Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Christian O'Connell: Embracing Authenticity, Vulnerability, and Reinvention in Midlife

Transcript

Christian O'Connell: Embracing Authenticity, Vulnerability, and Reinvention in Midlife · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:09
Speaker 1: Christian or Connell.
0:10
Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me on. It's
0:13
Speaker 2: a very exciting day for me. The books out and
0:15
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to talking to you. Anyway.
0:18
Speaker 1: That is the earliest plug that I have ever experienced.
0:22
Speaker 1: Direction smooth, good. That is good man. You should be
0:26
Speaker 1: in the industry.
0:27
Speaker 2: It's not like a plug. I'll tell you what it is.
0:29
Speaker 2: It's actually because it's just a live in me right now.
0:31
Speaker 2: And actually this afternoon today I did the radio show
0:34
Speaker 2: and then I've been at the hospital for the last
0:36
Speaker 2: couple of hours. My twenty two year old daughters in
0:38
Speaker 2: hospital this week. She's gotten back problem, so I've literally
0:41
Speaker 2: been with her. And so today just now, this is
0:44
Speaker 2: the first chance I've had to actually kind of catch
0:46
Speaker 2: up with myself and you. So it's kind of like
0:50
Speaker 2: this is like a catching up with a friend, talking
0:52
Speaker 2: to you. This is my downtime.
0:54
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, indeed. So you're normally doing the interviewing right.
0:59
Speaker 1: So for our listeners who have been living under the
1:02
Speaker 1: Aussie listeners who've been living under a rock, you run
1:06
Speaker 1: a breakfast show. That's a pretty successful breakfast show, I've
1:10
Speaker 1: got to say.
1:11
Speaker 2: And I used to be.
1:12
Speaker 1: A listener I'm not. It's not that I'm not a
1:15
Speaker 1: listener anymore because I don't listen to your show. I
1:17
Speaker 1: just don't listen to the wireless very much anymore.
1:20
Speaker 2: But you're a busy guy.
1:22
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger.
1:25
Speaker 1: But tell me tell me this you So, you were
1:30
Speaker 1: at the top of your career in Britain, in Old
1:33
Speaker 1: Blighty as we like to call it, right, and what
1:36
Speaker 1: made you risk everything leaving a best selling or a
1:43
Speaker 1: top radio show in the UK and moving the other
1:47
Speaker 1: end of the world to come to distribt I think
1:48
Speaker 1: I might know the answer, actually, but let me let
1:51
Speaker 1: me hear it from you and I'll see if I'm right.
1:55
Speaker 2: Well, I've been doing that this. I've only ever done
1:58
Speaker 2: breakfast radio. I've never done any at a time slot.
2:00
Speaker 2: I've done it for twenty eight years. In amongst that time,
2:03
Speaker 2: I've done TV. I'd done stand up as well, and
2:06
Speaker 2: I've written a couple of books. But I got to
2:09
Speaker 2: the mid forties and I'd built this radio show up.
2:14
Speaker 2: It's a national radio show. I'd worked really hard to
2:16
Speaker 2: get a national radio show, and I built up to
2:19
Speaker 2: two and a half a million listeners and did it
2:21
Speaker 2: for years and years and years, and I loved it.
2:23
Speaker 2: I absolutely loved it. I loved doing that show. And
2:27
Speaker 2: I got into the mid forties, and I'm pretty sure
2:31
Speaker 2: a lot of your listeners can relate to this. And
2:34
Speaker 2: I left the radio show one day and I was
2:36
Speaker 2: driving home and I was stuck in traffic in London,
2:39
Speaker 2: which was every day, and I caught myself in the
2:42
Speaker 2: rearview mirror of my car and I flinched because I suddenly,
2:47
Speaker 2: when I looked into my eyes, I realized I hadn't
2:50
Speaker 2: said a genuine, authentic thing all show. And I realized
2:54
Speaker 2: then I was just kind of waking up really in
2:56
Speaker 2: my life, where I'd realized I was performing successful version
3:00
Speaker 2: of myself. I'd become like an act. A lot of
3:04
Speaker 2: people do this, you know, to get out of our
3:06
Speaker 2: twenties and thirties, you do need to build a version
3:09
Speaker 2: of yourself to survive and make something of yourself in
3:12
Speaker 2: the world. And then in the mid forties, sometimes you know,
3:16
Speaker 2: there's this midlife kind of awakening. And so I suddenly
3:19
Speaker 2: realized that there was a distance between the real, true,
3:23
Speaker 2: authentic me and who I was in the radio. My
3:26
Speaker 2: daughters were starting to sort of almost on the cusp.
3:28
Speaker 2: We're becoming teenagers and increasingly asking like, hey, we heard
3:31
Speaker 2: you say this this morning, but you don't really think that,
3:35
Speaker 2: And so I realized then I felt kind of it
3:40
Speaker 2: was a kind of invitation, that was a calling. I
3:42
Speaker 2: think our lives are always calling to us. Most of
3:44
Speaker 2: the times we're just trying to ignore it. I think
3:46
Speaker 2: there'd been a thing going on in the background that
3:49
Speaker 2: I'd been ignoring for a while, and then I started
3:51
Speaker 2: to have very severe panic attacks. And so in life,
3:54
Speaker 2: often if you don't listen to these warning signs, like
3:58
Speaker 2: little smoke alarms going off your body, your soul kind
4:02
Speaker 2: of sends you an actual kind of fire. And that
4:04
Speaker 2: fire for me was like, well, what if there was
4:06
Speaker 2: panic attacks suddenly in the place where you felt fearless,
4:10
Speaker 2: which was a radio studio. I'd never have any fear
4:12
Speaker 2: in the radio studio in my life, and the until
4:14
Speaker 2: one day out of the blue, mid forties, suddenly I
4:16
Speaker 2: had very bad panic attacks. I had to go and
4:18
Speaker 2: get help, and at one moment, Paul, it was so
4:21
Speaker 2: bad I almost had to quit live broadcasting on my
4:25
Speaker 2: own show because they were just so bad. And if
4:27
Speaker 2: anyone's ever been through that. They they are really intense
4:30
Speaker 2: that they call them panic attacks the reason. And then
4:33
Speaker 2: I went, Then I went, I got back, help, got
4:35
Speaker 2: help and managed to get back on air on my
4:38
Speaker 2: own show. And the great thing about that was I
4:41
Speaker 2: realized I wanted to make my life an adventure stool.
4:45
Speaker 2: And so my wife, a wife and I, over a
4:47
Speaker 2: couple of glasses of wine, we were like, we don't
4:51
Speaker 2: want to. We don't want to feeling that all the
4:53
Speaker 2: exciting things of our lives are over. We wanted more adventures.
4:56
Speaker 2: So we thought. We always loved Australia, and so I
4:58
Speaker 2: was like, I wonder if I could get a radio
4:59
Speaker 2: show show there. You know what would that be like?
5:03
Speaker 2: Just moved to Australia, do for a couple of years
5:05
Speaker 2: and see how it goes. And so that's how that's
5:07
Speaker 2: how it really came from. It was partly panic attacks,
5:11
Speaker 2: and it was a kind of midlife correction. I won't
5:15
Speaker 2: say breakdown because that's a cliche and I think it's reductive.
5:18
Speaker 2: It wasn't, it was. It was a real kind of
5:20
Speaker 2: midlife correction.
5:23
Speaker 1: I got that wrong completely. I thought I just assumed
5:27
Speaker 1: that your wife was an ausy and she dragged you here,
5:30
Speaker 1: taking and screaming like minded twenty odd years ago.
5:34
Speaker 2: But that's completely wrong and it's.
5:35
Speaker 1: Much a much more in depth Paul.
5:38
Speaker 2: It's not like you couldn't just go on Google and
5:41
Speaker 2: have a quick look rather than I thought you're going
5:43
Speaker 2: to say, I thought your wife left you, or there
5:45
Speaker 2: was a scandal in the UK, you got canceled, or
5:48
Speaker 2: you're on the run, you're on witness protection.
5:51
Speaker 1: Well, i'd left the military, but I wasn't kicked out
5:56
Speaker 1: of the military. But my wife was a naussy and
5:58
Speaker 1: she she she didn't drag me here. I was always
6:01
Speaker 1: keen to come to Australia because I'd been here when
6:04
Speaker 1: I was a young pop backpacking around. But so setting
6:08
Speaker 1: up talk to us about like that leap of fear, well,
6:14
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you had a lot of kudos coming
6:18
Speaker 1: from the UK, but there's the whole palm thing and
6:21
Speaker 1: stuff like were you a bit nervous about how you
6:24
Speaker 1: would be received, particularly because you PARROTEDU Stralia and I
6:27
Speaker 1: remember listening to the early early DERs and you were
6:30
Speaker 1: an Englishman in Australia on Breakfast TV. I'm sorry Breakfast really,
6:36
Speaker 1: which is the biggest slot was there a fur better
6:40
Speaker 1: trepedition or were you just like, let's just give it
6:43
Speaker 1: a crack.
