0:02

On this episode of

0:04

Between 2 Beers we talk to

0:08

Dave Wood. Dave

0:16

is best known as being Israel Artisania's breathing

0:18

and mindset coach and was one of our

0:20

favourite and most popular guests in 2023. He

0:24

runs a two day calm under pressure workshop in

0:26

Piaa and the course and his work has a

0:28

strong connection to the show. I

0:30

went on it last year, it's where I was

0:33

inspired by Jamal Pairata's story and we had him

0:35

on the show as a guest and this month

0:37

Sheamus attended it. We spend the

0:39

first part of this one unpacking the weekend and

0:41

what Sheamus got from it before digging into what

0:43

Dave's been up to for the last year. We

0:46

talk about the incredible growth and success

0:48

of his business, the key to finding

0:50

balance in a busy life, the importance

0:53

of being selfish and prioritising yourself, how

0:55

he helped the world's best squash player,

0:57

training the warriors and why understanding the

0:59

impact of your thinking, emotions and actions

1:01

is pivotal to achieving personal growth. If

1:04

you're interested in Dave's epic life story and the

1:06

first 40 years of his life, I'd highly recommend

1:09

going back to listen to the ep we recorded

1:11

with him in February of 2023. We're

1:14

also super stoked to have Dave on the

1:16

box of B2B speakers, so if you'd like

1:18

him to share his story at your function

1:20

or event, flick us a message by going

1:22

to b2bspeakers.co.nz. Also

1:24

check out our epic line up of former guests

1:27

available for hire too and while there, sign up

1:29

to our weekly newsletter with all the biggest news

1:31

from us and the podcasting space in New Zealand.

1:34

Listen on iHeart, wherever you get your podcast from

1:36

or watch the video on YouTube. This

1:38

episode was brought to you from the Export

1:40

Bear Garden Studio. Enjoy! Dave

1:43

Wood. Welcome to B2B. We're

1:45

here to talk about the

1:47

new and exciting life story of the year.

1:53

Dave Wood. Welcome back

1:55

to Between 2 Bears. Thank

1:58

you very much boys. Looking forward to getting

2:01

into it. Seems like a long time

2:03

ago, eh? 14 months, I

2:05

think we worked out that you were last on. Yeah,

2:08

and coming on that podcast last

2:10

time has been incredible for the business, so thank

2:12

you. Oh, you're welcome. Let's do it

2:14

again, eh? Just to

2:16

set the scene a little bit,

2:18

after that podcast, I

2:21

came on the Come Under Pressure Workshop two day

2:23

out in Peeha with you. I sort

2:25

of wrote about it, and we did a little mini

2:27

doco on it. It ended up in the newspaper. It

2:29

did, yep, it was huge. And since then, I had

2:32

been telling Shae he needs to go on it, but

2:35

it's only when someone is ready that

2:37

they sort of step foot into the

2:39

arena. And three days ago,

2:41

he did it. This

2:43

weekend just gone, and he

2:45

hasn't been able to walk since. What

2:49

did you do to him, and how'd he go? Seamus

2:53

absolutely smashed the weekend, and

2:55

we documented Seamus'

2:59

experience of the weekend. And

3:04

Seamus and I were sort of liaising

3:06

three weeks out from the

3:09

workshop with a few goals that he

3:11

had to hit before turning up. So

3:13

yeah, it was a cool process

3:15

just watching the journey that Seamus was going

3:17

through. And he said you were pushing him

3:20

to do this a

3:22

year ago, and he wasn't ready. And

3:24

I guess,

3:26

like Seamus, that's the journey that you're on. And

3:31

then you turned up and did it, and you smashed it. And

3:34

I think there was a bit of apprehension there

3:36

about coming to the workshop. But as

3:39

you saw, it was like once

3:41

you put yourself out there and you challenge

3:43

yourself, it's never

3:45

as scary as what you think

3:47

it is. So for those

3:49

listening that don't know what we're talking about, Shae, what

3:52

was the workshop? And we talked a bit about

3:54

it for those that listened to ambassadors, the sort

3:56

of the anxiety about what was going to happen.

3:59

What was your experience? Yeah, so

4:01

it's a two-day workshop day one out

4:03

at Pijar day two down

4:05

in Mangari and in Sandringham. Yeah,

4:09

I think David probably invited me

4:11

14 months ago after you

4:13

went on it and said, I think this would be

4:15

really good for you. We had Jamal who helps facilitate

4:17

it as well, come on later on and was like,

4:19

we would love to have you out there. And I

4:21

was just not keen on it at

4:23

all. On

4:26

day one, shortly after we start, everyone

4:28

is sort of asked, what's your reason? What's your

4:31

reason for being here? And I

4:33

stood up in the sand dunes and I sort of

4:35

said, well, this is the sort of thing that I've

4:37

avoided probably for large parts of my adult life. And

4:39

I've rolled out of the

4:41

challenge of doing it, hadn't want to

4:43

do it, avoidance of like being, I think,

4:45

singled out or group fitness stuff. And I

4:47

had a little bit of concern

4:50

like physically, whether I'd be able to do

4:52

it. In my mind, I probably thought it

4:54

was a workshop for elite athletes.

4:58

So top performers and I was thinking, it's

5:00

only the biggest the fittest, I was probably

5:02

one of the biggest, but it was probably

5:04

the first fastest strongest sort of people that

5:06

would be eligible to do this sort of

5:09

thing. And like Dave said, we

5:12

caught up a couple of weeks before. And I

5:14

was already on this kind of as people that

5:16

listen to the podcast or follow the podcast know,

5:19

made some changes and was

5:21

achieving some pretty good success. We

5:24

set some I thought at the time, I don't mind

5:26

telling you when we're sitting when we're sitting over your

5:28

place. And you said you got

5:30

to hit 133 kegs before you can come on.

5:32

And if you don't hit it, you ain't coming

5:34

on. I went away from that. And I thought,

5:36

Oh, man, shit, that's gonna be quite hard. But

5:40

dialed in was really deliberate

5:42

about what I wanted to do. And then I think

5:44

the week the Monday of the course, I sent you

5:46

a photo of me standing on the scales and sure

5:48

enough, I was up at 133 and I was pumped.

5:53

What's the reasoning for doing that? Making

5:56

them accountable to a target before he gets on?

5:58

Is it to change the mindset? Or was it

6:00

genuinely? lead so that he can survive the course.

6:02

No, we discussed some of the goals that Seamus

6:04

wanted to hit and Seamus is on

6:06

a real journey of investing into his physical and mental

6:08

health and as

6:10

part of that it's around losing weight

6:13

and so you know

6:17

having non-Seamus and also working with him a little

6:19

bit three weeks out it was pretty

6:22

evident that that's something that needed

6:24

to be at the forefront in terms of

6:26

his goal setting and how he's going to

6:28

create some vision and values and mindset around

6:30

that and so it was just a means

6:32

of like challenging him. Hey man if you

6:34

don't put some skin in the game

6:36

here and you're not willing to like really

6:38

push yourself then the workshops not for you

6:40

and it is also

6:42

I guess you

6:46

know when Seamus came to me and he

6:48

told me about his sort of journey it

6:50

got me motivated and so when I'm motivated

6:52

it's like I love working

6:55

with people where there's a challenge so it's

6:57

kind of yeah putting the challenge back on

6:59

Seamus and

7:02

helping him create some guidelines and systems

7:04

and protocols around that so he can

7:07

achieve the things that are fraught with

7:09

difficulty and challenge and fear and apprehension

7:11

and tension and going towards that and

7:14

you know the workshop really is about human performance

7:16

this two-day workshop and we get people from

7:18

all walks of life all ages and

7:20

they're there for self-betterment they're

7:23

there to work things out and you know

7:25

we frame the workshop up it's around stress

7:27

mitigation and better understanding how to control your

7:29

body stress response and to remain calm under

7:32

pressure but it's actually just about human performance

7:34

and optimizing your health your physical

7:36

and mental health so that you can

7:38

achieve sustainable peak performance and

7:42

yeah. One other

7:44

thing as well is like the workshop hasn't been the

7:46

destination right we've got a stretch goal through the through

7:48

the year as well was to hit 100 kegs by

7:51

December which is still 32 odd

7:55

kgs away and eight

7:58

months away almost to the day. So

8:02

like employing strategies picked

8:04

up on, like I'm like fizzing here at the

8:06

moment, like employing strategies picked up on the workshop

8:09

as well to

8:11

help implement or

8:13

to help kind of achieve that is energising

8:15

too. Yeah,

8:18

I think there's also like a

8:20

more serious part of all of this and that is,

8:22

you know, if we go back in the road that

8:24

Seamus was going down was fraught with its

8:27

own, you know, Seamus should

8:29

have talked to me a little bit about how

8:31

he was holding himself back in terms of breaking

8:33

down some of those barriers to improving

8:36

his physical and mental health. And

8:38

the challenge of doing

8:40

that, we discussed the challenge of

8:42

doing that is much more, is

8:45

fraught with much more difficulty than the challenge

8:47

of actually stripping down some of those barriers

8:49

and actually pushing himself. And

8:52

there's something called, I

8:54

talked to you about this Seamus, there's something

8:56

called metabolic syndrome, which is

8:58

very prevalent in the Western world and

9:01

in New Zealand and metabolic syndrome is

9:03

a combination of obesity, high blood pressure,

9:05

high cholesterol and pre-diabetes.

9:09

Tactic, tic, tic, tic. And

9:12

metabolic syndrome dramatically

9:15

increases your likelihood

9:18

of mortality from things like

9:20

cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, but

9:22

also predisposes you to things

9:24

like knees, hips, gout.

9:28

It's fraught with, you

9:30

know, a challenge if you go down that road and

9:32

there's lots of, you know, we talked about there's lots

9:34

of signs and symptoms and we tend to ignore them.

9:37

And we've got a problem in New Zealand, they

9:39

call it a mental health crisis. It's actually a

9:42

physical health crisis. And where this

9:45

starts in terms of like solving this

9:47

problem because it

9:49

is so entrenched in that

9:56

I don't know the exact numbers, but I

9:58

think it's 32%. of

10:00

Māori have Metabolic Syndrome,

10:02

39% of Pacific Island and 16%

10:05

of the rest of the population. One

10:08

in three Americans. So this is

10:10

massive man and you know we

10:12

often think we often talk about well you know it's

10:14

my body and but actually you're

10:16

impacting everyone and having worked in the

10:18

ambulance service for 13 years what you

10:21

see when you go into the ED

10:23

is best base is being

10:25

taken up by people that

10:27

have abused their physical and mental

10:29

health and haven't listened to the

10:31

warning signs and through self-inflicted misery

10:34

have ended up in there by

10:36

not taking accountability. So where this starts is with

10:38

people like yourself you know people like well what

10:40

do you do this problem so big you start

10:42

with yourself we start with us three in this

10:44

room investing in our physical and mental health and

10:46

so these kids are looking up to us and

10:48

they're like man these you know that's

10:51

what you're supposed to look like when you're 40, 50,

10:53

60 years old. How old

10:55

are you? Well

10:58

you speak, you know I'm 41. I feel

11:00

the analogy man and it rocked me on

11:02

day one about like

11:04

imagine you only have one car for

11:06

your whole life and you've

11:09

got to look after it take it to Warren of

11:11

Fitness get the tires changed over like that analogy of

11:13

the one car being your body like

11:15

you only get one of these things so

11:17

why would you like abuse it and put

11:20

it through like that? Smacked me between the

11:22

eyes of being like such a simple analogy

11:24

which makes so much sense. Yeah

11:26

that's like again one of the

11:28

things working in the public

11:30

health sector as a paramedic was

11:33

I was constantly seeing the end

11:35

result of lifestyle disease of not

11:38

making healthy choices and it really you know

11:42

I've always been interested in my health but it

11:44

really motivated me because I don't want to spend

11:46

the last 20-30 years trapped in my body right

11:48

I want to be surfing and high functioning

11:51

when I'm 60, 70, 80 years old I

11:53

want to be able to move

11:56

my body and be physically and mentally well

11:58

and capable. And

12:00

so that starts now, it starts like investing

12:02

now and prioritizing your physical and mental health

12:04

over everything else. We talk about this in

12:06

the workshop, it's like be selfish, protect your

12:08

own energy, protect your own physical and mental

12:10

health and that's the most important thing that

12:12

you can invest in over everything

12:15

else. So you have to be selfish, you

12:17

have to prioritize yourself and selfish

12:20

is just a word that has a negative connotation

12:22

but if you're not selfish, you tend to

12:24

be a people pleaser and when you are selfish and

12:26

then you invest in your own physical and mental health,

12:29

you're more capable of helping other

12:31

people anyway because it's all

12:33

about helping others, but you gotta

12:35

help yourself first. This

12:38

podcast has a really cool connection. I know

12:40

it's 14 months, it seems like a lot

12:42

longer. You came on, there was

12:44

such a strong response to your episode, one

12:46

of our most popular. We've had Jamal on

12:48

since telling his story because I saw him,

12:50

I met him on your workshop and his

12:52

speech gripped me with such emotion and purpose

12:54

that we got him to share his story

12:57

and that's resonated with our audience too. And

13:00

there's an added dimension to it now

13:02

because my mum went on the course as well.

