sharon notes things that get in the way of putting ourselves first are imposter syndrome, busy lifestyle syndrome, super women, saying yes to everything.”

—One of Kate’s big bugbears is imposter syndrome. “We need to cure it. I have beautiful, amazing, incredible 16-year-old daughter and I won’t want her growing up with a sense of being an imposter. It’s an epidemic and every single one of my clients has it in some level or has doubted their abilities to be in the role they are in. I wrote an article about this recently and it went berserkers on LinkedIn, about how I feel I contracted imposter syndrome after I had had my kids … once you have kids it’s kind of open slather, every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks they can comment on your ability as a mother or your parenting style or your decision to work full time or not at all, or breastfeed or not at all, or put them in creche, or not at all. Everybody has an opinion and that starts to undermine your confidence, then once that starts it leaches into your working life.”

—Her strategy for beating it: “Sit down and really reflect on those feelings and ask where they’re coming from. Make a list of amazing things we achieve, write down those wins every day on a sticky note then stick them on a board, and at the end of the year you’ll see it covered in sticky notes. I want you to talk about it with other women, let’s not pretend we’re all coping and post these stylised shots to social media which undermine everyone else. Let’s talk about the shit days but most importantly talk to yourself the way you would talk to your daughter when she expresses those feelings of self-doubt.”

—Sharon: When we start talking about imposter syndrome we have to be a little vulnerable. It’s about, ‘I have a suit of armour on, please don’t notice’. Be okay with feeling a little vulnerable. The moment we run away from the feeling we’re back to imposter syndrome. The moment we reject an emotion we’re rejecting part of our ourselves.”

—Kate: “I’m constantly winging it but my greatest achievements … have always come from moments when I’ve pushed myself past that feeling of being fake. You’re only going to have your greatest life on the other side of that line.”

—Sharon: “Trying to get in touch with what it was for me … was getting reference points of where I was capable and where I was willing to learn. I looked at success and that really helped me, but looking at reference points where I was willing to be curious, imposter syndrome faded away. What got me to the place where I felt good about myself was the process of being open to learning and something different until it faded away and became irrelevant.”

—Kate: “Understanding the process is great and so important because then it’s replicable and you can do it again and again.”

—Sharon congratulates Kate on how she changed the trajectory of her life so she could experience it the way she wanted to, in what is a very empowering story. We looked at relationships with ourselves and others, we walked through the SMART process, imposter syndrome, insourcing, outsourcing: “The dynamics of how to insource within the family, that’s pretty well redefining families if we do that well and with grace.”

—Sharon Pearson is “absolutely intrigued” to be speaking with Natasha: “These types of stories fascinate me and to be able to speak with someone who has experienced it and to unpack it is one of the most important conversations in this day and age.”

—Natasha recounts what happened on the day that changed her life: On her way to work on the Washington DC train system she saw a uniformed railway employee “breaking the Metro rules” by eating on the train. “I’ve been lambasted before by Metro employees for eating a banana on the platform so I was really baffled this was happening in plain sight.” The employee told Natasha “worry about yourself, so I decided to tweet about the incident.” She admits, “to be completely honest I should not have done this. I should have used a more private way of filing my complaint. If I could take this back I would.”

—Sharon notes, “Not the smartest tweet.”

—Natasha: “I admit I made an error in judgement but I’m human. We all make mistakes. I should have used a more private manner of complaining.”

—Asked what she was thinking at the time, Natasha—who has a masters’ degree in journalism and worked in the field for almost 20 years—“felt like she was exposing the hypocrisy of the DC Metro.” She had tweeted about them before and “I was approaching it from a journalist explaining what is happening … I kind of got lost in the moment. The journalist instinct clouded my judgement.”

—Sharon: “All around the world every day people are bringing whatever is going on in the circumstances of their lives. They’re going to show poor judgement. Before social media we used to show poor judgement with a friend. I don’t think we’ve made the adjustment at all to realise we’re speaking to an audience and not a person, and that’s substantially shifted how this narrative takes place.

8.30 ‘An absolute witch hunt’

—Sharon says social media means “we’re basically tweeting onstage and I don’t think most people are thinking about it.” She says there are parallels with the Salem witch trials in the 1690s: “It felt like an absolute witch hunt. You were literally hounded out of the country.”

—She wants to put the conversation delicately and respectfully: “I get that tweet was dumb. Poor judgement. So does my guest. You would take it back. You apologised. I’m trying to have it in a way that is fair to so many narratives. Whatever you think about that tweet, if your next thought is, ‘She deserved it’, you’re wrong. The point you decide you are judge, jury and executioner on a complete stranger we have not evolved at all. We’re never going to advance in terms of community and humanity if we are stuck in this game where one mistake leaves people’s lives cancelled.”

12.11 I’m going to take a moment. “We’ve lost the plot. There is no way what happened should have happened. I’m going to hold myself together.”

—Natasha deleted the tweet after 49 minutes when she started getting comments. Then her phone started beeping and “suddenly on social media I was bombarded by people from everywhere. The shocking part for me was, I get the snitch part, but I was shocked they called me racist. I was like ‘where did this come from?’ I was not targeting the employee because she was African American. How did this turn into a racist situation? That was absolutely not my intention and the way it was interpreted blew my mind and it was so unfair and so wrong. I started getting death threats.”

—Sharon struggles to read some of the abusive tweets and Natasha says she still gets them a year on: “I’m still being accused of being a racist and a snitch and for me the hardest part of all this was how my publishers dropped the book. The statement the publisher made was so hurtful … as if they never knew me. I was accused of systemic racism. I was like, ‘hey, can somebody explain what’s going on here? It just broke me.”

—Natasha was hospitalised the day of her tweet then found out her publisher Rare Bird dumped the book she worked on for five years.

—Sharon says it’s the “ultimate form of gaslighting to be told you’re a bad person for one act that showed poor judgement” and reads the Rare Bird statement saying Natasha “did something truly horrible” and “we think this is unacceptable.”

—Natasha reveals what she would say to her publisher: “I would say they caved into the pressure of the online media and were worried that their business and brand would be hurt.”

23.00: A TOUGH ENVIRONMENT

—Sharon notes it would have been easier to cancel than to ride it out: “We’ve seen established artists completely cancelled and nobody has stood by them.”

—Natasha says she didn’t have the chance to discuss it but “I could have said there was no intention of racism, just give me the chance to tell you what was in my heart before you basically throw me under the bus and label me racist.”

—Look at editing the uni stuff. “I’m talking about proportionality. Natasha did a dumb tweet and she took that down after 49 minutes, the publishers then extended the narrative and kept the story going. If we’re not capable of the subtlety of this and the nuance of this, we’re lost. It’s going to become black and white absolutism … we’re coming for you.”

—Natasha says she believes if the publisher hadn’t dumped the book the media wouldn’t have reported it, “but because of the cancellation the story was covered all over the world, BBC, Canada, Australia, shocking. Suddenly my face is everywhere.” Growing up in the Middle East she lived through two Gulf Wars but “this was the most difficult thing I ever went through and it scarred me forever. I think about it every single day.”

—Sharon notes it’s only been a year and Natasha is still traumatised. “You still have a journey to go. Social media is the village square. I’m not making excuses or apologising for the tweet, the tweet was the wrong tweet to do, I’m talking about proportionality. Do you think if these people had to face you they would have said these things to your face?”

31.43: The madness of crowds

—Natasha references The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray. “You’re more likely to be mad when there are other mad people around you,” she says. In her case, “it was the madness of the crowd that happened and man many were trolls, a lot of people with no identity. Some of them were big influencers.”

—Sharon asks what is the way back for someone who makes a mistake in public, and “I am going to preface that by saying everyone is making mistakes every day … is there an apology that’s good enough?”

—Natasha: “No matter what you say, they’re going to tear it down. For me, the way back is I went back on social media. If I gave up and did not go back on social media it means that I just gave in , I listened to them and I am the person they showed me to be.”

—She’s back tweeting about her book They Called Me Wyatt, which she got a new deal for. “The fact I’m back shows I’m still the same person and I made a mistake but I’m going to continue being who I am. Yes you crushed me but I’m still alive. By doing that you show them that you’re moving on and they should move on as well.”

—Sharon urges “move on people, get a life” as Natasha says it makes them feel good about themselves: “They feel they are a social justice warrior. The culture of the US is so divided now. It’s a very charged atmosphere. They are the social justice warriors and they feel good at the end of the day: ‘I get on line and tell the racist you are a racist, I’m the good person, then I go and watch Netflix and drink my beer.’ But you don’t know how you’re tearing down the person you’re labelling a racist.”

39.05 “I was suicidal’

—Sharon notes “so you just covered virtue signalling, call out culture, cancel culture, identity politics and intersectionality. Let’s start with cancel culture: what are your views?”

—Natasha talks about a stand up comedian accused of plagiarism or lying who toughed it out and went back on Twitter because he wanted his life back. “I wanted to be like him. I feel guilty, I feel ashamed, I have all these feelings but I want my life back. Social media was my job and it was a big part of who I am and who I was, and if I just disappear and die, that’s what the mob wants. And I didn’t want the mob to win. It’s basically to say cancel culture cannot win. I made the mistakes, there were many lessons learned. I would [now] never use my social media platform for the negative. To be human is to err. If you’ve never made a mistake you’re a robot. Or you’re lying.”

—The happy ending is her new book deal.

—Sharon asks “at what point have you paid enough?” and talks about communications executive Justine Sacco who lost her job in 2014 for an inappropriate tweet.

—Natasha had reporters camped outside her house and ended up heading home to Jordan to be supported by family and friends: “I felt I needed to be with my own people.”