6:46
Speaker 2: I think sometimes in life, when you take a big leap,
6:50
Speaker 2: and this was a big leap, you need to have optimism,
6:55
Speaker 2: point of delusion. You actually just do and it seems
6:58
Speaker 2: the same like I've been married twenty eight years. When
7:00
Speaker 2: you get married to somebody, or you even have kids together,
7:03
Speaker 2: you just have to be optimistic that it's going to
7:06
Speaker 2: work out. You're going to find a way to build
7:09
Speaker 2: your life together, you know, with your partner, and become
7:12
Speaker 2: a parent. You just have to imagine you're going to
7:14
Speaker 2: be a good dad. You don't know, you've never done
7:16
Speaker 2: it before. So for moving here on any of these
7:18
Speaker 2: leaps in life, small leaps and big leaps. But I
7:22
Speaker 2: left that show on a Friday. Two weeks later, I
7:25
Speaker 2: was on air the other side of the world, which
7:27
Speaker 2: looking back is ridiculous. It was a It was a
7:30
Speaker 2: head fuck, and it was like all the currency that
7:33
Speaker 2: I built up for twenty years of Breakfast Ready in
7:35
Speaker 2: the UK, that shared experience suddenly arrived here in Australia
7:39
Speaker 2: and they were like, oh, you can't buy anything here
7:41
Speaker 2: with that. No one cares. Oh, yeah, but I was
7:46
Speaker 2: a pretty big deal. UK. We don't give a shit
7:48
Speaker 2: you're not from around here, and every time you speak,
7:50
Speaker 2: we're reminded of that. And suddenly every time I spoke,
7:53
Speaker 2: the thing that might used to bring me together in
7:55
Speaker 2: the UK was obviously my voice here. Every time I
7:58
Speaker 2: spoke like that is a thing. Guy, What the fuck
8:01
Speaker 2: did they bring an English guy here? And so second
8:04
Speaker 2: show in someone sent me an email saying no one
8:08
Speaker 2: invited you, and it was up being back at school again, Paul,
8:11
Speaker 2: I was I was crushed second second show, no one
8:15
Speaker 2: invited you, And there was a massive backlash, I mean emails, letters,
8:21
Speaker 2: phone calls to the radio station demanding to know why
8:25
Speaker 2: this radio station had I had unknown English guy. And
8:29
Speaker 2: so then I realized, oh I came here, you know,
8:34
Speaker 2: having lost my mojo. Be really careful in life when
8:37
Speaker 2: you say to the universe I'm ready for a really
8:40
Speaker 2: big leap, because they go, oh, really, how about this?
8:43
Speaker 2: And then you go, actually, can you can we back
8:46
Speaker 2: it quick down? No? No, no, you wanted this, And
8:51
Speaker 2: so yeah, I remember like the first week or two
8:53
Speaker 2: in thinking what this is just too much actually, And
8:57
Speaker 2: then also obviously if anyone's ever moved to any country
9:00
Speaker 2: and had to build a life together. That takes a lot.
9:02
Speaker 2: The children, we had to move them out of schools,
9:05
Speaker 2: in and out of schools three times in the first
9:07
Speaker 2: eighteen months, so that was all that going on. My
9:09
Speaker 2: wife was a rock. I wouldn't be here after eight
9:12
Speaker 2: years and straight if I hadn't from an incredibly powerful wife.
9:15
Speaker 2: She said, I'll look after this bit. You've got to
9:18
Speaker 2: do the other bit. That is a real tricky bit,
9:20
Speaker 2: which is, you know, try and make it work. But
9:23
Speaker 2: I'm telling the really amazing thing, Paul. After fifteen months
9:26
Speaker 2: from literally being hated, the show went to number one,
9:30
Speaker 2: and that journey of building connection with strangers who mainly
9:36
Speaker 2: didn't like you, didn't want you here, and actually some
9:39
Speaker 2: hated me or the idea of me. I learned more
9:42
Speaker 2: during that fifteen months than twenty years of doing it
9:45
Speaker 2: in the UK, and it changed my life. And so
9:48
Speaker 2: I'm really grateful for the struggle. I have nothing but
9:51
Speaker 2: gratitude now. Yeah, and I'm still enjoying this. You know,
9:55
Speaker 2: I'm fifty three. We hear the other side of the
9:57
Speaker 2: world like you, I have nothing but gratitude. I had
10:00
Speaker 2: to unlearn some stuff I learned some stuff. Isn't that
10:03
Speaker 2: the joy of life? Yeah? I love it here, Yeah,
10:07
Speaker 2: one hundred percent.
10:08
Speaker 1: It's awesome. And actually we were just talking very very
10:11
Speaker 1: briefly on her is that you live in Melbourne. I
10:14
Speaker 1: used to live in Melbourne and I live down in
10:16
Speaker 1: the Mornington Peninsula and you've got a place down here,
10:19
Speaker 1: and it's full of Brits down.
10:21
Speaker 2: Here, right.
10:22
Speaker 1: I played for the local soccer club. I think there
10:24
Speaker 1: were two token Nassies in the team. Everybody else was Brits.
10:27
Speaker 1: And you know why I think it is, you know,
10:30
Speaker 1: I a I've got a theory on this is that
10:35
Speaker 1: come over from the UK, live in Melbourne and then
10:38
Speaker 1: go down to the peninsula for a weekend, and people go,
10:42
Speaker 1: fucking hell, this is an RS commute from the center
10:45
Speaker 1: of Melbourne. Like, can you imagine, did you just live
10:47
Speaker 1: in London? If you're in London and you work in
10:51
Speaker 1: the middle of London, you draw an OURS commute from
10:54
Speaker 1: the earth, so you don't even get to the M
10:55
Speaker 1: twenty five, right.
10:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So it's beautiful down there and I've even
11:02
Speaker 2: built a little home studio there. Sometimes on a Friday
11:06
Speaker 2: I'll do the show live to Australia from down there,
11:12
Speaker 2: and I love it. It's a bit of a shorter commute.
11:14
Speaker 2: It literally takes me out one minute to get from
11:16
Speaker 2: a bed into the studio. So no one knows. No
11:21
Speaker 2: one knows, and I love it. It's so great, and
11:24
Speaker 2: so it's all part of the excitement of still enjoying
11:28
Speaker 2: your life in the second half of your life. You know,
11:32
Speaker 2: I get a lot of emails from listeners who, you know,
11:34
Speaker 2: want to talk about the midlife and how you can
11:37
Speaker 2: make more of it because there's so much information now.
11:39
Speaker 2: Suddenly all it is like, you know, the second half
11:42
Speaker 2: of life, all the everyone ticks off the things that
11:44
Speaker 2: you're losing, and yeah, that's certainly true. My back gets
11:47
Speaker 2: worse than blah blah blah, but no one really talks about.
11:50
Speaker 2: But you can have so much more enjoyment in the
11:52
Speaker 2: second half of your life, you know, you can really,
11:55
Speaker 2: you can really make some exciting changes in your life.
11:59
Speaker 1: I'll let's double click on that. Actually, because we're both
12:02
Speaker 1: middle aged blocks, right, So what are for you what
12:06
Speaker 1: are some of the kind of downsides of entering into
12:12
Speaker 1: midlife and what are some of the upsides of going
12:15
Speaker 1: into midlife that you have.
12:16
Speaker 2: Found downsides, And that's a beautiful, big question. The downsides.
12:25
Speaker 2: I think it's you know where you are in the
12:26
Speaker 2: arc of your life, and so you're going to get
12:30
Speaker 2: to know grief a bit more. And I don't mean
12:33
Speaker 2: like your friends, I just mean loved ones. You know,
12:38
Speaker 2: my mother in law died suddenly two years ago, right
12:40
Speaker 2: in front of us, and so that's been a really
12:42
Speaker 2: big thing the lasts two years of our life. And
12:45
Speaker 2: so there's a you really get to experience loss a
12:48
Speaker 2: bit more. And it's not even just losing people as well.
12:52
Speaker 2: It's also losing you know, my daughters are twenty two
12:56
Speaker 2: and nineteen. They don't live at home anymore. We became
12:59
Speaker 2: emptyiness last year. So it's it's it's that losing the
13:03
Speaker 2: past and even a version of a dad I've been
13:06
Speaker 2: for a long time. I'm more like a consultant now, Paul, so.
13:13
Speaker 1: At least that I'm laughing. I've got a twenty I
13:16
Speaker 1: got a twenty year old daughter and a sixteen You
13:18
Speaker 1: get it, boy, So I get it.
13:20
Speaker 2: I get it.
13:21
Speaker 1: You've got from being this thing that they worship's last
13:25
Speaker 1: just like every night and they yeah, whatever they're in
13:28
Speaker 1: trouble or they need someone more support.
13:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so in other areas that that, you know,
13:34
Speaker 2: the fantastic company. I've got two really smart, attention funny
13:37
Speaker 2: daughters right that they know how to tell a story
13:41
Speaker 2: and they roast me. And so when I do see them,
13:44
Speaker 2: you have a very it's a deeper relationship now, but
13:46
Speaker 2: I do miss the years ago were like ten twelve
13:49
Speaker 2: years ago, when you were like a golden god. To them,
13:52
Speaker 2: it's not healthy and they need to know the raw, messy,
13:56
Speaker 2: flawed you. But there's a part of you doesn't want
13:58
Speaker 2: doesn't want to show with that to them, because for
14:01
Speaker 2: a brief a couple of years, you're a golden god.
14:03
Speaker 2: You can don't you can do no wrong. You're the strongest, funny,
14:05
Speaker 2: smartest man in the world. And then suddenly, bit by
14:08
Speaker 2: bit that flakes off, and then the real messy who
14:11
Speaker 2: is exploded that they're like and you and you realize
14:14
Speaker 2: they knew that all along. You know, they sawry years ago,
14:18
Speaker 2: and they've been watching you like spies. You know they
14:20
Speaker 2: see it. And so yeah, that the loss is a
14:23
Speaker 2: big part of it. There's also the loss of the
14:25
Speaker 2: kind of the vitality and the energy that you took
14:27
Speaker 2: for granted near twenties. You know, I have a big
14:30
Speaker 2: night out. Now that's a three or four day hangover. Now,
14:36
Speaker 2: even the amount of like we've all got these giant
14:39
Speaker 2: canisters of water. I don't think I had my first
14:41
Speaker 2: glass of water until I was about thirty eight, you know.