13:04

She had been one of these people who had

13:06

been a bit apprehensive. She was like, it was

13:08

something I'd wanted to do but I never really thought

13:11

that I was the right sort of person to do

13:13

it. And then she messaged me out of the blue

13:15

and she's like, I've just booked myself into the coming

13:17

of the pressure without even talking to me. I was

13:19

like, good on you, friend, well done. And

13:22

then she's over 60, over 65 and how'd she get on? So

13:29

we posted a photo up halfway through

13:31

the workshop and it was a picture of Brenda,

13:34

like you said, I think she's 66, 67. And

13:38

another guy that was there,

13:42

slightly younger but around about the same age, we

13:44

posted a photo up of those two sitting, overlooking

13:47

the Tasman Sea doing a meditation. This

13:50

is part of the workshop, like the first

13:52

day we were reconnect with nature and we

13:55

must have got 40 messages,

13:58

just about that one photo. The

14:01

thing is, West are

14:03

used to, in the Western world, seeing people in

14:05

their old years, our mindset

14:07

and our view around them is that they're

14:11

decrepit and old, right? And there's a reason for that,

14:13

and that's because a lot of people

14:15

over the age of 60 have let go. They're

14:17

not well. In

14:19

other cultures, they view the

14:22

older people as the wisest and the healthiest.

14:26

Cultures like Japan. When

14:30

people see people like Brenda who are healthy

14:33

and investing in their physical and mental health

14:35

and are still pushing it, it's very contagious.

14:38

It's motivating. Just having those two on

14:40

the workshop, for

14:43

me, that's where I

14:45

want to be heading. It's never too

14:47

late to change, and it

14:49

should be like this

14:52

whole thing around this

14:54

health journey should be...

14:56

it's like a life investment. You

14:59

know, it doesn't just stop. It's

15:01

a life thing, right? It shouldn't stop when

15:03

you get older, and those... Brenda

15:06

turned up and absolutely smashed it. And

15:10

we're doing an exercise in the water

15:12

where you just walk through the water and you

15:14

practice gratitude as

15:17

a form of meditation and

15:19

changing the way that you think. And

15:22

Brenda the whole time had a smile on her face.

15:24

She was walking through the water with a big smile

15:26

on her face. She

15:28

just brought such good energy

15:30

to that workshop. She's got

15:32

an incredible energy, so your mum's a

15:35

bloody legend. She is a bloody

15:37

legend, and she was glowing afterwards. I mean,

15:39

it's been three days since she came over

15:41

last night, and she's like, oh, tell I

15:44

mean, it was better than I expected and I

15:46

had really high expectations. And I think it's the

15:49

way the course

15:52

is set up is that you

15:54

share really early and you really are

15:56

vulnerable and open up. And it builds

15:59

the... little community straight away and

16:01

then those relationships are just sort

16:04

of expanded on across the course of the two days.

16:07

And she said she had some really deep meaningful

16:09

conversations with everyone in the group, which you don't

16:11

normally have, but it's because you've sort of created

16:13

the situation where you open up. And I think

16:16

that's the part she wasn't expecting. She was expecting

16:18

to get a lot of good advice and tools,

16:20

but it's sort of the community that's built around

16:22

it. Is that what you experienced too? 100%

16:25

man, like that, the power in sharing

16:28

is we talk about it all

16:30

the time, really. But when you actually in the middle of

16:32

it, it's, it is pretty

16:35

epic and people might not necessarily use the

16:37

same words or the same phrases that you

16:39

use, but when they're talking, you can recognize

16:41

the patterns that you're

16:43

feeling or you're thinking. And there's a power

16:45

in kind of that shared experience of being

16:47

like, okay, you know, we always

16:49

say like, oh, you realize you're not alone. But like

16:51

there is nothing more powerful than someone

16:54

in a completely different time

16:56

period in their life sharing

16:59

something which is so similar to you and

17:01

going, oh man, we're not

17:03

even different really at all. Like it

17:05

was, yeah, it's and that bond gets stronger

17:07

as the, it's always, it's quite cautious to

17:09

begin with, but as the, as the two

17:11

days progress, um, and then by the end

17:13

of it, you can't, you feel like you

17:15

know, these people so well. And

17:18

I think I mentioned it at the end of it. But the

17:20

challenge then is like, I think

17:22

if something's moved in you enough that you

17:24

actually go seeking that person out and retaining

17:26

that connection and checking in on

17:28

their progress because you you've got a responsibility

17:32

I feel to kind of check in on people

17:34

and see how they're going. Yeah,

17:37

yeah. You know, we

17:40

are all very similar in that we're

17:42

just human beings biologically, physiologically, neurologically, we're

17:45

the same makeup, right? And so you

17:47

start seeing the same patterns of behavior

17:49

in people, the

17:51

same patterns that are holding people back and

17:53

it comes here time and time again, it

17:55

comes back to these three things fear of

17:57

failure, fear of letting people down

18:00

in fear of what other people might think. And

18:02

those three things severely

18:05

hold us back. And

18:07

so, you know, part

18:09

of the workshop is about identifying these patterns

18:11

and then understanding that we can change them,

18:14

but that takes a little bit of work

18:16

because these patterns are entrenched in our subconscious

18:18

state and they always come to the forefront

18:20

in stress and pressure moments. So it's about

18:22

a powerful part of the workshop is just

18:24

allowing people to identify those

18:26

patterns in themselves, but also thus

18:29

seeing it in other people. And,

18:33

you know, I hope and I think that this is like a

18:35

big part of the workshop is that people come out of the

18:37

workshop understanding that they

18:40

can change those patterns and they have the

18:42

tools to then be able to do that.

18:46

Because, you know, the pattern you train

18:48

is the pattern that becomes entrenched in

18:50

your subconscious state. So if it

18:52

is a pattern of like holding yourself back

18:54

or negative self-talk or you're too worried about

18:56

what other people think, so you don't challenge yourself

18:58

and you're scared of failure, then those

19:00

are the patterns that will just keep coming out,

19:03

right? And people live their whole lives like that.

19:05

The beautiful thing about being a human being is

19:07

we do have the ability to change. This is

19:09

fraught with difficulty and challenge, but

19:11

that's the good journey. And it's

19:13

testament to the crew that you've got on there

19:16

that build that safe

19:18

space where you feel comfortable there

19:20

in what are essentially quite

19:22

uncomfortable situations in various times during the

19:24

workshop. So, yeah, Jamal, the guy that

19:26

helps us out. He runs a business

19:29

called the Kairahi and I've

19:31

been listening to Jamal since we started this

19:33

workshop two years, right? And this comes back

19:35

to like surround yourself with the right people.

19:37

And so I've heard his talk over 20

19:39

times. I've heard these themes

19:41

and these things that because he's very good at getting

19:45

his stuff across through storytelling. And

19:48

so there's things that he always says. And when

19:50

I first started listening to them, they sort of

19:52

just brushed off the back. I appreciated

19:55

it, but the repetition of

19:58

the things that... he talks

20:00

about, you know, what you put

20:02

out in the world, you

20:04

know, that law of attraction comes back

20:06

to you. He

20:09

also talks about whatever

20:12

you think and believe, you will

20:14

find ways to

20:16

confirm that in everything.

20:19

And so if you think about that, it

20:21

becomes very important in terms of like your

20:23

thought patterns and your perspective and your beliefs

20:25

and your values and your goal setting, because

20:29

yeah, you will find evidence to confirm whatever

20:31

it is that you're doing or thinking out

20:33

there. And so all

20:36

of the stuff that he talks about is

20:38

now really entrenched in here and has

20:40

stimulated a lot of thought and thinking

20:42

for me. And it just

20:44

I was thinking about it on the drive

20:47

and just how important it is to surround

20:49

yourself with those types of people that elevate

20:51

you and motivate you and make you think

20:53

and challenge you. And, you

20:56

know, going through this process of building my own business, there

20:58

have been people that and even people like,

21:00

you know, relatively close to me who have

21:02

tried to push me down a little bit,

21:05

not not in a direct way, but it

21:09

happens. And now I'm

21:11

very wary of like the

21:14

people that, you know, my

21:17

close group of friends, I'm kind

21:19

of like I'm

21:22

more aware. We'll

21:25

be right back after this short break. Just

21:32

before we leave the workshop, I'd

21:35

set up so there's the sort of physical

21:37

element where you create stressful situations

21:39

and then work out tools

21:42

to respond to it, the body respond to it.

21:44

You can explain it better than me. But one

21:47

of the sort of clouds that was hanging over

21:49

you was the dunes. So I'm interested in hearing

21:52

how that first morning was when you when you attacked

21:54

them for the first time. Like I'll be honest, it

21:56

started before the dunes even when you got it, you

21:58

got us I went over to the

22:00

rock, I was like, I didn't sign

22:02

up for the early fucking run to the rock.

22:05

I was like, I was saving everything up for the

22:07

dunes. The dunes

22:10

were, I mean, they're just a metaphor,

22:12

right? Like, and I think it is that whole,

22:16

like anyone out there that's kind of apprehensive about considering

22:18

going on the course, very

22:21

early on it was like, that whole

22:23

point I made about being the fittest, the

22:25

fastest or the strongest, that is totally irrelevant.

22:27

You're really on the course to

22:30

compete with yourself, to

22:32

just do what you can do. And you do a really

22:34

good job of setting that up early.

22:36

Like it ain't a competition between you and

22:38

anybody else. It's you versus you. So,

22:41

you know, with that in mind,

22:43

and I'd been lucky enough, I'd visited Dave out

22:45

at PeeHau beforehand. So I'd had a chance to

22:47

do some dunes, not the dunes that you do

22:50

on the day. We couldn't get there. PeeHau's

22:52

a wild place if you haven't been out there. It was

22:54

my first time to go, but yeah. I

22:58

was reasonably comfortable and more confident because I

23:00

dropped 20 plus KGs. So,

23:02

you know, I share loss

23:04

of weight alone. You can move a lot

23:06

better. And without

23:09

delving too much into the course, you go

23:11

into power phrases and kind of into your

23:13

psyche. And having had a chance

23:15

to work with Dave before, I knew, and you say

23:17

this in jest, but I knew I've got a real

23:19

power bottom. So I knew that

23:22

if I could get the pistons going up

23:26

the dunes, I was like, I can get up,

23:28

I can get up fine. And having the breathing

23:30

tools, being able to kind of bring yourself

23:32

back down, I knew like, if I start going, these pistons

23:34

will get me up to the top. It doesn't matter. So

23:37

it was epic like that. Yeah, the reality is,

23:40

well, alas, could you have done that 10, 12

23:43

months ago? No chance. Yeah.

23:46

And what you're seeing

23:48

is like the confidence

23:50

that the

23:53

change of the transformation your body has gone through

23:55

gives you mental confidence. We think

23:57

that these two things that are separate, the mind

23:59

and the body. they're the same thing. And

24:01

if one is off, it'll affect the other. And you

24:03

turned up to

24:06

the beach and you drove from... This

24:09

was also part of the whole challenge

24:12

to sort of not

24:16

just prepare you for the workshop, but make

24:18

sure that you're a suitable candidate and that

24:21

you're willing

24:24

to really push to be there.

24:28

But you drove from Hamilton to Peeha and basically

24:31

all we did really, apart from talking a

24:34

little bit, was run those dunes. Running

24:39

the dunes is like on

24:42

a micro level, everything

24:44

about life. It's uncomfortable, it's

24:46

like mentally and physically challenging.

24:50

And you can learn a lot about the condition

24:52

of your mind when you're really under the pump.

24:54

And that was kind of like the purpose

24:56

of that exercise was you'll keep going. You

24:59

could have kept going where you already pushed

25:01

it, you pushed beyond the

25:03

number that you'd set, but you would have kept

25:05

going. And it's the mind that gets in the

25:07

way. And that exercise was about you better understanding

25:09

the condition of your mind and how it's holding

25:11

you back. And I

25:14

think that you really took that into

25:17

the weekend because I watched you running the dunes because I

25:19

thought that was going to be the most difficult thing for

25:21

you. You

25:25

didn't look out of place. And I

25:28

think that was one of your worries coming into the

25:30

workshop was that you were going to be out of

25:32

place because of

25:34

the weight and because of you weren't

25:36

at the point in your health journey,

25:41

you weren't at that end part of your health

25:43

journey, that end goal, right? You're partway through that.

25:45

And so there was worry there about being

25:48

out of place, but you didn't look

25:50

out of place, especially not running the dunes. Yeah,

25:52

thank you. And you've helped him set a weight

25:54

goal. Do we announce that? I did

25:57

that. I did it on ambassadors. I just did

25:59

it before. 100KG. Oh,

26:01

right. 100KG is in eight months. Yeah.

26:05

And you will hit it. At

26:07

the end of the day, with goal setting, it's not about...

26:11

It's not as much about achieving the

26:13

goal as it is keeping you in

26:16

a process. And

26:18

that process is... We

26:21

can introduce things like discipline, accountability.