—She admits she “was a mess. Mentally I was suicidal. No sleep, panic attacks, I was a complete mess. All these darkest of dark thoughts. And I’m still dark. I’m still not that happy person. I’m not happy now. I’m still suffering I feel from what happened.”

—Sharon talks about Justine Sacco’s satirical tweet; “Again. I’m not defending this … I want this podcast to be representative of anyone who has made a mistake in public. To speak about how you showed poor judgement, to attempt to atone for it and still not have a clear pathway back with the Twittersphere or social media. It is on us to look at ourselves.”

52.40: THE PATHWAY BACK

—Warning she is going to “rant” a little, Sharon says “the moral narrative has gone horribly off the tracks. Morality is not you are never allowed to offend anyone … you are allowed to make a mistake, you are allowed to atone and apologise and be a whole person and not be defined by our worst moment. And I bet that wasn’t your worst moment. I’ve done worst moments than what your tweet was. We should be defined by our character and by what we contribute to society, not by 20 seconds of ‘I wasn’t thinking’. This podcast is really me finally after so long speaking publicly about something I feel very passionate about. If you don’t have a pathway back, what hope do we have? What happens to people who actually do bad acts and mean them? And the irony is the woke community feels more compassion for a convicted criminal who gets released and gets to come back to society than they do for you.”

—Natasha says the reaction against her is “because the crime I was accused of is racism. In a way I basically jay walked and received a death penalty. I was thrown into the racism narrative in the US and the years of racism and injustice and all of that, and you know I was just a victim of this honestly because I am an immigrant myself.”

—Sharon: “The only question I care about is what kind of world do you want to live in? We can put people on the moon but still can’t pull off politeness.”

1.00.46: LESSONS FROM A CAUTIONARY TALE

—Asked what she’s learned from “this cautionary tale”, Natasha says she used to be “under the mistaken belief” that complaining on social media was a good way to get a quick response. Now, “I want to use my social media influence for the positive. I don’t want to try to take someone down or complain.” She is more empathetic and says at the moment of her tweet, “I lacked empathy and I admit that and now I’m really careful about how I view people, how I talk to them. My motto: just be kind.”

—Sharon: “If you have bad news say it privately. If you have good news, say it publicly.”

—Natasha views what happened to her as a “humbling experience … I feel it changed me for the best, regardless of the trauma.”

—Sharon notes “let’s all agree we’re here for empathy, that the world is a better place if we’re kind. Now the key is to act on that. That whole thing could have been defused early if you were extended good intentions. I just don’t see the train turning at all, we seem to be really committed to cancel culture and piling on and tearing someone down.”

—Natasha reveals she had some supporters who had her back, including her African-American and African friends, “and that was very heartening.”

—Sharon talks about a Masai redemption tradition she follows in life and business: “The moment someone stumbles in their humanity that is the time to stand beside them and say, ‘It’s okay, you’re human, you made a mistake. It does not define you, it will never define you. I measure love by the capacity to stand beside somebody in their hour of need.”

—Natasha says having They Called Me Wyatt published “feels good. First of all I thought it was too good to be true. There’s actually hope you can cancel everything, books, activities, but you cannot cancel hope.”

—She notes “this is also a story about second chances. One was extended to me when I thought nobody would takek a chance on me. It’s a story about second chances and rebuilding and coming out of the rubble and just trying to find a way back after 22 years of career was shattered.”

—Sharon wishes Natasha well: “You are defined by the whole length and breadth of your life and who you love and the moments that have been magical for you are ones you are still to create.”

—Katrina tells how she wanted to be a journalist since she was seven years old and that being “a communicator has been my purpose. I just ever deviated from this path. I’ve been so blessed to have a great career in television, print and radio journalism, covered lots of big events all around the world.”

—Three years ago she was reading the Sunday night news, Seven’s highest rating news of the week. “I was going through a divorce at the time and I suppose I was treating work as a bit of a bubble where … I was really sweeping the stress under the carpet. Stress has a way of manifesting itself in a way that you cannot ignore.”

—During the opening titles she had the panic attack out of the blue. “The thing about panic attacks which I didn’t know is it’s not a one and done situation. You then start to get anxiety about the anxiety, little things become triggers.” Katrina “constantly” felt panicky driving up a mountain to the TV studio or walking into the makeup room. “I really contemplated leaving my job because I just didn’t know how I would get through this. I had a choice. I could waka from from this calling … or I could knuckle down and relearn everything that I thought I knew about confidence.”

—The thing about confidence, says Katrina, “is up until that point I had thought it was my super power. I’ve always spoken on stage since I was a kid. Every play. Public speaking competitions. Debating teams. I just took it for granted so to then have this fundamental knock to my confidence and have to learn it all over again … it’s taken me just over three years but I’m happy to report that I’m back, I’m good now, and now I’m getting to teach other women what I’ve learned, which is great.”

—Sharon asks Katrina how she defines confidence: “I think we have two parts of us, the certainty that is within us, and then what we project to others. Confidence is outward facing, certainty is inward generating.”

—Katrina says she has discovered there’s a confidence gap between the genders with women placing a higher degree of importance on competence. “Even though I knew I was competent at my job I had lost the confidence to demonstrate that competence outwardly, or believe in it within myself, whereas men feel confident even if they don’t feel competent at doing something.” For Katrina, “confidence comes down to now being okay with being outside my comfort one and living a life with no regrets and following my dreams and knowing that no matter what situation I put myself in, I’m going to be okay.”

—Sharon asks why Katrina didn’t feel confidence, given that on the Sunday night in question she was “living the dream” she’d had since she was seven.

—Katrina says she “never expected” to have a panic attack on air and describes the feeling “as though I’d just done a marathon. It totally blindsided me, came seemingly from nowhere. It was the result of me sweeping all my stress under the carpet.”

—Sharon notes that “it wasn’t related to your job at all. It just decided to present itself at the most inopportune time … ‘you’re not going to ignore me anymore.’

—Asked what she had been ignoring, Katrina talks about her “amicable” divorce: “I have two children. When you separate a family you feel selfish, you second guess all of your decisions. For anyone who’s been through a divorce, even if you don’t have that toxic element of acrimony, it is still extremely stressful. I had been going as ‘business as usual, I can deal with this, I don’t need to stop and look at myself too closely’ and that of course wasn’t right.”

9.25: THE BASKET TIPPED ON THE FLOOR

—Sharon notes that Katrina would have felt “disappointed” that the place she felt safe was “tipped upside down like having everything in the basket tipped on the floor … and the only person you had to count on didn’t come through for you that day.”

—Katrina agrees, and says her job “was such an innate part of my identity” and to have that rocked caused “huge introspection.”

—Sharon imagines that in the three years since, Katrina has had to reflect on what is her identity and how much of it was tied up in her career vs her personal life “that wasn’t working.”

—Katrina calls her situation “the wake up call I needed to have a look at every aspect of my life and the way I saw myself, not just Katrina Blowers the journalist. What if that was taken away? … I had to look at the big picture of who am I if I am not that, and I need to be comfortable with that as well.”

—Sharon notes some people never have to face that or dig below the surface of how they present to the world. Says for seven years she has “been on a journey” and is “still not comfortable with the thought of that part of my identity being in my success I’ve built. I don’t know that’s easy to do.”

12.25 THE VIEW FROM THE MOUNTAIN

—Katrina says while “I feel like I have climbed a really big mountain” she isn’t resting on her laurels. “It’s a daily range of choices you have to make and you also have to analyse your thinking around pretty much everything … thinking, ‘is it coming from a place of ego or love or fear.’”

—Sharon asks how much self reflection Katrina needed, and whether she was introspective or reflective before her panic attack.

—Katrina feels like “a completely different person now. I don’t want to look back in judgement at who I used to be, because that got me where I am today, but I feel so much calmer and present.” She used to be more goal oriented, “not really stopping to look at why I was doing things or you know, stopping to congratulate myself when I achieved anything.”

—Sharon says her thinking used to be the same: “There’s the mountain, go climb it. I just used to lean into challenges with no thought about why. I didn’t know to know what I needed to know.”

—Katrina says she always had “huge amounts” of external validation in life and “needed something big to hit me at the core” to change things up.

—Sharon finds “there’s some truth to that” and says her role from childhood was “the hero, the star, the best. To question that was to question who I was. Like you, I got accolades for doing well, I use to equate me coming through for people with why they would be with me. I got so good at that that when I needed support, people didn’t support me because I attracted a limited number of people who could support me. Particularly family … I’d get comments like, ‘You’re fine, it’s you’, but no, on the floor, puddle, not coping.”

—Katrina’s family is still like that. She says one of the upsides of divorce is “you do lose a lot of friends, people do choose sides” and while early on that was painful, “they defined who I used to be and now I want to surround myself with people that are more reflective of who I am now.”

—Asked if she now chooses people in her life differently, she says she has “very consciously” chosen a new partner who is laid back and not like her previous A type choices. “He’s incredibly in the moment all the time. One thing I really struggled with in the past is just for joy’s sake. He encourages that playful child in me.”

20.00 ‘THE NUMBER ONE EMOTION WAS SHAME’

—Katrina tells what was on her mind walking off the set after her panic attack: “The number one emotion I felt was shame. I felt I’d really let myself down in the most fundamental way. I don’t feel that anymore. It’s a toxic emotion and it doesn’t do you any favours to feel shame.”

—Sharon asks if she kept it to herself.

—Katrina tells how a few people in the studio control room knew: “I just wanted to rip off my microphone and ear piece and get out of that studio. In my mind was, ‘Do not become one of those people who goes viral on YouTube’. I knew I had to fluff my way through. I had four paragraphs to read. I read the first sentence of the first paragraph and the last sentence of the last paragraph so it made no sense whatsoever, but I knew that was the cue for the director to roll the first story so that I could have some space.” She got “beautiful” support when she said she was having a panic attack but didn’t tell the news director or even her partner for two days because of shame.