14:44
Speaker 2: Now I walk to the shops, a five minute walk.
14:48
Speaker 2: I got two liters of water on the go. What's
14:50
Speaker 2: that all about the amount of vitimins I have to take? Now?
14:54
Speaker 2: You know? Suddenly sleep is hard. You know, I never
14:58
Speaker 2: thought about sleep all like my mirid forties. Now I've
15:01
Speaker 2: got like eight different tablets, you know, the blackout blinds,
15:05
Speaker 2: just to try and get to sleep. And then sometimes
15:08
Speaker 2: I wake up in the morning and I've injured myself
15:10
Speaker 2: during the night lying down, and I'm like, what this sucked.
15:16
Speaker 2: Sometimes I go and start the radio show and they're like,
15:20
Speaker 2: what happened And I don't know. I went to sleep
15:22
Speaker 2: healthy something something's happened during the night and I've hurt
15:26
Speaker 2: my back and so yeah, there's that bit. But then
15:29
Speaker 2: the upsides are you start to know because you do know,
15:34
Speaker 2: you do know, you're in the second half of your life.
15:37
Speaker 2: You should be thinking yourself don't waste your time on
15:40
Speaker 2: people in situation and places that really don't bring you
15:44
Speaker 2: joy or enlarge you or are going to give you
15:47
Speaker 2: a funny story.
15:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool on funny stories. That the thing that
15:53
Speaker 1: I loved about your show and would love if I'm
15:55
Speaker 1: still was still listening to the Wireless but it is
15:59
Speaker 1: the bunter. The banter in your show was frigging awesome.
16:02
Speaker 1: And I remember the young bloke who's probably not that
16:06
Speaker 1: young anymore, because it was probably six or seven years
16:09
Speaker 1: ago when he first could on the show. But wasn't
16:11
Speaker 1: he an intern or something? And then you just put
16:13
Speaker 1: him on the show because he was green crack.
16:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I hired someone him Warness was an intern
16:20
Speaker 2: and he was like just writing stuff for the radio
16:23
Speaker 2: station's website copy for that And in the interview it
16:26
Speaker 2: was very clear he lied and said he'd listened to
16:29
Speaker 2: the show. It was really clear. As a comedian, you
16:33
Speaker 2: need to have a very strong bullshit detector. It was
16:36
Speaker 2: clear that this kid had never listened to my radio show.
16:38
Speaker 2: But the fact that he'd lied and did it in
16:40
Speaker 2: such a funny kind of swaggering way to my face,
16:44
Speaker 2: I thought these kind of almost psychopathic skills are what's
16:48
Speaker 2: needed to build a career in breakfast radio. So I
16:51
Speaker 2: hired him and then bit by bit, you know, I
16:54
Speaker 2: don't like hiring sometimes just radio people who've been around.
16:58
Speaker 2: Sometimes they can quite jaded and cynical. I've hired receptionists
17:01
Speaker 2: and trained them up, and bit by bit I mentored
17:03
Speaker 2: him and he was taking big leaps and bounds and
17:05
Speaker 2: now he's my sidekick on the show at that band.
17:09
Speaker 2: To you talk about that praise Paul. To me, I'm
17:11
Speaker 2: obsessed with always every break. I'm trying to tilt this
17:15
Speaker 2: less like a radio show. I don't want to be
17:17
Speaker 2: a radio DJ, and more like a real conversation. And
17:21
Speaker 2: by that I mean you know when you're in the
17:22
Speaker 2: pub with your mates, or out for dinner, or just
17:25
Speaker 2: having dinner at home, and that energy and it's almost
17:29
Speaker 2: like a fire. It's just a live and everyone's being funny.
17:32
Speaker 2: You're pinning crap on each other. There's nothing better and
17:35
Speaker 2: more joyous than that. You're all laughing and you're looking
17:37
Speaker 2: at each other and you know, this is just a
17:39
Speaker 2: golden moment. And those situations are free. It's not really
17:42
Speaker 2: about money or anything. You have to buy it it's
17:45
Speaker 2: just there. I'm always like, that's what the show should
17:48
Speaker 2: always be, tilting it towards houses more like a real conversation.
17:52
Speaker 2: So I don't do pranks. I'm not interested in showbized gossip.
17:56
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in interviewing reality stars. I sess with
18:00
Speaker 2: to me, there's always a magic in the mundane. It's
18:03
Speaker 2: like yesterday evening, I accidentally got in took about getting older.
18:07
Speaker 2: I just got on the wrong uber. Uh, I'm on
18:11
Speaker 2: the phone, you know, answering emails, So I think, you
18:14
Speaker 2: know I'm not I'm not going where I should be.
18:16
Speaker 2: Have I've been kidnapped. Can a fifty three year old
18:19
Speaker 2: man be kidnapped? Would anyone care? You know? And then
18:22
Speaker 2: and then I see a message from the uber driver
18:24
Speaker 2: that I'd booked, and he's like, in block capitals, you're
18:26
Speaker 2: in the wrong uber. Pull over now, And I go,
18:30
Speaker 2: are you taking taking me back to? And he goes
18:32
Speaker 2: mister Harris and I went, I'm not mister Harris. And
18:34
Speaker 2: he pulls over and kicks me out. I then have
18:36
Speaker 2: like a ten minute walk to get to my So
18:38
Speaker 2: any one today's shows is talking about this, about getting
18:41
Speaker 2: in the wrong uber. We did a whole show about
18:43
Speaker 2: stories about the wrong stories people had. One of my
18:48
Speaker 2: favorite one was two sisters. They're having a few few
18:51
Speaker 2: wines one summer up in Brisbane. They thought they saw
18:54
Speaker 2: their other sister walking by the swimming pool, and obviously
18:57
Speaker 2: they went up pushed her in the pool. Wasn't their sistuff.
19:03
Speaker 2: It's just some poor woman, you know, just dressed up
19:06
Speaker 2: throwing in the pool all of a sudden. So that
19:09
Speaker 2: to me, that that's why I think it's the best
19:11
Speaker 2: job in the world, is that I'm obsessed with There's
19:13
Speaker 2: so much weird stuff that happens most days to me
19:15
Speaker 2: and the team, and so I'm always like, that's that's
19:18
Speaker 2: the gold. You never get any funny stuff than than
19:22
Speaker 2: real life the weird stuff we do.
19:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at what really comes across in your show
19:29
Speaker 1: is that authenticity. Now, the the area that you work
19:33
Speaker 1: in generally let's just call it chill bits, right, and
19:36
Speaker 1: that I walk in working, which is corporate speaking, is
19:41
Speaker 1: full of people who are very staged and very deliberate.
19:46
Speaker 1: When you have a bit, when you've seen a bit,
19:49
Speaker 1: you can you can step out in authenticity in the
19:53
Speaker 1: you know what, twenty pieces so so and you talk
19:55
Speaker 1: about this in the book about being authentic. How do
20:00
Speaker 1: you know when you're being authentic and then how do
20:04
Speaker 1: you know when you're trying to kind of overdoing it
20:06
Speaker 1: and it's becoming a performance.
20:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. Actually, for years I thought
20:15
Speaker 2: the great radio shows were about preparation, and it's taken
20:19
Speaker 2: me a long time actually, unfortunately, way too long to
20:23
Speaker 2: rize it wasn't. It was about It was about presence.
20:29
Speaker 2: The more present I was, the less efforting, trying so
20:35
Speaker 2: hard to be funny, not really listening, just waiting to
20:38
Speaker 2: get an extra tag in or a joke. The more
20:43
Speaker 2: I just became really present, I listened more. The more
20:47
Speaker 2: I listened, the better questions I got, the better jokes
20:51
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, that changed everything, and so it went
20:55
Speaker 2: from persona to presence. For me. That was a game change.
20:59
Speaker 2: It still as every single show because people keep saying
21:02
Speaker 2: to me, oh, you must be a morning person. And
21:05
Speaker 2: I do like the mornings, but when alarm goes off
21:07
Speaker 2: at four am, I'm angry. I'm overwhelmed. You know, I'm
21:12
Speaker 2: not what if someone taking the piss. This can't be
21:15
Speaker 2: I've really just gone to sleep, you know, I'm really sure.
21:18
Speaker 2: I'm just gone. So I don't feel that funny right now.
21:21
Speaker 2: I'm more like a dimmer switch. But I'm present to
21:26
Speaker 2: what's going on, and i get very present to an
21:30
Speaker 2: idea or I'm excited by that, and that that energizes me.
21:34
Speaker 2: People think they'll have enormous amount of confidence. People get
21:37
Speaker 2: really confused about authenticity and speaking authenticity that you need
21:41
Speaker 2: to be confident, you don't. The enemy of speaking is
21:44
Speaker 2: thinking about speaking. Momentum state, your state, your energetic state,
21:50
Speaker 2: your emotional state, far more important than confidence. For me,
21:54
Speaker 2: it's like I just have to go, you just have
21:57
Speaker 2: to go. I start speaking, confidence then catches up if
22:01
Speaker 2: I had to wait for confidence. Sometimes people are like,
22:03
Speaker 2: where is Christian this morning? I just be sat in
22:05
Speaker 2: a studio. Hopefully it's going to be here in a minute.