26:23

We talked about you creating

26:26

accountability for this target that

26:28

you have and perseverance and

26:30

dealing with setbacks and

26:32

failures. That's the cool thing about setting

26:34

a goal. And then with that goal

26:37

setting, you align your values

26:39

and your thinking and your emotions and

26:41

your actions towards that goal. And

26:44

that's like... I

26:47

love it when people

26:49

like yourself come to

26:51

me with a lofty goal. And

26:55

again, because that motivates me, but it's like we

26:57

should all be doing this. We should all have

26:59

these lofty goals and vision. And

27:02

that end goal should be something

27:05

that's... Right now, almost... It's

27:07

unattainable right now. And then we work back

27:09

from that and we have these medium term

27:11

goals and these short term goals and then

27:13

these day to day goals. And

27:15

the important thing about, again, like goal setting

27:17

is like then you start bringing

27:20

in things like values and mindset

27:22

and as a framework

27:24

to help you achieve that goal. Yeah, one of the important things

27:26

I think for me that I took away from the workshop as

27:28

well is for me to be

27:30

successful, I've got to get really granular in

27:32

the detail and be really deliberate about the

27:35

actions. So like, you

27:37

know, really mapping out my meal plan for

27:39

the first eight weeks of the year was

27:41

really, really critical. But I know

27:44

now, it's not just that first eight

27:46

weeks, it's like, it's everything again

27:48

after that. It's really delving into the

27:50

detail and being really, really deliberate about

27:52

it. And that's... Yeah,

27:54

that's probably something that's been missing from my

27:57

mindset for a little while is actually realizing

27:59

that... all the little one percenters, they

28:01

actually make a really big difference in the

28:03

wider scheme of things. So for me, it's

28:05

not just diet and eating, it's exercise, it's

28:08

making sure my

28:11

head's in a good space, that I'm taking time out,

28:13

that I'm getting between red and blue. Spoiler

28:16

alert, you need to go on the course to get into that.

28:18

I won't go too much detail.

28:21

I think an interesting conversation is like,

28:24

why did you put the weight on? Yeah,

28:27

because I just get like, it was easy. I

28:30

got into a habit of not

28:34

prioritizing, taking time to think

28:36

about what I was eating, I would grab

28:38

and eat on the go. I would

28:41

make excuses that, you know,

28:43

I was on the go, so I don't have time to

28:45

make a good choice. And I would, you

28:47

know, go to an easy shortcut, which more

28:49

often than not is a fast food. Yeah,

28:52

but it wasn't because we know that food

28:55

is addictive, right? You know,

28:58

the combination of sugar,

29:00

fat and salt is like highly addictive. And these

29:02

food companies know that, right? And they know the

29:05

exact right amount of sugar, fat, salt that they

29:07

put in these foods that

29:12

result in you having this

29:14

addiction to the thing. So

29:19

when you're addicted to something, it's A, it's very

29:21

hard to stop. And when you do stop, you

29:24

have to replace that with something else.

29:29

But I guess like, what

29:31

I'm getting at is when

29:34

I ask why is it like,

29:39

often when people are dealing with stress

29:41

and overwhelm and trauma and things that

29:43

happen in life, they start

29:45

looking for external things to create

29:48

comfort. I was going to say, yeah, comfort, it's

29:50

comfort eating. Yeah, and I think

29:52

a lot of people can resonate that not

29:54

just with like the food, but other external

29:57

things that they're trying to use to control

30:00

what they're going through. And

30:02

I think that's why, I mean that's one of the reasons

30:05

why we have such a problem, right? Because that stuff is

30:07

so accessible to us. It's everywhere.

30:09

It's really interesting, you say that, like reflecting

30:11

on it. So I stopped drinking,

30:13

what, three years ago? But when

30:15

you stop something, you replace it with something as well,

30:17

right? So probably, just kind

30:19

of psychoanalyzing myself, went into that

30:21

kind of comfort food space of

30:23

being like, well, I don't repress

30:26

my feelings with alcohols anymore, and

30:28

I was repressing with food and yeah, those

30:30

good food areas. Your

30:32

eating has been so clean for, I don't know,

30:35

the last 10 weeks, three months. So what have

30:37

you replaced it, what have you replaced that with?

30:41

Oh shit, I don't know. Exercise,

30:43

learning, investing, you know, it's like,

30:46

that's the good journey, sorry to answer

30:48

the question. The reality is

30:50

what you've replaced it with is

30:52

learning. It is like exercise, all

30:54

that good stuff, you know. It's like

30:57

reconnecting with the friendships and, you know,

30:59

having a new relationship, and it's all

31:01

this good stuff, man. And all that

31:04

nonsense, all that external stuff that we're

31:06

latching to, it's

31:09

all bullshit, you know. And

31:14

often, it takes, for

31:17

human beings, it takes

31:19

something to happen, something significant to happen,

31:21

normally to your health. You

31:24

get something taken away from you, and then you're like,

31:26

right, I'll do anything now

31:28

to get that back. And a lot of people have

31:30

to hit that rock bottom or that gnarly

31:33

thing to happen for them to

31:35

make changes. It's like a weird part

31:37

of being a human being, I guess, but I

31:41

think a better idea is to not

31:44

have to go through that. Yeah. I

31:47

just think it's frustrating. I find it really

31:49

frustrating, people that let their

31:51

health go, because

31:56

what we're doing is we're letting... We're

32:00

letting these other people win. I

32:02

mean take for example you go to the supermarket and you

32:04

go look at the Serial section that

32:07

serial section is designed to get kids hooked to

32:09

the food you look at Coco pops What do

32:11

they use they use animation on the you know

32:13

they use some cartoons and it's all designed for

32:15

kids to like look at it and Resonate

32:19

with the imagery and then like

32:23

I mean these kids are addicted to the stuff and these People

32:26

these food chains they these companies they

32:28

know that I always just think

32:32

If them in like what am I

32:34

gonna I? Wouldn't

32:37

do that to my kids I wouldn't buy my

32:39

kids that food and there's another thing here where

32:41

it's like it's hard to eat healthy You know

32:43

because it's expensive, but it's actually not

32:46

You know that that food is actually expensive the

32:48

fast food is actually now expensive right? It's much

32:51

cheaper to buy some some blade steak or some

32:53

chuck steak and put chuck it in the slow

32:56

cooker with some potatoes and kumara it's like That's

32:59

cheaper than buying Macas or

33:01

eating this crap artificial food that creates so much

33:03

chemical stress we talk about in the workshop You

33:05

know the body system that uses the most amount

33:07

of energy is the digestive system That stuff has

33:09

to get from your mouth all the way out

33:11

through your digestive track out to your ass And

33:13

if you're just shoveling crap, and that's a lot

33:15

of chemical stress right. It's a lot of energy

33:17

that you're using I Get

33:21

like Well,

33:23

I just get frustrated Because

33:25

of what I've been exposed to and

33:27

what I've seen and it is just

33:29

lifestyle disease. It's all reversible It's all

33:31

avoidable. I drive like to

33:34

work and in the mornings and you

33:37

know you drive past the deer and you see these kids

33:39

coming out and they're drinking V drinks and They're

33:42

eating chips for breakfast like man.

33:45

We've got such a it's such a Problem

33:47

that is now entrenched in society

33:49

and it's become the norm You

33:53

know what's so appealing Dave about you, and

33:55

I notice this on the course is how

33:57

much you care like the genuine like here

34:00

that comes out when you're speaking about these things.

34:02

And I wanted to move

34:05

into how the business is going,

34:07

because when we had

34:09

you last on, we weren't that far removed

34:11

from Woody's workshop. And it was you, and

34:13

you were starting out, and

34:15

I was on one of the early Kamantha pressure

34:17

courses. But in the last 14 months,

34:20

I've just been seeing you from a far,

34:22

some of the talent that's been coming through

34:24

in the groups in the building. How has

34:26

the business been going since you were last

34:28

on? The

34:30

business in the last year has been about, because

34:33

there's been quite rapid growth in the business.

34:35

And running

34:37

a business doesn't come natural to me. I've just finished 14 years

34:40

of working on an ambulance. Technology,

34:43

all that stuff has gone straight over my head.

34:48

The training is, I find the training easy. It's

34:50

running the business that is difficult.

34:52

And because I am the business,

34:56

it's constant. And I've really had

34:58

to learn to detach from the business and

35:00

be able to detach

35:02

from the business

35:06

and my personal life. And

35:08

that's really difficult. The

35:11

other thing that I've learned about running a business

35:13

and my whole life, I've

35:15

never liked the red tape stuff, all the

35:17

systems and protocols. Whenever I've been in a

35:20

job where they start, when

35:22

I first started life-galing, I did

35:24

that for 10 years professionally. And

35:27

I traveled overseas doing it. And it got

35:29

to a point where they started bringing all this

35:31

red tape stuff, all these rules, all these

35:33

regulations that took away the autonomy from the person

35:35

to make decisions on the beach around the management

35:38

of the beach. And so I was out. It

35:41

started happening in the ambulance service to a degree. And

35:43

I've always pushed back against that. So when I started

35:45

my own business, I was very reluctant to put all

35:47

these systems and protocols in place. And

35:50

it was just about just going out there and doing

35:52

the thing and making it up as I go along

35:54

and not having. And I thought that that would unlock

35:57

my creativity more. But what I learned, and

35:59

I've had some really integral people in place to

36:01

help me understand this is that the more

36:03

systems and protocols you have, the more creative

36:06

it creates more creativity. And

36:09

so it was a whole mindset shift for

36:11

me. And this last year is about bringing

36:13

in these systems and protocols and automating some

36:16

things and making things run more smoothly. And

36:18

I'm learning about all of that. And it's

36:20

challenging. And being a

36:26

small business, you have to understand all parts

36:28

of the business, right? But

36:30

I think the biggest thing that I've learned is

36:32

you've got to have the right people. And you

36:34

hear this like growing up, you've got to surround

36:36

yourself by the right people, you have to have the

36:39

right people in place. And that's really resonated with

36:41

me through growing this business, you've got to find

36:43

the right people. And I feel like the business is

36:45

at a place now where we're

36:47

starting to put and we have a

36:49

team that we're building now. You know,

36:51

it's not just me. It's

36:54

a small team of people and that's integral

36:56

to getting to my vision

36:59

and my goal with this business. You know,

37:01

like Jamal talks about that law of attraction,

37:03

has that been your experience through running the

37:05

business? Is that people have just been drawn

37:07

to what you're trying to do? Man, that

37:09

makes the hairs in the back of my neck stand up because

37:12

it is so true. Even

37:16

like you guys know, Dye,

37:18

she's now, you know, our business manager. Dye

37:20

Foster, absolute weapon helping us too. Yeah. Shout

37:22

out Dye. She was a client of mine.

37:25

So I always knew that I needed someone

37:27

there to overlook the

37:29

business, right? I just didn't know who it was. I didn't

37:31

know how to find that person. Dye

37:34

was a client of mine. And,

37:38

you know, she ended up

37:40

being our business mentor. So yeah, it

37:42

has these things do fall

37:44

into place when I

37:47

think when you're just aligned and you

37:49

have a clear idea of where you're

37:51

going. And as

37:54

part of that, because

37:56

I have big drive to get it there, but

37:58

I'm also mindful of like. Not burning

38:00

people and being a good person and

38:02

I'm in a giving back and all

38:04

that stuff. Nothing when you do that

38:07

things come back to that war of

38:09

attrition. I believe in that totally one

38:11

hundred of since and has been so

38:13

many other things that you notice really

38:15

uncanny things like us: Toner am I

38:17

bought this Max ah computer. Out

38:20

and I had a what would the thing that was

38:22

doing my hidden and and segment back to my old

38:25

computer. I dismiss that sounds like Knoblauch. gotta learn about

38:27

this. And so. That.

38:29

Same day when I siege enough. gotta learn

38:31

about this. Was walking through the airport to

38:33

fly to Bomb Wellington and I was walking

38:35

past the bookshop. And. All I

38:38

did I just happened to glance down

38:40

mysore of a book or on i'm

38:42

the user's guide to them are. So.

38:46

Does does it just his Happened to sit and

38:48

Isis thought that was the first. Visit.

38:51

They kind of stuff happens to me all the

38:53

time and blows my mind. Set

38:55

Is has had no adam explain that the law

38:57

of attraction, but it's something. We'll.

39:01

Be right back after this short break.

39:07

Knew anything about New Zealand? Is it so

39:09

small that when you're really good at something

39:11

word gets around quick. and when you start

39:14

dominating that sort of elite sports scene and

39:16

you've been working with Israel lot of son

39:18

year and Qatar France muscle to Can Billing

39:20

and Joseph Parker and I think the Highlanders

39:22

and I saw the warriors out there and

39:24

I was like man that has spread so

39:27

fast. But as no surprise to me you

39:29

know that when you've got a whole warriors

39:31

squad common out to train with you for

39:33

a day for something that you've built by

39:35

yourself and is. that a moment we your

39:37

detect. D. Take time to think

39:40

this is cool. Have been trying to

39:42

lately. I haven't. Historically

39:44

it's has been like. You

39:48

does whole thing is you never make it

39:50

People that think that the dove my the

39:52

are I'm. We. Know what they're

39:54

like? You know that? you

39:57

never make it and of i never

39:59

think like, oh man, this is, because

40:01

sometimes people say to me, you

40:05

know, people have even

40:07

said to me, you've made it. And I'm like,

40:09

man, I'm so far away from where

40:11

I want to be. It's

40:13

from my vision and my goals and

40:16

my journey. And

40:19

I think it's important to stop and

40:21

reflect not on the things that you've

40:24

achieved, but the process. And so I will,

40:26

and I've made a real point of this,

40:28

especially in the last three months, to really

40:30

reward the process, the discipline that I've showed,

40:33

the focus, the perseverance, the dealing with

40:35

the setbacks. Those are the things

40:37

that I praise myself for not working with this person

40:39

or working with this team or achieving

40:42

this outcome. I

40:45

think if you praise those types

40:47

of things, what tends to happen

40:49

is when you don't achieve them,

40:52

it kind of, I think

40:54

if you just keep rewarding the

40:56

outcome, the focus is in the wrong place.