—Sharon notes “shame loves shadows” but “the more we keep our vulnerabilities to ourselves, the less we’re going to heal.”

—Katrina tried the “old get back on the horse” approach but had another panic attack on stage in front of 1500 people.

—Asked what turned it around, she says she realised early on “that just me making a decision to change wasn’t enough. I had to get really comfortable with feeling nervous for the first time and having stage fright.”

—Katrina leant “heavily” into the research, believing as a journalist that science would have an answer in the shape of evidence-based strategies. She saw a psychologist specialising in stage fright and worked on strategies for coping when she felt fear in her body. “There are things you can do to dissipate that cortisol or adrenalin. One is by movement, so before I read the news I would go to the gym and do a really heavy workout, when I was at my news desk and started to feel those butterflies I would swing my legs from side to side or turn from side to side to dissipate that nervous energy.”

—She also started meditating to find out if the stories she’d told herself until then about achieving held true.

—Katrina: “I’m lucky I have such a big driver. I make an appointment with myself every single day, set my alarm for 5.30, I meditate then I journal and then I do ask myself all of those big questions.”

—She has also looked into the “science of body language” and “how holding powerful confidence postures it sends a signal to your brain that you’re perhaps more confident than you’re feeling. I’ve become so much more mindful of how I carry myself.”

—Sharon says she sometimes has “anxiety around, I think, belonging, or something around when I need to be the hero. I’m addicted to wanting to be the hero, what I’m doing is sitting with the feeling and saying it’s okay to be the way I’m feeling. If we deny emotions we’re denying aspects of ourselves. So me sitting with discomfort, anxiety or sadness has been very important in this journey of reclaiming me.”

31.52: SITTING WITH OUR SHADES

—Katrina found it “very confronting” when her psychologist told her we all have “shades” we need to stick with and be okay with, “but it has been incredibly insightful to sit with the shadows and not wallow, but look at, ‘Why is it I feel that way?’ and that’s led to some really big breakthroughs.”

—Sharon used to deny herself sadness, anger and disappointment but know “it’s okay to be that way, again, it’s not about the wallowing. I’m now less self conscious about not being heroic which is just fabulous.”

—For Katrina, “a really big breakthrough has been that confidence is not the absence of fear. I know now I can feel fearful or nervous or like an imposter in some situations and still be confident. It’s having the duality of those emotions and being okay with both.”

—Sharon: “I see so many parallels between you and I. It’s not take away from your experience but I really identify with … I redefined how I teach based on how I grew, and you seem to have done that as well.”

—Katrina says “exposure therapy” does work; she tested it by saying yes to lots of things.

—What struck her was feedback from women at events who would ask Katrina the secret to her confidence. She did one on one work with women CEOs who were “plagued by the same self doubt and insecurity I was.”

—One male CEO of an international accounting firm told her he became an accountant after a crash landing when he was a pilot stole his confidence and he gave up flying. He regretted not trying harder to rebuild confidence, “so I thought if I can show other people that it is possible to work through this, confidence is a muscle you can build, you just need to know the right techniques. You don’t need to live a life of regret. That is a huge value of mine. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and regret anything.”

—Sharon says it’s also one of her prime drivers: “Wondering how to play the game of life, how am I going to look back on this moment? The saying I have on my computer at home just drives me, ‘You know who you truly are in your last breath beasue that’s the moment you realised the person you could have been and it’s too late to change it.’ See the person you could have been. A huge part of it is vulnerability, the shame loves the shadows and to be vulnerable isn’t to be weak, vulnerability is the strength to be intimate and open in a moment where it’s a risk.”

40.00 THE VULNERABILITY HANGOVER

—Katrina admits she still struggles with a “vulnerability hangover” when she shares her story in a new forum for the first time.

—Sharon asks if it’s new for her to get support for being vulnerable: “That was a whole new world for me.”

—Katrina: “You get validation for being the strong one … so I guess to get it for I would have thought of before as showing my weaknesses, is a whole new thing.” Quotes Brene Brown: “Courage is contagious, and I really hope that by showing my courage to other women some of it can rub off.”

—Sharon takes that as “vulnerability is contagious. It gives people around us permission to take the risk emotionally so the way you’re doing it, the stories you’re sharing, your vulnerability, is giving others the permission to get in touch with what they’ve denied in themselves. That is courage, that is healing. It’s really profound.”

42: CLAIMING YOUR CONFIDENCE

—Katrina has a program for younger teenagers, inspired by her 12-year-old daughter and the social media education offered to her at school. “We’re giving our kids, some as young as 12, broadcasting platforms. It’s the new CNN, the new ABC. But we’re giving them no tools or even a discussion around putting your story out there in the world.”

—She comes at it from a positive perspective by sharing storeis of 16-year-olds who have used their online platforms to promote worthy causes.

—Sharon fears teenagers’ “sensitive” brains are not equipped to deal with social media and the public exposure it comes with. If she was queen for a day, “just after cocktails at 6pm my last action would be to shut down adult social media for everyone under the age of 16, until they’re old enough to have sex.”

—Katrina introduces the concept of “comparisonitis” which she talks about in workshops: “It’s a very sophisticated mindset that you need when you’re scrolling through other people’s perfectly curated feeds to be able to sit back and say, ‘I this reality or is this a construct?’

—Sharon: “I don’t think their brains are capable of it. I don’t think I’m capable of it. I still get FOMO and I’m old enough to know better.” Says she looks back at how she would have been on social media as a teenager: “I would have been mortified. I was such a dog. I would have been the first ever person trolled in internet history. I would help them be invented.”

—Katrina advocates for ‘Switch Off Sunday’ where one day a week we commit to even just an hour of mindfulness by switching off phones and says parents need to become more actively engaged around choosing schools that support what they believe to be responsible social media policies.

—She has found a way to appeal to teenagers about social media: “My way in is the whole seeing themselves as a brand, and reputation management, and having that celebrity angle. I tell them how to make their feed look really beautiful and to get more attention in the online space but for things they want to promote that their future selves will be proud of. Kids are just wanting attention but have to shift from things that could come back to bite them to things that will open up doors for them in the future. If you go in a certain direction you can get attention for the right reasons.”

—Sharon: “I think what you’re doing is vital.”

—Katrina advises having conversations with your kids that aren’t preachy, “but just get them to show you the stuff they’re looking at in an interested, engaged way. Try and see it through a positive lens as much as you can. It is really an innovative, creative space and an amazing way to broadcast your talents to the world or get job opportunities or connect with people. I think you need to shift your thinking.”

56.00: SCREENS AND THE FUTURE

—Katrina recently did a story at the Queensland Police academy about the trialling of new de-escalation techniques where police engage alleged offenders by looking them in the eye, asking their name, asking how they can help. “The senior officer said to me that he’s never seen anything like the new wave of recruits … this is the generation that has grown up with screens and they have a real problem with looking people in the eye and talking to them. They’re not used to it.”

—Sharon is saddened by going to cafes and seeing toddlers plonked in front of screens for two hours watching cartoons: “I could weep. That toddler is learning eye contact with a screen. This eye contact is the whole nurturing part of the brain, the compassionate part of the brain … it’s all being taken off the table.”

—Katrina does Claiming Your Confidence for adults via online courses, and in-person workshops.
—She says her panic attack on the fateful Sunday has made her feel “I’m capable of so much more. It has made me feel both vulnerable and like I can move mountains. And it’s made me, I think, not only a better mother but a better journalist because I can really empathise with that lack of confidence and self-belief. I’m usually meeting people on their worst days when I’m doing stories with them and it’s given me so much more empathy.”

—Sharon thanks Katrina and talks how good slowing down feels: “There will be so many people who can relate to this and are gratified to know the person who presents so beautifully and perfectly on camera is human, vulnerable and still living their dream. That message is everything: we never have our shit together as we live our dream.”

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Zero: REACTING TO LOCKDOWN

—Sharon says she wants to unpack “what’s been going on in these times, how we’re approaching it, what we’re thinking about” with Perry and John.

—John introduces himself as being “essentially in the adult learning industry” and says his company is “flourishing at the moment” and that the need for upskilling means “it’s a boon for adult education.”

—Perry says he’s “been working with business owners for close to 30 years now”, putting teams and systems in place. “We got whacked when [coronavirus lockdown] happened. Our business just went bang, like that.”

—He says he knew in late January or early February that lockdown was coming: “When it became real for me was when my clients in Italy, the UK, were being told to shut their businesses down … and my reaction at that point was to think strategically. I went and bought recessionbusters.com.au which I’m really glad I did.”

—Asked by Sharon how he managed the dialogue around “it’s the health we have to worry about and there was no parallel conversation occurring on the price we were going to have to pay”, Perry says, “I just feel we live in an incredibly unintelligent world. Unintelligent where it’s all about feelings and emotions. I was using the lesser of two evils arguments. Okay, you can go into lockdown and shut us down for health issues but the ramifications of that are obvious. You’re potentially going to have way more people in the Third World and maybe the Second as a result of shutting everything down to save people dying from COVID. I wasn’t saying I knew the best answer, just, ‘Can we have a dialogue about this? If you shut us down millions upons millions are going to die as a result of starvation. I was horrified by the lack of conversation and … was told I was a heartless human being.”

7.10: GOING PUBLIC WITH SOCIO-POLITICAL COMMENTARY

—Perry posted his views: “I had to decide what I wanted to stand up for. I know my first reactions to what is happening in the world will be based on my own history. Because of my childhood I don’t trust people. There’s a lot of inward looking before I might start communicating something because I want to be clear. I want to make sure I’m being smart and intelligent and not just emotionally reacting. I’m horrified by the world at the moment.”