22:08
Speaker 2: I just play another track. Yeah, yeah, not a six
22:12
Speaker 2: are mate. Yeah. I don't have time to start journaling
22:14
Speaker 2: or meditate or you know, go and have a nice
22:17
Speaker 2: plunge or go on a hot bath. It's just like
22:19
Speaker 2: the show starts, just start talking, and so yeah, when
22:23
Speaker 2: I'm working with people a coaching people, it's like it's
22:25
Speaker 2: trying to split the content from confidence. You don't need
22:30
Speaker 2: tons of confidence to still deliverate the content of what
22:33
Speaker 2: you want to say really well. So authenticity, for me,
22:36
Speaker 2: I think you notice it when it's performative. You can
22:39
Speaker 2: notice it in yourself when you're being inauthentic, when you're
22:42
Speaker 2: you're not being true to who you are, what you're
22:44
Speaker 2: really saying, and what you think and what you feel
22:47
Speaker 2: are not aligned. Authenticity a lot of times can feel uncomfortable.
22:51
Speaker 2: You know, when people talk about vulnerability. It gets over used,
22:54
Speaker 2: that word, the v word, and you see it a
22:56
Speaker 2: lot being performed on social media, written, and it drives
23:01
Speaker 2: me nuts. If it's not uncomfortable when you're saying it,
23:06
Speaker 2: you're not being truly vulnerable. And to me, even comedy,
23:09
Speaker 2: the currency of comedy and great storytelling is vulnerability. When
23:14
Speaker 2: I'm hearing a story and someone had the upper hand
23:17
Speaker 2: that I said, you know, and the whole room laughed,
23:20
Speaker 2: and that is not the way it goes in real life.
23:22
Speaker 2: There's no way, there's no way. It just doesn't work
23:25
Speaker 2: like that. Author to me means owning your messiness. It
23:29
Speaker 2: means not being defended. A lot of people when they
23:32
Speaker 2: work with me, they want to know, how can I
23:34
Speaker 2: find my voice? It isn't about finding it. It's about
23:38
Speaker 2: allowing it. It's about uncovering it. It's already there. You've
23:41
Speaker 2: already experienced it, you know, many times. But it's more
23:44
Speaker 2: of an allowing, it's more of an uncovering what's already there.
23:47
Speaker 2: It's being undefended. It's getting out of your head, it's
23:50
Speaker 2: getting out of your own way to be honest, and
23:52
Speaker 2: a lot of it is permission. It's giving yourself permission
23:55
Speaker 2: to be more of yourself in any situation rather than
23:59
Speaker 2: being you know, often I think I remember in my
24:02
Speaker 2: thirties and forties being like a chameleon with certain groups
24:06
Speaker 2: and certain people. Maybe it was with the CEOs and leaders.
24:09
Speaker 2: I speak one way with my team, another way, with
24:11
Speaker 2: my mates another way. And now I'm this that I'm
24:15
Speaker 2: more more fully myself in any situation. But that takes
24:18
Speaker 2: a lot of time.
24:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think when you're when you're thinking about how
24:22
Speaker 1: you should be, that is a recipe for exploding authenticity.
24:26
Speaker 1: Right the I just want to talk about you going
24:31
Speaker 1: on the show. Do you have any sort of a
24:35
Speaker 1: little routine or any little tricks or habits to get
24:40
Speaker 1: your game fierce on? You know, you talk about athletes
24:43
Speaker 1: always talk about, you know, they have the little thing
24:45
Speaker 1: Mike Tyson when he lists his gloves up, you know,
24:48
Speaker 1: other people, and it's what they step on to the pitch, right.
24:52
Speaker 1: And I've got a little thing about getting my game
24:54
Speaker 1: fierce on.
24:54
Speaker 2: Do you have any sort.
24:55
Speaker 1: Of set thing to do that or is it just
24:58
Speaker 1: kind of right six o'clockolate goal we're on.
25:02
Speaker 2: No. I used to be able to do that, and
25:04
Speaker 2: then I can't anymore. I don't know if it's a
25:06
Speaker 2: result of just you know, been doing it for twenty years,
25:08
Speaker 2: and also what you can demand of your body when
25:11
Speaker 2: you were younger, you can just demand so much of
25:14
Speaker 2: your body. It's kind of like I kind of see
25:17
Speaker 2: it like a high car. Do you just drive a
25:19
Speaker 2: high car like shit? You don't drive your own car
25:21
Speaker 2: like that, slamming the door, you know. And so when
25:25
Speaker 2: you're in the twenties and thirties, you just expect so
25:27
Speaker 2: much of your body and you can your recovery rate
25:31
Speaker 2: is fantastic. Suddenly you're fifty three and I just can't
25:36
Speaker 2: actually just go go. And actually I don't think when
25:39
Speaker 2: I did do that to myself, I think years later
25:42
Speaker 2: paid for a price for it. Every year pool I
25:45
Speaker 2: could look back at the year and I'd have burnout
25:48
Speaker 2: almost every quarter, where I just would get ill run down,
25:52
Speaker 2: And so I think that was really when I was
25:54
Speaker 2: just demanding. I was demanding. I was almost like a bully,
25:57
Speaker 2: like a drill sergeant to myself, get in there, get
25:59
Speaker 2: on with that. You don't need to sleep, Go and
26:02
Speaker 2: have a couple more beers after the show with the
26:04
Speaker 2: team and all this. And then I paid it for
26:06
Speaker 2: ight with so much burnout, and then anxiety started to
26:09
Speaker 2: go up. The panic attacks come along. I can trace
26:11
Speaker 2: abat the panic attacks. I used to think these came
26:13
Speaker 2: out of nowhere, and then I was like a trace
26:15
Speaker 2: back going You just weren't listening. The warning signs were there,
26:19
Speaker 2: you just weren't looking after your energy. So now in
26:21
Speaker 2: the morning I do have I do have quite a
26:23
Speaker 2: few routines. I don't like too much predictability, so it's
26:27
Speaker 2: never exactly the same thing. But it's normally just it's energy.
26:32
Speaker 2: It's embodiment, you know. Sometimes it can be eft tapping,
26:35
Speaker 2: sometimes it'd be breath work. But there's always something I
26:39
Speaker 2: do about twenty minutes beforehand. I never just go on air. Ever,
26:43
Speaker 2: the most important thing for me that I still do
26:45
Speaker 2: every before every show, and I only started it when
26:49
Speaker 2: I moved to Australia eight years ago. Was I just
26:52
Speaker 2: I have to have a blank piece of paper about
26:54
Speaker 2: twenty minutes before the show. I'll be in the studio.
26:56
Speaker 2: I have a blank piece of paper and I just
26:57
Speaker 2: write the name of the day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
27:01
Speaker 2: and then I just write down what's in my head,
27:04
Speaker 2: what's alive right now, whatever is wrong uber last night? Yeah,
27:10
Speaker 2: books coming out today, just a couple of little things
27:13
Speaker 2: like that, and then I start to think about the show.
27:16
Speaker 2: But it has to start for me with that blank
27:18
Speaker 2: piece of paper. Forces me actually talking to you about
27:21
Speaker 2: it now, Paul. It forces me into being right here
27:24
Speaker 2: and now say that's a little bit about that.
27:28
Speaker 1: It's a little technique for you getting present right. What
27:32
Speaker 1: I've landed on is I like to stand on the
27:34
Speaker 1: stage one and being introduced, and I like to look
27:37
Speaker 1: at the audience. And I asked myself one question, how
27:40
Speaker 1: can I be useful? And that kind of just gets
27:44
Speaker 1: me mentally on track.
27:46
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think so for me, I have
27:51
Speaker 2: a version of that where it shifts the lens because
27:54
Speaker 2: often when people get nervous that the lens is too
27:57
Speaker 2: much here. And so when I shift the lens to
28:00
Speaker 2: being of service, and I do every morning, I really
28:04
Speaker 2: hope that the show can help I do. I see,
28:06
Speaker 2: I have images. So I think of the show as
28:08
Speaker 2: a lighthouse sometimes, and my job is just to turn
28:12
Speaker 2: my light on to start speaking. And when I just
28:15
Speaker 2: have that without getting too ahead of myself, like what
28:17
Speaker 2: am I going to be talking about seven o'clock, eight o'clock,
28:20
Speaker 2: I just start with that intention. I'm normally in the
28:25
Speaker 2: right place. It brings me to presence. I have gratitude.
28:29
Speaker 2: I'm into service, and people talk about service. You don't
28:32
Speaker 2: need to spend twenty minutes think about service. It's just
28:35
Speaker 2: the thing. You just pick it, choose it, intend it.
28:38
Speaker 2: And then I speak, and I'm coming from that place.
28:42
Speaker 2: And then I don't know, there's a sense of ease
28:44
Speaker 2: and and effortless with the shows. I just get into
28:47
Speaker 2: a kind of flow that way by thinking, yeah, exactly,
28:52
Speaker 2: but it comes from actually shifting a lens from me.
28:56
Speaker 2: You know, I'm feeling a bit tired tight, I'm really
28:57
Speaker 2: tired this morning to actually to them m and and
29:02
Speaker 2: also I have an image of like a campfire. When
29:05
Speaker 2: I first moved to Australia, the team weren't It wasn't
29:08
Speaker 2: the team I have now. I inherited a team. They
29:11
Speaker 2: didn't know who I was. They didn't really believe that
29:12
Speaker 2: I was going to survive six months without getting fired.
29:15
Speaker 2: And I understand that, and so it's something this guy,
29:17
Speaker 2: you're probably not going to make six months. And so
29:21
Speaker 2: they just weren't committed. I was committed because there was
29:23
Speaker 2: no escape plan. I burnt all this skateboats. So I
29:26
Speaker 2: really had to find a way through this, you know.
29:29
Speaker 2: And so you're all in, right, Yeah. Otherwise, when the
29:34
Speaker 2: couple of weeks are going, let's pack up that they
29:36
Speaker 2: really don't like me, let's get out of here. But
29:38
Speaker 2: just sometimes the other side of those this is too much.