40:59

When you say you reward yourself for these

41:01

things, what does that mean? How do you

41:03

reward yourself? I'm a good

41:05

burger. Yeah. Go for a service. No, I

41:07

just sit down and just reflect. And that's

41:09

just that self-talk, man. That I think is

41:14

so important because you can, I

41:18

think you can just get into that

41:20

mindset of just constantly looking forward and

41:22

you take one thing off, but

41:26

then you're straight on to the next thing and

41:28

you never stop to actually reflect

41:31

on what you have

41:33

achieved by

41:35

having a solid process and

41:37

by being process focused. If

41:39

that makes sense. And are you constantly trying

41:41

to refine your process? Because from the outside

41:43

looking at it and you've just kind

41:45

of alluded to it as well, it would seem like Dave's

41:48

got it all sorted. But are you

41:50

using your own stuff in your workshop

41:52

and then tinkering and presenting it back

41:55

to people in a different way? If

41:57

I wasn't using that stuff, I

41:59

would be an absolute. loop fraud and

42:02

from the very start it's always been

42:04

and I'm not perfect and I don't

42:06

get it right and but

42:08

it's always been very important for me if I'm

42:12

giving you something to do or I'm

42:15

pushing something I have

42:17

to deeply understand it and

42:19

you know I've been through like in my life a

42:21

lot of stress and pressure and

42:25

even like here like building

42:27

this business has been stressful right

42:29

and I will often go back

42:31

into my old patterns I just

42:34

think now I'm much more aware of it when

42:37

I do but it's

42:40

a constant work in progress and

42:43

the things the systems that I've bought into my life

42:45

to get the balance right between stress and recovery what

42:49

I found is if I go away from

42:51

them you know if I stop reconnecting with

42:53

nature the social interaction the exercise the investing

42:55

in my my mental health and things like

42:57

meditation if I stop doing

43:00

all that stuff it doesn't take long to get

43:02

burnt out and that's I guess that's

43:04

just the result of how we're living nowadays you

43:06

know we live in concrete jungles were exposed to

43:08

so much acute stress I think

43:10

more than any other time and civilization

43:14

and so what

43:16

I'm seeing is people

43:19

that if they don't have these skills or

43:22

they don't have ways to shift back into

43:24

a recovery state in their day they just

43:26

get burnt out they become very reactive and

43:29

that starts manifesting and things like irritability

43:33

focusing and ripples over into their sleep

43:35

and interactions with people

43:37

and so basically

43:40

you know everything that I've created my business

43:42

has been things that I've used on myself

43:46

to navigate stress and pressure

43:48

and everything that I've been

43:50

through and the thing I like about it

43:52

is it's not a silver bullet you don't go to a

43:54

workshop or have an interaction with you and go yeah he's

43:57

given me all the answers and I just got to follow this

43:59

this this and things will be good. You've got

44:01

to adapt it to your own situation. Yeah, well, no one

44:03

has all the answers. We look at... No

44:07

one has all the answers. We're all trying

44:10

to just figure this whole thing out. But

44:13

what I've learned through this whole process and

44:16

trying to find balance in my own life, and

44:18

I've been deep down all sorts of rabbit holes,

44:20

and I've tried those little

44:22

one-percenters, and I've tried a lot

44:25

of stuff. And I

44:28

came to a realization that what

44:31

I talk about is getting the foundations right. And

44:34

if you don't get the foundations right, you

44:38

can build a house on top of crappy

44:40

foundations, but the cracks will start appearing. And

44:42

if you don't get the foundations right in your life,

44:44

the cracks will start appearing. And you see this in

44:46

athletes. They get right to the very

44:48

top, just by that brute

44:50

force biting down, pushing, the

44:52

dedication, all that stuff, they get to the top. But

44:55

if they don't have solid foundations, the cracks start appearing.

44:57

You see this in every sport. But

44:59

I also see it in the people that I work with. And

45:01

so it can be very

45:03

difficult when you have pushed to the top in

45:05

whatever you're doing, and the cracks

45:07

start appearing to then go back and

45:09

get the foundations right. Because it's like, the

45:12

mindset is, once the cracks start appearing and you're at the

45:14

top, what do you do? You add more load. Well,

45:17

that's the problem that the scales have tipped,

45:19

and that's what's starting to cause

45:22

the weakness. And so in the

45:25

foundations, I call

45:27

them the big things, not the small things,

45:29

they're not the one percentage. These are like

45:32

the most important things, and it's pillars

45:35

of health. And these are

45:37

the things like reconnecting with nature and

45:39

social interaction, and prioritizing your sleep and

45:41

exercise, and some

45:44

sort of stress mitigation and recovery

45:47

in the form of, I think, most

45:49

powerful ways of meditation, and

45:51

having a better understanding of your mind and body.

45:54

Chucked on back on that 20 minute. Breathing

45:58

flow. No, no, the deep, deep stress. The

46:01

non-sleep deep rest. That's the one. Shit, it

46:03

was good. Shit, it

46:05

was good last night. Yeah, these are tools that

46:08

anyone can integrate into a busy day to get

46:11

the balance right between stress and recovery. And

46:13

we talk a lot about this in the

46:15

training, but also with my clients and the

46:17

workshop is if you don't get that

46:19

balance right between stress and

46:22

recovery, what it actually reflects is

46:24

an imbalanced nervous system. Two

46:27

parts of that autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic,

46:29

the red pushing, high

46:32

energized state, high arousal, adrenaline, and the blue,

46:34

the parasympathetic, the recovery part of your nervous

46:36

system. And we tend to spend much more

46:39

time in the red and then we adapt

46:41

to that. And there's so many

46:43

ways that we adapt to that, but a

46:45

lot of that is around difficulty focusing,

46:48

irritability, reduced empathy and connection with others,

46:50

difficulty sleeping, because being in that red

46:52

is a place of survival and reactivity. And

46:56

it just so happens because we work in concrete

46:58

jungles and we're so busy nowadays and there's so

47:00

much acute stress, it's very easy to get stuck

47:02

there. And we've seen

47:04

this coming through COVID. We

47:06

have seen the result of a large portion

47:10

of the population living in the red because

47:13

that was a time of fear

47:16

and reactivity. But

47:20

talk about this again, like in

47:23

the workshop, if you have two people, two partners and they're

47:25

both in the red, what are they going to do? They're

47:27

just going to keep going like this. Every time there's an

47:29

argument, they're going to want to win because it is a

47:31

place of survival and reactivity,

47:33

emotional regulation, critical

47:36

thinking, short

47:38

term critical thinking. And

47:40

being more calm comes

47:42

from that blue part

47:44

of our nervous system.

47:47

Just jumping back into the sort of

47:49

business mindset. When

47:52

you have these events coming, 24 people flying from

47:54

all around New Zealand and around the

47:56

world to come on these courses, paying good money, there's an expectation that

47:58

they're going to be able to do that. that this is going to

48:00

be epic. Are you nervous? Are

48:02

you stressed out in the week leading

48:05

up to it? Look,

48:07

just coming here today, I felt

48:09

some anxiety, some apprehension, some

48:11

tension. Why? Because I care about the

48:13

thing. Why? Because I'm scared of failure.

48:17

Why? Because I'm scared of what other people might think. And

48:22

so the

48:25

answer is yes. The answer

48:27

is yes. I worry. But

48:31

what I understand is that is normal. And

48:33

I have a stress-enhancing mindset, meaning that

48:35

those emotions, those thoughts, and that thinking

48:38

that comes from that, to

48:40

me, it's normal. And to me, it enhances performance. So

48:43

coming in here today, having a bit of, I

48:48

wouldn't call it anxiety, but you're kind of like, you want

48:50

it to go well, of course you do. That

48:54

to me enhances performance. And

48:57

the best performers in the world are

48:59

the ones that have a stress-enhancing

49:01

mindset. But I've

49:03

had to learn that. And I

49:06

guess the part of my business that is

49:08

difficult is running these workshops

49:10

or going and doing the keynote or working with athletes.

49:12

You have to perform at a very high level. That's

49:15

expected of you, right? And

49:18

you have to do that over and over and

49:20

over and over again. And I

49:22

guess with

49:26

repeat exposure to challenge, I

49:30

think it dampens that, well, it does.

49:32

It dampens the stress response. So you

49:34

still feel a bit of

49:36

anxiety, a bit of worry, a

49:38

bit of stress, a bit of apprehension, a bit of fear, a

49:40

bit of tension. But

49:42

it's not as pronounced. And I

49:45

think you learn to leverage it to your advantage.

49:48

The other cool part of the business

49:50

is that you have these three-day intensives,

49:53

right? Yeah, we've actually got a couple.

49:57

I'm pumped about this one. We've got a couple from

49:59

North. Not a couple. two people,

50:01

two friends from Norway who have made

50:03

the trip and they arrived yesterday.

50:06

So their three-day intensive starts tomorrow.

50:08

So that's three days going through

50:10

the entire training curriculum, really

50:12

immersed in the training. It's like taking

50:14

six months of training and condensing them

50:16

to three days and then we program

50:19

for them so that they can go

50:21

away and that three days is again

50:23

like about the knowledge, the skills and

50:25

the practical simulations pertaining to human performance

50:27

and stress mitigation and understanding you know

50:30

how we operate. We're just made up of 11 different

50:32

body systems you know and it's having

50:34

a better visual representation of

50:37

how all of those systems work

50:39

together and where

50:41

are you investing your time and energy. Everyone

50:43

is trying to achieve or I think most

50:45

people, I mean some people don't care about

50:47

their health, but I think most people are

50:49

trying to achieve happiness or

50:53

a feeling and how you

50:55

do that is to achieve optimal

50:57

health and once you achieve

50:59

optimal health you can achieve peak performance. But

51:02

achieving optimal health is about understanding how all

51:04

these body systems work together if one is

51:06

off and affects every single other body system.

51:08

It's like the digestive system. If you're shoveling

51:11

crap into that thing it's going to affect

51:13

your cardiovascular system, it's going to affect your

51:15

muscular system. They're not separate

51:17

these things, they all work together. So

51:21

back to your thing, this three-day intensive is like

51:25

I find it incredibly motivating that

51:27

these people have flown from all

51:30

around the world, Norway, and the

51:32

one before this was a guy from Singapore. The

51:35

brand is international, people are picking up on it through

51:37

just word of mouth and you

51:39

know do you find out what the connection is?

51:41

I've never done any marketing around the three-day intensive

51:43

part from what's on the website. So yeah it's

51:45

a lot of that. You've done some now Dave.

51:47

Yeah, look out now, they're going to come for

51:49

you. So yeah a

51:52

lot of that is word of mouth is like the most powerful

51:54

form of marketing. And

51:57

I love the three days because it

52:00

allows you to get deeper,

52:03

peel back those superficial layers, get deeper

52:05

into the training and a deeper understanding

52:07

of the person that you're

52:09

working with because I don't, you know, there's

52:12

lots of people obviously that know way more

52:14

than me about all of the stuff that

52:16

I'm training, mental skill development,

52:18

nervous system regulation, breathing development.

52:24

I think what I'm very good at is getting

52:27

on the same level as people

52:29

and understanding human behaviour and piecing

52:33

together where these people have come from and

52:36

why they're at this point with these patterns

52:38

that are holding them back. And a lot

52:40

of that comes from working in the ambulance

52:42

service in over

52:44

13, 14 years dealing with

52:46

thousands and thousands of patients with different

52:48

presentations and from different walks of life

52:50

and from different ages. And

52:52

so I always loved that aspect of

52:54

the job and that's what I love about what

52:57

I'm doing now is it's most

52:59

of it just comes back to understanding

53:01

human behaviour and understanding that person

53:03

and that unique individual and they

53:05

bring their own, you know,

53:08

their own strengths and weaknesses. That

53:10

is your genius zone is that

53:12

you with your cat backwards and

53:14

bare feet and t-shirt and jeans,

53:16

breaking down really complex sort

53:19

of scientific theories into

53:21

really easily understandable sort

53:24

of lessons. And with Jamal, you

53:26

come from it with the sort of, you

53:28

know, the scientific side and then Jamal is

53:30

more sort of the spiritual, the feeling

53:32

side. It works really nicely together. Anyway,

53:34

that's big enough ad for your course.

53:37

One thing though, a little bit like

53:40

us with the podcast, you get a

53:42

front row seat to some amazing people

53:44

that come through all the various courses

53:47

that you run or all the various contact

53:49

points that you have that must be really

53:51

uplifting for you as an individual to learn

53:53

from other people as well. Yeah.