—Sharon says Perry is brave going public: “Thinking through my logic in public doesn’t seem to be as warmly received as I’d like it to be.”

—John talks his coronavirus experience and how overseas events had to be cancelled. He says he was “a little bit naïve” and “definitely a latecomer” to it because “I didn’t know how fast governments would act” but lockdown “wasn’t a disaster because our actual marketing system is all pretty much online webinars.”

—John says “if you’re a politician you don’t have a good choice. People are going to die either way. And one thing I’ve kind of come back to at the end of this … human beings the last million years have had the right to look after their family and protect their family and go earn a living. And that as a fundamental right has kind of been taken away and there are very good reasons for that in terms of the overall welfare of society.”

14.33 BEGINNING OF THE TSUNAMI

—Sharon notes, “We haven’t come close to seeing how bad this is going to be economically. We’re at the beginning of the tsunami. It’s going to be so much worse. There are literally billions of refinancing loans sitting with banks.” People who have spent a lifetime working for what they have are “losing everything.”

—With her businesses, Sharon is prepared for at least two years of coronavirus-affected life, and “if you’re planning on the luck of a vaccine, you’re not planning for the right stuff. Why don’t you design your businesses so that if it stays this way you’re going to be okay? It’s never going back to the way it was. The economic tsunami is going to hit next year and the year after. We are years away from strip retail being back. It’s more of a bankrupt culture.”

—Sharon “hasn’t really spoken” about her pragmatism until now: “My concern with the health cost is with 103 deaths as of today, most years 1000 people die of the flu, more people die on the roads driving cars. We are reacting so incredibly strongly to something where the price we’re paying health wise is currently so small. The price we’re heading for in the next couple of years is going to be massive. There will be people who can never reclaim their lives, who literally will never be able to provide for their families again.”

—Perry: “The insanity that this was not addressed up front is amazing. And the other aspect of this is the level of denial I saw in people and see still in them. I still think most people aren’t aware of where we’re going, and that scares me.”

21.01: FLOWING WITH THE STREAM

—John: Believes what is vital now is “agility and being able to look the facts in the face.” In terms of how entrepreneurs or business owners can respond, he says it’s knowing “how you can look the future market place in the eyes, not how you wish it would be. How can you find a growth industry within that market? How do you pivot to find that growth market?”

—He says the “biggest thing” he’s learned in business “in maybe 20 years” is “you want to be flowing with the stream. I’ve tried to make businesses work where the market wasn’t wanting what I wanted to sell and you can spend years doing it and when you find something is going downstream with the flow of the market, it just feels easy to grow.”

—John: “I suppose the question is, “Where are those sectors of the economy, where can people be positioning themselves now to actually grow. You might need to go to an entirely different industry.”

—Sharon: “We said this is permanent. The government is going to dictate who can make money and who cannot. They’ve mandated it with what they’ve legislated.” She and her husband JP “completely re-engineered” TCI to take it 100 per cent online and “that means we have a lifestyle we want in terms of freedom, we get to serve our clients at another level and
our other importing and sourcing business “has been designed with our futures in mind.”

—Sharon: She and her husband have three guiding principles: be proud of who you were during the crisis, humanity before profits and re-engineer based on the new world being permanent.

26.50: PIVOT, PIVOT, PIVOT

—Perry says “my take now is that business people have to be aware of trends, this means you have to be more aware of the world than you’ve ever been.” He says you have to be “awake” and “aware” and that “the crisis of COVID” knocks over other weak systems.

—Future business: Perry says “there’s more money to be made in these emerging markets than you’ve probably made before. If you’re first in, if you see and understand them there’s really good money to be made, it’s just being awake to those trends.”

—John: “To do something new feels risky and scary but it could be the riskiest thing in the world to stay where you are.” Says what is required now is not just pivoting “but knowing where to pivot, which data points are you using to get new trends and then upskilling, otherwise you’re going to get eaten alive by other people who are pivoting as well but they’re better at it.”

—Perry: Notes that as an entrepreneur he’s lived his life in uncertainty and has taken risks, but those who haven’t are being “really thrown.” Admits to an “emotional reaction” about two and a half months into lockdown: “I had a moment of falling flat on my face, emotionally, that lasted about a week, two weeks.”

—Why? “I think I just hadn’t processed it fully yet. I’m quite excited in dramatic scenarios and I was having to work with my clients, that was game time for me, then I had some beautiful times with my wife but there was a full realisation of how the world was going to change, a sense of semi depression. I’m not a depressed character but I was just flat.”

—John says what we’re seeing is the “almost decapitation of the economy, particularly in America, and you don’t have any control over it. Millions of businesses, millions of jobs are going under but as individuals … you only have control to be an economic stimulator in your own sphere.”

34.30: THE GLOBAL VIEW

—Sharon discusses the dismantling of the Queensland tourism industry and small business owners whose legacy and financial future will be obliterated: “If I let myself go there I feel such grief for what people are going to lose during this time and they have nothing they can do about it. It’s devastating.”

—Asked by Perry how she feels about governments making decisions and leaving citizens “powerless” to do anything, Sharon says “my first thought goes to my concern about how easily people have fallen into line and how so few people are questioning it. I feel tremendous sadness that the conversation can’t be had easily without being judged. My imagination cannot cope with what these decisions are going to cost us in the next few years.”

—Talks about how “my silence has made me complicit” in this, “and I have a real wrestle with it constantly. I wrestle with my conscience around how I have stayed quiet around it because I make a point of not being political publicly” because of flak, “but I’m complicit in it with my silence and that really concerns me. I feel real loss about what I’ve given up.”

—Sharon talks wealth eaters and wealth creators. “No one will talk about the fact that if the people who create the wealth pay the tax and everyone’s who living off the tax thinks it’s great, do you realise one day we run out of the ability to pay the fucking tax? Then what will you all be saying? “We should have opened sooner” but by then it will be too late.”

—Perry agrees: “I feel if people don’t stand up and communicate most days we’re complicit.” Says journalism is “disgusting” and “truth matters but we live in a world that’s more interested in agenda driven journalism rather than the agenda of truth. It frightens me.”

—All discuss there being “no upside to virtue signalling” on social media. Sharon is “really tentative with how public I will be with my views because I won’t have the best intentions assumed for me often. People won’t be that curious to seek to understand, they’re more interested in stopping the dialogue than engaging the dialogue.”

—John says people are judged for things they said online ten years ago: “That’s just bananas, and that’s why I would 100 per cent fuck up everything if I got online and said exactly what I thought as I said it. I’d ruin my life in days. There’s zero upside.”

—He asks “where do you even effect change anyway? How do you pull the levers? I’m generally progressive on pretty much every issue but then I look at the heads of states in Australia … I would love to be up at Noosa spending money, making the economy flourish.

—John says the de-industrialisation of America led to the opiod epidemic, the de-industrialisation of Scotland led to massive drug abuse, now 40 million or so unemployed in America: “Do you think that’s not going to create a new wave of epidemics?”

46.30: POLITICS, SCREENS AND SMOKE SCREENS

—Perry thinks “we’ve lost the art of being able to discuss all different sides of an argument. I’ve been the ultimate explorer of human consciousness, I want to know what everybody thinks and what they’re up to.” Loves talking to capitalist and leftie friends, “but we now live in a world where those types of conversations aren’t allowed to happen.”

—Sharon: “I have to cull out the best of the left and the right and come up with a name for it. That’s where I’m finding I’m sitting more these days.”

—She is concerned moving forward that as we’re staying home more and are on social media, “it means we’re literally raising the next generation … all they will know is silos. They’re encouraged to distance themselves. We are literally endorsing and encouraging behaviour which creates poor mental health. We are creating the next level of silos around the planet.”

—Sharon: “I’m meeting a lot of people who are not putting in this effort. They’re living in their silo and they barely know it’s a silo.”

Zero: “This feeling of guilt that I believe holds me back”

—Asked by Sharon where she would like to take the conversation, Sasha says “very much around this feeling of guilt” and opens up about the relationship with her eldest daughter and her experience of “rage” during post-natal depression: “If someone asked how I was doing, I’d say, ‘perfectly fine’. Now I have clarity looking back. I shut my eldest daughter down, didn’t allow her emotions to be okay because I didn’t know emotions were okay … I really feel as though I didn’t allow her to be who she is. I feel as though there is so much more I could have done that I didn’t, and so much that I did that I probably shouldn’t have. So there is a very strong flavour of guilt and any time she’s not okay, I’m not okay ‘cos I take full responsibility for how she is in the world.”

—Sharon asks how the problem is showing up presently, and Sasha says she externalises and Her ans

7.27: No magic wand

—Sharon asks Sasha what, in the absence of a magic wand, is her ideal outcome in the coaching session: “My ideal would be to lessen the negativity and emotion and to see her.”

—Sharon: “I think I get it. For you, it’s about reduce the negative and the emotion. Remove the filter and see her more accurately.”

—Asked the feelings attached to seeing her daughter from a different angle, Sasha says “lightness, relief, a sense of possibility and a sense of exploration.”

—She gives a precis of her childhood: the eldest sister of four brothers, she had an “interesting time” growing up with parents who split up when she was five. She moved countries, gained a stepfather, and “it was chaos and swapping schools.”

—Sharon points out that Sasha is similarly making it “interesting” for her daughter: “I wonder how someone responds when they don’t know what’s going to happen next?”

12.35: “Why isn’t that enough?”