29:43
Speaker 2: Just a bit more effort, just a bit more effort,
29:45
Speaker 2: your life can change it, Things can change really quickly.
29:48
Speaker 2: Most people just quit. They just don't realize that their
29:51
Speaker 2: capacity for grit and resilience is often a lot stronger
29:54
Speaker 2: than you think you've got to, you know, everyone, I
29:57
Speaker 2: think sometimes sets are kind of seiling. And I if
30:00
Speaker 2: you refuse to accept in your own seedlings. And I
30:03
Speaker 2: don't mean that in a kind of match show way
30:06
Speaker 2: it can be. Just say, I really just just give
30:08
Speaker 2: it a couple more shows. Let's just give it another
30:10
Speaker 2: two weeks. I'm just going to give it one more
30:12
Speaker 2: one month. Let's do that before you know, throwing in
30:15
Speaker 2: the flag. But my point is being one morning I
30:18
Speaker 2: came in, I was at the traffic lights and I
30:21
Speaker 2: just suddenly saw five cars, and I saw five people
30:24
Speaker 2: like me, and it made me feel very connected to
30:26
Speaker 2: them right now. And I was thinking, I wonder what's
30:29
Speaker 2: happened to them to get them all to this point,
30:31
Speaker 2: all five of us in different ways, and I suddenly
30:34
Speaker 2: I felt I shared humanity. You know, they're just going
30:37
Speaker 2: to do different jobs. Hey, I'm lucky that I'm going
30:39
Speaker 2: to the job. I'm going to get out of this
30:41
Speaker 2: car in ten minutes time. I get to do this.
30:44
Speaker 2: I'm very very lucky. I love it. And so suddenly
30:46
Speaker 2: I have an image. Then I felt like before that pool,
30:49
Speaker 2: it was all on me. I've got to do this
30:51
Speaker 2: whole show. I've got to carry the team, carry all
30:53
Speaker 2: the expectations, the ratings. And I suddenly thought, actually I
30:57
Speaker 2: had this image of a fire and that I'm sitting
30:59
Speaker 2: in a circle and we're all in a circle. My
31:03
Speaker 2: job is to light the fire when I start the show,
31:05
Speaker 2: and after that and there's warmth and there's light there.
31:08
Speaker 2: If people want to come and join me, they can.
31:10
Speaker 2: And I kind of thought that as they call in,
31:12
Speaker 2: as they text in, they bring a bit of wood,
31:14
Speaker 2: a small bit of kindling, they chuck it on the fire.
31:17
Speaker 2: It's not all on me to keep that fire going.
31:19
Speaker 2: I start it, I light it, and then I'm part
31:23
Speaker 2: of the circle that changed everything. I still think about
31:27
Speaker 2: that circle most shows on the way in.
31:30
Speaker 1: That's interesting. That's kind of the old stoic philosophy view
31:33
Speaker 1: from above, where you kind of widen the lens and
31:36
Speaker 1: look at everybody living the different lives, and you're just
31:40
Speaker 1: just in amongst them. Interesting. The gratitude piece you you
31:44
Speaker 1: talk about every time I go on steage, I go,
31:47
Speaker 1: how frigging lucky am I that I get to talk
31:49
Speaker 1: for a living? Like it's the best job for an
31:51
Speaker 1: irishman in the world, be able to talk for a living.
31:55
Speaker 1: But I wanted to talk. I want to come back
31:57
Speaker 1: to the vulnerability question, right, So the big V word,
32:02
Speaker 1: you know, it's gone bananas. I think Brene Brian probably
32:06
Speaker 1: was the big driver of this. When I really thought
32:10
Speaker 1: about that vulnerability piece, it reminded me of being in
32:15
Speaker 1: the Armed Forces and doing combat survival and Resistance to
32:19
Speaker 1: Interrogation training, which was ten days, a pretty hard core
32:22
Speaker 1: shit that I won't go into because my listeners.
32:23
Speaker 2: Have heard it before.
32:24
Speaker 1: But the people I went through that course with I
32:28
Speaker 1: have a deep connection that will last the rest of
32:32
Speaker 1: my life. And I think it was about vulnerability because
32:34
Speaker 1: the Armed Forces, and particularly something really intense like that,
32:38
Speaker 1: it strips back the layers.
32:41
Speaker 2: Of the onion. You know.
32:42
Speaker 1: I think in the workplace a lot of people have
32:44
Speaker 1: these layers to them, and I think the Armed Forces
32:47
Speaker 1: are particularly good at pulling those layers back, and in
32:50
Speaker 1: something like combat survival training, you see into people's souls. Right,
32:55
Speaker 1: But what did speaking you spoke publicly about your panic attacks?
33:00
Speaker 1: What did that teach you about vulnerability?
33:07
Speaker 2: But there's often a lot of fear with it. That's
33:10
Speaker 2: when when I see it being chucked around on social media,
33:13
Speaker 2: I know a lot of it's bullshit because actually, and
33:17
Speaker 2: you know I've written about panic attacks, that's a hell
33:20
Speaker 2: of lot ease and start to speak about it. Paul,
33:23
Speaker 2: Oh God, my last book I wrote four years ago.
33:25
Speaker 2: The first three chapters and the book I wrote four
33:28
Speaker 2: years ago was about I thought I was writing a
33:31
Speaker 2: funny memoir Fish out of Water. You know, English guy
33:33
Speaker 2: Minister Australian Radio is some funny stories. But if I
33:36
Speaker 2: were going to tell us about why I already moved here,
33:38
Speaker 2: I've got to talk about the panic attacks. They start there.
33:41
Speaker 2: I just chucked it away at the beginning of the
33:42
Speaker 2: book and then thought, well, people are going to be
33:45
Speaker 2: really amazed with the story of an English guy making
33:48
Speaker 2: it to number one the other side the world within
33:49
Speaker 2: fifty months. No one cared about that. They only want
33:52
Speaker 2: to talk about panic attacks. You someone like panic attacks.
33:56
Speaker 2: I'm like I sometimes fourth interviews and mid interviews sometimes
34:03
Speaker 2: started to get the rumplings of a bloody panic attack
34:06
Speaker 2: thinking about them, and they wore going what happens in
34:08
Speaker 2: a panic attack?
34:09
Speaker 3: I'm like, ah, I'll show you an aut.
34:15
Speaker 2: Vulnerability. Vulnerability, yes, one thing to put it in a
34:19
Speaker 2: book and shove that out there, but then to speak
34:24
Speaker 2: it out loud. Now that's vulnerable. Toc. So there's going
34:27
Speaker 2: to be two things here. There's going to be fear
34:29
Speaker 2: and there's going to be truth. And so you're getting
34:32
Speaker 2: closer to the truth of who you are, what happened,
34:35
Speaker 2: and fear is going to be there. They both turn
34:37
Speaker 2: up at the same time, and then you need to
34:39
Speaker 2: mix in something else. Courage, courages needed and people talk
34:43
Speaker 2: about vulnerable meaning almost this kind of like collapse to
34:47
Speaker 2: me is courage is trying to be the courage to
34:50
Speaker 2: tell you truth, the courage to risk telling the truth
34:54
Speaker 2: even if you're were other people are going to judge you.
34:57
Speaker 2: It's to do it stall the fear of being judged.
34:59
Speaker 2: And you know, when I did first start to talk
35:01
Speaker 2: about the puppet, the panic attacks, I was worried about judgment,
35:04
Speaker 2: especially from Australians the other side of the world, or
35:07
Speaker 2: really I thought that we're going to think I was weak.
35:10
Speaker 1: And there's another week palm.
35:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in a week palm. And also just men
35:16
Speaker 2: and women just judging men a certain way. It's kind
35:20
Speaker 2: of like what men can be like we fear vulnerability
35:24
Speaker 2: and so we're not raised to talk about our struggles
35:28
Speaker 2: like that. You're just not. I wasn't, And so all
35:32
Speaker 2: I found, all I found every time whenever I've talked
35:35
Speaker 2: about it is deeper connection and that changed my life.
35:39
Speaker 2: I just didn't have any idea. Previously in my life
35:42
Speaker 2: it'd always been I found connection through jokes, and then
35:46
Speaker 2: suddenly I found this other thing, and I was just like,
35:48
Speaker 2: oh right, So the more vulnerable I am, the deeper
35:52
Speaker 2: I connect. And so I now it's help people. If
35:53
Speaker 2: you want deeper connections, you're going to have to risk
35:56
Speaker 2: a bit of yourself. You're going to need to show
35:58
Speaker 2: some of your messiness. And guess what, when you show
36:00
Speaker 2: out someone your messiness, they will find a deeper connection
36:04
Speaker 2: to you because they will then I guarantee, see their
36:07
Speaker 2: own messiness and oh, you like me. That's why when
36:11
Speaker 2: I talk about panic attacks, they're not uncommon. I thought
36:13
Speaker 2: they were millions of people, all kinds of performers, because
36:17
Speaker 2: the tradees I've heard from have suffered panic attacks. And
36:21
Speaker 2: so I think it's authenticity is about owning our messiness
36:26
Speaker 2: and our very real human flaws. AI can't do that.
36:30
Speaker 2: M Yeah, no, I.
36:31
Speaker 1: Agree, And I also wholeheartily agree on that. And the
36:35
Speaker 1: connection comes from that shared vulnerability. And I think that's
36:39
Speaker 1: what I realized in the survival course. And then if
36:42
Speaker 1: you think about it right, and you know the people
36:44
Speaker 1: that you're closest to you in your life, you tend
36:46
Speaker 1: to know about their messy shit and they tend to
36:50
Speaker 1: your messy And that's where because we're the human bringing
36:53
Speaker 1: is a social organ right and it's that shared connectioniousness,
36:58
Speaker 1: the shured struggle I think is really important from that connection.