53:57

The sum of like If

54:00

we take it back to like working with an athlete, you

54:04

know, there's always like an

54:07

end goal, obviously, and

54:11

it is never about the

54:14

relationship is never about me

54:19

giving all the answers. It can

54:21

never be that it's like I

54:23

sometimes I feel like I learn more from the people

54:25

I train than what I'm teaching them. But

54:27

it's always like a two way thing, right? If we're going to

54:29

work something out, I don't have all the answers, but together we

54:31

can work it out. We'll

54:34

be right back after this short break. This

54:41

is a really good time to introduce

54:43

Paul Cole, who's the world's number one squash

54:45

player, and Dave's going to help us get

54:47

him on the podcast one day. But

54:51

he's got some words. He would. I reckon

54:53

he definitely would. He's got some words that I want to read,

54:56

and it's going to sort of lead us into a few other talking points.

54:58

But he says, I was

55:00

coming off the toughest season I ever had when

55:02

I reached out to Dave's by the end of

55:04

the season, I could barely last playing 45 minutes

55:07

without being exhausted. Reaching out

55:09

the day was the best thing I've done. Not

55:11

only did he help me realize the root cause

55:14

of this, but he also gave me the tools

55:16

to deal with this by myself, which is game

55:18

changing. I've become addicted to breathing and my resting

55:20

heart rate has dropped by 10 BPM. That's

55:23

money. Stress is a killer in life and

55:26

sports. So I'm keen for you to

55:28

take us to the start. How does

55:30

someone like Paul Cole get in touch with you and

55:32

what was that first session like? Just

55:35

through Instagram, just through DM and Instagram.

55:39

And then what I would normally

55:41

do is just look into that person a little bit and

55:45

their journey. And you only have

55:47

to Google someone's name and it's all there. So

55:50

what I knew before even meeting Paul

55:52

was that he had a

55:54

huge drive for achieving

55:57

the power of the

55:59

team. pinnacle of the sport. And so I

56:02

knew that I was dealing with a human

56:04

that was self-motivated and had amazing discipline. And

56:06

like these are like the traits you see

56:08

in most athletes or people that are achieving

56:10

highly. And then what

56:12

I understand before even getting on that call

56:15

is like, and you

56:18

see this like time and time again

56:20

is if you don't balance all that

56:22

out, the cracks start appearing. Because

56:26

that again, that stuff, you know,

56:28

that, that just that drive that

56:31

perseverance that discipline that

56:34

can get you right to the top. But unless

56:37

you have the foundations, like what we talked

56:39

about the cracks start appearing and like

56:42

part of working with Cole was just finding enjoyment in

56:44

the game again, and not taking it

56:46

so seriously, there was, there's

56:48

often like a huge emphasis on outcomes, especially

56:50

if you've already achieved a world title, it's

56:53

like, well, now you got to start protecting

56:55

that thing. And like, so the bars being

56:57

lifted here, and you start

56:59

thinking about that the outcome

57:02

that amplifies stress and takes you away

57:04

from the process. And

57:06

so I often,

57:09

one thing that I say is like, we

57:11

often look for complex

57:13

solutions to simple problems. And

57:19

for Paul, it was,

57:22

it was just that it was like, it's

57:24

complicated when you're stuck up here. And so

57:26

sometimes it's about just getting out of there,

57:28

getting back into your body, start enjoying the

57:30

process again. And, you know,

57:33

the outcome is

57:35

more likely to take care of itself if you focus

57:37

on the process and bringing

57:39

some enjoyment back into what you're doing.

57:41

And sorry, Carol. Yeah,

57:44

and then just one thing like about

57:46

that testimonial from Paul, you know,

57:49

he said stress is a killer. He

57:52

we've gone deep into all of this stuff. What

57:55

he means is uncontrolled stress, not having

58:00

the ability to control your own body's stress

58:02

response and stress and pressure moments because stress

58:04

is not bad for you, stress is actually

58:06

good for you. If it's

58:09

controlled and so the training that we do,

58:12

Paul is about getting him to

58:14

understand his own body's stress response and how

58:16

to have more control of that in

58:19

pivotal moments in the

58:21

game but also being able to integrate

58:23

it into his training so it becomes a pattern. And

58:26

what are the point I was about to make, what I

58:28

love about that is you would put him through the same

58:30

things that we went through on the weekend more or less,

58:32

right? Absolutely. Look,

58:35

the exercises are the same

58:38

for everyone. It's just how

58:40

you change the variables of that exercise and

58:42

how you apply it to the person, right?

58:44

And this comes back to like biologically, physiologically,

58:46

neurologically, we're all the same. And we tend

58:48

to hold athletes up on this pedestal and

58:52

we think that they're so different from us, they're exactly

58:54

the same, right? The

58:56

difference between an athlete and like general population

58:58

is that they train specifically

59:00

to be able to deal with the

59:02

stress and pressure moments. But

59:05

the reality is that we all experience

59:07

those moments whether you're going into the

59:09

boardroom to deliver in front of or you have to

59:11

stand up and talk in front of a group of

59:14

people or you run a business or you're a mum

59:16

or you're a dad, everyone needs these skills. And

59:19

so yeah, like back to your point, it is the

59:21

same exercises, the same skills, the same knowledge. It's

59:23

just how you apply it with the person.

59:25

And I love working with

59:28

Paul because and Paul's gone in an

59:30

absolute tear and the work with me

59:32

is just one small bit of the

59:34

puzzle, right? But

59:37

it's a really important piece around mental agility

59:39

and understanding like his

59:41

values and his goals and his

59:44

mindset. And

59:46

yeah, a big part of that was

59:50

I think if you can make someone just aware, just

59:53

awareness alone will create huge shifts in performance,

59:55

just being aware of their own patterns and

59:57

how they're going to be able to do

59:59

that. how it's holding them back. Because often when you're

1:00:01

in the thing, these are patterns that you've done your whole

1:00:04

life right, or these are patterns that have got you right

1:00:06

to the very top. And so they

1:00:08

can those patterns can become part of

1:00:11

your identity. The

1:00:13

reality is they're not and you can change those

1:00:15

patterns. So the yeah, the workers like a big

1:00:17

part of the workers just putting your finger on

1:00:19

those patterns that are good for performance and the

1:00:21

patterns that are, you know, starting

1:00:24

to become detrimental to performance. I

1:00:27

love how we've created the space where we get

1:00:29

world leading experts to come in and just kind

1:00:31

of like help educate us. But

1:00:33

I'm going to ask you and it's kind of

1:00:36

a bit of a personal one for me because

1:00:38

it's some advice I need with I need. This

1:00:41

life we've created is a

1:00:43

lot going on. And it's a busy business now. And for

1:00:45

the first time, I think in my

1:00:48

life, it's it's

1:00:50

potentially getting overwhelming. And

1:00:52

when I finish at work, whenever that is, when

1:00:54

I go back and re engage with my family,

1:00:57

it's really hard to turn that

1:01:00

switch off and be present and not

1:01:02

have those things running through my head.

1:01:05

So what I know this this is something

1:01:07

you work through. What's your advice come under

1:01:09

pressure to point out? The

1:01:14

advice is that what

1:01:18

you're basically doing all day is preparing

1:01:20

for battle, right? That's what you know,

1:01:22

which what is you are demanding

1:01:24

of yourself physically and mentally is a lot. You

1:01:26

know, you're trying to build this business. There's a

1:01:28

lot of stuff coming at you. There's a

1:01:31

lot of different stresses that the business brings.

1:01:33

But also you add life into that. And

1:01:35

there's a lot of stuff coming at you.

1:01:38

And that's what you're talking about, right? And

1:01:40

it starts becoming overwhelming and how that manifest

1:01:42

is cognitively. That's difficult focus. It puts in

1:01:44

parts of the day you get brain fog,

1:01:47

you get irritability. The

1:01:53

solution is and it's, it's

1:01:55

an easy one. But

1:01:59

it's also very difficult because

1:02:01

stress is addictive and a busy

1:02:03

lifestyle is addictive and we find

1:02:05

it very hard throughout

1:02:08

our day to stop and

1:02:10

shift back into a calm state because

1:02:13

we believe that By

1:02:15

doing that we are going to be less productive

1:02:18

so bear with me and So

1:02:22

we avoid it and we also

1:02:24

find it easier to be in

1:02:26

an upregulated state in a

1:02:28

stressed state Don't not talk about high level stress

1:02:30

I'm just talking about the stress of deadlines and

1:02:32

everything else that comes with your day we

1:02:35

find that space easier to sit

1:02:37

in than the space of The

1:02:43

opposite of that which is shifting

1:02:45

into a calm centered focus

1:02:48

state and so the

1:02:50

answer To

1:02:53

this how you create sustainability in what you're

1:02:55

doing because you want to be doing this

1:02:57

in five ten years time, right? You

1:03:00

want to be here with Seamus? in

1:03:03

five ten years time This

1:03:05

thing this thing will be massive But

1:03:08

you have to get the balance right

1:03:11

in your day between pushing

1:03:14

Getting stuff done. You know two

1:03:16

three hours of driving and

1:03:19

then Stopping

1:03:21

and actively shifting back into a

1:03:23

calm state now how you do

1:03:26

that is You

1:03:28

have to unlock that creative part of your mind.

1:03:31

Well, how do I in a busy day? How

1:03:33

do I balance that? How

1:03:35

do I find the balance between stress and recovery? Well,

1:03:37

what are the most powerful forms of recovery? I mean,

1:03:39

there's a park down the road. It's like going for

1:03:41

a 10 minute walk That's taking

1:03:44

15 minutes of your day to meet up with mate

1:03:46

and have a coffee It's about exercising,

1:03:48

you know going for a walk around the block

1:03:50

or going to the gym as part of your

1:03:53

daily routine Now

1:03:55

these are all things that Allow

1:03:58

you to find that balance

1:04:01

between stress and recovery. And some of those things

1:04:03

are actively shifting into a calm state, meditating,

1:04:06

doing a five-minute breathing flow in your day, going

1:04:08

down to the park, just being in nature. But

1:04:11

others are actually creating stress,

1:04:14

exercise. And what will happen when

1:04:16

you do that in your day, when you exercise and

1:04:18

you create more stress, because it is stress, it

1:04:20

is more load, is that you will have what

1:04:23

we call rebound effects. So you'll come out of

1:04:25

that exercise, and you'll feel more calm. So the

1:04:27

exercise, you'll get that sympathetic part of your nervous

1:04:29

system. When you come out of that, you feel

1:04:31

good. And you have this rebound effect when the

1:04:33

parasympathetic nervous system comes back online, that rest and

1:04:35

recovery part of your nervous system. Does that make

1:04:37

sense? So the answer to your

1:04:40

question is you

1:04:43

can continue in that

1:04:45

space of being busy all day and pushing,

1:04:48

and you'll get a lot of stuff done.

1:04:50

But you'll keep getting burnt out. And when you get burnt

1:04:52

out, you'll go and you'll take a holiday, or you'll take

1:04:55

two or three days off. And then you'll pick yourself up,

1:04:57

and you'll go again. You'll get burnt out again. Some people

1:04:59

do that in their entire lives. There's a huge cost associated

1:05:01

with that, and that's the cost that

1:05:03

the effect it has on your physical and mental health. So

1:05:06

roundabout way, man, what I'm trying to

1:05:08

say is prioritize your

1:05:10

day. So these are things that you have to

1:05:13

put in your calendar. I'm going to exercise for

1:05:15

15 minutes. I'm going to go for a jog.

1:05:18

I'm going to do a five-minute meditation. I'm

1:05:21

going to do a six-minute breathing flow. These

1:05:23

are simple things, man. But

1:05:25

they are very powerful in balancing your nervous

1:05:27

system. And if you

1:05:29

don't find that balance in your day, do

1:05:31

not expect to leave work and then to

1:05:33

go home and have balance and switch off.

1:05:36

Because you've been in an up-regulated, reactive,

1:05:40

high energized, high arousal state all day. We're not

1:05:42

robots. We can't just go home and switch off,

1:05:44

right? You're going to carry that

1:05:46

energy back into the household. And

1:05:49

so there are some things you can

1:05:52

do, as well as finding balance in your day,

1:05:54

to then be able to leave work at work

1:05:56

and go back into the home environment. And these

1:05:58

are things like that. You

1:06:01

know, with some of my clients, it

1:06:03

might be on the way home listening to a

1:06:05

podcast. So you get your

1:06:07

mind out of work and back onto something else.

1:06:09

It might be... Which podcast? It

1:06:12

might be before, you

1:06:14

know, at the end of the day you go and exercise. It's

1:06:16

like these things that intercept. It

1:06:19

might be like before, at home

1:06:21

you have an ice bath. And before you go into the

1:06:23

house, you jump in your ice bath for two minutes. These

1:06:25

are all things that intercept your physical and mental state. Yeah.

1:06:31

I was amazed thinking about phones and social

1:06:34

media. Like when you drove that point home

1:06:36

at the workshop about... For

1:06:38

a lot of us, default would just go on our phone

1:06:40

and just scroll mindlessly. But the way

1:06:42

you were explaining it, you'll do it better than I

1:06:44

do. But your brain ain't used to taking

1:06:46

in all of that information. No. No, it's

1:06:49

not. Yeah,

1:06:52

well... Have

1:06:55

some of this liquid death. It's

1:06:58

not an energy drink. This

1:07:01

is sparkling water with a little bit

1:07:03

of lime. Yeah,

1:07:05

the phone's a huge

1:07:07

problem because our brains weren't designed to

1:07:09

interpret this much stimulus and information

1:07:11

in one day. And so the phone has

1:07:13

basically become an extension of our arm, right?