—Sasha notes there is “an enormous amount of love” in the family and she is seeing her daughter flourish: “That’s a good point—why isn’t that enough?”

—Sharon hears Sasha out about backward shifts and her fear that she’s caused issues “neurologically” with her daughter: “So your daughter has to be perfect?”

—Sasha: “No, I don’t believe she has to be perfect. (Pauses.) Let me check that. Hang on, I wouldn’t say perfect although her emotions frighten me, the intensity, and of how it can be flatline one moment then explosion … I find that very intense and I don’t have the tools for it.”

—Sharon “whirls” Sasha back about what she’s said: “As I said, your daughter has to be perfect. Another way of putting it, she better not cause you guilt … I’m just wondering what that is for her.”

—Sasha: “For her it would be, ‘Mum is there for me when everything is great. There is a rejection of me when it isn’t’ … which is the opposite of what I’m trying to achieve.”

—Sharon likes how Sasha’s daughter has learned to express herself “in a way that you can’t control. Good for her. I know what gets Mummy’s buttons pressed. I like that, that is so cool. Go her … what a wonderful spirit she has: ‘Finally something my mother doesn’t get to place her boundaries around.’

—Sasha says she worries she has “over controlled” her girl and “now she’s just a reflection of who she could have been.”

18.38 Happiness and early expressions of self

—Sharon asks Sasha what she thinks would make her daughter happiest, to accept her maternal conditions or find her own expression of her own way of life.

—The latter it is: “I’ve been feeling for a little while I need to give her more leverage, more responsibility. I think if I just said ‘go for it, you can do whatever you want now’ that would be way too much … she would love a bit more freedom. I’ve conditioned her to come to me for pretty much everything so I believe that’s a gradual process of letting her know she can do it and it’s okay.”

—Asked what it would look like, Sasha says “a conversation to start with” and admits while there’s a part of her that’s “uncomfortable”, maybe she needs to “take a little seat backwards and allow her to fill the gap rather than me thinking I need to do stuff to fill it.”

22.50 Be the mirror, not the glass

—Sharon asks what happens when Sasha’s daughter fills the gap and “totally makes a mess of it—what next? It’s inevitable because you’ve held on that she can only stumble, there is no way there’s going to be a good execution here. It’s going to be the train wreck. There’s literally going to be paint on the walls, good stuff is getting broken. Then?”

—Sasha says she believes when her daughter’s boundaries are loosened she’ll learn where her own boundaries are, “and I think that’s the difference—it’s always been mine. I can see that already, that’s where the growth is.”

—For Sharon, the “subtlety” is always the question of how to let the “mess” go: “How much shit gets broken before … and if you do step in, what does that look like? Serious stuff is getting broken, hearts, minds or jewellery, you put the good stuff out of reach but this moment is coming where she’s going to be looking at you, ‘Will this get my Mummy the way she used to be?’ If you do have a breaking point and look like old Mummy, she’ll know that if she behaves in a certain way she gets the old you back.”

—When asked by Sasha if she can do that, Sharon laughs and mimes pulling her hair out: “This is what you’re going to be doing a lot of in the pantry, with the loud rock music going.”

—Trying to describe how things might be different Sasha said she was thinking “where old me would jump in and save the day and try to recover control again, my new approach would be to check in with her, ‘How are you doing?’, validating and mirroring emotionally where she’s at. It’s okay to be confused … because Mummy’s confused as well.”

—Sharon notes that saying Mummy feels confused too is “co-opting her experience and now she has to take care of Mummy. The ideal as the parent is to be the mirror, not the glass.”

—Sasha: “I so get that. That really helps clarify where I’ve been so self focused in this, and I was her to the focus of her experience and all the good things that can happen within the mess. That’s really the shift I’m feeling in this.”

29.33 Let’s put it to the test

—Sharon asks what happens after Sasha’s daughter “goes after the metaphorical precious jewellery”, is it okay if she rejects her mum and what does that look like?

—Sasha isn’t sure and weights up if it would be more powerful for her daughter just to have the experience without a conversation: “If I’m thinking about how children learn, it’s all very much in the doing.”

—Sharon “loves” how Sasha is letting it be about her daughter: “To comment on the result is to freeze the child in the need to perform. To comment on the process and what she brought in terms of her strength is to bring more of the trust of the experience to it.”

She adds the next step is about coming up “with 100 different things you love about her which won’t have any other impact, and help frame her, so the part of you which rejected her earlier is celebrated, loved, accepted. She gets to embrace her ugliness, the bits of her she might have been trying to reject.”

—Sasha: “And the thing I see to she does try to reject is her emotions because I’ve rejected them in the past.”

—In the space of strong emotion, she’s “feeling bouyant and light and possibility filled and excited for the journey.”

—Sharon says it’s Sasha’s daughter’s “responsibility to fuck it all up.”

30.03 How would you have wanted to be parented?

—Asked how she would have wanted to be parented, Sasha said “ironically, a lot closer in some ways than what I was” but “at the same time closeness was rejected by me because I wanted my freedom. But that may not be her experience.”

—Discussion of appropriate boundaries and that “having a tantrum at the wrong time when you’re nine says a lot … can you be steady for me as I lose my shit. I don’t have the words to express what I’m feeling now but I am expressing it. If we try and shut that down, what the child is hearing is, ‘No, I’m not acceptable in full blown me.”

37.17: Finding and pushing boundaries

—Talking again about her childhood, Sasha says she “had very few boundaries” and because she had a stack of freedom, “I pushed as hard as I could to find the boundary and often if I found it, it was inconsistent.”

—Sharon notes a nine year old can handle a conversation about values and they could be discussed in a family meeting. She suggests asking which values were lived today, and putting them on a wall.

—Sasha says that could be an extension of how the family already does gratitudes.

—Sharon notes she thinks Sasha’s daughter “wants freedom from control, and it’s expressed in a very explosive way for her. I’m just wondering how much freedom we want from our values. I wonder if your daughter has experienced moments with you which have been about, ‘I want freedom from control’ which is a wrestle with you, versus the internal self esteem, which is the autonomy we’re looking for within her. One value is about you and one’s about her.”

43.37: Freedom from … what?

—Sharon notes Sasha says she wants freedom, “but I’m always really curious … freedom from what? If it’s freedom from an external party that’s trying to control us I think that’s healthy, but after a while if it becomes a pattern it ceases to be healthy.”

—Sasha: “It’s that richness of ‘I’m going to decide my values for me in line with the bigger family values’. There’s space for her to go and to decide to be here and she’s entirely capable of this. I suspect I’ve been clipping her wings around this.”

—Sharon asks Sasha what else she might draw on: “Patience for my old pattern of wanting to jump in vs not.”

—Sharon says that’s not about Sasha’s daughter, it’s about her intolerance of her own anxiety, and about “managing your own emotional reactivity which she just hones in on like a homing pigeon. She’s not responsible for your emotional reactivity.”

48.50 Love in the time of rejection

—Sharon asks what love looks like when Sasha’s daughter has moments of rejecting herself, which looks like rejection of her mother.

—She asks again when Sasha answers what it looks like in easy loving times.

—Sasha: “What I feel is empathy and compassion for whatever she’s going through. If there’s an angry rejection of self then I believe the most respectful way I could demonstrate love for her is to ask if she needs me, if I can help her. I believe that’s the space I probably haven’t given her to decide, and that would help her to know I’m here at any time.”

—Says she has “such heightened clarity” around the issue and will allow her daughter “to be messy … and just catch her at the other end.”

—Sharon: “I invite you to go to a time in the future when your daughter is in full on banshee mode because you kept passing the test, being good humoured and present and non reactive and loving and all the things she’s not expecting. Your desire to go back to controlling and shutting down this shit runs so strong in you.”

—Tells Sasha it’s a gift for her daughter to be able to reflect on her behaviour, see herself reasonably accurately and “be aware of how she was aligned with her values and she walks away better for knowing herself and what she did instead of knowing what you think of it. You gave her that gift.”

—"This is the gift for her. We’re preparing her for the 15 year old she’s going to be in the blink of an eye. We’re investing now for the next 10 or 15 years.”

Zero: How to start an online hit in a bar

—Sharon introduces Jane, who tells how she and a couple of mates started The King’s Tribune “over a few beers” as a newsletter in 2006. “I still have the first one, a double side A4 page we photocopied at Officeworks. It’s so full of typos and really bad writing, but I keep it because it’s a reminder … it started with an idea I couldn’t let go of and led to where I am now.”

—Sharon and Jane discuss what it takes “to climb the mountain” in terms of launching projects and writing books.

—Sharon: “Today’s learning is preparing us for what’s coming tomorrow, and if we don’t or aren’t willing to have today’s mistakes … we won’t see that as an opportunity but something to be feared.”

—Jane admits she and her Tribune team “made so many mistakes” and “in the end the reason it didn’t work is because I’m rubbish at sales. I took enough away that I was able to continue my career as a writer.

—Sharon: “You’re what I would call a card carrying feminist vs my amateur status, so I’m in awe of you and a little intimidated, and I imagine I’m going to blunder into territory.”

—Jane: “To me, that’s just bollocks. Nobody springs fully formed from the brain of Roxane Gay so to say I am now the perfect feminist and I never get anything wrong and understand all of it, such bollocks. There’s still things I don’t understand and still things I haven’t decided how to think about it. I still internalise stuff—it runs so deep, all those lessons we learn since we were babies, and I still make mistakes. My daughter turns around and says, “Why am I doing the dishes and Luke is taking out the rubbish?’ and I’m like, good question, why are you? It took her to put it out so this idea that you’re a good feminist or an amateur feminist is bullshit.”

—Jane says feminism is about a perspective and willingness to learn and understand from other people’s perspective.