37:04
Speaker 1: So on this there's a story in your book about
37:06
Speaker 1: the paramedic and you talked her. You mentioned earlier more
37:10
Speaker 1: very briefly about your mother in law dying in front
37:13
Speaker 1: of you. Can you just tell us that story about
37:16
Speaker 1: the paramedic and high that you kind of helped each
37:20
Speaker 1: other in that moment.
37:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So, like I said, two years ago, a
37:27
Speaker 2: mother law collapsed in front of us, and you know,
37:31
Speaker 2: my wife had to call Triple zero, the emergency number
37:34
Speaker 2: here in Australia, and they said, you can have to
37:37
Speaker 2: do CPR to your mom paramo, it's are not going
37:39
Speaker 2: to be there for a while. Yeah. So she's on
37:41
Speaker 2: the floor doing CPR with her own mom. My two
37:44
Speaker 2: daughters were nearby as well, and I'm then on the
37:48
Speaker 2: floor as well, holding my mother in law's hand. Try,
37:50
Speaker 2: I urge, just you know, just stay with us, and
37:55
Speaker 2: I just you know, my wife had to do CPR.
37:57
Speaker 2: It was a lot to anyone that's been through that.
37:59
Speaker 2: There really is these moments in your life where there's
38:01
Speaker 2: a before and after and you're almost I'm there. Part
38:05
Speaker 2: of me is above it, thinking if this is it,
38:07
Speaker 2: if my mother in law, that, if Jackie is going
38:09
Speaker 2: to die, this is going to break my wife's heart.
38:12
Speaker 2: You know, are we going to? Am I going to
38:14
Speaker 2: be enough to help her through this? This is going
38:15
Speaker 2: to so I'm kind of in it and out of it.
38:17
Speaker 2: It does take a long time for the paramedutes to come,
38:19
Speaker 2: and they tried really hard. They just can't. They can't
38:21
Speaker 2: save her life. The most amazing thing about all that,
38:24
Speaker 2: by the way, is what a way to go though,
38:26
Speaker 2: if you had to choose. We were just dropping my
38:28
Speaker 2: mother in law off at her little apartment and then
38:30
Speaker 2: we were going to go out for dinner. And so
38:32
Speaker 2: if we had done that, she would have clapt She
38:34
Speaker 2: would have died scared and alone. To be surrounded by
38:37
Speaker 2: people that you love my wife and I got to Suripeedia,
38:41
Speaker 2: we love you, we love you. She saw her granddaughters
38:43
Speaker 2: as well. If you, I mean, what a great way
38:46
Speaker 2: to actually go out if that's your time, pretty amazing
38:49
Speaker 2: way you see your people that you really care about.
38:51
Speaker 2: You know, holding I got manage to hold my my
38:53
Speaker 2: mother in laws and as she left and so, but
38:56
Speaker 2: the parame has turned up and there was one paramedute
39:00
Speaker 2: called Rob who just took quiet control and he tried,
39:04
Speaker 2: he tried everything. He just couldn't save her life. She
39:06
Speaker 2: was just it was just too late. She was gone.
39:08
Speaker 2: It was her time. But then afterwards I didn't know
39:11
Speaker 2: what to do. My wife obviously was just is just devastated.
39:14
Speaker 2: And when you're in those moments, you don't know what
39:16
Speaker 2: to do. You know, suddenly you've got a cool people
39:19
Speaker 2: funeral directors, and it's like Saturday at five o'clock and
39:22
Speaker 2: you're like, how do I find that? What do I google?
39:25
Speaker 2: And it's just like all this other admin kicks in immediately.
39:28
Speaker 2: When you're life, it's like a snow globe. It just shatters.
39:31
Speaker 2: So Rob tells me, oh, this is Oh this wasn't
39:33
Speaker 2: expecting Like no, no, no, He goes, you need to
39:35
Speaker 2: do this, you need to do this. My mother in
39:36
Speaker 2: law have been on the floor. He said, do you
39:38
Speaker 2: want me to move her? And I went, oh, what
39:41
Speaker 2: do you recommend? He said, if it was my mum,
39:43
Speaker 2: I could move. If you weren't into her bed so
39:45
Speaker 2: your wife can be where her way, you wait for
39:46
Speaker 2: the for the undertakers and the funeral directors like yeah,
39:50
Speaker 2: of course. So he was just very kind and present.
39:52
Speaker 2: You know, I knew he had other stuff to go to.
39:54
Speaker 2: He was, he'd had all these alerts and stuff like that.
39:56
Speaker 2: He just stayed with us. But they're all thing that
39:59
Speaker 2: really it's really magical about that that moment and such
40:03
Speaker 2: an awful day, and it really just goes to show
40:05
Speaker 2: out how even in your worst moments you can still
40:08
Speaker 2: have a magical connection. Rob just said to me, Hey,
40:12
Speaker 2: I hope you don't think this is weird, and I
40:14
Speaker 2: have to be honest Paul, when he said that, I
40:16
Speaker 2: actually thought he was going to ask for a selfie
40:19
Speaker 2: because the amount I just you know, had some bad
40:23
Speaker 2: news and the phone and I'm a bit tearful. And
40:25
Speaker 2: then someone goes, hey, are you a Christian? Is a Christian?
40:27
Speaker 2: I'm like, that's a fucking selfie? Are you? You know? I
40:30
Speaker 2: think you show this too.
40:34
Speaker 1: Can't get your mother in law on the background.
40:38
Speaker 2: I go to what is it? And he goes, I
40:41
Speaker 2: always hope to meet you one day. I was listened
40:43
Speaker 2: to a podcast last year and you would talk about
40:46
Speaker 2: your panic attacks and it was episode of the Imperfect
40:49
Speaker 2: Purpose is A is a big podcast. It's about mental health,
40:51
Speaker 2: and they did great work. But I remember going in
40:54
Speaker 2: telling them about the panic attacks and even that studio
40:58
Speaker 2: and girl I was later almost calling Hugh the Ghost
41:00
Speaker 2: podcast is say can we take some of that back out?
41:04
Speaker 2: Because I had that massive vulnerability hangover. I was like,
41:08
Speaker 2: you said too much? What what have you done? You know?
41:13
Speaker 2: And I didn't, you know, I committed to just honoring
41:17
Speaker 2: that in there as I just don't just just let
41:20
Speaker 2: it go out there. Maybe it helps someone, maybe not.
41:22
Speaker 2: A year and off later, there's a paramedic who's been
41:25
Speaker 2: doing this job forty years. He's obviously got a lot
41:27
Speaker 2: of trauma in his body. He's just seen too much.
41:30
Speaker 2: Starts to have panic attacks and really, really, really in
41:33
Speaker 2: a dark spot, he just happens to hear my episode
41:37
Speaker 2: and it really helped him. And I said, roll, what
41:39
Speaker 2: was it? And he said, just you just normalized it.
41:41
Speaker 2: I even heard you make a couple of jokes about it,
41:43
Speaker 2: and I realized and you said, they're still around now,
41:46
Speaker 2: But I have a better relationship with them. I'm kinder
41:48
Speaker 2: to myself. I've got tools and techniques that help that
41:51
Speaker 2: are very simple to do. I understand what's happening then
41:54
Speaker 2: as well, and so he said, ah, it was like
41:57
Speaker 2: a breath. It was just a sigh of relief. And
41:59
Speaker 2: he goes, I couldn't believe what had turned up. And
42:02
Speaker 2: I see you and I'm here, and I'm like, I
42:04
Speaker 2: cannot believe it. This is the guy who helped me.
42:06
Speaker 2: I'm going to do everything to help him. So he goes,
42:08
Speaker 2: I don't want to say thank you. We then have
42:11
Speaker 2: a hug. My wife comes out, wants to know where
42:13
Speaker 2: where I've been for the last minute. She she's me
42:16
Speaker 2: hugging the paramedic role, and she still gives me that
42:19
Speaker 2: look like what the fuck are you doing? No, I
42:21
Speaker 2: tell you about it later. It's amazing. And so it
42:24
Speaker 2: just goes to show really about those stories that we're
42:27
Speaker 2: frightened of sharing because of how we might how we
42:32
Speaker 2: might be judged. They're the most important ones. They're the
42:35
Speaker 2: most important ones. And look at that I get I
42:38
Speaker 2: shared that story. It helps somebody. It really helped him.
42:41
Speaker 2: He brings it back around to me in a really
42:44
Speaker 2: really bad day, and just him sharing, he didn't have
42:48
Speaker 2: to tell me that he'd had panic attacks, and actually
42:51
Speaker 2: he risked his own vulnerability and he saw that I
42:55
Speaker 2: was being open and vulnerable, and he chose to That's
42:57
Speaker 2: why I actually, I do believe that mother law Jackie
43:00
Speaker 2: gave me one last gift in that in that situation,
43:05
Speaker 2: Rob coming into my life, then I'd come into his
43:08
Speaker 2: unknown A year and a half ago, Rob and I
43:10
Speaker 2: and our mates I formed. Really really the kind of
43:17
Speaker 2: book is kind of dedicated to Rob, really because what
43:19
Speaker 2: he did in that moment, that's when I saw what
43:22
Speaker 2: I was really talking about here is about It's about presence,
43:24
Speaker 2: about compassion, kindness, vulnerability, and actually unscripting, he dropped that
43:29
Speaker 2: I'm a paramedic. He just saw as as a human.
43:32
Speaker 2: He shed his runability. Hey, I had really bad panic attacks.