1:07:17

And what

1:07:19

we tend to do when we do

1:07:21

find that quiet space during the day,

1:07:23

or I call it the void... That

1:07:28

moment of the day when we find

1:07:30

boredom, as we pick up the phone,

1:07:32

we shove it in front of our face. And then what

1:07:35

is happening is all of that stimulus and information is

1:07:37

being fed through to your brain, through your senses, through

1:07:39

your eyes. And your brain has to

1:07:41

interpret all this information. What do we do with it?

1:07:43

We put in our short-term memory, our long-term memory. Do

1:07:45

we attach an emotion to it? And that's stored in

1:07:47

a different part of the brain. But

1:07:50

it's over stimulation. And it's also... the

1:07:53

scrolling is multitasking. So we are

1:07:55

just adaptive machines. So

1:07:58

the pattern that you train is the

1:08:00

pattern that comes out of it. If

1:08:02

the pattern is this, high resolution imagery,

1:08:04

constant stimulus and multitasking, then

1:08:06

that's what you start craving. That

1:08:08

becomes the addiction and that's why when

1:08:10

your phone's sitting there, you're constantly picking

1:08:13

it up because your brain

1:08:15

starts craving it. And

1:08:17

then if we look at kids in their development

1:08:19

ages where their nervous systems are in that

1:08:27

such a critical developmental

1:08:30

stage and they are forming their

1:08:32

opinions of the world based

1:08:34

on their perception, their thoughts,

1:08:36

their thinking and

1:08:40

they are doing this all the time.

1:08:42

It is terrible

1:08:45

in terms of their self

1:08:47

development and growth because what you're training is

1:08:50

a child that can't focus. And

1:08:53

if you can't focus, I

1:08:55

mean not being able to focus is terrible, right?

1:08:57

We all want to be able to focus on what

1:08:59

we're doing and be present in what we're doing. But

1:09:04

that is training a pattern of not being able

1:09:06

to be present and it's

1:09:08

training an agitated mind and that's for anyone.

1:09:11

And so yeah, for myself, this has been a massive thing

1:09:13

running a business because you do have to be on the

1:09:16

phone, right? But you don't have to be, you

1:09:19

know, at one point I was looking at the

1:09:21

amount of hours I was spending on my phone

1:09:23

and it was horrifying. That little

1:09:25

message pops up and it's like you

1:09:27

spent so long on your phone. And

1:09:29

you're like, oh, God, you're a loser.

1:09:34

But if

1:09:36

we, and even if we look at, you know, what

1:09:38

are we doing in the evening that

1:09:40

is significantly impacting

1:09:43

our sleep because sleep is the deepest form

1:09:45

of recovery, right? What

1:09:49

happens is after sundown, this is how

1:09:51

our circadian rhythm works, how our biology

1:09:53

works and our hormone releases. When the

1:09:55

sun goes down, there's no overhead bright

1:09:58

lights. We don't have... this

1:10:00

high resolution imagery or the screen. And

1:10:03

so we are in

1:10:06

an environment that is low level light and

1:10:08

that stimulates the release of melatonin from the

1:10:10

pineal gland. Melatonin is the sleep hormone, right?

1:10:13

By being on your phone in the evening, because

1:10:16

it's stimulus and bright

1:10:19

light, you are suppressing the release of melatonin

1:10:21

and instead you are getting the release of

1:10:23

adrenaline from the adrenal glands. So you're getting

1:10:25

360 degrees against your own circadian rhythm and

1:10:27

hormone release and it's just, it's

1:10:29

messing everything up, right? I mean, you know what it's like

1:10:31

to be on your phone all day. You feel absolutely drained. I

1:10:35

feel sorry for these kids, man. Like I

1:10:37

really, I think

1:10:41

if we don't get on top of this

1:10:43

problem in the next five to ten years, I hate to

1:10:45

think of what it's going to look like. Yeah.

1:10:48

When we spoke the other day and sort of

1:10:51

prepped for this, you may mention that, you know,

1:10:53

we have a platform and there are actually some

1:10:55

important messages we need to get out around mental

1:10:57

health. And the Karma Under Pressure

1:10:59

Workshop, I think originally was a response to

1:11:02

that and to help people. Is

1:11:04

there, is it what we've already spoken about

1:11:06

or is there more of a message that

1:11:08

needs to get out there? Mel,

1:11:12

it's like, it's kind of

1:11:14

like, it's a very

1:11:16

tricky space, right? Because

1:11:23

what are the messages and how do we

1:11:25

get it out there? It's

1:11:27

difficult. And we are just, you

1:11:31

know, we're just us. Like

1:11:34

what do we do to get this message out

1:11:36

here? I think again,

1:11:38

it comes back to what I talked about at the very

1:11:40

start. We

1:11:43

make sure we are doing the thing. You

1:11:47

me and Seamus. We make sure that

1:11:49

we are prioritising our physical and mental health so that

1:11:52

these kids looking up to us, whether

1:11:54

it be our children or our children's friends or whatever,

1:11:56

see What we

1:11:58

want them to see, which is a human being who... Strong,

1:12:00

resilient, healthy, and so that's what

1:12:02

they're looking up to. That's what

1:12:04

there's a spring to. I think

1:12:06

that that that's where it starts

1:12:08

but also starts with. The.

1:12:12

Messaging that we're getting through to these kids and

1:12:14

I think the messaging as off lucky if if

1:12:17

we look at I'm. Take

1:12:19

for example, A team

1:12:21

sport team, or an athlete that

1:12:24

snails. And their david to

1:12:26

achieve something. What do we tend to do

1:12:28

as a culture? On

1:12:30

social media, you know, don't look at

1:12:32

the comments or is it or in

1:12:34

the news. We didn't pull them down.

1:12:37

right? And so what are we do? What

1:12:39

we're doing is with seeming very clear mrs to

1:12:42

do these kids that if you fail. It

1:12:44

is failure. A new going

1:12:46

to get rid for it. We

1:12:48

have all these beautiful opportunities Man when

1:12:50

these on athletes will the sport teams

1:12:53

don't succeed to foot to get behind

1:12:55

them and pop them up. Hey this

1:12:57

is the Spice years. a stepping stone

1:12:59

to success states where all the learning

1:13:01

takes place wrong. But

1:13:03

wouldn't we now have a culture that views failure

1:13:05

to something that. Isn't. Negative and and

1:13:07

this as I see this a lot with

1:13:09

the young. Console week with last skyn of

1:13:11

Food. And.

1:13:15

Yeah. And in Wyoming these other missed as they

1:13:17

that we need to get trason. I think the

1:13:19

food is a big one that's obviously him a

1:13:22

mess of problem with chemical stress and that carries

1:13:24

with it and that now seems to become the

1:13:26

norm to eat things like i bought some breakfast.

1:13:31

And say these kids are addicted to

1:13:33

show the fence help from very young

1:13:35

eight when that aren't good at they

1:13:37

lose they and I'd lose their marbles.

1:13:39

and yes I. I

1:13:41

don't. I mean at some. It's

1:13:44

like can be. And

1:13:46

if you'd looked at it from the outside, what

1:13:48

we're dealing with that can seem like an overwhelming

1:13:51

problem. But it's a starts with each individual, right?

1:13:54

I don't feel like this. Any excuse for

1:13:57

being. unhealthy

1:14:00

Obviously, we're not trying to be perfect, right?

1:14:02

I'm certainly not perfect myself, but it

1:14:05

comes back to you and just prioritizing your physical

1:14:07

and mental health over everything else, because you've only

1:14:09

got one body that's gonna last a lifetime. And

1:14:12

you've got to look after it. You made a point

1:14:15

there, you can't actually separate physical and mental health, right?

1:14:17

You asked us the question in the workshop, what

1:14:20

percentage of success is mental and what percentage is physical? And people

1:14:22

were like, are you 80, 20, 60, 40? It

1:14:26

was great. It's 100, 100. Yeah. 100%

1:14:29

mental effort and 100% physical effort. Like,

1:14:31

yeah. Yeah, because if the

1:14:33

physical body is off, if you haven't looked

1:14:35

after your physical body, it'll constantly agitate your

1:14:37

mind, right? Because you're dealing with inflammation and

1:14:39

pain and restriction in your body. And then

1:14:41

if your mind isn't on, in

1:14:44

terms of, you know, your

1:14:47

mindset and your thoughts

1:14:49

and your thinking and the emotions that you attach to

1:14:51

that, that will have

1:14:53

a huge ripple on effect into you physically. And

1:14:56

so yeah, they are the same thing. It's

1:14:58

just the human body. But

1:15:01

I do think that we have lots of

1:15:03

opportunity to

1:15:06

get the stuff out there. And

1:15:11

I think, yeah, this platform is like a great

1:15:13

platform to do that. And anyone

1:15:15

that has a platform should be pushing, you

1:15:18

know, physical and mental health. Oh

1:15:20

yeah, that's our space. Keen

1:15:22

to talk Izzy Arifania for a minute.

1:15:26

I know that you haven't worked with him recently

1:15:28

because he hadn't had a fight, but after

1:15:31

he worked with you in the buildup to his

1:15:33

loss to Sean Strickland. And you talk about the

1:15:35

sort of the pylon of someone loses or fails.

1:15:38

What does your relationship like after a

1:15:41

fight like that? Is your job done? Are

1:15:43

you still reaching out? Are you helping him

1:15:45

in any way after the fight? Good

1:15:49

question. Nah,

1:15:51

other than being supportive. And I think like

1:15:54

You have to be as an athlete, you have to be realistic. You're

1:15:56

not going to win every fight, right? You're not going to win every

1:15:58

game. You're not going to win every match. Like there has. The

1:16:00

be: you gotta be real. If

1:16:02

the hits you know it's inevitable.

1:16:04

Am. I. And.

1:16:07

I guess like the work that I'm doing

1:16:09

like you will often worked with an athlete

1:16:11

who's gone on a losing streak or is

1:16:13

coming off a winning streak. I

1:16:17

think what's important there is.

1:16:20

Really? Making sure that.

1:16:23

The. Mine Sit around. That is right. And

1:16:27

that. You know, The.

1:16:32

The. Loss or the failure as an

1:16:34

opportunity for personal growth. But it's

1:16:37

also like. The. Time we

1:16:39

have their flickr. Are you going to reflect

1:16:41

on? Okay, whatever. Do write, Whatever. Do wrong.

1:16:43

What do I need to change? But often

1:16:45

I don't think it's about reinventing the wheel.

1:16:47

it's about yeah again being realistic like you

1:16:49

com and everything and I'm improving we you

1:16:52

can but also identifying like maybe some of

1:16:54

the things that. Are

1:16:56

starting to creep and that a holding you back. And

1:16:59

I think that happens with slights. Any.

1:17:02

Athlete or any. Person

1:17:04

who's constantly telling themselves it's like

1:17:06

a constant evolution and you're trying

1:17:08

to I'm you know. Yeah, be

1:17:10

self critical and you have the

1:17:12

losses. And even when you have

1:17:14

the wins, it's like it's constantly

1:17:16

how you can get better. To

1:17:19

it you doing with those Usa guys

1:17:21

your callous and at the moment is

1:17:24

that the most extreme form of pressure

1:17:26

let that fight environment is that different?

1:17:28

So I think so. I'm.

1:17:34

Be. At not not all stresses the same

1:17:36

inaugural pressures, the same. I

1:17:40

mean. I

1:17:43

guess like and fighting the stakes are

1:17:45

quite. States:

1:17:48

you're a his smith Incident. And

1:17:51

so and Iowa also think like

1:17:53

in that environment. You.

1:17:55

Really are at such a rule of?

1:17:58

Thumb. I can. Imagine it as

1:18:00

such a rule place to be because

1:18:02

there's no on the says you. And

1:18:05

another person. right? I'm or I think often

1:18:07

like and team sports. It can be easy

1:18:10

to hide behind the team. You

1:18:12

know, to me I'm. So.

1:18:18

But I think I like all of

1:18:20

these sports. You know, the squash, the

1:18:22

tennis, the software, the referral, the rugby,

1:18:24

the league. Whatever it is this. How

1:18:27

much slight? Stress. And pressure

1:18:29

towards was busy nowadays because the sponsorship

1:18:31

involved and you know for his be

1:18:33

seen team sports like this. I'm waiting

1:18:35

right the the take your spot and

1:18:37

I'm We demand so much of these

1:18:39

athletes. it's ridiculous how much we demand

1:18:41

of them and how much we speak.

1:18:43

Men are just human beings. Will

1:18:46

be right back after this short break.

1:18:53

It must be real emotional attachments and

1:18:55

when you when you have wix are

1:18:57

closely with these guys when you're watching

1:18:59

them he says that Earth is there

1:19:01

has come up top Man I get

1:19:03

them so emotionally invested in. That

1:19:08

person or that team and you

1:19:10

want them to win so badly.

1:19:12

Or you want them to perform

1:19:14

well so badly. Ah, I'm. Because

1:19:17

yeah, you, you see the amount of

1:19:19

blood, sweat, and tears that they put

1:19:21

into it. And you

1:19:23

know I or any work with people that

1:19:26

I wouldn't work with addicted, for example, like

1:19:28

someone that doesn't. The.

1:19:32

That gotta be good people and so that the

1:19:34

Se. So I work with a really good people and

1:19:36

I think. I'm. Yet.