—Sharon: “I don’t mind asking bad questions in the pursuit of getting wise about something. Where I stop is when I get judged on my bad questions. I don’t even know the lines, so it’s helping have a discussion looking at blurred lines, and how you can be safe in a conversation with blurred lines.”

6.57: How Fixed It evolved

—Sharon asks if she’s right thinking the book began as a deep dive into violence and the representation of women in the media but grew into something else involving challenges men and politics and institutions are facing.

—Jane “definitely” agrees: “I started understanding things halfway through the project that I had no idea about at the beginning. Where you think the book will go at the start to the book you end up writing is actually very very different.”

—Is now planning her second book and is planning it less. “I have a very good agent and would say to anybody who wants to write a book, get a good agent. They are invaluable.”

9.17: The F Word

—Sharon asks Jane, “How would you describe feminism today? What is it to you?”

—Jane: “The word I use is liberation. Liberation from those ideas about gender that keep us locked into tiny little squares, so small that to be a good woman you have to be pretty and slim and white an attractive and not too opinionated and not too annoying and keep yourself small, physically small and emotionally small and intellectually small. At the same time men are also really limited in what they can do, they have to be strong and stoic and powerful and in control and in charge and never vulnerable or emotional. They’re allowed to have rage and lust and that’s about it. Of course they have the full range of complex competing emotions that all humans do but to express it diminishes them as a man.”

—Jane says we would all be released from “pain” if men weren’t told “where’s your ambition?” if they want to stay home with the children and be nurturers and carers.

—Sharon notes “toxicity is in the rigidity, and the moment we become rigid about something, anywhere on the spectrum from progressive through to conservative, and the moment we get rigid we’re leaving out all the grey scale, the nuance, the subtlety.”

—Jane agrees it’s “almost never true” that everything is black and white. While “of course” she believes women subjected to violence should receive help to escape, “I think the conversation needs to be about the perpertrator firstly. We need to stop thinking about them as either evil monsters or a good guy that made a mistake. Those things are not true.”

—She says the key point to go back to with men who are violent is why: “If we see those men as complex real people who have friends and family who love them and who might even have genuinely good qualities, there is something you can do to help them.”

16.06: The cycle of violence

—Sharon: “There is no point in victim blaming or perpetuating the good guy who snapped myth, looking at what is not available to men … until we address that this is the way we’re going to live, we’re not looking at the reality.”

—Jane: “The other thing that doesn’t get talked about enough is that most men, particularly when you talk about violence against partners, that’s not what they want to be doing.”

—Jane outlines the cycle of violence from where it starts, through the apology phase, honeymoon phase and slow ramp up again. “The reason that apology phase is so effective is because they mean it. They genuinely are remorseful, they genuinely don’t want to do it again, but then something starts it again.”

—She says we need to look at why it happens and what could be done to intervene to help them become the person they want to be: “This is not imposing on men, ‘You have to be what feminists want you to be’ but you can be what you actually want to be with some help.”

—Sharon notes, “It’s about how do you have a functional relationship with yourself. Nobody is taught to do e. Where do they learn it? Men are suddenly expected to get in touch with their feelings and managing their anger in a functional way. How?”

—Jane says Jess Hill writes “beautifully” about shame in her book Look What You Made Me Do.”The thing she talks about is because men are told that being a man is so important, the shame they should feel if they fail at that, this all gets tied into being able to go and find help. If they’re already in a swing of feeling ashamed and weak, to then admit to more failure—a loss of control—is incredibly difficult.”

—Sharon says there are men she coaches who are “bottling everything down and are replacing it with anger, and that’s where this power conversation comes in. When we feel out of control with ourselves, we’re going to try to control our environment and are going to strike out at those who aren’t helping us feel we’re in control.”

—It’s shame but until they are prepared to identify it as that to get help, nothing changes.

—Jane says often men who have been forced to get help or sought it out talk about feeling threatened and afraid by their own situation. One man she spoke with for her book who was “really quite horrible” to his wife and children, got help is now on good terms with his family: “It took years of therapy for him to be able to admit he was afraid, then find out what to do about it.

23.00: “It wasn’t that bad”

—Jane recounts lies people tell themselves to justify their violence: ‘I’m one of the good guys, she just made me so mad and I’d had a few drinks and I snapped and it won’t happen again, she’s exaggerating to make me feel bad, it wasn’t that bad.’

—Sharon notes the cognitive dissonance the men must face, which make them cling tighter to the things they tell themselves to make that gap okay.

—The pair talk laws around the marriage bar, rape within marriage, the equal pay act and abortion—and their mutual love of Downton Abbey.

—Jane: “I’ve talked to women who were trying to leave violent husbands in the ‘90s and couldn’t because they couldn’t get a car loan or lease.”

—One woman whose story was included in Jane’s book has an ex husband in prison for trying to kill her: “The thing that struck me was how organised he was. A lot of these men are very manipulative and very clever, [they do] thinks like turning up to a school friend’s place and saying, ‘Where’s Maria today? Is she at work?’ Then all of a sudden someone is handing over an address.”

—Description of the death cheat sheet of information the woman hands to the vet, the hairdresser, to make sure they know not to give out her details.

—The woman’s husband tried to kill her while their son hid under the bed, calling police. “This little boy, he heard it and thought his mother was going to die. The only reason she’s not dead is the little boy called the police. Otherwise she would be dead and he would have heard it. She still has to have copies of the convictions, the AVOs, to hand over to people who say, ‘Poor him, he just wants to see son.’”

33.48: Queen for a Day

—Sharon says if she was Queen for a Day, she would reform the prison system because “punishment is not proving to prevent recidivism. I would reform it so it became education about emotionality, about healthy boundaries, about how to restore fragile non existent self esteem, recognise and identify our emotions, then educate them on a skill they can take to the community.”

—Jane says reforms are politically difficult to sell: “If you say to people who are afraid of crime, way we fix crime—this is not some airy fairy leftie academic bullshit thing, it’s proven. If you educate people … they don’t commit crimes again.”

—Sharon references PBS 2019 four-part documentary series College Behind Bars which reveals the transformative power of higher education through the experiences of men and women in prison: “The recurrence of crime plummets.”

—Jane refers to a similar production about addiction, where a program asked addicts in small groups over 12 weeks what led to them taking drugs, what it was that made them so attractive. The success rates were considerable, and “that was just based on, ‘Why are you taking drugs, what pain are you feeling that you’re medicating and what would be some other ways to deal with that?’

—While she’s Queen for a Day, Sharon is also reforming the educational system so emotional intelligence teaching is mandatory.

—Jane: “It needs to start in kindergarten. These are basic life skills: read, write, arithmetic and you need to be able to recognise your emotions and have some idea how to manage them.”

—She adds that we need to start building communities where people don’t get lost, and talks about Men’s Shed helping a man whose brother had died build a Viking ship to send him off in. “If you have men who are lonely and frustrated and isolated as well, it’s a recipe for disaster. But if you take that same man and give him a community of good men …”

46 Making headlines with Fixed It

—Sharon admits to “inappropriate laughter” at how in her book Jane changed media headlines to reflect how newsrooms spun domestic violence into clickbait: “I think you’ve improved things.”

—Reads an example of an original Cairns Post headline (Police charge young male with illicit attack on young mother) to Man charged with attempted rape of woman.

—Jane: “Illicit attack makes it sound like he pulled her pigtails or something. There’s no point yelling at people, it’s about getting people on board rather than blaming or shaming. A friend calls it the difference between calling people out and calling them in.”

—Sharon discussed the Masai tradition of not ostracising people who have done something ‘wrong’ but bringing them into a village circle of support and conversation and restorative justice.

—Jane notes “it’s really important to understand complex problems have complex solutions.”

—The women drill down on kindness. Sharon says she had something “horrible” happen to her (“not rape but violence”) and she did not feel she wanted the person involved punished.

—Jane: “I’ve spent so much time talking to survivors, years sometimes, I’m still in contact with. So to say to a survivor, ‘We’re going to spend all this time and money getting your rapist over his issues’ … the outrage.”

53.46 Kindness

—Sharon talks what she thinks kindness is: “I don’t believe kindness is acquiescence, which I think a lot of women do. Kindness to me is the most appropriate, respectful and caring thing to do in this moment that would allow this, whatever this awful thing was, to have another way of experiencing itself that’s healthier.”

—Jane says it comes back to the idea of being a good woman, being ‘unselfish’.

—Sharon discusses a training at TCI where an “alpha male” in the room was “out of touch with his vulnerability” and she “wouldn’t acquiesce to his control attempts.”

—Asked by Jane how the women in the room felt, Sharon says a lot of women like things to be smoothed over. “I am so not a typical female then ‘cos fuck it man, some waves need to be tipped over and we need to swim in very different waters.”

—Jane says she is occasionally “shocked even now by my friends, women I love and respect, who without knowing it will give into the pressure to placate everybody, to smooth things over.”

—Recounts how she had to tell a male friend who is “really inappropriate to the point of almost assault” that if he continues his behaviour, “I am done”. She was told by friends, “Don’t create trouble. I know you’re a feminist but could you just [still accept him in the group]? The men were more okay with what I did than the women.”

59.52 Social media, sisterhood and the F bomb

—Sharon says she was once accused on social media of “something really horrible I didn’t do” and “all the hate came from women. It was so heartbreaking. I got told, ‘She’s too big for her boots, someone needs to put her in her place.’”

—Jane: “I don’t think there’s a successful woman who hasn’t been told at some stage she’s too big for her boots. I’ve certainly had it. I’m arrogant apparently.”

—Sharon says years ago she did a speech where she used “the F bomb” like men who were presenting. She was told later by a woman in the audience, “You’d come across a lot better if you didn’t say the word fuck.”