43:35
Speaker 2: I know you did. Thank you, Thank you for sharing yours.
43:37
Speaker 2: It really helped me. And then off he went on
43:40
Speaker 2: his way. And so that stories at the beginning of
43:43
Speaker 2: the book, because actually it was when I've been I've
43:46
Speaker 2: been struggling to try and think of how to how
43:49
Speaker 2: to write a book about storytelling and how to have
43:52
Speaker 2: better conversations, how to be more authentic. It just it
43:56
Speaker 2: just didn't work. And then when I saw that and
43:58
Speaker 2: I felt it. It was this is it And it
44:01
Speaker 2: didn't involve a radio studio. It wasn't really. It was
44:04
Speaker 2: just something that happened, you know, in our lives, and
44:08
Speaker 2: these moments happen all around us. And I was like,
44:11
Speaker 2: this is it, Robbed did it. I did it a
44:14
Speaker 2: year and a half before I'm sharing that story. So yeah,
44:17
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful story Rob and I and our friends.
44:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that is brilliant. That's brilliant that you guys
44:22
Speaker 1: are friends and you talked about you know. I think
44:25
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it was probably so powerful
44:28
Speaker 1: for Rob is that you're a celebrity who's who's everybody
44:32
Speaker 1: kind of aspires. A lot of people aspired to me,
44:35
Speaker 1: like and he's like, fuck me, this guy's having panic
44:37
Speaker 1: attacks as well. I think that that connection from somebody
44:41
Speaker 1: who's seemingly got it all and it's like, oh wow,
44:44
Speaker 1: they're human too, right, and they feel what I feel.
44:47
Speaker 2: I think that's pretty cool.
44:48
Speaker 1: On that topic about being a celebrity, what.
44:52
Speaker 4: Would you say are the best bits and the worst
44:56
Speaker 4: bits about being a celebrity? Because I think because particularly you,
45:01
Speaker 4: you've got very recognizable voice, more so here in the UK.
45:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it stands out because actually the thing that
45:10
Speaker 2: stood out in the wrong way to begin with now
45:12
Speaker 2: stands out. People actually love They know when they're flicking
45:15
Speaker 2: around this Christian that you know it's something different I've made.
45:19
Speaker 1: I've made a fucking career out of having Yeah.
45:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we've managed to earn Carver living out here
45:27
Speaker 2: doing this as frontier speakers. But so I don't I
45:33
Speaker 2: don't think I am a celebrity. I'm very lucky. I've
45:35
Speaker 2: got the right level of it, actually, Paul, and and
45:38
Speaker 2: so what it is is I'm knowing for what I do.
45:42
Speaker 2: There are other people where you see them out about,
45:45
Speaker 2: and they are the people who just seem to live
45:47
Speaker 2: on TV and they're just there are a different kind
45:53
Speaker 2: of level. You don't see me on TV just doing
45:57
Speaker 2: anything I do. I do a radio show, and so
46:01
Speaker 2: if you know who I am, it's because you like
46:03
Speaker 2: you know, I make something and if you like it,
46:07
Speaker 2: then you know who I am. It makes me laugh.
46:10
Speaker 2: The weekend, I was just getting some groceries and I
46:13
Speaker 2: was chatting to a lady and she goes to me,
46:14
Speaker 2: excuse me, are you famous? And I go, if you need.
46:19
Speaker 3: To ask me that if you need to ask me out,
46:23
Speaker 3: the answer is no, because if you're famous, you know,
46:28
Speaker 3: if you saw Brad Pitt, you won't go.
46:31
Speaker 2: Are you famous? You go? Well, us is Brad pick
46:33
Speaker 2: So I said no. So I've got the right level
46:36
Speaker 2: of it. It means sometimes I get a nicer table
46:39
Speaker 2: in a restaurant. You know, I don't the downsides there
46:45
Speaker 2: are many that there are. I can't think of it
46:47
Speaker 2: any really. Occasially you'll get a nasty email or a
46:51
Speaker 2: message on social media and people they more hate the
46:54
Speaker 2: idea of you, And these days there are so many
46:57
Speaker 2: it's too easy to let people know you're angry and
47:01
Speaker 2: they do hurt. I'm a human with feelings. Sometimes you're
47:05
Speaker 2: tired and you know someone has a go at you.
47:07
Speaker 2: It's the way of the world these days. Years ago,
47:09
Speaker 2: when I was tied in radio poll, it was a
47:11
Speaker 2: lot better. If you didn't like someone on radio what
47:14
Speaker 2: they said, you had to go and find at I
47:20
Speaker 2: was actually about that.
47:22
Speaker 1: I was going to ask about the difference when you
47:24
Speaker 1: did really in the UK, because it wasn't all the
47:27
Speaker 1: social media then, right or not as much of it,
47:30
Speaker 1: not as much versus versus nigh were there's frigging all
47:34
Speaker 1: these different platforms and all these keyboard warrior wankers just
47:38
Speaker 1: just hitting on people and about themselves. So is it
47:44
Speaker 1: significantly worse than it was back in the UK?
47:49
Speaker 2: And it's easier. The fact that you're why is that
47:52
Speaker 2: it's easier for people now to leave an angry message
47:55
Speaker 2: on sorry.
47:56
Speaker 1: What I meant, is it significantly worse on the receiving because.
48:01
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because there's more avenues for people to latch out,
48:06
Speaker 2: it's easier. So, you know, so like a bit when
48:08
Speaker 2: I first start in radio, if you really wanted to
48:10
Speaker 2: have a go at somebody, you had to write a letter.
48:13
Speaker 2: It's a sort of effort to write a letter. And
48:15
Speaker 2: most grown ups will have processed their entitlement or anger
48:20
Speaker 2: by the end of this letter. Actually I cut it bothered,
48:22
Speaker 2: but I don't know where are the stamps. You've got
48:23
Speaker 2: a walk to post box. Anyways, I were grown up.
48:26
Speaker 2: I can process my emotions. It loves to short. I
48:29
Speaker 2: can just turn it off and he doesn't exist anymore,
48:32
Speaker 2: whereas now DM or people feel so entitled and we
48:37
Speaker 2: mistake our opinions with facts and so people think I
48:43
Speaker 2: get these emails not too much these days, but at
48:46
Speaker 2: ten plus six in the morning, you have to find
48:49
Speaker 2: my email, type out this angry, strange message to me,
48:54
Speaker 2: check it for spelling mistakes, click send right And what
48:58
Speaker 2: does that say more about me? Who? You could just
49:00
Speaker 2: hit scan? I don't ever exist again?
49:03
Speaker 1: Or you?
49:05
Speaker 2: And so often it's like, but you can't help but
49:07
Speaker 2: get reactive, and so I have to just realize they
49:11
Speaker 2: can just turn the radio off. It isn't about me.
49:14
Speaker 2: But yeah, And also what I do realize is when
49:17
Speaker 2: it hurts a part of you, you realize where you've
49:20
Speaker 2: still got a little bit of work to do, and you're, oh,
49:23
Speaker 2: what is that some sort of outdated thing or some
49:27
Speaker 2: sort of an old wound or scar that needs a
49:30
Speaker 2: bit of attention there, and kind of thinking, why is
49:32
Speaker 2: that hurt you? You know Whyted? Just click delete while
49:36
Speaker 2: still thinking about the reply. In an hour later, just
49:41
Speaker 2: draft the perfect reply.
49:43
Speaker 1: Why are you dreaming of getting a ballot clab on
49:46
Speaker 1: and going and visiting them? So in terms of strategies,
49:52
Speaker 1: have you learned any strategies for dealing with it? Is
49:55
Speaker 1: it just kind of ignoring it?
49:57
Speaker 2: Going?
49:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Kurt, what your opinion doesn't really matter
50:02
Speaker 1: to me? Or is there any kind of strategies that
50:05
Speaker 1: you have learned that are quite successful.
50:09
Speaker 2: The best one do nothing. I'd be lying if I
50:13
Speaker 2: said I was pretty consistent with that one. So let's
50:16
Speaker 2: scrap that bs the best. The second best one, wait
50:19
Speaker 2: five minutes, you know, and that one I remind myself
50:22
Speaker 2: in my marriage as well. Just just just have a
50:26
Speaker 2: cup of tea, put the kettle on, and then go
50:29
Speaker 2: okay about what you just said. So just wait a
50:33
Speaker 2: couple of minutes, play a song. The other one that
50:36
Speaker 2: retakes that power away from it is to I have
50:40
Speaker 2: a phrase, don't get mad, get funny. Sometimes I pretend
50:43
Speaker 2: that I pretend that I've misread the email, so I go,
50:47
Speaker 2: where do you want me to send the signed photo to?
50:49
Speaker 2: Thanks for the lovely words about the show. I really
50:53
Speaker 2: appreciate that you think I'm the funniest man the dial.
50:55
Speaker 2: And then that drives people match because they think I've
50:59
Speaker 2: missed I haven't say. They think I just misread it,
51:02
Speaker 2: and they go, Then they go, Then then they're angry.
51:06
Speaker 2: I'm not angry anymore, right, I'm not laughing, and you
51:09
Speaker 2: know it's going to really upset them, and then they
51:11
Speaker 2: go that is it goes to catlocks that is not
51:14
Speaker 2: what I just said.
51:17
Speaker 1: But the best way that I've had it wasn't from trolling.
51:21
Speaker 1: It was from somebody trying to scam me. Initially, I
51:25
Speaker 1: was getting a bit out and then I thought, fuck it,
51:27
Speaker 1: I'm just going to play a game. So I played
51:29
Speaker 1: them for about twenty minutes that I was going to
51:32
Speaker 1: give them all this money and all of this stuff,
51:35
Speaker 1: and I just just started the musing myself genius, genius.