1:19:40

Same respect you do Well you

1:19:43

want to see. You.

1:19:47

Know you wanna see like all

1:19:50

their hard work. Paid.

1:19:52

off and that doesn't really affect you

1:19:54

when you had a result doesn't go

1:19:56

their way like am i i get

1:19:58

caught about

1:20:01

that but again it's like you got to be

1:20:03

realistic and yeah you

1:20:05

can't always win those what those like

1:20:07

those fight those fighters are interesting

1:20:10

because they their campaigns are

1:20:12

so are they

1:20:16

operating at like a peak performance level

1:20:18

between fights no way you

1:20:21

can't sustain that yeah that

1:20:23

is unsustainable because what

1:20:25

they go through in a fight

1:20:27

camp the amount of physical and

1:20:29

mental pressure and stress that's on

1:20:31

them is

1:20:34

is so significant

1:20:38

that you can't stay in that

1:20:40

space you just get burnt out

1:20:42

right and it's quite interesting fighting

1:20:45

hell and

1:20:47

fighting in particular they all have an

1:20:49

alter ego you know like it's the

1:20:51

style bender or the you

1:20:54

know don't blink a car of France they all

1:20:56

have this alter ego and I think like part

1:20:58

of that is protecting themselves because you can't live

1:21:00

in that space especially preparing for a

1:21:03

fight where you can imagine that you're constantly in a

1:21:05

physical and mental state of battle whether you're actually in

1:21:07

the training or you're thinking about the fight and

1:21:11

so I think that alter ego allows

1:21:13

them to somewhat be

1:21:16

themselves and then when they get to

1:21:18

the performance they switch into that that

1:21:20

alter ego which

1:21:23

is like maybe the hype

1:21:25

focused you know extremely disciplined

1:21:29

whatever it might be version of yourself

1:21:32

is that a strategy that anybody

1:21:35

could employ absolutely

1:21:37

yeah you know

1:21:39

it might be that you're nervous about talking

1:21:41

in front of groups of people and you have an

1:21:44

alter ego that you switch into that allows you to

1:21:46

just establish some of those patterns of behavior that are

1:21:48

maybe holding you back I think last

1:21:50

time you came on we talked about you being

1:21:52

really nervous before a big talk yeah I know

1:21:54

you've been doing a lot of talking are you

1:21:57

more comfortable in that space now yeah way more

1:21:59

comfortable like that the first one it was kind

1:22:01

of like baptism by far because I've not done one

1:22:03

before and it was like in front of 400 people

1:22:05

so it was a big one but it's the fear

1:22:07

of the unknown man that's all it is the fear

1:22:09

of the none hadn't done it before hadn't done that

1:22:11

presentation before and I was

1:22:13

really disappointed with myself after that the talk went really well

1:22:16

but I was really disappointed in myself because I was like

1:22:18

well I have all this knowledge around mental skills and that

1:22:20

but I was anxious and I was stuck in my head

1:22:22

and I you know why

1:22:25

am I expect I know now

1:22:27

that sometimes

1:22:30

when we're in that space and we think

1:22:32

that you

1:22:35

know that

1:22:39

apprehension and tension and fear and

1:22:42

all those things that we're feeling

1:22:45

we feel like it is detracting from

1:22:48

performance and that we shouldn't be feeling it

1:22:50

and that we have to push it away

1:22:53

what I've learned is that it's

1:22:56

totally normal and you

1:22:59

have to go through the

1:23:01

fire you have to go

1:23:03

through that feeling of feeling like you're

1:23:05

on the back foot and you're not

1:23:07

progressing or you know where you need

1:23:09

to be in order to overcome challenge

1:23:14

and yeah so that

1:23:16

was my experience of that and then the

1:23:18

next one was less

1:23:21

stressful yeah and then the next one obviously

1:23:24

and the thing is like this is why

1:23:26

challenge this is why creating challenge in our

1:23:28

lives is so important to our growth it's

1:23:30

because that's where you work all this stuff

1:23:33

out you know that that's

1:23:35

where you know

1:23:37

you expose yourself to stress

1:23:39

and pressure and vulnerability and

1:23:43

the fact that you might fail but you

1:23:45

do it anyway that's where you work all

1:23:47

the stuff out the problem is a lot

1:23:49

of people because they have a negative relationship

1:23:51

with stress because they've gone through trauma or

1:23:53

a stressful situation or they have anxiety or

1:23:55

whatever it might be in their world they

1:23:57

start not exposing themselves to challenge

1:23:59

because why Why would you want to expose

1:24:01

yourself to more stress when you're already overwhelmed?

1:24:03

Well, that now that is a terrible place

1:24:05

to be because now you're in a very

1:24:07

insular space where

1:24:10

you've put up so many barriers,

1:24:12

so many protective barriers. And

1:24:16

over time, that then becomes your identity

1:24:18

and that becomes your subconscious patterns. And

1:24:21

you're never really exposing

1:24:23

yourself to challenge

1:24:25

and say, not reaping the rewards of

1:24:28

what comes of that. When

1:24:31

you said at the start that people

1:24:33

say you've made it and you're like,

1:24:35

no, I haven't. I'm not anywhere near

1:24:37

where I want things to be. Do

1:24:40

you have a vision that you can say

1:24:42

about what you want this to turn into?

1:24:44

Because from the outside, you're incredible at what

1:24:46

you do and the course is amazing, but

1:24:49

there's a bottleneck too, right? That it's you.

1:24:51

It has to be you. This

1:24:53

is your business. This is built around you. Where

1:24:55

do you want it to go? A

1:24:59

big part of like doing

1:25:01

all of this, I guess, like

1:25:03

there's selfish reasons behind it. Absolutely.

1:25:07

Like, you know, I want to do this first

1:25:09

and foremost for me and I'm not afraid

1:25:11

to say that. And

1:25:14

to better my own life and to have,

1:25:17

you know, one of my big visions

1:25:20

and goals is to have to

1:25:23

build this thing so that it

1:25:26

allows me actually to have a lifestyle where

1:25:28

I have more time and I can go

1:25:30

and do the camping and travel overseas. And,

1:25:32

you know, when I do have kids, I

1:25:34

can have more time with them. So that's,

1:25:36

you know, one part of it. The other

1:25:38

part is I want to give back. I really do

1:25:40

want to give back. And

1:25:42

I'm not talking about specifically, you

1:25:44

know, the people that come on the workshop or

1:25:47

the clients I'm dealing with. I mean, like the

1:25:49

people that can't access the stuff because

1:25:53

they don't have the means to be able

1:25:55

to access it. I want to do something

1:25:57

here in New Zealand where...

1:26:01

And I've like

1:26:05

part of that is like what I'm thinking is

1:26:07

working with kids who

1:26:10

are vulnerable. I want to

1:26:12

be able to bring this stuff, this knowledge and these

1:26:14

skills to them. And

1:26:17

that's something that is a goal

1:26:19

and a vision that I have in

1:26:22

the next two to three years is to be

1:26:24

able to do a mini like calm under pressure

1:26:26

workshop where you're going to vulnerable at risk. Youth

1:26:31

because they're like obviously they're like

1:26:34

the next generation. I think it's

1:26:36

really important to invest back into

1:26:38

them. But also like you can't

1:26:40

just keep taking, you know, like

1:26:42

I've been really fortunate

1:26:45

in that I've had, you know,

1:26:48

I've had to work. I've

1:26:50

also had to work for it, but I've also had a lot

1:26:52

of things go my way. And

1:26:59

you can I think you can get stuck in

1:27:01

like keeping

1:27:05

wanting more for

1:27:08

yourself and building your business,

1:27:10

the selfish reasons.

1:27:12

But I feel like if you don't give

1:27:15

back in some way, then it's kind

1:27:17

of all just worthless.

1:27:21

So that's like a big vision in the business. Another

1:27:23

big goal and vision is to get

1:27:25

this out globally. I want to build an

1:27:27

online platform. I

1:27:29

want to create the best. You know, it

1:27:31

was always I want to create the best

1:27:34

stress mitigation workshop in the world and

1:27:37

I will do it and I will take this kind of

1:27:39

under pressure workshop to Australia and then I'm going to take

1:27:41

it further a field. And I want to run this calm

1:27:43

under pressure through every single school in New Zealand. I

1:27:46

want to build like a small team of people who can take this

1:27:48

workshop and put it through all the schools. And

1:27:51

that's like a huge part of my

1:27:53

driving force. But I also want to be working with the

1:27:55

best athletes in the world. Of course I do like part

1:27:57

of that is selfish as well. working

1:28:00

with the best and I want to but

1:28:03

I would say I equally enjoy

1:28:05

working with just the guy down

1:28:07

the road who's dealing with overwhelm and stress and I

1:28:09

just like dealing with people who are motivated for change.

1:28:11

That's why I got I got pumped when you know

1:28:13

you came to me and you said hey I've got

1:28:15

this target straight away man I'm like okay let's go.

1:28:18

I love that I love people that are because my

1:28:20

job is not to motivate anyone I always say you

1:28:23

know like I'm not

1:28:25

here if anything

1:28:28

it should be the opposite you should be turning

1:28:30

up motivating me with like the things that you

1:28:32

said hey man I've got this this target so

1:28:34

straight away I'll buy into that. Where

1:28:37

are you actually I'll bring you in here who's sort of

1:28:39

getting on the home straight but I

1:28:41

know that it's been a really I

1:28:43

don't know I'd say the last three months have been

1:28:45

really transformative like this has come at a really good

1:28:47

time that the tools that he's

1:28:49

more of attraction man yeah it's what you're

1:28:51

talking about yeah what is it that you'll

1:28:54

take most away from it. Oh look you've

1:28:56

only got one shot at

1:28:58

this like being selfish and investing

1:29:00

in your yourself is

1:29:03

critical like I probably built a

1:29:05

lot of my identity previously on

1:29:08

helping others and like

1:29:10

your point of life if you don't help

1:29:12

yourself how can you actually help other people

1:29:15

like that's a big thing so if if

1:29:17

that means how much of that for you is

1:29:20

sorry to interrupt no no no go go go how much.

1:29:23

Of that for you was just people pleasing

1:29:25

this. Yeah actually wanting

1:29:27

to help other people 100%

1:29:30

because it was deflected away from actually having to do anything

1:29:33

on my own stuff if I could make someone else

1:29:35

feel happy in a room I'm like oh cool that's

1:29:37

great they feel fantastic I don't need to

1:29:39

do anything about my own stuff here I like

1:29:41

dumb it down for a little while that silence it for

1:29:43

a little while did that require a lot of your energy

1:29:46

here man yeah yeah so you just

1:29:48

give and give and give and you talk about that

1:29:50

kind of burnout like it was like that

1:29:52

like it I have to go away and spend a couple

1:29:54

of days just to myself reenergizing to

1:29:56

go again to give to more people.

1:30:00

is now where I feel like I've

1:30:02

got lots of energy to give to people, but I'm actually like

1:30:05

generating it all myself. Do

1:30:09

you see like you and

1:30:11

I talked about this and how important it is

1:30:13

that going through this journey, you

1:30:16

are going to be, you know, we

1:30:18

talk about like if you know the destination, like

1:30:21

if you have a very clear

1:30:23

definition and understanding of the destination where you're going, when there's

1:30:25

obstacles that get in the way, you either push through them or

1:30:27

go around them. What

1:30:29

I see with like people that are

1:30:32

on this journey is that you're always going

1:30:34

to hit these obstacles right now.

1:30:36

It can be something going wrong in your life. I'll

1:30:38

tell you that right now, way in this week, I

1:30:41

popped way long. For

1:30:43

the first time in eight months, it was like, stand

1:30:45

on the scales. Oh

1:30:52

shit, scales haven't gone down. Ordinarily, I'd

1:30:54

be like, well fuck this, I'm out. This is a waste

1:30:57

of time. I'll just go straight back. Now, this time

1:30:59

around, it's like, no, no. What's

1:31:02

unraveled in the lead up to this? No, no, no, you

1:31:04

got to just go back to your processes about being

1:31:06

dialed in and being deliberate about those things. Get back and

1:31:08

do that again. Like

1:31:10

whereas in the beforehand, yeah, adversity

1:31:13

strikes. I'd like run away, hide,

1:31:15

not confront it full on. But

1:31:17

this time it's like, no, no, that's just proves

1:31:19

that when you're actually on

1:31:22

the path, the rewards will come. And if

1:31:24

you deviate from that slightly, it won't

1:31:27

happen. Yeah, so for you, that's a

1:31:29

massive shift in mindset, right? Huge.

1:31:32

Because for so long, that

1:31:35

was your mindset. When you

1:31:37

were met with adversity and failure,

1:31:39

you didn't like it. Now

1:31:42

it's an opportunity, right? Exactly. And

1:31:45

that is just a simple shift

1:31:47

in mindset and everyone can do

1:31:50

that. Mindset

1:31:52

is just a mental attitude that

1:31:56

allows you to see things in

1:31:58

a certain way. And

1:32:01

we have mindsets around all types of things.