Jane: “Did you tell her to fuck off?”

Sharon: “My hazy recollection was, ‘I really appreciate that’s where you’re coming from, here’s the thing, until women have the right to drop the word fuck the same way men do we’re not equal so I’m going to use the word fuck until nobody comments on me using the word fuck.”

—Jane: “Again, it’s that policing other women.”

—Sharon admits sometimes she just wants to do “puddle on the floor” and thinks “I can’t muster the fucks today” and Jane says she sometimes wants to read in bed all day with her dog: “To say every woman has to be strong and opinionated at every single minute of her life is utter bullshit.”

1.06.23 Five year pathway

—Sharon asks Jane what her next five years looks like.

—Jane: “It’s difficult to do. As you’ve probably already worked out, my life seems to be a series of accidents that I just keep running on with.”

—She’s working on her second book because journalism gigs are tough to crack. “The stories I’m hearing from editors are, ‘No, we’ve done domestic violence, we don’t need to write about that anymore.’”

—Sharon: “My dream for the next five years is anybody can walk into a room and be fully them without any of the structures or expectations around gender. That we can express ourselves in a way that full represents who we are without feeling shame or self censorship.”

—Jane says she might need to be Queen for Two Days: “This is not just a thing where we’re saying lives would be better for women. Lives would be better for everyone. Liberation makes it better for everyone. Every single human on the planet. Nobody loses out of this and the benefits are huge.”

After a private hell gave her a new perspective on her glittering career, powerhouse publicist Tory Archbold—the woman who launched Zara, Victoria’s Secret and Nespresso in Australia—pivoted from her global PR business Torstar to empowerment platform Powerful Steps. She talked to Sharon about how her behind-the-scenes struggles led her to change priorities, how and where she found the strength to fight for a new life for her daughter and herself, and how her personal and professional decisions are guided by three core values. Tory shares everything from her daily shower ritual (you can thank a Thai monk for that), how to master cold calling (“I’m not afraid of the word no”) and why momentum is her North star: “The best advice I can give is view challenges as opportunities, because once you do, more doors open.”

KEY TOPICS AND TIME STAMPS

Zero: “You’re the person to go to when something has to be done.”

—Sharon introduces Tory and tells how, among her career successes, she and her Torstar PR agency pulled together Zara’s Australian launch in just six days and attracted 22,000 guests on just one day.

—Tory tells how when she started Torstar two decades ago she had “a vision and knew what I wanted to attract in my life. I had dreams but a bank account with next to nothing in it.”

—Says when people start with values they attract what they truly deserve. She names and explains hers: passion, integrity and delivery.

—Sharon asks Tory how she recognised and knew to live her values, “because that’s not a conversation everyone is having every day.”

—Tory: “It’s a no brainer. If you live your truth and are aligned to your values then 90 per cent of the time nothing can go wrong and that was how I lived my life and started my business.”

—Talks how she attracted David Jones as a foundational client and launched Megan Gale as the face of the department store.

5.40: The art of the cold call

—Sharon applauds Tory for landing DJs with a cold call: “That’s how I began. I got my first million dollar contract with a cold call.”

—Tory describes exactly how she signed David Jones before she didn’t had her “little black book of contacts” and talks why “I’m not afraid of the word no.”

—Sharon asks what it is about Tory that makes her able to pick up the phone.

—Tory advises switching your thinking but says she also believes people say no to you for a reason and some opportunities are meant to go elsewhere: “If that door isn’t opening gently for me, I say to myself, ‘You know what, I’m not meant to experience that or have that in my life at this time. That experience, that project, that deal, is meant for someone else. And as soon as you let go and live your life in flow and don’t get upset about things, that’s when everything starts coming into your life.”

—Sharon tells Tory she spent five hours a day cold calling and that “too many people generalise the word no and take it into the next experience. You put it in the box it deserves to be in. You disconnected.”

——Tory says she does because she knows if the experience if meant to come back to her it will.

9.00 Tory’s steps to success with Torstar

—Asked how she decided she wanted to be in PR, Tory says she “put it out there that I wanted to work with these amazing brands” and wanted to travel the world: “I had this innate gut instinct and intuition that I was able to tell the right story so the engagement would be there.”

—She says the gift she has been given in business is to work with her gut instinct and that the average time she retained brands was six to eight years.

—When she wound back Torstar in 2019, “I was very selective about the people and brands I worked with because I had to be aligned with their values. If you share the same values you can create incredible things but you have to be aligned on that journey otherwise it will never work. ”

—Sharon asks if Tory goes into meetings knowing what she is going to say and do.

—Tory speaks her truth: “I never go in with a plan but I’m very creative about developing ideas and strategies for brands.”

—She outlines her daily shower ritual given to her a decade ago by a Buddhist monk in Thailand: “He used to say to me, ‘Tory, slow down, you need to slow down and meditate’ and I would say, ‘I have no time.’” Now she uses showering to give back to herself: “Get a little bit of lavender, put it down your décolletage, inhale three times, centre yourself, set your intentions for the day. Just watch, all the ideas are just going to filter into your brain. Sharon, it’s brilliant.”

14.41: The power of passion

—Sharon agrees setting intentions is “everything … if you don’t know where you’re heading it’s going to be random”, and asks Tory if her innate passion attract clients (yes) and whether she noticed that as her business grew and she stepped away a bit that changed: “Creative ideas you have in the conversation with the client are unique to you. So when you step away that magic source is not translating anymore. Did you notice something of you was lost?”

—Tory agrees: “Also I think it’s why I did make that decision to step back. In life, money is not everything. Money buys you opportunity but money comes, money goes, and I’ve never been worried about that. We all have highs and lows as an entrepreneur. But the reason I stripped it back was that little bottle of magic wasn’t coming from me.”

—Talks about deciding to step back then winning three of the biggest brands in America in six weeks: Drew Barrymore, Victoria’s Secret and Steve Madden. After launching them, she decided again to do something different: “That’s when I decided I was going to take that powerful step forward and share my personal journey.”

19.51: Tory reveals her private hell to the world

—She was watching Drew Barrymore at a media event and thought, “You know what, I feel this is the last launch I’m going to do. It’s time to move on.”

—Sharon says it’s one thing to be ready for a change, another to publicly reveal a very personal story: “What was it that let you know you wanted to share it?”

—Tory says behind the scenes of her “very glamorous high profile life” she and her daughter Bella, now 15, had an existence that only a handful of people knew about. “When Bella was nine months old I decided I was going to leave her father, and what happened was very unexpected. It started a decade-long traumatic experience … and it wasn’t until 2017 that situation was resolved. To put that into perspective, at one point in time I was receiving up to 100 phone calls, text messages, emails a day.”

—Reveals she was ashamed, and that while those around her thought she had everything, “actually I had nothing.”

—Outlines her long court battle with her ex, and how her daughter inspired her to bring it to a conclusion: “I decided to step into my true power and potential. My daughter said, ‘Mum, you’re the only one who can resolve this situation’ and she pushed me to do it.

—Tory says she “celebrated” by crying for a week, which Sharon says was “suppressed trauma”.

—Tory says the situation “created space for us and the opportunity for us to really define what we wanted in our lives.”

28.02: The defining moment and Powerful Steps

—Sharon notes Tory’s values had helped her live her external life “and this defining moment caused it to go inside. It shifted focus from the goal to the growth.”

—Tory says she and Bella grew like “little phoenixes”. She found love and Bella is “this incredibly empowered woman now.”

—The story was told in Marie Claire, and Powerful Steps was born: “It’s been such a powerful tool and message, and for my daughter not to be ashamed or afraid of her past as well, is extraordinary.”

—Sharon notes “The shame is in the secrets.”

—Tory says the supportive reaction to her story was the opposite of what she expected, and that CEOs around the world contacted her to congratulate her. When she got those endorsements, she believed she “could show the way forward.”

—Asked by Sharon if it changed her perspective of people, Tory says “if you’re willing to take those powerful steps forward and become fearless, you’re going to naturally attract the people into your life that are meant to be there. You have to create the space to understand what you want. Now I am fearless in ways I never thought would be possible.”

—Sharon notes the “outside you” have always been fearless and the inside is probably now in alignment and Tory agrees they have become integrated.

—Tory: “Now this is just me and with me sharing it’s going to help millions of people to understand they have the potential to achieve what they want as well.”

—Sharon asks how Tory communicates her message now and what her transformation means to her.

37.42: The value of values

—Tory says her values are still the same: “I teach people about the power of connection, the power of your personal brand”.

—During lockdown she opened her books up to private mentoring sessions. “I’m showing Australians that you can be connected globally. You can work without other people around you. Don’t just look at the connections you have, get outside your comfort zone, discover new things. That’s where you’re going to get the best growth.”

—Sharon notes “no matter what” Tory is going through, she seems “very attuned, very curious, very open” to other people.

—For Tory, that’s the power and gift of listening: “When you listen you understand and the journey becomes clear.”

—Tells the story of the Nespresso launch in Australia when she changed the concept five days out and insisted on having dancers in a milk bath: “It’s never too late to change something. I never worry about the look of horror. Don’t be afraid to push back.”

—Tory’s closing message: “In life we have so many opportunities and so many challenges we face. The best advice I could give to anyone is to view those challenges as opportunities because once you do, more doors open, and when more doors open more choices come into your life.”

Zero: Why demography matters so much now

—Bernard talks how he trained as a teacher before realising it wasn’t for him and “stumbling” into demography, which has never been more relevant: it’s interpreting statistics such as births, deaths, incomes or the incidence of disease and how they illustrate the changing structure of human population. Basically, how and where we live.