51:40
Speaker 1: So met, let's talk about middle age, right, because we
51:45
Speaker 1: did mention it earlier on. But have you started thinking
51:50
Speaker 1: beyond radio at this point or do you kind of
51:55
Speaker 1: see yourself in twenty years still doing radio. And if
51:59
Speaker 1: you are thinking beyond, what's your strategy for reinventing or
52:04
Speaker 1: for having a soft landing? Because you often hear about
52:07
Speaker 1: you know, TV stars, sports stars, you know come out
52:11
Speaker 1: of that context, even military guys, you know, were your
52:15
Speaker 1: whole identity is wrapped up into this and then all
52:19
Speaker 1: of a sudden, bang it's gone.
52:20
Speaker 2: Have you thought about that much? I think the reinvention
52:26
Speaker 2: has already begun. And I didn't realize when I wrote
52:29
Speaker 2: the book four years ago and I started talking about
52:31
Speaker 2: the panic attacks, and it forced me to have conversations
52:34
Speaker 2: that I never really had before. They kind of deeper conversations,
52:37
Speaker 2: and I didn't realize ball how much I was going
52:39
Speaker 2: to enjoy them. I really really enjoyed them. And then
52:43
Speaker 2: two years ago I just launched just as an experiment,
52:46
Speaker 2: a bit fun, a mentoring business to help people tell
52:50
Speaker 2: better stories, to connect better, have better conversations, and that
52:55
Speaker 2: I really loved. I didn't know i'd enjoyed doing that.
52:57
Speaker 2: If you'd have asked me twenty years ago, do you
52:58
Speaker 2: want to what would about doing that? I didn't realize
53:01
Speaker 2: how much I really enjoyed that. And that lens thing
53:05
Speaker 2: again was all about and I was coaching CEOs who
53:08
Speaker 2: maybe were going to do a big keynote presentation. Someone
53:12
Speaker 2: was a funeral celebrant who wanted to know how to
53:15
Speaker 2: be more present, someone worked at My favorite person. One
53:19
Speaker 2: of the first people I coached and mentored was someone
53:22
Speaker 2: who worked at seven eleven who just wanted to be
53:25
Speaker 2: able to have more confidence in starting conversations with strangers
53:29
Speaker 2: throughout her working day. I loved working with her, just
53:32
Speaker 2: loved it, and so I didn't realize how much I
53:34
Speaker 2: loved that, And so out of that has come to
53:37
Speaker 2: this book really through. There was very quickly a common
53:41
Speaker 2: theme that they all needed. It wasn't just tools and techniques.
53:44
Speaker 2: And then I started to just accidentally drift into coaching
53:48
Speaker 2: more leaders. I was asked by more and more leaders,
53:51
Speaker 2: could you help me with this?
53:53
Speaker 1: You know?
53:53
Speaker 2: And increasingly leaders, I've got to do a lot more
53:56
Speaker 2: speaking than they've ever had to do them in every
53:58
Speaker 2: brand these days is increasing a content creator and so
54:02
Speaker 2: doing interviews, running team meetings. They realized that the way
54:06
Speaker 2: they've been leading before it just wasn't working anymore. Using
54:10
Speaker 2: status and power over people just didn't have that, It
54:13
Speaker 2: wasn't inspiring to take action. So they wanted to know,
54:16
Speaker 2: how do you lead your team? You know, what do
54:19
Speaker 2: you do? What's your edge? Again? I just lights me up.
54:22
Speaker 2: I never knew. It felt like this accidental discovery really
54:26
Speaker 2: and so really I want to do more of that.
54:30
Speaker 2: I love still doing breakfast radio. I haven't got any
54:33
Speaker 2: kind of hard oh. I think by this year I'll
54:36
Speaker 2: be done with it. I'm always wanted, I'm always I
54:39
Speaker 2: think I'm always best on the radio when I've got
54:42
Speaker 2: other projects on, not too many, but just having something.
54:45
Speaker 2: I think there's a cross pollination, like I know through
54:47
Speaker 2: writing the book last year, for six months, I was
54:51
Speaker 2: so much better on the radio. I think again it
54:53
Speaker 2: was just this cross pollination and so I know over
54:58
Speaker 2: the next year or two what I'd really to do
55:00
Speaker 2: and top of you know, still running my team and
55:03
Speaker 2: doing the radio show and building. You know, this year
55:06
Speaker 2: the show went national, and so building that is a
55:08
Speaker 2: really big thing for me because I've spent eight years
55:11
Speaker 2: dreaming about it and making happen now and doing it.
55:14
Speaker 2: That's going to be another couple of years building this
55:15
Speaker 2: national show. But at the same time it's building the
55:19
Speaker 2: coaching and mentoring. I just didn't know how much I
55:22
Speaker 2: would enjoy it. I had no idea.
55:25
Speaker 1: That's interesting and very cool. Christian Oh Connor, this this
55:29
Speaker 1: has been awesome, really interesting.
55:31
Speaker 2: I've loved it. This is an interview I never know.
55:34
Speaker 2: Sometimes like it felt about we were just two Montes
55:36
Speaker 2: if each teature other. Yes, yes, I hope it helped.
55:40
Speaker 2: I mean I had a good time, but I hope
55:41
Speaker 2: it helped somebody.
55:43
Speaker 1: No, Look, it's it's to be honest, it's it's very
55:46
Speaker 1: different from the stuff that I normally do because it's
55:50
Speaker 1: normally it's about health, well being and performance. But it
55:54
Speaker 1: came across my desk and I thought, a I thought
55:58
Speaker 1: it would be interesting. But because I had listened to
56:01
Speaker 1: your Really show quite a lot, right, and I like
56:04
Speaker 1: the blend of storytelling and humor. So when I read
56:09
Speaker 1: a book, I go, this is actually a book that's
56:11
Speaker 1: written by an expert, and I know it's not.
56:13
Speaker 2: Just going to be a fucking dry interview. No, you
56:17
Speaker 2: got when you tullgets, and there was never going to
56:19
Speaker 2: be dry interview. And also the reason why I was
56:21
Speaker 2: excited about talking to you is I'm obsessed with performance.
56:24
Speaker 2: I've always has been since I was a kid. When
56:26
Speaker 2: I was a teenager, I was under the very mistaken
56:30
Speaker 2: idea that I wanted to be the middleweight champion of
56:33
Speaker 2: the world. And so I was now at a boxer
56:36
Speaker 2: and then I read this, It really hurts when they
56:38
Speaker 2: punch you back. This is horrible. I'm not I don't know, no, no, no.
56:43
Speaker 2: But from then I used to be really fascinated by performance.
56:46
Speaker 2: And then I got into martial arts and I did
56:47
Speaker 2: that for years, which I really really loved, and I
56:49
Speaker 2: found it really interesting how sometimes inspiring you could be
56:52
Speaker 2: relaxed and sometimes you go into compete and you would
56:55
Speaker 2: just be a bit slower, or I'd see black belts
56:57
Speaker 2: that would crush everybody in sparring and then just get
57:01
Speaker 2: submitted and tap out within seconds. So I was just
57:03
Speaker 2: fascinated that what what what? What is this? What happens here?
57:06
Speaker 2: That clearly got the skills and pressure? Right? Yeah?
57:09
Speaker 4: All that.
57:10
Speaker 2: So and then suddenly I get into a high performance industry,
57:13
Speaker 2: which is breakfast radio, and there's ratings and revenue at stake.
57:17
Speaker 2: You know, why why am I struggling today? Yesterday? I
57:20
Speaker 2: was this funnier what what is that? And then spending
57:23
Speaker 2: time working out what that is the mental side of it?
57:26
Speaker 2: And so I found I'm still you know, I'm still
57:29
Speaker 2: obsessed with performance and human potential. So the chance to
57:32
Speaker 2: speak to you who's in this area, I yeah, I
57:35
Speaker 2: love this kind of and so much of it is
57:37
Speaker 2: what we do to ourselves. And there's the small story,
57:42
Speaker 2: and sometimes I think in life there's the new, biggest
57:44
Speaker 2: story that's calling you. And there's often this this bumping
57:47
Speaker 2: point between the small story that you've built around yourself
57:51
Speaker 2: and how much you think you're allowed to have in
57:54
Speaker 2: life or what you think you're capable of, and then
57:56
Speaker 2: there's the biggest story that you dream of and that
57:59
Speaker 2: that tension point between the two. I find that I
58:02
Speaker 2: love talking about that and thinking about that.
58:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool stuff.
58:06
Speaker 2: So meet where do people go?
58:08
Speaker 1: So there's a couple of things. There's the radio show
58:11
Speaker 1: if they if they haven't already been listening to it's
58:13
Speaker 1: a cracking media show. There's the book and also now
58:16
Speaker 1: there's the coaching as well. So where are we saying
58:18
Speaker 1: people for all of that?
58:20
Speaker 2: You know what, if you want to find out more,
58:22
Speaker 2: you want to connect the easy things to go to
58:23
Speaker 2: my website christiano'connell dot com. You find the link to
58:27
Speaker 2: we can you know, get the book I want if
58:29
Speaker 2: you do, and through that you can drop me an
58:31
Speaker 2: email if you're interested in working together or just finding
58:34
Speaker 2: out a bit more. Yeah, that's just go to my
58:37
Speaker 2: website christiano'connell dot com.
58:39
Speaker 1: Very cool, Christian, Awesome, thank you for sharing all of
58:42
Speaker 1: it and keep doing.
58:43
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it, I love the chat
58:45
Speaker 2: you made me laugh. Thank you.
58:46
Speaker 1: Awesome, Very cool