1:32:03

We have mindsets around stress. We have mindsets

1:32:05

around food. We have mindsets around challenge And

1:32:09

it's just about like identifying some

1:32:11

of our own mindsets around these situations

1:32:13

and things that we're confronted with and

1:32:17

Just asking yourself has that a good mindset or lens

1:32:19

to look at that thing through or do I need

1:32:21

to like create a different mindset? And

1:32:23

and like what you said before as well about like just as

1:32:26

eating shit was addictive Doing

1:32:29

cool stuff as addictive as well Like

1:32:31

I like I think you asked me before or you asked

1:32:33

me before about what what have I replaced

1:32:35

eating bad food with like I Used to be a want to be

1:32:37

a chef when I was a kid So

1:32:40

like I'm loving being back in the kitchen now

1:32:42

as an adult like learning different

1:32:44

recipes and creating different things like it's just

1:32:46

yeah, you tap into you feed that kind

1:32:48

of I Don't know

1:32:50

that creative side to you or tap back into

1:32:52

the things you enjoyed as a kid And it's

1:32:54

like man. This is actually awesome. Yeah, I think

1:32:56

you also going through this journey Like you also

1:32:59

have to prepare for a bigger setback not not

1:33:01

yes, you know getting on the scales and you've

1:33:03

put on a kg That's a setback Yes,

1:33:09

I think we have to prepare

1:33:11

for Significant setback and have a

1:33:13

contingency plan there because it's gonna

1:33:15

happen. It does happen, right? it

1:33:17

happens because there's unprecedented stress and

1:33:19

pressure here of all of us and That's

1:33:22

about planning. You know, if you don't have a plan

1:33:24

well when you get there It's

1:33:26

easy to start acting on fear and anxiety and

1:33:28

whatever other emotion that might be but when you

1:33:30

have a plan It's like right. We've got that

1:33:32

plan pulled out now. We put it in place

1:33:34

I call it like a contingency plan

1:33:37

with the clients. I work with they have to write

1:33:39

that plan out So when they do fall off the

1:33:41

the wagon, it's like right We pull our plan out

1:33:43

and it might be like a plan that is implemented

1:33:45

for one entire day, right? We wake up we do

1:33:47

this That gets you back in the

1:33:49

routine because yeah once you like you will

1:33:51

know this like once you fall off a routine

1:33:55

The hardest part is just to start

1:33:57

again. Yeah. Yeah, is

1:33:59

that This is all fresh

1:34:01

for me and I wonder like a year after doing

1:34:03

the workshop, is it still fresh

1:34:06

in your mind or are you getting kind of

1:34:08

reminders in being part of this conversation? Yeah, reminders.

1:34:10

But I mean the biggest one and Dave answered

1:34:12

my question is just prioritizing and I've let other

1:34:14

things sort of climb up the order. Happens man,

1:34:17

happens right? It's the same with the hip mobility

1:34:19

stuff. You know, I worked with you on that

1:34:21

and I've been seeing a few people and I

1:34:23

know what I have to do. Life gets in

1:34:26

the way. I know what I have to do

1:34:28

but I haven't prioritized it. Yeah

1:34:32

and that is

1:34:34

the difficulty because

1:34:37

we're so busy and it kind of falls to the

1:34:39

back but that's why it's not a program. It should

1:34:41

never be viewed as a program. It should be viewed

1:34:43

as a decision to make a lifestyle change and

1:34:46

what I found is like with my calendar, I'll sit

1:34:49

down on a Sunday afternoon and I will program the

1:34:51

stuff in and so that

1:34:53

takes the cognitive load off. I don't need to think

1:34:55

about it right. I'm in the gym for 20 minutes

1:34:57

today. I'm doing shoulders and arms. All right,

1:35:00

it's in my calendar. I'll tell you there's

1:35:02

one thing that's in my calendar and at

1:35:05

9 o'clock every night, I go and do an hour of

1:35:07

mobility. I dim the lights in the gym.

1:35:10

I go in there and I do an hour of mobility. I

1:35:12

programmed it in my calendar and I might

1:35:14

be doing something like last night I decided I

1:35:16

wouldn't do the mobility because I was kind of

1:35:18

just tired and I

1:35:20

was just sitting in front of YouTube, you

1:35:22

know, watching documentaries. But 10 to

1:35:25

9, I get the thing go on my phone.

1:35:27

Just a reminder. It was

1:35:29

just that that got me into the gym

1:35:31

at 9 o'clock because now it's on my

1:35:34

mind. And then I start thinking, oh

1:35:36

man, maybe I should do it and it actually really

1:35:38

feels good when I do. And so then I'm in

1:35:40

there at 9 o'clock and that happens

1:35:42

every week. So if it's in the calendar, much more likely

1:35:44

you'll do it. And the other thing

1:35:46

is keep it simple, especially with like the exercise

1:35:48

and strength and conditioning and stuff, just 20 minutes.

1:35:52

Other than

1:35:55

20 minutes is good, especially if you do it every day. So

1:35:58

it's like the routine. It's

1:36:00

almost like I've been really

1:36:03

reluctant to do this to have

1:36:05

these types of things programmed into my calendar because

1:36:07

again My mindset was growing up that I wanted flexibility

1:36:09

and I wanted to be able to go over that

1:36:11

side of the world and do This thing and

1:36:13

I didn't want any of that Structure

1:36:16

in that but yeah what I've learned now

1:36:18

is that that structure is gold because it

1:36:20

again It takes the cognitive load off. I

1:36:22

don't have to think about it so much

1:36:24

It's just bomb bomb bomb bomb and then

1:36:26

that allows me more creative space I

1:36:29

can relate on the power of the calendar. I've

1:36:31

started using it was used a shared Calendar

1:36:33

me and Shay and my wife are all the same

1:36:35

one But

1:36:43

no we have started with actually after the

1:36:45

six all just come on their first repeat

1:36:47

guest and we started There

1:36:50

we go We started prioritizing like

1:36:52

a weekly chicken me and bon because there's

1:36:54

so much going on But they're actually dedicating

1:36:56

time to judge on the calendar. Yeah, I

1:36:58

don't know when you're doing it And

1:37:01

it pops up and you'll forget about it and it's Sunday at 8 30

1:37:04

and then it pops up and then so shit It's

1:37:06

in both of our calendars and we make the effort.

1:37:09

Yeah, and if it wasn't I think it would slip

1:37:11

through Yeah, you'd find it an excuse. Yeah. Yeah, we

1:37:13

are the masses at finding excuses. Yeah Here's

1:37:16

like I think one really

1:37:19

important thing to understand is like we

1:37:22

hear so much about like How

1:37:25

powerful our minds are and you

1:37:28

know by tapping into it How

1:37:30

it can enhance like every facet of our life

1:37:32

and performance basically, but the reality is like most

1:37:36

of the time your mind is working in and You

1:37:39

have to be consciously aware of that and

1:37:42

because we spend You know upwards

1:37:44

of 80% of our time in a

1:37:46

subconscious state It can be difficult to

1:37:48

recognize when that thing is dominating us

1:37:51

and we are aware of our

1:37:53

subconscious patterns Because when they when they

1:37:56

come to the surface our

1:37:58

conscious mind is aware of it,

1:38:00

it's easy to for

1:38:03

your conscious mind when these subconscious patterns do come

1:38:05

to the forefront, it's easy for your conscious mind

1:38:07

to rationalize it. So now you've got both of

1:38:09

these things working together. And, you know,

1:38:12

it's taken a lot for me, it's taken a lot of hard

1:38:14

work to actually realize that

1:38:16

and be able to put my

1:38:19

thumb on it when it happens. I tell a story about just

1:38:21

a simple story about like being

1:38:23

in the sauna and I'd normally get in at five o'clock

1:38:25

at night at this particular night I was in at seven.

1:38:29

While sitting in there, I came

1:38:31

up with I rationalized the fact that because I was

1:38:33

late getting into sauna, I wouldn't do the ice bath.

1:38:35

And I was totally okay with that. So I was

1:38:37

just sitting in the sauna suite, not going to use

1:38:39

the, and it was a wintery, hideous night, it was

1:38:41

cold. Then I got out at

1:38:43

the end of the sauna, walked over to the shower

1:38:45

and I just caught the corner of the ice bath

1:38:47

out my and I was like, you tricky thing. There

1:38:51

we go trying to dominate you again. And so what I

1:38:53

do take the top off and jump in the cold

1:38:57

water, but the mind is constantly trying

1:39:00

to trick us. And it's about, that's

1:39:02

why like meditation and it's so powerful

1:39:05

because it allows you a better connection

1:39:07

with your mind and to understand what's

1:39:10

going on up there and how the thoughts

1:39:13

stimulate thinking. And then you touch an emotion

1:39:15

to that and that dictates

1:39:17

your actions. And so when

1:39:19

you understand that sequence, thoughts, thinking, emotion,

1:39:22

action, what becomes the most

1:39:25

important thing is being able to better articulate

1:39:27

your thoughts and understand them. Yeah.

1:39:32

I think when we had you on last

1:39:34

time, we said it was the best ever ad

1:39:37

for you, your workshop and your

1:39:39

program. I think this might've gone one better. I

1:39:41

did, I did want to sort of land the

1:39:43

plane with a closing up. So,

1:39:47

you know, two days ago you finished the, the

1:39:49

come under pressure workshop, I

1:39:51

don't know, six or seven or eighth ones you've done. I

1:39:53

only know two people that were on it. They both loved

1:39:55

it. Right. Che and Bren just said that couldn't speak highly

1:39:58

enough of it. So it's been a big success. Sunday

1:40:00

afternoon, everyone packs up and goes home.

1:40:04

What are you left with? Is that a sense of fulfillment?

1:40:06

Is that a sense of onto the next thing? Are

1:40:08

you taking a moment to think of what you've done?

1:40:11

No, well, that's a cool

1:40:13

question because I

1:40:16

often leave with

1:40:18

a sense of, well,

1:40:22

I often leave with like being self-critical, which

1:40:26

is a real pain to me.

1:40:28

It's like, even if I've done

1:40:30

something really well, I will

1:40:35

almost as a pattern of behavior or

1:40:38

as a pattern, a subconscious pattern, I will

1:40:42

start questioning things. Could have

1:40:44

done it better. What if we did it like

1:40:46

this? And so that's what I'll often be left with is

1:40:48

like being self-critical of the thing. But

1:40:51

I think that that is a healthy process. I've learned

1:40:53

now that, you know, how to

1:40:55

leverage it into a healthy process, but I'm also often

1:40:57

left the next day feeling just flat

1:41:02

because you do like

1:41:05

give so much energy into the

1:41:07

thing. And it's really important for

1:41:09

me. One of the most important

1:41:11

aspects of the

1:41:13

training that I do is that people understand the knowledge. And

1:41:16

I spend a lot of time and

1:41:18

energy getting people to understand the knowledge

1:41:20

because I firmly believe that in order

1:41:22

for people to apply the skills and

1:41:24

the exercises into the practical world, they

1:41:26

have to have the knowledge behind what

1:41:28

they're doing because the sum of anything

1:41:30

that you do is a combination of

1:41:32

what you're doing and what you think

1:41:35

about what you're doing. And so

1:41:37

if you take like any practice

1:41:39

in the workshop, if you are able to

1:41:41

do that practice, but also talk to the

1:41:43

practice and understand physically and mentally what's happening

1:41:45

in your body when you do that, well,

1:41:48

man, the effect is like totally amplified. It's

1:41:50

a totally different exercise now. And

1:41:53

part of that is when you have the knowledge and you're

1:41:55

doing the thing that

1:41:57

allows you to talk to it and when you're

1:41:59

talking to it. it. You

1:42:02

know, that has an effect on

1:42:04

your internal dialogue and yeah,

1:42:08

and everything. Well, I can attest to the great

1:42:10

job that you do with that because I

1:42:13

think the first time you came on, you talked

1:42:15

some concepts and I nodded along and agreed as

1:42:17

if I understood what the fuck you were talking

1:42:19

about. And then you go on the course, you

1:42:22

get the workbook, you deliver it in a way

1:42:25

that is understandable and then you do the

1:42:27

practical exercise or we do the practical exercise

1:42:29

to really cement that knowledge. And I think,

1:42:32

yeah, I come away with that. I'm not an

1:42:34

expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I've

1:42:36

got a way better understanding now of what is

1:42:38

happening and what I can do. Yeah. And that's

1:42:40

really, really powerful to come away from a

1:42:42

workshop with. Yeah, I think, I think we

1:42:44

should definitely understand a lot more about our

1:42:46

bodies than what we do. And why

1:42:53

wouldn't you want to really like why

1:42:55

would you not want to understand your own mind

1:42:57

and body in a bit

1:43:00

more depth? So

1:43:02

yeah, I mean, like I put

1:43:05

a lot of energy into that,

1:43:07

but yeah, I often feel flat

1:43:09

the next day. And there's

1:43:12

like a huge pack down that happens.

1:43:14

I try like now I'm really,

1:43:16

one of my big things like

1:43:22

in the last year is protecting my energy. And

1:43:25

I would often like, even like a

1:43:27

day after the Come Under Prusa workshop, I would book

1:43:29

a client and I was very,

1:43:32

I was terrible at saying no to people, you

1:43:34

know, and so I'd fit them in. Well,

1:43:36

I worked out that that just burns you out right.

1:43:38

And so one of

1:43:41

my values is protecting my energy. And so I

1:43:43

will block out, you know, three days either side

1:43:45

where, you know, that's my time. That's

1:43:47

like, you know, after the workshop, I like to get

1:43:49

surfing or go camping or

1:43:51