—Asked by Sharon if he’s “more in demand than ever” Bernard says coronavirus has sparked “extraordinary interest” in social commentary around the “significant” event of a pandemic.

—Sharon asks how he can predict what the post corona-world will look like socially.

—Bernard says the scale and pace of coronavirus was “breathtaking” and “it does tend to change people.”

04:00 The “them and us” element, Hollywood and the ‘big nap’

—Sharon notes there is a ‘them and us’ element to coronavirus, with the virus as the ‘them’ and the planet as the ‘us.’ She feels it has created pockets which are different within continents, countries and cities.

—Bernard agrees that “at no time literally in human history has the entire planet been united against a common foe” and likens it to the works of science fiction writers or movies such as 1996’s Independence Day which saw an alien foe threatening life on earth. “In some respects this is as close as we’re going to get to that.”

—He says a second pandemic could happen and that thinking is “going to drive a lot of behaviours in the 2020s.”

—Sharon notes society has a very poor relationship not just with certainty but with long term planning ie climate change: “Our intuitions tell us to deal with the short term, that tends to be evolutionary wise what we’re wired to deal with.”

—Bernard notes we are a product of our warless, depression-less times and “in some respects why would we contemplate a global catastrophe?” Says we have been allowed to live in the moment and “only with this virus we’ve suddenly realised the extent to which we’ve been taking risks.”

—Gives the example of Australia’s supply chain network and how we were caught out by having just one manufacturer of medical masks and PPE. Says we need to think about supply chain sovereignty.

—Sharon discusses the idea that the world has been in “the big nap for 75 years” and that after lack of adversity for three generations we “suddenly don’t know how to be this uncomfortable.”

—Bernard agrees: our comfort levels mean “you’re not wired to protect against what might happen in the future” and that we were caught out by thinking there might be a significant military conflict, climate change, terrorism but not attack by a microbe: “I most certainly don’t think corporates or the government have been really prepared for it. If we had we would have had all that critical infrastructure in Australia prior to the pandemic starting.”

09:00 The “uncomfortable” conversation

—Sharon notes that putting in place the critical infrastructure before the pandemic would have been a “very uncomfortable conversation” for politicians to have before the pandemic.

—Bernard says that goes “to the heart” of the problem and that it’s exposes a fragility in our society, with the assumption we had that we would be “able to trade and move freely across the planet unimpeded” forever.

—Says the upsetting of that apple cart could change consumer habits.

—Sharon’s theory is that because employment isn’t secure now people will budget more and that will increase Australia’s reliance on cheap goods from China.

—Bernard half agrees, saying in Australia “you can’t have jobs in the future without creating businesses today” and that supporting the Australian supply chain “is going to be a real theme coming out of this and beyond.”

—Sharon asks if Bernard has “told the unions that … labour costs aren’t dropping anytime soon.”

—Bernard counters that higher wages and prices are “the cost of the Australian lifestyle … if we need to pay a higher price for some Australian goods and services then I think there’s going to be a greater appetite to do that, going forward.”

—Sharon says Bernard seems more optimistic than his written work suggests while she is “more of a pessimist.”

—Bernard says his past caution was turned around by how well Australia came out of the GFC and that he believes a similar situation will arise after coronavirus: “Where on the planet would you rather be at a time of global pandemic?”

17:25 The human desire to get back to normal

—Sharon notes the push to get back to normal seems to ingrained in the human psyche and asks Bernard about the human desire to do it.

—Bernard understands people like routine but expects the post-corona world will be different, with more working from home, a shift in consumer values, and “certainly being grateful for what we do have rather than what we don’t.”

—Sharon believes there will be extended “post-materialism.”

—Bernard agrees values have shifted: people have learned through isolation that in life they don’t need to dress a certain way, have a certain amount of pillows on their bed, to have a valuable life: we don’t have to be perfect.

—Says we have “passed peak Kardashian” and new heroes won’t be influencers but real frontline workers in healthcare and supermarkets.

22:35 The great concern still to come

—Sharon notes we’re never going to have a “sense of wellbeing as long as we focus on the ‘me’ generation and that we need to have an attitude of gratitude, and asks Bernard how he thinks we’re doing.

—He compares our society to other countries and says we’re doing very well. His concerns are how the pandemic will play out in other countries without our healthcare and social welfare systems.

—Sharon is also concerned about countries without Australia’s infrastructure and says while we have taken a hit, our government has been strong and healthy enough to keep us afloat. She wants to keep in focus that other countries are having a different experience.

—Bernard says he feels the Third World will “struggle for a year or two” and a takeaway for the future has to be earlier reporting of outbreaks to better manage threats.

—Sharon says Bill Gates warned us this would happen but we didn’t want to hear, which means our “next generations are going to be inheriting our lack of ability” and that denial “seems to be part of the human experience.”

—She outlines how The Coaching Institute pivoted to an online business in early March and says any line of thinking that convinces us we can sit there and this too will pass “is head in the sand stuff, Bernard.”

—Bernard notes that as well as changing shopping, learning and working habits during lockdown, “hopefully we take the good bits, the good skills and learnings and create a more productive, more efficient society and economy going forward.”

32:20 Social media, survival and society

—Sharon discusses how “one of my biggest bugbears”, social media, is linked directly to teen suicide and that the cost of having had a planet full of teenagers living in front of computers and phones on Facebook and Instagram for months could be catastrophic: “It’s one of my biggest concerns … when we come out the other end how do we unhook them from the way their brains are wired to do only that?”

—Bernard agrees “the social media genie” is out of the bottle but hopes the pandemic’s spotlight on everyday heroes rather than celebrities and influencers will see them admired: “We need to encourage that shift and make sure we don’t shift back to the fakery of living a social media existence.”

—Sharon doubles down, saying lockdown and the situation of young people being in front of screens getting only curated information for months is deleterious to their mental health and development.

—Bernard agrees it’s not “a healthy thing” to have this many young people at home and that going forward a better way will be for them to come together for short periods to collaborate.

37:18 Women in the workforce post-corona

—Sharon asks how much of the “good progress” women have made in the workplace will be unravelled by coronavirus, given women are disproportionately represented among the groups who would have been laid off first (part time, casual.)

—Bernard discusses an ABS quarterly document and agrees we have seen “tremendous gains” made and that “it would be a great shame to see those gains lost as a consequence of the reset in the Australian economy which I think will take place in the winter of 2020.”

.

39:18 The narrative Sharon wants to create

—As the podcast wraps up, Sharon says she’d love to see (and is surprised there isn’t already) a narrative created on buying Australian, supporting Australia, and making it economically viable for Australians to do that: “We have an opportunity to create a narrative about how we want post-corona to look and I would love it to look like supporting Australian manufacturing as you said, shoring up our supply chains, having a sovereignty attitude.”

—Bernard says whenever he writes about rebuilding and creating a fairer Australia the response is “extraordinary” and that “Australians are very patriotic when you scratch the surface.”

—Sharon says we need to have an informed discussion about how we want the society to look now, asks if Holden should have folded because it destroyed supply chains. Says the idea is to get out of reaction and into creation.

—Bernard: “It all starts with a conversation and also education.”

Resources:

• Order Ultimate You Book: https://tci.rocks/order-ultimate-you
  · Upcoming Events at The Coaching Institute - www.thecoachinginstitute.com.au/trainings
  · Phone The Coaching Institute - 1800 094 927
  · Feedback/Reviews/Suggest a topics be discussed - perspectives@sharonpearson.com

Follow The Coaching Institute:
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The Coaching Institute: https://www.thecoachinginstitute.com.au/
The Coaching Institute Fan page: www.facebook.com/BecomeALifeCoach/

• Order Ultimate You Book: https://tci.rocks/order-ultimate-you
  · Upcoming Events at The Coaching Institute - www.thecoachinginstitute.com.au/trainings
  · Sharon’s New Website - www.sharonpearson.com
  · Disruptive Leadership- https://www.disruptiveleading.com/
  · Phone The Coaching Institute - 1800 094 927
  · Feedback/Reviews/Suggest a topics be discussed - perspectives@sharonpearson.com

• Order Ultimate You Book: https://tci.rocks/order-ultimate-you
  · Ultimate You Quest Telecast - www.ultimateyouquest.com
  · Upcoming Events at The Coaching Institute - www.thecoachinginstitute.com.au/trainings
  · Sharon’s New Website - www.sharonpearson.com
  · Disruptive Leadership- https://www.disruptiveleading.com/
  · Phone The Coaching Institute - 1800 094 927
  · The Coaching Institute Fan Page – https://www.facebook.com/BecomeALifeCoach
  · Feedback/Reviews/Suggest a topics be discussed - perspectives@sharonpearson.com

I wonder if you have been thinking about what this year will look like for you…the goals you want to achieve…the things you want to focus on…what you’d like to learn…

Most of the goals we set out to achieve are driven by wanting to become the best version of ourselves we can be now and, in the future, well at least that’s what it is for me….

And if I’m not thinking long term or at least projecting out into some future time that hasn’t happened and planning how it will be different from how I tainted myself in the past, all I’m going to achieve is more of my past.

This isn’t to say only think about your goals long term, it is about planning how this time your approach will be different, bringing awareness to why certain goals may not have worked out in the past and planning out a different approach this time around so the past doesn’t repeat itself.

If discovering how you can kick off your new year with an action plan on how you can stick to and achieve the goals you set out through bringing more awareness, strategies, and tools into your life then I invite you to have a listen to the first episode of a 3-part series on the #Perspectives podcast I did with Joe Pane to help you set yourself up for a successful year in 2020.

Let 2020 be all about how we can bring more awareness to ourselves, dive deeper into becoming who we truly are and reaching our fullest potential.